{N}1,{/}1 {C}Jesus Christ.{/} This expression, in the Gospel of Matthew, does not appear except here and in one other place in chapter 16,21. This genealogy of Jesus is inserted into the sacred history with the three great periods: before the kings, the time of the kings, and the time after the return from the Exile. It may be that the series of fourteen numbers has something to do with David, as the number of letters in his name, taking the value of the letters according to the hebrew usage, is 14.
Luke on the other hand will give a list of 77 names that, going back to Adam, emphasizes the universal mission of Jesus: he came to save not only Israel, but all of humanity.

{N}1,{/}18 {C}And you shall call him Jesus ... and they will call him ...{/}It will be noted how Matthew adapts the prophecy of Is 7,14. Contrary to Luke's version, Joseph is the one who gives the name, which suits Joseph, since he is the one who makes Jesus a descendant of David.
It does not say anything about the age of Joseph and of Mary. The masters of the Law distinguished the condition of the bride according to whether they were married before the age of twelve, or between twelve and twelve and a half, or after that age. Even though there were many cases of matrimony at a very early age, this occurred usually in the urban society, and probably was not the common use among people of the countryside.

{N}2,{/}1 {C}We saw his star in the east.{/} That can be translated: "we have seen his star rise up". As a result of the prophecy of Balaam (Num 24,17), the star is connected to King David and to Bethlehem.

{N}2,{/}10 {C}The wise men were overjoyed on seeing the star again{/}. Only in the Bible it is spoken so much about joy and rejoicing; such joy is promised as a result of the visit of God: Mk 5,12; 13,20; 13,44; 25,21; 28,8; Lk 1,28; 1,19; 2,10; 10,20; 13,17; 15,32; 19,6; 24,52.

{N}2,{/}13 {C}Flee to Egypt{/}. Egypt was the traditional refuge of the persecuted ones. There the Jews had many numerous communities and even in Leontopolis a temple, which defied the unique one in Jerusalem. Possibly Matthew is thinking of Is 19,21 that announced the sending of a savior to the Egyptians.

{N}2,{/}18 {C}In Ramah a cry is heard.{/} See Jer 31,15. The prophet was referring to the Israelites of his time, deported to Assyria, who belonged to the "tribes of Rachel", wife of Jacob: Rachel, in her tomb, grieved for them. Yet a biblical tradition connected Rachel with the clan of Ephratah that came to settle in Bethlehem and from which David was born (Gen 35,19). For this reason Rachel may appear in this place as the mother of the children of Bethlehem.

{N}3,{/}7 {C}Pharisees and Sadducees{/}. These were two opposed groups, yet both of them rejected Jesus. Because of this, in the next generation, when Matthew wrote his gospel, Christians systematically associated their names. In the same way these two names will also be associated in chapter 16,1 and 16,6. In fact John's preaching did not move the Sadducees rather materialistic, at the most they sent some police to get information. These could see if John threatened their authority in a more direct way than those numerous believing Jews, especially the Essenes from the desert, who considered these high priests as usurpers of the priesthood.
The text says: "Do you believe you will escape from the wrath that is to come?" {C}The wrath{/} means God's indignation against evil (Is 30,27) and the sentence that has already been pronounced: it is as if suspended over the sinner (Jn 3,36; Rom 1,18 1Thes 1,10) and is a synonym of punishment.

{N}3,{/}17 {C}"This is my Son, in him I delight." {/}Here the voice takes again the words of Isaiah 42,1. In the hebrew text the words meant: "I liked to choose him". Passing to the Greek the meaning changes a bit and the evangelists apply it to Jesus in a different sense: he in whom I have pleasure (or as quoted above?). Here then we recognize the unique personality of Jesus. He did not occupy but a small space in time and in history, yet he was at the center of the creation: in him the Father found all the satisfaction that he expected from his works. This remark is likewise valid for Mt 17,5 where the same words are also read.

{N}5,{/}22 {C}Whoever humiliates a brother or sister.{/} The text says: "Whoever says to his brother: {C}foolish{/}", which in Hebrew often qualified the renegade. 

{N}5,{/}48 {C}Be perfect.{/} The concern for legal and moral perfection was not missing among the Jews (Ps 19,14). Jesus identifies the moral perfection with the imitation of the perfect Father: {C}you will be children{/} (45). Matthew interprets God's perfection as his capacity to love all humankind above and beyond our laws, frontiers and divisions. 
That preoccupation to be perfect motivates all those points of the new morality (5,21-47). Jesus does not ask us to multiply our good works, such as being: forgiving, generous ... in order to merit a prize from God. Each one of his precepts brings us to a personal transformation, to an overcoming of the meanness, fear, and paralyzing prejudices. The disciple who fulfills these will rise up to a vision of the world and of humankind that will make him or her more and more capable of entering into the knowledge and the wisdom of the Father.

{N}6,{/}1 The text says:  "Be careful not to show your justice before people".  Here we have one of the very numerous and diverse meanings of the word {C}justice{/} (or righteousness) in the Bible. In general terms the justice is the conformity of our acts with God's will; at the same time it is an inner law that we must respect, the balance that rules our life. The gospel points out the personal responsibility (just as the Pharisees did as well), but does not insist any less, and this is the new part, on the fact that our salvation is before anything else a gift from the Father who loves us.
Take note that this whole discourse is centered on the experience of the Father's presence. While the expression "Reign, or Kingdom of God" is being repeated, the main affirmation is the one referring to the new times which have given us a Father.

{N}6,{/}7 {C}A lot of words{/}. Jesus does not slight the prayer which persists repeating formulas and calls to the Father (Mk 14,39). As long as the Lord does not give us a bit of contemplation, we will need words to remain in his presence. In this place Jesus condemns the religious practices that include the mistrust and the fear of not being heard, the anxious search for formulas and devotions capable of forcing God's hand.
The true prayer supposes a new spirit: each wave of anxiety and anguished petition should conclude with the certainty that the Father is doing everything for our good. The Father knows what we need, and he takes care of us when we also are conscious of this.

{N}6,{/}9 "Our Father, the one in heaven". This is an original combination of two traditional expressions. Our Father, meaning, the one of Israel (Is 63,16); the Heaven, meaning God in his mystery. The formula {C}our Father{/} takes on a new meaning following the teaching of Jesus: his disciples know they are children of God in a personal way.

{N}6,{/}11 {C}Give us today the kind of bread we need{/}. It will always be possible to argue about the meaning of this adjective, which is not found in any greek author and in the gospel is found only in this place. According on whether we relate it with one or another word of the same family, we can comprehend it as {C}sufficient{/} bread, contrasting with the abundance that we do not request, or the {C}necessary{/} bread, or the bread {C}of the day to come{/}. In Luke's text it could also be translated: give us {C}today{/} our daily bread. The translation {C}supernatural{/} bread is less probable in spite of the fact that a great part of the tradition adopted that interpretation.
Behind this petition is the recognition of a fact: we do not exist by ourselves alone and it is the Father to whom we owe our daily subsistence.

