Before reading this post, you should certainly should check out part one and part two in order to have an idea of where the discussion is headed.
Now that we have looked at the overall teaching of Jesus in Matthew 24 and looked at the rough p’shat readings of these parables, it’s time to wrestle with the potential details, the remezes, and the drash meaning that lies underneath the packaged teaching of Matthew 24–25. Before we do that, let’s review what we had as a synopsis of Jesus’s teaching points in the last post:
You’re going to hear rumors of the end and false messiahs; do not believe it.
The world is going to get crazy and there is nothing you can do to stop it.
All of this is going to have to happen and you will have to persevere.
You will have to be ready; being ready means taking care of God’s people.
Parable of the Foolish Bridesmaids — be ready!
The priests aren’t doing it, so you will have to.
Parable of the Talents — you’ll have to give an account.
Persevere and be ready by taking care of the oppressed.
Parable of the Sheep and Goats — take care of the oppressed and do what the priests aren’t doing.
FOOLISH BRIDESMAIDS (vv. 1–13)
If you want to look at a suggested remez, I would offer up Jeremiah 25:
Therefore the Lord Almighty says this: “Because you have not listened to my words, I will summon all the peoples of the north and my servant Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon,” declares the Lord, “and I will bring them against this land and its inhabitants and against all the surrounding nations. I will completely destroy them and make them an object of horror and scorn, and an everlasting ruin. I will banish from them the sounds of joy and gladness, the voices of bride and bridegroom, the sound of millstones and the light of the lamp. This whole country will become a desolate wasteland, and these nations will serve the king of Babylon seventy years.”
The key to looking at all of these references is going to be the larger context of each remez. Would it make sense in the context of Matthew 24–25 that Jesus would remez the use of Nebuchadnezzar as a tool of God to destroy the people and remove the sounds of joy and weddings from their midst? Would it make sense that Jesus’s drash would be the use of Rome to destroy the city of Jerusalem? Wasn’t that the point of the whole conversation of Matthew 24? Brilliant.
THE TALENTS (vv. 14–30)
Beyond just the remez, it should be worth noting the details of this parable are so strange to us because the context of Jesus’s original parable is the life and reign of Herod Antipas. In Jesus’s original parable (the parallel story of the ten minas, found in Luke 19), we are given additional details that help us understand the parable of the talents. In the parable of the minas, Jesus is employing a rabbinical tool known as kal va’omer (“greater and lesser”). In this teaching method, the rabbi uses a negative example to portray a universal trait; after making the case that the trait is true, the rabbi then will say “how much more” it is true in a positive example.
In the case of the minas and talents, the cultural backdrop is the life and reign of Antipas. When Herod the Great died, he willed his kingdom to his three sons. Upon his death, the three sons set sail on three different ships for Rome in order to bring gifts to Caesar and ask him to honor their father’s will. The Jews (Pharisees) also sent a delegation on a fourth ship to plead with Caesar not to make Antipas king. Caesar decided to name Anitpas a “tetrarch” (just lower than a king) and Antipas blamed the Jews for the decision. Upon his return, Antipas made an example of the Jews who were left at home and slaughtered them by the thousands.
This cultural setting is the backdrop to the kal va’omer that is the parable of the ten minas. The parable of the talents, a parallel story told later by Jesus, employs the same teaching points. The point of the parable (as seen in the last post) is that you will have to give an account for what you have been entrusted with. This is the universal principle that is true for both positive and negative examples (Jesus’s kal va’omer).
Consider the following as the remez (from 2 Kings 22):
In the eighteenth year of his reign, King Josiah sent the secretary, Shaphan son of Azaliah, the son of Meshullam, to the temple of the Lord. He said: “Go up to Hilkiah the high priest and have him get ready the money that has been brought into the temple of the Lord, which the doorkeepers have collected from the people. Have them entrust it to the men appointed to supervise the work on the temple. And have these men pay the workers who repair the temple of the Lord—the carpenters, the builders and the masons. Also have them purchase timber and dressed stone to repair the temple. But they need not account for the money entrusted to them, because they are honest in their dealings.”
Again, context will be everything. But this story comes at a point in the story where they are cleaning out the temple and they find the Book of the Law. Those doing the work of restoration (not the priests, mind you—they lost the Book of the Law) are entrusted with money to aid them in repairing the Temple of God. Because they are honest in their dealings, they do not have to give account for what they do with the money. Do you suppose Jesus’s drash could be that those who are not priests should do the work of restoring the presence of God in the world? And if they are honest in their dealings in response to the priests’ dishonesty, they won’t even have to worry about giving an account, because they have done the will of the LORD?
THE SHEEP AND GOATS (vv. 31–46)
This one, to me, is an easy grab for a remez. Consider Ezekiel 34:
“ ‘As for you, my flock, this is what the Sovereign Lord says: I will judge between one sheep and another, and between rams and goats. Is it not enough for you to feed on the good pasture? Must you also trample the rest of your pasture with your feet? Is it not enough for you to drink clear water? Must you also muddy the rest with your feet? Must my flock feed on what you have trampled and drink what you have muddied with your feet?”
And here, the context is a condemnation of the priesthood (throughout the entire chapter). So the drash would be that God will divide His flock into sheep and goats; the context of the chapter will make it clear the deciding factor will be how they treat others.
So I guess Jesus wasn’t teaching a brand new parable, was he?
Shocked? We shouldn’t be.
When one views the threaded teachings and the three parables together, it becomes very clear how brilliant this entire teaching is on multiple levels. The remez/drash readings of these parables together would look something like the following:
God is about to use Rome as a “Nebuchadnezzar” of sorts to judge the people of God. You should be a faithful worker who can be trusted with the investments of the kingdom, even if the priests will not. Remember, you will be judged by how you treated others.
It’s the same teaching we heard in Matthew 24. Jesus put it into three parables and it was the same teaching on a p’shat level. We dug deeper and realized this is in fact the same story we have been learning all along. The same lesson, the same meaning, the same teaching.
I like this Jesus guy. He’s something else.
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