The impersonal verb δεῖ (dei, “it is necessary”) expresses divine necessity rather than an impersonal fatalism. Jesus has just affirmed that he could ask the Father for angelic intervention (v. 53), so the arrest is not represented as beyond his power or the Father’s power to prevent. It is necessary because the saving purpose disclosed in Scripture requires that the Messiah submit to this appointed course. The present indicative δεῖ, followed by the aorist middle infinitive γενέσθαι (genesthai, “to happen, come to pass”), denotes a necessity already governing the events now unfolding. The rhetorical question, “How then would the Scriptures be fulfilled?” makes Peter’s proposed violent defense incompatible with that necessity. πληρωθῶσιν (plērōthōsin) is an aorist passive subjunctive, “might be fulfilled,” with αἱ γραφαί as its subject; the passive form presents the scriptural word as reaching its ordained realization through these events. οὕτως (“in this way”) points especially to the manner of Jesus’ surrender rather than simply to the bare fact of his death: he will not be delivered from his enemies by angelic force, but will be handed over in accordance with the Father’s will. This divine necessity does not excuse the betrayers and persecutors, whom Matthew elsewhere treats as accountable for their actions (26:24); it establishes that their sinful deeds cannot frustrate God’s foretold redemptive purpose.

The comparison concerns redemptive-historical privilege and covenantal position rather than personal holiness or final salvation. John is unsurpassed among those who belong to the old era of promise: he is the climactic prophet and the immediate forerunner who identifies Jesus as the coming one (11:10; cf. 3:11-12). Yet he stands at the threshold of the kingdom's public inauguration. Even its least member possesses a relation to the kingdom as inaugurated in Christ that John, in his preparatory ministry, did not yet enjoy in the same manner. The phrase ὁ μικρότερος (ho mikrotēros), "the lesser" or "the least," is a substantival comparative and need not identify a particular individual. It denotes the one of lowest rank within the kingdom of heaven. The corresponding μείζων (meizōn, "greater") likewise speaks of standing within the economy of salvation. Jesus therefore does not diminish John's faithfulness, prophetic authority, or ultimate blessedness. He distinguishes the greatness of the final Old Testament witness from the privileges of those who know the Messiah's kingdom in its unveiled, accomplished form: his saving work, the outpouring of the Spirit, and the clearer fulfillment of what prophets had anticipated. The immediate context supports this temporal and eschatological contrast. John is Elijah-like, sent to prepare the way (11:10, 14), while Jesus announces that "the kingdom of heaven" is arriving with decisive force (11:12). John belongs to the promised transition and points beyond himself to the stronger one; kingdom members belong to the fulfillment he announced. The statement thus magnifies both John as the summit of the prophetic order and the surpassing character of the kingdom brought by Christ.

The final clause, "until all things take place," denotes the completion of the whole divine purpose to which the Law bears witness, reaching its consummation at the end of the present creation. The expression πάντα γένηται (panta genētai), "all things come to pass," employs the aorist middle subjunctive of γίνομαι (ginomai) after ἕως ἄν (heōs an), a construction that points to a future and still-contingent terminus. It is therefore not limited to a single event in Jesus' earthly ministry, though his fulfillment of the Law in v. 17 is the decisive beginning and guarantee of that completion. The two temporal clauses frame the same eschatological horizon. "Until heaven and earth pass away" invokes the final transformation of the created order, while "until all things take place" states the matter in terms of God's saving purpose. Matthew later preserves Jesus' declaration that heaven and earth will pass away but his words will not pass away (24:35), confirming that the language concerns the final consummation rather than an immediate abolition of the Law during his ministry. The Law will not fail, lose a single element of its divine authority, or prove unable to reach its appointed goal before all that God has purposed is accomplished. This does not make every Mosaic ordinance permanently binding in its original covenantal administration. Matthew 5:17 has already identified Jesus as the one who fulfills the Law and the Prophets. In him the Law's promises, patterns, sacrificial provisions, and righteous demands attain their intended realization, and this fulfillment governs how its commands are read in the kingdom. Yet v. 18 excludes the suggestion that Jesus' fulfillment entails repudiation or cancellation: the Law remains God's unfailing word until its entire redemptive design has reached completion.

