Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of Matthew 22:32
I am the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob God is not the God of the dead, but of the living.
32. Jesus appeals to the Pentateuch when arguing with the Sadducees, with whom the books of Moses had the greatest authority.
Stated in a logical form the argument is: God is a God of the living only, but He is the God of Abraham, therefore Abraham is living. The same deduction from the words was made by the later Rabbinical writers.
The principle on which the proposition “God is the God of the living” rests, lies deeper. It depends upon the close relation between the life of God and the life of His children. The best illustration of the truth is the parable of the Vine (Joh 15:1-8). The connection between the living God and the patriarchs, whose God He is, is as close as that between the vine and its branches. If the vine lives its branches live. If God is living and immortal the patriarchs are living and immortal. If the branches die they cease to belong to the vine; if the patriarchs were dead they would have ceased to have any relation to God, or God to them.
So far there has been proof of immortality.
The argument for the Resurrection is inferred. For if the patriarchs are living, they are living in Shel, or Hades, and therefore they are awaiting a resurrection; cp. Heb 11:16. For this thought see Meyer ad loc.
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
Verse 32. I am the God of Abraham] Let it be observed, that Abraham was dead upwards of 300 years before these words were spoken to Moses: yet still God calls himself the God of Abraham, c. Now Christ properly observes that God is not the God of the dead, (that word being equal, in the sense of the Sadducees, to an eternal annihilation,) but of the living it therefore follows that, if he be the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, these are not dead, but alive; alive with God, though they had ceased, for some hundreds of years, to exist among mortals. We may see, from this, that our Lord combats and confutes another opinion of the Sadducees, viz. that there is neither angel nor spirit; by showing that the soul is not only immortal, but lives with God, even while the body is detained in the dust of the earth, which body is afterwards to be raised to life, and united with its soul by the miraculous power of God, of which power they showed themselves to be ignorant when they denied the possibility of a resurrection.
Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible
I am the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob,…. The Sadducees expressly denied, that the resurrection could be proved out of the law.
“Says R. Eliezer, with R. Jose g, I have found the books of the Sadducees to be corrupt; for they say that the resurrection of the dead is not to be proved out of the law: I said unto them, you have corrupted your law, and ye have not caused anything to come up into your hands, for ye say the resurrection of the dead is not to be proved out of the law; lo! he saith, Nu 15:31 “That soul shall be utterly cut off, his iniquity shall be upon him; he shall be utterly cut off” in this world; “his iniquity shall be upon him”, is not this said with respect to the world to come?.”
Hence, in opposition to this notion of the Sadducees, the other Jews say h, that
“Though a man confesses and believes that the dead will be raised, yet that it is not intimated in the law, he is an heretic; since it is a fundamental point, that the resurrection of the dead is of the law.”
Hence they set themselves, with all their might and main, to prove this doctrine from thence, of which take the following instances i.
“Says R. Simai, from whence is the resurrection of the dead to be proved out of the law? From Ex 6:4 as it is said, “I have also established my covenant with them, to give them the land of Canaan: to you” it is not said, but “to them”; from hence then, the resurrection of the dead may be proved out of the law.”
The gloss upon it is,
“the sense is, that the holy blessed God, promised to our fathers Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, that he would give to them the land of Israel; and because he gave it to them, has he not given it to their children? But we learn from hence, that they shall be raised, and that God will hereafter give them the land of Israel.”
And which the learned Mr. Mede takes to be the sense of the words of this text, cited by our Lord;, and this the force of his reasoning, by which he proves the resurrection of the dead. Again,
“the Sadducees asked Rabban Gamaliel, from whence does it appear that the holy blessed God will quicken the dead? He said unto them, out of the law, and out of the prophets, and out of the Hagiographa; but they did not receive of him (or regard him): out of the law, as it is written, “Thou shalt sleep with thy fathers, and rise up”, De 31:16 And there are that say from this Scripture, De 4:4. “But ye that did cleave unto the Lord your God, are alive every one of you this day”: as this day all of you stand, so in the world to come, all of you shall stand.”
