Matthew 5:17 to Matthew 6:18. Righteousness, Legal and Real. After laying down the principle that the Law is not destroyed or annulled, but developed and transcended (Matthew 5:17-20), Jesus applies it to (a) the teaching of the Scribes (Matthew 5:21-48), (b) the life of the Pharisees (Matthew 6:1-18).
Matthew 5:17-20. On the attitude of Jesus towards the OT see pp. 663, 666f., also M-' Neile in Cambridge Biblical Essays, pp. 216ff.; Kent, Life and Teachings of Jesus, pp. 126f.
Matthew 5:17. Jesus was never accused of destroying the moral teaching of the prophets, and here He deals only with the Law. He declares that His mission is to preserve it by revealing its depth of meaning, by carrying it forward into that which it had been designed to bring about the Kingdom of God.
Matthew 5:18 f. seems misplaced; Matthew 5:19 may be a later gloss, no commandments have been mentioned; Matthew 5:20 continues the thought of Matthew 5:17.
Matthew 5:18. jot: Gr. iota, Heb. yod, the smallest letter in the alphabet. tittle: the stroke above an abbreviated word. The Gr. is horn, and perhaps denotes the projecting tip whose presence or absence changes a Heb. letter and may make a great difference in a word. till all things be accomplished repeats the thought of till heaven and earth, i.e. the present age, pass away. Many Jewish sayings speak of the perpetuity of the Law.
Matthew 5:19. The Jews recognised that the Matthew 6:13 commandments in the Law were not equally important; some were heavy, others light. Nor would the Kingdom of Heaven bring equality to all its members (cf. Matthew 5:11 f.* supra, Matthew 18:1-4).
Matthew 5:20 continues Matthew 5:17. scribes: a comparatively small body of men who (a) expounded the Law, (b) developed it, (c) administered it as assessors in courts of justice. Pharisees: the whole body of orthodox pietists who lived the - separated-' life (cf. pp. 624, 666f.). Many of the later Rabbis were, like the one in Mark 12:28-34, very worthy men, but this does not prove that Rabbinism generally was beyond reproach. It was not only Jesus who arraigned it. Cf. Fragments of a Zadokite Work (Charles, Introd. xi.).