Scripture Study

Matthew 5:21-22

“You have heard that it was said to those of ancient times, ‘You shall not murder’; and ‘whoever murders shall be liable to judgment.’ But I say to you

that if you are angry with a brother or sister, you will be liable to judgment; and if you insult a brother or sister, you will be liable to the council; and if you say,

‘You fool,’ you will be liable to the hell of fire.”

LLOYD-JONES In this passage we have the first of a series of six examples which Jesus gives of His interpretation of the law of God over and against that of the scribes and Pharisees. That is the way the rest of the chapter and most of the remainder of the Sermon on the Mount will be interpreted. It is all an exposition of the statement: “Except your righteousness shall exceed the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees, you shall in no way enter into the kingdom of heaven.” The contrast is not between the law given through Moses and the teaching of Jesus; it is a contrast between the false interpretation of the Law of Moses, and the true presentation of the law given by our Lord Himself. This distinction is made by Paul in Romans 7, where he says that once he thought he was keeping the law perfectly. Then he suddenly understood that the law said “Thou shall not covet” – and at once he was convicted. Paul had not realized that it was the spirit of the law that mattered, and that the coveting is as reprehensible under the law as the actual deed. That is the type of thing we have in principle throughout the exposition of the law which Jesus gives here.

Having defined His attitude towards the law and announced that He has come to fulfill it, and having told His hearers that they must realize exactly what He means -- Jesus now gives these six practical illustrations. He presents us with six contrasts, each of which is introduced by the formula: “You have heard it was said by them of old. . . but I say to you.”

1. The Pharisees and scribes were always guilty of reducing the meaning and even the demands of the law, and He gives a perfect illustration here. He said: “You have heard it was said by them of old, ‘You shall not kill, and whoever shall kill shall be in danger of the judgment.’” It is important that we look at this correctly. “You shall not kill” is in the Ten Commandments, but the scribes and Pharisees added something to that – “whoever shall kill

shall be in danger of the judgment.” It does say in the law that the penalty for murder is death (Numbers 35:30-31); but the Pharisees, by putting these two things together, had reduced the importance of this commandment – “You shall not kill” – to just a question of committing actual murder. By immediately adding the second part to the first, they had weakened the whole injunction.

2. The second thing the Pharisees and scribes did was to reduce and confine the sanctions with which this prohibition was associated – to mere punishment at the hands of the civil magistrates. “Whoever shall kill shall be in danger of the judgment.” Here, the “judgment” means the local court. The result was that they were teaching, “You must not do murder because you will be in danger of being punished by the civil magistrate.” That was their complete interpretation of the great commandment which says, “You shall not kill.” They had evacuated it of its truly great content and had reduced it merely to a question of murder. Furthermore, they did not mention the judgment of God at all. Only the judgment of the local court seems to matter. They had made it something purely legal – just a matter of the letter of a law which said, “If you commit murder, certain consequences will follow.” The effect of this was that the Pharisees and scribes felt perfectly happy about the law on this point – as long as they were not guilty of murder. For a man to commit murder, he must suffer the consequences before the court and suffer the punishment suitable for such a crime. However, as long as one did not actually commit murder, all was well – and he could face with equanimity the commandment “You should not kill.” He could say to himself, “I have kept and fulfilled the law.”

“No, no, no,” says Jesus. Here you see how the whole concept of righteousness and law -- which has characterized the teaching of the scribes and Pharisees -- has become a travesty. They have reduced the law so much that it is no longer the law of God. It does not convey the real injunction which God had in mind when this law was written. The scribes and Pharisees have simply and conveniently reduced it within bounds and measures designed to make them happy – and they can say that they have kept the law completely.

We see here one of the guiding principles which enables us to understand the false interpretation of the law of which the Pharisees and scribes were guilty. It is something of which we still tend to be guilty ourselves. It is possible for us to face the law of God as we find it in the Bible, but interpret and define it in such a way as to make it something which we can keep very easily -- because we only keep it negatively. We persuade ourselves that all is well. Before his conversion, the apostle Paul thought he kept the law perfectly. The rich young ruler thought he had kept the law perfectly, because he – like Paul – had been taught in this way and believed the same false interpretation. As long as we accept the letter of the law, and forget the whole spirit, content and meaning – we may persuade ourselves that we are perfectly righteous with the law.

Jesus exposes that fallacy and shows us that to look at it in that way is to completely misunderstand the meaning of God’s law. He states His view and His exposition under three headings.

The first principle is that what matters is not merely the letter of the law but the spirit. The law says: “You shall not kill”; but that does not just mean: “You shall not commit murder.” To interpret it like that is merely to define the law in a way which enables us to believe that we escape it – but we may be guilty in a most serious manner of breaking this very law. Jesus says that this commandment includes not only actual physical murder, but also causeless anger in our heart against a brother. The true way of understanding “You shall not kill” is this: “Whoever is angry with his brother without a cause shall be in danger of the judgment.” In effect He is saying, “do not listen to these Pharisees and scribes who say you are only in danger of the judgment when you actually murder a man; I say to you that if you are angry in your heart with a brother without a cause, you are exposed to precisely the same demand and the same punishment of the law.” We can begin to see something of the real spiritual content of the law – and we see the meaning of His words when He said that the law must be “fulfilled.” In the ancient law given through Moses, there was this spiritual content. The old law tells us not to feel a causeless anger in our hearts against our brother. For us as Christians to feel enmity in our hearts is – according to Jesus – to be guilty of murder in the sight of God. To hate, to feel bitter, to have unpleasant and unkind feelings of resentment towards a person without cause is murder. There are some authorities who say that this qualifying phrase “without a cause” should not

be there – and it is omitted in some manuscripts. However, even taking it as it is, it is a tremendous demand – and if we omit the qualifying phrase, it is even more demanding. You should not be angry with your brother. Anger in the heart towards any person – especially those who belong to the household of faith – is, according to Jesus, as reprehensible in the sight of God as murder.