Thus our Lord having to do with the same sort of persons, fetches his proof of the doctrine of the resurrection out of the law, and from a passage which respects the covenant relation God stands in to his people, particularly Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob; and which respects not their souls only, but their bodies also, even their whole persons, body and soul; for God is the God of the whole: and therefore as their souls now live with God, their bodies also will be raised from the dead, that they, with their souls, may enjoy everlasting glory and happiness; which is the grand promise, and great blessing of the covenant of grace.
God is not the God of the dead, but of the living; as all the saints are; for though their bodies are dead, their souls are alive, and their bodies will be raised in consequence of their covenant interest in God, to enjoy an immortal life with him: so the Jews are wont to say, that the righteous, even in their death, are called living k:
“from whence is it proved, (say they,) that the righteous, even in their death, , “are called living?””
from De 34:4 as it is written, “and he said unto him, this is the land which I have sworn to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, saying.” Menasseh ben Israel, a learned Jew, of the last century, has produced l this same passage of Scripture, Christ here does in proof of the immortality of the soul, and argues from it in much the same manner: having mentioned the words, he adds,
“for God is not the God of the dead, for the dead are not; but of the living, for the living exist; therefore also the patriarchs, in respect of the soul, may rightly be inferred from hence to live.”
g T. Bab. Sanhedrin, fol. 90. 2. h Gloss. in ib. col. 1. i T. Bab. Sanhedrin, fol. 90. 2. k T. Hieros. Betacot, fol. 4. 4, Midrash Kohelet, fol. 78. 2. Tzeror Hammor, fol. 158. 3. l De Resurrect. Mort, l. i. c. 10. sect. 6.
Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible
32. I am the God That is, the eternal God. Not a temporal nor a mortal God, but an eternal and an immortal. Of Abraham An eternal God, standing in the relation of God to Abraham. And if Abraham’s be an eternal God, Abraham must be henceforth eternal. For if one party to the relation be eternal, and the relation itself be eternal, the other party must be eternal.
This meaning would naturally if not necessarily arise from the mere words, but it was surely the true meaning to the inspired mind of Moses, as it is the true meaning of God himself in speaking these words to Moses. Hence our Lord, with divine emphasis, raised, for a few moments, even the gross minds of these Sadducees to the elevated standpoint of Moses himself. For Moses did not conceive that God was the God of Abraham, as he might be the God of a perishing animal, or a bubble. The being who is elevated enough to have a true immortal God to be his God, must himself be neither the creature of time nor annihilation. The God of the dead Of those now dead, or whoever will be dead. Our Lord here uses the word dead in the sense of these Sadducees with whom he is conversing, to signify extinct. God is not the God of the extinct or even of the extinguishable or transitory, but of the living. And Luke adds, “For they all live unto him:” they live by their relation to him who is their God.
Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
“I am the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob? God is not the God of the dead, but of the living.”
He points out that God had stated to Moses that ‘I am the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob’ (See Exo 3:6; Exo 3:15-16), and that as He is not the God of the dead but of the living, the corollary must be that Abraham, Isaac and Jacob must therefore have been alive at the time when He spoke.
This inference takes in a number of factors which different ones will see in different ways:
1). That God was citing their names as those with whom He was ‘in covenant’, and as those to whom He must fulfil His covenant. The argument is thus that as He could not have been ‘in covenant’ at the time of Moses with a dead person, and certainly could not fulfil a covenant, which is a two party relationship, with a dead person (compare for example Gen 12:2-3 where Abraham’s effectiveness is to continue on), they must have all been alive at the time of speaking, that is at the time of Moses, when He was about to fulfil the covenant which He had made with them.
2). That He was declaring Himself to be ‘their God’. But He could not be the God of what was non-existent, because for Him to be their God they must be able to appreciate His Godhood, therefore for Him to be their God they must have been in existence at the time of speaking.
