Discovery BoxMatthew 10:29 
Context10:29 Aren’t two sparrows sold for a penny? 1 Yet not one of them falls to the ground apart from your Father’s will. 2
Matthew 12:5
Context12:5 Or have you not read in the law that the priests in the temple desecrate the Sabbath and yet are not guilty?
Matthew 20:19
Context20:19 and will turn him over to the Gentiles to be mocked and flogged severely 3 and crucified. 4 Yet 5 on the third day, he will be raised.”
1 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.
2 tn Or “to the ground without the knowledge and consent of your Father.”
3 tn Traditionally, “scourged” (the term means to beat severely with a whip, L&N 19.9). BDAG 620 s.v. μαστιγόω 1.a states, “The ‘verberatio’ is denoted in the passion predictions and explicitly as action by non-Israelites Mt 20:19; Mk 10:34; Lk 18:33”; the verberatio was the beating given to those condemned to death in the Roman judicial system. Here the term μαστιγόω (mastigow) has been translated “flog…severely” to distinguish it from the term φραγελλόω (fragellow) used in Matt 27:26; Mark 15:15.
4 sn Crucifixion was the cruelest form of punishment practiced by the Romans. Roman citizens could not normally undergo it. It was reserved for the worst crimes, like treason and evasion of due process in a capital case. The Roman historian Cicero called it “a cruel and disgusting penalty” (Against Verres 2.5.63-66 §§163-70); Josephus (J. W. 7.6.4 [7.203]) called it the worst of deaths.
5 tn Here καί (kai) has been translated as “yet” to indicate the contrast present in this context.