{N}6,{/}13 {C}Do not bring us into the test{/}. God is not the one who tempts us and leads us into evil, rather the Evil One and we ourselves (Jas 1,13). But also God is the one who arranges the events of the life, those which at times are sufficient to strongly test our fidelity. The humble ones are aware of their weakness and they know that God arranges the events for the good of his children (Rom 8,28); he will give in the test the strength that allows us to overcome (1Cor 10,13). He will not give free reign to the Evil One to bring down those that invoke him (2Thes 3,3).
Maybe we should translate: {C}Do not allow that{/} we enter or fall into the temptation. In this case it would mean that God keeps us from accepting the evil suggestions and from consenting to evil.

{N}6,{/}32 {C}The pagans{/}. In reality the text says: {C}the nations{/}, meaning: the pagans, as in 5,47 and 6,7. Jesus takes hold of the very deep resentment towards the foreigners that had developed with the roman occupation to show in what consists the special characteristic identity of the people of God. This putting right was not more necessary then than today: many times christian people, when they were persecuted, responded with resentment or even more, with an equally violent response.

{N}7,{/}12 This short summary of the Law and the Prophets (or meaning, of the Bible), is very significant of the spirit of Jesus:
- it surpasses all written law (Rom 13,8) and does not impose obligations;
- it leads to action and creativity, instead of the conservatism characteristic of all negative law;
- it foments the community spirit;
- by presenting the love of one's neighbor from this angle, it brings us to delve deeply into our own indigence and likewise, to discover our relationship with the Father. This knowledge of God is what matters; on the other hand no one will reach perfection starting from this false concept that are the rights of God.

{N}7,{/}13 {C}The gate and the road.{/} The christian life supposes brave decisions in some moments of crisis or of conversion (the gate), and later the perseverance in this more demanding way of life (the road).

{N}8,{/}11 Matthew puts down here a sentence that is not in Luke's parallel text. Jesus talks of the pagans sharing the banquet among the resurrected ones, at a time when it was denied that there was any resurrection for the pagans. And it condemns the children of Abraham when it was commonly said that, due to the merits of the father, none of them would be lost.

{N}8,{/}23 Compare with Mark's version which remembers the event as Peter could tell it, with typical details, without watering down Jesus' words, nor those of the apostles, while in danger.
Matthew solemnizes the attitude of Jesus, and puts the typical Christian entreaty in the mouth of the apostles. {C}People of little faith{/} like in 14,31; 16,6; 17,20; words that are addressed to the future believers who are attacked by fear every time they let themselves be beaten by unbelief. Those {C}men or people: {/}in Matthew this term usually designates those who do not know God or who look at Jesus from outside: 5,13; 6,1; 16,13. Even these were "men", whom Jesus called to be apostles.

{N}8,{/}28 Matthew speaks of the {C}Gadarenes (from Gadara){/}, contrary to Mark and Luke who speak of the {C}Gergesenes.{/} Of Gadara nothing is known. On the other hand Gerasa, a city of greek culture located to the south east of the lake in the Decapolis, was rather far from there. The fact that it was a territory populated with a majority of pagans explains the breeding of pigs.

{N}9,{/}12 {C}I like mercy more than sacrifice{/}. In the text of Hos 6,6, the word {C}mercy{/} means the sincere love of God. The prophet addresses people who don't forget to offer to God the sacrifices prescribed by the law and the traditional feasts. They never thought, however, that God may expect anything else of his worshippers, and they would be unable to love the sovereign of heaven: see the note in Hos 6,6. For Jesus instead, this capability to love the God we do not see is as one with the attitude made of open mind and generous heart that prevents us of judging our neighbor when his way of acting surprises us: then we try to understand him.
For the contemporaries of Jesus, the Messiah is {C}the one who comes{/} (Mt 11,3; 21,9; 24,5) and with that we understand better the words of Jesus: {C}I came{/} (Mt 5,17); 11,18). He comes from God: {C}I have come out{/} of (Mk 1,38).

{N}9,{/}18 Let us compare this verse with the version that Mark and Luke give to the events that follow: Matthew, once again, is not interested in the concrete details. Nor was he interested in the personal drama of the woman who touched Jesus' cloak. And he did not like it that she was cured before Jesus had addressed a liberating word to her. Well, with Matthew, Jesus is always the one who interrogates, who takes the initiative. And when Matthew recalls the resurrection of the young girl, he only wants to emphasize the sovereign power of Jesus.

{N}9,{/}33 This expulsion of the devil seems to be a double of what is told in 12,22.

{N}9,{/}37 {C}The harvest is abundant.{/} For the entire "apocalyptic" trend, which was widespread in the environment that Jesus lived in, the {C}harvest{/} designates God's Judgement over the world. This is how John the Baptist understands it (3,17) and that is the meaning in the parables about the Kingdom: Mt 13,30; 13,39; Mk 4,29. The Gospel shows us that with Jesus the hour of the harvest has arrived: not a revolution of world order, rather a discernment between right and wrong, a separation of the good ones from the bad ones: Jn 3,19; 9,39. By proclaiming the Good News, the apostles are the instruments, apparently rather humble, but more effective than many believe them to be, for this judgement by God.

{N}10,{/}5 {C}Do not enter any Samaritan towns{/}. These words sound strange, since the mission was supposed to be developed in Galilee. The evangelist confused two almost identical words from his original Aramean: towns and {C}province{/}. Jesus simply says to his apostles that they are to only spread their mission in the province of Galilee.  Since Jesus has been sent to gather the {C}lost sheep{/} of Israel, the mission in foreign lands, whether they were Samaritan or pagan, will be after his death and resurrection.

{N}10,{/}9 {C}Do not carry any gold, silver or copper.{/} Even the teachers of the Law had the obligation not to charge for their services and lived on what was given to them. In a poor people they often lived very poorly. Jesus and his followers' great poverty (Mt 8,20) did not seem so extraordinary. But Jesus stresses this, not to carry provisions, as a way to preach through examples the confidence in the Father: because his Kingdom has approached and he takes care of his messengers.
In transmitting these words to other environments, which were more well to do, like the one in Rome, the evangelists adapted them. For this reason the tradition transmitted in Mk 6 and Lk 9 permits {C}the sandals{/}, while the tradition we read in Matthew and Lk 10, prohibits them. Matthew prohibits {C}the staff or the walking stick{/}, but possibly he is thinking of the staff that is carried on the shoulder from which the sack hangs.
{C}He who works has a right to eat,{/} according to the tradition of the Jewish teachers.

{N}10,{/}17 {C}Beware of the people{/}. This point will be developed in Jn 15,18.
{C}They will flog you in the synagogues{/}. In the roman world the various ethnic groups had a certain internal organization. The Jews had their synagogues there and they could punish certain crimes according to their own laws (Act 9,2).

{N}10,{/}24 {C}The disciple is no more than the teacher.{/} This same sentence has another meaning in Lk 6,40.

{N}10,{/}28 {C}Those who cannot kill the soul{/}. Matthew gives a different meaning to soul than it had in the hebrew culture, where it was identified with life. Here the {C}soul {/}designates, like it normally does for us, the most personal of us, the part of us that does not die in death.