Matthew most likely intends “Mary the mother of James and Joseph” to be recognized as the mother of Jesus, identified indirectly through the names of two of Jesus’ brothers in 13:55. The expression ἡ τοῦ Ἰακώβου καὶ Ἰωσὴφ μήτηρ is a substantival designation, literally “the mother of James and Joseph,” with the genitive names specifying whose mother she is. The pairing is significant: Matthew 13:55 names Jesus’ brothers as “James and Joseph” (Ἰάκωβος and Ἰωσὴφ), precisely the two sons used here to distinguish this Mary from Mary Magdalene and from the mother of Zebedee’s sons. The identification is not stated as explicitly as in John 19:25, and the Synoptic parallels use similarly indirect labels, particularly Mark’s “Mary the mother of James the younger and Joses” (Mark 15:40). This has led some to distinguish her from Jesus’ mother and to connect her with the Mary of Clopas in John. Yet Matthew supplies no indication that another Mary had sons bearing this exact, distinctive pair of names, while he has already attached those names to Jesus’ family. The natural reading, especially if the brothers of Jesus are understood in their ordinary sense, is that Jesus’ mother remained among the women witnessing his death, though Matthew identifies her by her other sons rather than by her relation to Jesus at this climactic moment.

Jesus claims authority over the Sabbath itself, not simply the competence to adjudicate disputed Sabbath cases. The predicate κύριος (kyrios), “lord” or “master,” stands before the subject for emphasis: “Lord of the Sabbath is the Son of Man.” The genitive τοῦ σαββάτου identifies the Sabbath as the sphere over which his lordship extends. In the immediate controversy, this assertion supplies the decisive ground for the disciples’ blamelessness: their conduct is vindicated because they belong to, and act under, the authority of the one who rules the Sabbath. The preceding arguments already establish that the Pharisees’ restrictive accusation misreads the law. David’s eating of the consecrated bread and the priests’ temple service show that covenantal necessity and divinely appointed service cannot be condemned by a wooden application of ritual boundaries; Hosea 6:6 exposes their failure to reckon with mercy. Yet verse 8 advances beyond an appeal to precedents. Jesus does not present himself as another rabbinic expositor who supplies the correct balancing principle. As the ὁ υἱὸς τοῦ ἀνθρώπου, “the Son of Man,” he speaks with a prerogative commensurate with the Sabbath’s divine origin and purpose. The title “Son of Man” is Jesus’ characteristic self-designation and carries royal, eschatological resonances, especially in light of Daniel 7:13-14, where one like a son of man receives everlasting dominion from the Ancient of Days. Matthew does not require that every occurrence of the title be reduced to a direct citation of Daniel, but the combination of this title with lordship over an ordinance instituted by God points beyond ordinary messianic legal authority. Mark’s parallel adds that the Sabbath was made for man (Mark 2:27), clarifying that Jesus’ lordship restores the Sabbath to its God-given end rather than annulling its moral significance. The saying therefore identifies Jesus as the authoritative Son of Man whose presence and command govern the proper observance of God’s Sabbath.

Jesus’ paired verbs exclude the formation of marriages in the resurrection altogether, thereby answering the Sadducees’ assumption that a woman successively married under levirate provisions must still belong to one of those husbands in the age to come. The present indicatives γαμοῦσιν (from γαμέω, “they marry”) and γαμίζονται (from γαμίζω, “they are given in marriage”) are governed by ἐν τῇ ἀναστάσει, “in the resurrection,” and describe the settled condition of those raised. They do not refer to a temporary interruption of ordinary marital life, but to the absence of marriage as an institution in the resurrection order. The two verbs reflect customary Greek and Jewish marriage idiom. The active verb commonly describes the man’s taking a wife, while the passive, “are given in marriage,” describes the woman’s being bestowed in marriage by her family. Jesus therefore covers both sides of the marital arrangement, rather than limiting his answer to one sex or to the unusual case of widow remarriage. The wording does not, however, directly address whether resurrected humanity remains sexually differentiated. Its point is that the covenantal and procreative ordering of marriage, which belongs to the present age and includes such legal questions as levirate succession, does not continue in the same form after the resurrection. This assertion accords with the immediate contrast between the Sadducees’ earthly legal case and the life of the risen. Their argument presupposed that resurrection life reproduces present social structures, including the obligations generated by death and childlessness. Jesus denies that premise. Marriage is honored in Scripture as a creation ordinance, yet Matthew 22:30 teaches that it is ordered to the conditions of mortal life and is not perpetuated as a resurrected institution. The comparison with the angels explains the relevant respect in which the risen differ from present humanity: they do not enter marriages in heaven.

