The twenty-seventh passage of the Sefer Yeshua is based on Mt 13:16-17 and Lk 10:23-24. The likeliest source is the Q-Gospel.
27. 1A poor man came to Yeshua and spoke to him of his new understanding of the kingdom of God.
2And Yeshua declared to him and said, ‘Blessed are your eyes, for they see, and your ears, for they hear! 3Believe me I tell you, many sages and kings have longed to see what you see, but couldn’t see it, and hear what you hear, but couldn’t hear it!’
Overview
The two versions in Matthew and Luke are almost identical. Matthew cites ‘prophets and righteous people’, and Luke cites ‘prophets and kings’.
The way the saying is used in Luke, makes it sound like Jesus was telling his followers that people in ages past longed to see and hear Jesus but didn’t, and to witness his messianic miracles, but didn’t (Darrell Bock, in his commentary on Luke, uses the term, ‘Jesus-events’). However, that is not how it used in Matthew. In Jewish literature, ‘seeing and hearing’, when used together like this, have a very particular connotation. Luke either missed that cultural significance, or chose to ignore it.
Matthew seems to have understood the cultural Jewish relevance of ‘seeing and hearing’, and his use of the saying is completely different to Luke’s; even the context of the pericope is different (teaching parables to crowds and explaining them to the apostles in Mt, and commissioning 72 new apostles in Lk). This dichotomy suggests that neither was the original Sitz im Leben (original life-circumstance) of the saying.
Matthew sets it in amidst the context of understanding the meaning of parables. Mt 13:13 says, “The reason I speak to them in parables is because in seeing they do not perceive, and in hearing they do not listen, nor do they understand.” The Jewish interpretation of the saying is therefore about hearing something, yet not understanding it, rather than being about wanting to see the messiah and his miracles, but not getting to see the messiah and his miracles. Luke obviously didn’t understand the cultural use of ‘seeing and hearing’, and so he took the words literally.
Who were the two groups who previously did not ‘see and hear’?
If this interpretation (understanding Yeshua’s message), rather than Luke’s (witnessing all the Jesus-events), is the correct one, then the use of the word ‘prophets’ in both Matthew and Luke is strange. A prophet is given sufficient insight into God’s Message in order to deliver it correctly – to know who and when to deliver a particular message. If a prophet is given strange imagery to convey, the prophet is always given the key to understanding what he or she is speaking. It is therefore odd to say that a prophet had no understanding of the message that God gave them to deliver.
Furthermore, Matthew’s use of ‘righteous people’ (Greek: δίκαιοι dikaioi), and Luke’s replacement with ‘kings’ is also strange – which is the original? It implies that righteous people couldn’t understand God’s Message, therefore the only people who can understand God’s Message must be unrighteous people(!?) Is Matthew really saying that holy and righteous people cannot understand God’s Message, but unholy and unrighteous people can? The only conclusion must be that, even in Matthew, the literal meaning of seeing and hearing seems to be creeping in.
The set phrase, ‘the prophets and the righteous’ seems to be a favourite couplet of Matthew – he uses them again in Mt 10:41 and 23:29. This may even have been a theological concern of Matthew, and might be why he changed whatever the original might have been.
In fact, I suspect that both Matthew and Luke deliberately changed the two groups of people who could not understand God’s Message, in order to accord better with where they placed the saying in their gospels, and with their individual interpretations of it. The inclusion of ‘kings’ in Luke’s version may be a clue to the original.
Two verses earlier, in Lk 10:21, Luke also mentions ‘the wise and the learned’, and so it is the gospel of Luke which may provide us with the identities of the two groups of people that Yeshua himself might have referred to, in the original version of this saying: the wise (‘Sages’ in my reconstruction) and kings. In non-Pharisaic culture, a Jewish sage is any learned person who has studied The Torah and the Prophets, and was consulted for their learning.
