Matthew 11:25-30 to Sirach 51
Matthew 11:25-30 to Sirach 51
Eleventh example: A great many books and articles have been written discussing the allusions that Matthew 11:25-30 (focusing on “28Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. 29Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest unto your souls. 30For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light”) makes to Sirach 51:23-30 (focusing on “23Draw near unto me, ye unlearned, and dwell in the house of learning…. 26Put your neck under the yoke, and let your soul receive instruction: she is hard at hand to find. 27Behold with your eyes, how that I have but little labour, and have gotten unto me much rest. …29Let your soul rejoice in his mercy, and be not ashamed of his praise. 30Work your work betimes, and in his time he will give you your reward”).
Matthew 11:25-27 begins with another hymn—one sung even before the Gospel of Matthew was written, which was incorporated into Matthew and Luke. “Norden designated it a missionary propaganda hymn generated in hellenistic circles, while Rist considered it a hellenistic Gentile Christian baptismal hymn.” (Hidden Wisdom and the Easy Yoke, by Celia Deutsch, p. 13).[1] “…. The saying about the yoke in Mt 11.28-30, however, does not appear in Luke … Rist … pointed out that the verbal similarities between our text and Sirach 51 ‘are too striking and numerous to be accidental, and indicate a definite literary dependence’… Viviano too is inclined to think that … Luke would have omitted them on the ground that they were expressed in terms too rabbinic to be either readily intelligible or attractive to the Gentile readers at whom he aimed his gospel” (p. 25, 47-48).[2]
So, we have six verses whose similarities to Sirach 51 “are too striking and numerous to be accidental, and indicate a definite literary dependence.” The verses start with a Christian hymn that predates the Bible—according to both a Methodist scholar and an Evangelical scholar, who disagree only as to what the hymn was used for.[3] The verses end with statements perhaps too Jewish for Luke to include, since he was not writing the Gospel to the Jews.
After an exhaustive survey of other possible sources, Deutch says that:
The apocrypha and pseudepigrapha have their clearest parallel to Mt 11.28-30 in Sir 51.23-30, through the invitation of the teacher, the imagery of the yoke, and the implied promise of refreshment. … Only Sir 51.13-20 and 6.18-37 are true parallels to Mt 11.28-30. … (p. 118).
Note that in Judaism, the teacher did not seek out or invite students; the disciple had to find his master.[4] This is a crucial point and was part of Deutsch’s research project: to see if there were any other such references anywhere else in the Jewish literature. “The sole instance of a teacher’s invitation in the so-called apocryphal and pseudepigraphical literature of Second Temple Judaism occurs in Sirach 51…” (p. 114).
Thus, this is not just a possible reference to Sirach by Jesus; Sirach is also the only possible work that Jesus could be referring to. In fact, if both Jesus’ audience and Matthew’s audience did not understand via Sirach that this “role-reversal” occurs with (and only with) the personified Wisdom of God, it would have made no sense in their culture for a teacher to make an invitation. But it makes sense for Jesus, not only as a matter of speaking, but also as a specific manner of claiming (via reference to Sirach) to be God. Jesus is claiming to be the fulfillment of Sirach, as if it were Scripture—and thus, as if the other Scriptures are incomplete without Sirach.
And no one objects, not even the many Priests; no explanation is needed, not even for the masses; and no warning about Sirach is given, not to the crowd nor to Matthew’s readership.
… The presence of these motifs (invitation, yoke, promise of rest) in our passage, indicates that Matthew is presenting Jesus as Wisdom incarnate… [and] the Sage, the Teacher of wisdom.” (p. 130) …These parallels confirm that there is an explicit Wisdom Christology in the M logion [M logion means the sayings of Jesus that are in the Gospel of Matthew but not in other Gospels, which Deutsch believes come from “M,” a hypothetical source used by Matthew]… (p. 138).[5]
Again the Christology in the Gospel to the Jews uses the fulfillment of the Apocrypha as part of Matthew’s Evangelization. Over two-hundred years after Sirach had been written, Jesus could assume that the “multitudes” (Matthew 11:7) fully understood the concepts of Sirach.