{N}10,{/}35 Jesus quotes a word from Micah that announced a serious social crisis. Here Jesus is the one who becomes a sign of contradiction and divides the families.

{N}11,{/}5 It is worthy to note that the three texts from Isaiah, whose words Jesus takes in this verse (Is 29,18; 35,5; 61,1), all talk about God's revenge over the foreign peoples, but Jesus does not mention it. Just as in Lk 4,18, Jesus disregards the hate and the thirst for vengeance that then accompanied the confidence in a just God.

{N}12,{/}2 One could wonder what the Pharisees were doing in that field where Jesus was passing by. But if we take a look at the parallel text in Lk 6,2, we see that these Pharisees are part of the group that follows Jesus, just as in Mk 2,16 and Lk 5,30. Many of them esteemed Jesus and time will be needed before the Pharisees' party is opposed to him.

{N}12,{/}8 {C}The Son of Man is Lord of the Sabbath{/}. That pretension of Jesus is as exorbitant as the one of forgiving sins. Will this be a conclusion that the evangelist makes from Jesus' attitude in this event? More probably he said it himself in such a clear way that John also recalls these words and develops them in John 5,17-20. Most probably Jesus did not use the word {C}Lord{/} of the Sabbath, alluding to Christ the Lord, but rather: he has authority over the Sabbath.

{N}12,{/}17 Matthew justifies this discreet attitude of the Savior {C}awaited by the nations{/} through Isaiah's text: {C}he will not argue or shout.{/} The Servant of the Lord (of Yahweh) in these poems is God's instrument for also saving the pagan peoples: {C}he will announce my judgement to the nations{/}. Let us not forget that in the hebrew culture to judge and to govern is the same thing: the Messiah will make God's government over the nations a reality.
{C}They will put hope in his Name{/}. The Hebrew said: the nations wait for his decrees, but Matthew follows the greek bible that announces the universal faith in the divine Name, and for Matthew it is the Name of Jesus.

{N}12,{/}27 {C}Beelzebul{/}, or meaning, the house God, who was the god of the philistine city of Acron, ridiculed by the Jews with the form of Beelzebub: the god of the flies. In other places they accuse Jesus of having a demon, in the sense that: he was crazy, just as they said of John the Baptist (11,11). Here they accuse him of making a pact with the devil. Matthew, always hard on the Pharisees, opposes to their calumnies the faith of the people: {C}the son of David{/} was a title of the Messiah.

{N}12,{/}32 {C}Nor in this world nor in the other{/}. This does not mean that other sins are forgiven in the other world, but rather the said sin is unforgivable, as much in God's judgement as the judgement of the people.

{N}12,{/}36 {C}Any unjustified word{/}. This means the phrase used by the gospel, which is sometimes translated: "idle words", that is: words without support. According to Matthew, these words come from a perversion of the heart, the perversion proper of those who believe hat they have more knowledge about God's things. In spite of the fact that the Pharisees interpreted the Bible many times the same way Jesus did, their idea of the "just" person, with the forehead clear before God, together with their regard for money, was source of pride for many of them and poisoned their works.

{N}12,{/}39 {C}Only the sign of the prophet Jonah will be given them.{/} No imposing signs will be given to them, as it was expected in the time of the Messiah. The Son of Man is the one who will become a sign first for Israel, but also for all the nations, just as Jonah was a sign for the pagans of Niniveh. Everyone must recognize the hand of God in his person, in his preaching, in his rejection and in his resurrection. See what Paul says about the scandal of the cross. (1Cor 1,22).

{N}12,{/}47 Very possibly this verse was copied from Mark and inserted here.

{N}13,{/}18 Whose interpretation of the parable is this? Is it from Jesus or the preachers of the primitive Church? In the actual text many words are characteristic of the style of the primitive Church and it is true that the interpretation differs somewhat in the three gospels depending on the different environment where it was kept and preached. But most probably Jesus gave his own interpretation of the parable, getting "moral" applications for his disciples, like all the teachers of his time did. By making this application, he left aside without delving deeply, other aspects of his parable, such as for example about the fact that he came to sow the seed and that the Kingdom of God had already begun. 

{N}13,{/}37 {C}The Son of Man{/}. Jesus is presented with this title in all the places of the Gospel which deal with the judgement. It is a way to say that he will return with the divine authority and the Glory of the Father, just as we see expressed in Dn 7,13.
{C}The people of the Kingdom, the people of the Evil One.{/} Let us not interpret these expressions as opposites: the people are not classified beforehand between the good and the bad, and the parable says that time is needed so that each one can define himself.

{N}13,{/}50 {C}The blazing furnace{/}. The prophetic texts speak of God's wrath burning the evil ones (Na 1,9; Mal 4,1; Is 66,24). {C}Weeping and gnashing of teeth{/}: or meaning the envy of the luck of the righteous ones (Ps 33,16; 112,10). {C}The just will shine{/}:  (Mal 4,20; Dn 12,3.)

{N}13,{/}58 Many think that the Gospel of Matthew should be divided in two great parts: 3-13 and 14-28. Here, ending with the parables of the Kingdom, Jesus stops teaching the crowds and dedicates himself to the training of his disciples. This failure of Jesus in Nazareth, from where he began (4,12) would summarize the failure of his preaching in Galilee.

{N}14,{/}13 {C}Jesus went away{/}. Just as he did when he found out that John had been arrested (4,12): the permanent insecurity of Jesus in that country subjected to a foreign power, with a people that God educated for freedom and which, at every moment, were rebelling. Jesus preaches in a society full of police and informers. Mark gives another reason (a reason not unknown to Matthew): the common rest and reflection of the apostles after their mission. 

{N}14,{/}12 Matthew and Mark highlight here the role of the disciples while John centered all of his story on the person of Jesus, sent by God and the bread of life. In these chapters the disciples figured as the heads of the Church, who will continue with the same actions of Jesus. For Matthew it is obvious that the teaching of the miracle is not limited to pointing out Jesus' power or to announcing him as the Messiah: he shows better than the others the Eucharistic significance of the miracle.
{C}They gathered up the leftovers{/}, just as Elisha did (2Kgs 4,43): this detail confirms that everyone ate until they were full, in the same way it happened with the manna in the desert (Ex 16,12).

{N}14,{/}25 {C}He came towards them walking on the sea. {/}The biblical tradition considered the sea like a rebel element that God had to hold back; even in Job 9,8 one reads the expression:  "he treads on the waves of the sea". Nothing more than this verse is needed for some interpreters to say: the Gospel speaks to us about Jesus walking on the sea, but this was characteristic (!) of God; then we must see a theological intention in this story; then it is not a historic fact ... Let us remember that the evangelists recall events that lay the foundations of their own faith, and if these were not historical events, then they would not believe either.

