Mateo 22

VBL · Chapter 22/28

1Jesús les habló usando más relatos ilustrados.

2“El reino de los cielos es como un rey que organizó una celebración de boda para su hijo”, explicó Jesús.

3“Envió a sus siervos donde todos los que estaban invitados a la boda para decirles que vinieran, pero ellos se negaron a ir.

4Entonces envió más siervos con las siguientes instrucciones: ‘Díganles a los que están invitados que he preparado un banquete de bodas. Se han matado toros y becerros. ¡Todo está listo, así que vengan a la boda!’”

5“Pero ellos ignoraron la invitación y se fueron. Uno se fue a sus campos; otro fue a ocuparse de su negocio.

6El resto tomó a los siervos del rey, los maltrataron, y los mataron.

7El rey se puso furioso. Entonces envió a sus soldados para destruir a esos asesinos y quemar su ciudad.

8“Entonces el rey le dijo a sus siervos, ‘el banquete de la boda está listo, pero los que estaban invitados no merecían asistir.

9Vayan a las calles e inviten a todos los que encuentren para que vengan a la boda’.

10Así que los siervos salieron a las calles y trajeron a todos los que pudieron encontrar, tanto buenos como malos. El salón de la boda estaba lleno.

11“Pero cuando el rey llegó a ver a los invitados, se dio cuenta de que había un hombre que no tenía puesto el vestido adecuado para la boda.

12Entonces le preguntó: ‘amigo, ¿cómo entraste aquí sin vestido de bodas?’ El hombre no sabía qué decir.

13Entonces el rey dijo a sus siervos: ‘Aten sus manos y pies y láncenlo a la oscuridad, donde habrá llanto y crujir de dientes’.

14Porque muchos son invitados, pero pocos son escogidos”.

15Entonces los fariseos se fueron de allí y se reunieron para conspirar la manera en que podrían atraparlo por las cosas que decía.

16Y enviaron a algunos de sus propios discípulos donde él junto con algunos de los seguidores de Herodes.

17Así que déjanos saber lo que opinas. ¿Es correcto pagar los impuestos del César, o no?”

18Jesús sabía que sus intenciones eran malvadas. Entonces les preguntó: “¿Por qué están tratando de ponerme una trampa, hipócritas?

19Muéstrenme la moneda que se usa para pagar el impuesto”. Entonces le trajeron una moneda de denario.

20“¿De quién es la imagen y el título que está inscrito en ella?” les preguntó.

21“Es del césar”, respondieron ellos.

22Cuando escucharon la respuesta de Jesús, se quedaron asombrados. Entonces se marcharon y lo dejaron allí.

23Más tarde, ese mismo día, vinieron unos Saduceos a verlo. (Los saduceos son los que dicen que no hay resurrección).

24Entonces le preguntaron: “Maestro, Moisés dijo que si un hombre casado muere sin haber tenido hijos, su hermano debe casarse con la viuda y así tener hijos en representación de su hermano.

25Pues bien, supongamos que había siete hermanos. El primero se casó y murió, y como no había tenido hijos, dejó la viuda a su hermano.

26Lo mismo ocurrió con el segundo y el tercer esposo, hasta que llegaron al séptimo.

27Al final, la mujer también murió.

28Así que cuando ocurra la resurrección, ¿cuál de todos ellos será su esposo si ella se casó con todos?”

29Jesús respondió: “El error de ustedes es que no conocen la Escritura ni lo que Dios puede hacer.

30Porque en la resurrección las personas no se casarán ni serán entregados en matrimonio tampoco, pues en el cielo son como ángeles.

31En cuanto a la resurrección de los muertos, ¿no han leído lo que Dios les dijo a ustedes:

32‘Yo soy el Dios de Abraham, el Dios de Isaac, y el Dios de Jacob?’ Él no es Dios de los muertos, sino de los que viven”.

33Cuando las multitudes oyeron lo que dijo, se quedaron asombrados de su enseñanza.

