What occasion does the Lord Jesus have in mind when he says, "It was said to those of old"?

Matthew 5:21 (ESV)

21 “You have heard that it was said to those of old, ‘You shall not murder; and whoever murders will be liable to judgment.’

In short

With his note that it was said to those of old, the Lord Jesus is referring to

when God gave the Ten Commandments to the Israelites at Mount Sinai.

While Jesus teaches the crowd, he reminds them of something that was said to their forefathers. What does Jesus have in mind?

We can determine what Jesus has in mind by considering what was said to the forefathers. If we have a record of what was said, we can place it historically. So what is the phrase that was said to the forefathers? The phrase that was said to the forefathers is the fifth commandment, You shall not murder (Ex. 20:13; Deut. 5:7). This means that when Jesus refers to what was said to those of old, he refers to when God gave the law to the Israelites at Mount Sinai.

Some might object because Jesus not only says that the forefathers were told, You shall not murder, but they were also told that whoever murders will be liable to judgment (Matt. 5:12). While we do find the clause You shall not murder in the Old Testament, we do not find the clause whoever murders will be liable to judgment. The objectors suggest that maybe Jesus has in mind a Pharisaic tradition that commented on the Ten Commandments, and includes both clauses, but is lost to history.

The problem with this counterargument is that we do not need Jesus to quote the Old Testament verbatim to perceive that he refers to Scripture. Plus, in Exodus 21:12 we read that whoever strikes a man so that he dies shall be put to death. And in Leviticus 24:17 we read, Whoever takes a human life shall surely be put to death. In both cases the one who murders is liable to judgment. In addition, Jesus will go on to extrapolate other commandments including You shall not commit adultery and You should not swear falsely.

Thus, when Jesus refers to what was said to those of old, he refers to the giving of the law at Mount Sinai.

Interpretation 1:
The first part of the antithesis refers to when God gave the Ten Commandments to the Israelites at Mount Sinai.

Summary:

After God led the Israelites from Egypt, he established a covenant with them at Mount Sinai. He promised to be their God, and gave them the laws and commands that would enable them to maintain a relationship with the holy God. The giving of the law at Mount Sinai had been told from one generation to the next, so that the Jews of Jesus’ time had heard that God gave the laws to Israel at Mount Sinai.

God is the God who never changes. The promise he made to Abraham and his descendants is a promise he kept by rescuing Israel from Egypt. He also gave them the laws to keep them under a guardian until the time of Christ. Those who put their faith in Christ share in the ancestry of Abraham, so that those of old are the forefathers of all believers.

Advocates:

Craig Blomberg
Ulrich Luz
Leon Morris
John Nolland
David Turner
Jakob van Bruggen

Minor differences:

There is no significant difference between our authors. Each author sees that Jesus points to the giving of the law at Mount Sinai. John Nolland and Jakob van Bruggen both suggest that the phrase it was said must refer to God speaking.^1,2 Nolland and van Bruggen have support for this suggestion from Exodus 20:18–20. After the law is spoken at Sinai there is thunder and lightning on the mountain (Exodus 20:18). The people are afraid and ask Moses to speak to them instead of asking God to speak to them (Exodus 20:19), but Moses reassures the people that God has come to communicate with them so they will not sin (Exodus 20:20).

Leon Morris thinks that the verb you have heard implies that Jesus was preaching at a time when many people in the population could not read.³ His suggestion is possible, but he offers no research to support the claim. There are many people in the world today who do not know how to read, and we know that many of the ancients could read. Unless Morris offers a criterion for deciding what constitutes a low literacy rate, it is hard to say whether the ancients were generally less literate than people today. Also, it is possible that Jesus uses the verb you have heard not because people could not read but because the topic Jesus has in mind (the giving of the law) is the sort of topic that people likely heard rather than read.

Arguments

Explanation:

Jesus is speaking to a crowd of Jewish people. He says to them that they have heard that something was said to those of old. When he says this, he implies that something was said to their forefathers that was familiar to Jewish tradition. What is it that was said to the men of old? You shall not murder.

In order for us to understand who the men of old are, we need to determine whether or not the command, You shall not murder, was ever given to the forefathers of the Jews. Of course, we find that the command originates when God gave the law to Israel at Mount Sinai. In fact, we have the clause You shall not murder recorded twice in the Old Testament, in Exodus 20:13 and Deuteronomy 5:17.^4,5 First, in Exodus 20:1–26 we know that God had led Israel from Egypt and then established them as his pilgrim people with the Ten Commandments as their constitution (Exodus 19:5). Then in Deuteronomy 5:1–33 Moses reminders the Israelites that God made a covenant with them at Mount Sinai, and he proclaims again the Ten Commandments.

