Matthew 3: What the Passage Says

The Chapter in a Sentence

John the Baptist preaches in the Judean wilderness, telling people to turn from their sins because the kingdom of heaven is near, and he baptizes crowds in the Jordan River as they confess their sins. He warns Pharisees and Sadducees that family descent from Abraham will not save them, and says someone stronger is coming who will baptize with the Holy Spirit and with fire. Jesus then comes from Galilee to be baptized by John, who at first objects. After the baptism the heavens open, the Spirit of God comes down like a dove, and a voice from heaven calls Jesus his beloved Son.

Claim by Claim

1. 3:1
   • In those days John the Baptist came.
   • John the Baptist preached in the wilderness of Judea.
2. 3:2
   • John said, Repent.
   • John said the kingdom of heaven has drawn near.
3. 3:3
   • John is the one spoken of through the prophet Isaiah.
   • Isaiah spoke of a voice of one crying in the wilderness.
   • The voice says, Prepare the way of the Lord.
   • The voice says, Make his paths straight.
4. 3:4
   • John's clothing was made of camel's hair.
   • John wore a leather belt around his waist.
   • John's food was locusts and wild honey.
5. 3:5
   • Then Jerusalem went out to him.
   • All Judea went out to him.
   • All the region around the Jordan went out to him.
6. 3:6
   • They were baptized by John in the Jordan river.
   • They confessed their sins.
7. 3:7
   • John saw many of the Pharisees and Sadducees coming to the baptism.
   • John called them offspring of vipers.
   • John asked them who warned them to flee from the coming wrath.
8. 3:8
   • John told them to produce fruit worthy of repentance.
9. 3:9
   • John told them not to presume to say within themselves that they have Abraham as their father.
   • John said God is able to raise up children for Abraham from these stones.
10. 3:10
    • The axe is already laid at the root of the trees.
    • Every tree that does not produce good fruit is cut down.
    • Every tree that does not produce good fruit is thrown into the fire.
11. 3:11
    • John said he baptizes them with water for repentance.
    • John said the one coming after him is mightier than he is.
    • John said he is not worthy to carry that one's sandals.
    • John said that one will baptize them with the Holy Spirit and with fire.
12. 3:12
    • The coming one's winnowing fork is in his hand.
    • He will thoroughly clean out his threshing floor.
    • He will gather his wheat into the barn.
    • He will burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire.
13. 3:13
    • Then Jesus came from Galilee to the Jordan to John.
    • Jesus came in order to be baptized by John.
14. 3:14
    • John tried to prevent Jesus.
    • John said he needed to be baptized by Jesus.
    • John asked whether Jesus was coming to him.
15. 3:15
    • Jesus answered John.
    • Jesus said to allow it for now.
    • Jesus said it is fitting for them to fulfill all righteousness in this way.
    • Then John permitted him.
16. 3:16
    • Jesus was baptized.
    • Jesus went up immediately from the water.
    • The heavens were opened.
    • The King James says the heavens were opened to him.
    • Jesus saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove.
    • The Spirit came upon him.
17. 3:17
    • A voice came from the heavens.
    • The voice said, This is my beloved Son.
    • The voice said, In him I am well pleased.

Words Worth Explaining

Every language note in this chapter, gathered. These explain what a word meant, never what it means for the reader.

3:1

"In those days" is a loose connector rather than a date; the narrative has just left Jesus' childhood and jumps ahead roughly thirty years. "The Baptist" is a description, not a surname or a denomination: it means "the one who baptizes." The "wilderness of Judaea" was the dry, thinly settled scrubland falling away from the hills around Jerusalem toward the Jordan valley and the Dead Sea. It had shepherds, tracks and villages at its edges, so it was open uninhabited country rather than sand dunes.

3:2

"Repent ye" translates a Greek word meaning to change one's mind and turn around, a reversal of direction rather than simply feeling sorry. "The kingdom of heaven" is this Gospel's regular phrase where Mark and Luke usually say "the kingdom of God"; Jewish writers of the period often said "heaven" as a respectful way of not pronouncing the divine name. The phrase means God's rule or reign arriving, not a place people travel to after death. "At hand" means near, close enough to matter now.

3:3

"Esaias" is the Greek spelling of Isaiah; the quotation is Isaiah 40:3. Ancient kings sent work crews ahead of a royal journey to clear, level and straighten the road, so "prepare ye the way of the Lord" is a picture of roadwork before an arriving ruler. The Hebrew of Isaiah is genuinely ambiguous about where "in the wilderness" belongs: it can go with the voice (a voice calling in the wilderness) or with the command (prepare a road in the wilderness). The Greek quoted here keeps the ambiguity.

