Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of Matthew 12:8
For the Son of man is Lord even of the sabbath day.
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.
Fuente: Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible
Verse 8. The Son of man is Lord even of the Sabbath-day.] The change of the Jewish into the Christian Sabbath, called the Lord’s day, Re 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.
Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible
This argument Luke hath, Luk 6:5. Mark hath it thus, Mar 2:27,28, And he said unto them, The sabbath was made for man, and not man the sabbath: therefore the Son of man is Lord also of the sabbath. Some interpreters make these two arguments:
1. The Son of man is Lord of the sabbath; therefore it is in my power to dispense with this action of my disciples, though it had been contrary to the letter of the law: or rather, therefore it is in my power to interpret the law, which I myself made.
2. The sabbath is made for man, not man for the sabbath. A law made for the good of another bindeth not, in such cases where the observation of it would be evidently for his harm and ruin. The law of the sabbath was made for the good of man, that he might have a solemn time, in which he should be under an obligation to pay his homage unto God; this must not be so interpreted as would tend to the destruction of a man.
I find interpreters divided about that term the Son of man. Some think that it is not to be interpreted, as usually in the gospel, concerning Christ; but of ordinary men, and that mans lordship over the sabbath is proved by the subserviency of it to his good, to which end also it was ordained. But certainly that is both a dangerous and unscriptural interpretation: dangerous to give man a lordship over a moral law, for it is very improper to call any lord of a thing, because he hath the use of it, and it is for his advantage: I cannot see but we may as well make man lord of the whole ten commandments as of one of them. Unscriptural, for though our Saviour useth this term more than threescore times in the gospel, yet he always useth it with relation to himself, never with reference to any mere man; neither is there any necessity to understand it otherwise here. Christ affirming himself Lord of the sabbath, spake properly enough to the Pharisees quarrel; for it must needs then follow, that he had power to dispense with the observation of it at particular times, and much more to give a true and right interpretation of the law concerning it.
Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole
8. For the Son of man is Lord evenof the sabbath dayIn what sense now is the Son of man Lord ofthe sabbath day? Not surely to abolish itthat surely were astrange lordship, especially just after saying that it was made orinstituted for MANbutto own it, to interpret it, to preside over it,and to ennoble it, by merging it in the “Lord’s Day”(Re 1:10), breathing into it anair of liberty and love necessarily unknown before, and thus makingit the nearest resemblance to the eternal sabbatism.
Mt12:9-21. THE HEALINGOF A WITHERED HANDON THE SABBATH DAYAND RETIREMENT OFJESUS TO AVOIDDANGER. ( = Mar 3:1-12;Luk 6:6-11).
Healing of a Withered Hand(Mt 12:9-14).
Fuente: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown’s Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible
For the Son of man is Lord even of the sabbath day. By “the Son of man” is meant, not any man, as some have thought; for no mere man is lord of any law, moral or ritual, natural or positive; or has a power of disposing of it, and dispensing with it at pleasure; but Christ himself; which is the constant sense of this phrase in the New Testament, and is a character of the Messiah in the old, Da 7:13 who, as he was the institutor of the sabbath among the Jews, that being a ritual, and of mere positive institution, could dispense with it, and even abrogate it at his pleasure. The Jews so far agree to this, that he that commanded the law of the sabbath, could dispense with it; they say z, that
“the day on which Jericho was taken was the sabbath day; and that though they slew and burnt on the sabbath day,
, “he that commanded the observation of the sabbath, commanded the profanation of it”.”
And since Christ is greater than the temple, and has all the perfections of the divine nature in him, is equal to the Father in power and glory; and even as mediator, has all power in heaven and earth given him; so as he is Lord of all other things, he is of the sabbath, and has a power of dispensing with it, and even of abolishing it; see Col 2:16 and since the Lord of the sabbath had a power of dispensing with it, and made use of it in the cases of David and his men, and of the priests in the temple formerly; the Pharisees ought not to think it strange, that the Son of man, who is equally Lord of the sabbath, dispensed with it in his disciples now.
z R. David Kimchi in Josh. vi. 11.
Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible
Lord of the Sabbath ( ). This claim that he as the Son of Man is master of the Sabbath and so above the Pharisaic regulations angered them extremely. By the phrase “the Son of man” here Jesus involves the claim of Messiahship, but as the Representative Man he affirms his solidarity with mankind, “standing for the human interest” (Bruce) on this subject.
Fuente: Robertson’s Word Pictures in the New Testament
1) “For the Son of man,” (gar ho huios tou anthropou) “Because the Son of man,” our Messiah, our Great Head and representative, Mat 5:17-18; Heb 4:4; Heb 4:9; Luk 4:16; Joh 5:17-18.
2) “Is Lord even of the sabbath day.” (kurios estin tou sabbatou) “Is (exists as) Lord of the sabbath,” of the seventh day sabbath; He has the right, the prerogative to interpret it, to preside over it, to ennoble it by merging it into or, supporting it by the Lord’s Day, Rev 1:10: Act 16:13.
Fuente: Garner-Howes Baptist Commentary
8. For the Son of man is Lord even of the Sabbath. Some connect this sentence with a preceding statement, that one greater than the temple is in this place, (Mat 12:6😉 but I look upon them as different. In the former case, Christ, by an allusion to the temple, affirmed that whatever was connected with his personal holiness was not a transgression of the Law; but now, he declares that he has received authority to exempt his followers from the necessity of observing the Sabbath. The Son of man, (he says,) in the exercise of his authority, can relax the Sabbath in the same manner as other legal ceremonies. And certainly out of Christ the bondage of the Law is wretched, from which he alone delivers those on whom he bestows the free Spirit of adoption, (82) (Rom 8:15.)
(82) “ Ausquels il donne l’Esprit d’adoption, qui est l’Esprit de la liberte;” — “to whom he gives the Spirit of adoption which is the Spirit of liberty.”
Fuente: Calvin’s Complete Commentary
(8) For the Son of man.The words contain the ground for the authoritative judgment of the previous verse. They assert that this also came within the limits of His jurisdiction as the Messiah, just as the power to forgive sins had been claimed by Him under the same title. In both instances, however, the choice of the title is significant. What is done is done by Him as the representative of humanity, acting, as it were, in its name, and claiming for it as such what He thus seems at first to claim for Himself as a special and absolute prerogative.
Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)
8. Lord even of the sabbath day As the Lord said, in the sixth verse, that he was greater than the temple, now he affirms himself greater than the statute law of Moses; nay, he is greater than the Sabbath law established by God at the creation. Thus does he maintain himself to be the incarnate Legislator of the world, He is truly God manifest in the flesh. Our Lord here asserts his high dignity in order to silence the murmurings of the Jews at his assuming to change the fundamental interpretations of the law. But may we not also believe that he here hints as Lord of the Sabbath, that some change would be made in its observance under the new dispensation of the Son of man?
In regard to the Sabbath we may here observe, 1. There is good proof that it was established on the day of the holy rest of God, at the end of the creative week. That day was the first Sabbath, just as that week was the first week. This Sabbath formed a part of the patriarchal religion, and was adopted with the great body of the patriarchal system into the law of Moses. Yet under Moses much that was specially Jewish was overlaid upon the original Sabbath, so that a double Sabbath, as it were, existed on the same day.
Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
“For the Son of man is lord of the sabbath.”
Jesus then makes clear the basis of His authority. As Son of Man He is lord of the Sabbath. That is, as God’s appointed King elect (Dan 7:13-14) He has the right to lay down what the Sabbath requirements really are. The Sabbath is subject to Him.
Fuente: Commentary Series on the Bible by Peter Pett
Mat 12:8. For the Son of man is Lord, &c. See on Mar 2:27-28. The expression even of the sabbath-day, , certainly implies, that the sabbath was an institution of great and distinguished importance. It may perhaps also refer to that signal act of authority which Christ afterwards, by the ministry of his apostles, exerted over it in changing it from the seventh to the first day of the week.
