The story

The disciples just had a memorable moment when Jesus fed 5,000 men, not counting women and children. Jesus immediately compelled the disciples to leave by boat for the other side, while he would take care to send the crowd away. After the crowd was sent away, Jesus isolated himself in the mountain to pray. As for the disciples' boat, after a few miles, it had to face the onslaught of the waves because of a headwind. At this point, between 3:00 a.m. and 6:00 a.m., Jesus joins his disciples. But now there are cries of fear among the disciples, for it is as if a spectre had come from the world of the dead. By his words, Jesus identifies himself with "I am", the Old Testament expression for God, and invites them not to be afraid and be confident. But Peter, wanting to be sure the spectre is Jesus, asks for a command to join him on the water, which Jesus does. When Peter starts walking on the water towards Jesus, he begins to sink as soon as he sees the power of the wind. Jesus rescues him by reaching out his hand and grabbing him, blaming him for his lack of faith. Once everyone is in the boat, calm is restored. The disciples then proclaim their faith and recognize the authority of Jesus as the Son of God.

The vocabulary

In the section of verses 22-27, Matthew essentially takes up the text of Mark's gospel, and thus its vocabulary. However, he makes some alterations.

• V. 22: Thus, at the beginning of the account, to say "immediately", he replaces Mark's euthys with eutheōs which he prefers, even though the two words are synonymous.
• V. 22: He modifies the expression "his disciples" by "the disciples". Why did he change the expression "his disciples" to "the disciples"? There are two possible explanations: either the disciples always designate for him the restricted group of the Twelve, or, more probably, to generalize the expression, i.e. any disciple, and thus allow his community of Antioch to identify itself with it.
• V. 22: As he often does, "the crowd" becomes "the crowds" on his pen, not only to accentuate the impact of Jesus' preaching, but to refer to diverse groups, and therefore to the various nations.
• V. 23: He adds kat'idian (apart) in the description of Jesus going into the mountain to pray, in order to express the situation and the unique identity of Jesus, which he emphasizes more than the other Synoptics
• V. 23: He modifies Mark's sentence which mentions afterwards that evening has come, that the boat is in the middle of the sea, and that Jesus is alone on the land. After mentioning as Mark did that evening has come, he prefers to focus immediately on Jesus who is alone (monos), and adds "he was there (ekei)" a way of emphasizing that Jesus is always in the same place as his place of prayer, and therefore always in the world of God, accentuating the separation with the disciples; ekei is an adverb that is part of the Matthean vocabulary. In doing so, Matthew is moving away from Mark who put Jesus on the lakeshore when evening came, and no longer on the mountain, a situation that Matthew probably found incomprehensible.
• V. 24: "the boat, being already several stadia distant (apeichen) from (apo) the land". This is what we find in Matthew instead of "the boat was in the middle of the sea, and he alone on the land" of Mark. If we believe M.E. Boismard, "to be far from" (apeichen apo) is not Matthew's, but Luke's, who would have given a final touch to the edition of Matthew's gospel, because apeichen apo is a Lucan expression, the most striking example of which is Lk 24:13 (Emmaus, 60 stadia away from Jerusalem).
• V. 24: "already (ēdē) distant". This is not a frequent word in Matthew, but nevertheless he sometimes adds it to the source he receives from Mark, as is the case here. The word can mean that a large quantity has been reached, and so Matthew intends to show the gap between the community of disciples in the boat and Jesus himself, a gap that is now representative of the Christian community.
• V. 24: "several (polys) stadia". The adjective "several" appears frequently in Matthew, and he sometimes adds it to the source he receives from Mark, as is the case here. For Matthew, this great distance symbolizes the gap between a transcendent Jesus, whom Matthew looks at with Easter eyes, and the community of disciples in the boat.
• V. 24: "(the boat) being tormented by the waves (kyma)". Matthew makes two changes in relation to Mark: first, it is not the disciples who are tormented, but the boat is tormented, and second, the torment does not come from having to row against the wind, but from the waves that hit the boat. The Jewish people are not a seafaring people, and the waves are frightening and are associated with the forces of evil. And since the boat is associated with the ecclesial community, for Matthew it is the ecclesial community that suffers the onslaught of the waves and the forces of evil.
• V. 26: "They cried (krazō)". Matthew takes up the idea of the desperate cries of Mark who uses anakrazō (to cry out), but since anakrazō is not part of his vocabulary, he prefers the verb krazō.
• V. 26: "of fear (phobos)". Even though the word appears only three times in his gospel, each time it is a touch of its own, and what he does here is to clarify why the disciples were crying out.

In the section of vv. 28-31, Matthew moves away from Mark to insert one of his compositions about Peter who wants to follow Jesus on the water, but fails for lack of faith, and must therefore be rescued by Jesus. The peculiarities of his style and vocabulary are clearly shown: the expression "answering and say", the words "Lord" which he often adds to his sources, "command" (keleuō) which he is almost alone in using in the gospels, "the waters" (hydōr), a plural that he alone uses to speak of the sea, "to look at" (blepō) which he uses more than the other evangelists, "to submerge" (katapontizō); ) which appears only in Matthew throughout the New Testament, the expressions "save me" which are found only in Matthew and "stretch out your hand" which he uses more than the others, the word "little faith" (oligopistos), almost exclusively Matthean, the verb "to doubt" (distazō) which appears only in Matthew throughout the Bible, the verb "to prostrate oneself" (proskyneō) of which he is the greatest user, finally the expression "of God the son" which is found only in Matthew.

Structure and composition

The story of walking on water is inseparable from the story of Jesus feeding the crowd that it is commenting on and extending. Matthew essentially takes up Mark's text, and if Boismard is right, Mark's text is a fusion of two versions of the narrative, one of which is at the source of John's account of the walking on water. So we end up with a text of a certain complexity. And to this Matthew will add an episode of his own around Peter. Thus, the story can be divided into four moments: 1) the execution of the initial plan where the disciples leave in a boat and face the headwind, while Jesus sends the crowd away, 2) the interaction between Jesus walking on the water and the disciples, 3) the interaction between Peter and Jesus, and 4) a conclusion when everyone is gathered.

This story belongs to the second part of Matthew's gospel when, faced with the prospect of his approaching death, Jesus focuses his teaching on his disciples. First of all, with the scene of the multiplication of the loaves, he associates his disciples with his compassion to feed the crowds, and at the end of the crossing of the lake, they will witness Jesus' healing mission. The story of the walking on the water will be the key to illuminating this whole ensemble.

And this key will be faith in him who, now risen, shares God's privileges of being master of creation, and as God was able to give manna and bring his people across the sea, so will he be able to do the same for his Church. This faith is also expected of its leaders, as Peter was.

Intention of the author

The Christian community that is probably the first recipient of Matthew's gospel is the Jewish Christians of Antioch. However, this community is experiencing tensions with their brothers for whom they are probably considered heretics and who are preparing to excommunicate them from the synagogue. Tensions also exist within the community between the conservatives who want to continue to apply the Jewish Law and practices in their entirety, and the "liberals" who appeal to the Christian liberty of which St. Paul spoke. Finally, there are tensions among the leaders of the community, some of whom are very much interested in their "rabbi", "father" or "doctor" credentials. This raises the question of the survival of the community.

The whole of our story begins with Jesus feeding the crowd narrative which clearly evokes the Eucharistic assembly. After the gathering, after the experience of a memorable moment, it is the dismissal, the return to normal life and to the mission. It is above all the awareness that the physical Jesus who walked the roads of Palestine is no longer with us, for he is with his Father. The waves that hit the boat are all the external and internal problems that the community is experiencing. When Jesus wants to make himself present to the community, it is no longer the Jesus of old that we could see and touch. He belongs to the world of God, whose authority he shares over all creation, including the sea and the waves, which for a Jew represent the forces of evil. In the midst of evil, the unbelieving eye distinguishes only the shadow or the spectre of the world of death, including Jesus who would be there with all the others; for this eye, Jesus has not risen. It is only by his word that Jesus can join the community and say, "I am", a word that reminds us that he now shares God's privileges, including the privilege of overcoming evil in all its forms. So Matthew can say to his community, 'Even though the Twelve were able to see and touch the body of Jesus, all this gave them no advantage in recognising the risen Jesus'.

And Matthew also has a message for the leaders of the community: 'Look at Peter who wanted to follow in the footsteps of Jesus, but was not able to because of a lack of faith. If Peter failed, how much more will it be for you. If you don't cultivate a faith to carry the mountains, you will all come out losers against the forces of evil.

Matthew wants to end this story with a powerful proclamation of faith from the disciples around Jesus the son of God, i.e. the one who shares God's privilege of overcoming the forces of evil. It is important to him that the disciples proclaim their faith before the Roman pagans at the end of his gospel, at the death of Jesus, and that they serve as a model for the members of the community. With this faith," he says, "you will come out victorious in all the problems that beset you, and this will give true meaning to your Eucharistic gatherings.

Eutheōs is an adverb meaning: immediately, right away, straight away, at once. It is very rare outside of the Gospel-Acts: Mt = 13; Mk = 1; Lk = 6; Jn = 3; Acts = 9; 1Jn = 0; 2Jn = 0; 3Jn = 1. As can be seen, it is found mainly in Matthew and Luke. Mark prefers its synonym euthys (Mt = 5; Mk = 41; Lk = 1; Jn = 3; Acts = 1; 1Jn = 0; 2Jn = 0; 3Jn = 0), derived from the adjective euthys (straight, direct) and which means "immediately, right away" when it refers to time, or "directly" when it refers to space, or "directly, simply" when it is about how to act.

Very clearly, Matthew likes the adverb eutheōs and prefers it to euthys.

1. On a few occasions he adds this adverb to the source he receives from Mark.

   Mt 24: 29	Mk 13: 24
   Then, immediately (eutheōs) after the tribulation on those days, the sun will be darkened, and the moon will not give its light, and the stars will fall from the sky	But in those days, after the tribulation, the sun will be darkened, and the moon will not give its light, and the stars will be falling out of the sky

   See also Mt 27: 48 || Mk 15: 36.

2. But most of the time Matthew simply replaces the euthys he receives from Mark with eutheōs.

   Mt 4: 20	Mk 1: 18
   Them, immediately (eutheōs), having left the nets, they followed him (Jesus).	And immediately (euthys), leaving the nets, they followed him (Jesus)

   See also Mt 4: 22 || Mk 1: 20; Mt 8: 3 || Mk 1: 42; Mt 13: 5 || Mk 4: 5; Mt 14: 22 || Mk 6: 45; Mt 20: 34 || Mk 10: 52; Mt 26: 49 || Mk 14: 45.

The five occurrences of euthys in Matthew appear only in passages that he copied from Mark. Then why did he almost always replace euthys by eutheōs, except in those five passages? Only Matthew himself could give us an explanation.

Luke also prefers eutheōs to euthys, and the only occurrence of euthys is in a passage from the Document Q. In John it is more ambiguous, but it seems that euthys is more part of his vocabulary than eutheōs, because this The latter seems to come from a tradition he receives about healing the paralytic, walking on the waters and denying Peter, while euthys appears in the speeches of Jesus that he seems to have composed.

What role does the adverb "immediately" play, which appears regularly in the Gospels, especially in Matthew?

1. First of all, he intends to show the force of the impact of a word or an action, its effectiveness which does not bear any delay: when Jesus tells Peter and Andrew to follow him ("Come after me, and I will make you fishers of men", Mt 4:19), the latter immediately leave their nets to follow him; or again, when Jesus touches the leper and tells him that he desires his healing (Mt 8:3), leprosy disappears immediately.

2. The word 'immediately' is also a way for the evangelist to point out that a scene is related to the above, or that one action is caused by another which precedes it: after recalling the sign agreed upon by Judas, the evangelist writes that immediately Judas approached Jesus to greet him and gave him a kiss (Mt 26:49), establishing a link between what is happening and the agreed sign; the same is true of the cock crowing immediately afterwards. Peter's last denial (Mt 26:74), a way of linking the two events and thus confirming Jesus' prediction.

Here, in v. 22, the adverb "immediately" is one of the first words of our pericope. We must therefore look at what precedes. Now, what precedes is the scene of Jesus feeding the crowds. What does that mean? Matthew notifies us that there is a connection between the scene of Jesus feeding the crowd and the scene of walking on the waters. What is this connection? This is what we need to find out by analyzing the whole story.

Ēnankasen is the verb anankazō in the active indicative aorist 3rd person plural. It means: to compel, to force, to oblige. It is very rare in the New Testament and in the Gospel-Acts: Mt = 1; Mk = 1; Lk = 1; Jn = 0; Acts = 2; 1Jn = 0; 2Jn = 0; 3Jn = 0.

This is not a word that belongs to the Matthean vocabulary, since the latter borrows it from Mark when he copies this scene of the walking on the waters. Likewise, Mark only uses it for this scene. It is Luke who uses it the most, first with the parable from the source Q where a man, seeing that there were still free seats at his banquet because of numerous refusals, forced onlookers to attend (Lk 14:23); but Luke also puts this verb twice in the mouth of Paul in his Acts of the Apostles (26: 11; 28: 19). Finally, let us note the four occurrences in the Pauline epistles (2 Cor 12: 11; Gal 2: 3.14; 6: 12).

What is important to note is that these occurrences of "to compel" are never about physical violence, but rather about a pressing call or moral or religious obligation, or situations that require certain decisions to be made.

Why did Jesus "compel" his disciples to leave the place? As Matthew takes up again a scene from Mark, it is on the side of the latter that we must look for a answer. In fact, the disciples have just experienced a memorable moment with Jesus feeding the crowds. Now, for Mark, this moment can be deceptive, because one cannot understand this messiah who feeds the world if we do not understand the cross that awaits him. So Jesus finds a way of "wrenching" them out of their illusion in order to live out the difficult crossing of the rough sea, the only way to enter into the mystery of his life and ours.

Matthētas is the masculine noun matthētēs in the accusative plural form. It means: to be a disciple or a pupil or a learner; it refers to someone who is listening to a master. As one can imagine, the word is very frequent in the Gospel-Acts: Mt = 72; Mk = 46; Lk = 37; Jn = 78; Acts = 28; 1Jn = 0; 2Jn = 0; 3Jn = 0. It can refer to the disciples of Jesus, John or even those of the Pharisees (Mk 2:18).

The question was asked: is the word "disciple" comes from the first Christian community to designate members of the community, or does it really reflect how people called all those who were attached to Jesus when he preached? After his analysis, J.P. Meier concludes that this term really belongs to Jesus era, since the first Christians rather got rid of this term to define themselves. Moreover, among those who have considered Jesus as a master, three different groups of people can be distinguished

1. First, the small group of those who accompanied him physically on the roads, leaving work, family and home behind,
2. Those who welcomed him into their home, offering him lodging and food and money when he visited their region,
3. Finally, the crowd of onlookers who attended his preaching and expressed some kind of interest

It should be noted that although several women are mentioned, none of them are given the title of disciple, no doubt because of the culture of back then.

Matthew likes the word disciple: not only does he use it very often (he is 2nd, behind John), but out of the 72 occurrences, 42 (about 60%). are unique to him. But what must be emphasized is that Matthew is the only one to associate them with the Twelve: he is the only one to speak of the Twelve. disciples, first to frame the missionary discourse (10: 1 and 11: 1), then to share the fate that awaits him as he going up to Jerusalem (20: 17). And when Judas has betrayed Jesus and commits suicide, Matthew will speak about the eleven disciples (28: 16), an expression that he is the only one to use. Now, Mark, who is the source of Matthew and Luke, speaks only of the "Twelve" or the "Eleven". What does that mean? Matthew seems to restrict the title of disciple to the specific group of the Twelve who accompanies him on the road and whom he sends on mission. And when one looks at the whole of his gospel, it is clear that the disciples of Jesus occupy a special place and that they are called to play a unique role

Disciples are separate people to whom Jesus reserves for a special teaching and who have a greater knowledge of the christian mystery.

• The sermon on the mountain is addressed to them first of all ("And when he saw the multitudes, he went up into the mountain, and when he sat down, his disciples came to him, and opening his mouth, he taught them (disciples), saying," 5:1-2).
• While the multitudes received only a teaching in parable, Jesus reserved the explanation of the parable for the disciples ("Then leaving the multitudes, he came home; and his disciples came to him and said, "Explain to us the parable of the tares in the field."), 13: 36)
• They are able to better understand Jesus' words ("Then the disciples understood that his words were directed to John the Baptist", 17: 13).

The disciples have a unique relationship with Jesus and constitute his family.

• While for Mark it is the people in the crowd around him who do the will of God and so are truly his mother and brothers, Matthew restricts this group to the disciples ("And stretching out his hand to his disciples, he said, 'Behold my mother and my brothers' ", 12: 49).
• The disciples are the privileged witnesses of his action: in the scene of the healing of the daughter of Jairus and the woman with blood loss, Matthew insists on saying: "And rising up, Jesus followed him (Jairus) and his disciples" (9: 19); in the same way, at the beginning of the scene of the stilling storm, Matthew writes: "Then he got into the boat and his disciples followed him" (8: 23).

Disciples are called to be the salt of the earth and the light of the world

• Because they receive from the very mouth of Jesus the outline of Christian action through the whole Sermon on the Mount, Matthew can write: "You are the salt of the earth... you are the light of the world" (5:13-16).
• When Jesus sends them on a mission, he plans what they will have to do: "Heal the sick, raise the dead, cleanse the lepers, cast out demons. You have received freely, give freely" (10:8).

What is quite peculiar to Matthew, the disciples play the role of intermediary or mediator between Jesus and the crowd.

