The Question As To What Is The Greatest Commandment (22:34-40).
Jesus' success over the Sadducees was seen as sufficiently impressive to cause rumours concerning it to spread around which came to the ears of the Pharisees. They also had failed to trap Him, but it gave them the idea that perhaps they could at least get Him involved in controversy. Then at least, in a nation which was full of people with fervent and fixed but differing views, some people would be disillusioned with Him. And they recognised that they had to hand such a question, a question which was hotly debated, and that was as to which law out of the over six hundred laws that they had identified from the Law of Moses was the most important to fulfil. This in itself could be a minefield. For whichever law He chose they would be able to suggest His lack of sympathy with other very important laws. And if He refrained from agreeing that one was more important than the other then they could accuse Him of folly in suggesting that looking after a mother bird when its eggs were taken (Deuteronomy 22:7) was of equal importance to preventing murder or adultery.
So they came to Him, and through one of their Scribes, put the question to Him. And in reply He referred them to Deuteronomy 6:5 and Leviticus 19:18 which He saw as covering them all, for it revealed that Jesus saw love for God and love for man as lying at the root of all the commandments. This would certainly not be the only time when He was faced with a question similar to this, for it was such a popular one that it was no doubt put to Him time and again. Indeed we learn of another example in Luke 10:25-28, which was when He was in Galilee, and there is no reason for not seeing that as a different incident. But Matthew puts it here as a kind of inclusio along with the Sermon on the Mount, which between them encompassed His ministry and revealed what lay at the very heart of it.
Analysis.
a But the Pharisees, when they heard that he had put the Sadducees to silence, gathered themselves together, and one of them, a lawyer, asked him a question, testing him out. “Teacher, which is the great commandment in the law?” (Matthew 22:34-36).
b And he said to him, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind” (Matthew 22:37).
c “This is the great and first commandment” (Matthew 22:38).
b “And a second like to it is this, You shall love your neighbour as yourself” (Matthew 22:39).
a “On these two commandments the whole law hangs, and the prophets” (Matthew 22:40).
Note that in ‘a' the crunch question is as to which is the greatest commandment in the Law, and in the parallel are two commandments on which the whole of the Law and the prophets hang. In ‘b' the first great commandment is stated, and in the parallel the second great commandment. Centrally in ‘c' is the declaration of what is the first and great commandment.