The comparison principally identifies the kingdom with the householder's sovereign action, especially his initiative in gathering laborers for his own vineyard. The feminine adjective ὁμοία (homoia, “like”) agrees with βασιλεία (basileia, “kingdom”) and is followed by the dative ἀνθρώπῳ οἰκοδεσπότῃ (anthrōpō oikodespotē, “a man, a householder”). Thus the parable does not directly define the kingdom as a vineyard or as the labor performed in it. It depicts the reign of God through the conduct of the estate owner, whose decisions concerning recruitment, work, and payment dominate the narrative. The designation οἰκοδεσπότης (oikodespotēs) denotes the master of a household or estate, one possessing authority over its property and servants. His going out early, ἅμα πρωΐ (hama prōi), at dawn, establishes his purposeful involvement from the beginning of the working day. The aorist middle infinitive μισθώσασθαι (misthōsasthai, “to hire”) expresses his undertaking to secure workers for his own concern. In the ensuing narrative, the owner's repeated departures and his unexpected settlement with the laborers display the freedom and generosity that characterize the kingdom's administration. The vineyard remains a significant setting. In the Old Testament, Israel is at times portrayed as the Lord's vineyard, especially in Isaiah 5:1-7 and Psalm 80:8-16; Jesus also employs vineyard imagery in later Matthean parables. Yet Matthew 20 does not develop the vineyard as an allegory of Israel's unfaithfulness or judgment. Its function is to provide the owner with a field requiring labor and to frame the issue of his right to dispense payment. The kingdom is therefore represented above all in the householder's authoritative and gracious dealings with those whom he summons into his service.

Matthew’s wording presents Jeremiah as the commissioned instrument through whom the prophetic word came, while the ultimate source of the word is God. The substantival participle τὸ ῥηθέν, “that which was spoken,” is an aorist passive participle of λέγω (legō), and its passive form leaves the speaker unexpressed. In Matthew’s fulfillment formulas this is appropriately understood as a divine passive. The same formula is made explicit in Matthew 1:22 and 2:15, where Scripture is described as what was spoken “by the Lord through the prophet.” Thus the omission of κύριος here does not reduce Jeremiah’s oracle to a merely human utterance. The preposition διά with the genitive, διὰ Ἰερεμίου, denotes agency or instrumentality: the word came through Jeremiah. The following present participle λέγοντος, “saying,” agrees with “Jeremiah the prophet” and introduces the quotation in v. 18. Jeremiah is therefore the historical prophet who voiced the oracle, yet Matthew frames that prophetic speech as God’s enduring word, now brought to its appointed fulfillment in the events surrounding Christ’s birth. The construction sustains both elements central to Matthew’s view of Scripture: real prophetic authorship and the prior, governing speech of God.

The pronoun αὐτούς (“them”) refers specifically to the Pharisees, who are the immediate grammatical antecedent in the genitive absolute, Συνηγμένων δὲ τῶν Φαρισαίων (“while the Pharisees were gathered”). Matthew thereby returns the narrative focus to the Pharisaic party after the Sadducees’ unsuccessful resurrection question (22:23-33) and the lawyer’s testing question (22:35-40). The aorist ἐπηρώτησεν, from ἐπερωτάω (eperōtaō, “ask, question”), presents Jesus’ question as a deliberate response within this controversy sequence. The context confirms this restricted reference. Matthew 22:34 has already identified the Pharisees as assembling after Jesus silenced the Sadducees, and 22:35 describes the lawyer as “one of them” (ἐξ αὐτῶν), that is, one from the Pharisaic body. The Sadducees therefore have receded from the immediate scene, while the lawyer’s question functions as the Pharisees’ final test of Jesus. Jesus’ ensuing question concerning the Messiah’s identity and Davidic sonship (22:42-45) is consequently addressed to the Pharisees as a corporate theological body. Their inability to answer in v. 46 exposes the inadequacy of their prevailing messianic formulation, particularly its failure to reckon adequately with Psalm 110:1 and the Messiah’s transcendent lordship.

The infinitive διορυχθῆναι (dioruchthēnai), an aorist passive infinitive from διορύσσω, means literally “to be dug through.” The saying thus pictures a thief gaining entry by digging through the wall of a house, rather than simply entering through an unsecured doorway. In a setting where many ordinary dwellings had walls of mud brick, packed earth, or other penetrable material, such language supplied a concrete and intelligible image of nocturnal burglary. The passive infinitive depends on εἴασεν (“would have allowed”): had the householder possessed advance knowledge of the thief’s watch, he would have remained alert and would not have permitted his house to be breached. The detail serves the logic of Jesus’ warning in vv. 42 and 44. The householder’s failure is not a lack of concern for his property, but his ignorance of the time of the thief’s arrival. The thief comparison identifies the suddenness and unannounced character of the Son of Man’s coming; it does not attribute the thief’s immoral character or destructive purpose to Christ. The image of a violated house intensifies the consequence of unpreparedness, while the following verse draws the intended inference: because the precise hour is undisclosed, constant readiness is required.