{N}15,{/}21 {C}He went to the lands of Tyre and Sidon{/}. Matthew adds a second name in order to conform to the traditional wording of the prophets that threatened these two cities of Phoenicia together (Mt 11,21). By themselves these two names sounded like the names of a pagan country. The woman is a {C}Canaanite{/}, because the siro-phoenicians were descendants of the ancient population of Canaan. Differently than Mark's version, Matthew seems to say that the woman left from that country and that Jesus frankly did not enter into it: it is possible that he wishes to support what Jesus says in 15,24.
{C}I am not sent but to the lost sheep of the nation of Israel.{/} The lost sheep (Ez 34) are the humble people, dispersed because of a lack of shepherds (Mt 9,35). Jesus' response is categorical: he comes only for the Jews, that gospel shows that the Church is the one that must give the light to the pagans. This response of Matthew has been interpreted at times as if Jesus had only thought of the Jews in his ministry of salvation and had not been aware of his universal mission. The Church would have made of Jesus, Jewish savior, the Savior of the world. There is no reason to affirm this: the universal salvation is part of the mission of the Servant of Yahweh (Is 42; 49,6; 52,13) with whom Jesus is identified. Jesus complies with a plan that was determined by the Father and leaves the salvation of the pagans as the work of the later times, meaning then, of those who will follow his death and resurrection.

{N}15,{/}28 {C}How great is your faith!{/} Matthew notes Jesus' admiration only in the case of the pagans that approached him occasionally, not in the case of the Jews (8,10). This does not mean to say that those pagans were better than all of the Jews, but rather that Jesus calls attention to this gift of faith which his Father distributes it to the children that he has chosen outside of his own people.

{N}15,{/}29 Jesus finishes his journey at the borders of Galilee. Here Matthew gives an image of Jesus the divine teacher. He goes up the hill, just as in 5,1, but this time it is not to teach but to multiply the recoveries that are the repeated signs of the coming of the Kingdom: compare with 11, 4-5.

{N}16,{/}1 Where Mark speaks of the Pharisees, according to the historical truth, Matthew writes: Pharisees and Sadducees, a typical expression that had come to designate globally all the adversaries of Jesus.
All that is read between {C}Jesus answered{/} and {C}Evil generation{/} is not read in the very oldest manuscripts. Possibly it has been added afterwards. It may possibly belong to Matthew's text but it was left out later because this meteorological notation was not verified in other countries. The Pharisees asked for a sign that came from Heaven, meaning: from God, and Jesus takes its comparison with the appearance of the sky.

{N}16,{/}18 The text says:  {C}You are Kephas{/}. This is the aramean term that Jesus used that means Rock. This was how they named Simon in the first Church: 1Cor 1,12; Gal 1,18.
We cannot be sure whether Jesus gave Simon this name on the same day as he called him (Jn 1,42); it may be that he gave it to him at the moment when he made him these promises.
Simon {C}Bar-Iona{/}. In Aramean, Bar means: {C}son{/}.  Will this be another way of saying: son of John, as we read in Jn 1,42: Simon, {C}son of John.{/} Or it could have been rather that Simon, a "son of the dove" (since Bar-Jona also means son of the dove and possibly that name designated a group of Jewish patriots, with the Dove being a symbol of the coming of the Messiah.
{C}I will build my Church.{/} {C}To build{/} and to plant were two appropriate terms for God's actions for setting up the Holy People in the world.  {C}Church:{/} or meaning assembly that God has {C}congregated{/} and that was for the people who would assemble around the Messiah. {C}My {/}Church: Jesus reaffirms his divinity, because the Church belongs to God.
{C}On earth ... in heaven:{/} the intervention of the earthly Church is ratified in the world of God. This communication between the human and the divine worlds (Mt 18,18; Jn 20,23) is especially valid for Peter's decisions, which are the bearers of God's will: the members of the Church must recognize them. In the two last texts that we quoted, forgiveness is also mentioned, but only to Peter were{C} the keys {/}given.

{N}17,{/}21 This verse 21 is missing in many manuscripts. Some interpret it like an addition destined to match Matthew with Mark. Others think that verse 21 gave the most appropriate response to the apostles' question (Why couldn't we ...), before adding the other explanation for the lack of faith.

{N}17,{/}24 The text says: the collectors of the "didrachma". The tax was for a double drachma. The amount was the same for everyone, whether they were rich or poor (Ex 30, 13-15).

{N}18,{/}6 The text says: "a mill of the ass". There were two kinds of mill: the big one turned by the ass going around and the domestic one turned by women (Mt 24,41).

{N}18,{/}10 {C}Their angels in heaven{/}. Jesus refers to the jewish belief of that time according to which only the most elevated in dignity could stand in the presence of God (Tob 12,15). God has put his most eminent angels in charge of the job of protecting the little ones.
This sentence from Jesus also refers to what happened then in the court of the eastern sovereigns. The guards surrounded them at all times, prepared to destroy anyone that provoked the anger of the king (Est 4,11), as soon as they read the intention in their eyes. For this reason, take care of touching these little ones!
Many manuscripts add here a verse 11 that is copied from Luke 19,10.

{N}18,{/}12 The parable that we read here is the same that Luke 15,3 tells, but here the sheep is not lost but rather {C}gone astray or mislead{/}. The parable refers not to the sinners, but rather to the little ones who have gone astray in the ambiguities of this world (24,4; 24,11) and that Jesus wants to reunite. It is necessary to search for them instead of scorning them. For the Church there will always be the danger of forgetting all the little ones who no longer come, or of waiting for them to take the first step: yet it may be that they cannot do this.
{C}They do not want{/} (verse 14). This impersonal form is a way not to directly name God.

{N}18,{/}15 Not all of the manuscripts have the same text here. If we accept the text: {C}he or she has sinned{/}, Jesus asks the Christian community to take a moderate way; when compared with the practice of the essene communities (such as that of Qumran) the Christians imitated in several points. Jesus does not accept that the sinner judged by the whole community be immediately excluded. The sins need not be publicized if it is possible to straighten them out in a private way. And Dt 19,15 is cited, which in reality speaks about other things.
On the other hand, if we follow the other version: {C}has sinned against you,{/} it refers to the forgiveness of offenses like in Lk 17,4.
{C}Regard such a one as a pagan or a publican.{/} Jesus talks to a Jewish environment which is accustomed to not dealing with the pagans or the public sinners, nor with those who were excluded by the synagogue, or meaning by the authorities of the religious community (Jn 9,22). The christian communities will act this way: 1Cor 5,11; Ti 3,10; 2Jn 10).

{N}18,{/}18 {C}Whatever you bind.{/} Apparently Jesus says this to the whole community.

{N}18,{/}22 At the first reading it could be understood "seventy times seven", but the translation {C}seventy and seven times {/}is what requires the use of the greek distributive forms, which are sensitive to the weight of certain formulas.