34Cuando los fariseos oyeron que Jesús había dejado sin palabras a los Saduceos, se reunieron y fueron a hacerle más preguntas.

35Uno de ellos, quien era un experto en la ley, le hizo una pregunta para probarlo:

36“Maestro, ¿cuál es el mandamiento más importante de la ley?”

37Jesús les dijo: “‘Ama al Señor tu Dios en todo lo que piensas, en todo lo que sientes, y en todo lo que haces’.

38Este es el mandamiento más importante, el primer mandamiento.

39El segundo es similar: ‘Ama a tu prójimo como a ti mismo’.

40Toda la ley bíblica y los escritos de los profetas dependen de estos dos mandamientos”.

41Mientras los fariseos estaban allí reunidos, Jesús les hizo una pregunta:

42“¿Qué piensan ustedes del Mesías?” les preguntó. “¿De quién es hijo?”

43“¿Cómo pudo David, bajo inspiración, llamarlo ‘Señor?’” les preguntó Jesús. “Él dice:

44‘El Señor le dijo a mi Señor: siéntate a mi diestra hasta que derrote a todos tus enemigos’.

45Si David lo llamó Señor, ¿cómo puede el Mesías ser su hijo?”

46Ninguno pudo responderle, y desde entonces ninguno se atrevió a hacerle más preguntas.

📖 Chapter study

Summary

Jesus tells the parable of the wedding banquet, answers about paying taxes to Caesar, refutes the Sadducees on the resurrection, sums up the law in loving God and neighbor, and questions the Pharisees about the identity of the Messiah.

Explanation

The parable of the wedding banquet, in which the original guests refuse the invitation and are replaced by people from the streets, reflects the rejection of Jesus by many Jewish religious leaders and the later inclusion of Gentiles in the message of the Kingdom. The question about the tax to Caesar was a political trap: answering 'yes' would offend Jewish nationalists, and 'no' would amount to sedition against Rome — Jesus's answer, 'render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar's, and unto God the things that are God's,' avoids the trap and challenges his hearers to think about their true priorities. The greatest commandment, to love God with all one's heart and one's neighbor as oneself, sums up the whole of biblical ethics in one memorable sentence, still widely quoted today. Jesus's final question, about how the Messiah can be both David's son and David's Lord, silences his opponents, subtly pointing to his own divine nature.

Fun facts

  • The tribute coin mentioned was likely a Roman denarius bearing the image of Emperor Tiberius, which carried inscriptions many strict Jews considered idolatrous, making the question even more delicate.
  • The Sadducees, who denied the resurrection, accepted only the first five books of the Bible (the Torah) as Scripture; that is why Jesus answers by quoting Exodus, a book they recognized as authoritative.

