Chapter 12 Hebraic Roots

12:2 … Your disciples are doing what is not lawful to do on the Sabbath!

The Torah does prohibit “work” on Shabbat.

· Exodus 20:8-11 (ESV) "Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy.  [9] Six days you shall labor, and do all your work,  [10] but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the Lord your God. On it you shall not do any work, you, or your son, or your daughter, your male servant, or your female servant, or your livestock, or the sojourner who is within your gates.  [11] For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that is in them, and rested the seventh day. Therefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy.

The Pharisees had established 39 categories(!) of actions forbidden on the Sabbath (halachtic rulings)

Harvesting was one of the forbidden actions. Yeshua responds by making comparison to two accounts from scripture:

12:3  Have you not read what David did …

· 1 Samuel 21: 1-61 Samuel 21:1-6 (ESV)  Then David came to Nob to Ahimelech the priest. And Ahimelech came to meet David trembling and said to him, "Why are you alone, and no one with you?"  [2] And David said to Ahimelech the priest, "The king has charged me with a matter and said to me, 'Let no one know anything of the matter about which I send you, and with which I have charged you.' I have made an appointment with the young men for such and such a place.  [3] Now then, what do you have on hand? Give me five loaves of bread, or whatever is here."  [4] And the priest answered David, "I have no common bread on hand, but there is holy bread—if the young men have kept themselves from women."  [5] And David answered the priest, "Truly women have been kept from us as always when I go on an expedition. The vessels of the young men are holy even when it is an ordinary journey. How much more today will their vessels be holy?"  [6] So the priest gave him the holy bread, for there was no bread there but the bread of the Presence, which is removed from before the Lord, to be replaced by hot bread on the day it is taken away.

Yeshua is saying if you condemn me, you must also condemn David. He is emphasizing discernment and compassion in enforcing God’s law

12:5 … have you not read in the law…

Torah allows for priests to do certain “work” on the Sabbath

· Leviticus 24:5-9 (ESV) "You shall take fine flour and bake twelve loaves from it; two tenths of an ephah shall be in each loaf.  [6] And you shall set them in two piles, six in a pile, on the table of pure gold before the Lord.  [7] And you shall put pure frankincense on each pile, that it may go with the bread as a memorial portion as a food offering to the Lord.  [8] Every Sabbath day Aaron shall arrange it before the Lord regularly; it is from the people of Israel as a covenant forever.  [9] And it shall be for Aaron and his sons, and they shall eat it in a holy place, since it is for him a most holy portion out of the Lord's food offerings, a perpetual due."

Yeshua illustrates that within the framework of the Torah is a hierarchy of principles. This was certainly recognized by the Pharisees within the writings of the Talmud:

· Talmud – Mas. Shabbath 132b -  whilst the sacrificial service supersedes the Sabbath, yet circumcision supersedes it: then the Sabbath, which is superseded by the sacrificial service, surely circumcision supersedes it.

Yeshua is emphasizing the intent over the “letter” of the law, as well as the true purpose of the Sabbath.

12:6 in this place is One greater than the temple.

· He tells the Pharisees that He is greater than the Temple.

· Yeshua was the Temple of God while on earth

12:7  But if you had known what this means, ‘I desire mercy and not sacrifice’.

· He reminds the Pharisees what he told them to learn earlier:

Matthew 9:13 (ESV) Go and learn what this means, 'I desire mercy, and not sacrifice.' For I came not to call the righteous, but sinners."

· God desires sincere faith and devotion over ritual

· The Pharisees made themselves blind through their legalistic observance of God’s commands

· He says that He is Lord of the Sabbath day:

12:8  For the Son of Man is Lord even of the Sabbath

The Creator is always greater than the creation

12:10  And they asked him saying, “Is it lawful to heal on the Sabbath?”

· An additional example of the true meaning of the Sabbath lost and the prioritization (hierarchy of principles) of God’s laws placed out of order.

· The Pharisees had developed a teaching that healing on the Sabbath (perhaps with the exception of saving of human life) was “work” and therefore not allowed

12:16  Yet He warned them not to make Him known …

· Isaiah 42:1-4 (ESV)  Behold my servant, whom I uphold, my chosen, in whom my soul delights; I have put my Spirit upon him; he will bring forth justice to the nations. [2] He will not cry aloud or lift up his voice, or make it heard in the street; [3] a bruised reed he will not break, and a faintly burning wick he will not quench; he will faithfully bring forth justice. [4] He will not grow faint or be discouraged till he has established justice in the earth; and the coastlands wait for his law.

As the people of the day were expecting a powerful, vengeful Messiah that would lead Israel to glory (Messiah ben David?), Yeshua, in fulfillment of the scriptures, was to be a King of God’s design and timing

12:39  … An evil and adulterous generation seeks after a sign, and no sign will be given to it except the sign of the prophet Jonah.

One whose message is more powerful than Jonah and whose wisdom is greater than that of Solomon is here!