{N}19,{/}20 {C}Love your neighbor as yourself. {/}Matthew adds this commandment that is not read in Mark or in Luke. In this way he underlines that Jesus does not denounce the ancient laws as if they ignored the great commandment. Though everyone is asked to observe the Law and the commandment to love, God directs today a special call to that man who approached him.
The tradition always understood that this gospel made poverty a condition in order to follow Christ. It is known that the traditional bases for men and women religious life are the three "evangelical advices", those of poverty, chastity and obedience. Without denying the value of these fundamental pillars, we may think that the expression is deficient. On one side giving advice is not the Jesus' way: his call is imperative and he who fails to respond is lost. On the other hand, the vow of poverty although it means renouncing one's belongings and to the free disposition of things, also has as compensation the membership in a community that normally has important economic guarantees, ones not to be ignored. In this it is far from what Jesus said in the present paragraph.
Notwithstanding this, it is true that the choice of poverty, through whatever means of making it, opens the Kingdom of God to us. This choice today is not reserved for only the religious. Although in past times the immense majority of humankind has had to live in poverty or misery, today on the other hand, the society offers the means to save oneself from those threats to anyone who has the health and a well-conditioned brain. However it is also true that for many people the university is the condition of the paradise. There is where the barrier between the poor and the citizens with full rights is set up. The Christian couple then, will be up against an option from the beginning from which the future of their children will depend. Do they really love their children, according to the common way of thinking? They will not have more than one child, and they will send him or her to the university, a child whose parents, for love, will become slaves to work and to the values commonly received. Do they really even want a true family? They offer this family poverty.
In these circumstances the family chooses poverty and at the same times the Kingdom. This first choice will obligate the family to think from new bases about the sense of their lives, to put into work a familiar pedagogy that helps youth to ratify this choice, to unite other Christian families that made the same choice with the object of resolving their problems. One such poverty could then become the riches of the world.  

{N}19,{/}28 This paragraph seems to be better being placed in 22,28. By introducing it in the present context, Matthew wants to distinguish the case of the apostles from the rest of those who renounced everything in order to follow Christ. The condition of the apostles is unique in the history of the salvation. However the privilege of judging (meaning here, of governing, following the meaning of the hebrew word) corresponds as well to the believers in a more modest environment (Wis 3,8; 1Cor 6,2).
{C}On the day of the new creation{/}. The text says: the new genesis. This term was characteristic of the apocalyptic literature and it would be referring to the purification and the renewal of the world after the Judgement. This Judgement will reestablish the true order between humankind (just as in Mt 25,31), it will make the exchange between the first ones and the last ones, and it will make of the apostles the governors of the people of Israel (the apostles, not the patriarchs or Moses, or the prophets).

{N}20,{/}1 Let us take note that only to the first ones is there a salary determined. This is one more sign that the Jews were the first ones that God brings to salvation, in fulfillment of a contract (his covenant with them), while the others are pagan peoples to whom the salvation arrives as a free gift, not promised, nor expected (Rom 15, 8-9).
{C}He went out to hire workers{/}. He went out just as the Sower in chapter 13,1, just as Jesus went (Mk 1,38) to bring salvation to humankind.
{C}You have treated them the same as us{/} (verse 12). Possibly the last workers originally figured as the poor, the followers of Jesus. The religious society had not given them the opportunity to awaken and to participate in the work of God. Those in comfortable environments then, should not be scandalized if Jesus demonstrates so much appreciation of the little ones and of the sinners. Nor should it be scandalizing if God one day gives them the first positions. They, those who from the first hour have known the Law and felt obligated to fulfill it, may be the lasts to be paid.
This seems to have been the original meaning of the parable, but visibly Matthew refers to another situation, that of the pagan peoples who enter into the Church, and we must refer it to the masses, without evangelization, that surround churches without ambition.

