Matthew 19 is the nineteenth chapter in the

Gospel of Matthew The Gospel of Matthew is the first book of the New Testament of the Bible and one of the three synoptic Gospels. It tells the story of who the author believes is Israel's messiah (Christ (title), Christ), Jesus, resurrection of Jesus, his res ...

in the

New Testament The New Testament (NT) is the second division of the Christian biblical canon. It discusses the teachings and person of Jesus in Christianity, Jesus, as well as events relating to Christianity in the 1st century, first-century Christianit ...

section of the Christian

Bible The Bible is a collection of religious texts that are central to Christianity and Judaism, and esteemed in other Abrahamic religions such as Islam. The Bible is an anthology (a compilation of texts of a variety of forms) originally writt ...

.Halley, Henry H. ''Halley's Bible Handbook'': an Abbreviated Bible Commentary, 23rd edition, Zondervan Publishing House, 1962 The book containing this chapter is anonymous, but early Christian tradition uniformly affirmed that Matthew composed this

Gospel Gospel originally meant the Christianity, Christian message ("the gospel"), but in the second century Anno domino, AD the term (, from which the English word originated as a calque) came to be used also for the books in which the message w ...

.Holman Illustrated Bible Handbook. Holman Bible Publishers, Nashville, Tennessee. 2012. Jesus commences his final journey to

Jerusalem Jerusalem is a city in the Southern Levant, on a plateau in the Judaean Mountains between the Mediterranean Sea, Mediterranean and the Dead Sea. It is one of the List of oldest continuously inhabited cities, oldest cities in the world, and ...

in this chapter, ministering through Perea. It can be seen as the starting point for the passion narrative.Allison, D., ''56. Matthew'', in Barton, J. and Muddiman, J. (2001)
The Oxford Bible Commentary
p. 868

Text

The original text was written in

Koine Greek Koine Greek (, ), also variously known as Hellenistic Greek, common Attic, the Alexandrian dialect, Biblical Greek, Septuagint Greek or New Testament Greek, was the koiné language, common supra-regional form of Greek language, Greek spoken and ...

. This chapter is divided into 30 verses.

Textual witnesses

Some early

manuscripts A manuscript (abbreviated MS for singular and MSS for plural) was, traditionally, any document written by hand or typewritten, as opposed to mechanically printed or reproduced in some indirect or automated way. More recently, the term has c ...

containing the text of this chapter are: * Papyrus 25 (4th century; extant: verses 1–3, 5–7, 9–10) *

Codex Vaticanus The Codex Vaticanus ( The Vatican, Bibl. Vat., Vat. gr. 1209), is a manuscript of the Greek Bible, containing the majority of the Old Testament and the majority of the New Testament. It is designated by siglum B or 03 in the Gregory-Aland numb ...

(AD 325–50) *

Codex Sinaiticus The Codex Sinaiticus (; Shelfmark: London, British Library, Add MS 43725), also called the Sinai Bible, is a fourth-century Christian manuscript of a Greek Bible, containing the majority of the Greek Old Testament, including the deuterocanonica ...

(330–60) * Papyrus 71 ( 350) *

Codex Bezae The Codex Bezae Cantabrigiensis is a bi-lingual Greek and Latin manuscript of the New Testament written in an uncial hand on parchment. It is designated by the siglum D or 05 in the Gregory-Aland numbering of New Testament manuscripts, and � ...

( 400) *

Codex Washingtonianus Codex Washingtonianus, Codex Washingtonensis, Codex Freerianus, also called the ''Washington Manuscript of the Gospels'', ''The Freer Gospel'' and ''The Freer Codex'', is a Greek uncial manuscript of the four Gospels, written on parchment. It is de ...

( 400) *

Codex Ephraemi Rescriptus The Codex Ephraemi Rescriptus (Paris, National Library of France, Greek 9) is a manuscript of the Greek Bible, written on parchment. It is designated by the siglum C or 04 in the Biblical manuscript#Gregory-Aland, Gregory-Aland numbering of New ...

