the Week of Proper 20 / Ordinary 25
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Nova Vulgata
1 Machabæorum 22:32
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Ego sum Deus Abraham, et Deus Isaac, et Deus Jacob ? Non est Deus mortuorum, sed viventium.
Ego sum Deus Abraham, et Deus Isaac, et Deus Jacob? Non est Deus mortuorum, sed viventium.
Bible Verse Review
from Treasury of Scripure Knowledge
am: Exodus 3:6, Exodus 3:15, Exodus 3:16, Acts 7:32, Hebrews 11:16
God is: Mark 12:26, Mark 12:27, Luke 20:37, Luke 20:38
Reciprocal: Genesis 15:15 - in peace Genesis 17:7 - God Genesis 24:12 - O Lord Genesis 26:24 - I am the Genesis 28:13 - I am Exodus 6:7 - I will be Leviticus 26:12 - will be 2 Kings 20:5 - the God 1 Chronicles 29:18 - Lord God Psalms 47:9 - the God Psalms 81:1 - the God Isaiah 38:5 - God Jeremiah 30:22 - General Ezekiel 36:28 - be people Matthew 4:7 - It Matthew 9:13 - go Acts 3:13 - God of Abraham Acts 24:15 - that Romans 3:29 - General 2 Timothy 3:16 - All Hebrews 6:12 - inherit Hebrews 8:10 - I will be
Gill's Notes on the Bible
I am the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob,.... The Sadducees expressly denied, that the resurrection could be proved out of the law.
"Says R. Eliezer, with R. Jose g, I have found the books of the Sadducees to be corrupt; for they say that the resurrection of the dead is not to be proved out of the law: I said unto them, you have corrupted your law, and ye have not caused anything to come up into your hands, for ye say the resurrection of the dead is not to be proved out of the law; lo! he saith, Numbers 15:31 "That soul shall be utterly cut off, his iniquity shall be upon him; he shall be utterly cut off" in this world; "his iniquity shall be upon him", is not this said with respect to the world to come?.''
Hence, in opposition to this notion of the Sadducees, the other Jews say h, that
"Though a man confesses and believes that the dead will be raised, yet that it is not intimated in the law, he is an heretic; since it is a fundamental point, that the resurrection of the dead is of the law.''
Hence they set themselves, with all their might and main, to prove this doctrine from thence, of which take the following instances i.
"Says R. Simai, from whence is the resurrection of the dead to be proved out of the law? From Exodus 6:4 as it is said, "I have also established my covenant with them, to give them the land of Canaan: to you" it is not said, but "to them"; from hence then, the resurrection of the dead may be proved out of the law.''
The gloss upon it is,
"the sense is, that the holy blessed God, promised to our fathers Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, that he would give to them the land of Israel; and because he gave it to them, has he not given it to their children? But we learn from hence, that they shall be raised, and that God will hereafter give them the land of Israel.''
And which the learned Mr. Mede takes to be the sense of the words of this text, cited by our Lord;, and this the force of his reasoning, by which he proves the resurrection of the dead. Again,
"the Sadducees asked Rabban Gamaliel, from whence does it appear that the holy blessed God will quicken the dead? He said unto them, out of the law, and out of the prophets, and out of the Hagiographa; but they did not receive of him (or regard him): out of the law, as it is written, "Thou shalt sleep with thy fathers, and rise up", Deuteronomy 31:16 And there are that say from this Scripture, Deuteronomy 4:4. "But ye that did cleave unto the Lord your God, are alive every one of you this day": as this day all of you stand, so in the world to come, all of you shall stand.''
Thus our Lord having to do with the same sort of persons, fetches his proof of the doctrine of the resurrection out of the law, and from a passage which respects the covenant relation God stands in to his people, particularly Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob; and which respects not their souls only, but their bodies also, even their whole persons, body and soul; for God is the God of the whole: and therefore as their souls now live with God, their bodies also will be raised from the dead, that they, with their souls, may enjoy everlasting glory and happiness; which is the grand promise, and great blessing of the covenant of grace.
God is not the God of the dead, but of the living; as all the saints are; for though their bodies are dead, their souls are alive, and their bodies will be raised in consequence of their covenant interest in God, to enjoy an immortal life with him: so the Jews are wont to say, that the righteous, even in their death, are called living k:
"from whence is it proved, (say they,) that the righteous, even in their death, קרויין חיים, "are called living?"''
from Deuteronomy 34:4 as it is written, "and he said unto him, this is the land which I have sworn to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, saying." Menasseh ben Israel, a learned Jew, of the last century, has produced l this same passage of Scripture, Christ here does in proof of the immortality of the soul, and argues from it in much the same manner: having mentioned the words, he adds,
"for God is not the God of the dead, for the dead are not; but of the living, for the living exist; therefore also the patriarchs, in respect of the soul, may rightly be inferred from hence to live.''
g T. Bab. Sanhedrin, fol. 90. 2. h Gloss. in ib. col. 1. i T. Bab. Sanhedrin, fol. 90. 2. k T. Hieros. Betacot, fol. 4. 4, Midrash Kohelet, fol. 78. 2. Tzeror Hammor, fol. 158. 3. l De Resurrect. Mort, l. i. c. 10. sect. 6.