• Note the difference between the version of Mark and that of Matthew in the account of Jesus feeding the crowds at the time of the distribution of food to the crowd:

  Mark 6: 41	Matthew 14: 19
  and (Jesus) gave them to the disciples for them to present to them (to the crowd)	he (Jesus) gave to the disciples the loaves and the disciples to the crowds

  We will have noticed that Matthew uses the word disciple twice (we have underlined the 2nd time). Why this repetition? If Jesus first gives the bread to the disciples, is it not obvious that they are the ones who then give it to the crowds? Why this redundancy in Matthieu? One gets the impression that he wants to accentuate the structure of the Jesus-disciples and disciples-crowds relationships, emphasizing the role of intermediary or mediator of the disciples. He will do the same for the 2nd feeding of the crowd (15: 36). And he will do the same thing again at the Last Supper when he writes: "Jesus took bread, blessed it, broke it, and gave it to the disciples" (26: 26; Mark simply: "gave it to them", 14: 22). Explicitly mentioning the word "disciples" is one way of asserting their role as mediator.

• The emphasis on the role of intermediary or mediator of the disciples appears throughout his gospel. It is the role of the disciples to ask Jesus for explanations of his teaching (13:36 "His disciples came to him and said, 'Explain to us the parable of the tares in the field' "). It is their role to inform Jesus (15:12 "Then the disciples came to him and said, 'Do you know that the Pharisees were shocked to hear you speak like that?) It is their role to pray Jesus to act (15: 23 "When his disciples came to him, they insisted on saying, 'Cast her out, for she is behind us breaking our ears' ". It is their role to ask Jesus to explain certain events: (21:20: "When the disciples saw this, they were astonished and said, 'How did the fig tree dry up in an instant? "; see also 24: 3 on the signs of the end of the world). Finally, it is their role to go out into the whole world, to baptize and make known the teaching of Jesus (28:16).

One must not be surprised by the unique place Matthew gives to the disciples. We are probably in the middle of Antioch around the year 80 or 85 when the Church begins to structure itself on the model of the Old Testament and where this classification between clerics and laity takes shape.

Yet despite this unique role that Matthew gives to the disciples, he is not shy to point out their weakness, their limitations and sometimes their narrow-mindedness. For example, they are afraid when Jesus walks on water (14: 26), or when they hear a voice from heaven (17: 6). When Jesus presents his vision of marriage where a man cannot repudiate his wife for any reason, their remark would be considered macho today (19:10 "The disciples say to him: 'If this is the condition of 'man to woman, it is not expedient to get married.'"). When Jesus told them that it is difficult for a rich person to enter the kingdom of heaven, Matthew writes: "The disciples were dumbfounded: 'Who then can be saved?'" (19: 25). When a woman spills an alabaster bottle containing a very precious perfume on Jesus, he passes the buck to the disciples for saying: "What good is this waste?"(26: 8). When Peter bravely claims that he is ready to die for Jesus and Mark writes that "all" said the same, Matthew insists on clarifying: "All the disciples said the same" (26:35).

Here, in v. 22, what role does Matthew have the disciples play? The rest of the story will show us that we are in front of an epiphany of Jesus to his disciples, i.e. a revelation of his identity; in fact, the story will end with a confession of faith by the disciples with these words: "Truly, you are God's son". Thus, for Matthew, the disciples have a special knowledge of the Christian mystery.

Embēnai is the verb embainō to the active infinitive aorist tense. It is formed of the preposition en (in), which becomes em by being followed by the consonant 'b', and the verb bainō (to go), and thus means: to go in, to go into, to board. In the New Testament, it appears only in the four gospels: Mt = 5; Mk = 5; Lk = 3; Jn = 3; Acts = 0; 1Jn = 0; 2Jn = 0; 3Jn = 0. Let us note that the context is always that of getting into a boat (ploion), or a small boat (ploiarion), so that when the word "boat" is not explicitly mentioned, the verb embainō must be translated by "to embark".

In the Septuagint, it is also a question of getting into a boat, except in the case of the prophet Nahum (3: 14) where one gets into the clay.

Ploion is a neutral word in the accusative singular and means: boat, ship. In the New Testament, it appears only in the Gospels: Mt = 13; Mk = 17; Lk = 8; Jn = 7; Acts = 19; 1Jn = 0; 2Jn = 0; 3Jn = 0. It is also necessary to mention its diminutive in the form of ploiarion (small boat) which is found only in Mark and John throughout the Bible: Mt = 0; Mk = 1; Lk = 0; Jn = 4; Acts = 0; 1Jn = 0; 2Jn = 0; 3Jn = 0.

Since a number of Jesus' disciples were fishermen, it is not surprising that the boat takes centre stage in a number of stories. Moreover, part of Jesus' ministry was in Galilee around the lake of the same name, so many of the trips were made by boat.

In Matthew, the boat is mentioned in a number of circumstances:

• The call of the disciples who leave their boat to follow Jesus (4:21-22)
• The account of the stilling storm where Jesus and his disciples pass from Capernaum to Gadara (located 6 miles southeast of the lake, see map of Palestine)(8: 23-27)
• Return to Capernaum by boat from Gadara (9: 1)
• In Capernaum, because of the great crowds standing on the shore, Jesus gets into a boat to give his discourse in parables (13:1).
• On learning of the execution of John the Baptist, Jesus gets into a boat to go a little further away to be alone, probably some distance from Capernaum (14: 13).
• In the scene of the walking on the water, the disciples move by boat from Jesus' retreat place, where a crowd has finally joined him, whom Jesus is going to feed, before passing to the other side of the lake (14: 22-33).
• Finally, Matthew mentions that Jesus goes up into a mountain on the shores of Lake Galilee where he will feed a crowd of 4,000 people, then, after sending the crowd away, he gets into a boat to go to the territory of Magadan, which is totally unknown to us (15:39).

All these circumstances belong to scenes from Mark that Matthew simply repeated. However, he simplified some of the scenes, reducing the number of Jesus' movements, and occasionally he modified one scene or another to insert his theology as we will see later.

In all these mentions of ploion, two scenes dominate: the storm being stilled and the walking on the waters where the word appears a total of 8 times (60% of Matthew's occurrences). Because of the context, it is quite clear that Matthew makes the boat play a symbolic role: it is the symbol of the way to follow Christ, a way that is always difficult and eventful, full of adversities; the boat is also the symbol of the Christian community, the Church.

Peran is an adverb meaning: on the other side, beyond. Throughout the New Testament it appears only in the four gospels: Mt = 7; Mk = 7; Lk = 1; Jn = 8; Acts = 0; 1Jn = 0; 2Jn = 0; 3Jn = 0. And it is only used in two specific situations:

1. to refer to the territory "beyond" the Jordan River, i.e. the territory west of the river, which constitutes present-day Jordan
2. to describe the fact that one goes "across" Lake Galilee in a boat, which is often translated in our Bibles as: "crossing over".

The adverb peran is not a Matthean word, i.e. its presence is explained by the fact that Matthew copies Mark. The only exception is 4: 15 ("Land of Zebulun and land of Naphtali, Road of the Sea, Land beyond (peran) the Jordan, Galilee of the nations!") where it is a quotation from Isaiah 8:23, according to the Septuagint.

Orous is the noun oros with the genitive neutral singular. In the Gospels and Acts, it means mountain or mount. As Judea and Galilee are mountainous regions, it is easy to imagine that the term is used regularly, especially in Matthew: Mt = 16; Mk = 11; Lk = 12; Jn = 5; Acts = 3; 1Jn = 0; 2Jn = 0; 3Jn = 0.

Already Mark had accustomed us to the important role that the mountain plays in Jesus' ministry.

• It is on the mountain that Jesus institutes the Twelve and gives them their mandate (3:13).
• It is on the mountain that Jesus withdraws to pray (6:46).
• It is on the mountain that Jesus is transfigured before Peter, James and John (9:2).
• It is on the Mount of Olives that Jesus spends time with his disciples, especially on the eve of his death (13:3; 14:26).

But Matthew will go even further. When we limit ourselves to the passages that are his own or where he is the only one to refer to the mountain, we note this:

• It is on the mount that the devil brings Jesus to submit him to the temptation of all power and glory by showing him from above the kingdoms of the earth (4:8).
• It is on the mountain that Jesus delivers his first great speech to the crowd, where he will enunciate the beatitudes and the rules of the Christian life (5:1).
• It is on the mountain that the crowd finds him to be healed and where they will be fed in this scene traditionally called "the feeding of the crowds" (15:29).
• It is on a mountain that the risen Jesus asks his disciples to meet and where he sends them on mission (28:16).

Why such insistence on the mountain?

1. First of all, the Jew Matthew wants to present Jesus to us as the new Moses. We know the central role that Mount Sinai or Mount Horeb played in Moses' mission. It was at Sinai that the encounter with God took place, and that the Jewish people received the Ten Words or Commandments, their Charter of Life and the terms of the Covenant. Also, it is on a mountain (5:1) that Jesus, the new Moses, will give the new rules of life, specifying the terms of the new covenant. And it is on the mountain that he will offer the new manna for a new people (15: 29). And just as the mission of the Jewish people derives from this meeting on Sinai, so it is from a mountain that the disciples are sent on a mission (28: 16).

2. Secondly, as a corollary, Jews shared an almost universal perception of the mystical flavor of the mountain, which rises into the sky, thus a place where one can experience God. It is probably in this sense that we can read Mark's scene about the transfiguration of Jesus, i.e. God's outlook on Jesus. But Matthew also sees in it the place of great spiritual struggles by placing on a mountain Jesus' temptations (4: 8).

   

3. Finally, could we not add Matthew's personal interest in the mountains? Indeed, a good number of biblical scholars agree that Matthew's first audience was probably in Antioch, in the south of present-day Turkey, very close to the Syrian border, where in the second half of the first century there was a large Jewish Christian community (it was from the Christian community of Antioch that Paul received his first mission). Antioch is situated in a mountainous region; the city itself is 790 feet above sea level, but it is surrounded by a valley with a mountain range. Thus, the mountain is part of a familiar setting. This could explain a scene of Matthew that he received from Document Q (the same Document Q that Luke and Matthew share) and that he seems to modify in his own way, this scene of the lost or lost sheep. Let us compare Luke and Matthew. We have underlined the important words to note.

Luke 15: 4	Matthew 18: 12
What man among you, having a hundred sheep, and having lost one of them, does not leave the ninety-nine in the wilderness and go away to the lost sheep until he finds it?	If a man has a hundred sheep and one of them goes astray, will he not leave the ninety-nine on the mountains and, having gone out, he looks for the (sheep) that has gone astray?

There is no copy of Document Q, it is more a working hypothesis to explain the passages common to Matthew and Luke. It is therefore difficult to reconstruct this hypothetical source. But in general, many biblical scholars think that Luke respected this Document Q better, i.e. he reworked it less than Matthew. For example, Luke's text of the Beatitudes ("Blessed are you poor") would be more respectful of the original than Matthew's, who "spiritualized" it a bit ("Blessed are you poor in spirit"); Luke's "Our Father" is much shorter and simpler, while Matthew adds some of his themes ("Thy will be done").

The story of the lost/wandering sheep seems to be no exception. Luke would better reflect the ancient Palestinian context of deserts, i.e., isolated places without much vegetation where a sheep could get lost. For his part, what does Matthew seem to be doing? In his own way, he is "Christianizing" this story, for it is no longer about a lost sheep, but about a sheep that "goes astray", i.e. a sheep that has been led astray by ideologies that have corrupted or distorted its original faith. And the setting is that of the mountain, the very setting of Matthew's living environment.

Here, in v. 23, Matthew only repeats the term mountain which is already found in Mark (Mk 6:46). But the accent he gives it is different. While in Mark this moment of prayer on the mountain appears as a usual item of a day of Jesus, Matthew emphasizes the transcendence of Jesus by mentioning his isolation and loneliness of Jesus, preparing for the moment of revelation that is about to come. More than among other evangelists, the mountain is a "divine" environment.

Katʼ idian is an expression formed from the preposition kata (by, according to) and the possessive adjective idios (proper, particular, personal), and therefore literally means: by oneself, and is usually translated as: apart, privately, in particular, or even: separately. The idea is to target someone in order to isolate him or her so as to have him or her for oneself. This is a rather rare expression in the Gospel-Acts: Mt = 6; Mk = 7; Lk = 2; Jn = 0; Acts = 1; 1Jn = 0; 2Jn = 0; 3Jn = 0. Elsewhere in the New Testament it appears only once in the Epistle to the Galatians (2:2) when Paul reveals that he encountered "apart" the pillars of the Church in Jerusalem, and in the Septuagint, only in 2 Maccabees (4:5) is it found, where it speaks of the "special" interest of a whole people.

In the Gospels the expression is used in five different contexts.

1. Katʼ idian is used to describe the fact that Jesus isolates himself to be alone, either to pray or to "digest" an event such as the death of John the Baptist. Matthew is alone in mentioning this context. For example:
   • Mt 14: 13: Now when Jesus heard this, he withdrew from there in a boat to a deserted place by himself (kat' idian). But when the crowds heard it, they followed him on foot from the towns..

2. More often Jesus leads his disciples or some of his disciples away to give them a particular teaching or to reveal who he is. This is found in all three Synoptics. For example:
   • Mc 9: 2: Six days later, Jesus took with him Peter and James and John, and led them up a high mountain apart, by themselves (kat' idian). And he was transfigured before them,
   • Mt 20: 17: While Jesus was going up to Jerusalem, he took the twelve disciples aside by themselves (kat' idian), and said to them on the way,

3. Conversely, it is the disciples who take the initiative to bring Jesus aside to question him and obtain explanations. For example:
   • Mc 9: 28: When he had entered the house, his disciples asked him privately (kat' idian), "Why could we not cast it out?"

4. There is the particular context of Mark (6:31-32), taken up by Luke (9:10), where Jesus invites his disciples to a form of retreat to rest.
   • Mc 6: 31: He said to them, "Come away to a deserted place all by yourselves (kat' idian) and rest a while." For many were coming and going, and they had no leisure even to eat.

5. Finally, there is the unique case of Mark where Jesus brings a deaf-mute man away from the crowd to be healed, even though the crowd had brought him to Him; the isolation in Mark seems to be necessary because of the lack of understanding of Jesus' identity.
   • Mc 7: 33: He took him aside in private (kat' idian), away from the crowd, and put his fingers into his ears, and he spat and touched his tongue..

This whole framework helps us locate Matthew. If he joins Mark in presenting Jesus teaching 'separately' to the disciples, or the disciples questioning 'separately' Jesus, he is unique in using katʼ idian to introduce us to a Jesus who isolates himself. The expression serves to express the unique situation and identity of Jesus, which he emphasizes more than the other Synoptics. This is the case here in v. 23. More specifically, even though the basis of this scene is borrowed from Mark, it is Matthew who adds to it: katʼ idian.

Proseuxasthai is the verb proseuchomai in the middle voice of the infinitive aorist tense. It means: to pray, and appears regularly in the Gospel-Acts: Mt = 15; Mk = 10; Lk = 19; Jn = 0; Acts = 16; 1Jn = 0; 2Jn = 0; 3Jn = 0. It is especially Luke who insists on this theme both in his gospel and in Acts. On the other hand, it is totally absent from the Johannine tradition. Why is this? One might think that, from John's perspective, Jesus is in constant communion with his Father, so that his whole life is prayer, and this is not an activity that is added to his day.

One cannot mention the verb proseuchomai without also including the noun proseuchē: prayer. It is less frequent than the verb: Mt = 1; Mk = 2; Lk = 3; Jn = 0; Acts = 9; 1Jn = 0; 2Jn = 0; 3Jn = 0. But the same observations apply: it is Luke who insists on this theme, whereas it is totally absent from the Johannine tradition.

Who prays in the Gospels? Most clearly and most often, it is Jesus. The prayer of the disciple and of the Christian is also mentioned, but most of the time it is in the form of an exhortation to pray on behalf of Jesus, with a verb with the imperative. Occasionally the prayer of the Jews is mentioned, but it is almost only in Luke.

Looking through the Gospels, what can be said about the attitude and content of prayer and its role?

The attitude in prayer

• The gesture of prayer must be discreet, not ostentatious: "Pray to your Father who is there in secret, and your Father who sees in secret will repay you" (Mt 6:6).
• Prayer should be brief: "When you pray, do not babble on like the pagans: they think that if they talk a lot they will be heard better" (Mt 6:7).
• We must pray in confidence: "Therefore I say to you, whatever you ask in prayer, believe that you have already received it, and it will be granted you" (Mk 11:24).
• Before praying, one must first be reconciled and forgiven: "And when you stand praying, if you have anything against anyone, forgive him, so that your Father in heaven may also forgive you your trespasses" (Mk 11:25).
• We must pray without ceasing and never be discouraged: "And he spoke a parable to them about what they should pray without ceasing and not be discouraged" (Lk 18:1).
• Prayer achieves its goal when the person praying is aware of his shortcomings: "The publican, standing at a distance, did not even dare to raise his eyes to heaven, but beat his breast, saying, 'My God, have mercy on me, a sinner!" (Lk 18:13).

The content of the prayer

• We must pray for our persecutors, our enemies, those who defy us: "Well, I say to you, love your enemies and pray for your persecutors" (Mt 5:44; Lk 6:28).
• The Lord's Prayer contains the essentials of what we must first ask for, i.e., to collaborate in making God known and in spreading his kingdom, to seek unceasingly his will and what we need in order to live fully, to allow ourselves to be transformed by God's forgiveness by spreading it among others, to emerge victorious from a merciless struggle against evil (Mt 6:9-13; Lk 11:2-4); let us note that the entire content of the Lord's Prayer is centred on the responsibility of the human being.
• If it is possible, to avoid the trial of suffering and death, but while doing God's will (Mt 26:39; Mk 14:35; Lk 22:42).

Why pray?

• Prayer allows us to face the trial and to fight the great battles of life: "Watch and pray that you may not be tempted: the spirit is burning, but the flesh is weak" (Mt 26:41; Mk 14:38; Lk 22:40,46); "When he was in agony, he prayed more instantly, and his sweat became like drops of blood falling to the ground" (Lk 22:44).
• Only through prayer can a deaf-mute epileptic be cured: " He said to them, "This species can only come out through prayer." (Mk 9: 29)
• Prayer is so important that it is part of Jesus' life: "In the morning, well before daylight, he rose up, went out and went into a desert place, and there he prayed" (Mk 1:35).
• It is in prayer that Jesus hears his call: "And it came to pass, when all the people had been baptized, and Jesus was baptized and praying, that heaven was opened" (Lk 3:21).
• It is in a moment of prayer that Jesus truly reveals himself: "And it came to pass, as he was praying, that the appearance of his face was changed, and his raiment became white with a bright white colour" (Lk 9:29).