Not only must we not feel causeless anger, we must never even be guilty of expressions of contempt. “Whoever shall say to his brother, Raca, shall be in danger of the council.” Raca means “worthless fellow.” It is an attitude of contempt – an attitude we are all aware of within our hearts and spirits. According to Jesus, to dismiss a brother as a “worthless fellow” is terrible in the eyes of God. Jesus often points this out – sometimes including it on lists of sins. “Out of the heart proceed evil thoughts, murders, adulteries,” etc. (Matthew 15:19). Jesus always includes evil thought with murders – and such things as strife, enmity, deceit and many other things which we do not regard as being such terrible sins. If we analyze the position, we see that it is perfectly true. Contempt, a feeling of scorn and derision, is the very spirit that ultimately leads to murder. We may have reasons for not allowing it to be expressed by actually committing murder – but, we have often “murdered” one another in mind and heart and thought. We have nursed thoughts against people which are as foul as murder. There has been a disturbance of the spirit, and we have said of another, “Raca.” There are ways people can be destroyed short of murder. We can destroy a man’s reputation; we can shake somebody else’s confidence in him by whispering criticism or by deliberate fault-finding. That is the kind of thing which Jesus is indicating here, and His whole purpose is to show all of that is included in this commandment: “You shall not kill.” Killing does not only mean destroying life physically; it means trying to destroy the spirit and the soul – destroying the person in any shape or form. Jesus then says: “Whoever shall say ‘you fool’ shall be in danger of hell fire.” This is an expression of abuse, the vilifying of a person. It shows the bitterness and hatred in the heart finding its expression in words. It is a dangerous error for Christian people to feel that, because we are Christians, the Sermon on the Mount has nothing to do with us – or to feel that it does not apply to present-day Christians. It speaks to us today; it searches us to the depths of our being. Here we are confronted not only with actual murder, but with all

that is within our hearts and feelings and sensibilities – and ultimately our spirit – that is regarded by God as murder.

This is an important statement. It does not mean that anger is always wrong; it does not mean that anger is always prohibited. There are illustrations in the NT where Jesus spoke of the Pharisees in strong terms – referring to them as “blind” and as “hypocrites.” In Luke 24:25 Jesus turned to the people and said: “O fools, and slow of heart to believe,” and in Matthew 23:17-19 twice He says: “You fools and blind men.” Reading all Matthew 23 we see that He denounced the scribes and Pharisees, delineating their sins and false teachings. He did so in a judicial manner – as one given authority by God. He is pronouncing final judgment upon the Pharisees and the scribes, which He is authorized to do as the Messiah. He had offered the gospel to them; every opportunity had been given them – but they had rejected it. Remember, too, that Jesus always utters these statements against false religion and hypocrisy. He is really denouncing the self-righteousness that rejects the grace of God – the self-righteousness that even justifies itself before God and rejects Him. His statements are judicial. If we can always claim that any such expression we may use is uttered in a similar sense, then we are free from this particular charge.

The so-called “imprecatory Psalms” [those which invoke judgment, calamity, or curses on one’s enemies or those perceived as enemies of God] trouble some people. The Psalmist, under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, is pronouncing judgment against his own enemies and also the enemies of God and those who are abusing the Church and the kingdom of God. Likewise, our anger must only be against sin; we must not feel angry with the sinner -- but only be full of sorrow and compassion for him. “Let those who love the Lord, hate evil” (Psalms 97:10). We should feel a sense of anger as we view sin, hypocrisy, unrighteousness, and all that is evil. That is the way we fulfill Paul’s injunction in Ephesians 4:26: “Be angry, and do not sin.” The two things are not compatible. The anger of Jesus was always a righteous indignation; it was a holy anger – an expression of the wrath of God Himself. We should heed Romans 1:18: “The wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men.” God hates evil. God’s anger is displayed against it, and His wrath will be poured out upon it.

The holier we become, the more anger we shall feel against sin – but we must never feel anger against the sinner. We must draw a distinction between the person himself and what he does. We must never be guilty of a feeling of contempt or abhorrence or an expression of vilification. Christ is telling us that we should not feel clear of this commandment just because we have not committed murder. Examine the state of your heart and how you react to what happens. Raging against someone who has done something to you -- or feeling anger against a person who has done nothing against you -- are what God meant when He said: “You shall not kill.” God sees the heart and is not only concerned with the external action. God forbids that we produce a self-righteousness by reducing the law of God to something which we have already kept – or which we feel we are unlikely to do. Every person should examine himself.

STOTT This illustration relates to the sixth of the Ten Commandments. The commandment “You shall not kill” would be better expressed “Do not commit murder” – for it is not a prohibition against taking all human life in any and every circumstance, but in particular against homicide or murder. This is clear from the fact that the same Mosaic Law, which forbids killing in the Decalogue, elsewhere encourages killing both in the form of capital punishment and in the wars designed to exterminate the corrupt pagan tribes which inhabited the Promised Land. Both war and the death penalty are debated questions which have always perplexed sensitive Christian consciences. There have always been Christians on both sides of the issue. What always needs to be asserted by Christians in these debates is that – if the concept of the “just war” is tenable and if the retention of the death penalty is justifiable – the reason is not because human life is ever cheap and readily disposable, but because it is precious as the life of creatures made in God’s image. Those who campaign for the abolition of the death penalty, on the ground that human life (the murderer’s) should not be taken, tend to forget the value of the life of the murderer’s victim. Genesis 9:6 says: Whoever sheds the blood of man, by man shall his blood be shed; for God made man in His own image.” Those who campaign for unconditional pacifism tend to forget that -- though the indiscriminate maiming and killing of civilians is utterly indefensible – God has given to society (whether the state or, by extension, some international body) the right and the responsibility to punish evildoers (Romans 13:1). The

complex issues involved in war and the death penalty cannot be solved by a simplistic appeal to the commandment “You shall not kill.”

The scribes and Pharisees were evidently seeking to restrict the application of the sixth commandment to the deed of murder alone – to the act of spilling human blood in homicide. If they refrained from this, they considered that they had kept the commandment. This is apparently what the rabbis taught the people – but Jesus disagreed with them. He maintained that the true prohibition was much wider. It included thoughts and words as well as deeds, anger and insult – as well as murder.

Anger is mentioned at the beginning of verse 22: “everyone who is angry with his brother . . . “ The additional words “without a cause” (KJV, NKJV) occur in most Greek manuscripts, but not in the best. They were probably a later insertion and are omitted in modern revisions and translations. Nevertheless, there is every reason to believe that the added phrase correctly interprets what Jesus must have meant. Not all anger is evil – as is evident from the wrath of God, which is always holy and pure. Even fallen human being may sometimes feel righteous anger – although, being fallen, we should ensure that even this is slow to rise and quick to die down (James 1:19; Ephesians 4:26). Luther described his own experience with righteous anger – “an anger of love, one that wishes no one any evil, one that is friendly to the person but hostile to the sin.” The reference Jesus gives is to unrighteous anger, the anger of pride, vanity, hatred, malice and revenge.

