In this article we continue our examination of passages in the gospel of Matthew, involving points of principle in matters of text and translation. The passages covered relate to the fulfilment of Messianic prophecies, the testimony of John the Baptist, and several portions of the Sermon on the Mount.

2.15 “that it might be fulfilled which was spoken of the Lord by the prophet, saying, Out of Egypt have I called My Son”

Matthew here refers to the coming of Christ out of Egypt as a deliberate and glorious fulfilment of Hosea’s prophecy: “When Israel was a child, then I loved him and called my son out of Egypt” (Hosea 11.1), showing that the release of the children of Israel from slavery in Egypt was also a mysterious foreshadowing of an important event in the life of Christ, and revealing the profound relationship between the love of God for His chosen people and the love of the Father for His firstborn and only begotten Son.

The expression “that it might be fulfilled” is used several times in Matthew, on each occasion indicating the deliberate fulfilment of Old Testament prophecy. In each case the implication is that God Himself deliberately brought the event to pass, in performance of the promises which He had made through the mouth of His prophets. These events were therefore not some chance fulfilment of a merely human prediction or forecast.

In the present passage, Joseph's primary motive in going to Egypt is to protect Jesus from destruction by Herod, following the warning by the angel. There is no necessity to believe that Joseph was consciously motivated here by a desire to fulfil a particular prophecy: for him it was sufficient that he should simply follow the angel’s instructions. The phrase “that it might be fulfilled” draws attention, not to Joseph’s own immediate purpose, but to the deliberate and sovereign purpose of God in bringing the fulfilment of His words concerning His Son. The very wording of the prophecy, “I have called ...”, required an action by God in order to fulfil it.

Unsatisfactory Treatment by Modern Versions

It is hence disappointing to find that the New International Version renders this passage as “And so was fulfilled what the Lord had said”, omitting Matthew’s clear reference to the divine purpose which caused this fulfilment of prophecy. The NIV makes a similar omission in two other passages, Matthew 2.23 and 13.35, in both cases failing to show the deliberate nature of the fulfilment. The same defect is found in the Living Bible, which habitually puts “This will fulfil” or “This fulfilled” (see Matthew 1.22; 2.15; 2.23; 4.14; 8.17; 12.17).

The Good News Bible is still more unsatisfactory. In Matthew 2.23 it renders as “And so what the prophets had said came true”. Not only does this omit the reference to the deliberate purpose behind the fulfilment (in this instance, concerning Christ's residing at Nazareth), but the phrase “came true” would be more appropriate to a description of mere coincidence.

At other such passages the Good News Bible retains the element of deliberate purpose, but introduces an incorrect emphasis of a different kind. In Matthew 12.17, for example, the GNB reads “He did this so as to make what God had said through the prophet Isaiah come true” (instead of “That it might be fulfilled which was spoken through Esaias the prophet”). This way of putting it emphasises the deliberate purpose of Christ in fulfilling the Messianic prophecies, but thereby excludes the purpose of the Father. The prophecy referred to in this passage contains the words “I will put My Spirit upon Him” (Matthew 12.18): that is, the Father will put His Spirit upon His Son. The fulfilment of this prophecy was thus not by the Son only, but first by the Father and then by the Son.

The kind of false emphasis which is found here in the GNB sometimes leads the unbeliever to object that, since Christ deliberately set out to fulfil the Old Testament prophecies, this diminishes their value as independent testimonies supporting His claim to be the Messiah. While there is no doubt that Christ had a clear understanding of the Old Testament passages which prophesied of Him (cf. Luke 18.31), and that He was conscious that He was fulfilling these prophecies, it is important to lay due emphasis on the sovereign and eternal purpose of God the Father in bringing to pass the fulfilment of the words which He himself had spoken. This emphasis is sufficiently preserved by the literal rendering which is found in the Authorised Version.

