⭐WEB · Matthew 22:33
What does Matthew 22:33 mean?
"When the multitudes heard it, they were astonished at his teaching."
— Matthew 22:33 (World English Bible)
Surrounding context
For in the resurrection they neither marry, nor are given in marriage, but are like God’s angels in heaven.
But concerning the resurrection of the dead, haven’t you read that which was spoken to you by God, saying,
‘I am the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob?’ God is not the God of the dead, but of the living.”
When the multitudes heard it, they were astonished at his teaching.
But the Pharisees, when they heard that he had silenced the Sadducees, gathered themselves together.
One of them, a lawyer, asked him a question, testing him.
“Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the law?”
Explanation
This short verse serves as a narrator's summary, capturing the crowd's reaction after Jesus silenced the Sadducees in a debate about the resurrection of the dead. In plain language, it simply says that the ordinary people listening to this exchange were amazed, even stunned, by how Jesus taught and reasoned. It's not describing a new teaching in itself, but rather the emotional and intellectual impact of what had just happened.
The context is essential to understanding why this reaction occurred. Matthew, writing his Gospel primarily for a Jewish-Christian audience to demonstrate that Jesus is the promised Messiah, records a series of confrontations in Jerusalem during the final week before Jesus's crucifixion. Religious leaders—Pharisees, Herodians, and Sadducees—came to Jesus one after another, each trying to trap him with difficult questions to undermine his credibility. In this particular episode, the Sadducees, who denied the resurrection of the dead, posed a convo
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