Barnes' Notes on the Bible
Conversation of Jesus with the Sadducees respecting the resurrection - See also Mark 12:18-27; Luke 20:27-38.
Matthew 22:23
The same day came the Sadducees - For an account of the Sadducees, see the notes at Matthew 3:7.
No resurrection - The word “resurrection” usually means the raising up the “body” to life after it is dead, John 11:24; John 5:29; 1 Corinthians 15:22. But the Sadducees not only denied this, but also a future state, and the separate existence of the soul after death altogether, as well as the existence of angels and spirits, Acts 23:8. Both these doctrines have commonly stood or fallen together, and the answer of our Saviour respects both, though it more distinctly refers “to the separate existence of the soul, and to a future state of rewards and punishments,” than to the resurrection of the body.
Matthew 22:24
Saying, Master, Moses said ... - Deuteronomy 25:5-6. This law was given by Moses in order to keep the families and tribes of the Israelites distinct, and to perpetuate them.
Raise up seed unto his brother - That is, the children shall be reckoned in the genealogy of the deceased brother; or, to all civil purposes, shall be considered as his.
Matthew 22:25-28
There were with us seven brethren - It is probable that they stated a case as difficult as possible; and though no such case might have occurred, yet it was supposable, and in their view it presented a real difficulty.
The difficulty arose from the fact, that they supposed that, substantially, the same state of things must take place in the other world as here; that if there is such a world, husbands and wives must be there reunited; and they professed not to be able to see how one woman could be the wife of seven men.
Matthew 22:29
Ye do err, not knowing ... - They had taken a wrong view of the doctrine of the resurrection.
It was not taught that people would marry there. The “Scriptures,” here, mean the books of the Old Testament. By appealing to them, Jesus showed that the doctrine of the future state was there, and that the Sadducees should have believed it as it was, and not have added the absurd doctrine to it that people must live there as they do here. The way in which the enemies of the truth often attempt to make a doctrine of the Bible ridiculous is by adding to it, and then calling it absurd. The reason why the Saviour produced a passage from the books of Moses Matthew 22:32 was that they had also appealed to his writings, Matthew 22:24. Other places of the Old Testament, in fact, asserted the doctrine more clearly Daniel 12:2; Isaiah 26:19, but he wished to meet them on their own ground. None of those scriptures asserted that people would live there as they do here, and therefore their reasoning was false.
Nor the power of God - They probably denied, as many have done since, that God could gather the scattered dust of the dead and remould it into a body. On this ground they affirmed that the doctrine could not be true - opposing reason to revelation, and supposing that infinite power could not reorganize a body that it had at first organized, and raise a body from its own dust which it had at first raised from nothing.
Matthew 22:30
Neither marry ... - This was a full answer to the objections of the Sadducees.
But are as the angels of God - That is, in the manner of their conversation; in regard to marriage and the mode of their existence.
Luke adds that they shall be “equal with the angels.” That is, they shall be elevated above the circumstances of mortality, and live in a manner and in a kind of conversation similar to that of the angels. It does not imply that they shall be equal in intellect, but only “in the circumstances of their existence,” as that is distinguished from the way in which mortals live. He also adds, “Neither do they die any more, but are the children of God; being the children of the resurrection,” or being accounted worthy to be raised up to life, and therefore “sons of God raised up to him.”
Matthew 22:31, Matthew 22:32
As touching ... - That is, in proof that the dead are raised.
The passage which he quotes is recorded in Exodus 3:6, Exodus 3:15, This was at the burning bush (Mark and Luke). Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob had been dead for a long time when Moses spoke this - Abraham for 329 years, Isaac for 224 years, and Jacob for 198 years - yet God spake then as being still “their God.” They must, therefore, be still somewhere living, for God is not the God of the dead; that is, it is absurd to say that God rules over those who are “extinct or annihilated,” but he is the God only of those who have an existence. Luke adds, “all live unto him.” That is, all the righteous dead, all of whom he can be properly called their God, live unto his glory. This passage does not prove directly that the dead “body” would be raised, but only by consequence. It proves that Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob had an existence then, or that their souls were alive. This the Sadducees denied Acts 23:8, and this was the main point in dispute. If this was admitted - if there was a state of rewards and punishments - then it would easily follow that the bodies of the dead would be raised.
Clarke's Notes on the Bible
Verse 32. I am the God of Abraham — Let it be observed, that Abraham was dead upwards of 300 years before these words were spoken to Moses: yet still God calls himself the God of Abraham, c. Now Christ properly observes that God is not the God of the dead, (that word being equal, in the sense of the Sadducees, to an eternal annihilation,) but of the living it therefore follows that, if he be the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, these are not dead, but alive; alive with God, though they had ceased, for some hundreds of years, to exist among mortals. We may see, from this, that our Lord combats and confutes another opinion of the Sadducees, viz. that there is neither angel nor spirit; by showing that the soul is not only immortal, but lives with God, even while the body is detained in the dust of the earth, which body is afterwards to be raised to life, and united with its soul by the miraculous power of God, of which power they showed themselves to be ignorant when they denied the possibility of a resurrection.
