6:1 “Be 1 careful not to display your righteousness merely to be seen by people. 2 Otherwise you have no reward with your Father in heaven.
7:21 “Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ 3 will enter into the kingdom of heaven – only the one who does the will of my Father in heaven.
10:21 “Brother 4 will hand over brother to death, and a father his child. Children will rise against 5 parents and have them put to death.
10:37 “Whoever loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me, and whoever loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me.
24:36 “But as for that day and hour no one knows it – not even the angels in heaven 22 – except the Father alone.
1 tc ‡ Several
2 tn Grk “before people in order to be seen by them.”
3 sn The double use of the vocative is normally used in situations of high emotion or emphasis. Even an emphatic confession without action means little.
4 tn Here δέ (de) has not been translated.
5 tn Or “will rebel against.”
6 sn The penny refers to an assarion, a small Roman copper coin. One of them was worth one-sixteenth of a denarius or less than a half hour’s average wage. Sparrows were the cheapest items sold in the market. God knows about even the most financially insignificant things; see Isa 49:15.
7 tn Or “to the ground without the knowledge and consent of your Father.”
8 sn An allusion to Dan 12:3.
9 tn The translation “had better listen!” captures the force of the third person imperative more effectively than the traditional “let him hear,” which sounds more like a permissive than an imperative to the modern English reader. This was Jesus’ common expression to listen and heed carefully (cf. Matt 11:15, 13:9; Mark 4:9, 23; Luke 8:8, 14:35).
10 tn Grk “is a gift,” that is, something dedicated to God.
11 tn Grk “answering, Jesus said to him.” The participle ἀποκριθείς (apokriqeis) is redundant, but the syntax of this phrase has been modified for clarity.
12 tn The expression “flesh and blood” could refer to “any human being” (so TEV, NLT; cf. NIV “man”), but it could also refer to Peter himself (i.e., his own intuition; cf. CEV “You didn’t discover this on your own”). Because of the ambiguity of the referent, the phrase “flesh and blood” has been retained in the translation.
13 tn Grk “Truly (ἀμήν, amhn), I say to you.”
14 tn Grk “if two of you…agree about whatever they ask, it will be done for them by my Father who is in heaven.” The passive construction has been translated as an active one in keeping with contemporary English style, and the pronouns, which change from second person plural to third person plural in the Greek text, have been consistently translated as second person plural.
15 tn Grk “his.” The pronoun has been translated to follow English idiom (the last pronoun of the verse [“from your heart”] is second person plural in the original).
16 tn Here the term “brother” means “fellow believer” or “fellow Christian” (cf. BDAG 18 s.v. ἀδελφός 2.a), whether male or female. Concerning the familial connotations, see also the note on the first occurrence of this term in v. 15.
17 sn A quotation from Gen 2:24.
18 tn “And he”; here δέ (de) has not been translated.
19 tn Grk “And answering, he said.” This is somewhat redundant and has been simplified in the translation. Here δέ (de) has not been translated. Here the referent (“this boy”) has been specified in the translation for clarity.
20 tn Grk “and raise up seed,” an idiom for fathering children (L&N 23.59).
21 sn A quotation from Deut 25:5. This practice is called levirate marriage (see also Ruth 4:1-12; Mishnah, m. Yevamot; Josephus, Ant. 4.8.23 [4.254-256]). The levirate law is described in Deut 25:5-10. The brother of a man who died without a son had an obligation to marry his brother’s widow. This served several purposes: It provided for the widow in a society where a widow with no children to care for her would be reduced to begging, and it preserved the name of the deceased, who would be regarded as the legal father of the first son produced from that marriage.
22 tc ‡ Some important witnesses, including early Alexandrian and Western
23 tn Grk “saying.” The participle λέγων (legwn) is redundant here in contemporary English and has not been translated.
24 tn Grk “this”; the referent (the cup) has been specified in the translation for clarity.
25 sn A legion was a Roman army unit of about 6,000 soldiers, so twelve legions would be 72,000.
26 tn “Go…baptize…teach” are participles modifying the imperative verb “make disciples.” According to ExSyn 645 the first participle (πορευθέντες, poreuqentes, “Go”) fits the typical structural pattern for the attendant circumstance participle (aorist participle preceding aorist main verb, with the mood of the main verb usually imperative or indicative) and thus picks up the mood (imperative in this case) from the main verb (μαθητεύσατε, maqhteusate, “make disciples”). This means that semantically the action of “going” is commanded, just as “making disciples” is. As for the two participles that follow the main verb (βαπτίζοντες, baptizontes, “baptizing”; and διδάσκοντες, didaskontes, “teaching”), these do not fit the normal pattern for attendant circumstance participles, since they are present participles and follow the aorist main verb. However, some interpreters do see them as carrying additional imperative force in context. Others regard them as means, manner, or even result.
27 tc Although some scholars have denied that the trinitarian baptismal formula in the Great Commission was a part of the original text of Matthew, there is no ms support for their contention. F. C. Conybeare, “The Eusebian Form of the Text of Mt. 28:19,” ZNW 2 (1901): 275-88, based his view on a faulty reading of Eusebius’ quotations of this text. The shorter reading has also been accepted, on other grounds, by a few other scholars. For discussion (and refutation of the conjecture that removes this baptismal formula), see B. J. Hubbard, The Matthean Redaction of a Primitive Apostolic Commissioning (SBLDS 19), 163-64, 167-75; and Jane Schaberg, The Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit (SBLDS 61), 27-29.