Matthew 3

Matthew 3:1

But when Herod was dead. This event was the signal for the return to Judea. He died in the spring of the year 750 after the building of Rome, just before the passover. This would place his death nearly four years before the Christian era, the date from which we reckon our time. That was not fixed upon until five hundred years after the birth of Christ, and was fixed erroneously.

Matthew 3:2

Arise . . . go into the land of Israel. Notice that Joseph is not required to return to Bethlehem or to Judea, but simply to the land of Israel. They are dead which sought the young child’s life. As “they” is plural, there must have been the death of more than one of those who sought the death of the Lord. Five days before the death of Herod he slew his son Antipater, a prince of dark, cruel, treacherous character, whom he expected to succeed him. Nothing could be more likely than that he had fully sympathized in the scheme of child-murder at Bethlehem. Now both, “they that sought the young child’s life”, were dead.

Matthew 3:3

And he arose. and took the young child. He obeyed as promptly as before, waiting obediently upon the Divine will. Came into the land of Israel. This included not only Judea, but Samaria, Galilee and the country beyond the Jordan. The part first reached by Joseph on his return would be Judea.

Matthew 3:4

When he heard that Archelaus did reign in Judea. Archelaus is one of the four sons of Herod, who are named in the New Testament. See PNT Matthew 2:1. He was afraid to go thither. This implies that he had designed to return thither.

Matthew 3:5

And he came and dwelt in a city called Nazareth. Matthew makes no mention of the previous residence at Nazareth, and he now names it first when it becomes the home of Christ. It was an obscure village, nestled in the hills about five hundred feet above the plain of Esdraelon, on the side of Galilee. It is not named in the Old Testament, was probably a small town in the time of Christ, but now has about 6,000 inhabitants. That it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the prophets. Not by one prophet, but the summing up of a number of prophecies. No prophet had declared in express terms that he should be called a Nazarene. They, however, did apply to Christ the term “Nezer”, from which Nazareth is derived; the Nazarites, of whom Samson was one, were typical of Christ; the meanness and contempt in which Nazareth was held was itself a prophecy of one who “was despised and rejected”. See Isaiah 53:3 11:1 Jer 23:5 33:15 Zechariah 3:8 6:12.

Matthew 3:7

John the Baptist and the Baptism of Christ SUMMARY OF Matthew 3. The Preaching of John. The Kingdom of Heaven. John’s Raiment and Food. The Great Multitudes. The Pharisee and Sadducees. Baptism of the Holy Spirit and Fire. Jesus Comes for Baptism. Jesus Baptized in the Jordan. The Anointing of the Spirit. The Voice from Heaven. In those days. Many years after the incidents of the last chapter; somewhere from twenty-five to thirty. Came John the Baptist. Called the Baptist or “Baptizer” because he baptized the people. He came forth as a preacher and reformer. He was the subject of prophecy (Isaiah 40:3 Malachi 3:1); his birth was announced by an angel; he was of a priestly family, the son of Zacharias and Elizabeth, the cousin of Mary. He was now about thirty years old. Preaching in the wilderness of Judea. A region thinly inhabited, used mostly for pasture, a rocky tract in the eastern part of Judea and west of the Jordan and the Dead Sea.

Matthew 3:8

Repent ye. The great rite of John was baptism, but the great duty commanded was repentance. Repentance is more than a sorrow for sin; it is a determination to abandon it and live a new life. It means a change of the will, or heart, new purposes, a determination to leave off sinning. Sorrow is not repentance, but “godly sorrow worketh repentance” (2 Corinthians 7:10). The kingdom of heaven. The long expected kingdom ruled by the Messiah King, predicted by the prophets, and especially by Daniel (Daniel 2:44). The announcement of this anxiously-waited-for kingdom thrilled all Judea. Is at hand. It is to be noted: (1) That the kingdom to which he referred was in the future, but near. It did not begin with Abraham, or David, or even with John the Baptist. (2) It is the kingdom of “heaven”, not an earthly kingdom, and hence, must have a King sent from heaven. That King was not yet revealed to the public, but we have seen that one was born at Bethlehem who was to be the King. John was not the founder, but the herald of the coming King.

Matthew 3:9

The voice of one crying in the wilderness. John was called a “voice”, (1) because the whole man was a sermon; (2) because he would call not attention to himself as a person, but only to the Savior, whose way he had come to prepare. For the prophecy see Isaiah 40:3. Prepare ye the way of the Lord. The messengers sent before the eastern kings prepared the way for the chariots and armies of their monarchs. A “king’s highway” had to be carried through the open land of the wilderness, valleys filled up, and hills leveled. Interpreted in its spiritual application, the wilderness was the world lying in evil. Make his paths straight. Roads that have not been properly directed at the beginning. So are the ways of men when no preparation has been made for the GREAT KING. When John cried, “Make his paths straight”, he meant, “Stop your crooked ways”.