{N}20,{/}28 {N}THE REDEMPTION{/}
{C}To redeem, to repair, to liberate, rescue{/}, all these words whose difference we do not always see go together with the images and ideas that we ordinarily form about the Redemption.
Behind the words of the New Testament that we translate for {C}redeem{/}, it may be convenient to distinguish between four hebrew words of the Old Testament that have not always been translated by the same greek words.
In the first place the verb{C} to redeem{/}. This recovery is an acquisition, but what one acquires is an asset that, in most of the cases, belonged previously to the family and is recuperated. The word {C}redeem{/} is found more times in the small book of Ruth than in the whole rest of the Bible. In the New Testament it could be translated more frequently by the word to liberate or rescue: Rom 8,23, - "rescue"; Eph 1,7 - "obtain freedom"; Col 1,14 "redeemed"; Gal 3,13 - "rescued"; 4,5 "redeem". In Heb 9,15 "atonement" and Ti 1,14, the only word that agrees is to redeem.
The word {C}acquisition{/} is also appropriate. When the Bible recalls the choice that God made of a people who belong to him, it speaks at times of an acquisition to indicate that God becomes the owner and the master of Israel and no one could take it away from him afterwards. This sense will be found in 2P 2,1 in order to designate those who had been called to form part of the people of God. In Rev 14,3 and 4, they are the 144,000 chosen ones and virgins on Mount Zion who had been acquired (or taken) from among the rest of the human beings.
On the other hand, in the present text of Matthew the word that we translate with {C}rescue {/}should be understood as the sacrifice of expiation or atonement that had to be paid for a committed misdeed or fault. The same in the parallel text of Mk 10,45 and later in 1Tm 2,6, Here, in Matthew, Jesus refers to God's Servant of the book of Isaiah who offers his life in order to "repair" the failings of his people (Is 52,13 - 53,12). It is the only place in the Gospel where Jesus gives this meaning to his death, but the Acts of the Apostles show us that the Gospel preachers liked to use Isaiah's prophecy to proclaim Jesus-the Messiah. Starting from here, surely, they developed the three affirmations that we read in several places in the apostolic preaching:  Jesus died for our sins; he died so that our sins are forgiven; he was made victim because of our sins.
That idea of a sacrifice for our sins may surprise us insofar as we instinctively try to avoid our responsibility in the universal disorder that is the sin; besides we feel perhaps humiliated by the mere fact that another must pay for us. Yet our annoyance comes from that rescue or redemption which has often been commented upon in a very surprising way. While the biblical texts referring to redemption insist more on the idea of liberation than on the aspect of payment, some have understood that Jesus' death was a payment that he made to the devil in order to loosen his dominion over humanity. Others speak about offenses made against God that demand compensation and that became settled with the sufferings and the sacrifice of Christ.
Es muy cierto que Jes\u00fas muri\u00f3 por nuestros pecados, pero la Redenci\u00f3n va mucho m\u00e1s lejos que el pago de una serie de deudas. Era necesario que el ejemplo perfecto del sacrificio voluntario respondiera a la cobard\u00eda humana; siendo quemultitudes de inocentes han sufrido inocentemente, era preciso ue le Hijo se hiciera uno de ellos; para compensar la marea de odios y rebelionesdes que hacen la actualidad de los peri\u00f3dicos, la humanidad deb\u00eda ofrecer una amplia mies de esa \u00ab_obediencia_\u00bb (Rom 5,19) de la que Jes\u00fas vino a ser el ejemplo perfecto_; para inaugurar un movimiento tan irresistible como es la proclamaci\u00f3n evang\u00e9lica, se necesitaba lo que hoy se llama un sacrificio fundador_: Heb 13,20 lo dice con otras palabras. Este sacrificio de Jes\u00fas tiene un valor universal para la humanidad y convienen las im\u00e1genes de Ron 5,12-19_: en oposici\u00f3n al pecado de Ad\u00e1n  que afecta toda la raza humana, hay un don gratuito del que todos nos beneficiamos gracias a Cristo. {N}Si no hay nadie para traducir estos dos p\u00e1rrafos, que se cancelen{/}
Those who in the past understood that text of Paul as the affirmation of a major sin effectively committed by the first man, could not but see in the death of Jesus the reparation of that so very mysterious sin. Many times the artists have painted at the foot of the cross a skull that would be Adam's. However the gospels are not interested in that sin or in that sinner: Adam is not even mentioned. En cambio mantienen con claridad que el esp\u00edritu malo est\u00e1 a la ra\u00edz de todos los des\u00f3rdenes de la humanidad. Y, dicen ellos, la redenci\u00f3n de Cristo tiene por efecto de liberarnos de su dominio sobre el mundo. Este aspecto de la obra de Cristo nos parece habitualmente demasiado misterioso para que lo tomemos en cuenta; Pablo, sin embargo, no vacila en afirmar que la bajada del Hijo a nuestro mundo y su muerte infamante han terminado con la tiran\u00eda de los poderes c\u00f3smicos (1Cor 2,8 ; Eph 1,21 ; Col 1,13). Tal vez alg\u00fan d\u00eda comprendamos que el problema del bien y del mal en el mundo depende antes que nada de una lucha en un universo espiritual al que entendemos muy poco.
However there is an ordering of the world, just as there is an ordering of humankind that surpasses our perspectives in the short term. It was necessary that everything culminate in a perfect equilibrium so that everything could return to God. Jesus had as a mission to assure the return of an alienated world, and the sin was the main datum of our alienation. The unity of the universe and of the dispersed children of God could only be realized in a reconciliation that would also be reconciliation with God after the original sin - the one of the tutoring spirits and the leaders of the creation. The voluntary death of Jesus was the repair, in the figurative sense, of such a collapse. It is irrelevant to conclude from there that Jesus at the moment of death had before his eyes all of our individual misdeeds; however all of our misdeeds form part of the passive and not one of our "rebellions" (Is 53,5; and 1Jn 3,4) could be simply forgotten.
Until here we have kept an intellectual and moral vision of the Redemption, but we must go further. When the apostles comment about the sacrifice of Jesus dying for our sins, dying for our liberation (Rom 3,25; 4,25; 5,6-11; 2Cor 5,20-21 and 1P 2,21-25) they do not want first to explain but rather to force our admiration for the magnificence of divine love. In the first place the generosity of God the Father (Rom 8,3; Jn 3,16; 1Jn 4,10-11); yet later, recognition and crushing in the humility before the voluntary sacrifice of the Son (Rom 5,7-11). And from there comes our total surrendering to the person of Jesus (Gal 2,19-20).
It has been said that no one has ever been loved as Jesus has been, is and will be loved, and this is the other aspect of the Redemption. If we believe that the sacrifice of Christ saves the whole of humanity (1Jn 2,2), as well as also that this same Son-Word illuminates all human conscience (Jn 1,9), it is also a fact that the immense majority of the peoples have not known anything about this. Yet since the choosing by God of a people to whom he reveals his plan of salvation (Is 54,13; Jer 31,34; Eph 3,5) quite a good part of the Redemption is carried out through the mutual relationships between God and that chosen people (Is 62,1-5 So 3,17). Those who were called saw God's love and believed (1Jn 4,16). And in this way the possibility remains open to God of realizing with them a unique experience, one of a reciprocal love in clarity.
This is the reason for which Jesus wants - and it is one of his major motivations - that his sacrifice purify (Eph 5,26) and sanctify (1Cor 6,11) those whom he has acquired (Acts 20,28) or is going to acquire for God (Rev 5,9-10; 14,3). He is consecrated for their sake (Jn 17,19; Heb 10,14). On the other hand, the contemplation of the lowering or humiliations and of the love of the Son will suggest to them an extravagant love, the same that will constitute in the eternity the admiration of the celestial powers (1P 1,12).

{N}21,{/}4 The text from Zechariah that Matthew quotes here says: {C}riding on a donkey, on a colt of a beast of burden{/}. Let us not forget that the hebrew poetry puts down at every moment two parallel verses: the colt is the same as the donkey, it is said to be {C}son of{/} a beast of burden, or meaning simply that it is a beast of burden. But Matthew, who always likes to use two persons or objects there where the others see one, put down there a donkey with his colt (verse 2).

{N}21,{/}25 We elongate the text that simply says: "The baptism of John was of God or was it of humans?" But it is evident that that expression designates all of an event: John who put the masses into movement, who called them to the penitence and who gave them his baptism.

{N}21,{/}32 The text says: "John came to your encounter on the way of righteousness".

{N}23,{/}1 {N}JESUS AND THE PHARISEES{/}
Matthew's chapter 23 should be read in the light of the oppositions and persecutions that the Church in Palestine suffered up until the moment that the Christians were excluded from the Jewish community. The rupture was definite with the decrees made by the Pharisees in the year 95 at their Council in Jamnia, when they reorganized the israelite community after the destruction of Jerusalem. It was then when they determined the canon of the holy books and also enclosed the Jewish religion within very strict traditions and customs. Then they put an end to a more open attitude that had facilitated, in times of Christ, an impressive development of the Jewish proselytism in the roman world and had multiplied the conversions of the "Greeks".
The Gospel of Matthew, written in those years, becomes very polemic in respect to the Pharisees, for representing this Judaism, an adversary of the Church. Speaking of the Pharisees at the time of Jesus, he tends to see in them his principal enemies. However, although he deforms the historic reality which was better expressed by Luke, not for this reason are we allowed to destroy the testimony of Matthew about the fundamental opposition between the phariseeism and the gospel: the book of Matthew is the word of God and this means that it gives us the vision that God wanted us to keep about the situations that Jesus confronted.
We know that, under many aspects, Jesus made his own the interpretation of the Bible that the Pharisees gave (and they were numerous among the first disciples). Nevertheless their religion made up in great part of obligations and rights was incompatible with another spirit resulting of the fact that Jesus was the Son sent by the Father for the salvation of sinners.
In the present chapter, Matthew presents a controversy of Jesus against the Pharisees. This cannot leave any Christian indifferent since phariseeism was the expression, at a certain time, of a religious attitude as present among us as it was then. In times past, many christian authors spoke of them as if all of them had been hypocrites and people of bad faith. By reading some of those commentaries, one suspects that these writers guessed, but did not want to recognize, up to what point they, clergy, teachers, supposed elite ones of the Christian people, occupied in the Church the same place that the Pharisees in the society of their times. So they fell under the same accusations of the gospel. Anxious to distinguish themselves from the Pharisees, they could but paint them in a caricatured way. Today on the other hand, there are many in the Church who want, not only to justify the Pharisees of similar allegations but to ignore or even to reject the warnings of the gospel that refer to them. Possibly the reason for such fervor is the same that inspired the opposite attitude in previous times: they canonize the Pharisees because they came to occupy their positions, incurring in the same danger: of being those wise and prudent ones to whom the mystery of Jesus has not been revealed.