Thus, each evangelist brings his own perspective on prayer, even though they all agree that Jesus prayed and asked his disciples to pray. Matthew, for his part, takes up a good part of Mark's texts on prayer (Mt 14:23; 24:20; 26:36,39,41,42), as well as those of Document Q (Mt 5:44; 6:9). But certain texts are particular to him, such as his practical advice on the right attitude in prayer (Mt 6:5-7), the unique mention that Jesus laid hands on children while praying (Mt 9:13), an echo perhaps of a practice of the early Church, and especially his insistence on the purpose of prayer to lead the person to do God's will (Mt 6:10; 26:42).

Here, in v. 23, Matthew simply repeats a scene from Mark where Jesus withdraws to pray, as he used to do, especially after the memorable event of feeding a crowd and just before revealing himself in a special way to his disciples; it is like a moment when he wants to "synchronize" with God, to make sure that he does his will.

Genomenēs is the verb ginomai in the middle voice aorist participle tense, feminine genitive singular form. The verb belongs with opsios to a construction called "absolute genitive"; it is a subordinate proposition with a subject (opsios) and a predicate, usually a participle (genomenēs), to the genitive. It expresses a circumstance surrounding the fact contemplated in the main proposition. It is the equivalent of the Latin "absolute ablative". It is found here and there in the Gospel-Acts: Mt = 10; Mk = 10; Lk = 3; Jn = 2; Acts = 14; 1Jn = 0; 2Jn = 0; 3Jn = 0. Here are some examples (see the complete list):

• Mt 8: 16: The evening having come (ginomai) they brought to him many who were possessed with demons; and he cast out the spirits with a word, and cured all who were sick.
• Mc 6: 21: And an opportunity having come (ginomai), when Herod on his birthday gave a banquet for his courtiers and officers and for the leaders of Galilee.

Let's go back to the verb ginomai itself. It is the 4th most frequently used verb in the Gospel-Acts after legō (to say), eimi (to be) and erchomai (to go), but before poieō (to do), horaō (see), echō (to have), akouō (to hear), didōmi (to give) and apokrinomai (to answer): Mt = 75; Mk = 55; Lk = 131; Jn = 51; Acts = 125; 1Jn = 1; 2Jn = 1; 3Jn = 1. It means: to become, to happen, to occur, to arrive and expresses the idea that a reality comes into existence, occurs, for example, an event. Overwhelmingly, Luke is the one who uses this verb the most, often introducing his sentences with egeneto, without subject, which can be translated by: it came to pass, the "it" being here in an impersonal form. Here again, Luke is the one who uses egeneto the most in this form: Mt = 6; Mk = 3; Lk = 40; Jn = 1; Acts = 23; 1Jn = 0; 2Jn = 0; 3Jn = 0 (see all cases).

What about Matthew? Even though he is far behind Luke in the use of ginomai, he still uses it regularly. For example, the form egeneto (it comes to pass) appears 6 times in his gospel, but each time this form is specific to him: it comes either from a particular source, or from an insertion to the Marcan source or to the Document Q. In the same way, we find in him 10 occurrences of the absolute genitive, four of which are proper to him. Finally, of the 75 occurrences of ginomai in general, 42 (60%) are specific to him. What does this mean? If Matthew is not the greatest user of the word, we can say nevertheless that it is part of his regular vocabulary that he likes to use.

What role does this verb play in his gospel?

1. We have already mentioned its role in the form of the absolute genitive to specify the circumstances surrounding a story (e.g. "the evening having come"), as well as the egeneto form ("it came to pass") to introduce a story or event.

2. The verb ginomai is also used to describe a transformation or change in the state of either a person or a thing, and is usually translated into English as "to become": for a person, it is to become the son of his father or as his master or as children, to become great or a proselyte, to become ready or to become as dead; for a thing, it is a stone that becomes bread or capstone, a seed that becomes a tree, or a tree that becomes without fruit, a branch that becomes flexible, clothes that become white. Two examples.
   • Mt 18: 3: "and said, 'Truly I tell you, unless you change and become (ginomai) like children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.'"
   • Mt 17: 2: "And he was transfigured before them, and his face shone like the sun, and his clothes became (ginomai) dazzling white."

3. It is also used to indicate that an event is happening or has happened, and ginomai is often translated into English by the verb "to occur" or "to arrive": it is the storm or calm that occurs, or war or an earthquake, or the miracles of Jesus or the cry of the bridegroom in the middle of the night, it is a birthday or the Passover that comes, or darkness or a divorce act. Two examples.
   • Mt 11: 20 "Then he began to reproach the cities in which most of his deeds of power had been done (ginomai), because they did not repent."
   • Mt 18: 13 "And if it happens (ginomai) that he finds it, truly I tell you, he rejoices over it more than over the ninety-nine that never went astray."

4. Finally, the verb ginomai refers to the fulfilment of a desire, wish, promise or prophecy, and is often translated into English as "to happen": an event took place for the fulfillment of the scripture; in the Lord's Prayer we pray for the fulfillment of his will, which Jesus also did in Gethsemane; Jesus sometimes answers his petitioner that what he wants will happen in faith; if someone asks for something in faith it will happen; Jesus announces that the entire Law will happen or his apocalyptic predictions will come to pass. Two examples.
   • Mt 15: 28 "Then Jesus answered her, "Woman, great is your faith! Let it be done (ginomai) for you as you wish." And her daughter was healed instantly."
   • Mt 11: 26 "yes, Father, for such your gracious will came to pass (ginomai)."

We can now produce this little chart:

Role	Occurrences
Absolute genitive for mentioning circumstances of the story	10
"It came to pass" (egeneto) to introduce an event	6
Description of a change of state (person or thing)	20
Indication that an event "occurs" or "has occurred".	25
Reference to the fulfilment of a prophecy, request or desire	14
Total	75

Here in v. 23, with an expression in the absolute genitive, Matthew intends to give us the circumstances of the event he is about to describe: it takes place at night.

Pollous is the adjective polys in the plural masculine accusative and matches the noun stadious (stadium). It means: many, numerous, several, and it is very frequent among all evangelists: Mt = 51; Mk = 59; Lk = 51; Jn = 36; Acts = 46; 1Jn = 0; 2Jn = 2; 3Jn = 1.

The contexts in which it appears can be grouped into three categories.

1. In the majority of cases, the word is meant to refer to a large quantity of objects that can be counted. For example:
   • Mt 4: 25: "And large (polys) crowds followed him from Galilee, the Decapolis, Jerusalem, Judea, and from beyond the Jordan. "
   • Mk 1: 34: "And he cured many (polys) who were sick with various diseases, and cast out many (polys) demons; and he would not permit the demons to speak, because they knew him."

2. But sometimes the word refers to a large quantity, but not a discrete entity, that can be counted one by one. It then means that we are in front of a large quantity of an object or that it is abundant or immense. For example:
   • Mt 25: 19: After a long (polys) time the master of those slaves came and settled accounts with them.
   • Mk 4: 5: Other seed fell on rocky ground, where it did not have much (polys) soil, and it sprang up quickly, since it had no depth of soil.

3. Finally, there are cases where it is no longer a question of any quantity, but of the intensity and quality of an object. For example:
   • Mt 27: 19: While he was sitting on the judgment seat, his wife sent word to him, "Have nothing to do with that innocent man, for today I have suffered a great (polys) deal because of a dream about him."
   • Mk 9: 12: He said to them, "Elijah is indeed coming first to restore all things. How then is it written about the Son of Man, that he is to go through many (polys) sufferings and be treated with contempt?

This adjective appears frequently in Matthew: it is noted not only in the sources he uses, but also in the occurrences that are unique to him (23 occurrences out of a total of 51). He sometimes allows himself to add it to his sources. Let's offer two comparisons, one from Document Q, assuming that Luke reflects it best, as is his habit, and the other from Mark.

Lk 12: 28	Mt 6: 30
But if the grass in the field, which today is and tomorrow will be thrown into the oven, God so clothes it, how more for you men of little faith!	But if the grass of the field which today is and tomorrow will be thrown into the oven, doesn't God clothe it in this way, doesn't He clothe it much (polys) more for you of little faith?
Mk 6: 5-6a	Mt 13: 58
And he could do no sign except that, having laid his hands on some of the sick, he healed them; and he marvelled at their lack of faith.	And he didn't do many (polys) miracles there because of their lack of faith.

As can be seen in these two examples, Matthew added polys (underlined) to his source. Why? In the first example Matthew emphasizes the contrast between God's care for nature and that for man; the Jewish evangelist likes things clear and distinguished, and here polys allows him to affirm that there is no comparison between God's care for nature and that for man. In the second example, the addition of " many " seems to respond to two needs. On the one hand, it is intended to correct Mark's illogical assertion that Jesus did not perform any miracles, while at the same time mentioning that he healed a few sick people; by using the expression "not many" Matthew can integrate both the fact that Jesus did heal some people and the obstacle represented by the lack of faith. On the other hand, it is unthinkable for Matthew that Jesus could not perform a miracle at all, given his perception of Jesus' transcendence and his emphasis on his power. In short, the adjective polys is a word well integrated in his gospel.

Here, in v. 24, polys allows him to accentuate the distance between the shore where Jesus is and the boat: he speaks of several or many stadia. It is a quantity that can be counted or tallied. Of course, he does not specify this quantity. He simply wants us to know that it is large. Why does he want us to know it's large? As we have already mentioned, this great distance symbolizes the gap between a transcendent Jesus, whom he looks at with Easter eyes, and the community of disciples in the boat. This distance also symbolizes the absence experienced after the death of Jesus, and therefore the feeling of vulnerability and fragility in the absence of the master.

Stadious is the plural male accusative of stadion (stadium). It is very uncommon throughout the Bible, especially among evangelists: Mt = 1; Mk = 0; Lk = 1; Jn = 2; Acts = 0; 1Jn = 0; 2Jn = 0; 3Jn = 0. It is a Greek measure of length which varied according to the length of the cubit and the foot as the unit of measurement. The Olympic Stadium in Greece was 632 feet long, the Alexandria Stadium 606 feet long, the Delphi Stadium 583 feet long. In ancient Greek texts, the Alexandria stadium, which was rounded to 607 feet, was used as the main unit of measurement. This measure was equivalent to the stadium's racetrack. The word, of course, also refers to the place where the races were held, the stadium. In the latter case, the word is in neutral. And by extension, the word sometimes refers to the place where one could walk in a garden (see Susanna 1: 37).

In the Gospels, the stadium is used to designate only one unit of measurement: Emmaus would be 60 stadia (7 miles) from Jerusalem (Lk 24: 13), Bethany would be 15 stadia (1.7 miles) away (see map of Palestine). However, here in v. 24, Matthew remains vague in speaking of "several" stadia. Mark, for his part, does not speak of distance, but simply writes: "The boat was in the middle of the sea" (Mk 6:47); note that this "sea" is Lake Galilee, which is 13 miles long, 7.5 miles wide, and 138 to 157 feet deep. On the other hand, the evangelist John has a parallel account (6:16-21) to Mark's, in which he writes: "They had rowed about 25 or 30 stadia" (6:19), so John speaks of 3 to 3.5 miles.

There is a certain consensus among biblical scholars that John did not know the other gospels, and therefore Mark, whom Matthew follows, had a similar but different source to John. If Matthew copies Mark's account with modifications, how can we explain the word "stadia" which does not appear in Mark's account, but in John's account? There are three possible answers:

1. It is pure chance that the same word is found in both evangelists: Matthew would have simply wanted to emphasize the distance from the shore, and so naturally would have used the common measure of distance;

2. Matthew would have incorporated into Mark's account an oral tradition on the same stage; indeed, it is thought that several overlapping oral accounts existed in the first century, and the fact that Mark and John present us with a similar but different account is an example of this;

3. According to M.E. Boismard (P. Benoit and M.-E. Boismard, Synopse des quatre évangiles II. Paris: Cerf, 1972, p. 226), the account of the walk on the waters would have been transmitted in the form of two documents, Document A and Document B, Document A being mostly reflected by Mark, Document B mostly reflected by John, and that an earlier version by Mark, whom he calls Mk-intermediate, would have combined these two documents. And Matthew would have known this Mk Intermediary.

It is impossible to choose an answer with any degree of certainty. In any case, it can nevertheless be said that Matthew intends to assert that a great distance separates Jesus from the community of disciples, and the expression "several stadia" serves his purpose well.

Gēs is the singular feminine genitive name of gē, a genitive controlled by the preposition apo (from). This word is frequent throughout the Bible, especially in the Gospel-Acts: Mt = 43; Mk = 19; Lk = 25; Jn = 13; Acts = 33. It means: earth. But in English, earth refers to different realities, such as the humus where vegetables are grown, or the planet on which we live. It is the same in the Greek language of the Gospels-Acts. Let us mention five different meanings.

1. There is earth here below as opposed to heaven, and therefore the world of men in its relation to the world of God. Earth and heaven are the two components of the universe. For example:
   • 11: 25: "At that time Jesus said, "I thank you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth (gē), because you have hidden these things from the wise and the intelligent and have revealed them to infants;"

2. The earth designates our planet, the living environment of humanity, and could be replaced by the word "world". For example:
   • 12: 42: "The queen of the South will rise up at the judgment with this generation and condemn it, because she came from the ends of the earth (gē) to listen to the wisdom of Solomon, and see, something greater than Solomon is here! "

3. The earth is a political territory, and could be replaced by the word "country" or "territory". For example:
   • 2: 21: "Then Joseph got up, took the child and his mother, and went to the land (gē) of Israel."

4. The earth is the ground on which we walk, as opposed to moving on the water or in the air. For example:
   • 10: 29: "Are not two sparrows sold for a penny? Yet not one of them will fall to the ground (gē) apart from your Father."

5. Finally, the earth is this humus, this fertile soil that we sow and where fruits and vegetables grow. For example:
   • 13: 23: "But as for what was sown on good soil (gē), this is the one who hears the word and understands it, who indeed bears fruit and yields, in one case a hundredfold, in another sixty, and in another thirty."

When we compare these various meanings, we arrive at this picture:

	Mt	Mk	Lk	Jn	Ac
Earth vs heaven	15	3	6	3	6
Our universe or world	9	3	8	1	9
Soil to be cultivated	4	7	4	1	0
ground, dry land	6	6	6	7	7
political territory	9	0	1	1	11
Total	43	19	25	13	33

A number of things can be noted.

• Matthew is the one who uses the word "earth" the most in the couple earth-heaven. It is a completely Jewish perspective in which the cosmic reality is represented as follows: "In the beginning God created heaven and earth" (Gen 1:1).

• Equally Jewish is the habit of designating a political territory using the word land, such as "land of Israel": "Then he commanded to gather together all the strangers who were in the land of Israel (Greek: gē Israēl; Hebrew: ʾereṣ yiśrāʾēl), and he commissioned stonemasons to cut stones to build the house of God". (LXX: 1 Chr 22:2). If this last expression is so frequent in the Acts of the Apostles, it is due in large part to Stephen's discourse which summarizes the history of Israel (Acts 7:3-40).

• The use of the word "earth" to refer to the whole world is also to be noted, which often underlines Matthew's universalist perspective: the meek shall inherit the earth (Mt 5:5); Jesus did not come to bring peace, but the sword on earth (Mt 10:34); the kings of the earth collect taxes (Mt 17:25); when the sons of man appear, the races of the earth will beat their breasts (Mt 24:30); and when Jesus died, the whole earth trembled (Mt 27:51).

• Matthew makes little use of gē to designate the soil to be cultivated, and each time he only reproduces Mark's text; his universe is not an agricultural universe.

• Finally, he uses gē to designate the ground or dry land as often as the other evangelists. When the term refers to dry land in the context of a boat trip, we are in a story that he takes from Mark. What is peculiar to Matthew is when the term refers to the ground on which the sparrow falls, or the ground in which a treasure is buried.

Of the 43 occurrences of the word, 30 are unique to him. And his own occurrences appear not only in his own sources, but also in the sources he shares with other evangelists, especially Document Q; we can guess that he is the one who added the word. For example:

Lk 10: 12	Mt 11: 24
I tell you that for Sodom on that day it will be more bearable than for this city.	As well, I tell you that for the land of Sodom it will be more bearable on Judgment Day than for you.

Here, in v. 24, the word "land" refers to the dry land as opposed to water, and the expression "being far from land" is specific to Matthew, even though the whole story is borrowed from Mark. In this context, the dry land is a symbol of what is reassuring as opposed to the sea or the lake where the disciples' boat will experience turbulence.

Apeichen is the imperfect, 3rd person singular, of the verb apechō. It is uncommon throughout the New Testament, especially among evangelists: Mt = 5; Mk = 2; Lk = 4; Jn = 0; Acts = 2; 1Jn = 0; 2Jn = 0; 3Jn = 0. It is a compound word, formed from the preposition apo (from, far from) and the verb echō (to have). It can have various meanings.

1. Sometimes it means "having from" or "taking from" someone, i.e. receiving (Lk 6:24): "But woe to you who are rich, for you have received (apechō) your consolation.").

2. It can also mean "to have away from" or "to keep away from", i.e., to abstain (Acts 15:20): "but we should write to them to abstain (apechō) only from things polluted by idols and from fornication and from whatever has been strangled and from blood").

3. Or, in some cases, it can mean "to be far from" in the sense of being distant from something (Lk 15:20): "So he set off and went to his father. But while he was still far (apechō) off, his father saw him and was filled with compassion; he ran and put his arms around him and kissed him.").