Fuente: Commentary on the Holy Bible by Thomas Coke
Mat 12:8 . ] , I say, for, and so on. “Majestate Christi nititur discipulorum innocentia et libertas,” Bengel. The authority of the Messiah (under which His disciples have acted) is superior to the law of the Sabbath; the latter is subject to His disposal, and must yield to His will. Bertholdt, Christol. p. 162 f. For the idea, comp. Joh 5:18 ; Holtzmann, p. 458. Others (Grotius, Kuinoel) interpret thus: Man may set aside the laws regarding the Sabbath , whenever it is for his advantage to do so. In opposition to the regular use of . ., the argument is different in Mar 1:27 .
Fuente: Heinrich August Wilhelm Meyer’s New Testament Commentary
8 For the Son of man is Lord even of the sabbath day.
Ver. 8. The Son of man is Lord of the Sabbath ] q.d. Say they were not innocent, yet have you no cause to condemn them for Sabbath breach; since I am Lord of the Sabbath, and may do with mine own as to me seems best. True it is that Christ hates sin by nature, not by precept only; and therefore cannot dispense with the breach of his own laws, those that be moral in themselves, such as are all the ten, but the fourth. The fourth commandment is moral, not by nature, but by precept, saith one, and so the Lord of the Sabbath may dispense with the literal breach of the Sabbath.
Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
8. ] On the important verse preceding this in Mar 2:27 , see note there. The sense of it must here be supplied to complete the inference. Since the Sabbath was an ordinance instituted for the use and benefit of man, the Son of Man, who has taken upon Him full and complete Manhood, the great representative and Head of humanity, has this institution under his own power. See this teaching of the Lord illustrated and expanded in apostolic practice and injunctions, Rom 14:4-5 ; Rom 14:17 ; Col 2:16-17 .
Fuente: Henry Alford’s Greek Testament
Mat 12:8 . his weighty logion is best understood when taken along with that in Mar 2:27 = the Sabbath for man, not man for the Sabbath. The question is: Does it merely state a fact, or does it also contain the rationale of the fact? That depends on the sense we give to the title Son of Man . As a technical name = Messiah, it simply asserts the authority of Him who bears it to determine how the Sabbath is to be observed in the Kingdom of God. As a name of humility, making no obtrusive exceptional claims, like Son of David or Messiah, it suggests a reason for the lordship in sympathy with the ethical principle embodied in the prophetic oracle. The title does not indeed mean mankind, or any man, homo quivis , as Grotius and Kuinoel think. It points to Jesus, but to Him not as an exceptional man (“der einzigartige,” Weiss), but as the representative man, maintaining solidarity with humanity, standing for the human interest, as the Pharisees stood for the supposed divine , the real divine interest being identical with the human. The radical antithesis between Jesus and the Pharisees lay in their respective ideas of God . It is interesting to find a glimpse of the true sense of this logion in Chrysostom: . . Hom. xxxix. , not to the effect of abrogation but of interpretation and restoration to true use. The weekly rest is a beneficent institution, God’s holiday to weary men, and the Kingdom of Heaven, whose royal law is love, has no interest in its abolition.
Fuente: The Expositors Greek Testament by Robertson
the Son of man. See App-98.
even. All the texts omit this word.
of the sabbath. As the Son of man. Compare Mat 12:6, Lord of the Temple as the Son of God.
Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics
8.] On the important verse preceding this in Mar 2:27, see note there. The sense of it must here be supplied to complete the inference. Since the Sabbath was an ordinance instituted for the use and benefit of man,-the Son of Man, who has taken upon Him full and complete Manhood, the great representative and Head of humanity, has this institution under his own power. See this teaching of the Lord illustrated and expanded in apostolic practice and injunctions, Rom 14:4-5; Rom 14:17; Col 2:16-17.
Fuente: The Greek Testament
Mat 12:8. , Lord) The innocence and liberty of the disciples is guaranteed by the majesty of Christ, and the authority[554] of the Son of Man manifests itself in mercy.-, of the Sabbath) The Lord of the Temple, and of all things else, is undoubtedly the Lord of the Sabbath; nor has He merely that right which David had.[555]
[554] Dominatio-domination, lordship. There is a play on the words dominus (lord) and dominatio, which cannot be preserved in English. It might be expressed by sovereign and sovereignty.-(I. B.)