The prohibition concerns a decisive refusal to reverse course in the moment of flight, rather than a universal ban on ever returning. μή (mē) with the third-person aorist active imperative ἐπιστρεψάτω (epistrepsatō, from epistrephō, “turn back, return”) commands that the man in the field not make the single backward movement required to retrieve his ἱμάτιον (himation). The aorist imperative views the act as a whole: when the crisis requiring flight has arrived, no interval is to be spent on recovering possessions. This accords with the preceding commands. The person on the housetop must not go down to remove things from the house (v. 17), and the person already in the field must not turn back. The parallelism intensifies the same point from two locations: escape must begin from wherever one is found. The infinitive ἆραι (arai, aorist active infinitive, “to take up”) expresses the purpose of turning back, namely, retrieving the garment. In the immediate context of Judea’s desolation and flight to the mountains (vv. 15-16), the saying portrays judgment as so imminent that ordinary prudence concerning property and clothing becomes spiritually and physically dangerous. Its urgency is further confirmed by the subsequent lament for those whose circumstances make rapid flight difficult (vv. 19-20).

The present φωνεῖ (phōnei, “he is calling”) expresses the bystanders’ characterization of the cry they had just heard, not necessarily a claim that Jesus repeatedly or continuously invoked Elijah. The aorist participle ἀκούσαντες (akousantes, “having heard”) marks their hearing of the preceding utterance as the occasion for their response, while the imperfect ἔλεγον (elegon, “they were saying” or “they kept saying”) depicts their ensuing remarks as they unfolded. Against that background, the present tense in their quoted inference naturally has a progressive or conative sense: “This man is calling out to Elijah.” The verb φωνέω (phōneō) commonly denotes calling aloud to someone and here takes Ἠλίαν as its accusative object. Matthew therefore reports the content of the spectators’ interpretation rather than independently affirming that Elijah was the intended addressee. The present tense makes their interpretation immediate and dramatic, as though the cry audible before them constituted an appeal now being made. It should not be pressed into evidence for additional cries to Elijah beyond the Aramaic words recorded in v. 46. Matthew’s narrative identifies the alleged appeal as the bystanders’ response to Jesus’ cry, whose opening “Eli, Eli” supplied the audible basis for their conclusion.

The qualification “for my sake” (ἕνεκεν ἐμοῦ) identifies allegiance to Jesus himself as the decisive reason for the loss that paradoxically results in life. Jesus does not commend every form of self-sacrifice, political defeat, or personal renunciation. The loss envisaged is that incurred because one belongs to him and accepts the consequences of that attachment, including the hostility described throughout 10:16-25 and the division within households described in 10:34-36. The preposition ἕνεκεν, governing the genitive ἐμοῦ, means “because of,” “on account of,” or “for the sake of.” Its placement after ἀπολέσας (“having lost”) specifies the cause and character of the loss. This is closely joined to v. 38, where bearing the cross and following Jesus are marks of worthiness for him. In the first-century setting, the cross signified not a private inconvenience but the shameful execution of one condemned by imperial authority. The disciple’s readiness to lose life, security, reputation, and even literal life follows from identification with the crucified Messiah. The saying therefore bears a high Christological claim. In Israel’s Scriptures, ultimate fidelity belongs to the Lord, even where such fidelity costs life itself. Jesus here makes commitment to himself the criterion by which life is finally lost or found. Matthew does not present this as a rival to devotion to God, for Jesus acts and speaks with the authority of the one who brings God’s kingdom and gathers God’s people. The future verbs ἀπολέσει (“will lose”) and εὑρήσει (“will find”) locate the final reversal in God’s eschatological judgment: apparent self-preservation apart from Christ ends in ruin, whereas loss borne because of Christ culminates in the recovery of true life.