4. Finally, there are papyrus in the world of commerce where this verb appears to describe that the amount to be paid has been received in full from the debtor, i.e. a receipt, and therefore the verb then means: It is paid (to have from someone). This is the meaning that is proposed for Mark 14, 41: "He came a third time and said to them, "Are you still sleeping and taking your rest? It's paid (apechō)! The hour has come; the Son of Man is betrayed into the hands of sinners". Let us remember that, earlier, the chief priests promised Judas a sum of money so that he would deliver Jesus to them (Mk 14:11), and now Judas is approaching to have him arrested; this means that the sum has been paid (on the meaning of apechō in Mk 14:41, see Brown).

In Matthew, the verb has two meanings: to hold / receive (3 times) and to be away from (2 times). Of the five occurrences, four are his own. Here, in v. 24, apeichō has of course the meaning of "to be far from". Whether the word comes from Matthew's pen or Luke's (see Boismard), it denotes the emphasis placed on the distance between the boat, i.e. the community of disciples, and Jesus.

Basanizomenon is the verb basanizō in the present passive participle, accusative neutral singular, agreeing with ploion (boat) which is in the accusative neutral singular. It is uncommon in the New Testament, especially among evangelists: Mt = 3; Mk = 2; Lk = 1; Jn = 0; Acts = 0; 1Jn = 0; 2Jn = 0; 3Jn = 0. In the rest of the Bible, it appears especially in the recent Septuagint texts. It means: to torment, to torture.

The verb basanizō is associated with suffering.

• It is a paralytic who suffers atrociously (Mt 8:9).
• Demons suffer in contact with Jesus (Mt 8:29; Mk 5:7; Lk 8:28)
• The righteous suffer before lawless deeds (1 Pet 2:8).
• The disciples suffer while rowing (Mk 5:7)
• The boat suffers before the onslaught of the waves (Mt 14:24).
• The woman suffers when she gives birth (Rev 12:2).
• God punishes his adversaries with suffering (Rev 9:5; 14:10; 20:10; 1 Sam 5:3; Wis 11:9; 12:23; 16:1).
• Christians suffer at the hands of their adversaries (Rev 11:10)

In the books of the Maccabees, the verb explicitly means: to torture.

How to interpret the sentence: "the boat ... being tormented (basanizō) by the waves"? Let us first note that Matthew borrows here basanizō from Mark 6: 48 who writes: "(the disciples) tormented while rowing". Let us recall that Mark writes to the Roman community which is undergoing a serious persecution: Christians suffer, are sent into the arena with the beasts, are burned to become living torches; they are the disciples who suffer while rowing. Now, Matthew does not speak of tormented disciples, but of a tormented boat. He knows that a thing cannot suffer. But it is clear that he identifies the boat with the ecclesial community; it is the ecclesial community that suffers. In what sense? The situation is different from that of Mark. The Matthean community receives the attacks of their Jewish brothers, it also receives the attacks of the debates about Jewish tradition, about what must be kept, what can be eliminated. The verb basanizō expresses the suffering linked to this situation.

Anemos is the noun anemos in the masculine singular nominative, it is the subject of the verb "to be" in the expression: the wind was adverse. It means wind. Even if it appears a certain number of times, it is nevertheless infrequent: Mt = 9; Mk = 7; Lk = 4; Jn = 1; Acts = 4; 1Jn = 0; 2Jn = 0; 3Jn = 0. Indeed, in the Gospels, it is first found in Mark, but the latter uses it above all for only two scenes, the stilling storm and its variant, walking on the water. Otherwise, the word makes only one appearance in the apocalyptic discourse. The same is true of Matthew, who copies Mark's scene of the stilling storm and the walking on the waters, as well as the apocalyptic discourse. Another occurrence comes from Document Q on John the Baptist (Mt 11:7). The only originality of Matthew is to mention the wind in this sequence from Document Q to illustrate the importance of putting into practice the word heard: while Luke speaks of floods and torrents, Matthew adds the force of the wind (Mt 7:25-27 | Lk 6:48-49). There is nothing original in Luke's account of the stilling storm from Mark and Document Q about John the Baptist. As for John, his only mention is related to the account of the walking on the waters. Thus, had it not been for the accounts of the stilling storm and the walking on the waters, the word "wind" would have been very rare among the evangelists.

What does the wind symbolize in the New Testament? We could group the occurrences of the word under four symbols.

1. Most importantly, the wind symbolizes the destructive force that we fear and that only God can control. For example:
   • Mk 4: 37: "A great wind (anemos) storm arose, and the waves beat into the boat, so that the boat was already being swamped"
   • Rev 6: 13: "and the stars of the sky fell to the earth as the fig tree drops its winter fruit when shaken by a strong wind (anemos)"

2. Wind appears as an irrational force whose direction cannot be predicted, and therefore subjects everything it touches to this unpredictability and instability. For example:
   • Lk 7, 24: "When John's messengers had gone, Jesus began to speak to the crowds about John: "What did you go out into the wilderness to look at? A reed shaken by the wind (anemos)?"
   • Eph 4: 14: "We must no longer be children, tossed to and fro and blown about by every wind (anemos) of doctrine, by people's trickery, by their craftiness in deceitful scheming"

3. According to the cosmology of antiquity, the earth was flat and square, with four cardinal points, and therefore the wind was a geographical landmark, which could blow from the south, north, east and west. For example:
   • Mk 13: 27: "Then he will send out the angels, and gather his elect from the four winds (anemos), from the ends of the earth to the ends of heaven"
   • Rev 7: 1: "After this I saw four angels standing at the four corners of the earth, holding back the four winds (anemos) of the earth so that no wind (anemos) could blow on earth or sea or against any tree"

4. Finally, the wind can be associated with an ephemeral force, which can be present and then disappear, taking with it what seemed familiar. For example:
   • Jude 1: 12: "These are blemishes on your love-feasts, while they feast with you without fear, feeding themselves. They are waterless clouds carried along by the winds (anemos); autumn trees without fruit, twice dead, uprooted"

Here, at v. 24, Matthew uses the expression "headwind" which he found in Mark's account. This allows him to express the hostile powers that are pouring down on the boat of the community of disciples. It is not a simple inconvenience, but real forces that can destroy this community.

Tetartē is the adective tetartos in the feminine dative singular, and is in agreement with the feminine noun phylakē (guard). It means: fourth, and is extremely rare in the New Testament, especially among evangelists: Mt = 1; Mk = 1; Lk = 0; Jn = 0; Acts = 1; 1Jn = 0; 2Jn = 0; 3Jn = 0. In fact, in the Gospels, the word belongs to Mark 6:48 who introduces it into the account of the walking on the waters which Matthew simply copies. Otherwise, we find it in Acts 10:30, where we speak of a delay of four days, and seven times in Revelation to designate the fourth living creature, the fourth angel, the fourth precious stone, and the fourth part of the earth.

Here, in v. 25, the word refers to the fourth watch of the night. Remember that the night in the Roman world was divided into four parts of three hours each: the first part runs from 6:00 p.m. to 9:00 p.m. and is called evening; the second part runs from 9:00 p.m. to midnight and is called midnight; the third part runs from 12:00 a.m. to 3:00 a.m. and is called the crowing of the cock; and the fourth part runs from 3:00 a.m. to 6:00 a.m. and is called morning.

If we remember v. 22, Matthew tells us that Jesus forces his disciples into the boat without giving us a precise time. In v. 23, he writes that after the crowd was dismissed, Jesus went into the mountain to pray and when evening (6:00 pm to 9:00 pm) came, he was still there alone. Now, here in v. 25, Matthew tells us that it is between 3 and 6 o'clock. Thus, if we follow the indications of the account, the disciples got into the boat at the latest around 5:00 pm, before the beginning of the evening. This means that they were in the boat for a minimum of 7 hours, whereas according to the geographical indications given earlier, the journey started from the site of Jesus feeding the crowds, probably a few miles east of Capernaum, and went to Gennesaret (see Mt 14:34), on the left bank of the lake, a journey of barely a few miles (see the map of Palestine).

If we limit ourselves to a purely geographical and physical perspective, we come up against an implausible account (a solution will be proposed when analyzing parallels). But the evangelist's perspective is not that of a report. We have already spoken earlier of the symbolism of the evening, which evokes the night and the trials of life. We have also talked about the symbolism of distance and the absence of Jesus. With the fourth watch, or vigil, it is the end of the night, so that this period was called the morning. For the believer, what does the morning evoke? Isn't this period linked to the resurrection of Jesus, the moment when the empty tomb will be discovered?

Phylakē is the noun phylakē with the singular feminine dative. The dative is controlled by the fact that the word plays the role of circumstantial complement: it gives an indication of the time when the event takes place. It means first of all "prison", but also the fact of guarding someone or something, from which guards. It appears a number of times in the New Testament, especially in Luke and Matthew: Mt = 10; Mk = 3; Lk = 8; Jn = 1; Acts = 17; 1Jn = 0; 2Jn = 0; 3Jn = 0.

The number of occurrences of phylakē in the New Testament is mainly due to the fact that Christians were regularly thrown into prison. The Acts of the Apostles mentions that the apostles were imprisoned by the Sadducees (5:19), men and women disciples of Jesus were imprisoned by Saul (8:3), Peter was imprisoned by Herod (12:4), Paul and Silas were imprisoned by the strategists of Philippi (16:23). According to Luke 21: 12 Jesus had already warned his disciples that this would happen. The Gospels tell us that John the Baptist was put in prison (Mk 6:17; Mt 14:3; Jn 3:24).

What about Matthew? Out of the 10 occurrences of phylakē, five are specific to him and appear only in two parabolic accounts, first the ruthless debtor who has the one who owed him a hundred pieces of silver thrown into prison (18: 30), and especially the scene of the Last Judgment (25: 31-46) where having visited someone in prison becomes one of the criteria of salvation. Thus, in these passages specific to Matthew, phylakē means only "prison".

Now, here in v. 25, phylakē means guard, referring to the periods of night watch. One must imagine that soldiers had to take turns every three hours in the Roman world to stand guard. This served to structure this period of the day. Only two occurrences with this meaning can be found in Matthew's writings, the first borrowed from Mark, the second from Document Q.

• 14, 25: "And in the fourth watch (phylakē) of the night he came walking toward them on the sea"
• 24, 43: "I was a stranger and you did not welcome me, naked and you did not give me clothing, sick and in prison (phylakē) and you did not visit me.' "

With this meaning, then, it is not a word that belongs to the Matthean vocabulary; the evangelist simply takes up what tradition gives him.

One cannot speak of the noun phylakē without mentioning the verb phylassō, less frequent (Mt = 1; Mk = 1; Lk = 6; Jn = 3; Acts = 8; 1Jn = 1; 2Jn = 0; 3Jn = 0), and which means: to keep. When the object is a reality that is dear to us, it expresses the idea of watching over and protecting it; conversely, it can be a matter of monitoring an entity and restricting its movements. When the object is a rule, it expresses the idea of observing it. The only occurrence in Matthew (19:20: the young man who kept the commandments) is a repetition of Mark 10:20.

Peripatōn is the verb peripateō in the active present participle tense and in the masculine singular nominative form; it agrees with the implied subject "he" of the previous verb erchomai (to come), which is in fact Jesus. It means: to walk, and appears here and there among the evangelists, without being very frequent, except in John: Mt = 7; Mk = 9; Lk = 5; Jn = 17; Acts = 8; 1Jn = 5; 2Jn = 3; 3Jn = 2.

When we go through the whole New Testament and in particular the Gospels, we see that the verb peripateō must be understood in four different ways.

1. The obvie and first sense is that of moving forward and moving physically by taking steps. Examples:
   • Mk 2: 9: "Which is easier, to say to the paralytic, 'Your sins are forgiven,' or to say, 'Stand up and take your mat and walk (peripateō)'?"
   • Mk 5: 42: "And immediately the girl got up and began to walk (peripateō) about (she was twelve years of age). At this they were overcome with amazement."

2. But peripateō can sometimes indicate walking, circulating, coming and going in a geographical area. Examples:
   • Mk 11: 27: "Again they came to Jerusalem. As he was walking (peripateō) in the temple, the chief priests, the scribes, and the elders came to him"
   • Mk 12: 38: "As he taught, he said, "Beware of the scribes, who like to walk (peripateō) around in long robes, and to be greeted with respect in the marketplaces"

3. On a symbolic level, peripateō is used a lot, especially in the so-called Pauline epistles, to signify the direction one gives to one's life, so that the verb could be replaced by: to conduct oneself, to behave, to lead one's life, or simply to live. For example:
   • Mk 7: 5: "So the Pharisees and the scribes asked him, "Why do your disciples not walk (peripateō) according to the tradition of the elders, but eat with defiled hands?"
   • Jn 8: 12: "Again Jesus spoke to them, saying, "I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will never walk (peripateō) in darkness but will have the light of life"

4. It can even happen that the expression "to walk with someone" means: to be someone's disciple:
   • Jn 6: 66: "Because of this many of his disciples turned back and no longer walked (peripateō) with him"

Matthew has retained from peripateō only the sense of moving forward and moving physically. He does not seem to be a great user of it, even if among the nine occurrences in his Gospel, three are his own, in particular in 4: 18 in the scene of the calling of the first disciples which he takes from Mark, where he modifies the text of Mk 1, 16 ("And passing by the Sea of Galilee") to add peripateō: "Now, walking by the Sea of Galilee". Otherwise, he simply takes the text from Mark or Document Q.

Here, at v. 25, peripateō is the verb Matthew finds in Mark. But it must be assumed that he takes up the meaning he finds there. But what is that meaning? It is important to know that Mark, in turn, is taking up an old tradition. Indeed, the story appears not only in Mark's pen, but also in John's, even though Mark and John are both independent of each other. And since their respective narratives, despite the large number of common elements, contain different notes, this means that their narratives each come from an old tradition. On the other hand, both traditions present us with a Jesus who physically walks on water. What is the meaning of this gesture?

We must assume that the author(s) at the source of these traditions was a sensible and balanced being. He knew that no one can walk on water. While Jesus was described as a good Jew who walked the roads of Galilee as a normal being, why suddenly present him as a supernatural being defying the laws of physics? The answer is probably to be found in the Old Testament, the great book that was used by the first Christians to understand the event of Jesus, especially in passages like this one:

He (God) alone has stretched out Heaven, he walks (peripateō) on the sea (epi thalassan) as on firm ground (Job 9: 8 LXX).

We find in the book of Job the same expression: walking on the sea, and the same verb tense: the present participle. Thus, the author of our story attributes to Jesus what the book of Job attributes to God: the fact of mastering the sea for God is the sign that he created this universe, and now Jesus is associated with this mastery of the sea and the creation of the universe.

Let us not forget: the Gospels and their sources were written after Easter, in an effort to transmit a Christian catechesis on Jesus, when the main witnesses had just died. The memorable event has just been recounted where Jesus fed a crowd of 5,000 people. Who was Jesus? The scene that follows, walking on the sea, seems like a colourful homily that gives us an answer.

Thalassan is the noun thalassa in the singular feminine accusative form and means: sea. It appears regularly in the Gospels, except in Luke: Mt = 16; Mk = 19; Lk = 3; Jn = 9; Acts = 10; 1Jn = 0; 2Jn = 0; 3Jn = 0.

The word thalassa can refer to four different realities.

1. First and foremost among the evangelists it refers to this lake which is called "Sea of Galilee" (Mt 4:18), or "Lake of Gennesaret" (Lk 5:1), or "Sea of Tiberias" (Jn 6:1), and which is called in the Old Testament "Sea of Kinneret" (Num 34:11), Kinneret referring to its harp form. As already mentioned, this lake is 13 miles long, 7.5 miles wide, and a depth from 138 to 157 feet; at the time of Jesus it is characterized by its waters full of fish and sudden storms (see Xavier Léon-Dufour (Dictionnaire du Nouveau Testament. Paris: Seuil, 1975, p. 273).

2. But thalassa can also refer to the mediterranean: "Send therefore to Joppa and ask for Simon, who is called Peter; he is staying in the home of Simon, a tanner, by the sea (thalassa)" (Acts 10: 32)

3. Often, when one refers to the Old Testament, one hears about the Red Sea: "He led them out, having performed wonders and signs in Egypt, at the Red Sea (thalassa), and in the wilderness for forty years." (Acts 7: 36)

4. Finally, thalassa can be understood in a very general way, without reference to a particular sea, as in the expression repeatedly used: sand from the sea (Rom 9:27; Heb 11:12; Rev 20:8). Above all, ancient cosmology conceived of the universe as being composed of heaven and earth, the earth being made up of land and sea, so that heaven, earth and sea where used together to describe the whole of creation : "Friends, why are you doing this? We are mortals just like you, and we bring you good news, that you should turn from these worthless things to the living God, who made the heaven and the earth and the sea (thalassa) and all that is in them" (Acts 14, 15).

When we analyzed the word "wave" (kyma), we mentioned that the Jews were not a seafaring people and that, in general, the sea is scary. It is linked to the chaotic abyss of origins (Gen 1:2.9), the place where demonic powers live and act (Is 27:1). A number of references in the New Testament point in this direction:

• While the disciples were afraid of being overwhelmed by the waves, Jesus said to the sea, "Be quiet! Be silent" (Mk 4:39); Jesus speaks to the sea as if it were the devil himself.
• The sea is the place where 2,000 pigs are drowned, into which the unclean spirits enter with Jesus' permission (Mk 5:13).
• The sea is the place where those who scandalize the little ones deserve to be thrown with the millstone at once (Mk 9:42).
• At the coming of the Son of Man, the nations will be in anguish, worried about the noise of the sea and the waves (Lk 21:25).
• When Paul speaks of all the sufferings lived in his apostolate, he expressly mentions the dangers of the sea (2 Cor 11:26).
• For James, the waves of the sea evoke one who dithers and has no firm faith: "But ask in faith, never doubting, for the one who doubts is like a wave of the sea (thalassa), driven and tossed by the wind" (Jas 1: 6)
• When Jude denounces the false teachers of the Christian community who bombard at the Eucharistic meal, he compares them to the waves of the sea: "wild waves of the sea (thalassa), casting up the foam of their own shame; wandering stars, for whom the deepest darkness has been reserved forever" (Jude 1: 13)
• The perception of the sea can sometimes be so negative that the author of Revelation imagines that in the new creation the sea will be eliminated: "Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth; for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea (thalassa) was no more" (Rev 21: 1)

In Matthew's gospel we find the word thalassa quite regularly. But most of the time he is content to use Mark's text. In the five occurrences that are proper, almost all of them come from a source of his own or from a reference to the Old Testament: for example, the parable of the net that is thrown into the sea and brings in all sorts of things (13:47), or the account where Jesus asks Peter to go to the sea and throw the hook to find in the mouth of the fish the money needed to pay the tax.

