Month: October 2019

The Throne of Jesus’ Glory

In the gospel according to Mark, there are already hints that the request of the sons of Zebedee to be seated at the right and left hand of Jesus is ironically being connected with the crucifixion narrative, where Jesus is crucified with a brigand on his right and on his left—hence Jesus’ reply, “you don’t know what you’re asking” (Mk. 10:35-45; 15:27).

But this connection is made even more strongly in the gospel according to Matthew, where it is not the sons of Zebedee but their mother who makes the request to Jesus (Matt. 20:20-28). Matthew adds the mother of the sons of Zebedee into the narrative in exactly one other place in his gospel: the crucifixion (27:56). Moreover, these are the only two places in Matthew’s gospel where she appears. Not only that, but the language used to describe the sons’ relationship to Jesus more exactly matches that of the crucifixion narrative. In Mark, the words for the left hand are not the same (granted, they are synonyms: aristeros in the sons’ request and euōnumos in the passion narrative). In Matthew, the phraseology in both texts is identical.

If we assume (as most do) that Mark was written first, it would appear that Matthew has done several things to solidify this connection. In any case, he makes the point still more powerfully. Whereas in Mark, those who make the request do not discover what they were really asking for (since the sons of Zebedee abandon Jesus in the garden), in Matthew the mother of the sons of Zebedee sees with her own eyes what her request would have entailed: the Lord of Glory enthroned “in his kingdom” on the cross, with “one on his right and one on his left.”

Job & Adam

The opening of Job resonates interestingly with the book of Genesis.

After an initial test—Job loses his property and family, but nevertheless blesses God—God brags to the satan that Job “still holds fast his integrity” (2:3). But the satan replies that if God would “touch his bone and his flesh…he will curse [God] to [God’s] face” (v. 5). This happens in a quite literal sense in what immediately follows: Job is struck with sores from head to foot (vv. 7-8).

But then follows an interaction (v. 9) between Job and his wife—the one who is “bone of [his] bone and flesh of [his] flesh” (cf. Gen. 2:23)—in which she (1) ridicules him for doing what God just celebrated (“Do you still hold fast your integrity?”), and (2) tells him to do the thing that the satan predicts (“Curse God and die!”).

The intertextual echo of Genesis 2:23 (“this at last is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh”), coupled with how the words of Job’s wife echo the preceding dialogue between God and the satan, helps us discover an added layer of significance to the story: Job is “touched” with calamity and temptation via his “bone and flesh” (his wife), and becomes a kind of new Adam, faced (like the first Adam) with the satan’s temptation by the same means. Unlike the first Adam, however, he does not listen to her voice. Rather, he fears God and turns away from evil (Job 1:1, 8; 2:3; 28:28).