Matthew 12 Bible study: Someone greater is here

"At that time, Jesus went on the Sabbath day through the grain fields. His disciples were hungry and began to pluck heads of grain and to eat." (12:1) (tap Sabbath). The Pharisees said to him, "Behold, your disciples do what is not lawful to do on the Sabbath" (12:2) (tap lawful). Jesus answers from Scripture, and twice he asks whether they have read it. First David: "Haven’t you read what David did when he was hungry, and those who were with him" (12:3), how "he entered into God’s house and ate the show bread, which was not lawful for him to eat, nor for those who were with him, but only for the priests" (12:4). Then the law: "Or have you not read in the law that on the Sabbath day the priests in the temple profane the Sabbath and are guiltless?" (12:5) (tap temple). Then, "But I tell you that one greater than the temple is here" (12:6) (tap here). Then words from Hosea: "But if you had known what this means, ‘I desire mercy, and not sacrifice,’ you wouldn’t have condemned the guiltless" (12:7). Hosea has "For I desire mercy, and not sacrifice; and the knowledge of God more than burnt offerings" (Hosea 6:6), and Jesus has given the words once before in Matthew: "But you go and learn what this means: ‘I desire mercy, and not sacrifice,’" (9:13); Favor's Matthew 9 teaches them there, in Go and learn what this means. He ends, "For the Son of Man is Lord of the Sabbath" (12:8). Here is what almost everyone misses: the word behind guiltless comes twice in this one answer, of the priests (12:5) and of "the guiltless" (12:7), and nowhere else in the New Testament's Greek (tap guiltless). Favor's Mark 2 teaches this scene in Mark's telling; in Matthew, Jesus names no priest (12:3-4), and Mark 2's honest question sets Mark's "at the time of Abiathar the high priest" (Mark 2:26) beside 1 Samuel 21. Why Jesus brings up David is the honest question in Favor's 1 Samuel 21, and how Christians read the Sabbath command today is the honest question in Favor's Mark 2, as in Exodus 20 and Isaiah 58. This chapter asks none of them again.

Exodus 25:30→leads toMatthew 12:4

"You shall set bread of the presence on the table before me always" (25:30). Leviticus says it is "for Aaron and his sons" (Leviticus 24:9), and Hebrews names "the table, and the show bread" (Hebrews 9:2). When his disciples were accused over the Sabbath, Jesus asked, "Haven’t you read what David did when he was hungry, and those who were with him: how he entered into God’s house and ate the show bread, which was not lawful for him to eat, nor for those who were with him, but only for the priests?" (Matthew 12:3-4). Jesus is speaking of what David did (1 Samuel 21:6), not explaining Exodus 25; the bread he names is the bread this verse commands to be set before the LORD. Then he said, "But I tell you that one greater than the temple is here" (Matthew 12:6).

ὧδεhodesay HO-deh

Strong's: "in this same spot, i.e. here or hither". Thayer lists 12:6 and 12:41 under "here, in this place". Three times in this chapter Jesus ends a sentence with this word: "But I tell you that one greater than the temple is here" (12:6), "behold, someone greater than Jonah is here" (12:41), and "behold, someone greater than Solomon is here" (12:42). Matthew's Greek has the word 18 times (counted in RP2018), and these three are the only ones in chapter 12. Luke's telling of the last two has it too (Luke 11:31-32). These notes add nothing to Jesus's words about who or what is here.