Here, in v. 25, Matthew simply uses the word thalassa, which he finds in Mark. However, he introduces an important modification. While Mark writes: "walking on the sea (epi tēs thalassēs)", Matthew writes: "walking on the sea (epi tēn thalassan); in the first case thalassa is in the genitive, i.e. a noun complement, in the second case it is in the accusative, i.e. a direct object complement, subject to the action of the verb. Why would Matthew modify what he receives from Mark? There are two plausible answers.

1. First of all, the simplest answer comes from the fact that Matthew loves precision, and knowing that we have here a reference to the text of Job 9:8 in the Septuagint, and that in this text of Job thalassa is the accusative, he hastens to correct Mark.

2. But we must probably go further. There is a nuance between epi + the genitive and epi + accusative. In the first case, it is a local meaning to express where the person is, for example: "And behold, a paralytic was brought to him lying on (epi + genitive) a bed" (Mt 9:2), or again: "let him who is on (epi + genitive) the terrace" (Mt 24:17); according to this perspective, to say that Jesus is walking on the sea is to specify where he is, on the sea. In the second case, it is linked to a verb of movement that exerts an action on an object, for example: "darkness came over (epi + accusative) the whole earth" (Mt 27:45), or again, "he commanded the crowd to sit down on (epi + accusative) the ground" (Mt 15:35), or again, "(the beloved disciple who had leaned over (epi + accusative) his breast" (Jn 21:19); according to this perspective, to say that Jesus is walking on the sea is to affirm that he is exercising a form of action on the sea. What kind of action? He dominates it, he controls it. This is, moreover, the perspective of the text of Job 9:11 ("He alone has stretched out Heaven, he walks on the sea as on firm ground") where the emphasis is on God's control of the sea, for he is the creator of the sea. We could add the meaning of the root of the word peripateō (to walk), formed from the preposition peri (around) and pateō (to trample), i.e. to trample around: to walk on the sea is also to trample on the sea, i.e. to dominate it.

In the Jewish world, the sea is a feared, frightening force. For Matthew, the fact that Jesus walks on the sea expresses the fact that he masters the forces of evil that attack the boat of the community of disciples.

Phantasma is the noun phantasma in the nominative neutral singular. It means: apparition, shadow, spectrum, ghost. If it were not for Mark, taken up by Matthew, the word would be totally absent from the New Testament: Mt = 1; Mk = 1; Lk = 0; Jn = 0; Acts = 0; 1Jn = 0; 2Jn = 0; 3Jn = 0. Elsewhere in the Bible, there is only one occurrence, in the Greek text of the Septuagint. The noun phantasma is of the same root as the verb phantazō: to make visible, to appear. This last word is also very rare, in fact three occurrences, found only in the Epistle to the Hebrews, the Sirach and the Book of Wisdom.

What does phantasma mean? Let us begin with the text of Wisdom 17:14. This passage belongs to a section where the author offers a commentary on the plagues of Egypt, and more particularly on the plague of darkness (Ex 21:21-29) when Moses, stretching out his hand to heaven, brought three days of opaque darkness over the whole land of Egypt, freezing all the Egyptians in place, while the Israelites had light. He considered the Egyptians as ungodly people who had gone astray, and by enveloping them in darkness, God delivered them to fear, hallucinations, and gloomy ghosts (phasma). He writes:

But they sleeping the same sleep that night, which was indeed intolerable, and which came upon them out of the bottoms of inevitable Hades, were partly vexed with monstrous apparitions (phantasma), and partly fainted, their heart failing them: for a sudden fear, and not looked for, came upon them (Wis 17:14-15).

The night that would cover the Egyptians would come from Hades. Now, Hades is first in Greek mythology the name of the deity who reigns over the underground empire of the dead, also called: the underworld. By extension, the word became the name of his dwelling place, i.e. Hades. The Septuagint translated the Hebrew word Sheol as Hades, the place where all the dead descend to carry out a reduced, almost vegetative activity. It is in this context that the author of Wisdom places the Egyptians who, in their sleep, have nightmares when they see ghosts or monstrous ghosts. Thus, whether we speak of ghosts or spectres, we are talking about beings that resemble terrifying shadows such as those imagined in Sheol. We can understand the fear that pervades everyone.

Let's go back to phantasma in Mark/Matthew. There are certain similarities with the Wisdom text: the context is that of darkness, and we are in an environment of fear. Phantasma literally translates as: apparition. But since this apparition is frightening, we have to think of it as a spectre or a ghost, like those shadows we imagined in Sheol. But knowing that the Mark/Matthew story must be read in the context of the challenge of believing in difficult times, can we not think that the word phantasma was chosen because it accurately describes the appearance of the people in Sheol, and therefore these shadows evoke for the disciples their own death, or that of Jesus himself for those who do not believe in his resurrection? If this was not the intention of the original author of this story, the words chosen are nevertheless perfectly appropriate of such a context.

Let's say a word on the verb phantazō which is of the same root and means: to appear. The few occurrences show us that the context can be positive, as when wisdom appears benevolent before those who receive it (Wis 6:16), or negative when a woman in the pains of childbirth begins to have visions (Sir 34:5).

There is also the related word phasma, which is found only in the Septuagint and which means: apparition, illusion, ghost. The Book of Wisdom uses it in the same context as phantasma to comment on the plague of darkness that falls on the Egyptians. Otherwise, they are either prodigious or ephemeral visions that only the context can determine their meaning.

Thus, we are returned to the subjective aspect of the vision of things. This is what our account tells us about the disciples in the boat. And the listener of Matthew, who finds it difficult to believe in Jesus' resurrection, and for whom the deads vegetate in the Sheol, can identify with the disciples for whom Jesus appears as a spectre of the Sheol, the image of their own death.

Iēsous (Jesus) is the name attributed to the central personality of the Gospels. It comes from the Hebrew in the form יְהוֹשֻׁעַ or יְהוֹשׁוּעַ (yĕhôšûaʿ), the name that Joshua had in the Old Testament. It means: Yahveh saves. Obviously, the word is extremely frequent throughout the New Testament, with about 873 occurrences depending on the versions used, being present in all the books that make it up. It is the same among the evangelists: Mt = 152; Mk = 82; Lk = 88; Jn = 243; Acts = 69; 1Jn = 12; 2Jn = 2; 3Jn = 0. The fourth gospel largely dominates these statistics: because of the number of dialogues it contains, it is understandable that it must constantly be named explicitly.

In the Gospels, the name Iēsous appears almost always in the narrator's pen. But there are a few exceptions where it is put in someone else's mouth: Mt = 7; Mk = 5; Lk = 6; Jn = 7. Let's summarize these occurrences.

• When Philip meets Nathanael to tell him that he has found the prophet foretold by Moses and the Scriptures, he tells him that he is "Jesus, the son of Joseph of Nazareth" (Jn 1:45).
• The man with the unclean spirit in the synagogue of Capernaum calls him Jesus the Nazarean (Mk 1:24 | Lk 4:34).
• In the region of the Gerasenes, a man with an unclean spirit cries out to Jesus: "What do you want with me, Jesus, son of the Most High God? "(Mk 5:7; Lk 8:28).
• When we are surprised by the words and actions of Jesus, we are reminded of his identity: "Is not this Jesus, the son of Joseph, whose father and mother we know" (Jn 6:42)?
• Ten lepers calling out to Jesus with: "Jesus, Master, have mercy on us" (Lk 17:13).
• As he left Jericho, the blind Bartimaeus cried out to Jesus, "Son of David, Jesus, have mercy on me! "(Mk 10:47; Lk 18:38).
• When Jesus arrived in Jerusalem for the Passover feast, the Jerusalemites were informed that it was "the prophet Jesus from Nazareth in Galilee" (Mt 21:11).
• When the blind man who was blind from birth is asked to identify the one who healed him, he answers: "The man they call Jesus made mud... (Jn 9:11)
• When some Greeks wanted to see Jesus, they addressed Philip, saying: "Lord, we want to see Jesus" (Jn 12:21).
• When Jesus asks those who came to arrest him in Gethsemane what they are looking for, they answer, "Jesus the Nazarene" (John 18:5.7).
• At the Jewish trial of Jesus, Peter is thus questioned by one of the handmaids of the high priest: "You too were with the Nazarean Jesus" (Mk 14:67; Mt 26:71; Mt 26:69).
• At the Roman trial of Jesus, Pilate questions the crowd about what to do with "Jesus who is called Christ" (Mt 27:17,22).
• On the cross, one of the criminals said to Jesus: "Jesus, remember me when you come with your kingdom" (Lk 23:42).
• On the cross, a sign is placed: "Jesus the Nazarene, King of the Jews" (Jn 19:19; Mt 37:37 instead: "This is Jesus, King of the Jews").
• At the empty tomb, the young man in the white habit announces to them the resurrection of "Jesus the Nazarean, the crucified one" (Mk 16:6; Mt 28:5, which simply reads: Jesus, the crucified one).
• In the account of the disciples of Emmaus who inform their visitor about "Jesus of Nazareth, who showed himself to be a powerful prophet" (Lk 24:19)

Let's make a few points.

1. The usual way of calling Jesus for people who have some knowledge of him is: Jesus of Nazareth or Jesus the Nazarene (or the Nazarean variant), a toponymic surname, just as people in the past received as surnames: English (from England), Wales (from Wales), Spain (from Spain), London (from London), Scott (from Scotland). His name was attached to Nazareth, the place where he lived and worked (It is probable that Jesus was born in Nazareth, not Bethlehem. On this subject, see Meier).

2. Jesus is also sometimes called: Jesus, son of Joseph. This is another very old way of naming people by saying, for example, Bill son of Joe. Many groupings reflect this usage in the family name, for example the "mac" (son) in the Gaelic language that gave MacPherson in Scotland, or the "vic" (son) in the Slavic language that gave names like Petrović, or the "ben" (son) in Hebrew that gave Ben Gurion.

3. It is interesting to note the three instances where Jesus simply calls himself "Jesus", but nothing more: each time it is about people who are not familiar with him, i.e. the blind man from birth (Jn 9:11), the Greeks (Jn 12:21), and one of the criminals on the cross (Lk 23:42).

4. On a few occasions Jesus is given an honorary title, but it is usually in response to a pressing request where his bond with God is emphasized: son of the Most High God (Mk 5:7), master (Lk 17:13), son of David (Mk 10:47).

5. Finally, there is the case of Mt 27: 17.22 where Matthew puts in Pilate's mouth: Jesus who is called Christ. As Matthew insists on the messiahship of Jesus during his trial, it is understandable that he wants this charge to be the reason for his conviction by Pilate. At the same time, this title fits well with the way the Greco-Romans perceived Jesus at the beginning of the Christian era, as the Jewish historian Flavius Josephus testifies when he recounts the death of James, "brother of Jesus called Christ" (Jewish Antiquities, 20, 9: #200).

Starting with the first Christian generations, the name "Jesus" will almost always be accompanied by the title of Christ (i.e. anointed or messiah) and Lord, so that the so-called Pauline epistles use the expressions: Christ Jesus or the Lord Jesus, or our Lord Jesus Christ. The Gospel of Mark begins like this: "Beginning of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, Son of God", and that of Matthew: "Book of Genesis of Jesus Christ, son of David, son of Abraham"; and in the Prologue of John (1:17) we find the expression: "For the Law was given by Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ". The name "Jesus" refers to the historical being, and in faith it refers to the one who has risen, or who has been made Christ and Lord.

There are a number of exceptions to what has just been said. But very often the use of the name "Jesus" without the qualifiers of Christ or Lord outside the Gospels comes from a context in which reference is made to his earthly life, in particular his suffering and death, and all the testimony he gave while he was among us, or again when reference is made to the non-believer. For example:

• 1 Jn 1: 7 (reference to his death) "but if we walk in the light as he himself is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus (Iēsous) his Son cleanses us from all sin"
• 1 Cor 12: 3 (perspective of an unbeliever) "Therefore I want you to understand that no one speaking by the Spirit of God ever says "Let Jesus (Iēsous) be cursed!" and no one can say "Jesus (Iēsous) is Lord" except by the Holy Spirit"
• 2 Cor 4: 10 (reference to his death) "always carrying in the body the death of Jesus (Iēsous), so that the life of Jesus (Iēsous) may also be made visible in our bodies"
• Phil 2: 10 (a very ancient hymn where the emphasis is on the name "Jesus") "so that at the name of Jesus (Iēsous) every knee should bend, in heaven and on earth and under the earth"
• Rev 17: 6 (the martyrs follow in his footsteps) "And I saw that the woman was drunk with the blood of the saints and the blood of the witnesses to Jesus (Iēsous). When I saw her, I was greatly amazed"

Here, in v. 27, the understanding of Jesus is the post-Easter understanding, but since the story is set in a historical context, it is the simple name of Jesus that appears in the pen of the evangelist.

Tharseite is the verb tharseō in the imperative tense, 2nd plural person, and means: to have good courage. In the New Testament, there are only a few occurrences among the evangelists: Mt = 3; Mk = 2; Lk = 0; Jn = 1; Ac = 1; 1Jn = 0; 2Jn = 0; 3Jn = 0. Elsewhere, in the Septuagint, there are about twenty occurrences.

Mark introduced the term for the first time in the Gospels with his account of the stilling storm (6: 50) where he puts in the mouth of Jesus the verb tharseō to the imperative and which our Bibles translate as follows: "Take heart" (NRSV), "Take courage" (NAB, NIV), "Be of good cheer" (ASB, KJB), "Courage" (JB). This verb reappears in Mark's account of the blind man Bartimaeus (10:49), but this time in the mouth of the crowd who speak to the blind man to encourage him to get up and meet Jesus. The evangelist John uses tharseō in the imperative tense in Jesus' final great discourse (16:33), after mentioning that the disciples will have much to suffer in the world, but they need to know that Jesus has conquered the world, and that this should reassure them. Finally, Luke in the Acts of the Apostles (23:11) tells us that Paul, while he is in prison and after giving testimony before the Sanhedrin, receives a word from the Lord during the night to tell him to keep courage, because he is called to continue to testify, but this time in Rome. In all these mentions of tharseō there is a common thread: the presence of Jesus who gives the strength to move forward in spite of adversity.

What about Matthew? There is something astonishing about him: on the one hand he allows himself to add tharseō in some texts he receives from Mark, which gives the impression that he gives it great importance, but on the other hand there is a case where he eliminates it. Let's start with the latter case.

In the story about the blind man Bartimaeus (Mk 10:46-52), Mark presents the crowd as an obstacle to the blind man's prayer to Jesus (they ask him to be silent), then when Jesus asks for him to be brought, the crowd says, "Be confident (tharseō)! Get up, he is calling you!". Matthew gives us a slightly modified version of the story (Mt 20:29-34) with two blind people crying out to Jesus. But after mentioning the crowd as an obstacle, it is Jesus himself who calls the blind without the intermediary of the crowd: there is no more room for the crowd to call for trust. It is probably to be thought that given Matthew's perception of Jesus' transcendence, it is unthinkable that Jesus needs the crowd to make the blind come to him; and it is probably also unthinkable in Matthew that the invitation to trust should be in the mouth of someone other than Jesus. So this detail of Mark has been eliminated.

On the other hand, twice Matthew adds tharseō to the account he receives from Mark, first the account of the paralytic being forgiven and healed (Mk 2:1-12 || Mt 9:1-8) and the account of the woman with hemorrhages being healed (Mk 5:25-34 | Mt 9:20-22).

Mk 2: 5	Mt 9: 2
And Jesus, seeing their faith, said to the paralytic, "Child, your sins are forgiven."	And Jesus, seeing their faith, said to the paralytic: "Be confident, daughter, your sins are forgiven."
Mk 5: 34	Mt 9: 22b
He (Jesus) said to her: "(My) daughter, your faith has saved you: go in peace and be healed of your infirmity."	(Jesus) said: "Be confident, my daughter, your faith has saved you." And the woman was saved from that hour.

Thus, in Matthew, tharseō is always in the mouth of Jesus, and in the two texts we have just considered, we are clearly in a context of faith. Tharseō becomes an invitation to be assured of healing. Why such an insistence? Probably for Matthew it is a way of inviting his community to a general attitude in the face of adversity.

To better understand this notion, let us turn to the Old Testament which was certainly dear to the Jew Matthew, in particular this Greek translation called: Septuagint. The authors of the Septuagint used tharseō to translate the Hebrew expression: al-yare', which means: not to be afraid, and which our Bibles have translated as : "do not be afraid". For example:

• So the midwife tells Rachel who is going through a difficult time when giving birth: "Do not be afraid; for now you will have another son" (Gen 35: 17)
• Twice Moses said to the people: "do not be afaird", first during the flight from Egypt as the enemy army approached (Ex 14:13), then during God's intervention at Sinai in an apocalyptic scene to give the Ten Commandments (Ex 20:20)
• "Do not be afraid", this is what Elijah said to the widow of Sarepta who does not have what it takes to give bread to the prophet (1 Kings 17: 13)
• In his prayer, the prophet Joel gives thanks to God for having repelled the invader and says to the whole world: "Do not be afraid" (Joel 2: 21-22)
• "Do not be afraid," said the prophet Haggai to the Jews (Zerubbabel, Joshua), so that they will go back to work in the reconstruction of the temple, despite the financial pitfalls; the nations will bring treasure (Haggai 2: 5)
• Speaking to Zion, the prophet Zephaniah wrote, "Do not be afraid," for the Lord is in the midst of his people, overcoming the enemies (Zeph 3: 16)
• It is the same with the prophet Zechariah as part of the promise of messianic goods during the reconstruction of the temple and said to the Jews of Jerusalem: "Do not be afraid" (Zech 8: 13-15).