{N}23,{/}5 The text says exactly: "They broaden their phylacteries and enlarge the borders of their garment." The phylacteries were cases that contained quotations from the bible. In this manner they wished to apply to the exact letter what is said in Dt 6,8.

{N}23,{/}15 {C}You journey over sea and land{/}. The century in which Jesus lived saw the maximum development of the Jewish efforts to convert pagans. The reproaches we read here is due possibly to the fact that the missionaries conquest the pagans for the good of their group rather than for the glory of God (Gal 6,13).

{N}23,{/}16 This paragraph about oaths may have been developed a bit by the evangelist, who lived outside of Palestine. We read in the classical authors that many non Jews had had disagreeable experiences with the occasion of similar oaths of jewish people.

{N}24,{/}15 Matthew refers here to Daniel's prophecy in Dan, 9,27 and 12,11 which talked about the Abomination of the devastator (or rather the {C}Idol of the invader{/} set up in the Temple.  This had occurred in the year 167 B.C. and this is what the author of the book of Daniel referred to. Matthew writes after the siege of Jerusalem and the burning of the Temple, and he knows that the roman troops did not place their banners and their idols inside of the Temple: they only surrounded the holy city of Jerusalem. Therefore, by recalling Daniel's words, he invites the reader to {C}understand well{/}! meaning adapt it a little.

{N}24,{/}26 In verses 26 and 27, the contrast between the pretensions of the false Messiahs and the coming of the Son of Man serves as a transition in order to go on to the next paragraph referring to the days of Judgement.

{N}24,{/}30 {C}The sign of the Son of Man will appear.{/} Some ask if it will be a cross of colors in the sky and whether those who are on the other side of the planet will also see it ... It may be that this sentence should be translated: it will appear, the unique sign, the Son of Man, as it is implied in Lk 11,30.
{C}All the races of the earth ...{/} See Zech 12,12 and Rev 1,7. They will feel guilty upon seeing that, by one way or another, they have injured the Savior and rejected the Gospel.
{C}With the Power and the fullness of Glory:{/} these two qualifying nouns are words that in the Bible refer to the very Divine Being. {C}He will send his angels:{/} as in 16,27, they are God's angels, and the chosen ones also are God's own.
The angels and the trumpet are traditional figures in the apocalyptic books for the descriptions of the final Judgement (1Thes 4,16; Rev 8,6). The trumpet that was played in order to congregate the children of Israel (Num 10,2), had come to represent the congregation that would bring the chosen ones to the place of the judgement. {C}Gather the chosen ones{/}: this is God's harvest (Mt 9,37; 13,4; Rev 14,14-20).

{N}24,{/}32 The parable about the fig tree invites to the discernment of {C}the signs of the times{/} (Lk 12,54): a series of events make it understood that a new stage in the sacred history has begun. {C}Know that it is near{/}. This does not mean that warning signs indicate an event that will come right away (which would be the roman invasion), but rather that visible events ({C}all these things{/}, or meaning everything related to the destruction of Jerusalem), mark something that one cannot see. This is the coming of the Kingdom of God as Luke states in 21,31.

{N}24,{/}36 The text says: {C}As for that day and that hour{/}. The day is nothing more that the day of the Judgement (day of Yahweh in Am 5 and So 1,5). The hour is the one expected in the eternal designs of God. {C}Not even the Son{/}. Jesus safeguards the mystery relating to the Father's decisions. This is the only place in the gospel where Jesus is called {C}the Son{/}, and nothing else (like in Heb 1). His divine personality does not impede him from being "reduced to nothing, taking the condition of servant" (Phil 2,6), with the consequent limitations and ignorance.

{N}25,{/}10 {C}Therefore{/}: this parable is related to the previous one, meaning the Lord's call to be watchful at any and all times. Yet there is no reason to specifically relate this parable with the events that are developed in the previous chapter.

{N}25,{/}24 Here there are two images together: the first is taken from the life of a peasant, the second from bank operations: the owner or master, it says, has not {C}sown{/} nor {C}deposited{/}.

{N}25,{/}28 The unused talent will be given to one who already "has". The parable once again puts us before the already expressed perspective in what is "on earth as it is in heaven".  God's play throughout his creation expresses something about his eternal nature, and he cannot fail. They are already written down, not only his decisions regarding the end of the history, that is the reunion of everything in Christ, but also the greater lines of history. Some exceptional figures are the object of a choice made by God "from their mother's womb", because their role is an undisputed element of the plan, and they will not fail in the fulfillment of their task. What we, each one of us, do not do, will be asked of another, those happy to make the sacrifice.

{N}25,{/}34 Jesus refers to a typical scene in his country. Normally the shepherds take white sheep at the same time with the coffee colored and black goats. But the two species never mix and two rows or two groups of different colors are seen. The sheep had to be the people of the people of God, according to the biblical use. The goats on the other hand were the traditional figure of the devils: see the note put on Lev 16,5.
The shepherd {C}separates the sheep from the goats{/}. See Ez 34,17; but there the rams and the male goats represented the chiefs.
{C}When he comes in his Glory{/}: this means much more than the glorification of Jesus, since the Glory and the Power, which are God's own attributes in the Bible, become those of Jesus. The throne of Glory is {C}his{/}.
Many have taken hold of this parable in order to attribute to Jesus a "secularized" vision of the world. He would give here what is essential of his message by summarizing everything in the works of love: the love of God is included and realized in the work of helping one's neighbors. 
Others give the importance to the judgement of {C}the{/} {C}pagans{/}; (here the word used by Jesus can be translated either as the pagans or the nations). Here Jesus puts an end to the conviction of the Jews of that time according to which the pagans would not have a part in the resurrection.
{N}25,{/}34 {C}Take possession of the Kingdom{/}. Ones see there is no symmetry between the sentence about the good people and the condemnation of the bad people. For the first ones, the possession of the Kingdom is at the same time a prize for their works and the realization of a gift of God who from all eternity had prepared for them the way of their sanctification Eph 1,5 and 2,10. On the other hand the eternal fire has been prepared, not in all eternity, but only as a consequence of the sin of the angels who introduced evil in the world. No one has been destined to hell.

{N}26,{/}19 {C}They prepared the Passover{/}. Here there is a problem about the date. According to John, Jesus died on the day that the Jews celebrate the Passover, and this clarifies some of the details about his Passion (Jn 18,28; 19,14; 19,31; 19,42). How to explain that synoptic versions place the Last Supper on that day of the Passover and not on the previous days? The most serious hypothesis are the following:
1.Jesus would have celebrated the Passover according to a non official calendar, just as certain religious groups did (for example the Essenes of Qumran). According to a very ancient tradition of several eastern churches, Jesus would have celebrated the Last Supper on Tuesday, being arrested at night, and his process would have extended through Wednesday and Thursday, before being crucified on Friday morning.
2.Jesus would not have celebrated the Jewish Passover but rather a farewell dinner destined to replace the ancient Passover, and due to this, the christian tradition would have given this supper the color of the Passover supper.
The second of these explanations is the most probable (see the commentary on Jn 12,1), but it does not exclude the first), rather they mutually confirm each other.

