Matthew 12:8
in Matthew 12For the Son of Man is Lord of the Sabbath.”
BSB
The same verse in ASV and KJV ▾
ASV
For the Son of man is lord of the sabbath.
KJV
For the Son of man is Lord even of the sabbath day.
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This verse in Matthew 12
Commentary
14 notes on this verseThe Son of man is Lord even of the Sabbath-day - The change of the Jewish into the Christian Sabbath, called the Lord’s day, Rev 1:10, shows that Christ is not only the Lord, but also the truth and completion of it. For it seems to have been by an especial providence that this change has been made and acknowledged all over the Christian world.
This site's exposition
not sacrifice
on Matthew 12:7-8
I will have mercy, and not sacrifice repeats Hosea 6:6, already quoted at 9:13, and the bench reads the repetition as deliberate: the Pharisees have twice now condemned the guiltless for want of the very mercy the prophet named. The claim that follows settles the whole controversy at its root, for the Son of man is Lord even of the sabbath day; the day belongs to him who instituted it, and he defines its rightful use rather than being bound by another's fence around it.
The record, by era
The Church Fathers5 voices
You will also thus observe that knowing God is more necessary than resting on the sabbath. The sabbath was given to the Jews when, in Egypt, they were turned toward idolatry. And the sabbath was given for this reason: so that they would not call …
He calls Himself the Son of Man, and the meaning is, He whom ye suppose a mere man is God, the Lord of all creatures, and also of the sabbath, and He has therefore power to change the law after His pleasure, because He made it.
Any one who refused to believe that that flesh was human might pretend it to be anything he liked, for-as much as (and this remark is applicable, to all heretics), if it was not human, and was not born of man, I do not see of what substance Christ Himself spoke when He called Himself man and the Son of man, saying: "But now ye seek to kill me, a man that hath told you the truth; " and "The Son of man is Lord of the Sabbath-day." For it is of Him that Isaiah writes: "A man of suffering, and acquainted with the bearing of weakness; " and Jeremiah: "He is a man, and who hath known Him? " and Daniel: "Upon the clouds (He came) as the Son of man.
(Verse 8) And when he had passed from there, he came into their synagogue. And behold, there was a man with a withered hand. This is the thirteenth one who is healed in the synagogue. And it should be noted that his hand was healed not on the road or outside, but in the council of the Jews.
A commentator
John ChrysostomHomily on the Gospel of Matthew 39 · Written in the 5th century.
proposed
After this He mentions another reason likewise; "For the Son of man," saith He, "is Lord of the Sabbath day;" speaking it of Himself. But Mark relates Him to have said this of our common nature also; for He said, "The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath." Wherefore then was he punished that was gathering the sticks? Because if the laws were to be despised even at the beginning, of course they would scarcely be observed afterwards. For indeed the Sabbath did at the first confer many and great benefits; for instance, it made them gentle towards those of their household, and humane; it taught them God's providence and the creation, as Ezekiel saith; it trained them by degrees to abstain from wickedness, and disposed them to regard the things of the Spirit. For because they could not have borne it, if when He was giving the law for the Sabbath, He had said, "Do your good works on the Sabbath, but do not the works which are evil," therefore He restrained them from all alike for, "Ye must do nothing at all," saith He: and not even so were they kept in order. But He Himself, in the very act of giving the law of the Sabbath, did even therein darkly signify that He will have them refrain from the evil works only, by the saying, "Ye must do no work, except what shall be done for your life." And in the temple too all went on, and with more diligence and double toil. Thus even by the very shadow He was secretly opening unto them the truth. Did Christ then, it will be said, repeal a thing so highly profitable? Far from it; nay, He greatly enhanced it. […]
7 more voices on this verse
The Medieval Church2 voices
He also shows them up as unlearned, not knowing the words of the prophets (Hosea 6:7). For was it not right, He says, to show mercy to men who were hungry? Furthermore, I, the Son of Man, am Lord of the sabbath for I am …
There is another argument which makes them innocent, namely, obedience; hence they can do these things, because he ordered them, for the Son of man is Lord of the Sabbath, and the lawgiver is not subject to the law: "He is our lawgiver" (Is 33:22); …
The Puritans and the Awakening2 voices
And if Christ be the Lord of the sabbath, it is fit the day and all the work of it should be dedicated to him. By virtue of this power Christ here enacts, that works of necessity, if they be really such, and not a pretended and self-created necessity, are lawful on the sabbath day; and this explication of the law plainly shows that it was to be perpetual.