It is therefore not the great and mighty who understood the message conveyed to them by the prophets, but rather the poor and the lowly. I believe this would have been the original context of the saying, which was changed by both Matthew and Luke. The possibility that the saying was indeed changed, is evidenced by the fact that they each embed the saying into quite different contexts in the two gospels , and the fact that both of them, either partly or wholly, takes ‘seeing and hearing’ literally.
Eyes to see, and ears to hear
The majority of the commentaries I read, interpreted this saying as being about the privilege of witnessing all the ‘Jesus events’. However, this is not the cultural significance of ‘seeing and hearing a message’ – a concept mentioned in Dt 29:4, Isa 44:18, Jer 5:21, and Ezek 12:2. It cannot be about witnessing ‘Jesus Christ’ and messianic miracles, because there are those in the crowd – the vast majority – who are clearly seeing and hearing Jesus for hours, yet they do not comprehend what he is saying. That is the point in a Jewish context; seeing and hearing, in Jewish culture, is about understanding a message, not literally seeing or hearing something.
Ezekiel 12:2 suggests that it is those who refuse to follow God’s ways, and who repudiate the reasons for God’s Teaching, who are the ones who are unseeing and unhearing. They turn away from any comprehension of what is truly being required of them by God, because then they will have to do what their hearts of stone find difficult to do.
In contrast, Isa 29:18 speaks of the blind being able to see, and the deaf being able to hear. This is not meant literally; it means that the spiritually blind and the spiritually deaf will one day be able to understand God’s Teaching.
People read Torah with their eyes, and hear Torah with their ears, but they do not see or hear the underlying Message of Torah – they do not understand with their hearts and minds. For them, Torah is merely a set of rules, a collection of rituals; they think that merely by ‘doing Torah’ they will gain God’s approval. This was not, and is not, God’s intent. If someone is a religious fundamentalist who merely does what the Bible says and nothing more, they are like the man who buried in the ground the gold he was given, and did nothing with it (Mt 25:14-30). Someone who truly follows Torah is someone who understands the spirit and purpose behind Torah, and therefore gains profit by their observance of the true heart of Torah.
The same applies to the words of a teacher, such as Yeshua. Today there are those who read or hear the words of Yeshua, but because they don’t understand the true ideals behind Yeshua’s teachings, they ignore them as being too ‘woke’ or left-wing. As a result, they become the very kind of cold and heartless religious people that Yeshua spoke against.
‘The understanding of the Kingdom is given to such as these’
In my reconstruction, the one who understands Yeshua’s Message of the Kingdom is not a Sage or a King, but a poor man, and Yeshua congratulates him as being ‘blessed’.
The gospels address this saying to the apostles. However, congratulating them for understanding is premature, because shortly afterwards, in Mt 13:36, it becomes clear that they don’t understand. As we can now see, there are growing hints of various details that don’t add up. The gospel-context of speaking to the apostles or close disciples is therefore likely to be an artificial one, created by both Mt and Lk.
I think that the original context of the saying was Yeshua being happy that, out of a crowd of people who didn’t understand his message, he had found one man who understood him. It was not a learned man or a king who had understood his teaching, but rather a poor man, a man of no learning or importance. Yet this man was congratulated as being ‘blessed’ (fortunate or privileged).
Understanding is often beyond the reach of the rich and powerful, for whom Kingdom-living is a mystery. In order to understand God’s Teaching, you have to have a heart ready and prepared to understand; preparing the heart to receive God’s Teaching, is part of the daily mission of those who follow YHVH. God’s Torah is not about rules, but about a mindset. If all you see and hear are rules, then that’s all they will ever be to you. If, however, you are willing to see that they are meant to ensure justice and equality even for the least in society, secure fair leaders, equitable governance, and dutiful religious ministers, then you will be close to understanding what Torah is for. Torah is a protection, not a burden.