Insults are mentioned at the end of verse 22. Jesus warns us against calling our brother either Raca (probably equivalent to an Aramaic word meaning “empty”) or more (the Greek word for “fool”). It appears that Raca is an insult to a person’s intelligence, calling him “empty-headed.” It has been compared to such English parallels as “nitwit,” “blockhead,” “numbskull,” or “bonehead.” A moron also is a fool, but it can hardly be used here in its ordinary sense – for Jesus Himself called the Pharisees and His disciples “fools” (Matthew 23:17; Luke 24:25). The word had acquired both religious and moral overtones, being applied in the OT to those who denied God’s existence and as a result plunged into reckless evil-doing (Psalms 14:1-4; Psalms 53:1-4). Alternatively, some scholars suggest more may transliterate a Hebrew word which means a “rebel,” an “apostate” or an

“outcast.” (Psalms 78:8; Jeremiah 5:23). One biblical scholar proposed: “The man who tells his brother that he is doomed to hell is in danger of hell himself.”

Some uncertainty remains about the precise meaning of these two terms of abuse. They were clearly derisive, insulting epithets. The New English Bible (NEB) replaces them with a more general “If he abuses his brother . . . if he sneers at him.” A. B. Bruce preserves the major difference between the words when he writes: “Raca expresses contempt for a man’s head – ‘you are stupid!’; more expresses contempt for his heart and character – ‘you scoundrel!’”

These things – angry thoughts and insulting words – may never lead to the ultimate act of murder. Yet they are equal to murder in God’s sight. John later writes: “Anyone who hates his brother is a murderer” (1 John 3:15). Anger and insults are ugly symptoms of a desire to get rid of somebody who stands in our way. Our thoughts, looks, and words are indicative of that – as is sometimes said “we wish he were dead.” Such an evil wish is a breach of the sixth commandment, and it renders the guilty person liable to the very penalties to which the murderer exposes himself – not in each case literally in a human law court (for no court can charge a man with anger) but before the bar of God.

The exact meaning of the different judgments has been much discussed, but it is clear that Jesus was issuing a solemn warning of divine judgment. The rabbis may have been teaching not just that the only breach of the sixth commandment was murder, but also that the only penalty for murder was a human sentence: “Whoever kills shall be liable to judgment” (verse 21). Therefore, Jesus added that “anyone who is angry” – without cause -- will equally “be liable to judgment. Although the same Greek words are used for “judgment” in verses 22 and 23, now the reference must be to the judgment of God, since no human court is competent to try a case of inward anger. Similarly, Jesus continued, insult will expose us not only to “the council” but even to “the hell of fire” (verse 22). In both cases Jesus was extending the nature of the penalty as well as of the crime. Not only are anger and insult equivalent to murder, but the punishment to which they render us liable is nothing less than the divine judgment of hell.

B-MT(1) This is the first example of the new standard which Jesus makes. The ancient law said: “You shall not murder” (Exodus 20:13); but Jesus says that even anger against another person is forbidden. In the KJV (AV), the person who is

condemned is the one who is angry “without a cause.” However, the words “without a cause” are not found in any of the great manuscripts. Jesus gives us nothing less than the total prohibition of anger. It is not enough not to strike someone – you must not even wish to strike the blow. You are not even to have hard feelings against that person within the heart.

In this passage, Jesus is arguing as a Rabbi might argue. He is showing that He was skillful in using the debating methods which the wise men of His time used. There is in this passage a gradation of anger – and an answering gradation of punishment.

1. There is first the person who is angry with someone else. The verb used is orgizesthai. In Greek, there are two words for anger. Thumos is described as “being like the flame which comes from dried straw.” It is the anger which quickly blazes up and which just as quickly dies down. It is an anger which rises speedily and which passes just as speedily. Then there is orge, which was described as anger that has become deep-rooted. It is the long-lived anger; it is the anger of those who nurse their wrath to keep it warm; it is the anger over which people brood and which they will not allow to die.

That anger is liable to the “judgment court.” The judgment court is the local village council which dispensed justice. That court was composed of the local village elders, and varied in number from three in villages of fewer than 150 inhabitants, to seven in larger towns, and twenty-three in larger cities.

Jesus, then condemns all selfish anger. The Bible is clear that anger is forbidden. James says: “Your anger does not produce God’s righteousness” (James 1:20). Paul orders people to put off all “anger, wrath, malice, slander” (Colossians 3:8). Even pagans saw the folly of anger. Cicero said that when anger entered into the scene, “nothing could be done rightly and nothing sensibly.” Seneca called anger “a brief insanity.”

Jesus forbids forever the anger which broods, the anger which will not forget, the anger which refuses to be pacified, the anger which seeks revenge. If we are to obey Jesus, all anger must be banished from life,

and especially that anger which lingers. It is a warning to remember that we cannot call ourselves Christians and lose our temper because of any personal wrong which we have suffered.

2. Jesus goes on to speak of two cases where anger turns into insulting words. The Jewish teachers forbade such anger and such words. These teachers spoke of “oppression in words” and of “the sin of insult.” They had a saying: “three classes go down to Gehenna and return not – the adulterer, he who puts his neighbor openly to shame, and he who gives his neighbor an insulting name.” Anger in a person’s heart and anger in a person’s speech are equally forbidden.

The person who calls another Raca is condemned. Raca is almost untranslatable, because it describes a tone of voice more than anything else. Its whole inflection is the tone of “contempt.” To call a man Raca was to call him a brainless idiot, a silly fool, an empty-headed blunderer. It is the word of one who despises another with an arrogant contempt.

There is a Rabbinic tale of a certain Rabbi who was coming from his teacher’s house, and he was feeling uplifted at the thought of his own scholarship and erudition and goodness. A very ill-favored passer-by greeted him. The Rabbi did not return the greeting, but said: “You Raca! How ugly you are! Are all the men of your town as ugly as you?” “That,” said the passer-by, “I do not know. Go and tell the Maker who created me how ugly is the creature He has made.” So, there the sin of contempt was rebuked.

The sin of contempt is liable to an even more severe judgment. It is liable to the judgment of the Sanhedrin, the supreme court of the Jews. It is as if Jesus said: “The sin of deep-rooted anger is bad; the sin of contempt is worse.” There is no sin quite so un-Christian as the sin of contempt. There is contempt which comes from pride of birth – and snobbery is in truth an ugly thing. There is contempt which comes from position and from money; pride in material things is an ugly thing. There is contempt which comes from knowledge; and of all snobberies, intellectual snobbery is the hardest to understand – for the wise were

never impressed with anything but their own ignorance. We should never look with contempt on anyone for whom Christ died.