The choice of tharseō, a positive form, has something astonishing in translating a negative Hebrew form on the part of the authors of the Septuagint. For, at other times, the Septuagint has appropriately translated al-yare' by the Greek expression: mē phobeō (do not be afraid), e.g. Gen 15:1: "After these things Abram in a vision heard the word of God saying to him, 'Do not be afraid (Mē phobou), Abram, I will cover you with my protection; your reward will be great'". Can we give any meaning to all this, apart from mentioning a certain inconsistency in the translations of the Septuagint? In fact, to speak of having good courage (tharseō) or of not being afraid (mē phobeō) is to refer to two dimensions of the same reality regarding faith: for fear is the opposite of faith, and to believe is to be firm, solid, courageous, daring and to move forward; thus, faith has a negative dimension (not to be afraid), and it has a positive dimension (to trust, to go forward, to be courageous). According to Boismard (op. cit.), "the expressions 'reassure yourself' or 'be confident' and 'do not fear' or 'do not be afraid' are equivalent and could be the translation of the same Aramaic original" (p. 226).

Tharseō therefore describes the positive dimension of faith, which is why our v. 27 is translated as : "Be confident", "Courage", "Rest assured". This is the choice sometimes made by some translators of the Septuagint when they encountered the expression "do not be afraid". But the text of Mk 6:50, which Matthew takes up again, includes the two expressions: "Take courage" and two words further on, "Do not be afraid". Why is this? One could answer that the author wanted to represent the two dimensions of faith, its positive and negative dimensions. But why is it that when John presents his version of the story (Jn 6:20), he only mentions "do not be afraid"? One possible hypothesis (see Boismard) is that there were two ancient Greek versions of the story of the walk on the sea, one with "take courage" and the other with "do not be afraid", which Mark merged, and John would have had access to only one.

In any case, Matthew presents this version of Mark with first "take courage", which can be translated as "be confident" or "be assured", and then "do not be afraid" to insist that we are in a context of faith.

Let's say a word about the name tharsos (courage) which only appears in the Acts of the Apostles throughout the New Testament and in three books of the Septuagint for a grand total of five occurrences. The word is not related to faith, but rather to the ability to be strong. In the Acts of the Apostles (28:15), the word describes the state of Paul who finds the energy to face the world of Rome for the first time. In the second book of the Chronicles (16:8) and in 1 Maccabees (4:35), the word is used as an attribute of a courageous and resilient army. Finally, in Job (4:4; 17:9) it describes the strength of the person supported by God and who remains upright. In short, we are in a different register from what is found here in v. 27.

The expression egō eimi has already been introduced in the glossary. Let's summarize the main points.

This expression, composed of the personal pronoun egō (I, me) and the verb eimi (to be) in the present tense, is in itself banal and simply serves to identify oneself: it is I. But in the Old Testament, it is an expression that is put in the mouth of God and serves to identify him. Also, in the Gospels, while the expression sometimes has a very ordinary meaning (Lk 1:19: "And the angel answered and said to him, 'I am Gabriel, who stands before God, and I have been sent to speak to you and to bring you this good news'), sometimes it has a solemn meaning with a revelatory function (Jn 8:58: "Jesus said to them, 'Truly, truly, I say to you, before Abraham existed, I am'. (egō eimi) ").

Now, here in v. 27, the expression "I am" is not followed by an attribute or a predicate. One could say that the name "Jesus" is implied: I am Jesus; in this case, it would be an ordinary way of identifying oneself in a context of confusion. But if we refer to the Old Testament and rabbinic Judaism, such an expression without a predicate has a revelatory or apocalyptic function.

In Hebrew, we regularly find the expression "I am Yahweh", which is written simply with the pronoun "I" (heb.: ʾănî) and Yahweh (heb.: yhwh), without a linking verb: "I Yahweh". It was translated in Greek by the Septuagint with egō kyrios ("I Lord"), but sometimes adding the verb "to be" (eimi). The expression often aims to reassure the people and invites them not to be afraid, or to affirm the authority of God. But the expression also has a revelatory function, i.e. God's role in relation to his people.

Ex 6: 7: I will take you for my people and I will be your God. And you shall know that I am the Lord. (Heb.:ʾănî yhwh; LXX: egō kyrios), your God, who took you away from the chores of the Egyptians

It is Deutero-Isaiah (Isaiah 40 - 55) who developed this notion a lot, especially to express the divine name.

Is 51, 12: I am, I am, he (Heb.: ʾānōkî ʾānōkî hûʾ, LXX: egō eimi egō eimi) that comforts thee: consider who thou art, that thou wast afraid of mortal man, and of the son of man, who are withered as grass

Thus, Yahweh reveals his name: "I am", translated into Greek by: egō eimi. This is the interpretation found in the rabbinic tradition of the 2nd century AD.

In the Gospels, John uses this expression most often, but to apply it to Jesus. However, he is not the only one, for it is also found in the synoptic gospels, in fact in two contexts: the walking on the waters and the Jewish trial of Jesus. And since the account of the walking on the waters would go back to an ancient tradition, since Mark seems to have combined two versions of the story, as we have already mentioned, then one can think that quite early the first Christian generation used the expression "I am" to reveal the identity of Jesus.

Thus, in this account of the stilling storm, after the disciples had experienced the absence and distance of Jesus, associating him with the ghosts of death, we reach here the culminating point: the revelation of his presence, a presence identified with the very presence of God. But such an association of Jesus with God is only possible after his resurrection. This is why we have been placed in a faith context with the expression "take courage" or "be confident". For Matthew, as he writes his gospel, this scene where Jesus is present refers to the community gathering, as expressed in the symbolism of the boat in which the disciples are in.

The expression mē phobeisthe is formed from the adverb mē (do not), an adverb of negation, and the verb phobeō (to be afraid) in the middle imperative tense, 2nd person plural. The verb phobeō itself appears regularly in the Gospel-Acts, especially in Luke: Mt = 18; Mk = 12; Lk = 23; Jn = 5; Ac = 14; 1Jn = 1; 2Jn = 0; 3Jn = 0. And earlier, in our analysis of fear, we identified five types of fear depending on the context:

1. to feel intimidated into not acting
2. to respect someone whose word is welcomed
3. to experience an upheaval or a fright in the face of an unusual event
4. to be afraid in the face of a (deadly) threat
5. to apprehend or fear an undesired situation

Now, what we are interested in is the expression "not to be afraid".

In the Gospel-Acts, the invitation to not be afraid comes either from Jesus or from a messenger of God. What is not to be afraid of?

1. Very often the invitation not to be afraid is set in the context of an unusual, surprising event seen as an action of God, especially the proclamation of good news, or the prospect of healing or rescue or an unexpected productive action, and this invitation is fundamentally an invitation to believe. For example:
   • Lk 5: 10: (miraculous catch) "and so also were James and John, sons of Zebedee, who were partners with Simon. Then Jesus said to Simon, "Do not be afraid (mē phobeō); from now on you will be catching people"

2. The invitation not to be afraid can be aimed at an intimidating situation (e.g. Mary is pregnant out of wedlock) or one of opposition, and it is then a matter of continuing one's action and mission with the faith that all will be well and that God offers his support. For example:
   • Acts 18: 9: "One night the Lord said to Paul in a vision, "Do not be afraid (mē phobeō), but speak and do not be silent;"

3. Finally, some situations present serious threats to the life and integrity of persons, and the invitation not to be afraid becomes a demand to face these threats head on, knowing that this is God's will. For example:
   • Mt 10: 28: "Do not fear (mē phobeō) those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul; rather fear him who can destroy both soul and body in hell"

Thus, the invitation not to be afraid only makes sense in a context of faith: by asking not to be afraid, God calls the person to face his or her situation by being able to count on his or her support, and by assuring him or her that the outcome will be happy in some way.

Elsewhere in the New Testament (1 Peter and Revelation), it will be noted that we are in a context of opposition and persecution, and therefore the invitation not to be afraid is an invitation to remain faithful to one's faith in spite of trials.

What about the Old Testament? What is there to be afraid of?

1. Unlike the New Testament, it is above all deadly threats that are not to be feared. Because of numerous conflicts with neighbouring countries and having to face powerful and numerous armies, the Israelites are called not to be afraid, for the Lord is with them, He has promised them as an inheritance the land they occupy. They must not refuse to fight, they must stand firm, and the Lord will walk with them, He will not abandon them. For example:
   • Deut 20: 3 (LXX) "Hear, O Israel; ye are going this day to battle against your enemies: let not your heart faint, fear not (mē phobeō, heb. al-yare'), neither be confounded, neither turn aside from their face"

2. There is also the invitation not to fear intimidating situations, opposition or the unknown. There was opposition to the reconstruction of the temple, the contempt of the surrounding peoples for the Jewish religion, the pressure and influence of other religions with their cosmogony, or the false model of those who succeeded. The invitation not to be afraid aims at keeping the Israelites firm in their faith and practices, with the promise of the Lord's support. For example:
   • Jer 10: 2 (LXX) "Thus saith the Lord, Learn ye not the ways of the heathen, and do not fear (mē phobeō) the signs of the sky; for they fear them, falling on their faces"

3. Finally, there is the context of God's interventions and the proclamation of good news. The invitation not to be afraid is an invitation to trust in God's promise, in the assurance of his protection and blessing, his presence and help. For example:
   • Isa 44: 2 "Thus saith the Lord God that made thee, and he that formed thee from the womb; Thou shalt yet be helped: fear not (mē phobeō), my servant Jacob; and beloved Israel, whom I have chosen"

4. Let us mention the unique case of Proverbs 7:1. While the verb fear or to be afraid can sometimes mean: to respect someone whose word is accepted, here we have the negative formula where respect owed only to God alone, and not to others: "My son, keep my words, and hide with thee my commandments; my son, honour the Lord, and thou shalt be strong; and fear none (mē phobeō) but him"

In Matthew we find the same range of contexts: not fearing intimidation (e.g., 10:26), not fearing the possibility of death (10:28), not fearing an epiphany at transfiguration (17:7). But when one considers the passages where the expression is proper to him, it is the context of God's interventions that dominates (see 17:7; 28:5; 28:10), and thus the call to trust and believe.

Here, in v. 27, we are in a context of God's intervention and revelation, as is the account of the transfiguration. The invitation not to be afraid is thus an invitation to trust in God's support. Therefore, in the phrase "be confident, it is I, do not be afraid", the expressions "be confident" and "do not be afraid" are in some ways synonymous.

What should we not be afraid of? There seem to be two things: first the spectre of the night, the undead, and the fact that this spectre walks on water, i.e. masters the power of evil. Fundamentally, we are faced with a call to believe that despite the appearance of death/absence of Jesus, He is very much alive, and that with Him the opposing forces are mastered and overcome.

Apokritheis is the verb apokrinomai in the passive aoristic participle tense, in the masculine singular nominative form, matching the masculine noun Petros. It consists of the preposition apo (from) and the verb krinō (to decide, choose, judge, interpret): literally, to make a decision or a judgment based on what has been said, hence "to answer". It is extremely frequent (the 10th verb for the number of occurrences) in the Gospel-Acts : Mt = 55; Mk = 30; Lk = 46; Jn = 78; Ac = 20.

But what is remarkable in the Gospels is to regularly find the literary structure: "to answer and to say", the first one often in the aoristic participle and the last one expressed by the verb legō (to say) or phēmi (to declare), often in the past tense, for example: "But having answered, he (Jesus) said" (Mt 15:24); to be convinced of the frequency of this structure, it is enough to look at the numbers: Mt = 50; Mk = 19; Lk = 40; Jn = 32. As we can see, Matthew is a bit of a champion of this style.

Why add the verb to answer when we already use the verb to say to introduce what an interlocutor is about to express in direct style, i.e. why add the verb to answer when we could simply have "say"? It seems that for the evangelical writer, this emphasizes the "dialogue" aspect or the interaction between the actors. In fact, the mention that an actor "answers" emphasizes the link with what preedes. In any case, this is the impression given by Matthew, where out of the 55 occurrences of this verb, 43 are particular to him, so that he often adds it to the sources he takes up. For example:

Mk 10: 28	Mt 19: 27
Peter began to say to him, "Behold, we have left everything and followed you"	Then having answered, Peter said to him, "Behold, we have left everything and followed you. What shall we have then?"
Lk 10: 21 (Document Q)	Mt 11: 25
In that very hour he (Jesus) exulted in the Holy Spirit and said: "I bless you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because you have hidden this from the wise and skillful and revealed it to the little ones. Yes, Father, for such has been your good pleasure."	At that time, having answered, Jesus said: "I bless you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because you have hidden this from the wise and skillful and revealed it to the little ones. Yes, Father, for such has been your good pleasure."

Here, in v. 28, we have the form: "Then, having answered him, he said". The expression "Then, having answered" (apokritheis de) or "Then, having answered him" (ho de apokritheis) is typically Matthean: Mt = 32; Mk = 4; Lk = 15; Jn = 0; Ac = 3. This is the signal that Matthew is now leaving his Markan source to introduce us into a narrative he has created. He will return to Mark's account only in his conclusion.

We have said that the addition of "having answered" is a way to introduce interaction between the speakers. What does Peter respond to? To what Jesus has just said: "I am" or "It is I".

Petros is the name of one of Jesus' disciples, in fact the spokesman for the disciples. Indeed, he often addresses Jesus in the name of the disciples. For example:

• Mk 8: 29 "He asked them, 'But who do you say that I am?' Peter (Petros) answered him, 'You are the Messiah'"
• Mk 9: 5 (transfiguration scene) "Then Peter (Petros) said to Jesus, 'Rabbi, it is good for us to be here; let us make three dwellings, one for you, one for Moses, and one for Elijah'"
• Mk 10: 28 "Peter (Petros) began to say to him, 'Look, we have left everything and followed you'"

This spokesman is known by four names: Petros (Peter: Mt = 23; Mk = 20; Lk = 19; Jn = 34; Acts = 53; Ga = 2; 1P = 1; 2P = 1), Kēphas (Cephas: Jn = 1; 1Co = 4; Ga = 4), Simōn (Simon: Mt = 5; Mk = 7; Lk = 12; Jn = 22; Acts = 5), Symeōn (Simeon: Acts = 1; 2P = 1). One could add the compound name : Simon(Simeon)-Peter: Mt = 1; Mk = 0; Lk = 1; Jn = 16; 2P = 1. How to untangle it all.

At the time when Mark, Matthew, Luke and John published their gospels, the spokesman of the disciples was known as Peter. But we learn that this name is in fact a nickname, a nickname that Jesus would have given him. More precisely, Petros is a Greek word to translate the Aramaic word Kēpā' (rock or stone), an Aramaic word transliterated into Greek as: Kēphas.

"He brought Simon to Jesus, who looked at him and said, 'You are Simon son of John. You are to be called Cephas' (which is translated Peter (Petros))" (Jn 1: 42).

Thus, the real name of this spokesman is Simon (Šim'ôn in Hebrew, transliterated into Greek as: symeon). When did he receive this nickname? We don't really know. It is likely that it happened during the ministry of Jesus, so someone like Paul never uses the name "Simon" to refer to the leader of the Church, but speaks mostly of Cephas, his Aramaic nickname (1 Cor 1:12; 3:22; 9:5; 15:5; Gal 1:18; 2:9.11.14), and sometimes of "Peter" (Gal 2:7-8). It is possible that this nickname was gradually imposed during the first Christian generation, for if we are to believe the Acts of the Apostles, the two names coexisted: the expression "Simon, nicknamed Peter" appears a few times (Acts 10:5.17-18.32; 11:13).

What is remarkable is that Jesus uses only the name "Simon" when he addresses Peter in the Gospels (the exception being Lk 22:34 where we note the editorial work of Luke, who takes up Mark's announcement of Peter's denial, and of course Mt 16:18, which we will comment on below).

• Mt 16: 17: "And Jesus answered him, 'Blessed are you, Simon (Simōn) son of Jonah! For flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father in heaven'"
• Mt 16: 18: "He said, 'Yes, he does.' And when he came home, Jesus spoke of it first, asking, 'What do you think, Simon (Simōn)? From whom do kings of the earth take toll or tribute? From their children or from others?'"
• Mk 14: 37: "He came and found them sleeping; and he said to Peter, 'Simon (Simōn), are you asleep? Could you not keep awake one hour?'"
• Lk 22: 31: "Simon (Simōn), Simon (Simōn), listen! Satan has demanded to sift all of you like wheat"
• Jn 21: 15: "When they had finished breakfast, Jesus said to Simon (Simōn) Peter, 'Simon (Simōn) son of John, do you love me more than these?' He said to him, 'Yes, Lord; you know that I love you.' Jesus said to him, 'Feed my lambs.'"

One possible interpretation of the evangelists' approach to keeping the name "Simon" in Jesus' dialogue with Peter is probably to retain a historical flavor. It is probably for this reason that Luke puts the name "Simeon" in the mouth of James in Acts 15:14, the transliteration of the Hebrew Šim'ôn, thus creating an archaism. Otherwise, and for theological reasons, the spokesman of the disciples always bears the name "Peter" as soon as the group of Twelve is formed, probably defining his role in this group :

Mk 3: 16 "So he appointed the twelve: Simon (to whom he gave the name Peter (Petros));"

Luke is following the same approach as Mark. If Matthew mentions the name "Simon" at the beginning of his gospel, he always accompanies it with the remark: called Peter. He is interested in the leader of the Christian community reflected in the name "Peter", not the fisherman of Galilee. Finally, John places the change of name at the beginning of Jesus' ministry (1:42), and adopts the original approach of calling him by the double name of "Simon Peter".