Matthew 3:10

Raiment of camel’s hair. See 2 Kings 1:8. Not the camel’s skin with hair on it, but a garment made of the shaggier camel’s hair, woven in a coarse fabric. It was recognized as a garb of the prophets (Zechariah 13:4), and is still worn in the East by the poor. A leathern girdle about his loins. The “’leathern’ girdle” may be seen around the body of the common laborer. It fastens the loose raiment of the East about the waist. His meat. His food. Locusts. Permitted to the Jews as an article of food (Leviticus 11:22), and still used by the poorer classes in Arabia, Egypt and Nubia. They are a large, voracious insect, much like the Rocky Mountain grasshopper. Wild honey. Honey deposited by wild swarms of bees in the rocks. So abundant was it that Palestine was described as “flowing with milk and honey”. John was no epicure, and used such food as the wilderness provided.

Matthew 3:11

There went out to him Jerusalem, and all Judea. These expressions must be taken, not as meaning every individual, but as showing the wonderful impression produced by his preaching. All Judea, and among the rest, the people of Jerusalem came.

Matthew 3:12

And were baptized of him in the Jordan. Note that the baptism took place not at, but in, in the Jordan. The Jordan, the principal stream of Palestine, rises in the mountains of Lebanon, runs south into the sea of Galilee, leaves it and descends southward along Galilee, Samaria and Judea, to the Dead Sea. In many places the streams is fordable, and furnishes good facilities for baptizing. Confessing their sins. Baptism itself, a burial in water, a “baptism into death”, a symbol of the burial of one who dies to the old life, is a confession of sins. There was, perhaps, also a verbal confession. The acknowledgment of sin, repentance and baptism are prescribed as conditions of pardon.

Matthew 3:13

When he saw many of the Pharisees and Sadducees. The two principal religious sects. (1) The first originated in the time of the Maccabees, and were a kind of Jewish Puritans, but had in the Savior’s time degenerated into a set of formalists, who paid far more attention to outward forms than to inner life. They were scrupulous in observing ceremonies, very orthodox, but were filled with spiritual pride. From an early period of Christ’s ministry they opposed him. (2) The other principal sect of the Jews, the Sadducees, derived their name from Sadduc, the founder of the sect; were irreligious, sensual and skeptical. They were materialists, and denied “angel, spirit, or the resurrection of the dead” (Acts 23:8). Annas and Caiaphas, the high priests, were Sadducees. Generation of vipers. The guilty corrupted race had become a generation of vipers; not only poisonous, hateful to God, hating one another. The viper is hateful, full of hate, and dangerous. Who hath warned you? Malachi (Malachi 3:2 4:5) had predicted the wrath to come. John’s question expresses doubt of their sincerity.

Matthew 3:14

Bring forth therefore fruits meet for repentance. There is no repentance whatever unless there is a change of life as the result. The change of life is the proof of the change of heart.

Matthew 3:15

Think not to say . . . We have Abraham to [our] father. They believed that Abraham;s race was to be saved, if all else were destroyed. John destroys the refuge of sin. Of these stones. Pointing, perhaps, to the stones of the Jordan. In thus sinking the higher claims of Judaism, John points to the Gentiles, who were to become Abraham’s children by faith (Galatians 3:29).

Matthew 3:16

The axe is laid unto the root of the trees. A sign that the tree is to be cut down. The tree meant is the Jewish nation. Every tree. A fruitless fig-tree was afterward made by our Lord the representative of the whole Jewish nation (Lu 13:6-9), but here John declares a universal law. What does not bear fruit shall finally be destroyed. Cast into the fire. When the tree is not fruitful, or bears useless fruit, it is fit for nothing but to be burned.

Matthew 3:17

I indeed baptize you with water unto repentance. His baptism was only a water baptism. The King could send the Holy Spirit, and give a mightier baptism, in addition to the outward baptism. Mightier than I. In that he can “perform” all that I only “promise”. Whose shoes I am not worthy to bear. The duty of a slave, or one greatly inferior in rank. In the Orient sandals are generally removed on entering a house, and left in charge of a servant, who brings them again when needed. So humble was John, compared with the King, that he was hardly worthy to be his servant. He shall baptize with the Holy Ghost. In order to know what is meant we must refer to the fulfillment. On the day of Pentecost occurred such a baptism, the first so recognized in the New Testament. Then the spirits of the apostles were overwhelmed by the Divine Spirit, so that they spoke as he gave them utterance. It was Christ who “shed forth” the baptism of that occasion. This would be plainer had the Greek “en”, here rendered “with”, has been rendered “in”, after the word “baptize”.

Of the 2,600 occurrences of “en” in the Greek New Testament, it is rendered “in” in the Common Version 2,045 times. The American Commitee of Revisers in the Revised Version (see margin) so renders it in connection with the word “baptize”, and is doubtless right. These great scholars, mostly learned Pedo-baptists, would say, “Baptize ‘in’ water”, “Baptize ‘in’ the Holy Spirit”. And [with] fire. The term “fire” is used in Matthew 3:10, and there means a destroying agency; it is used again in Matthew 3:12 in the same sense; it is used in Matthew 3:11, also, the intervening verse, and must be used in exactly the same sense as in the other two verses. It cannot mean a curse in Matthew 3:10,12, and a blessing in Matthew 3:11, without a word of explanation. It is strange, therefore, that all commentators should not agree that the baptism of fire is a baptism of trial and suffering. There were two classes before John. Some would repent and be baptized finally in the Holy Spirit; there were others who would remain impenitent, and be baptized in the awful trials that would come upon Israel.

Matthew 3:12 explains this. John says in it that there is the wheat and the chaff; one shall be gathered into the garner and the other burned.