Matthew 12

CHAPTER 12

:-. PLUCKING CORN EARS ON THE SABBATH DAY. ( = Mark 2:23-28; Luke 6:1-5).

The season of the year when this occurred is determined by the event itself. Ripe corn ears are found in the fields only just before harvest. The barley harvest seems clearly intended here, at the close of our March and beginning of our April. It coincided with the Passover season, as the wheat harvest with Pentecost. But in Luke (Luke 6:1) we have a still more definite note of time, if we could be certain of the meaning of the peculiar term which he employs to express it. "It came to pass (he says) on the sabbath, which was the first-second," for that is the proper rendering of the word, and not "the second sabbath after the first," as in our version. Of the various conjectures what this may mean, that of SCALIGER is the most approved, and, as we think, the freest from difficulty, namely, the first sabbath after the second day of the Passover; that is, the first of the seven sabbaths which were to be reckoned from the second day of the Passover, which was itself a sabbath, until the next feast, the feast of Pentecost (Leviticus 23:15; Leviticus 23:16; Deuteronomy 16:9; Deuteronomy 16:10) In this case, the day meant by the Evangelist is the first of those seven sabbaths intervening between Passover and Pentecost. And if we are right in regarding the "feast" mentioned in Deuteronomy 16:10- : as a Passover, and consequently the second during our Lord's public ministry (see on Deuteronomy 16:10- :), this plucking of the ears of corn must have occurred immediately after the scene and the discourse recorded in Deuteronomy 16:10- :, which, doubtless, would induce our Lord to hasten His departure for the north, to avoid the wrath of the Pharisees, which He had kindled at Jerusalem. Here, accordingly, we find Him in the fields—on His way probably to Galilee.