Recall that long after Jesus, “Akiba, the noted rabbi of the second century (d. C. 132 CE)… protested strongly against the canonicity of certain of the Apocrypha, the Wisdom of Sirach, for instance … Akiva’s utterance reads, “He who reads aloud in the synagogue from books not belonging to the canon as if they were canonical,” etc. But he was not opposed to a private reading of the Apocrypha, as is evident from his own frequent use of Sirach.”[6]
Akiba’s statement implies a need to prohibit, i.e., that Jews were reading Sirach aloud in the Synagogue prior to the prohibition, which relates to what we are seeing here: an expectation from Jesus and Matthew that both Jesus’ audience and Matthew’s audience understood via Sirach that a teacher making an invitation occurs with (and only with) the personified Wisdom of God—i.e., Jesus is claiming (via reference to Sirach) to be God. We also saw above that the estimates are that 97% of Roman Palestine was illiterate (while Sirach was translated into Greek, it was perhaps still available in Hebrew).
Multiple strands of evidence point to the conclusion that Sirach was being read aloud in the Synagogues because the Jews of Jesus’ initial audience and Matthew’s later audience had to understand Sirach thoroughly in order to understand what Jesus was really saying to them.[7] Again, Sirach is a Book that (a) declares itself to be Scripture, (b) was “canonical for some Rabbis,” (c) was found at Qumran, the Cairo Genizah, Masada, etc., and (d) is quoted in the Talmud as Scripture.
Notably, Luke does not include the invitation—so the invitation is not actually needed to express the Gospel message. But Matthew chose to include this reference to Sirach as part of his explicit Christology in the Gospel to the Jews, even though it would be nonsense unless his Jewish audience can be trusted to possess a thorough knowledge of Sirach and the understanding that Jesus is claiming to be the fulfillment of the passage in Sirach.
[1] JSOT Press 1987. The references are to a German book by Norden, E. (Agnostos Theos: Untersuchungen zur Formengeschichte religiöser Reden) and an article in the Journal of Religion by Rist, M. (“Is Matt. 11.25-30 a Primitive Baptismal Hymn?” FR 15 (1935): 63-77). Martin Rist was a Professor at Iliff, the Methodist School of Theology in Denver. Eduard Norden was born a Jew, then converted and became an Evangelical.
[2] Quoting from Viviano, B.T. Study as Worship: Aboth and the New Testament. Studies in Judaism in Late Antiquity 26. Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1978.
[3] Since I discuss the importance of such pre-Biblical hymns for the canon question in connection with the Epistle to the Hebrews, I will focus, instead, on the second half of the passage. But this is, of course, another example of such a hymn being based on the Apocrypha.
[4] Regarding the discussion above about learning Greek: if Peter needed a teacher he would have to go get one, but we see that apparently that was normal in Jewish culture. Andrew was (and Peter may have been) involved with John the Baptist before Christ. John had disciples (Luke 7:19) too. Thus, Andrew and Peter may have sought him out to teach them.
[5] Deutsch cites to many others in support of such parallels between Sir 51.23-30 and Mt 11.28-30, including Arvedson, T. Das Mysterium Christi: eine Studie zu Mt. 11.25-30. Leipzig: Alfred Lorentz, 1937 (p. 180-85); Christ, F. Jesus-Sophia: die Sophia-Christologie bei den Synoptikern. ATANT 57. Zürich: Zwingli, 1970 (p. 102ff.); Schweizer, E. Matthäus und seine Gemeinde. Stuttgart: KBW, 1974 (p. 177); Suggs, M.J. Wisdom Christology and Law in Matthew’s Gospel. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University, 1970 (p. 102).
[6] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rabbi_Akiva.
[7] Again, this is a point often made re: the New Testament, e.g., “Paul’s insistence that his letters be publicly read… and his readers’ understanding of what public reading would mean within a synagogue context provide good reasons to think that his letters would have been viewed as being in the same category as other “Scripture” read during times of public worship.” Kruger, p. 209.
