Matthew 5.27-32: A Historical Reading

In today’s Gospel reading, Jesus continues to call Israel to repent and intensify her observance of the Torah so that Israel could, at this crucial historical juncture, become who God wanted her to be. The Rabbi’s sayings regarding adultery (5.27-30) and divorce (5.31-32) make sense within this call for Torah purity within Israel.

In particular, Jesus’ words about vigilance against adultery take on an eschatological tone when they are understood as a summons to internal rather than armed revolution. One must not even look lustfully at a woman since, according to the New Moses, this was already adultery. In fact, he ups the ante: one must be willing to sacrifice even members of his own body—whether eye or right hand—for the sake of this the Torah.

For a first-century Jewish audience, these words might well have evoked the legendary courage of the seven brothers and their mother of recent memory who, faced with the threat of death, suffered the loss of limbs and even life for the sake of keeping the Torah (2 Macc 7.1-41). Indeed, the very cause of their martyrdom was precisely Jesus’ subject here: a “surpassing righteousness” based on the Torah which Jesus’ disciples must possess if they are to possess the kingdom. In the Maccabean story, the seven sons and their mother zealously chose to suffer physical mutilation and death rather break the Torah by eating pork. Now, at the advent of the eschatological age, Jesus’ disciples must “choose” physical mutilation rather than yield to lustful thoughts.

There is yet another parallel between the Maccabean story and Jesus’ exhortation. Jesus’ words here implicitly hold out the promise of resurrection: they are exhorted to sacrifice parts of their body that the rest of the body itself might be saved (Matthew 5.29-30). Similarly, hope in the resurrection of the body enabled the Maccabean martyrs to persevere even to the point of death: “the King of the universe will raise us up to an everlasting renewal of life, because we have died for his laws” (2 Macc 7.9; cf. 7.23).

But the parallels are not yet exhausted. Of great importance are the last words of the youngest of the Maccabean martyrs, the 7th of the sons:

I, like my brothers, give up body and life for the laws of our fathers, appealing to God to show mercy soon to our nation and by afflictions and plagues to make you confess that he alone is God, and through me and my brothers to bring to an end the wrath of the Almighty which has justly fallen on our whole nation.” (2 Macc 7.37-38; emphasis added)

Sounds like a very statement about redemptive suffering, does it not? For the Maccabean martyrs, Israel’s subjugation to their Seleucid invaders was not merely the result of her political weakness but rather her infidelity of the covenant. For this reason, they saw their own martyrdom for the sake of the Torah as having a crucial role in ending the wrath that had come upon their nation because of the people’s unfaithfulness to God (see Deuteronomy 28 for Israel’s defeat to her enemies as a curse for breaking the covenant).

The Book of 2 Maccabees further highlights this view in the ensuing verses. After the account of the martyrdoms, the author turns his attention back to the exploits of the hero-leader Judas Maccabeus, who is successful because “the Gentiles could not withstand him, for the wrath of the Lord had turned to mercy” (2 Maccabees 8.5; emphasis added). What is this, but the fulfillment of the words of the 7th young martyr, who had prayed that God would “show mercy soon to our nation” and that his sufferings and that of his brothers would “bring to an end the wrath of the Almighty”? In other words, 2 Maccabees shows us that the Maccabean Revolt really succeeded, not because of Judas’ strategy and skill, but because of the faithfulness of the martyrs!

How might this shed light on Jesus’ call to martyrdom? Like the sons in 2 Maccabees, his disciples were challenged to end the wrath of God that had befallen Israel in the form of Roman occupation, not by taking up violent resistance, but by doing what the real heroes in 2 Maccabees did—devote their bodies entirely to the Torah, choosing death before sin. In this way, they would, like the 7 sons, turn the wrath of the Lord into mercy and bring about the long-awaited redemption of God’s people.

Seven pillars of the Wisdom of God
and seven lampstands of the divine Light,
all-wise Maccabees, greatest of the martyrs before the time of the martyrs,
with them ask the God of all to save those who honor you!

Byzantine Kontakion to the Maccabean Martyrs (commemorated August 1st, the first day of the Dormition Fast)

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Acknowledgment: The connection between Jesus’ words in Matthew 5.27-30 and the Maccabean martyrs was first suggested to me by my friend Mark Gisczak in a paper he wrote during our days in graduate school. He is the author of the blog Catholic Bible Student.