Matthew 2:8

2:8 He 1  sent them to Bethlehem and said, “Go and look carefully for the child. When you find him, inform me so that I can go and worship him as well.”

Matthew 5:13

Salt and Light

5:13 “You are the salt 2  of the earth. But if salt loses its flavor, 3  how can it be made salty again? It is no longer good for anything except to be thrown out and trampled on by people.

Matthew 6:5

Private Prayer

6:5 “Whenever you pray, do not be like the hypocrites, because they love to pray while standing in synagogues 4  and on street corners so that people can see them. Truly I say to you, they have their reward.

Matthew 6:24

6:24 “No one can serve two masters, for either he will hate 5  the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise 6  the other. You cannot serve God and money. 7 

Matthew 9:15

9:15 Jesus said to them, “The wedding guests 8  cannot mourn while the bridegroom 9  is with them, can they? But the days 10  are coming when the bridegroom will be taken from them, 11  and then they will fast.

Matthew 14:15

14:15 When evening arrived, his disciples came to him saying, “This is an isolated place 12  and the hour is already late. Send the crowds away so that they can go into the villages and buy food for themselves.”

1 tn Here καί (kai) has not been translated.

2 sn Salt was used as seasoning or fertilizer (BDAG 41 s.v. ἅλας a), or as a preservative. If salt ceased to be useful, it was thrown away. With this illustration Jesus warned about a disciple who ceased to follow him.

3 sn The difficulty of this saying is understanding how salt could lose its flavor since its chemical properties cannot change. It is thus often assumed that Jesus was referring to chemically impure salt, perhaps a natural salt which, when exposed to the elements, had all the genuine salt leached out, leaving only the sediment or impurities behind. Others have suggested that the background of the saying is the use of salt blocks by Arab bakers to line the floor of their ovens; under the intense heat these blocks would eventually crystallize and undergo a change in chemical composition, finally being thrown out as unserviceable. A saying in the Talmud (b. Bekhorot 8b) attributed to R. Joshua ben Chananja (ca. a.d. 90), when asked the question “When salt loses its flavor, how can it be made salty again?” is said to have replied, “By salting it with the afterbirth of a mule.” He was then asked, “Then does the mule (being sterile) bear young?” to which he replied: “Can salt lose its flavor?” The point appears to be that both are impossible. The saying, while admittedly late, suggests that culturally the loss of flavor by salt was regarded as an impossibility. Genuine salt can never lose its flavor. In this case the saying by Jesus here may be similar to Matt 19:24, where it is likewise impossible for the camel to go through the eye of a sewing needle.

4 sn See the note on synagogues in 4:23.

5 sn The contrast between hate and love here is rhetorical. The point is that one will choose the favorite if a choice has to be made.

6 tn Or “and treat [the other] with contempt.”

7 tn Grk “God and mammon.”

sn The term money is used to translate mammon, the Aramaic term for wealth or possessions. The point is not that money is inherently evil, but that it is often misused so that it is a means of evil; see 1 Tim 6:6-10, 17-19. God must be first, not money or possessions.

8 tn Grk “sons of the wedding hall,” an idiom referring to wedding guests, or more specifically friends of the bridegroom present at the wedding celebration (L&N 11.7).

9 sn The expression while the bridegroom is with them is an allusion to messianic times (John 3:29; Isa 54:5-6; 62:4-5; 4 Ezra 2:15, 38).

10 tn Grk “days.”

11 sn The statement the bridegroom will be taken from them is a veiled allusion by Jesus to his death, which he did not make explicit until the incident at Caesarea Philippi in 16:13ff.

12 tn Or “a desert” (meaning a deserted or desolate area with sparse vegetation).