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MATTHEW 
is your opinion: Is it lawful to pay the census tax to Caesar or not?” 18Knowing their malice, Jesus said, “Why are you testing me, you hypocrites? 19* Show me the coin that pays the census tax.”Then they handed him the Roman coin. 20He said to them, “Whose image is this and whose inscription?” 21e They replied, “Caesar’s.”* At that he said to them, “Then repay to Caesar what belongs to Caesar and to God what belongs to God.” 22When they heard this they were amazed, and leaving him they went away.
The Question About the Resurrection.* 23f On that day Sadducees approached him, saying that there is no resurrection.* They put this question to him, 24g saying, “Teacher, Moses said, ‘If a man dies* without children, his brother shall marry his wife and raise up descendants for his brother.’ 25Now there were seven brothers among us. The first married and died and, having no descendants, left his wife to his brother. 26The same happened with the second and the third, through all seven. 27Finally the woman died. 28Now at the resurrection, of the seven, whose wife will she be? For they all had been married to her.” 29* Jesus said to them in reply, “You are misled because you do not know the scriptures or the power of God. 30At the resurrection they neither marry nor are given in marriage but are like the angels in heaven. 31And concerning the resurrection of the dead, have you not read what was said to you* by God, 32h ‘I am the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob’? He is not the God of the dead but of the living.” 33When the crowds heard this, they were astonished at his teaching. The Greatest Commandment.* 34i When the Pharisees heard that he had silenced the Sadducees, they gathered together, 35and one of them [a scholar of the law]* tested him by asking, 36“Teacher,* which commandment in the law is the greatest?” 37j He said to him,* “You
22:23 The Sadducees were a sect within Judaism which (unlike the Pharisees) rejected tradition and focused only on the word of God in the Torah, the rst ve books of the Bible. Also unlike the Pharisees, they rejected the notion of the resurrection of the dead. Jesus explains that heaven is not like earth, and our relationships will not be the same there as they are here. And knowing their love for the Torah, Jesus challenges them with a passage in Genesis: God is living, and therefore all are alive in God.
* [22:17] Is it lawful: the law to which they refer is the law of God. * [22:19] They handed him the Roman coin: their readiness in producing the money implies their use of it and their acceptance of the nancial advantages of the Roman administration in Palestine. * [22:21] Caesar’s: the emperor Tiberius (A.D. 14–37). Repay to Caesar what belongs to Caesar: those who willingly use the coin that is Caesar’s should repay him in kind. The answer avoids taking sides in the question of the lawfulness of the tax. To God what belongs to God: Jesus raises the debate to a new level. Those who have hypocritically asked about tax in respect to its relation to the law of God should be concerned rather with repaying God with
the good deeds that are his due; cf. Mt 21:41, 43.
* [22:23–33] Here Jesus’ opponents are the Sadducees, members
of the powerful priestly party of his time; see note on Mt 3:7. Denying the resurrection of the dead, a teaching of relatively late origin in Judaism (cf. Dn 12:2), they appeal to a law of the Pentateuch (Dt 25:5–10) and present a case based on it that would make resurrection from the dead ridiculous (Mt 22:24–28). Jesus chides them for knowing neither the scriptures nor the power of God (Mt 22:29). His argument in respect to God’s power contradicts the notion, held even by many proponents as well as by opponents of the teaching, that the life of those raised from the dead would be essentially a continuation of the type of life they had had before death (Mt 22:30). His argument based on the scriptures (Mt 22:31–32) is of a sort that was accepted as valid among Jews of the time.
* [22:23] Saying that there is no resurrection: in the Marcan parallel (Mk 22:12, 18) the Sadducees are correctly de ned as those “who say there is no resurrection”; see also Lk 20:27. Matthew’s rewording of Mark can mean that these particular Sadducees deny the resurrection, which would imply that he was not aware that the denial was characteristic of the party. For some scholars this is an indication of his being a Gentile Christian; see note on Mt 21:4–5.
* [22:24] ‘If a man dies. . .his brother’: this is known as the “law
of the levirate,” from the Latin levir, “brother-in-law.” Its purpose
was to continue the family line of the deceased brother (Dt 25:6). * [22:29] The sexual relationships of this world will be transcended;
the risen body will be the work of the creative power of God.
* [22:31–32] Cf. Ex 3:6. In the Pentateuch, which the Sadducees accepted as normative for Jewish belief and practice, God speaks even now (to you) of himself as the God of the patriarchs who died centuries ago. He identi es himself in relation to them, and because of their relation to him, the living God, they too are alive. This might appear no argument for the resurrection, but simply for life after death as conceived in Wis 3:1–3. But the general thought of early rst-century Judaism was not in uenced by that conception; for it human immortality was connected with the
existence of the body.
* [22:34–40] The Marcan parallel (Mk 12:28–34) is an exchange
between Jesus and a scribe who is impressed by the way in which Jesus has conducted himself in the previous controversy (Mk 12:28), who compliments him for the answer he gives him (Mk 12:32), and who is said by Jesus to be “not far from the kingdom of God” (Mk 12:34). Matthew has sharpened that scene. The questioner, as the representative of other Pharisees, tests Jesus by his question (Mt 22:34–35), and both his reaction to Jesus’ reply and Jesus’ commendation of him are lacking.
* [22:35] [A scholar of the law]: meaning “scribe.” Although this reading is supported by the vast majority of textual witnesses, it is the only time that the Greek word so translated occurs in Matthew. It is relatively frequent in Luke, and there is reason to think that it may have been added here by a copyist since it occurs in the Lucan parallel (Lk 10:25–28). Tested: see note on Mt 19:3.
* [22:36] For the devout Jew all the commandments were to be kept with equal care, but there is evidence of preoccupation in Jewish sources with the question put to Jesus.
* [22:37–38] Cf. Dt 6:5. Matthew omits the rst part of Mark’s fuller quotation (Mk 12:29; Dt 6:4–5), probably because he considered its monotheistic emphasis needless for his church. The love of
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e. [22:21] Rom 13:7. g. [22:24] Gn 38:8; Dt 25:5–6. i. [22:34–40] Mk 12:28–34; Lk 10:25–28. f. [22:23–33] Mk 12:18–27; Lk 20:27–40. h. [22:32] Ex 3:6. j. [22:37] Dt 6:5.