Bible Study series: Matthew 26:1-5. The chief priests and elders met in Caiaphas’s courtyard to figure out how to accomplish their diabolical plan.
A warm welcome to this Bible study! I write to learn, so let’s learn together. I also translate to learn. The translations are mine, unless otherwise noted. If you would like to see many others, please click on this link:
In the next link to the original chapter, I comment more and offer the Greek text. At the bottom you will find a “Summary and Conclusion” section geared toward discipleship. Check it out!
In this post, links are provided for further study.
Let’s begin.
Scripture: Matthew 26:1-5
1 And so it happened that when Jesus finished all these words, he said to his disciples, 2 “You know that after two days the Passover takes place, and the Son of Man is handed over to be crucified.” 3 At that time the chief priests and the elders of the people assembled in the courtyard of the high priest named Caiaphas. 4 Together they plotted to seize Jesus by stealth and kill him. 5 But they were saying, “Not at the feast, so that there is no uproar among the people.” (Matt. 26:1-5)
Comments:
Here is a list of the major events in Matthew’s narrative:
1.. Preparation of the disciples (26:1-46)
2.. Arrest at Gethsemane (26:47-56)
3.. Trial before Caiaphas (26:57-68)
4.. Peter’s three denials (26:69-75)
5.. Trial before Pilate (27:1-2, 11-26), with the interwoven account of Judas’s suicide (27:3-10)
6.. Jesus mocked and crucified (27:27-56)
7.. Jesus buried by Joseph of Arimathea (27:57-61)
8.. Jesus’s resurrection and its denial (27:62-28:15)
9.. The Great Commission (28:16-20)
Source: Turner, p. 613
1-2:
This pericope (puh-RIH-koh-pea) or section or unit of Scripture launches the final, large climax (26-28) of Matthew’s Gospel and indeed of Jesus’s life. Matthew sets up the scene and reintroduces the main characters: Jesus, his disciples, chief priests (Luke includes teachers of the law), elders of the people, the high priest Caiaphas, and the people (crowds). There are some minor differences, which I cover in the original post. Or you can read these posts:
Solving Passover Chronology Problems Between John and Synoptics
13. Are There Contradictions in the Gospels?
14. Similarities among John’s Gospel and the Synoptic Gospels
Celebrate the huge number of similarities, not these few differences of timing, resolved by thematic purposes.
See Mark 14:2 for a similar analysis:
“disciples”:
“Son of Man”: it both means the powerful, divine Son of Man (Dan. 7:13-14) and the human son of man—Ezekiel himself—in the book of Ezekiel (numerous references). Jesus was and still is in heaven both divine and human. The title could be rightly translated as Son of Humanity.
4. Titles of Jesus: The Son of Man
“At that time”: this phrase translates the conjunction tote (pronounced toh-teh), which is usually translated as “then,” but the Shorter Lexicon also says “at that time” in its very first definition. Matthew envisages two simultaneous events. Jesus speaks of his death, while the Jerusalem establishment, who watch over the temple, plot to kill him. This is a little literary flourish in Matthew’s narrative or story.
“chief priests”:
“elders”:
You can read about them in this post, where the Jewish groups are placed in alphabetical order:
Quick Reference to Jewish Groups in Gospels and Acts
Caiaphas: Annas (Luke 3:2; John 18:13, 24; Acts 4:6) ruled from A.D. 6-15 and succeeded in getting his five sons appointed chief priests and son-in-law Joseph Caiaphas (high priest from A.D. 18-36/37).
4:
They did not want to arrest or seize Jesus because they did not want a riot among the people. Numerous Galileans were in Jerusalem for the Passover, and Jesus was their “hometown hero.” No doubt others, like the Jerusalemites, treasured him too. The crowd acclaimed him as a prophet (Matt. 21:11). At this stage they would have rioted on seeing him arrested.
Let’s talk about the feast.