{N}26,{/}26 Please note the succession of the {N}blessing{/} in verse 26 and the {N}giving thanks {/}in verse 27. When commenting Mark 8,1, we called attention to the significance of the two accounts in which Jesus multiplies the loaves, one applying to the christian communities within the Jewish environment, and the other to the churches with a greek majority. Here it is obvious that Matthew puts down at the same time {N}to bless{/} and {N}to give thanks{/} in order to signify that the Supper with Jesus will be continued by all of the Eucharist's of the Jewish and pagan worlds.

{N}26,{/}31 The text says: All of you {C}will falter in night, meaning, or me{/}: I am going to be for you the cause of a fall. This can be paraphrased in this way: your faith will come down because my attitude will leave you confused.

{N}26,{/}57 The evangelists present different versions of the processing of Jesus before the Jewish authorities. See the commentary of Mt 27,1 in this respect.

{N}27,{/}3 Judas' death differs of how it is told in Acts 1,18. This other version seems to be inspired in the legend of Ahicar (which is underlying in several paragraphs in the book of Tobiah). It is no more that a curious detail inserted there within Peter's speech to the first community.

{N}27,{/}7 {C}For a cemetery for the foreigners{/}, those who died in Jerusalem while they were fulfilling their pilgrimage. The quotation that comes next unites three texts: two from Jeremiah referring first to the purchase of a field (32:6), the second to a visit to a potter's house (18:1); and finally one from Zech 13,7 that talks about the thirty coins.

{N}27,{/}19 Possibly Pilate's wife was one of those Jewish or proselytes women that knew how to marry with the high ranking Romans.

{N}27,{/}23 John attributes these shouts only to the priests and the police of the Temple. Matthew, on the other hand, makes the crowds responsible (verse 25).

{N}27,{/}39 {C}Those who passed by there insulted him{/}. Matthew and Mark continue to allude to Psalm 22. {C}You who destroyed the Temple:{/} it can seem strange to us this diffusion of Jesus' words with respect to the Temple, but surely many people whose religion was reduced to a fanatical faith in the sacred character of their temple felt bothered, as it happened with Jeremiah (Jer 26).
Upon reading Matthew and Mark, it would seem that the High Priest or Chief priests were present. In reality Matthew's verses 41-43 in this chapter expressed at the beginning the way the chiefs thought after obtaining Jesus' conviction: speaking from outside, they use the third person and not the second, as do the passer-byers who insulted Jesus. Yet afterwards, the paragraph was inserted between the passers' insults and the bandits. The words that are attributed to them are found in Ps 22,9 and in Wis 2,16.

{N}27,{/}45 Many interpreters think that this darkness does not refer to a historic event, but rather it was symbolic. This would be apocalyptic language and would show us God's judgement extending itself over the earth after Jesus. This is no more than a supposition: so many similar signs have been seen even in our own times so we can accept the reading the text as it is presented, in spite of the fact that possibly the expression: {C}the whole country {/}has been forced.
The same question will be made in regards to the {C}curtain of the Temple{/}, but here, if it were a real event, it would be strange that we did not have any other testimony besides this brief mention in the gospels.
In the following verses, proper to Matthew, (52-54) is where the apocalyptic style and its emphasis is noted: the earthquake, open tombs ... Matthew will continue with this style in 28,2-4, verses that are his own as well.

{N}27,{/}57 The death of Jesus had to be consummated before the sunset that would initiate the solemn Sabbath. Normally the authorities took charge of burying the convicts. This is why in John's version the chiefs of the Jews are the ones who ask that the cadavers be taken down. It may be that Joseph of Arimathea was part of a Jewish delegation that went to Pilate to request this.

{N}27,{/}62 Once again Matthew runs alone. It is possible that the chiefs had presented a similar request, fearing manifestations from the disciples. Yet it can be doubted that they had heard rumors about the resurrection, since Jesus did not touch on this theme except with the Twelve in a very private way and with words that they did not even understand.

{N}28,{/}2 {C}Suddenly there was a great earthquake.{/} This paragraph from Matthew is based on a different tradition that we also find in Peter's Gospel, a very ancient apocryphal book. It does not describe the reaction of the women upon finding the empty tomb, but it affirms the event of the Resurrection with very colorful figures. Discarding some of the rather childish images that are read in Peter's Gospel, it does show however the Angel of the Lord seated on the rock that had just been rolled away. It eliminates then, everything about the empty tomb. Later, the part that refers to the guards will seem somewhat unlikely to many, even when they are willing to believe.
In the next paragraph the same disorder is noted: as soon as the angel asks the women to go to Galilee to find Jesus, he himself appears to them. This appearance (28,9) reproduces in a very solemn way the appearance to Mary Magdalene in John 20,11. Luke, on the other hand, recalls Peter's visit to the tomb (24,12), in the same way as John does in Jn 20,3.
These appearances in Jerusalem that begin here and continue in Luke 24 and John 20 are opposed under some aspects to the appearances of Jesus in Galilee, that are found in Mt 28,16; Mk 16,14; Jn 21. It is permitted to doubt that such appearances in Jerusalem had taken place the same day as Passover. Since in this case, why would Jesus send the disciples to Galilee and then later they would have to return to Jerusalem to receive the Spirit. And it is hard to think that only two days after the death of Jesus they were mature enough to receive his teachings once again.
For this reason many think that, as it is expressed in Peter's apocryphal Gospel, finishing the feast, the disciples returned to Galilee (meanwhile two of them left for Emmaus). The empty tomb had not communicated to them the faith and they were disoriented. In Galilee there were diverse encounters with Jesus in which some of them doubted (Mt 28,17) and only afterwards, in Jerusalem, did he present himself again.
In spite of all of this, John's affirmations, so exact in everything related to the Passion, constitute a very strong argument in favor of the belief that Jesus manifested himself to the apostles the first day of the week. It is often said that we should not trust in John because his text contains numbers and notations with symbolic value. But the fact that some detail has a symbolic value does not impede that it could have actually happened. And if the private appearances to Peter, to Mary Magdalene, and to the disciples of Emmaus, did happen, as John and Luke tell of them, how should they have put them down so that we believe them?

{N}28,{/}11 This pericopa, characteristic of Matthew is surely related to a rumor that was running among the Jews referring to the robbery of Jesus' body. Simply due to its existence, this rumor confirms what the Gospel says: the cadaver had disappeared and the authorities were incapable of explaining this.
Matthew's story however, contains some very unlikely details. Let us not forget that, when telling the events that the apostles had not witnessed, the evangelist had to rely on second hand testimonies, sometimes even rumors. The fact that his story is the Word of God does not impede that rumors are never totally credible.

{N}28,{/}16 Differently from the appearances in Jerusalem, the appearances in Galilee do not take notice of the identification of Jesus who must be recognized, be touched, ... The presence of Christ, already glorified, is imposed on the disciples gathered together.
{C}I am with you.{/} The Presence of Christ-God, similar to the presence assured to the prophets of the Bible by God himself (Ex 3,12; Judges 6,16). {C}All the days{/}: the active presence of Jesus is going to fill all the time of history.