( 450) * Codex Purpureus Rossanensis (6th century) *

Codex Petropolitanus Purpureus The Codex Petropolitanus Purpureus ("Tyrian purple, Purple Codex of Saint Petersburg"), designated by N or 022 (in the Biblical manuscript#Gregory-Aland, Gregory-Aland numbering of New Testament manuscripts), ε19 (in the Biblical manuscript#Von ...

(6th century; extant: verses 7–12) * Codex Sinopensis (6th century; extant: verses 3–10, 17–25)

Old Testament references

* : * : * : ; * : ; ;

Structure

This chapter can be grouped (with cross references to the other

synoptic gospels The gospels of Gospel of Matthew, Matthew, Gospel of Mark, Mark, and Gospel of Luke, Luke are referred to as the synoptic Gospels because they include many of the same stories, often in a similar sequence and in similar or sometimes identical ...

): * = Marriage and

Divorce Divorce (also known as dissolution of marriage) is the process of terminating a marriage or marital union. Divorce usually entails the canceling or reorganising of the legal duties and responsibilities of marriage, thus dissolving the M ...

() * = Jesus Teaches on

eunuchs A eunuch ( , ) is a male who has been castration, castrated. Throughout history, castration often served a specific social function. The earliest records for intentional castration to produce eunuchs are from the Sumerian city of Lagash in the 2 ...

* = Jesus Blesses the Little Children (; ) * = Jesus Counsels the Rich Young Ruler (; ) * = With God All Things Are Possible (; )

Locations

The events recorded in this chapter took place in

Galilee Galilee (; ; ; ) is a region located in northern Israel and southern Lebanon consisting of two parts: the Upper Galilee (, ; , ) and the Lower Galilee (, ; , ). ''Galilee'' encompasses the area north of the Mount Carmel-Mount Gilboa ridge and ...

and

Judea Judea or Judaea (; ; , ; ) is a mountainous region of the Levant. Traditionally dominated by the city of Jerusalem, it is now part of Palestine and Israel. The name's usage is historic, having been used in antiquity and still into the pres ...

beyond the

Jordan Jordan, officially the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan, is a country in the Southern Levant region of West Asia. Jordan is bordered by Syria to the north, Iraq to the east, Saudi Arabia to the south, and Israel and the occupied Palestinian ter ...

( Perea), before Jesus and his party later enter

Jericho Jericho ( ; , ) is a city in the West Bank, Palestine, and the capital of the Jericho Governorate. Jericho is located in the Jordan Valley, with the Jordan River to the east and Jerusalem to the west. It had a population of 20,907 in 2017. F ...

, on their way to

. Jesus leaves Galilee at this stage in Matthew's narrative (): the Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary reflects that "few readers probably note it as the Redeemer's Farewell to Galilee". He does not return there until after his

resurrection Resurrection or anastasis is the concept of coming back to life after death. Reincarnation is a similar process hypothesized by other religions involving the same person or deity returning to another body. The disappearance of a body is anothe ...

from the dead. Subsequently, the announcement of the

angel An angel is a spiritual (without a physical body), heavenly, or supernatural being, usually humanoid with bird-like wings, often depicted as a messenger or intermediary between God (the transcendent) and humanity (the profane) in variou ...

s that Jesus has risen ( Matthew 28:7), Jesus' own greeting to the women who meet him ( Matthew 28:10) and the final words of Matthew's gospel, the final appearance of Jesus and his commission to "make disciples of all the nations" ( Matthew 28:19) all refer back to the Galilee, which Jesus leaves at this time. In , after blessing the little children, Jesus "departed from there", but no indication is given of where he went. The

Jerusalem Bible ''The Jerusalem Bible'' (JB or TJB) is an English translation of the Bible published in 1966 by Darton, Longman & Todd. As a Catholic Bible, it includes 73 books: the 39 books shared with the Hebrew Bible, along with the seven deuterocanonical ...