Matthew describes Joseph's immediate preparation of Jesus' corpse for burial, not an exhaustive account of every rite associated with a Jewish burial. The aorist participle λαβὼν (labōn, “having taken”) precedes the main verb ἐνετύλιξεν (enetylixen, “he wrapped”), presenting Joseph as receiving the body and then enclosing it in a σινδών (sindōn), a substantial linen cloth or shroud. The singular dative σινδόνι indicates the material or means by which the body was wrapped. In this setting the term most naturally denotes a large linen sheet used to enfold a corpse, as also in Mark 15:46 and Luke 23:53. John 19:39-40 supplies details that Matthew omits: Nicodemus brought spices, and Jesus' body was bound in linen cloths according to Jewish burial custom. The difference in terminology does not require contradiction. A large shroud could be used in conjunction with strips or other linen wrappings, and the Synoptic writers regularly narrate the burial with greater compression. Matthew's interest falls especially on Joseph's honorable care for the crucified Jesus and on the identifiable burial that leads directly into the account of the guarded tomb and resurrection. John, writing with a related but distinct emphasis, records the spices and plural ὀθόνια (othonia, linen cloths). Nor does Matthew's wording imply that the burial rites were leisurely or fully completed before sunset. The burial occurred late on the day of Preparation, before the Sabbath began (27:57; cf. Luke 23:54). The women’s later preparation of spices in Luke 23:56 and Mark 16:1 coheres with a burial carried out under severe time constraint. Matthew therefore attests a real, bodily interment performed in recognizable Jewish fashion, while John's fuller description may be received as complementary specification rather than as an alternative account.

Jesus identifies John as the fulfillment of the Elijah promised before the day of the Lord, not as Elijah literally returned in the same personal identity. The apposition, "he is Elijah" (autos estin Ēlias), is explained by the following articular participial expression, "the one who is about to come" (ho mellōn erchesthai). The present participle mellō, governing the present infinitive erchesthai, characterizes Elijah as the expected coming figure. Jesus therefore declares that the expected Elijah has arrived in John’s ministry. This interpretation is governed by Malachi 4:5, where the Lord promises to send Elijah before the great and fearful day of the Lord. John’s ministry bears the marks attached to that promise: he appears in prophetic austerity, summons Israel to repentance, and prepares the way for the Lord. Luke 1:17 expressly defines the connection: John goes before the Lord "in the spirit and power of Elijah." Matthew later confirms the identification when Jesus says that Elijah has already come and that the disciples understood him to mean John the Baptist (Matt 17:10-13). The identification does not require reincarnation or deny John’s own distinction from Elijah. John can deny, in response to a question concerning literal personal identity, "I am not Elijah" (John 1:21), while Jesus can affirm that he fulfills Elijah’s promised office. Elijah’s appearance as himself at the transfiguration also preserves this distinction. Matthew 11:14 thus presents John as the eschatological Elijah in typological and prophetic fulfillment, the divinely appointed forerunner whose ministry signals that the kingdom announced by Jesus has drawn near.

The old garment should not be identified directly with the Mosaic law as though Jesus were declaring that the law had become defective or disposable. In the immediate setting, the question concerns fasting: the disciples of John and the Pharisees fast, whereas Jesus’ disciples do not because the bridegroom is present (9:14–15). The garment image therefore explains why the messianic presence of Jesus cannot be accommodated as a minor adjustment within inherited patterns of piety, especially mourning fasts whose rationale is altered by the arrival of the bridegroom. The phrase ῥάκους ἀγνάφου (rhakous agnaphou), “of unfulled cloth,” denotes cloth that has not undergone the process that stabilizes it against later shrinking. Such a patch, when exposed to use or washing, contracts and pulls against the παλαιόν (palaion), “old,” garment, worsening the σχίσμα (schisma), “tear.” The point is incompatibility between the new reality introduced by Jesus and the forms belonging to the former situation. This does entail genuine redemptive-historical discontinuity, as the accompanying wineskin saying confirms, yet it does not set Jesus against the Old Testament Scriptures or their divine authority. Matthew has already presented Jesus as fulfilling, rather than abolishing, the Law and the Prophets (5:17). The old garment represents the established religious order as it functioned apart from the climactic presence of the Messiah, not the law of God considered as a failed garment.