3. Jesus goes on to speak of the person who calls someone else moros. Moros also means “fool,” but the person who is moros is a “moral fool,” someone who is “playing the fool.” The psalmist spoke of fools who say in their hearts that there is no God (Psalm 14:1). Such people were moral fools, who lived immoral lives – and who, in wishful thinking, said there was no God. To call people moros was not to criticize their mental ability; it was to cast aspersions on their moral character; it was to take their name and reputation from them and to brand them as immoral.

Jesus says that anyone who destroys another’s name and reputation is liable to the most severe judgment of all – the judgment of the “fire of Gehenna.” Often the RSV translates it as “hell.” The word was commonly used by the Jews (Matthew 5:22, 29, 30, 10:28, 18:9, 23:15, 33; Mark 9:43, 45, 47; Luke 12:5; James 3:6). It really means the Valley of Hinnom, which is a valley to the southwest of Jerusalem. It was notorious as the place where Ahaz had introduced into Israel the fire-worship of the pagan god Molech – to whom children were burned in the fire. In 2 Chronicles 28:3, we are told: “He made offerings in the valley of the son of Hinnom, and made his sons pass through fire.” Josiah, the reforming king, had stamped out that worship and had ordered that the valley should be forever an accursed place. “He defiled Topheth, which is in the valley of Ben-hinnom, so that no one would make a son or a daughter pass through fire as an offering to Molech” (2 Kings 23:10). Because of this, the Valley of Hinnom became the place where the refuse of Jerusalem was cast out and destroyed; it was a public incinerator. Always the fire smoldered, and a cloud of thick smoke lay over it – and it bred a loathsome kind of worm which was hard to kill (Mark 9:43-48). So, Gehenna, the Valley of Hinnom, became identified in people’s minds with all that was accursed and filthy – the place where useless and evil things were destroyed. That is why it became a synonym for the place of God’s destroying power – for hell.

Jesus insists that the gravest thing of all is to destroy someone’s reputation and to take that person’s good name away. No punishment is too severe for those who tell malicious stories, or the idle gossip which murders people’s reputations. Such conduct is a hell-deserving sin.

All these gradations of punishment are not to be taken literally. What Jesus is saying here is: “In the old days, people condemned murder – and murder is truly wrong. But I tell you that not only are your outward actions under judgment; your innermost thoughts are also under the scrutiny and judgment of God. Long-lasting anger is bad; contemptuous speaking is worse; and the careless or the malicious talk which destroys a person’s good name is worst of all.” Those who are the slaves of anger, those who speak with contempt, or those who destroy another’s good name may never have committed a murder in action – but they are murderers at heart.

CHAMBERS Jesus is using an illustration that was familiar to the disciples. If a man disregarded the common judgment, he was in danger of being brought into an inner court; and if he were contemptuous with the court, he was in danger of the final judgment. Jesus uses this illustration of the ordinary exercise of judgment to show what the disposition of a disciple must be like; that his motive must be right -- the disposition behind the deed, the motives behind the actual occurrence are important. He must never be angry in deed; but Jesus Christ demands that he should never be angry in thought. “The motive of my motives – the spring of my dreams – must be so right that deeds will follow naturally.”

In Psalm 139: 23-24, the psalmist, realizing that he is too big for himself, prays: “Search me, O God, and know my heart; try me and know my anxious thoughts; and see if there be any hurtful way in me. And lead me in the everlasting way.” Deliverance from sin is not deliverance from conscious sin only. It is deliverance from sin in God’s sight, and he can see down into a region man knows nothing about. By the marvelous atonement of Jesus Christ applied to us by the Holy Spirit, God can purify the springs of our unconscious life until the temper of our minds is cleansed of blame in His sight.

Be careful of refining away the radical aspect of Jesus’ teaching by saying that God puts something in to counteract the wrong temperament. That is a compromise. Jesus never teaches us to curb and suppress the wrong disposition; He gives a totally new disposition. He alters the mainspring of action. Jesus’ teaching can only be interpreted by the new Spirit which He puts in; it can never be taken as a series of rules and regulations.

Someone cannot imitate the disposition of Jesus Christ; it is either there, or it is not. When the Son of God is formed in us, He is formed in our human nature, and we must put on the new person in accordance with His life and obey Him. Then His disposition will work out all the time. We make our characters out of our dispositions. Character is what we make; disposition is what we are born with. When we are born again, we are given new dispositions. One must make one’s own character, but one cannot make one’s disposition – that is a gift. Our natural dispositions are gifted to us by heredity; by regeneration God gives us the disposition of His Son.

Jesus goes behind the old law to the disposition. Everything He says is impossible unless He can put His Spirit into us and remake us from within. When we are born from above, we do not need to pretend to be saints. We cannot help but be saints.

The only way we know as disciples that Jesus has altered our dispositions is by trying circumstances. When circumstances test us, instead of feeling resentment, we should experience an amazing change within – and say: “Praise God, this is an amazing alteration!” The proof that God has altered our dispositions is not that we persuade ourselves that He has, but that we prove He has when circumstances put us to the test. If we are born again of the Holy Spirit and have the life of Jesus in us by means of His Cross we must show it in the way we walk and talk and transact all our business.

LAB When Jesus said, “But I tell you,” He was not doing away with the law or adding His own beliefs. Rather, He was giving a fuller understanding of why God made that law in the first place. For example, Moses said, “You shall not murder” (Exodus 20:13). Jesus taught that we should not even become angry enough to murder, for then we have already committed murder in our heart. The Pharisees read this law and, not having literally murdered anyone, felt righteous. Yet they

were angry enough with Jesus that they would soon plot His death – though they would not do the dirty work themselves. We miss the intent of God’s Word when we read His rules for living without trying to understand why He made them.

Killing is a terrible sin, but anger is a great sin too, because it also violates God’s command to love. Anger in this case refers to a seething, brooding bitterness against someone. It is a dangerous emotion that always threatens to leap out of control – leading to violence, emotional hurt, increased mental stress, and spiritual damage. Anger keeps us from developing a spirit pleasing to God. Self-control is good, but Christ wants us to practice thought-control as well. Jesus said that we will be held accountable even for our attitudes.