For the Son of man is Lord even of the sabbath day.
The Nineteenth Century3 voices
The one great subject which stands out prominently in this passage of Scripture is the Sabbath day. It is a subject on which strange opinions prevailed among the Jews in our Lord’s time. The Pharisees had added to the teaching of Scripture about it, and overlaid the true character of the day with the traditions of men. It is a subject on which diverse opinions have often been held in the churches of Christ, and wide differences exist among men at the present time. Let us see what we may learn about it from our Lord’s teaching in these verses.
The one great subject which stands out prominently in this passage of Scripture is the Sabbath day. It is a subject on which strange opinions prevailed among the Jews in our Lord’s time. The Pharisees had added to the teaching of Scripture about it, and overlaid the true character of the day with the traditions of men. It is a subject on which diverse opinions have often been held in the churches of Christ, and wide differences exist among men at the present time. Let us see what we may learn about it from our Lord’s teaching in these verses. Let us learn in the first place, from this passage that our Lord Jesus Christ does not do away with the observance of a weekly Sabbath day, he neither does so here nor elsewhere in the four Gospels. We often find his opinion expressed about Jewish errors on the subject of the Sabbath; but we do not find a word to teach us that his disciples were not to keep a Sabbath at all. It is of much importance to observe this. The mistakes that have arisen from a superficial consideration of our Lord’s sayings on the Sabbath question are neither few nor small; thousands have rushed to the hasty conclusion that Christians have nothing to do with the fourth commandment, and that it is no more binding on us than the Mosaic law about sacrifices. There is nothing in the New Testament to justify any such conclusion. The plain truth is that our Lord did not abolish the law of the weekly Sabbath: he only freed it from incorrect interpretations, and purified it from man made additions. He did not tear out of the decalogue the fourth commandment: he only stripped off the miserable traditions with which the Pharisees had incrusted the day, and by which they had made it not a blessing but a burden. He left the fourth commandment where he found it, a part of the eternal law of God, of which no jot or tittle , was ever to pass away.
A commentator
Albert Barnes1798–1870
Notes, Explanatory and Practical, on the Old and New Testaments (1832-1869)
proposed
For the Son of man is Lord even of the Sabbath day - To crown all, Christ says that he was Lord of the Sabbath. He had a right to direct the manner of its observance - undoubted proof that he is divine.
How the passage was read
On Matthew 12:1-14On Matthew 12:1-14
What the Pharisees were objecting to
The Sabbath is the seventh day of the week, Friday sundown to Saturday sundown, on which the Torah forbids work (Exodus 20:8–11). By Jesus' day the oral tradition had worked that command out into detailed categories of forbidden labor, later written down in the Mishnah (the first great code of Jewish oral law, compiled about AD 200) as thirty-nine categories, reaping and threshing among them (Mishnah Shabbat 7:2). Observant Jews keep these categories to this day.
So the disciples' act reads differently on each side. Plucking a neighbor's standing grain by hand was expressly permitted by the Law itself (Deuteronomy 23:25); this was never about stealing. But in the tradition's categories, plucking counted as reaping, and rubbing the heads as threshing: work, on the day work is forbidden. That is the collision in the scene, and it is why Jesus answers from Scripture's own precedents (David and the showbread, the priests in the Temple) and from who He is: “the Son of Man is Lord of the Sabbath.”
This section is reception history: how the passage was read and kept in the Jewish tradition. Where a reading parts from an essential of the Christian faith, the section says so at that point.