Matthew’s formula presents Isaiah as the ordained human mediator of a word whose ultimate speaker is God. The neuter aorist passive participle τὸ ῥηθέν (to rhēthen, “that which was spoken”) identifies the prophetic oracle as a received utterance, while διὰ Ἠσαΐου (dia Ēsaiou, “through Isaiah”) marks Isaiah as the instrument or agent through whom the word came. This is a characteristic Matthean mode of introducing Scripture: the prophet truly speaks, yet the prophecy is fundamentally God’s speech, now shown to have reached its intended realization in Christ. Grammatically, λέγοντος (legontos, present active participle, genitive masculine singular, “saying”) agrees with τοῦ προφήτου and thus refers immediately to Isaiah: “through Isaiah the prophet, saying.” The construction does not reduce the following words to Isaiah’s merely private interpretation. Rather, it identifies him as the prophetic herald who gives voice to the divine oracle. The passive πληρωθῇ (plērōthē, aorist passive subjunctive, “might be fulfilled”) then joins the historical ministry of Jesus to that authoritative scriptural speech. Matthew therefore treats the ensuing citation from Isaiah 42 as a word spoken in the prophetic past through Isaiah and disclosed in its full covenantal significance in Jesus’ quiet withdrawal and healing ministry.

The accusation concerns ritual hand purification rather than a complaint about ordinary cleanliness. The verb νίπτονται (niptontai), a present middle indicative of νίπτω, commonly denotes washing a part of the body, here “their hands”; yet its ritual force is established by the charge that this practice violates “the tradition of the elders” and by Jesus’ ensuing discussion of defilement (15:10-20). The issue is whether hands, potentially rendered unclean through contact with ordinary life, had been purified according to inherited Pharisaic practice before food was handled and eaten. The present tenses portray a customary pattern: the disciples “do not wash,” whenever (ὅταν, hotan) they “eat” (ἐσθίωσιν, present subjunctive) bread. Ἄρτον (arton, “bread”) functions broadly for taking a meal, rather than identifying a particular loaf or occasion. Mark’s parallel makes explicit that such washing was associated with Pharisaic and wider Jewish traditional observance (Mark 7:3-4), though it should not be attributed indiscriminately to every Jew. Matthew’s narrative does not disparage bodily washing as such. Rather, Jesus rejects the assumption that failure to perform this inherited rite renders a person spiritually defiled, locating the source of defilement in what proceeds from the heart (15:18-20).

The action requested is best understood as a request for Jesus’ prayerful blessing of the children, rather than as a healing rite or an act of ordination. The purpose clause, ἵνα τὰς χεῖρας ἐπιθῇ αὐτοῖς καὶ προσεύξηται (hina tas cheiras epithē autois kai proseuxētai), joins the laying on of hands with prayer under one purpose: the children are brought so that Jesus may place his hands upon them and pray. Both verbs are aorist subjunctives, ἐπιθῇ from ἐπιτίθημι (epitithēmi) and προσεύξηται from προσεύχομαι (proseuchomai), expressing the intended action of Jesus toward these children. Laying on hands could occur in several biblical settings, including healing, commissioning, sacrifice, and blessing. Yet no illness is mentioned, and the ensuing narrative determines the meaning. In v. 15 Jesus lays his hands on them, while the parallel in Mark 10:16 explicitly states that he took the children in his arms and blessed them. Matthew’s wording therefore presents an embodied blessing accompanied by, or requested in connection with, prayer. It coheres with the Old Testament pattern in which a father or patriarch places hands upon descendants in blessing, as Jacob does with Ephraim and Manasseh (Gen. 48:14-20), though Jesus acts here with an authority surpassing ordinary parental benediction. The scene does not institute an ecclesiastical rite, nor does it identify the children as disciples by a ritual act. Its immediate concern is the welcome of those whom the disciples regarded as an interruption and the reception of Jesus’ kingdom. The physical gesture confirms that Jesus’ welcome is personal and beneficent: the children are neither too insignificant for his attention nor outside the sphere of his prayerful blessing.

Matthew’s wording places Jesus himself at the center of the report. The direct object αὐτόν, the accusative masculine singular pronoun, refers to Jesus, and διεφήμισαν (diaphēmizō, aorist active indicative, third plural) means that they made him widely known or spread his fame abroad. The evangelist therefore does not describe a private account of restored sight detached from its agent. Their testimony concerned the one who had healed them, whose authority and identity had been displayed in the healing. The content of such publicity would necessarily have included the miracle, since the formerly blind men were its visible evidence. Yet Matthew’s choice of αὐτόν coheres with the preceding narrative, in which they had addressed Jesus as “Son of David” (9:27). Their report would have circulated Jesus’ reputation as the Davidic deliverer who exercised divine healing authority. This emphasis also accords with Matthew 9:26, where the report of the ruler’s daughter’s restoration spread through “that whole district.” In 9:31, however, the focus is expressly personal: the men disseminated news concerning Jesus throughout the whole surrounding land, probably the local Galilean region rather than the earth in a universal sense.