Verse-by-verse explanation

  1. Mateo 22:1This introduces the third parable in a row that Jesus told the religious leaders in the temple, after the parable of the two sons and the parable of the wicked vinedressers — all three share the same underlying theme: rejecting God’s invitation.
  2. Mateo 22:2A royal wedding, especially for the king’s own son, would have been the most important social event possible in a monarchy of that era — declining the invitation would have been a serious political insult, not merely a social one.
  3. Mateo 22:3Refusing a king’s invitation was, in practice, an almost unimaginable act of disrespect — the text does not spell out the reason for the refusal, only the shocking fact that it happened.
  4. Mateo 22:4The second invitation spells out the abundance already prepared — oxen and fatlings already killed — reinforcing that the refusal had nothing to do with any lack of generosity in the feast, but with the guests’ own indifference.
  5. Mateo 22:5The reasons given for ignoring the invitation — going off to a farm or to business — are ordinary, legitimate activities, which makes it all the more striking that they were chosen instead of honoring the king’s invitation.
  6. Mateo 22:6The violence against the servants, some of whom were killed, escalates the refusal from mere indifference to active hostility toward the king himself who sent them.
  7. Mateo 22:7The king’s military response, burning the city of the guilty, is a deliberately disproportionate reaction for a parable, used to convey just how serious it is to reject God’s invitation.
  8. Mateo 22:8The king declares the first guests “not worthy” — not because of the feast itself, but because of the very refusal and violence they showed — the feast goes on, just for other people.
  9. Mateo 22:9The “highways” were the junctions of roads outside the city, places where you would run into travelers of every kind, with no prior screening by social status.
  10. Mateo 22:10“Both bad and good” underscores that the new group of guests was not chosen for moral merit, but simply for being available and willing to accept the invitation the first guests had refused.
  11. Mateo 22:11At wedding feasts like this one, it was common for the host to provide a proper garment for guests who did not own one — refusing to wear it was a clear insult to whoever had organized the feast, not a matter of poverty. That is why the man has no excuse when he is questioned: he had access to the garment and chose not to put it on.
  12. Mateo 22:12The king calls the man without the proper garment “Friend,” yet still confronts him directly — suggesting the garment was something within his reach, not an impossible demand.
  13. Mateo 22:13“Outer darkness” and “weeping and gnashing of teeth” repeat images of judgment already used in other parables in the gospel, tying this specific punishment to the same fate described elsewhere.
  14. Mateo 22:14The parable closes with a line that sums up its central point: God’s invitation reaches a great many people, but truly responding to that invitation, with due respect, is another matter entirely.
  15. Mateo 22:15The Pharisees change tactics: from trying to arrest Jesus but fearing the crowd, at the end of chapter 21, to trying to trap Him verbally with planned questions meant to force an incriminating answer.
  16. Mateo 22:16The Herodians were a political group that supported the dynasty of Herod and, by extension, the Roman occupation — Pharisees normally avoided them and viewed them as collaborators. The two groups joining forces against Jesus shows that the threat He posed was big enough to unite even political rivals who normally would not speak to each other.
  17. Mateo 22:17Asking about paying tribute to Caesar was a calculated trap: answering yes would offend the people, who hated the Roman occupation; answering no would hand the authorities grounds to accuse Him of sedition against Rome.
  18. Mateo 22:18Jesus recognizes the malicious intent behind the question before He even answers it, exposing the hypocrisy of those who pretend to seek sincere guidance while setting a trap.
  19. Mateo 22:19The coin in question was a Roman denarius bearing the emperor’s face and an inscription calling him divine — carrying that coin inside the temple already troubled many devout Jews. By asking to see the coin, Jesus exposes that His own accusers already carried it in their pockets, using the Roman system in their daily lives.
  20. Mateo 22:20Asking whose image is on the coin exposes that the accusers themselves already used Roman coins every day, despite pretending to hold such a strong moral objection to Roman rule.
  21. Mateo 22:21Jesus’s answer avoids both traps: it acknowledges a legitimate obligation to civil government without denying a distinct and greater obligation to God, without spelling out exactly where each boundary ends.
  22. Mateo 22:22The unexpected answer, which skillfully slips out of the carefully laid trap, leaves the accusers impressed enough to give up and walk away without a response.
  23. Mateo 22:23The Sadducees, who denied that there was any resurrection, form a different group from the Pharisees who had just tried their own trap — another attempt to corner Jesus, this time on a specific theological issue.
