Language Studies

Difficult Sayings

John the Baptist and Jesus - The Kingdom breaking forth?
Matthew 11:12, Luke 16:16

"And from the days of John the Baptist until now the kingdom of heaven suffers violence, and the violent take it by force." (Matthew 11:12)
"The law and the prophets were until John. Since that time the kingdom of God has been preached, and everyone is pressing into it." (Luke 16:16)

Even with Jewish and Christian insights Montefiore described this text as "an exceedingly obscure verse of which the meaning can hardly be ascertained" (The Synoptic Gospels, Vol. 2, 1927, p.163).

Previously we discussed the kingdom suffering violence in terms of persecution or of spiritual rebels breaking into it. We mentioned another view that the violence was demonic (held by David Stern in the Jewish New Testament Commentary). Back in 1883 Edersheim (The Life and Times of Jesus the Messiah, Vol.1, p.670) regarded the "common interpretations of this verse as singularly unsatisfactory" (ibid., note 3) and wrote:

"From the time that John began to preach the Kingdom, hindrances of every kind had been raised. To overcome them and enter the Kingdom, it required, as it were, violence like that to enter a city which was surrounded by a hostile army."

David Flusser (Jesus, 1969, p.40), David Bivin and Joseph Frankovic of the Jerusalem School of Synoptic Research have offered another insight to these verses based upon Micah 2:12-13 and a Jewish midrashic exposition of it by the 12th century Hebrew grammarian and rabbi David Kimchi (also known as Redak or Radak).

"¹² "I will surely assemble all of you, O Jacob, I will surely gather the remnant of Israel; I will put them together like sheep of the fold, Like a flock in the midst of their pasture; They shall make a loud noise because of so many people.
¹³ The one who breaks open will come up before them; They will break out, Pass through the gate, And go out by it; Their king will pass before them, With the LORD at their head.""

In the illustration the Lord as a shepherd pens up the large remnant into a makeshift sheepfold that becomes quite noisy under the pressure "of so many people". In the morning the shepherd breaks open the rock gate and they follow him out to pasture much as a river bursting its banks with sheep pushing and shoving to make their way out, some almost jumping over others in their haste to get the new grass and wide open spaces. If this is the simile Jesus intended then it is apt and violence or pressure are appropriate terms to describe the sheep pressing into the kingdom, but out of the temporary pen, once the way has been prepared and opened before them. Shepherd and sheep imagery was often used by Jesus and more understood by his contemporaries than by us now. Take, for example, the Parable of the Lost Sheep (Luke 15:4-7) or Jesus self-ascription as the "Door of the Sheep" (John 10:7) in which we often forget that the shepherd was very often the door himself, lying down in the gap of a rocky enclosure — no picket fences and 5 bar gates.

The language of Matthew is "taking hold of" (which could point to an underlying Hebrew "pursue/seek"), that of Luke "pressing into", and that of Micah "break[ing] out…and go out". Jesus exclaimed of the sheep/members of the kingdom that that he was the door and people would "enter" by him and "will go in and out and find pasture" (John 10:9), so that variation in the in/out direction of travel seems to be immaterial.

In Micah, the "one who breaks open" is הפּרץ happorêts (Strong's #6555) in Hebrew and given the use of Hebrew poetic parallelism it would appear that the Breaker, the King and the Lord, are one and the same figure. Certainly, the Midrash Rabbah Bereshit 85.14 regards the Breaker as the Messiah, although other Jewish sources separate the figures and think of the Breaker as Elijah and the King as Messiah. Furthermore, the verb 'to break out' is used of God in Exodus 19:22,24 and notably in 1 Chronicles 14:11 // 2 Samuel 5:20 where He is described as Ba'al Perizim, 'the Lord of the Breakthrough'.

In the Greek Septuagint Old Testament βιαζω biazô 'to apply force' (Strong's #971) was sometimes used to translate the Hebrew פּרץ pârats (Strong's #6555) 'to break through' as in 2 Samuel (2 Kings, LXX) 13:25,27 and 2 Kings (4 Kings, LXX-A) 5:23 where they are respectively translated as 'pressed' and 'urged' by the KJV. The same language used by the KJV translators in Luke 16:16 "pressing into it".

The Breaker seems to be John the Baptist (the Elijah of Jewish expectation, Matthew 11:14) and that easily makes Jesus the King and Lord of the Breakthrough at their head. Hence the kingdom is breaking forth, bulging at the seams, the people in it are breaking out and into liberty just as the sheep running out to graze. As David Bivin points out this speaks of the Kingdom as something present from the time of John onwards, not something future.

Copyright Statement
'Difficult Sayings' Copyright 2024© KJ Went. 'Difficult Sayings' articles may be reproduced in whole under the following provisions: 1) A proper credit must be given to the author at the end of each article, along with a link to https://www.studylight.org/language-studies/difficult-sayings.html  2) 'Difficult Sayings' content may not be arranged or "mirrored" as a competitive online service.