Passover comes from the noun pascha (pronounced pah-skha, for the -ch- is hard). This is one of three spring festivals required by law (Tabernacles or Booths and Pentecost are the other two). Let’s define Passover. BDAG is considered by many to be the authoritative lexicon of the Greek NT. It says: (1) An annual Israelite festival commemorating Israel’s exodus from Egypt, the Passover, celebrated on the 14th of the month Nisan and continuing into the early hours of the 15th … Ex 12-13 … This was followed immediately by the Feast of Unleavened Bread on the 15th to 21st. Popular usage merged the two festivals and treated them as a unity, as they were for practical purposes (see Lk 22:1 and Mk 14:12)”…. (2) “the lamb sacrificed for observance of the Passover, Passover lamb …figurative of Christ and his bloody death 1 Cor. 5:7 … eat the Passover Mt 26:17; Mk 14:12b, 14; Lk 22:11, 15; J 18:28.” (3) “The Passover meal Mt 26:19; Mk 14:16; Lk 22:8” …. (4) “in later Christian usage the Easter festival.”
The key points in that definition: popular usage merged Passover and Unleavened Bread for practical reasons; the Greek can be translated as the lamb itself, so the figurative usage is easy to apply to Christ’s sacrifice (1 Cor. 5:7). (To this day, modern Greeks celebrate the pascha by eating a lamb.) The latter usage of the term “Easter” is the church’s choice to take over a pagan festival. You can certainly skip the term if it bothers your conscience and biblical values.
Here are the basic facts about the two festivals:
(1).. Passover
Time of year in OT: First Month: Aviv / Nisan 14th day (for one day)
Time of Year in Modern Calendar: March / April (second Passover is one month later according to Num. 9:10-11)
How to celebrate it:
(1) A whole lamb by the number of people in household, being ready to share with nearest neighbor; (2) one-year-old males without defects, taken from sheep and goats; (3) take care of them until the fourteenth day; (4) then all the community is to slaughter it at twilight; (5) put the blood on the tops and sides of the doorframes of the houses where the lambs are eaten, with bitter herbs and bread without yeast; (6) that night eat the lambs roasted over fire, with the head, legs and internal organs, not raw or boiled (7) do not leave any of it until morning; if there is any leftover, burn it; (8) the cloak must be tucked into belt; sandals on feet and staff in hand; (9) eat in haste in order to leave Egypt soon (Exod. 12:4-11).
Purpose: Exodus from Egypt and Protection from Judgment:
“The blood will be a sign for you on the houses where you are, and when I see the blood, I will pass over you. No destructive plague will touch you when I strike Egypt” (Exod. 12:13).
Other Scriptures: Exod. 12:4-14; Num. 28:16
(2).. Unleavened Bread
Time of Year in OT: Same month, 15th to 21st days, for seven days
Time of Year in Modern Calendar: Same month, on the fifteenth day, which lasts for seven days
How to celebrate it:
Exod. 12:14-20 says that the Israelites were to eat bread without yeast for seven days, from the fourteenth day to the twenty-first day. On the first day they were to remove the yeast from their houses. If they eat anything with yeast from the first to the seventh days they shall be cut off (excommunicated), and this was true for foreigner or native-born. They must not do work on those days, except to prepare to prepare the food for everyone to eat. On the first days they are to hold a sacred assembly (meet at the tabernacle) and another one on the seventh day.
Other Scriptures: Exod. 12:14-20; Num. 28:16
Purpose: see the previous section “Passover.”
Paul writes in 1 Cor. 5:6-8:
Don’t you know that a little yeast leavens the whole batch of dough? 7 Get rid of the old yeast, so that you may be a new unleavened batch—as you really are. For Christ, our Passover lamb, has been sacrificed. 8 Therefore let us keep the Festival, not with the old bread leavened with malice and wickedness, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth. (1 Cor. 5:6-8)
The ancient Israelites were not supposed to eat leavened bread during this time. They were in such a hurry to leave Egypt that they could not wait for the yeast to raise the lump of dough. In this context yeast symbolized sin and hindrance. We are to keep the Passover, but only in a spiritual sense: “with sincerity and faith.” We are to get rid of the old yeast or moral corruption in our lives and the life of the church. Christ is our Passover lamb, and he protects us from God judicial wrath or judgment, when we are in union with him.