Or to put it another way. The dead do not praise God (Psa 88:10; Psa 115:7). He is not their God, and cannot be. So if God can declare Himself to be the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob they must in some way be enjoying life, even though they have apparently died, in order to appreciate what He is doing. For He is the God only of the living. Indeed some of the Psalmists also actually revealed such a positive, if vaguely expressed, belief in an afterlife on the same basis, that they could not believe that their positive and glorious relationship with God, which was in such contrast with those whose minds were set on earthly things, could possibly cease on death (e.g. Psa 16:9-11; Psa 17:15; Psa 23:6; Psa 49:15; Psa 73:24, see its whole context; Psa 139:7-12; Psa 139:24).
3). That no one in Jesus’ time ever said that God ‘was’ the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. They always, even the Sadducees said, ‘God is –’. By this they thus implicitly recognised their continual existence in their hearts so that He could be their God.
4) That to suggest that the whole of the past is dead and done with is to contradict the nature of God who brings the past into the present, and bases His actions in the present on that past. How could the living God then allow those who had been so faithful to Him in the past to sink into non-existence? It was because He saw Himself as still accountable to them that He would act as He intended. Death had not ceased His obligation, for it was to be seen that He was still obliged to them.
5) Jesus’ argument is based on the faithfulness, reliability and fairness of God. Abraham had not received the promises. But how could a faithful God not ensure that at some point he did receive the promises in return for his faithfulness? And that meant that he must still be alive in order in some way to do so.
It is noteworthy that the Sadducees appear to have at least accepted that they had no reply to His argument. It appealed to men’s basic sense of the continuing presence of God, and of His fairness, His faithfulness and His unfailing goodness and loyalty, as well as to the idea that He would not forsake those whom He had so tenderly loved.
Fuente: Commentary Series on the Bible by Peter Pett
32 I am the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob? God is not the God of the dead, but of the living.
Ver. 32. God is not the God of the dead ] That is, in the Sadducees’ sense, utterly dead and extinct for ever; but in St Paul’s sense,Rom 14:9Rom 14:9 , He is the God of the dead. For the dead bodies also of the faithful, while they lie rotting in the grave, and resolved into dust, are united to Christ; by means whereof a substance is preserved, sin only is rotted with its concomitant infirmities. But the rotting of the body is but to refine it; it is but as the rotting of grain under the earth, 1Co 15:36 , that it may arise more glorious. Once, death to the saints is neither total, but of the body only; nor yet perpetual, but for a time only. See both these together, Rom 8:10-11 . Further, front this verse we may learn, that there is a two-fold knowledge to be gotten from holy Scriptures: 1. Express, “I am the God of Abraham,” &c. 2. By due deduction and firm inference, God is the God of the living.
Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
Mat 22:32 . , etc., quoted from Exo 3:6 . The stress does not lie on , to which there is nothing corresponding in the Hebrew, bat on the relation implied in the title: God of Abraham. Note in this connection the repetition of the Divine name before each of the patriarchal names, and here the article before each time (not so in Sept [126] ). The idea is that the Eternal could not stand in such intimate connection with the merely temporal. The argument holds a fortiori in reference to Christ’s name for God, Father , which compels belief in human immortality, and in the immortality of all, for God is Father of all men, whereas the text quoted might avail in proof only of the immortality of the great ones , the heroes of the race. , with the article is subject, and the idea: God does not belong to the dead; without, it would be predicate = He is not a God of the dead. On second vide critical notes.
[126] Septuagint.
Fuente: The Expositors Greek Testament by Robertson
I am, &c. Quoted from Exo 3:6. See App-117.
and. Note the Figure of speech Polysyndeton (App-6).
the dead = dead people. See App-139. (without the Article).
the living = living people. The only conclusion being that they must rise and live again in resurrection in order that He may be their God. This is what the Lord set out to prove (in Mat 22:31) “concerning the resurrection”. Greek. zao. See note on Mat 9:18.
Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics
Mat 22:32. , the God) see Exo 3:6. These words are not put only once, but three times, because Jacob did not hear the promise of God merely from Isaac, or Isaac merely from Abraham, but each of them separately also from God Himself; and Abrahams name was Divinely changed, Isaacs Divinely given, that of Israel Divinely added to Jacob: see Gen 17:5; Gen 17:19; Gen 32:28.- ,[967] He is not God of the dead) i.e., God is not God of the dead. There is an ellipsis as in Rom 3:29. The value of inferential[968] reasoning is seen by this example,-God is thine. This phrase expresses both a Divine gift and a human duty. The Divine gift (for that is considered in this passage) thus expressed, is infinite, everlasting, and one which could never be fully realized to us by an earthly life, however long or happy (see Psa 144:15, and Luk 16:25), much less by a pilgrimage of a few and evil days, such as were the lives of Abraham, Isaac, and above all, Jacob, compared with those of their ancestors,[969] who, nevertheless, had not obtained that promise. For it is not said wealth, long life, security, or, in short, the world is thine, but, God is thine: nor is it said God is thine for fifty, an hundred, or seven hundred years, but simply God is thine. When, therefore, God first declared Himself to Abraham to be his God, He conferred, and was acknowledged to have conferred, upon him the everlasting communion of Himself everlasting. And though the death of the body has intervened in the case of the patriarchs, it cannot last for ever, nor produce a long delay, long in comparison with everlasting life. For Abraham himself, the whole man, and all that is included under the name Abraham, that is, not only his soul but also his body, which also received the seal of the promise, possesses GOD. God, however, is not the God of that which is not: He is the Living God; they therefore who possess God must themselves also be living, and as to any portion of them in which life has been suspended, must revive for ever. The force of the formula is shown also in Gnomon on Heb 11:16, which passage is chiefly to this effect, He hath prepared for them a city, and that principally in eternity; and therefore He is called their God. And this reasoning of Christ is sound, evident, and then heard for the first time: and most effectually proves both the immortality of the soul, and the resurrection of the body, against the Sadducees, who denied altogether the existence of spirits. The force, however, of the argument does not consist in the verb , I am, nor in the use of its present tense at the time of Moses (for though it is expressed by St Matthew, it is not found in the parallel passages of St Mark or St Luke, or the original of Moses), but in the formula itself.[970] And these phrases, My, Thy, His, etc., GOD, are by far the most frequent. This passage, however, here cited against the Sadducees is furthermore the most striking of all of them, on the following grounds: (1) In it God speaks Himself, an irrefragable proof of its truth; (2) He speaks on the occasion of a most solemn and visible manifestation of Himself; (3) He speaks of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob conjointly; (4) And indeed after their death, and that a long while after, at the very time of performing the promise to them, even in the persons of their descendants, which was a proof that these patriarchs had not in their own lifetime themselves obtained the promises. And thus, as we are told in Luk 20:37, EVEN, KAI, Moses showed the resurrection of the dead, even Moses, not only the prophets, in preference to whom, Moses was read publicly before the time of Antiochus.[971] At the same time, our Lord reduces to its proper shape the proverb of the Jews, who said, God is not the God of the living but of the dead. See Axiom ix. of Alexander Morus, and the Dissertation of E. F. Cobius, on the force of this passage.
[967] The reading of E. M. is , rendered in E. V. God is not the God of the dead.-(I. B.) BLbc Vulg. omit the second : so Iren. Hil. 77, 484, 500, 722. But Orig. 3,828b; 829b support it, with the Rec. Text.-ED.
[968] Bengel means to say, that we are bound to receive not only what is actually written totidem verbis in Scripture, but also what may be logically inferred from the words of Holy Writ-not merely what is contained therein, but also what may be proved thereby.-(I. B.)
[969] Comp. Gen 47:9.-ED.