  24. Mateo 22:24This is the law of levirate marriage: if a man died without children, his brother was required to marry the widow to produce an heir who would carry on the dead man’s name and inheritance. The Sadducees use this real law to construct an absurd hypothetical case, trying to mock the very idea of resurrection that they themselves rejected.
  25. Mateo 22:25The law of levirate marriage required a brother to marry the widow of a brother who died without children, in order to produce an heir in the dead man’s name — the Sadducees use this real law to build an absurd hypothetical scenario.
  26. Mateo 22:26The scenario repeats seven times in a row, a deliberate exaggeration meant to make the final question about the resurrection even harder to answer in simple terms.
  27. Mateo 22:27The woman’s death, last of all, completes the extreme hypothetical scenario, setting up the trick question about whom she would belong to after the resurrection.
  28. Mateo 22:28The question assumes that the resurrection would work by the same social and legal rules as marriage on earth — a premise that Jesus’s answer, in the next verse, directly challenges.
  29. Mateo 22:29Jesus accuses the Sadducees of two fundamental errors: failing to correctly understand the Scriptures they themselves accepted, and underestimating God’s power to create a different reality in the resurrection.
  30. Mateo 22:30Comparing the resurrected to angels, who do not marry, resolves the Sadducees’ hypothetical dilemma by rejecting its premise: resurrected life does not follow the same social structures as earthly life.
  31. Mateo 22:31Jesus shifts the argument to a direct quotation from the Scriptures that the Sadducees themselves accepted — they rejected oral traditions, but recognized the authority of the written Torah.
  32. Mateo 22:32The quotation comes from the burning bush episode in Exodus, where God identifies Himself in the present tense as the God of patriarchs who had already been dead for centuries — a subtle argument that these patriarchs remained, in some sense, alive to God.
  33. Mateo 22:33The crowd’s reaction of astonishment, not just the defeated Sadducees, suggests that Jesus’s argument impressed even those with no direct stake in the specific theological dispute.
  34. Mateo 22:34The Pharisees, despite disagreeing with the Sadducees about the resurrection, gather together upon hearing of their defeat — a marriage of convenience between rival groups, united by their shared interest in challenging Jesus.
  35. Mateo 22:35A “lawyer” was a formal expert in interpreting the Torah, with training deeper than that of an ordinary Pharisee — another attempt to test Jesus, this time about which commandment took priority.
  36. Mateo 22:36The question about “the great commandment” reflected a real debate among the rabbis of the day, who argued over how to summarize and rank the hundreds of commandments in Jewish law.
  37. Mateo 22:37Jesus’s answer quotes the Shema, from Deuteronomy 6, the most central prayer in the Jewish faith, recited daily — loving God with one’s whole being was already a well-established principle, not a novelty.
  38. Mateo 22:38By declaring this commandment “the first and great” one, Jesus confirms the consensus already expected among Jewish teachers about the centrality of loving God.
  39. Mateo 22:39The second commandment, from Leviticus, had already been quoted by Jesus elsewhere in the gospel — here He places it explicitly alongside the first as an inseparable pair.
  40. Mateo 22:40Summing up the whole Law and the Prophets in just two commandments offers a simple organizing principle for interpreting the rest of the Jewish Scriptures.
  41. Mateo 22:41After answering several trap questions, Jesus takes the initiative and asks the Pharisees a question of His own, reversing the pattern of the conversation up to this point.
  42. Mateo 22:42The Pharisees’ answer, that the Christ is the “Son of David,” reflects the standard messianic expectation of the time, based on the promises made to David’s royal line.
  43. Mateo 22:43Jesus quotes a psalm attributed to David himself, in which the king calls a future figure “Lord” — a title an ancestor would not normally use for a descendant.
  44. Mateo 22:44Jesus is quoting a psalm of David in which the king himself calls a future figure “my Lord” — a title that, in the culture of the time, an ancestor would not normally give to a descendant. The question He asks next leaves the Pharisees with no answer, because it exposes a tension the biblical text itself already contained.
  45. Mateo 22:45The final question exposes a real tension within Jewish messianic tradition: how can the Christ be at once David’s descendant and superior to him, called “Lord” by the king himself.
  46. Mateo 22:46The Pharisees’ silence marks the end of this sequence of verbal confrontations — after this point, no one else tries to challenge Jesus with direct questions, and the conflict moves on to other means.

Chapters

Our apps

Our apps →

Bible in Stories

The Bible told as a story, with audio and videos.

📱 Get the app

World in Stories

True stories of humanity that sound made up.

Feito! Pequenas Vitórias

A light daily routine for people who lose track of the day.