[555] Mat 12:9. ) This was eight days after those things which have been just mentioned (V. g.), and eight days before the Passover. In this brief interval very many events happened of the greatest moment. The people were now getting ready for the feast. Hence a large (abundant) opportunity of doing good presented itself to the Saviour.-Harm., p. 309.
Fuente: Gnomon of the New Testament
Mat 9:6, Mar 2:28, Mar 9:4-7, Luk 6:5, Joh 5:17-23, 1Co 9:21, 1Co 16:2, Rev 1:10
Reciprocal: Mat 16:13 – I the
Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge
LORD OF THE SABBATH
The Son of man is Lord even of the sabbath day.
Mat 12:8
The one great subject which stands out prominently in the opening verses of this chapter is the Sabbath Day. It is a subject on which strange opinions prevailed among the Jews in our Lords time; it is a subject on which divers 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 Lords teaching.
I. The Lord did not abrogate the observance of a weekly Sabbath Day.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. May we never forget this!
II. The Lord allows all work of real necessity and mercy.This is a principle which is abundantly established. We find our Lord justifying His disciples for plucking the ears of corn on a Sabbath: it was an act permitted in Scripture (Deu 23:25). We find Him maintaining the lawfulness of healing a sick man on the Sabbath Day (Mat 5:10). We ought never to rest from doing good.
III. Why?The arguments by which our Lord supports the lawfulness of any work of necessity and mercy on the Sabbath, are striking and unanswerable. He reminds the Pharisees, who charge Him and His disciples with breaking the law, how David and his men, for want of other food, had eaten the holy shew-bread out of the tabernacle. Above all, He lays down the great principle that no ordinance of God is to be pressed so far as to make us neglect the plain duties of charity. I will have mercy and not sacrifice.
IV. Avoid low views of the sanctity of the Christian Sabbath.Let us not abuse the liberty which He has so clearly marked out for us, and pretend that we do things on the Sabbath from necessity and mercy, which in reality we do for our own selfish gratification. There is great reason for warning people on this point. The Pharisee pretended to add to the holiness of the day; the Christian is too often disposed to take away from that holiness, and to keep the day in an idle, profane, irreverent manner. To give the Sabbath to idleness, pleasure-seeking, or the world, is utterly unlawful.
Bishop J. C. Ryle.
Illustration
Lord Macaulay, in a speech on the Factory Acts, illustrates the value of a day of rest: Man, man is the great instrument that produces wealth. The natural difference between Campania and Spitsbergen is trifling when compared with the difference between a country inhabited by men full of bodily and mental vigour and a country inhabited by men sunk in bodily and mental decrepitude. Therefore it is that we are not poorer, but richer, because we have, through many ages, rested from our labour one day in seven. That day is not lost. While industry is suspended, while the plough lies in the furrow, while the exchange is silent, while no smoke ascends from the factory, a process is going on quite as important to the wealth of nations as any process which is performed in more busy days. Man, the machine of machines is repairing and winding up, so that he returns to his labours on Monday with clearer intellect, with livelier spirits, with renewed corporal vigour.
Fuente: Church Pulpit Commentary
12:8
The title Son of man is used only by Jesus himself, and it applies especially to him because he was born of a member of mankind, as well as having been begotten of God. Lord of the sabbath does not imply that he would belittle the law of the holy days. He was with his Father in all of the works of creation, also in the issuing of laws and dispensations for the conduct of human beings. Any lawmaking power has the right to alter its own edicts if and when it sees fit to meet an emergency, hence Jesus was within his rights in the above conduct.
Fuente: Combined Bible Commentary
For the Son of man is Lord even of the sabbath day.
[For the Son of man is Lord also of the sabbath.] I. He opposed this very argument against their cavils before the Sanhedrim, John_5. When he was summoned into the court concerning his healing the paralytic man on this very sabbath, or on the sabbath next before, he shews his dominion over the sabbath from this very thing, that he, the Son, was invested and honoured with the same authority, power, and dignity, in respect of the administration of the New Testament, as the Father was in regard of the Old.
