Sunday, August 6, 2023

Matthew 23:6-7, 12

A few months ago, I watched the CUW chapel service from 8 November 2017 (if I'm not mistaken, this was Pastor Bender's first sermon as associate campus pastor):


The reading was Matthew 23:1-12, and I noticed a couple rhetorical features in it.

"6 And they [the Pharisees] love the place of honor at feasts and the best seats in the synagogues 7 and greetings in the marketplaces and being called rabbi by others."  These verses exhibit polysyndeton (the repeated "and"), and it emphasizes the abundance that the Pharisees desire.

"12 Whoever exalts himself will be humbled, and whoever humbles himself will be exalted."  There's a chiastic structure here, and it illustrates this inversion.  (I wrote about this earlier this year, too, with "first" and "last.")

These features are also present in the Greek text:
6 φιλοῦσι δὲ τὴν πρωτοκλισίαν ἐν τοῖς δείπνοις καὶ τὰς πρωτοκαθεδρίας ἐν ταῖς συναγωγαῖς 7 καὶ τοὺς ἀσπασμοὺς ἐν ταῖς ἀγοραῖς καὶ καλεῖσθαι ὑπὸ τῶν ἀνθρώπων ῥαββεί.

12 ὅστις δὲ ὑψώσει ἑαυτὸν ταπεινωθήσεται, καὶ ὅστις ταπεινώσει ἑαυτὸν ὑψωθήσεται.
 and in the Latin Vulgate:
6 amant autem primos recubitus in cenis et primas cathedras in synagogis 7 et salutationes in foro et vocari ab hominibus rabbi

12 qui autem se exaltaverit humiliabitur et qui se humiliaverit exaltabitur