A supplementary point should be made here, to prevent any misunderstanding of the language of the Authorised Version, that “of the Lord by the prophet” means “by the Lord through the prophet” in modem English (correctly rendered, for example, in the Revised Authorised Version).

3.11 “He shall baptize you with the Holy Ghost and with fire”

All four gospels record John the Baptist's testimony concerning Christ, that He would baptize with the Holy Spirit. It is interesting that Luke adds a reference to baptism with fire (Luke 3.16), while no mention of this is found in Mark or John. When we turn to the gospel of Matthew, however, we find that there is disagreement among the manuscripts as to whether or not the phrase “and with fire” should be included. It is this textual difference that we are concerned with here, rather than the question of interpretation.

The phrase is found here in all the early uncial Greek manuscripts, the early versions and the earliest fathers and many of the later manuscripts, as well as the 16th century printed Greek New Testaments (apart from the Complutensian Polyglott of 1514), the Authorised Version and most other English versions. The words are omitted from Matthew by more than 100 Greek manuscripts, but none of them dating from before the 8th century.

When there is a division of this kind in the evidence, the thoughtful reader naturally wishes to be informed, although in the present state of the evidence it would not be right to omit these words from Matthew's gospel. Since the testimony of John the Baptist is firmly and fully recorded in Luke, there is no danger that an incorrect decision regarding the text of Matthew here could result in any doctrine or historical fact being lost from the pages of the New Testament. Moreover, since the Holy Spirit has given sanction both for the omission and inclusion of these words in Mark and Luke respectively, no one will be unduly troubled by uncertainty over Matthew's original wording.

5.22 “whosoever is angry with his brother without a cause shall be in danger of the judgment”

The omission of “without a cause” by most modern editors and translators is a matter of some importance, as it makes a serious difference to the interpretation of one of Christ's precepts in the Sermon on the Mount. In the Authorised Version, Christ is represented as condemning one particular form of anger, the kind of anger which is causeless or unreasonable; righteous or justifiable anger, on the other hand, is not condemned. In the modern versions, Christ is made to appear to condemn anger regardless of whether or not there is a good reason for the anger. For example, the Good News Bible represents Christ as saying “whoever is angry with his brother will be brought to trial”.

The phrase “without a cause” (one word in Greek, eike) is omitted by no more than about 10 Greek manuscripts, including codex Vaticanus and Sinaiticus of the 4th century and possibly also papyrus 67 of the early 3rd century, supported by the Latin Vulgate and Ethiopic versions and several early fathers. It may also be significant that the same omission occurs in a 2nd century Gnostic writer, Ptolemy, and in a 2nd century apocryphal gospel, the Gospel of the Nazarenes (a legalistic Jewish-Christian sect). Unorthodox sources of this kind may well have been responsible for a corruption of the text in this passage.

The authorities for including the phrase are both ancient and numerous, comprising nearly all the Greek manuscripts which exist, from the 5th century onwards, and the Old Latin, Syriac, Coptic and Gothic versions, supported by several early fathers from the 2nd to 4th centuries. While B. M. Metzger and others have suggested that the expression was added by copyists “in order to soften the rigour of the precept” (see Metzger's “Textual Commentary”, p.13), other commentators have also pointed out that there was a tendency among some early Christians to make Christ's precepts more rigorous and extreme than the original, and that such a tendency could easily have led to an omission here.

The footnotes in the Good News Bible, New International Version and New American Standard Bible are quite inadequate at this passage, conceding merely that the phrase is included in “some manuscripts”, a misleading way of referring to 99% of the evidence. In view of the strength of the manuscript evidence, the expression “without a cause” should certainly be included in the text. By omitting it, modern translations damage the spiritual and moral teaching of this part of Christ's discourse.