3:4

"Raiment" is clothing, and "a leathern girdle about his loins" is a leather belt around the waist. "Meat" in 1611 English meant food of any sort, not flesh in particular. Coarse camel hair cloth plus a leather belt matches the description of the prophet Elijah in 2 Kings 1:8, and the first hearers would have caught the echo. The locusts are the insect; the Law of Moses named them among the very few insects Israelites were permitted to eat (Leviticus 11:22), and they were dried or roasted. Wild honey was taken from bees' nests in rock clefts and hollow trees, not from kept hives.

3:5

Naming "Jerusalem" and "Judaea" is a way of naming the people who lived there. "All" is the ordinary exaggeration of a crowd report, meaning people came from everywhere in those districts.

3:6

"Baptized of him" means baptized by him; in the King James Version "of" very often carries the sense of the modern "by." The verb behind "baptize" means to dip, plunge or immerse. Ritual washing for purity was already familiar in Jewish practice, but those washings were repeated and self-administered; what John did was a single act performed on a person by someone else, tied to an admission of specific wrongs.

3:7

The Pharisees were a lay movement committed to exact observance of the Law, including a body of tradition handed down alongside the written text. The Sadducees were built around the priestly and landowning families who controlled the temple, and they rejected that extra tradition. The two groups were rivals, so naming them in one breath is pointed. "Generation of vipers" does not mean an age or era: "generation" here means brood or offspring, so he is calling them a litter of poisonous snakes. "The wrath to come" was a stock phrase for God's judgment at the end of the age.

3:8

"Meet" is an adjective meaning fitting or suitable, unrelated to the verb "meet" and to "meat." "Bring forth ... fruits" is farming language for behavior that grows out of the change, the way a crop grows out of a healthy tree.

3:9

Descent from Abraham was the standard basis for claiming a share in the promises God made to Israel, so "We have Abraham to our father" is a claim of secure standing, not a genealogical remark. In Hebrew and Aramaic the words for stones and for sons or children sound nearly alike (abanim and banim), so the saying carries a pun that does not survive into English.

3:10

An axe "laid unto the root" is one already resting against the base of the trunk with the swing about to come, not a tool put away in a shed. The image is of felling that is about to begin.

3:11

"Unto repentance" means with a view to repentance, that is, the washing goes with the turning. Carrying or untying a master's sandals was slave's work; Jewish teaching of the period said a student could be required to perform almost any service for his teacher except this one, which is why the comparison is so extreme. "Holy Ghost" is simply older English for Holy Spirit, since "ghost" meant spirit in 1611 with no suggestion of a haunting. The Greek preposition rendered "with" can equally be rendered "in," and "with fire" is left unexplained here; the fire of the next verse burns chaff, while fire elsewhere in scripture also refines metal.

3:12

A "fan" here is a winnowing fork or shovel, nothing to do with cooling air: after the grain was beaten loose, workers threw it up into the evening breeze with this tool so that the wind carried off the light husks while the heavy kernels fell straight back down. "Throughly" is the older spelling of thoroughly. The "floor" is a threshing floor, a flat, hard, open patch of ground, usually on a rise to catch the wind. A "garner" is a granary or storehouse. "Chaff" is the husks and broken straw left behind, worth nothing as food and usually burned as quick fuel.

3:13

Galilee is the northern region and the Jordan crossings near the Judean wilderness lie far to the south, so this is a journey on foot of several days, something on the order of seventy miles depending on the route taken.

3:14

"Forbad" in 1611 English covers attempting to prevent as well as succeeding. The Greek verb form here carries the sense "kept trying to stop him," which is why John does in the end allow it.

3:15

"Suffer" meant permit or allow, so "Suffer it to be so now" means let it happen for the present, and "then he suffered him" at the end of the verse means then he let him do it. "It becometh us" means it is fitting or proper for us. "Fulfil all righteousness" is left open in the Greek and was heard in more than one way: to carry out everything God requires, or to fill up completely what is right.

3:16

"Straightway" means at once, immediately. "Lo" is an old word for look or behold, marking something that suddenly comes into view. "Lighting upon him" means alighting, settling, the way a bird comes to rest. Two things stay genuinely open in the Greek: who "he saw" refers to, John or Jesus, and whether "like a dove" describes the appearance of the Spirit or the manner of the descent, coming down the way a dove comes down.

3:17

The wording gathers phrases a Jewish hearer would recognize: "my beloved Son" resembles Psalm 2:7, spoken to a king at his enthronement, and "in whom I am well pleased" resembles Isaiah 42:1, spoken of a chosen servant. "Beloved" in the Greek of this period can also carry the sense of "only." Mark and Luke report the words in the second person, "Thou art my beloved Son," spoken to Jesus; here they are in the third person, "This is," addressed to whoever is listening.