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particular building-site or type of construction need be specified, though a mud-
brick house such as was envisaged also in 6:19 would be particularly susceptible
to the effects of flooding. The point is not, as in 1 Cor 3:10–15, the suitability of
the building material, but the solidity of the foundation. Cf. Isaiah’s image of the
firm foundation-stone which provides the only security when the floods sweep
through (Isa 28:15–19), the foundations washed away by a flood in Job 22:16,
and the wall which collapses under the pressure of the elements in Ezek 13:10–
16 (where the target of the imagery is the false prophets who proclaim peace
when there is no peace). The importance of a solid rock foundation will be
echoed in 16:18, where again the resultant building will remain secure against all
threats. The total collapse of the badly-founded house probably suggests that, as
in vv. 21–23, the final judgment is particularly in view, but that setting is not
emphasized, and the imagery applies equally to the testing which discipleship
will repeatedly encounter before the final consummation.³¹
12. The Authority of the Teacher Recognized (7:28–29)
²⁸And then,¹ when Jesus had come to the end of these sayings, the crowds were
astonished at his teaching, ² because he was teaching them as someone who had
authority and not as their scribes taught.
This brief conclusion forms with 5:1–2 a framework round the discourse on
discipleship. Again we see Jesus as the teacher, but this time it is not the
disciples, the primary audience of the discourse, who are in focus, but the
crowds, away from whom Jesus had deliberately taken his disciples in 5:1, but
who are now found to have been a secondary audience in the background. They
have heard enough of this teaching, even if it was not directed toward them, to
be mightily impressed. This response to Jesus’ teaching, added to the general
enthusiasm for his healing ministry already outlined in 4:24–25, will form the
essential background for the narrative which now takes over from the discourse
and will be a continuing feature throughout the Galilean phase of Jesus’ activity.
The transition from discourse to narrative is marked by the formula which will
conclude each of the five main discourses (cf. 11:1; 13:53; 19:1; 26:1);² the first
six Greek words are identical in each case, while the teaching which is the object
of the verb “come to the end of” is expressed in slightly different phrases to
correspond to the content of the discourse just concluded. The distinctiveness of
this formula derives from its rather formal wording.³ The opening kai egeneto,
“and it happened,” has an archaic ring (like the KJV phrase “and it came to
pass”), representing the familiar OT Hebrew introductory phrase wayyehî; it is
not a natural Greek idiom and occurs elsewhere in Matthew only at 9:10.⁴ Nor is
the verb teleō in the sense of “to complete, come to the end of,” part of
Matthew’s normal vocabulary: it occurs outside this formula only in 10:23. The
whole clause thus looks like a set formula⁵ deliberately designed to mark the end
of each main block of teaching and to lead back into narrative. In three of its
five occurrences it is immediately followed by a main clause describing Jesus’
movement to another location; here that relocation (8:1) is separated from the
formula only by the need to comment first on the crowd reaction.
The periphrastic tense “he was teaching them” (rather than “he had taught
them”) suggests that Matthew intends us to think of the crowd’s astonishment as
applying not only to this discourse but to Jesus’ continuing teaching in Galilee.
The astonishment of both crowds and disciples at Jesus, already implied in 4:24–
25, will be frequently noted as the story progresses. Often it will be Jesus’
miracles rather than his teaching which evoke it; the particular verb used here,
ekplēssomai, is used especially of the effect of his teaching (cf. 13:54; 19:25;
22:33), but that teaching is linked with miracles in 13:54. In both the feature
which will impress them is his authority (cf. 8:9; 9:6, 8; 21:23–27; 28:18). To set
the authority of his teaching in contrast with that of the scribes⁷ is a bold claim,
since the scribes were the authorized teachers of the law who in virtue of their
training and office had a right to expect the people to accept their legal rulings.
When Jesus comes to Jerusalem it will be with the scribes that he must debate,
and against them that his tirade in ch. 23 will be delivered. It will be a contest of
authority, that of the established guardians of legal tradition against that of the
upstart Galilean preacher. But here already the people, perhaps remembering
how in 5:20 Jesus has declared the “righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees”
inadequate, sense a new dimension in Jesus’ teaching. Whereas scribal rulings
were based on the tradition of earlier interpreters of the law, Jesus has in 5:17–48
set himself up as an authority over against that interpretive tradition, on the basis
not of a formal training or authorization but of his own confident, “I tell you.” It
was that sort of inherent “authority” that the people missed in their scribes, even
though their office commanded respect. When to that remarkable claim is added
Jesus’ assumption that he himself is the proper object of people’s allegiance and
the arbiter of their destiny (5:11–12; 7:21–23, 24, 26), the crowd’s astonishment
is hardly out of place. W. D. Davies’ comment on the modern reader’s response
to the Sermon on the Mount must apply at least as strongly to those who first
heard this teaching: “The Sermon on the Mount compels us, in the first place, to
ask who he is who utters these words.”⁸
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