5.27 “it was said by them of old time” (literally, by or to the ancient people)

Apart from this verse, the phrase “it was (or, hath been) said by them of old time” is used in verse 21 and 33 of this chapter, whereas in verse 31, 38 and 43 it is shortened simply to “it hath been said”. One good explanation of why “them of old time” is added by Christ in verse 21 and 33 is that these verses refer to ancient Jewish interpretations of the ten commandments, explicitly citing the interpretations which the Jews had made of the sixth and third commandments respectively (concerning murder and taking the Lord's name in vain). If this explanation is correct, the phrase “them of old time” does not seem to be so appropriate in verse 27, which quotes the seventh commandment (concerning adultery) but does not explicitly mention a Jewish interpretation of that commandment: Jesus simply quotes the commandment exactly as it stands in Exodus 20.14.

If the words “them of old time” were absent from verse 27, the mode of exposition which has been mentioned would then fall neatly into place. There are in fact many manuscripts which omit these words: all the earliest Greek uncials (Aleph BD W), the majority of the later manuscripts, supported by the Sinaitic Syriac, Peshitta Syriac, Coptic, and Ethiopic versions and early manuscripts of the Old Latin, and several early fathers. The phrase is included in a number of later Greek manuscripts, but none before the 8th century, and is supported by the Curetonian Syriac and Latin Vulgate versions and some of the early fathers. In the 16th century, Erasmus introduced the phrase into his Greek editions: as he did not find it in his two main manuscripts, it seems that it was included in his text through the influence of the Latin Vulgate. The influential edition of Stephanus (1550) simply copied Erasmus here, but indicated in the margin seven manuscripts in which the phrase was not found.

The possibility has to be considered that some ancient copyists may have added “them of old time” so as to conform superficially with the pattern of verse 21 and 33, without realising that those verses were intended to refer to Jewish interpretations of the commandments while verse 27 does not mention such an interpretation. A similar process of harmonisation is found in some manuscripts at verse 38 and 43, where “by them (or, to them) of old time” is incorrectly inserted by several manuscripts of the Latin Vulgate. The omission or inclusion of the phrase in question is not capable of affecting any point of Christian doctrine or conduct, but this is certainly a passage where an awareness of the textual evidence helps the reader towards a more precise understanding of the inspired wording.

5.44 “bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you”

The Authorised Version here agrees with the wording of the great majority of the-Greek manuscripts from the 5th century onwards, together with the Peshitta Syriac, Ethiopic and Gothic versions, early manuscripts of the Old Latin, and several early fathers. Modern English versions omit all of these words except “pray for those who persecute you”, accompanied by not more than about 12 Greek manuscripts, including codex Vaticanus and Sinaiticus of the 4th century, supported by the Sinaitic and Curetonian Syriac and Coptic versions and one 4th century copy of the Old Latin, with some early fathers.

There is no footnote in the Revised Standard Version, Good News Bible or New American Standard Bible to indicate the words which have been left out. In the footnotes of the New International Version the missing words are attributed merely to “some late manuscripts”, which is hardly a candid acknowledgement of the 99% of manuscripts, both early and late, which have the full wording. In the opinion of B.M. Metzger, “later witnesses enrich the text by incorporating clauses from the parallel account in Luke 6.27-8” (“Textual Commentary”, p.14). However, if copyists of Matthew borrowed these clauses from Luke, it is surprising that they should have put them in a different order from Luke (who has “do good to them that hate you, bless them that curse you ...”), and Metzger does not offer any explanation of this important fact. A much more convincing explanation of the evidence is that an ancient editor here deliberately omitted from Matthew the clauses which overlapped with Luke's account. When an omission is shared by only a few manuscripts it can often be explained in terms of the early tendency towards omission and abbreviation, which was so characteristic of some of the early editors and scribes.

The textual evidence on which the modern versions are based is extremely unsatisfactory here, and these words should certainly be retained in the text. Although Luke also contains the words, their omission from Matthew inflicts serious damage upon the Sermon on the Mount. By causing these words of Jesus to be recorded by both Matthew and Luke, the Holy Spirit emphasises that these are vital principles of Christian conduct.