Matthew 7:29

Matthew 7:29 is the twenty-ninth, and final, verse of the seventh chapter of the Gospel of Matthew in the New Testament. It ends a two verse conclusion following the Sermon on the Mount.

In the original Greek according to Westcott-Hort this verse is:

ην γαρ διδασκων αυτους ως εξουσιαν

εχων και ουχ ως οι γραμματεις αυτων

In the King James Version of the Bible the text reads:

For he taught them as one having

authority, and not as the scribes.

The English Standard Version translates the passage as:

for he was teaching them as one who

had authority, and not as their scribes.

In the previous verse the crowd of onlookers were described as astonished following the Sermon on the Mount, and this verse explains why. The final phrase is a verbatim copy of Mark 1:22, but in a very different context. Mark simply asserts Jesus' authority. Matthew uses it as a concluding argument after presenting the Sermon on the Mount as evidence.^[1]

That this verse refers to their scribes is a clear indicator that Jesus' followers saw themselves as separate from the mainstream Jewish community at the time this was written.^[2] Scribes refers to the trained rabbis who would quoted scribal authorities, and makes clear that Jesus is greater than the most important rabbi.^[3] A sermon by the rabbis would have been replete with references to scripture to validate each teaching. The contrast presented by the Gospel is that Jesus speaks based on his own authority, not that of past figures.^[4]

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