II. The care of the sabbath lay upon the first Adam under a double law, according to his double condition: 1. Before his fall, under the law of nature written in his heart: under which he had kept the sabbath, if he had remained innocent. And here it is not unworthy to be observed, that although the seventh day was not come before his fall, yet the institution of the sabbath is mentioned before the history of his fall. 2. After his fall, under a positive law. For when he had sinned on the sixth day, and the seventh came, he was not now bound under the bare law of nature to celebrate it; but according as the condition of Adam was changed, and as the condition of the sabbath was not a little changed also, a new and positive law concerning the keeping the sabbath was superinduced upon him. It will not be unpleasant to produce a few passages from the Jewish masters of that first sabbath: —
“Circumcision,” saith R. Judah, “and the sabbath, were before the law.” But how much backward before the law? Hear Baal Turim: “The Israelites were redeemed (saith he) out of Egypt, because they observed circumcision and the sabbath-day.” Yea, and further backward still: “The inheritance of Jacob is promised to those that sanctify the sabbath, because he sanctified the sabbath himself.” Yea, and more backwards yet, even to the beginning of the world: “The first psalm in the world was, when Adam’s sin was forgiven: and when the sabbath entered, he opened his mouth and uttered the psalm of the sabbath.” So also the Targum upon the title of Psa 92:1; “The psalm or song which Adam composed concerning the sabbath-day.” Upon which psalm, among other things, thus Midrash Tillin: “What did God create the first day? Heaven and earth. What the second? The firmament, etc. What the seventh? The sabbath. And since God had not created the sabbath for servile works, for which he had created the other days of the week, therefore it is not said of that as of the other days, ‘And the evening and the morning was the seventh day.’ ” And a little after, “Adam was created on the eve of the sabbath: the sabbath entered when he had now sinned, and was his advocate with God,” etc.
“Adam was created on the sabbath-eve, that he might immediately be put under the command.”
III. Since, therefore, the sabbath was so instituted after the fall, and that by a law and condition which had a regard to Christ now promised, and to the fall of man, the sabbath could not but come under the power and dominion of the Son of man; that is, of the promised seed, to be ordered and disposed by him as he thought good, and as he should make provision, for his own honour and the benefit of man.
Fuente: Lightfoot Commentary Gospels
Mat 12:8. For the Son of man is Lord of the Sabbath. This crowning thought occurs in all three narratives. The emphasis rests on the word Lord. The term Son of man implies His Messiahship. The Jews admitted that the authority of the Messiah was greater than that of the law of the Sabbath, hence this declaration would serve to increase the hostility of the Pharisees. Still the more prominent idea is this: as Son of man, Head and Representative of renewed humanity, our Lord is Lord of the Sabbath. As such He has the right to change the position of the day, but the language points to a perpetuity of the institution. It implies further that a new air of liberty and love will be breathed into it, so that instead of being what it then was, a badge of narrow Jewish feeling and a field for endless hair-splitting about what was lawful and unlawful, it becomes a type and foretaste of heaven, a day when we get nearest our Lord, when we rise most with Him, when our truest humanity is furthered, because we are truly made like the Son of man. See, further, on Mar 2:27. Lange: Christ is Lord of the Sabbath, being Himself the personal sabbath: all that leads to Him and is done in Him, is Sabbath observance; all that leads from Him is Sabbath-breaking.
Fuente: A Popular Commentary on the New Testament
As if Christ had said, “I, who am Lord of the sabbath, declare to you, that I have a power to dispense with the observation of it: and it is my will that the sabbath, which was appointed for man, should yield to man’s safety and welfare.” Christ the Son of man was really the son of God; and as such had power over the sabbath to dispense with it, yea, to abrogate and change it, at his pleasure.
Fuente: Expository Notes with Practical Observations on the New Testament
Verse 8
The Savior seems to place his defence of the act of the disciples in travelling and gathering food on the Sabbath, on the ground of a dispensation from the usual obligations of the day, made on his authority, as the Messiah.