Fifth Sunday after Pentecost, 2nd July 2023

St Matthew 10:40-42
10:40 “Whoever welcomes you welcomes me, and whoever welcomes me welcomes the one who sent me.

10:41 Whoever welcomes a prophet in the name of a prophet will receive a prophet’s reward; and whoever welcomes a righteous person in the name of a righteous person will receive the reward of the righteous;

10:42 and whoever gives even a cup of cold water to one of these little ones in the name of a disciple — truly I tell you, none of these will lose their reward.”

40 Ὁ δεχόμενος ὑμᾶς ἐμὲ δέχεται, καὶ ὁ ἐμὲ δεχόμενος δέχεται τὸν ἀποστείλαντά με.

41 Ὁ δεχόμενος προφήτην εἰς ὄνομα προφήτου μισθὸν προφήτου λήψεται, καὶ ὁ δεχόμενος δίκαιον εἰς ὄνομα δικαίου μισθὸν δικαίου λήψεται.
42 Καὶ ὃς ἐὰν ποτίσῃ ἕνα τῶν μικρῶν τούτων ποτήριον ψυχροῦ μόνον εἰς ὄνομα μαθητοῦ, ἀμὴν λέγω ὑμῖν, οὐ μὴ ἀπολέσῃ τὸν μισθὸν αὐτοῦ.

Comments

The first two verses are rhetorically crafted and, through fivefold repetition stress the notion of δέχομαι (‘I receive, accept’).

[40] δέχομαι, a deponent vb, is as old as Homeric Greek; it means ‘receive, welcome’ in a physical sense or ‘accept’ in a non-physical sense (cf. LSJ). Verse 40 is made up of two chiastic (‘crisscrossing’) statements, the first entwining ‘you’ (plural) and ‘me’ (ἐμὲ is the longer, emphatic form of ‘me’), the second interlacing ‘me’ (emphatic) with ‘he who sent me’ (τὸν ἀποστείλαντά με). The aor. part. ἀποστείλαντά (acc.) < ἀποστέλλω, ‘send forth’, cf. Engl. apostle.

The chiasmus just noted (AB ~ ba) is a rhetorical climax, moving from ‘you’ to ‘me’ to ‘he who sent me’.

[41] εἰς ὄνομα προφήτου μισθὸν προφήτου λήψεται: εἰς ὄνομα προφήτου (‘in the name of a prophet’) may sound strange to a classicist. The phrase ‘in the name’ + genet.  is a ‘Semitic idiom attested in rabbinic literature’ (Exeg. Dict. NT, s.v. ὄνομα, p. 522). Here in effect the phrase means ‘in virtue of his bearing the name “prophet” and being one’.

μισθὸν, acc. sg.  μισθὸς (masc.) = ‘pay, wages’; ‘reward’.

[42] Καὶ ὃς ἐὰν ποτίσῃ ἕνα τῶν μικρῶν τούτων ποτήριον: ποτίζω, construed with a double acc. (obj.) = ‘I give someone something to drink’.

τῶν μικρῶν τούτων: ‘of these (here) little (or humble) ones’. The demonstrative pronoun τούτων is deictic, suggesting a gesture (Christ is pointing).

οὐ μὴ ἀπολέσῃ τὸν μισθὸν αὐτοῦ: the combined negatives  οὐ μὴ + aor. subj. denotes a strong negation, ‘by no means’. The introductory ‘Amen’ confirms this. Thus: ‘… by no means will he forfeit his reward’.