What do we know about Simon, called Peter? On this point, we will refer to J.P. Meier. In short, he is a Jew from Galilee who resides in Capernaum with his wife and family and works as a fisherman. Around the year 28 or 29, Jesus calls him to join his group. He was present at Jesus' last supper, at his arrest in Gethsemane and at the hearing at the high priest's house. When passers-by questioned him, he broke down and denied knowing Jesus. Very soon after the crucifixion of Jesus, Peter claims to have experienced the risen Jesus (1 Cor 15:5; Lk 24:34; cf. Jn 21:1-14). After various imprisonments in Jerusalem, he went to Antioch (Gal 2:11-14) and perhaps to Corinth (1 Cor 1:12; 3:22). According to Paul, Peter concentrated his mission among Jewish Christians (Gal 2:8-9), and although he was one of the leaders of the community with John and James, the brother of Jesus (Gal 2:9), he sometimes gave in to the conservatives of Jerusalem in the company of James, the brother of Jesus, for fear of them (Gal 2:11-13). Allusions to his martyrdom can be found in the New Testament (Jn 21:18-19; 1 Pet 5:13) and in early patristic testimonies (1 Clement 5:4).

In the first Christian generation, what exactly was Peter's role, apart from being on mission to his Jewish compatriots? We are not faced with a precise structure, except for the moral and religious leadership of Peter, John and James, the brother of Jesus, in Jerusalem, if we were to accept Galatians 2:9. But then, how should we interpret Mt 16:17-19?

"Jesus said to him, 'Blessed are you, Simon son of Jonah, for this revelation has come to you, not from flesh and blood, but from my Father in heaven. I say to you, You are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of Hades will not stand against it. I will give you the keys of the Kingdom of Heaven: whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.'"

For a more detailed analysis, please refer to Meier. Suffice it to say that we are here before a creation of Matthew, and not a word that could be traced back to the historical Jesus for the following reasons:

1. Matthew's text clings to Peter's profession of faith, which he takes from Mark (8:29), but which he expands through theological reflection ("the Son of the Living God").

2. The word ekklesia (Church) in the New Testament always refers to the post-Easter Christian community.

3. the vocabulary of ch. 16 is similar to the vocabulary of ch. 18 of Matthew where it clearly refers to the post-Easter Christian community, with the beginning of a canon law to deal with community problems, for example that of a recalcitrant sinner

4. There is a clear parallel between Mt 16:19 (binding/unbinding) and Jn 20:23 (withholding/remitting sins). Now, Jn 20:23 is clearly situated after Easter and presents a word of the risen Jesus

5. Finally, Matthew's language with the revelation not according to flesh and blood is similar to Paul's in Galatians 1:15-17 when he speaks of his encounter with the risen Jesus.

In short, Mt 16:17-19 echoes the understanding of Peter's role in the Church of Antioch around the 80s or 85, when the structure of the Church was developing under the influence of Ignatius of Antioch.

It is time to return to our v. 28. Knowing the place that Peter occupies in Matthew's gospel, we understand the role that he intends to make him play in this scene: he, the spokesman of the disciples, is also the leader of the Church whose continuity he must ensure. How will he fulfill his role?

Kyrie is the singular masculine vocative of kyrios. In classical Greek, the word means "he who is master of, who has authority", i.e. the master, the master of the house, the legal representative, the guardian (see our Glossary). In a hierarchical society, it is therefore a generic term to describe the relationship of a superior to a subordinate: a superior exercises lordship over the subordinate.

It is the Septuagint, the Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible, that popularized this term to designate God: indeed, as in the Jewish world the proper name of Yahweh is unpronounceable and is replaced by אֲדֹנָי (Adonai), to express his role as master of the universe, then the authors of the Septuagint chose to translate Adonai by kyrios (lord).

It will be understood that the term kyrios is extremely frequent in the New Testament, and more particularly in the Gospel-Acts : Mt = 80; Mk = 18; Lk = 104; Jn = 52; Acts = 107. As we can see, Luke uses it the most; speaking to a Greek culture, it became a vehicle well adapted to his environment. On the other hand, Mark uses it much less often as he writes for the community in Rome.

The word itself has a great flexibility in that it covers everything that exercises authority and demands respect and honor.

1. Prolonging the Septuagint, the evangelists intend to designate God by the title of kyrios when they do not want to pronounce his name. For example:
   • Mt 4: 7: "Jesus said to him, "Again it is written, 'Do not put the Lord (kyrios) your God to the test.'"

2. But the Christian communities had the audacity very early on to give Jesus the title that was reserved for God. In this sense, there is something ambiguous for evangelists to present characters who address Jesus by giving him the title of Lord before Easter when he was made "Lord". In fact, kyrious can also have the meaning of "sir"; but for the believer who listens to the gospel account, kyrious refers to the Lord of glory. And it is surprising for an evangelist like Luke to sometimes replace the word "Jesus" with "Lord" in his narrative. For example:
   • Mt 8: 25: "And they went and woke him up, saying, 'Lord (kyrios), save us! We are perishing!'"
   • Lk 7: 13: "When the Lord (kyrios) saw her, he had compassion for her and said to her, 'Do not weep'"

3. In reference to humans, the gospels regularly use kyrios to designate the owner of an estate over which he exercises lordship and for which servants work. It is a character that recurs regularly in the parables. For example:
   • Mt 20: 8: "When evening came, the master (kyrios) of the vineyard said to his manager, 'Call the laborers and give them their pay, beginning with the last and then going to the first.'"

4. There is also the reference to the Septuagint version of Psalm 110:1, a psalm that has been given a messianic significance. While the Hebrew says, "Yahweh said unto my Lord (Adonai), sit at my right hand," the Septuagint translated: "The Lord (kyrios) said to my Lord (kyrios), sit at my right hand. " Thus, kyrios also refers to the Messiah. Example (Jesus asked a question about the messiah as the son of David):
   • Lk 20: 44: "David thus calls him Lord (kyrios); so how can he be his son?"

5. Finally, because of the flexibility of the word, it is used in other circumstances, such as the master-disciple relationship, or as a title of honour when addressing an individual, or as an adjective in the expression "to be master of". For example:
   • Jn 12: 21: "They came to Philip, who was from Bethsaida in Galilee, and said to him, 'Sir (kyrios), we wish to see Jesus.'"
   • Acts 16: 30: "Then he brought them outside and said, 'Sirs (kyrios), what must I do to be saved?'"

We can make this table about the occurrence and meaning of kyrios (later additions to the gospel of Mark have been excluded from this table).

	Matthew	Mark	Luke	John	Acts	Total
God	18	8	37	4	45	112
Jesus	26	3	40	44	53	168
Owner	31	2	24	3	2	62
Others	5	3	3	1	7	19
Total	80	18	104	52	107	361

Let's make a few points:

1. In the Gospels, it is in John that kyrios is most used to designate Jesus, especially with respect to the instances where it refers to God; "whoever sees me sees the Father", he tells us, because we are in a high theology.

2. The abundance of occurrences of kyrios to designate Jesus in Acts can easily be explained: we are in a post-paschal context where the risen Jesus is Christ and Lord.

3. Luke offers us an astonishing number of occurrences of kyrios where it points to God: the evangelist finds it important to emphasize the continuity between the Old and New Testaments, and the characters he presents to us are pious people faithful to the Jewish tradition.

4. Mark does not insist on the title of kyrios for Jesus, because the man of Nazareth is first of all a rabbi or teacher (didaskalos) who has to follow a path that leads to the cross.

5. Finally, Matthew may seem to use kyrios less often to refer to Jesus than John and Luke, however when we take only the references to Jesus or God, we note that in 60% of the cases kyrios refers to Jesus. Moreover, if we concentrate only on the 31 occurrences that are his own (which he does not copy from Mark or Document Q), we get 22 occurrences (more than 70%) designating Jesus as Lord. There is a form of high theology in Matthew.

Let's focus on Matthew. Generally speaking, we can say that kyrios is part of his regular vocabulary, and that he likes to use it. That's why he repeatedly adds it to the sources he uses.

Mark	Matthew's version
"If you want, you can cleanse me."	(8,2) "Lord, if you want, you can cleanse me."
(4: 38: storm stilling) And they awakened him and said to him: "Teacher (didaskale), do you not care that we perish?"	(8:25) And they awakened him, saying, "Lord, save us, we are about to perish.
(7: 26) the woman...syrophenician... was begging him to drive the demon out of her daughter	(15: 22) A Canaanite woman... cried out, saying, "Have mercy on me, Lord, son of David: my daughter is being mistreated by a demon."
(8:32: Announcement of passion) And Peter, taking him to himself, began to admonish him.	(16: 22) And Peter, taking him to himself, admonishing him, said to him, "Be it far from you, Lord.
(9: 5: transfiguration) And when Peter spoke, he said to Jesus, "Rabbi, it is good that we are here"	(17: 4) And when Peter spoke, he said to Jesus, "Lord, it is good that we are here
(9: 17: healing of the epileptic child) someone... replied: "Teacher (didaskale), I have brought my son to you."	(17: 14) a man came ... and said: "Lord, have mercy on my son."
(10: 47-51: (blind man/men of Jericho) And when he heard that it was Jesus the Nazarene, he began to cry out and say, "Son of David, Jesus, have mercy on me! "...but he cried out much more, "Son of David, have mercy on me! "Jesus said, "What do you want me to do for you? "The blind man said to him, "Rabboni, let me see!"	(20: 30-33) When they heard that Jesus was passing by, they cried out, saying, "Lord, have mercy on us, son of David! "...but they cried out more loudly, saying, "Lord have mercy on us, Son of David! "Jesus said, "What do you want me to do for you? "They said to him, "Lord, let our eyes be opened!"
(14: 19: announcement of Judas' betrayal) They began to be saddened and said to him one after the other: "(Could it be) me?"	(26: 22) And they were very sad and began to say to him, one by one, "Could it be me, Lord?"

As we can see, Matthew replaces terms such as "you", Jesus, teacher, rabbi or rabboni found in Mark with the title of Lord. Or, when Mark's account is in indirect style, he transforms it into a direct style and adds the vocative "Lord". What can we conclude? Two things.

1. First of all, Matthew likes to clarify and standardize vocabulary; we designate the same realities with the same words.

2. Next, we find in him the premises of a high Christology that will reach its peak with John, i.e. Jesus takes on more and more of the characteristics proper to God. Let's remember that Mark's gospel is usually dated around the year 67, and Matthew's around the year 80 or 85. During this period of more than 10 or 15 years, reflection on the person of Jesus has evolved and become more refined, and the traits that associate him with God or faith after Easter become more important than those that reflect historical data as they are. This is how the Canaanite woman, in the eyes of Matthew, expresses her faith in a way by calling him : Lord.

What about v. 28 in our account of walking on the waters? We have already pointed out that with v. 28 Matthew leaves Mark's account to produce a sequence of its own. Now, how does Peter address Jesus? By calling him : "Lord". We are in a context of faith, and it is with the postpascal outlook that we must understand his vocabulary, especially the title of kyrios that is given here to Jesus: we are before the one whom God raised up and made Christ and Lord.

The expression ei sy ei consists of the conjunction ei (if), the personal pronoun 2nd person singular sy (you), and the verb "to be" in the present tense of the 2nd person singular ei (you are). It is a typically Greek expression for questioning a person's identity. It is usually translated as : "Is it really you?" or "if it is you" when the condition is followed by a request.

Throughout the New Testament, the expression is found only in the Gospels, and it is always a question addressed to Jesus: Jesus is asked to say whether he is the Christ (Messiah) (Mt 26:63; Lk 22:67; Jn 10:24), or the King of the Jews (Lk 23:37). And this question is always asked by skeptical people.

To better understand the meaning of the expression, we can go through the Septuagint. In Genesis, the expression is found in the mouth of Isaac, now blind, who wants to verify whether it is really Esau whom he has before him and to whom he will give his blessing (Gen 27:21). In the book of Judges, it is Samson's father who asks the angel if he is really the man who announced the good news of the birth of a son to his barren wife (Jg 13:11). In the second book of Samuel, it is again a question of verifying the identity of a person: it is Abner, on Saul's side and at war with David, who wants to know the identity of his pursuer (2 Sm 2:20), it is David who wants to know if someone is indeed one of Saul's servants in order to honor him (2 Sm 9:2), it is a woman from a besieged city who verifies the identity of the chief of the attackers in order to negotiate an agreement (2 Sm 20:17). In the first book of Kings, it is an old prophet who validates the identity of a man of God (1 Kings 13:14), it is Obadiah, a palace ruler, who asks if the man before him is indeed the prophet Elijah (1 Kings 18:18), 7), it is Ahab who verifies whether Elijah is really the man who is doing wrong to Israel (1 Kings 18:17), and finally it is Jezebel, the enemy of the prophet Elijah, who ascertains the identity of his interlocutor (1 Kings 19:2). In each situation, one wants to verify the identity of a person.

What is remarkable is that whether in the Gospels or in the Septuagint, the expression "if you are" is always accompanied by an attribute: if you are Christ, if you are the king of the Jews, if you are my son Esau, if you are the man who spoke to my wife, if you are Asael, etc. The only exception is our v. 28 where the expression has no attribute: "if you are". Of course, in the translation we can add an attribute: if it is really you. But then we forget what Jesus has just said: "I am", without attribute, and that is what Peter reacts to; the "if you are" is addressed to the "I am". Now, we have pointed out that the "I am" is an attribute of God in the Jewish world, an attribute that Matthew puts in the mouth of Jesus. In other words, Peter challenges Jesus to back up his assertion of his privilege which he shares with God.

Hydata is the noun hydōr in the plural neutral accusative form. The accusative is required by the preposition epi (on), when it accompanies a movement verb; and the movement verb in the sentence is "to come": it is about Peter coming to Jesus on the waters. The noun hydōr means water; it gave us different words in English with the prefix "hydr" such as hydraulic, hydratant, hydrogen, hydroelectricity. It is not very frequent in the Gospel-Acts, except in John: Mt = 7; Mk = 5; Lk = 6; Jn = 21; Acts = 7; 1Jn = 4; 2Jn = 0; 3Jn = 0. Elsewhere in the New Testament, it is in Revelation that we find it the most.

The reference to water appears in various contexts that could be grouped as follows.

1. A number of scenes present water in a baptismal context, and this baptism concerns either Jesus or the Christian. For example:
   • Mt 3: 11: "I baptize you with water (hydōr) for repentance, but one who is more powerful than I is coming after me; I am not worthy to carry his sandals. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire"
   • Acts 8: 36: "As they were going along the road, they came to some water (hydōr); and the eunuch said, "Look, here is water (hydōr)! What is to prevent me from being baptized?""

2. Water is vital for human life and is a source of freshness. Thus, in addition to its physical role, water also has a symbolic dimension to represent life. For example:
   • Mk 9: 41: "For truly I tell you, whoever gives you a cup of water (hydōr) to drink because you bear the name of Christ will by no means lose the reward"
   • Jn 4: 10: "Jesus answered her, 'If you knew the gift of God, and who it is that is saying to you, 'Give me a drink,' you would have asked him, and he would have given you living water (hydōr).'"

3. In the Jewish world, water is also used for purification, not only ritual but also physical; symbolically, water is used to express the demarcation between two worlds, the world of the "dirty", the "impure", the "guilty", and the world of the "clean", the "pure", the "innocent". For example:
   • Mt 27: 24: "So when Pilate saw that he could do nothing, but rather that a riot was beginning, he took some water (hydōr) and washed his hands before the crowd, saying, 'I am innocent of this man's blood; see to it yourselves.'"
   • Jn 13: 5: "Then he poured water (hydōr) into a basin and began to wash the disciples' feet and to wipe them with the towel that was tied around him"

4. We know the damage caused by water, drowning and shipwrecks at sea. Then water also appears in destructive contexts where illness and death occur. For example:
   • Mt 8: 32: "And he said to them, "Go!" So they came out and entered the swine; and suddenly, the whole herd rushed down the steep bank into the sea and perished in the water (hydōr)."
   • 2 Pet 3: 6: (it refers to the story of Noah and the flood) "through which the world of that time was deluged with water (hydōr) and perished."

5. Finally, there are a few references to water, particularly using the plural, to simply refer to the ocean, or water sources, or water movements such as cataracts, and their attributes. For example:
   • Jas 3: 12: "Can a fig tree, my brothers and sisters, yield olives, or a grapevine figs? No more can salt water (hydōr) yield fresh."
   • Rev 1: 15: "his feet were like burnished bronze, refined as in a furnace, and his voice was like the sound of many waters (hydōr)"

What is the context for v. 28? Let us recall that Matthew has just told us that the boat has to face headwinds, and so we are in a rough sea, and in the next verse Peter gets scared, sinks into the water and cries out for help. So we are in a destructive vision of the waters where they are a threat to humanity, at least to the small group of disciples. The fate that may await them is that the sea will swallow them all up. We are indeed in a context of death.

But why is the word "water" in the plural form? In order to understand this, we have to place ourselves in the Jewish world. For the Hebrew word itself for water, mayim, is a duel. In fact, in Hebrew, in addition to the singular and plural, there is a duel form for objects that come in two, for example shoes or legs. The ending of these words then takes the form of the plural, which is found with mayim. This perception of water is due to the cosmology of antiquity:

Then God made the vault that separates the waters (mayim) from below from the waters (mayim) from above. And so it was (Gen 1: 7)

Thus, it is as if there had originally been a primordial ocean that God would have divided in two, creating a sea above the heavenly vault, source of rainwater, which would fit into the holes of the vault to fall to earth, and at ground level, oceans, rivers, cataracts. Water on earth was perceived as coming from multiple underground sources. The text of Revelation gives us several examples of this.

The third angel blew his trumpet, and a great star fell from heaven, blazing like a torch, and it fell on a third of the rivers and on the springs of water (hydōr) (Ap 8: 10)

The translator of the Septuagint, in translating mayim, sometimes opted for the singular, sometimes for the plural, depending on the object referred to. A good example is this text from Exodus 15:8 when it refers to the passage of the Red Sea at the exit from Egypt when the sea split in two, becoming a plural:

(LXX) In the breath of thy wrath the water (hydōr) has parted, the waters (hydōr) have risen up like a tower; the waves have grown strong in the midst of the sea.

