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Matthew

About this book
Chapter 7

1 “Do not judge so that you will not be judged.⁠ 2 For by the standard you judge you will be judged, and the measure you use will be the measure you receive.⁠ 3 Why do you see the speck in your brother’s eye, but fail to see the beam of wood in your own?⁠ 4 Or how can you say to your brother, ‘Let me remove the speck from your eye,’ while there is a beam in your own? 5 You hypocrite! First remove the beam from your own eye, and then you can see clearly to remove the speck from your brother’s eye.⁠ 6 Do not give what is holy to dogs⁠ or throw your pearls before pigs;⁠ otherwise they will trample them under their feet and turn around and tear you to pieces.⁠ 7 “Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find;⁠ knock and the door will be opened for you.⁠ 8 For everyone who asks receives, and the one who seeks finds, and to the one who knocks, the door will be opened.⁠ 9 Is there anyone among you who, if his son asks for bread, will give him a stone? 10 Or if he asks for a fish, will give him a snake? 11 If you then, although you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give good gifts to those who ask him!⁠ 12 In everything, treat others as you would want them to treat you,⁠ for this fulfills the law and the prophets.⁠ 13 “Enter through the narrow gate because the gate is wide and the way is spacious that leads to destruction, and there are many who enter through it.⁠ 14 How narrow is the gate and difficult the way that leads to life, and there are few who find it! 15 “Watch out for false prophets, who come to you in sheep’s clothing but inwardly are voracious wolves.⁠ 16 You will recognize them by their fruit. Grapes are not gathered from thorns or figs from thistles, are they?⁠ 17 In the same way, every good tree bears good fruit, but the bad tree bears bad fruit. 18 A good tree is not able to bear bad fruit, nor a bad tree to bear good fruit.⁠ 19 Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire.⁠ 20 So then, you will recognize them by their fruit. 21 “Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’⁠ will enter into the kingdom of heaven—only the one who does the will of my Father in heaven.⁠ 22 On that day, many will say to me, ‘Lord, Lord, didn’t we prophesy in your name, and cast out demons in your name, and do many powerful deeds in your name?’ 23 Then I will declare to them, ‘I never knew you. Go away from me, you lawbreakers!’⁠ 24 “Everyone who hears these words of mine and does them is like a wise man who built his house on rock.⁠ 25 The rain fell, the flood came, and the winds beat against that house, but it did not collapse because its foundation had been laid on rock. 26 Everyone who hears these words of mine and does not do them is like a foolish man who built his house on sand. 27 The rain fell, the flood came, and the winds beat against that house, and it collapsed—it was utterly destroyed!” 28 When Jesus finished saying these things,⁠ the crowds were amazed by his teaching,⁠ 29 because he taught them like one who had authority, not like their experts in the law.

Texts in conversation

Compare Matthew 7:2 and Fragment Targum Genesis 38:26

New Testament · Targum

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Summary

The Aramaic translation of Genesis 38 in the Jerusalem Targum expands Judah’s confession with a saying similar to what Jesus uses in the Sermon on the Mount. The overlap points to a common Jewish saying likely based on early Aramaic traditions.

Passages

Matthew 7:2

New Testament
1 “Do not judge so that you will not be judged. 2 For by the standard you judge you will be judged, and the measure you use will be the measure you receive. 3 Why do you see the speck in your brother’s eye, but fail to see the beam of wood in your own? 4 Or how can you say to your brother, ‘Let me remove the speck from your eye,’ while there is a beam in your own? 5 You hypocrite! First remove the beam from your own eye, and then you can see clearly to remove the speck from your brother’s eye. 6 Do not give what is holy to dogs or throw your pearls before pigs; otherwise they will trample them under their feet and turn around and tear you to pieces.
70–90 CE (scholarly estimate) Read in Matthew

Fragment Targum Genesis 38:26

Targum · Jerusalem Targum
26 And Jehuda recognised the three witnesses, and arose upon his feet and said, I pray you, my brethren, and ye men of the house of my fathers, to hear me. With the measure that a man measureth shall it be measured to him; whether good measure of evil; and blessed is every man who confesseth his works. because I took the coat of Joseph my brother and dipped it into the blood of a goat, and brought it before the feet of my father and said to him, Know now whether this be thy son's coat or not, the measure is according to the measure, and the rule to the rule. Better is it for me to blush in this world than to blush in the world to come; better to burn with a fire that goes out, than to burn in the fire devouring fire. Let Tamar my daughter-in-law be spared. She hath not conceived a child by fornication, but because I did not give to her Shela my son. The Bath kol came foth from heaven, and said, Both of you are acquitted in the judgment. The thing was from the Lord. And he added not to know her.
200–600 CE (scholarly estimate) Read in Fragment Targum Genesis

References

"... One more comment on the Sayings Source is in order. The material in Kloppenborg’s Q1 has often, in my view, been mischaracterized. Its Jesus is not untainted by faith in eschatological judgment or devoid of apocalyptic concerns. The Beatitudes (Q 6:20b–23), although they have a moral component—certainly one must take God’s side in alleviating the misery of the poor and ill-fed—are at the same time utopian promises of dramatic reversal: God will, in accord with eschatological expectation, rid the world of poverty, hunger, and mourning. Whoever first uttered Q 6:20b–23 spoke prophetically of unfortunates becoming fortunate, and that in the near future. The imperative “Judge not, lest you be judged” (Q 6:37), likely means “Judge not, lest you be judged [by God at the final judgment],” especially as the following sentence, “And with the measure you measure you will be measured” (Q 6:38), appears sometimes in the targumim with eschatological sense. (Note, for example, Targum Neofiti on Genesis 38:25; Fragment Targum on Genesis 38:26; Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on Genesis 38:27. The proclamation “The kingdom of God has come near [ἤγγικεν] to you” (Q 10:9) means that the denouement is at hand, and the petition “Your kingdom come” (Q 11:2) implores God to hurry it on. The warning that God can kill “both body and soul in Gehenna” (Q 12:5) presupposes the resurrection and punishment of the wicked ..."
Dale C. Allison Jr., Constructing Jesus: Memory, Imagination, and History (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2013), 123–125.

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Matthew 7:2 and Fragment Targum Genesis 38:26

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