renders this text as "

esus Esus is a Celtic god known from iconographic, epigraphic, and literary sources. The 1st-century CE Roman poet Lucan's epic ''Pharsalia'' mentions Esus, Taranis, and Teutates as gods to whom the Gauls sacrificed humans. This rare mention of Cel ...

went on his way". The writer of the

Pulpit Commentary The ''Pulpit Commentary'' is a homiletic commentary on the Bible first published between 1880 and 1919

confidently asserts that at this point Jesus "set out from Peraea, journeying towards Jerusalem", and theologian John Gill agrees with this interpretation. In the rich young man "went away" from his encounter with Jesus, leaving Jesus to speak with his disciples about the difficulty faced by "a rich man ishingto enter the kingdom of heaven".

Verse 1

:''When Jesus had finished saying these things, he left Galilee and went to the region of Judea beyond the Jordan.'' The (''kai egeneto ote etelesen o Iēsous tous logous toutous'') contains a formula which Matthew has already used several times: in Matthew 7:28, 11:1 (''when Jesus had finished instructing his twelve disciples'') and 13:53 (''when Jesus had finished these parables''). Meyer, H. A. W. (1880)
Meyer's NT Commentary
on Matthew 19, translated from the German sixth edition, accessed on 17 August 2024 Eduard Schweizer treats the formula as a section divider.

Verse 2

:''And great multitudes followed Him, and He healed them there.'' Johann Bengel notes that "there" is not specific: it refers to many places where cures were performed.

Verse 3

:''Some Pharisees came to him to test him. They asked, "Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife for any and every reason?"'' In the

Textus Receptus The (Latin for 'received text') is the succession of printed Greek New Testament texts starting with Erasmus' ''Novum Instrumentum omne'' (1516) and including the editions of Robert Estienne, Stephanus, Theodore Beza, Beza, the House of Elzevir ...

, the sentence refers to , (''the Pharisees'') but the word 'the' (οι) is excluded from later critical editions, hence many translations speak of "some" Pharisees. Jesus' teaching on divorce has already been set out in the

Sermon on the Mount The Sermon on the Mount ( anglicized from the Matthean Vulgate Latin section title: ) is a collection of sayings spoken by Jesus of Nazareth found in the Gospel of Matthew (chapters 5, 6, and 7). that emphasizes his moral teachings. It is th ...

, but here the teaching is further elucidated. The conversation concerning divorce and marriage given in Mark 10:1ff. is, on the whole, set out in "a more original shape".

Verse 10

:''His disciples said to Him, "If such is the case of the man with his wife, it is better not to marry".'' The (''ou sympherei gamēsai'') may be translated as "it is better not to marry" or "it is not better to marry". Arthur Carr, in the Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges, describes Jesus' ruling as "a revolution in thought brought to pass by Christ".

Verses 16–24

:''If you want to be perfect, go, sell your possessions and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me.'' These verses convey the episode of Jesus and the rich young man, concluding with "it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for the rich to enter into the Kingdom of Heaven". Rembrandt The Hundred Guilder Print

Arts

The events of this chapter are combined in

Rembrandt Rembrandt Harmenszoon van Rijn (; ; 15 July 1606 – 4 October 1669), mononymously known as Rembrandt was a Dutch Golden Age painter, printmaker, and Drawing, draughtsman. He is generally considered one of the greatest visual artists in ...

's '' Hundred Guilder Print''.Hundred Guilder Print

Rijksmuseum The Rijksmuseum () is the national museum of the Netherlands dedicated to Dutch arts and history and is located in Amsterdam. The museum is located at the Museum Square in the borough of Amsterdam South, close to the Van Gogh Museum, the S ...

. Retrieved 4 September 2011.

References

External links

* King James Bible - Wikisource
English Translation with Parallel Latin Vulgate''Online Bible'' at GospelHall.org
(ESV, KJV, Darby, American Standard Version, Bible in Basic English)
Multiple bible versions at ''Bible Gateway''
(NKJV, NIV, NRSV etc.) {{Gospel of Matthew Gospel of Matthew chapters