Sources: Mishnah Shabbat 7:2 (the thirty-nine categories) · Deuteronomy 23:25 (plucking permitted) · Exodus 20:8–11 (the command itself)
The words behind it
9 Greek wordsEvery Greek word of this verse in the order it stands, with what it means and the door to its own study. The last column counts the times a word stands in the whole Bible: the rarer the word, the more the places it appears belong together.
| Greek | Sound | Meaning | Word study | In the Bible |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| κύριος | kurios | lord | G2962 → | 711 times |
| γάρ | gar | for | G1063 → | 1039 times |
| ἐστιν | estin | is | G1510 → | 2333 times |
| τοῦ | tou | of the | G3588 → | 19766 times |
| σαββάτου | sabbatou | Sabbath | G4521 → | 68 times |
| ὁ | ho | the | G3588 → | 19766 times |
| υἱὸς | huios | Son | G5207 → | 377 times |
| τοῦ | tou | <the> | G3588 → | 19766 times |
| ἀνθρώπου.¶ | anthropou | of Man. | G444 → | 549 times |
κύριοςlord
kuriosG2962 →711 times
γάρfor
garG1063 →1039 times
ἐστινis
estinG1510 →2333 times
τοῦof the
touG3588 →19766 times
σαββάτουSabbath
sabbatouG4521 →68 times
ὁthe
hoG3588 →19766 times
υἱὸςSon
huiosG5207 →377 times
τοῦ<the>
touG3588 →19766 times
ἀνθρώπου.¶of Man.
anthropouG444 →549 times
A shaded row is a word that stands 400 times or fewer in the Bible.
The walk
8 stopsEach card is a verse this one points to, and under it the verses that one points to in turn. Where several paths arrive at the same place, that place is listed first: the text keeps returning to it.
Through
Mark 2:28Therefore, the Son of Man is Lord even of the Sabbath.”
it leads to
- Revelation 1:10
On the Lord’s day I was in the Spirit, and I heard behind me a loud voice like a trumpet,
Reached by 2 separate paths from here.
- John 9:14
Now the day on which Jesus had made the mud and opened his eyes was a Sabbath.
- Ephesians 1:22
And God put everything under His feet and made Him head over everything for the church,
- John 5:17
But Jesus answered them, “To this very day My Father is at His work, and I too am working.”
- Luke 6:5
Then Jesus declared, “The Son of Man is Lord of the Sabbath.”
- Revelation 1:10
Through
Matthew 9:6But so that you may know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins...” Then He said to the paralytic, “Get up, pick up your mat, and go home.”
it leads to
- Isaiah 43:25
I, yes I, am He who blots out your transgressions for My own sake and remembers your sins no more.
- Matthew 9:5
Which is easier: to say, ‘Your sins are forgiven,’ or to say, ‘Get up and walk?’
- Isaiah 43:25
Through
Luke 6:5Then Jesus declared, “The Son of Man is Lord of the Sabbath.”
it leads to
- Mark 2:27
Then Jesus declared, “The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath.
- Mark 2:27
Where this verse is studied
On this page
About Matthew
This page draws on 13 works. Open the list of works
This page draws on Adam Clarke, Commentary on the Bible; Albert Barnes, Notes, Explanatory and Practical, on the Old and New Testaments (1832-1869); J.C. Ryle, Expository Thoughts on the Gospels: Matthew; Jerome, Commentary on Matthew; John Calvin, Commentary on a Harmony of the Evangelists; John Chrysostom, Homily on the Gospel of Matthew 39; John Gill, Exposition of the New Testament (1746-1748); Matthew Henry, Commentary on the Whole Bible; Remigius of Rheims, Catena Aurea by Aquinas; Tertullian, On the Flesh of Christ; Theodore of Heraclea, FRAGMENT 84; Theophylact of Ohrid, Commentary on Matthew and Thomas Aquinas, Commentary on Matthew.