HEB-GRSB “Judgment,” krisis, is used by implication to refer to a tribunal, justice. In Matthew 5:22 it is used for the power of judgment -- standing for the judgment of the great day.

Adelphos is the Greek word for “brother.” In Matthew 5:22 it represents “one of the same nature” or “fellow man.”

The Greek word which is translated “fool” in Matthew 5:22 is moros. It means “dull, not acute.” In the NT it is used of the mind to mean “stupid, foolish” – and, therefore, “fool.”

VINE’S There are several Greek words for “kill.” In Matthew 5:21 “murder” -- the translation of the Greek word phoneuo -- is used twice.

Raca is an Aramaic word related to the Hebrew word req meaning “empty.” In the AV of 1611 it was spelled racha; in the edition of 1648, it was changed to raca. It was a word of utter contempt – signifying “empty,” intellectually rather than morally; “empty-headed,” like Abimelech’s hirelings (Judges 9:4); and the “vain” man of James 2:20. As condemned by Christ in Matthew 5:22, it was worse than being angry – since an outrageous utterance is worse than a feeling unexpressed or somewhat controlled in expression. It does not indicate such a loss of self-control as the word rendered “fool” – a godless, moral reprobate.

Moros, “fool,” primarily denotes dull or sluggish – hence, stupid or foolish. In verse 22, “You fool” means morally worthless, a scoundrel. It is a more serious reproach than Raca. Raca scorns a man’s mind and calls him stupid; moros scorns

his heart and character. Therefore, Jesus gives the latter a more severe condemnation.

Krisis primarily denotes a separating – then, a decision, judgment. It is especially used in reference to Divine judgment. It denotes the process of investigation, the act of distinguishing and separating – thus a judging, a passing of judgment upon a person or thing. In Matthew 21 and 22 the word refers to a tribunal which passes judgment.

PCCNT(Calvin) It is a mistake to think that this is a correction of the Law, and that Christ raises His disciples to a higher degree of perfection. It has been a prevailing opinion that the beginning of righteousness was laid down in the ancient law, but that the perfection of it is pointed out in the Gospel. Nothing was farther from the design of Christ, than to alter or innovate anything in the commandments of the law. God has fixed the rule of life once, which He will never retract. However, because the law had been corrupted by false expositions and turned to a profane meaning, Christ vindicates it against such corruptions, and points out its true meaning from which the Jews had departed.

PCCNT(Clarke) “You have heard it was said by them of old . . .” – to or by the ancients. We may understand that they were the ones who lived before the law, and those who lived under it. Murder was forbidden before the law as well as under the law (Genesis 9:5-6). It is very likely that Jesus is referring here to traditions and shadings of the law relative to the ancient Mosaic ordinance – and by their operation, rendered the primitive command of little or no effect.

“Whoever is angry with his brother (without a cause) . . .” – whoever is vainly incensed. What Jesus is prohibiting is not merely that miserable facility which some have of being angry at every trifle, continually taking offense against their best friends – but that anger which leads a man to commit outrages against another. He thereby subjects himself to that punishment which was to be inflicted on those who break the peace.

Whoever does this shall be liable to the judgment. The matter would be brought before a senate, composed of twenty-three magistrates, whose business it was to judge in cases of murder and other capital crimes. It punished criminals by strangling or beheading. Some theologians interpret this to be the judgment of God.

Raca means “to be empty.” It signifies a vain, empty, worthless fellow with shallow brains. It was a term of great contempt.

The council was the famous council, known among the Jews as the Sanhedrin. It was composed of seventy-two elders, six chosen out of each tribe. This grand Sanhedrin not only received appeals from the inferior Sanhedrins -- or court of twenty-three – but it alone could take responsibility for addressing the highest crimes and alone could inflict the punishment of stoning.

“You fool . . .” was a rebel against God, an apostate from all good. This term implied among the Jews, the highest seriousness of crime and the most aggravated guilt.

By “the danger of hell fire” Jesus alludes to the valley of the son of Hinnom. This place was near Jerusalem, and had been formerly used for those abominable sacrifices -- in which idolatrous Jews had caused their children to pass through the fire to Molech. A particular place in this valley was called Tophet, the fire stove, in which some burnt their children alive to the idol of Molech (2 Kings 23:10; 2 Chronicles 28:3; Jeremiah 7:31-32). From the circumstances of this valley having been the scene of those infernal sacrifices, the Jews in Jesus’ time used the word Gehenna for hell, the place of the damned.

It is probable that in this passage Jesus means no more here than if a man charged another with apostasy from the Jewish religion – or rebellion against God – and cannot prove his charge, he is exposed to that punishment (burning alive) which the other would have suffered if the charges had been substantiated.

MSB Jesus was not altering the terms of the law in this passage (as well as in verses 31, 33, 38, and 43). Rather, He was correcting what they had “heard” – the rabbinical understanding of the law. In this passage Jesus is quoting from Exodus 20:13 and Deuteronomy 5:17.

Raca literally means “empty-headed.” Jesus suggested that the verbal abuse stems from the same sinful motives -- anger and hatred – that ultimately lead to murder. The internal attitude is what the law actually prohibits; and, therefore, an abusive insult carries the same kind of moral guilt as an act of murder. “Hell” is a reference to the Hinnom Valley, southwest of Jerusalem. Ahaz and Manasseh permitted human sacrifices there during their reigns (2 Chronicles 28:3; 33:6) –

therefore, it was called “The Valley of Slaughter” (Jeremiah 19:6). In Jesus’ day, it was a garbage dump, where fires burned continually and was thus an apt symbol of eternal fire.

ICB The focus shifts from the external meaning of the law against murder to the inner attitude of the heart, for which there can be no legislation. Hatred and insult toward one’s brother are as serious violations of God’s will for His people as the overt act of murder.

PCNT(Wesley) “You have heard . . .” refers to the scribes reciting the law: “You shall not murder.” They interpreted this -- as all the other commandments – literally of the outer act. The prophets never said: “But I say unto you . . .”; their phrasing was: “Thus says the Lord . . .”. The only One who has authority to use this language is the one lawgiver who is able to save and destroy – Jesus. Christ teaches that we should not – for any reason – be so angry as to call any man Raca or fool. We should not – for any cause – be angry at the sinner, but only at his sins.

PCNT(Henry) The Jewish teachers had taught that nothing except actual murder was forbidden by the sixth commandment. Thus, they explained away its spiritual meaning. Christ showed the full meaning of this commandment to which we must be judged in the hereafter; and, therefore, we should be ruled by it now. All rash anger is heart murder.

