¹ tn Grk “But answering, the centurion replied.” The participle ἀποκριθείς (apokriqeis) is redundant and has not been translated.

² tn Grk “before your face” (an idiom).

³ sn The quotation is primarily from Mal 3:1 with pronouns from Exod 23:20. Here is the forerunner who points the way to the arrival of God’s salvation. His job is to prepare and guide the people, as the cloud did for Israel in the desert.

⁴ sn A yoke is a wooden bar or frame that joins two animals like oxen or horses so that they can pull a wagon, plow, etc. together. Here it is used figuratively of the restrictions that a teacher or rabbi would place on his followers.

⁵ tn Grk “he”; the referent (the landowner) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

⁶ tn Grk “And answering, he said to one of them.” This construction is somewhat redundant in contemporary English and has been simplified in the translation.

⁷ tn Grk “for a denarius a day.”

⁸ tn Here δέ (de) has been translated as “So” to indicate that the clause is a result of the deliberations of the leaders.

⁹ tn Grk “answering Jesus, they said.” This construction is somewhat awkward in English and has been simplified in the translation.

¹⁰ sn Very few questions could have so completely revealed the wicked intentions of the religious leaders. Jesus’ question revealed the motivation of the religious leaders and exposed them for what they really were – hypocrites. They indicted themselves when they cited only two options and chose neither of them (“We do not know”). The point of Matt 21:23-27 is that no matter what Jesus said in response to their question, they were not going to believe it and would in the end use it against him.

¹¹ sn Neither will I tell you. Though Jesus gave no answer, the analogy he used to their own question makes his view clear. His authority came from heaven.

¹² tn On this phrase, see BDAG 844 s.v. ποῖος 2.a.γ. This is exactly the same phrase as in v. 23.

¹³ sn A quotation from Exod 3:6.

¹⁴ sn He is not God of the dead but of the living. Jesus’ point was that if God could identify himself as God of the three old patriarchs, then they must still be alive when God spoke to Moses; and so they must be raised.

¹⁵ sn An allusion to Ps 22:8.

¹⁶ tn The Greek word ἰδού (idou) has been translated here as “remember” (BDAG 468 s.v. 1.c).

¹⁷ sn I am with you. Matthew’s Gospel begins with the prophecy that the Savior’s name would be “Emmanuel, that is, ‘God with us,’” (1:23, in which the author has linked Isa 7:14 and 8:8, 10 together) and it ends with Jesus’ promise to be with his disciples forever. The Gospel of Matthew thus forms an inclusio about Jesus in his relationship to his people that suggests his deity.

¹⁸ tc Most mss (A^c Θ Ë¹³ Ï it sy) have ἀμήν (amhn, “amen”) at the end of v. 20. Such a conclusion is routinely added by scribes to NT books because a few of these books originally had such an ending (cf. Rom 16:27; Gal 6:18; Jude 25). A majority of Greek witnesses have the concluding ἀμήν in every NT book except Acts, James, and 3 John (and even in these books, ἀμήν is found in some witnesses). It is thus a predictable variant. Further, no good reason exists for the omission of the particle in significant and early witnesses such as א A* B D W ˹ 33 al lat sa.