In a time and a world where the lowest and most vulnerable were exploited, where national laws only worked for the top 5%, where the powerless were treated like slaves, it was not the rich and powerful who had a heart to understand. It is the ones who are oppressed and exploited who have the rare heart to understand God’s Teaching; they understand the Kingdom, along with the spirit and purpose behind God’s designs. When God’s Kingdom is applied to the present world, it is they who are blessed, fortunate and happy; it is they whose hunger and thirst will be satisfied; it is they who will see God; it is they who will laugh, and no longer mourn, but rejoice for the inheritance that God has given them.
What did Yeshua’s followers understand that great people did not
Yeshua’s main message was one of repentance, and a return to the ways of God’s Kingdom. Understanding God’s Kingdom, and kingdom-living, is vital to understanding Yeshua’s good news.
However, we also need to ask, what was it in Yeshua’s teachings that people were not getting? What did Yeshua teach, that made it so difficult for some people to understand? Here are just some of the things, in my humble opinion, that those who did not ‘see’ might not have understood:
— the need for repentance, and the need to return to God’s ways
— the need to understand the urgency of the message – that a time of terrible tribulation for the Jewish people was fast approaching
— the need to accept that God’s Reign / Kingdom was already here, and survival depended on living God’s Kingdom (living God’s values and principles), here and now
— the need to understand the importance of spiritual and psychological preparation for what was coming, and to be watchful
— the need to keep to the ways of peace, and eschew violence, so that the time of tribulation could be cut short
— the need to reach out to the outcast and rejected, the poor and the lowly
— the need to realise and take to heart God’s concern for the poor, the vulnerable and the oppressed
— the need to truly believe that God was not a God of wrath, but a God of loving-kindness and merciful forgiveness
— the need to accept the importance of social justice; that it is an intrinsic component of Torah, and is a quintessential part of God’s teaching that could not be cast aside
— the need to accept the importance of right behaviour in religious teachers, leaders and ministers, because that was what God expected of people who held religious office
— the need to realise that the intent of the heart was of far greater importance than religious ritual
— the need to believe that Justice is the right of all, not only of the rich
As you read through this commentary, you will be able to see how, when rescued from a Paullist Christian messianic environment, the original prophetic Jewish words of Yeshua have a very different meaning. Yeshua’s teachings slot into the daily needs and concerns of the Jewish people around him. The Sefer Yeshua presents the original Jewish teachings of Yeshua, and you can see a very different Yeshua emerging, compared to the Paullist ‘Jesus Christ’. This Jewish Yeshua had a different worldview from the Christian ‘Jesus’.
If you wish to understand the authentic, historical, Jewish Yeshua, it’s not enough to twist Yeshua’s teachings to conform with one’s own political values. Nor is it enough to claim that Yeshua believed exactly what everyone else around him believed, as some notable scholars claim, as if Yeshua was someone who couldn’t help but believe the beliefs of the majority, and always went along with the crowd. To understand Yeshua’s message, you have to share his value-system, and consider important what he held to be important.
Closing thoughts
There are those who think that the Message of Jesus was, ‘Believe in my death and resurrection, and you will be saved’. However, this was Paul’s gospel, not Yeshua’s. Do they really think that Yeshua went around the Galilee and Judea preaching that, merely by believing in his death would save the Jewish people?
In a time where the Jewish people were in imminent danger of being exterminated through war with the Romans – a war that Yeshua would have been shown as a prophet of God (Mk 13:1-25) – belief in his resurrection would not have saved the Jewish people from being wiped out. The only thing that would save the Jewish people from the terrible tribulation that was fast approaching, were the values of God’s Kingdom that Yeshua taught – the values that God gave us to save us. While Jerusalem and Judea fell in a most horrifying way, I believe that the Galilee was spared the ravages of this war, because Yeshua’s ethical teaching had prepared them to survive.
Furthermore, the values of the Kingdom which Yeshua taught his own people, are relevant for all peoples to embrace. God’s Kingdom is for all nations. Even though their original intent was to prepare the Jewish people for what was soon to come, Yeshua’s teachings are also God’s teachings, which are relevant for all human beings of good heart.