NIVSB The contrast that Jesus sets up (verses 21, 27, 31, 33, 38, 43) is not between the OT and His teaching; He has just established the validity of the OT Law. Rather, it is between externalistic interpretation of the Rabbinic tradition on the one hand and Jesus’ correct interpretation of the Law on the other.

Several Hebrew and Greek verbs mean “kill.” The ones used here and in Exodus 20:13 specifically mean “murder.”

Raca may be related to the Aramaic word for “empty” and mean “empty-headed.” The Sanhedrin was the high court of the Jews. In NT times it was made up of three kinds of members: chief priests, elders, and teachers of the law. Its total membership numbered 71 – including the high priest, who was presiding officer. Under Roman jurisdiction the Sanhedrin was given a great deal of authority, but they could not impose capital punishment.

The Greek word Gehenna, or Gethenna, derives its name from a deep ravine south of Jerusalem – the “Valley of (the Sons of) Hinnom. The Hebrew is ge’hinnom. During the reigns of the wicked Ahaz and Manasseh, human sacrifices to the Ammonite God Molech were offered there. Josiah desecrated the valley because of the pagan worship there (2 Kings 23:10; Jeremiah 7:31-32). It became a perpetually burning city dump and later a figure for the place of final punishment.

BBNT Six times in verses 21-43 Jesus cites Scripture and then – like a good rabbi -- explains it (Matthew 5: 21, 27, 31, 33, 38, 43). The wording He uses (“You have heard it said . . . but I say”) was used by other Jewish teachers to establish the fuller meaning of a text, although Jesus speaks with greater authority than Jewish teachers normally claimed. [I question this statement. Most commentators say that Jesus is the only one who speaks with the authority implied by the phrase “but I say . . .” MS]

Raca is Aramaic for “empty-headed one.” The insult is about the same as the one that follows it – “Fool.” The punishments are also roughly equal – the (day of God’s) judgment, the heavenly Sanhedrin or Supreme Court, and hell. Jewish literature described God’s heavenly tribunal as a Supreme Court, or Sanhedrin, parallel to the earthly one. “The hell of fire” is literally “the Gehenna of fire,” which refers to the standard Jewish concept of Gehinnom, the opposite of paradise. In Gehinnom the wicked would be burned up (according to some Jewish teachers) or eternally tortured (according to other Jewish teachers). Not only the outward act of murder, but also the inward choice of anger that generates such acts of violence violates the spirit of God’s law against murder.

NBC Some translations of the Bible say “by them”; others say “to them.” The latter, as it appears in the AV and RV, is better. “You shall not kill” is the sixth commandment of the Decalogue, quoted from Exodus 20:13. The Greek word refers only to the taking of human life. “In danger of judgment” in both verses means that the wrong-doer is liable to be brought before the local council which met in the synagogue and was subordinate to the Great Council of Seventy, or Sanhedrin, at Jerusalem.

When Jesus said “whoever is angry,” He means that the real sin is committed in the heart before the stage of outward action is reached. In God’s sight he is as

great an offender as the man who kills. The Mosaic Law could restrain only outward actions; Jesus deals with the evil heart of man and transforms it (see Romans 8:3-4). In this sense His ethic fulfills the law because it deals with the root of the matter and enables the aims of the law to be carried out.

“Without a cause” is an expression which is omitted in some good manuscripts. It occurs in the some Bible translations, but is omitted by the RV and RSV.

Raca, a Hebrew expression of contempt, means “vain fellow” (2 Samuel 6:20 uses the expression “vulgar fellow.”) “The Council” is the Sanhedrin, or Great Council of Seventy. Jesus uses this judicial grading to make clear the degree of gravity of the offence. “You fool” represents the Greek word more. It is probable, however, that the original word was the Hebrew moreh, which is an expression of condemnation. Its use would imply a murderous hatred.

“Hell fire” is the Greek ten geennan tou pyros. Gehenna was the Hellenized form of the name of the valley of Hinnom at Jerusalem in which fires were kept constantly burning to consume the refuse of the city. This is a powerful picture of final destruction.

CHB Matthew 5:21-26 shows the revision of the Law of Murder. Christ shows by a few illustrative examples how the Law is to be understood and practiced by His disciples – in other words, how it is to be fulfilled. The old law punished only the act of murder; the Law of Christ condemns the emotion of anger in its very beginnings. Unreasonable anger is declared a crime in itself -- to be punished as such by the local tribunal (the judgment). Its mildest expression in word, Raca, is to be considered a capital offense, to be dealt with by the supreme Sanhedrin (the council). Its more abusive expression, “you fool,” is worthy of hell-fire. Murder itself is not mentioned as being an impossible act for a disciple of Christ. The language is rhetorical. Its intention is to mark the immense gulf that separates the morality of the Law from the morality of the Gospel.

This passage is the first clear reference in the NT to Christianity as a Church or Organized Society. The Church is spoken of under Jewish terms (“the judgment,” “the council,” “the gift brought to the altar”), but a Christian sense is to be read into them. It is implied that the Church will exercise moral discipline over its members, and that its public worship will be in a certain sense sacrificial (Hebrews 13:10). If it be asked whether the graduated punishments mentioned are

temporal or eternal, ecclesiastical or divine, the answer is “both” – for according to Christ’s promise, the discipline of the Church on earth, when rightly exercised, will be ratified in heaven (Matthew 16:19, 18:18; John 20:23).

“It was said by them of old time” in the RV was changed to “to them of old time.” It was said by God Himself. Therefore, Christ – in adding to it by His own authority (“but I say to you . . .”), claims to be equal to God. “The judgment” is the local tribunals of seven men appointed in every village (Deuteronomy 16:18; 2 Chronicles 19:5; Josephus “Antiquities 4.8.14). They appear to have had the power of the sword. [Josephus “Antiquities 4.8.14: “Let there be seven men to judge in every city, and these such as have been before most zealous in the exercise of virtue and righteousness . . . Let those that judge be permitted to determine according as they think to be right, unless anyone can show that they have taken bribes, to the perversion of justice, or can allege any other accusation against them, whereby it may appear that they have passed an unjust sentence; for it is not fit that causes should be openly determined out of regard to gain, or to the dignity of the suitors, but that the judges should esteem what is right before all other things, otherwise God will by that means be despised, and esteemed inferior to those, the dread of whose power has occasioned the unjust sentence; for justice is the power of God. . . But if these judges be unable to give a just sentence about the causes that come before them, let them send the cause undetermined to the holy city, and there let the high priest, the prophet, and the Sanhedrin, determine as it shall seem good to them.”]