[970] For the possession of that which is everlasting implies everlasting possession, and everlasting possession involves everlasting duration.-(I. B.)
[971] Hartwell Horne says, The third part of the synagogue service was the Reading of the Scriptures, which included the reading of the whole law of Moses, and portions of the Prophets, and the Hagiographa or holy writings. (1.) The Law was divided into fifty-three, according to the Masorets, or, according to others, fifty-four Paraschioth or sections: for the Jewish year consisted of twelve lunar months, alternately of twenty-nine or thirty days, that is of fifty weeks and four days. The Jews, therefore, in their division of the law into Paraschioth or sections, had a respect to their intercalary year, which was every second or third, and consisted of thirteen months; so that the whole law was read over this year, allotting one Parascha or section to every Sabbath; and in common years they reduced the fifty-three or fifty-four sections to the number of the fifty Sabbaths, by reading two shorter ones together, as often as there was occasion. They began the course of reading on the first Sabbath after the Feast of Tabernacles; or rather, indeed, on the Sabbath-day before that, when they finished the last course of reading, they also made a beginning of the new course; that so, as the rabbies say, the devil might not accuse them to God of being weary of reading His law. (2.) The portions selected out of the Prophetical writings are termed Haphtoroth. When Antiochus Epiphanes conquered the Jews, about the year 163 before the Christian sera, he prohibited the public reading of the Law in the synagogues on pain of death. The Jews, in order that they might not be wholly deprived of the Word of God, selected from other parts of the Sacred Writings fifty-four portions, which were termed HAPHTORAS (HaPHTORoTH), from (PaTaR), he dismissed, let loose, opened-for though the Law was dismissed from their synagogues, and was closed to them by the edict of this persecuting king, yet the prophetic writings, not being under the interdict, were left open; and therefore they used them in place of the others.-(I. B.)
Fuente: Gnomon of the New Testament
am: Exo 3:6, Exo 3:15, Exo 3:16, Act 7:32, Heb 11:16
God is: Mar 12:26, Mar 12:27, Luk 20:37, Luk 20:38
Reciprocal: Gen 15:15 – in peace Gen 17:7 – God Gen 24:12 – O Lord Gen 26:24 – I am the Gen 28:13 – I am Exo 6:7 – I will be Lev 26:12 – will be 2Ki 20:5 – the God 1Ch 29:18 – Lord God Psa 47:9 – the God Psa 81:1 – the God Isa 38:5 – God Jer 30:22 – General Eze 36:28 – be people Mat 4:7 – It Mat 9:13 – go Act 3:13 – God of Abraham Act 24:15 – that Rom 3:29 – General 2Ti 3:16 – All Heb 6:12 – inherit Heb 8:10 – I will be
Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge
2:32
The passage referred to is in Exo 3:6. The argument Jesus made was based on two great truths. God is not the God of the dead as the Sadducees would admit; yet Abraham, Isaac and Jacob had been in their graves for centuries. The conclusion is, then, that although the bodies of these patriarchs were dead, something else about their beings was still living. And if their spirits can live outside of their fleshly bodies, there should be no difficulty in believing that they could be reunited with those bodies and thus be resurrected.
Fuente: Combined Bible Commentary
I am the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob? God is not the God of the dead, but of the living.
[God is not the God of the dead.] Read, if you please, the beginning of the chapter Chelek, where you will observe with what arguments and inferences the Talmudists maintain the resurrection of the dead out of the law; namely, by a manner of arguing not unlike this of our Saviour’s. We will produce only this one; “R. Eliezer Ben R. Josi said, In this matter I accused the scribes of the Samaritans of falsehood, while they say, That the resurrection of the dead cannot be proved out of the law. I told them, You corrupt your law, and it is nothing which you carry about in your hands; for you say, That the resurrection of the dead is not in the law, when it saith, ‘That soul shall be utterly cut off; his iniquity is upon him.’ ‘Shall be utterly cut off’; namely, in this world. ‘His iniquity is upon him’: when? Is it not in the world to come?” I have quoted this, rather than the others which are to be found in the same place; because they seem here to tax the Samaritan text of corruption; when, indeed, both the text and the version, as may easily be observed, agree very well with the Hebrew. When, therefore, the Rabbin saith, that they have corrupted their law; he doth not so much deny the purity of the text, as reprove the vanity of the interpretation: as if he had said, “You interpret your law falsely, when you do not infer the resurrection from those words which speak it so plainly.”