Festivals in Leviticus 23 from a NT Perspective
As we saw in vv. 1-2 and 1 Cor. 5:6-8, Jesus is our Passover lamb. And so, Matthew draws the comparison between Jesus and the Passover lamb. His blood smeared on the door of your heart protects you from God’s judgment at the final judgment. However, please be aware that God is judging / evaluating you every minute of every day. Sometimes he likes what he sees, and at other times he tells you that you need an attitude adjustment.
See Heb. 12: 5-11, which talks about the discipline of the Lord out of his love. And 1 Peter 4:17 says that judgment begins with the household of God—now, here on earth.
Everyone Shall Be Judged by Their Works and Words
In v. 5, “uproar” can be translated as “riot.”
Let’s discuss the Passover in relation to the Last Supper. There are three options if one intends to harmonize the four Gospel accounts.
(1).. The Last Supper was not on the Passover but was a “New Passover” which Jesus inaugurated and celebrated early with the disciples. The Jewish Passover (Nisan 15) began on Friday evening as John’s Gospel indicates and continued through Saturday afternoon. Jesus inaugurated the New Passover on Nisan 14, which began on Thursday evening, running through Friday.
(2).. The Last Supper was the Jewish Passover. Jesus celebrated the Passover with his disciples on Thursday evening (Nisan 15) as the Synoptics suggest and was crucified the next morning (still Nisan 15, which ran Thursday evening through Friday afternoon). John’s reference to “the Preparation of the Passover (John 19:14; cf. 19:31, 42) does not means preparation for the day of Passover week, the day the lambs were slaughtered but preparation for the Sabbath of Passover week (i.e. Friday before sundown). This meaning of “preparation” is common and appears in Mark 15:42. To eat the Passover (John 18:28) means the general sense to celebrate the Feast of Unleavened Bread.
(3).. The Jewish Passover was celebrated at two different times. Nisan falls on two days for two groups or the Passover was spread out over two days, perhaps because of the large number of lambs to be slaughtered. Celebrated on two days for the (a) Sadducees and Pharisees; (b) Galileans and Judeans; (c) visiting pilgrims and local residents. Or Jesus was following the solar calendar used at Qumran and in the Book of Jubilees, where Nisan 15 began on Tuesday. The religious leaders were following the traditional lunar calendar, where Nisan 15 fell on Friday evening.
Mark L. Strauss, Mark: Zondervan Exegetical Commentary on the New Testament (Zondervan, 2014), pp. 617-18.
Once again, see this post:
Solving Passover Chronology Problems Between John and Synoptics
Also see John 13 (after the first long pericope) for more explanations for harmonization of the four Gospels:
At that link, the discussion is narrowed down more than Strauss has done.
France produces a table (which I slightly modify):
After sunset: disciples ask about and make preparations
During the night: Passover meal held; walk out to Gethsemane; arrest and preliminary hearing of Jesus
At daybreak: transfer to Pilate; formal trial and conviction
Morning/noon: crucifixion
Afternoon: official date for sacrifice of lambs
France, R. T. The Gospel of Mark: A Commentary on the Greek Text (Eerdmans, 2002).
Also see this offsite commentary: Barry D. Smith, “The Chronology of the Last Supper,” Westminster Theological Journal 53:1 (1991): 29-45. He too stretches out the meal and says that the labels “Passover” and “Unleavened Bread” were used interchangeably, in the NT and various Jewish sources.
Here is a shorter version of Smith’s study:
Thomas Brewer. “Does John’s last supper chronology differ from the other Gospels?” Christian Post. 13 May 2022.
If either of those offsite links go dead, just copy and paste the bibliographical references in a search engine.
Also, please see the Table on Passion Week at the end of this post.
Once again, you can decide or work up your own chronology.
GrowApp for Matt. 26:1-5
1. God is creating your life story. In all stories, there is always opposition. What is the opposition to your new life in Christ? How do you overcome this opposition?
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SOURCES AND MORE
To see the bibliography, please click on this link and scroll down to the bottom. You will also find a “Summary and Conclusion” for discipleship.
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