“Brother” means a fellow Christian or a fellow man. The RV omits “without a cause.”

Raca is Aramaic and means “empty-headed” (Judges 9:4, 11:13). [By the referenced Scripture, it appears that it can also mean “worthless fellow.”] The Council in verse 22 refers to the supreme Sanhedrin of seventy-one members (seventy plus the presiding high priest) at Jerusalem – having jurisdiction over the most serious offenses, such as blasphemy. “You fool” was an expression used to denote “a wicked and godless man” (Psalm 14:1). Some think that the word here – more – is not Greek but the Hebrew word, moreh, meaning “rebel.” The “hell-fire” or “hell of fire” is literally the Gehenna of fire. Gehenna, the valley of Hinnom (an unknown person) was the place in or near Jerusalem where children

were made to pass through the fire to Molech; and, according to Jewish tradition, where the bodies of criminals were burned. Thus, Gehenna became a synonym for hell – the place of final punishment.

HSB This is the first of a series of statements in which Jesus makes the requirements of the law more radical than the strict letter might indicate. Quoting the sixth commandment, Jesus says, “You have heard that it was said to the people long ago, ‘Do not murder, and anyone who murders will be subject to the judgment.’ But I say to you . . .” – and then comes the hard saying under discussion.

Murder was a capital offense under Israelite law; the death penalty could not be commuted to a monetary fine – such as was payable for the killing of someone’s domestic animal. Where it could be proved that the killing was accidental – as when a man’s axe-head flew off the handle and struck a fellow workman on the head – it did not count as murder; but even so the owner of the axe-head had to take prudent measures to escape the vengeance of the man’s next of kin. In the case of murder, the killer was brought before the village elders; and, on the testimony of two or three witnesses, was sentenced to death. The death penalty was carried out by stoning; the witnesses threw the first stones, and then the community joined in – thus dissociating themselves from blood-guiltiness and expiating the pollution which it brought on the place.

Jesus points out that the murderous act springs from the angry thought. It is in the mind that the crime is first committed and judgment is incurred. The earthly court cannot take action against the angry thought, but the heavenly court can – and does. This in itself is a hard saying. According to the KJV, whoever is angry with his brother without a cause shall be in danger of “the judgment.” However, the phrase “without a cause” is a later addition to the Greek text, designed to make Jesus’ words more tolerable. (The other man’s anger may be sheer bad temper, but mine is righteous indignation – anger with a cause.) But Jesus’ words, in the original form of the text, make no distinction between righteous and unrighteous anger. Anyone who is angry with his brother exposes himself to judgment. There is no saying where unchecked anger may end. We are told in Ephesians 4:26, “Be angry but do not sin.” That is, “If you are angry, do not let

your anger lead you into sin; let sunset put an end to your anger” -- otherwise it will provide the devil with an opportunity which he will not be slow to seize.

There is an ascending scale of seriousness as Jesus goes on: “subject to judgment . . . answerable to the Sanhedrin . . . in danger of the fire of hell.” “The Sanhedrin” is apparently a reference to the supreme court of the nation in contrast to the local court. To insult one’s brother is more serious than to be angry with him. This is clearly so – the angry thoughts can be checked, but the insult once spoken cannot be recalled and may cause violent resentment. The person insulted may retaliate with a fatal blow, for which in fact -- if not in law --the victim of the blow may be as much to blame as the one who strikes it. The actual insult mentioned by Jesus is the word Raca. The precise meaning of Raca is disputed; it is probably an Aramaic word meaning something like “imbecile” – but it was plainly regarded as a deadly insult.

Jesus says that “anyone who says, ‘You fool!’ will be in danger of the fire of hell.” From this we surmise that “You fool!” is a deadlier insult than Raca – whatever Raca may mean. For “the hell of fire” or “hell fire” is the most severe penalty of all. The “hell of fire” is the fiery Gehenna. Gehenna is the valley on the south side of Jerusalem which, after the return from the Babylonian exile, served as the city’s rubbish dump and public incinerator. In earlier times it had been the site of the worship of Molech, and so it was thought fit that it should be degraded in this way. In due time it came to be used as a symbol of the destruction of the wicked after death – just as the Garden of Eden became a symbol of the blissful paradise to be enjoyed by the righteous.

But, was “You fool!” actually regarded as being such a deadly insult? In other parts of Matthew’s Gospel, the related adjective is used of the man who built his house on the sand (Matthew 7:26) and of the five girls who forgot to take a supply of oil to keep their torches alight (Matthew 25:2-3). Jesus Himself is reported as calling certain religious teachers “blind fools” (Matthew 23:17). It is probable that, just as Raca is a non-Greek word, so is the word more that Jesus used here. If so, then it is a word which to a Jewish ear meant “rebel (against God)” or “apostate”; it was the word which Moses used to the disaffected Israelites in the wilderness of Zin – “Listen, you rebels; must we bring you water out of this rock?” (Numbers 20:10).

Whether this was the word Jesus had in mind or not, He certainly had in mind the kind of language that is sure to produce a murderous quarrel. Primary responsibility for the ensuing bloodshed, He insisted, lies with the person who spoke the offending word -- and behind the offending word lies the hostile thought. It is there that the guilty process starts. If the hostile thought is not killed off as soon as the thinker becomes aware of it – then, although no earthly court may be in a position to have knowledge of it, that is what will be the first count in the indictment before the judgment-bar of God.

BC The principle that anger and scorn are in God’s sight as evil as the murder they can easily lead to was recognized by the rabbis, but Jesus supplied a new note of seriousness. It is not easy to follow that which His words tell us to do. “Judgment,” in verses 21 and 22, refers to the local Jewish courts of 3 to 23 members. The Sanhedrin is the 71-member Sanhedrin in Jerusalem, the Supreme Court. Raca, an Aramaic word, means “empty head,” and is often mentioned in rabbinic writings as a common term of abuse. More -- “You fool!” – is not Greek here, but Aramaic; it is the equivalent to “godless fellow.” Jesus means that the local court should try anger as much as murder, while the denial of a man’s self-respect should concern the Supreme Court. To deny a man’s moral standing before God is so serious that only the Heavenly Court is competent to deal with it. However, human courts seldom deal with these matters, but that will not prevent the Heavenly Court from dealing with the situation.

