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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.com | DownloadBob Utley You Can Understand the Bible - Matthew 3:11 - 3:12
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This Chapter Verse Commentaries:
NASB (UPDATED) TEXT: Mat_3:11-12
11"As for me, I baptize you with water for repentance, but He who is coming after me is mightier than I, and I am not fit to remove His sandals; He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire. 12His winnowing fork is in His hand, and He will thoroughly clear His threshing floor; and He will gather His wheat into the barn, but He will burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire."
Mat_3:11
NASB "I am not fit to remove His sandals"
NKJV, NRSV "whose sandals I am not worthy to carry"
TEV "I am not good enough even to carry his sandals"
This term may be translated two ways (1) following the usage in the Egyptian papyri, "to take off and carry a visitor's shoes to the storage place" or (2) to " untie and remove." Both acts were traditionally done by slaves. Not even the students of rabbis were asked to perform this task. This was an idiomatic statement of John's understanding of the superiority of Jesus.
▣ "He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire" Only one preposition and one article in the Greek text link the Holy Spirit and fire, implying that they are parallel (note Isa_4:4). However, as in Luk_3:17, fire may refer to judgment, while the Holy Spirit referred to cleansing or to purity. It is possible both refer to the Pentecostal experience of Acts 2. Some have seen this as a two-fold baptism: one baptism for the righteous and one for the wicked, or Jesus baptizing as Savior or as Judge. Others have related it to conversion before Pentecost and the special endowment at Pentecost. 1Co_12:13 implies that Jesus is the baptizer "in," " with," or "by" the Spirit (cf. Mar_1:8; Luk_3:16; Joh_1:33; Act_1:5; Act_2:33).
Mat_3:12 "but He will burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire" The metaphor Jesus used to describe the eternal judgment of God (cf. Isa_66:24) was Gehenna (contraction of "the valley of the sons of Hinnom"), the garbage dump located south of Jerusalem (cf. Mar_9:48; Mat_18:8; Mat_24:41; Jud_1:7). A Canaanite fire and fertility god had been worshiped (an activity known as molech) at Gehenna in Israel's past by sacrificing of children (cf. Lev_18:21; Lev_20:2-5; 1Ki_11:7; 2Ki_21:6; 2Ki_23:10). This aspect of eternal judgment is shocking to modern readers, but it was evident (rabbinical teaching) and expressive to first century Jews. Jesus did not come as judge, but all who reject Him will be judged (cf. Luk_3:16-17, Joh_3:17-21). A possible OT precedent for this metaphor was Isaiah 34 which described God's judgment on Edom.
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