With the present argument of our Saviour compare, first, those things which are said by R. Tanchum: “R. Simeon Ben Jochai saith, God, holy and blessed, doth not join his name to holy men while they live, but only after their death; as it is said, ‘To the saints that are in the earth.’ When are they saints? When they are laid in the earth; for while they live, God doth not join his name to them; because he is not sure but that some evil affection may lead them astray: but when they are dead, then he joins his name to them. But we find that God joined his name to Isaac while he was living: ‘I am the God of Abraham and the God of Isaac.’ The Rabbins answer, He looked on his dust as if it were gathered upon the altar. R. Berachiah said, Since he became blind, he was in a manner dead.” See also R. Menahem on the Law.
Compare also those words of the Jerusalem Gemara: “The righteous, even in death, are said to live; and the wicked, even in life, are said to be dead. But how is it proved that the wicked, even in life, are said to be dead? From that place where it is said, I have no delight in the death of the dead. Is he already dead, that is already here called dead? And whence is it proved that the righteous, even in death, are said to live? From that passage, ‘And he said to him, This is the land, concerning which I sware to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob’…He saith to him, Go and tell the fathers, whatsoever I promised to you, I have performed to your children.”
The opinion of the Babylonians is the same; “The living know that they shall die. They are righteous who, in their death, are said to live: as it is said, ‘And Benaiah, the son of Jehoiada, the son of a living man;’ [The son of a valiant man. A.V. 2Sa 23:20] ” etc. And a little after; “The dead know nothing: They are the wicked who, even in their life, are called dead; as it is said, And thou, dead wicked prince of Israel.” The word which is commonly rendered profane in this place, they render it also in a sense very usual, namely, for one wounded or dead.
There are, further, divers stories alleged, by which they prove that the dead so far live, that they understand many things which are done here; and that some have spoke after death, etc.
Fuente: Lightfoot Commentary Gospels
Mat 22:32. I am the God of Abraham, etc. Exo 3:6. Spoken to Moses from the burning bush. The name given by Jehovah to Himself, setting forth His self-existence and eternity (Exo 3:14-15), supports the doctrine of our immortality, body and soul. God continues (I am, not I was) in covenant relation to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob (the God of Abraham, etc.). As these patriarchs had in their bodies the sign of this covenant, the body is included in whatever promise is involved.
God is not the God of the dead, but of the living. This saying added by our Lord may be thus expanded: This personal, living God is the God of living persons, He calls Himself the continuing covenant God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, therefore the statement of Moses involves the truth, that after their death Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob are still living. This is Christs authoritative exposition of the previous revelation.The Bible treats man as a unit, and while it implies the separation of body and soul after death until the resurrection, plainly intimates that the blessedness of the future state will be incomplete until body and soul are reunited (comp. especially Rom 8:11; Rom 8:23). Only then will we be like Christ, who has a glorified body (Php 3:21, etc.). Our Lords answer (comp. Luk 20:32 : for all live to Him) may be used as an argument against the unconscious state of the soul between death and the resurrection.
Mat 22:33. The multitudes. The question was put publicly. The Sadducees hoped for an evil effect on the multitudes, but they were astonished, as they might well be, at his teaching, which confounded them, maintaining the authority of the law, yet shedding new light upon it.
Fuente: A Popular Commentary on the New Testament
Verse 32
The argument is, that God would not have said, I am the God of Abraham, &c., if the persons referred to were no longer in existence.