Thus, there is no doubt that the men of old are the ancestors of the Jewish people of Jesus’ day, who originally received the Ten Commandments from God at Mount Sinai.

Counterargument:

It is true that Jesus quotes from the Ten Commandments. Still, it is possible that Jesus has a referent other than the Israelites at Mount Sinai in mind. When we look at the whole of Matthew 5:21, Jesus not only refers to the commandment You shall not murder, but he also refers to the fact that whoever murders will be liable to judgment. There is no statement in the Old Testament that says that whoever murders would be liable to judgment. This implies that Jesus could have another Jewish tradition in mind. For example, maybe the Pharisees had commented on and extended the command You shall not murder with the addition, For whoever murders will be liable to judgment. Thus, Jesus is referring to a tradition that was known to the Jews of his time but lost to us because it is not recorded in Scripture.

Response to counterargument:

The problem with this view is that Jesus does not need to quote sections of the Old Testament verbatim for us to detect that he refers to an event recorded in the Old Testament. By stating the fifth commandment, it is obvious that Jesus has the Ten Commandments in mind. Added to this, there are portions of the Torah that allude to the fact that murderers were susceptible to judgment.^6,7 For example, Exodus 21:12 states that whoever strikes a man so that he dies shall be put to death. We find something similar in Leviticus 24:17 where we read, Whoever takes a human life shall surely be put to death. The fact is, when Israel received the law, God made it clear that whoever committed murder was liable to judgment. Thus, Jesus has in mind the forefathers who received the law at Mount Sinai.

Explanation:

Jesus says to the crowd that they had heard it said to their forefathers, You shall not kill. By identifying when and to whom the command You shall not kill was said, we can determine whom those of old refers to. Matthew’s statement in the original Greek is οὐ φονεύσεις (You shall not kill).

We know that Matthew quoted from the Septuagint, the Greek translation of the Old Testament. This means that if we can identify the same phrase in the Septuagint, this will give us a strong clue as to what Jesus is referring to. When we look to the Septuagint, we find the phrase used in two places, Exodus 20:13 and Deuteronomy 5:17. Thus, Matthew has taken the phrase verbatim from the Ten Commandments.⁸ Of course, we know that the Ten Commandments were given to Israel by God at Mount Sinai. This implies that those of old in Matthew 5:21 are the forefathers of the Jews who received the Ten Commandments from God at Mount Sinai.

Counterargument:

While it is true that Matthew’s quote corresponds directly to the Septuagint, this does not mean that Matthew necessarily quoted from there. In Greek, the command You shall not murder is only two words (οὐ φονεύσεις), so when such a statement is recorded, there is little room for difference. It could be a coincidence that Matthew’s statement is the same as the fifth commandment, without Jesus’ referring to the fifth commandment.

Response to counterargument:

It is not difficult to see that Matthew has the Ten Commandments in mind, even if we cannot prove with certainty that he quotes from the Septuagint. The context indicates that Jesus has the Ten Commandments in mind. First, he explains that not one iota or dot will fall from the law until all is accomplished (Matthew 5:18). Next, he explains that whoever relaxes one of the commandments will be least in the kingdom (Matthew 5:19). He follows this up with an exposition on certain laws, including You shall not murder, You shall not commit adultery, and You shall not swear falsely. These are all found in the Ten Commandments.

Added to this, while it might be that the command You shall not murder is only two words in the original, this does not mean that it is a likely phrase, given all of the possible two-word configurations in Koine Greek. In fact, a search through the Septuagint indicates that the only time the phrase οὐ φονεύσεις is used is in Exodus 20:13 and Deuteronomy 5:7.

Possible weaknesses:

The only possible weakness of this view is that since Jesus does not say specifically that the men of old were the Israelites at Mount Sinai, we cannot know with certainty who the men of old are. Of course, such a high interpretive bar would make interpretation almost impossible, because authors often use a variety of literary devices to make their point.

Interpretation 1:The first part of the antithesis refers to when God gave the Ten Commandments to the Israelites at Mount Sinai.

Interpretation 1:
The first part of the antithesis refers to when God gave the Ten Commandments to the Israelites at Mount Sinai.