THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO MATTHEW - Chapter 12 - Verse 1

MATTHEW CHAPTER 12

Verses 1-8. The account contained in these verses is also recorded in Mr 2:23-28; Lu 6:1-5.

Verse 1. At that time. Lu 6:1 fixes the time more particularly. He says that it was the second Sabbath after the first. To understand this, it is proper to remark, that the Passover was observed during the month Abib, or Nisan, answering to the latter part of March, and the first of April. The feast was held seven days, commencing on the fourteenth day of the month, Ex 12:1-28; 23:15 on the second day of the paschal week. The law required that a sheaf of barley should be offered up, as the first fruits of the harvest, Le 23:10,11. From this day was reckoned seven weeks to the feast of Pentecost, Le 23:15,16 called also the feast of weeks, De 16:10 and the feast of the harvest, Ex 23:16. This second day in the feast of the passover, or of unleavened bread, was the beginning, therefore, from which they reckoned towards the pentecost. The sabbath in the week following would be the second sabbath after this first one in the reckoning; and this was doubtless the time mentioned when Christ went through the fields. It should be further mentioned that, in Judea, the barley harvest commences about the beginning of May, and both that and the wheat harvest are over by the twentieth. Barley is in full ear in the beginning of April. There is no improbability, therefore, in this narrative on account of the season of the year. This feast was always held at Jerusalem.

Through the corn. Through the barley, or wheat. The word corn, as used in our translation of the Bible, has no reference to maize, or Indian corn, as it has with us. Indian corn was unknown till the discovery of America, and it is scarcely probable that the translators knew anything of it. The word was applied, as it is still in England, to wheat, rye, oats, and barley. This explains the circumstance that they rubbed it in their hands Lu 6:1 to separate the grain from the chaff.

{h} "At that time" Mr 2:25; Lu 6:1 {i} "???" De 23:25