The “fire of Hell” is genna. In the OT the place of the dead, both good and bad, is called Sheol – rendered Hades in the NT. With the growth of belief in the resurrection during the Inter-Testament period, we find in the Book of Enoch (about 150-100 B.C.) the concept of a “hell” for sinners after the final judgment. This was soon universally called Ge-Hinnom (short for Ge-ben-Hinnom), the Valley of (the son of) Hinnom – in Greek, ge(h)enna. Literally this was the valley south of Jerusalem, where child sacrifices had been offered under Ahaz and Manasseh -- which from the time of Josiah became the place where the rubbish of Jerusalem was burned. In the later first century A.D. a group of Pharisees considered that Gehenna had a purifying role for lesser sinners consigned there; in the second century it was expanded to mean also a sort of purgatory before the final judgment. These latter uses are not found in the NT.

WYCLIFFE In His first illustration – murder – Jesus shows how His fulfillment of the Law went far deeper than mere outward conformity. “Whoever shall kill” marks a traditional enlargement of Exodus 20:13, but it still deals only with the act of murder. Some translations present verse 22 as “Anyone who is angry with his brother without a cause . . .” However, the best manuscripts omit the phrase “without a cause” -- although Ephesians 4:26 implies that some restrictions may properly be inferred.

Raca is from an Aramaic word meaning “empty one,” so it probably means “empty-headed.” Since this series calls for epithets progressively more severe, Raca is seen as contempt for a man’s head or intelligence; “You fool!” shows contempt for his character. “Gehenna of fire” – or “hell of fire” is a reference to the valley of Hinnom outside Jerusalem, where rubbish, offal, and carcasses were burned; and, thus, it is a graphic metaphor for the place of eternal torment. For its gruesome history see Jeremiah 7:31-32; 2 Chronicles 28:3; 33:6; 2 Kings 23:10. Christ locates the root of murder in the heart of the angry man, and promises that in His kingdom swift judgment will be dealt out before murder can result.

ABC By inserting the second half of verse 22 after verse 21 we have a much more natural sequence. Verse 22b will then represent a rabbinic comment on verse 21 – and not the words of Jesus. [“You have heard that it was said to those of ancient times, ‘You shall not murder’; and ‘whoever murders shall be liable to judgment .’. . . and if you insult a brother or sister, you will be liable to the council; and if you say, ‘You fool,’ you will be liable to the hell of fire.”] This penetration beneath the overt act into the hidden sources of action reveals the true greatness and originality of Jesus as a teacher. Jesus here utters His protest against the whole spirit of the Judaism of His day – with its overemphasis on law and conformity to external codes. Since all improvement of character must begin from within, Jesus turns His searchlight upon the heart and shows men the lurking forces within that arrest all growth and possibility of reform. Mastery over anger is only possible to those who feel themselves responsible to God. An ethic without religion cannot do this.

The phrase “the judgment” in both verses refers to the tribunal of God. Raca is an Aramaic word meaning “empty” and was an expression of contempt. “Hell of fire” is a reference to a valley southwest of Jerusalem, called Gehenna, which was

the dumping ground for the refuse of the city; it became the symbol for the place of future punishment.

In the NT, the two common words for “anger” are synonyms. The Septuagint (the Greek translation of the OT used in Jesus’ time) uses each of the Greek words to translate any of the Hebrew words for wrath or anger. All the occurrences of orge in the writings of Luke and Paul and in the Book of Hebrews describe human anger (except Romans 2:8). In Revelation the word is used of divine anger expressed in the judgments at history’s end. This Greek noun (used 36 times) and its related verb (orgizomai, used 8 times and adjective orgilos, used only once) are variously indicative of human anger. That is the word used in Matthew 5:22.

The NT views unjustifiable anger and fits of rage as originating in sinful human nature. Such anger and rage, characteristic of the old nature, are to be decisively rejected by the new persons we have become in Christ. “Get rid of all bitterness, rage and anger, brawling and slander, along with every form of malice,” Paul writes. “Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other, just as in Christ God forgave you” (Ephesians 4:31-32). It is important to adopt this attitude, for unchecked anger is a root of interpersonal bitterness, the very source of murder (Matthew 5:21-22). James writes, “Everyone should be quick to listen, slow to speak and slow to become angry, for man’s anger does not bring about the righteous life that God desires” (James 1:19-20). Revenge is ruled out for the believer, not only by the principle of forgiveness (Ephesians 4:32), but also to “leave room for God’s wrath” (Romans 12:19). God alone is judge; He alone has the right to repay. Although we may become angry, there is no question that anger is a signal to us to examine and to deal with ourselves – not justification for striking out at others. As Paul says, “In your anger, do not sin. Do not let the sun go down while you are still angry” (Ephesians 4:26).

Theodor Zahn, a German biblical scholar thinks that all of verse 22 is an utterance of Jesus, satirizing the scribal methods of exposition; but it is better to regard it as a sample of current scribal interpretation which in course of tradition was without good reason attributed to Jesus.

EBW After presenting the Beatitudes, Jesus goes on to explore the relationship between the law and righteousness. Although Jesus’ teachings do not abrogate the law, Jesus insists that the righteousness of His followers must exceed “that of the Pharisees and teachers of the law” (Matthew 5:20). Jesus continued by giving a series of illustrations – each of which begins with “You have heard,” referring back to a behavior-regulating command found in the law. Each time He went on to say, “But I tell you. . . .” Each of Jesus’ statements focuses, not on the behavior judged by law, but on the inner heart attitude from which the action springs. In the first illustration the law prohibits murder, but Jesus says we must be concerned with the anger that leads to it. While the commandments deal with behavior, God looks within at the motives of one’s heart. The commandments must not be ignored, but neither should they be understood as God’s last word on righteousness.

In the NT, “old” and “new” take on a different meaning than the OT perspective. The NT describes the coming of Jesus, and many of His teachings are “new” in the sense of being radically different from what the people steeped in the OT expected. These two words become more than merely descriptive – they become terms that make a strong theological statement. There are two Greek words translated “old.” The one used in Matthew 5:21, 27, 33; 2 Corinthians 5:17) is archaios. This refers to “old” as belonging to the age that is passing away, replaced by a newness introduced by Jesus.

Three Greek words are translated “kill” or “murder” in English translations. The distinctive verb used in Matthew 5:21 translated “to murder” is phoneuo, and it is used twelve times in the NT -- including each occurrence of the commandment “Do not murder” (where rasah is found in Hebrew).