Among the evangelists, only the Jew Matthew uses the plural to speak of the sea (in Jn 3:23 the plural is explained by a reference to the springs of water at Aenon, suitable for baptism). And the plural allows him to refer to certain citations of the Old Testament such as Psalm 76:20 which tells us about the passage of the Red Sea:

(LXX) Thy way is in the sea, and thy paths in the great waters (hydōr), and thy footsteps cannot be known.

In the Jewish world, God the creator dominates what he has created, and therefore he dominates the great waters. Since these destructive waters could have been a source of death for the Jewish people leaving Egypt, God made them a place of salvation. It is this context that must be kept in mind when reading our account of the walking on the waters.

Katapontizesthai is the verb katapontizō in the middle form of the present infinitive tense. It is formed from the preposition kata which describes a movement from top to bottom, and from the root which gave us the name pontos (the open sea, the wide), and therefore means: to submerge, with the idea of engulfing. It therefore has a negative connotation, because the desired final state is destruction. It is a very rare word, appearing only in Matthew throughout the New Testament, and sometimes in the Septuagint.

One of the two occurrences of the verb in Matthew is a substitution (underlined) for the verb "to throw away" received from Mark.

Mk 9: 42	Mt 18: 6
And who would put a stumbling block befre these little ones who believe, it is better for him if a millstone is put around his neck and if he is thrown (ballō) into the sea.	If any of you put a stumbling block before one of these little ones who believe in me, it would be better for you if a great millstone were fastened around your neck and you were drowned (katapontizō) in the depth of the sea.

We must think that Matthew considered it more appropriate to use katapontizō to express the idea of destroying evil by plunging the person into the sea. Why is that? Some passages from the Septuagint may have influenced him. Let us think of the well-known song of Moses in which he celebrates the victory of Yahweh over Pharaoh and his army, throwing them into the sea where they were submerged (LXX: katapontizō; heb. ṭābaʿ: sinking) (Ex 15:4); those who put a stumbling block will know the fate of the pagans, the Egyptians.

What about our v. 30 where Matthew uses katapontizō to describe Peter's situation? Two psalms of the Septuagint where we find this verb can help us to understand Matthew's intention. We have highlighted the vocabulary that is also found in our story.

Psalm 69 (LXX: 68)
2 Save me (sōzō), O my God, for the waters (hydōr) have entered into my soul.
3 I am stuck fast in deep mire, and there is no standing: I am come in to the depths of the sea (thalassa), and the storm has drowned (katapontizō, hebrew ṭābaʿ: sinking) me.
...
15 Save me (sōzō) out of the mire, that I may not stick in it. Deliver me from my enemies and from the depths of the waters (hydōr)
16 Let not the water (hydōr) that is lifted up by the storm drown (katapontizō, heb. šāṭap carry off); let not the abyss swallow me up; let not the stone of the well of the abyss close in on me.
17 Hear me, O Lord (kyrios), for your mercy is good; look upon me in the abundance of your compassion.

Psalm 124 (LXX: 123)
2 If the Lord (kyrios) had not been with us, when men rose up against us,
3 Perhaps they would have devoured us alive. When their fury erupted against us,
4 Perhaps their water (hydōr) would have drowned (katapontizō) heb. šāṭap: carry off) us.
5 This water (hydōr), our soul has passed through it; our soul has passed through this bottomless abyss.

Psalm 69 is the prayer of the person who is persecuted because of his faith in God, who cries out his distress and humiliation, and it is his faith that leads him to be sure of his salvation, so that he ends his prayer with a song of praise. As for Psalm 124, it is a collective prayer of a community that is grateful to the Lord for having delivered it. These two psalms could very well express what Matthew's community, despised by its Jewish co-religionists, experienced.

It is therefore not by chance that Matthew uses katapontizō to describe the situation of Peter, who represents the whole community: one is overwhelmed or submerged to the point of drowning, one can't take it anymore, one feels like one is dying.

Sōson is the verb sōzō in the aoristic imperative tense, 2nd person singular. In classical Greek, it means: to keep safe, to save, to preserve. As for the root "sōs", it refers to a situation where one saves from danger, disease, war, shipwreck (see André Myre, Nouveau vocabulaire théologique. Paris-Bayard: Bayard-Médiaspaul, 2004, pp. 477-478). The verb sōzō appears regularly among the evangelists (Mt = 15; Mk = 15; Lk = 17; Jn = 6; Acts = 13; 1Jn = 0; 2Jn = 0; 3Jn = 0) and in the rest of the New Testament.

To fully understand the meaning of this verb, we must first grasp its Old Testament context. Translators of the Septuagint have often translated by sōzō the Hebrew word yāšaʿ, which means: to save, to deliver, to help (we refer to Jean-Pierre Prévost, Nouveau vocabulaire théologique. p. 240-245). The context always refers to a precise danger, a catastrophe or a concrete and visible enemy from which one is delivered. Thus, in a number of books (i.e. Judges, Kings 1 and 2, and Samuel 1 and 2), salvation is synonymous with military and political victory. On the other hand, the book of Psalms emphasizes above all the individual experience of salvation: liberation from the aggressor, from the enemy, from bodily peril or anguish. With Deutero-Isaiah (ch. 40-66), we pass to a universalist, cosmic and eschatological vision of salvation. But, beyond the word yāšaʿ, it is the experience of having come out of the Egyptian hold under the leadership of Moses, and especially the return from the Babylon exile, which will mark the perception of salvation in the Jewish world. Indeed, it will be less and less a question of victory over the enemy than of reconstruction and national reconciliation. And even, with Isaiah, an ecumenical perspective develops in which deliverance is offered to all nations (Isiah 49:6).

Note that several names have been formed from the Hebrew root yshʿ: Yehôshûaʿ (Joshua and Jesus: "Yahweh saves"), Yeshaʿyahû (Isaiah: "He, Yahweh, saves") and Hôsheaʿ (Hosea: "He saves").

It is from this context that we must try to understand the New Testament and in particular the Gospels. When we review the occurrences of the verb sōzō in the New Testament, we note that the word can take on four different major meanings.

1. It is to be saved from physical death which the word sōzō designates above all in the gospel-Acts, at least in the synoptic accounts. For examples:
   • Mk 3: 4: "Then he said to them, "Is it lawful to do good or to do harm on the sabbath, to save (sōzō) life or to kill?" But they were silent."
   • Mt 16: 25: "For those who want to save (sōzō) their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will find it."

2. Without going as far as physical death, the verb sōzō can refer to a liberation from different forms of evil, from physical illness to moral or social illness, such as marginalization. For example:
   • Mk 5: 28: "for she said, "If I but touch his clothes, I will be saved (sōzō)"
   • Lk 19: 10: (story about Zacchaeus) "For the Son of Man came to seek out and to save (sōzō) the lost."

3. Jesus' preaching focused on the reign of God, which was a reality belonging to the near future, but already present through His action. This future reality was associated with the Day of the Lord, also called the Day of the Judgment of God, a reality well known in recent Judaism, especially in apocalyptic circles. From then on sōzō will take on a new meaning: it is about being saved from God's judgment when the day comes, also called "wrath", and entering his kingdom at the end of time. And to be saved, there are a number of conditions. For example, there are a number of conditions to be saved:
   • Mk 13: 13: "and you will be hated by all because of my name. But the one who endures to the end will be saved (sōzō)."
   • Acts 2: 21: "Then everyone who calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved (sōzō)"

4. Finally, while awaiting the coming of God's reign in the near future, Paul speaks of a reality present through the love of God poured out in the believer's heart and a life in the Spirit, so that believers are already saved. At the same time, there are conditions for "remaining saved" at the coming of the Lord Jesus. For example:
   • 1 Cor 1: 18: "For the message about the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved (sōzō) it is the power of God"
   • 1 Cor 15: 2: "through which also you are being saved (sōzō), if you hold firmly to the message that I proclaimed to you - unless you have come to believe in vain"

You can see the whole evolution of the meaning of sōzō. In the Old Testament, it is primarily about being saved, either individually or collectively, from imminent peril, especially from enemies and persecutors. But with the Gospels, without there necessarily being any persecutors, salvation expands to include physical, moral and spiritual evils. Then, just as Jesus preached the imminence of God's reign, salvation now includes escaping God's judgment and entering the world of God at the end times. Finally, with faith in the risen Christ, we began to speak of a salvation that the believer already achieves by escaping from the world of darkness and entering into life in the Spirit, awaiting the final salvation at the return of the risen Christ; the notion of salvation has been totally spiritualized. If we limit ourselves to the Gospel-Acts, we obtain the following table:

	Matthew	Mark	Luke	John	Acts	Total
1. Physical death	8	7	7	2	2	26
2. Current evil	3	4	6	1	4	18
3. Having a share in the future kingdom	3	4	4	3	7	21
4. New life today	1	0	0	0	0	1
Total	15	15	17	6	13	66

Let's make a few points:

• In the Gospels, especially the synoptic ones, being saved from physical death dominates largely
• If we combine the fact of being torn from physical death and the various current evils, both physical and moral, we obtain for the Gospel-Actes the 2/3 of the occurrences of sōzō.
• Even though the notion of God's judgment at the end of time and the resurrection of the dead already existed in Judaism, it was the Gospel-Acts that introduced the idea of salvation as the entry into the kingdom of God at the end of time, no doubt because of the emphasis of Jesus' own preaching
• The Acts of the Apostles emphasized this point of access to the future kingdom by adding the condition of joining the Christian community through baptism.
• St. Paul's idea of an already present salvific reality, a new life as a premise for the future reign of God, is not found as such in the Gospel-Acts. A passage like Mt 1:21 (he will save his people from their sins) or Lk 1:77 (to give his people the knowledge of salvation through the forgiveness of their sins) projects into the infancy narrative what will later become part of Christian preaching

Let us now turn to Matthew. Most of the occurrences of sōzō in his gospel come from Mark's accounts that he copied. There is a first exception when he adds sōzō to the account he receives from Mark:

Mk 5: 34	Mt 9: 22b
He (Jesus) said to her: "(My) daughter, your faith has saved you: go in peace and be healed of your infirmity."	Jesus ...said, "Take courage, daughter; your faith has saved you." And instantly the woman was saved (sōzō).

Why would Matthew have changed Mark's phrase (go in peace and be healed of your infirmity) to: and instantly the woman was saved. The answer is probably this:

1. adding the verb "to save" a second time links to the first "to save", and thus to the whole sentence: your faith has saved you; it is a way of emphasizing the importance of the role of faith;
2. and by adding "instantly", he emphasizes the power of Jesus' word, which acts immediately, and thus emphasizes the power of faith.

We will have noted in passing the expression "take courage" (tharsei) in Matthew, which we saw earlier in v.27, which appears here in a context of faith.

Another exception is where Matthew adds sōzō to the account of the stilling storm that he receives from Mark:

Mk 4: 38	Mt 8: 25-26a
And he (Jesus) was at the bow, on the cushion, sleeping. And they awakened him and said to him: "Teacher, do you not care that we perish?"	And when they came near, they awakened him, saying: Lord, save, we perish. "And he said to them: "Why are you fearful, (men) of little faith?"

The accent of the two versions of the stilling storm is totally different. In Mark the emphasis is on Jesus' silence and his apparent indifference to what is happening, no doubt an echo of what the persecuted community in Rome is experiencing. In Matthew, the emphasis is on the lack of faith; we are in front of a prayer, with the expression "Lord" and the imperative "save", but a prayer born of fear. For Matthew, fear is the opposite of faith.

All this brings us to our v. 30 which is unique to Matthew and where we find the same verb in the imperative: save. Let us note that in Mt 8:25 and here in Mt 14:30 the verb sōzō is in both cases in the imperative 2nd person singular, and in both cases in the mouth of someone who cries out: "Help". All this is unique to Matthew (elsewhere, there is Mark who presents people inviting Jesus on the cross to save himself, or John (12:27) who presents a Jesus who refuses to ask to be saved from the hour of the cross). What does Peter want to be saved from? Just as in Mt 8:25 he wants to be saved from drowning, and therefore from physical death, one of the great themes of the New Testament.

But for Matthew, the source of this call for "help" can only be the lack of faith.

Ekteinas is the verb ekteinō in the singular masculine nominative aoristic participle tense, agreeing with the subject Jesus. Throughout the New Testament, it appears only in the Gospel-Acts : Mt = 6; Mk = 3; Lk = 3; Jn = 1; Acts = 3; 1Jn = 0; 2Jn = 0; 3Jn = 0. In addition, of the 16 occurrences, 15 belong to the expression "stretching the hand" (the only exception being Acts 27: 30 where the term "stretching out the anchors from the bow of the ship" is used).

The expression "stretching the hand" is found in different contexts.

• Jesus stretches his hand over a sick man to touch him and heal him: "Moved with pity, Jesus stretched (ekteinō) out his hand and touched him, and said to him, 'I do choose. Be made clean!'" (Mk 1, 41)
• A paralytic is asked to stretch his hand to show that he is cured: "He looked around at them with anger; he was grieved at their hardness of heart and said to the man, "Stretch (ekteinō) out your hand." He stretched (ekteinō) it out, and his hand was restored." (Mk 3: 5)
• One stretches out one's hand to point to people and point out the ones you're talking about: "And stretching (ekteinō) out his hand to his disciples, he said, 'Here are my mother and my brothers!'" (Mt 12: 49)
• One stretches a hand or hands to physically grasp a person, either to help or to stop him: "When I was with you day after day in the temple, you did not stretch (ekteinō) out the hands on me. But this is your hour, and the power of darkness!" (Lk 22: 53)
• One stretches one's hand to grasp an object: "Suddenly, one of those with Jesus, having stretched (ekteinō) out the hand, drew his sword, and struck the slave of the high priest, cutting off his ear" (Mt 26: 51)
• One stretches one's hands to give space for the action fron another person around one's waist to put on a belt, especially when wearing a loose dress: "Very truly, I tell you, when you were younger, you used to fasten your own belt and to go wherever you wished. But when you grow old, you will stretch (ekteinō) out your hands, and someone else will fasten a belt around you and take you where you do not wish to go" (Jn 21: 18)
• One stretches one's hand to let it be known that one wishes to speak and obtain silence: "Agrippa said to Paul, "You have permission to speak for yourself." Then Paul stretched (ekteinō) out his hand and began to defend himself" (Acts 26: 1)

Here, in v. 31, the gesture of stretching out the hand is intended to take hold of Peter and prevent him from drowning. In Judaism, to speak of extending the hand refers to the idea of intervening, of acting, of taking action. In the Septuagint, the verb ekteinō is often used with God as the subject. For example, in Exodus 7:5 God's initiative to free his people is expressed as follows: LXX "And all the Egyptians shall know that I am the Lord who stretched out my hand (ekteinōn tēn cheira) in the land of Egypt, and from among this people I will bring forth the children of Israel".

We pointed out the negative perception of water, waves and the sea in the Jewish world. The gesture of Jesus, as Lord, to stretch out his hand, is the very hand of God who intervenes to save his people from the enemy and from evil. Moreover, let us note that the sentence begins with "immediately" (eutheōs): the answer to Peter's prayer is immediate.

Oligopiste is the adjective oligopistos with the singular masculine vocative form. The word is in the vocative because it is a call for attention. It is composed of two words: the adjective oligos (little, small) and the adjective pistos (faithful, worthy of faith, believer), and therefore means: little faithful. But Matthew makes it play the role of a noun, and therefore it must be translated : (man) of little faith, or little faithful (man). It is found nowhere else in the whole Bible except in Matthew and Luke: Mt = 4; Mk = 0; Lk = 1; Jk = 0; Acts = 0; 1Jn = 0; 2Jn = 0; 3Jn = 0.

We are probably looking at a word made up by the first generation of Christians. It was introduced in the Gospels through Document Q (Lk 12:28; Mt 6:30) when Jesus invites the disciples not to worry about food and clothing: for if God sees to it that the birds have enough to eat and that flowers such as lilies are well dressed, why do the disciples worry so much about tomorrow's food and clothing? All this indicates that they are people of little faith.

But Matthew took up this term again and expanded it, probably because it was in line with one of his favorite theological themes. So he took the liberty of adding it to the stories he received from Mark.

Mk 4: 38-39	Mt 8: 25-26
And he (Jesus) was at the bow, on the cushion, sleeping. And they awakened him and said to him: "Teacher, do you not care that we perish?" And when he awoke, he rebuked the wind and said to the sea: "Be quiet! Silence!" And the wind fell and there came a great calm	And when they came near, they awakened him, saying: "Lord, save, we perish." And he said to them: "Why are you fearful, (men) of little faith (oligopistos)?" Then he arose and rebuked the winds and the sea, and there came a great calm.
Mk 8: 17a	Mt 16: 8-9a
And knowing this, he said to them, "Why are you discussing that you have no bread? Do you still not understand...?	But knowing this, Jesus said, "Why are you discussing within yourselves, (people) of little faith (oligospistos) that you have no bread? You do not understand yet?

If Matthew takes the liberty of modifying the account he receives from Mark to add the expression "people of little faith", it is because he sees this as one of the major problems among some Christians. It seems to him that when a Christian is afraid, afraid of running out of food or not having the right clothes, afraid of the adversity or opposition he may encounter, and that this takes up all the attention, then it is a sign that he does not have the faith required of the true believer.

One cannot speak of the word oligopistos without mentioning his twin sister: oligopistia. The only difference is that the first is an adjective, and the second is a feminine noun that basically means the same thing: little faith. It is possible that it is a word created by Matthew himself. But what is certain is that it reflects Matthew's view that lack of faith is a fundamental problem of the community. Indeed, oligopistia appears after the account of the transfiguration, and after the disciples were confronted with their failure to face an epileptic child whose demon they were unable to root out and heal him. Then they ask Jesus why they failed. Let us compare Jesus' answer according to Mark and Matthew:

Mk 9: 29	Mt 17: 20
And Jesus said to them, "This species can come out by nothing but prayer"	Jesus said to them: "Because of your little faith (oligopistia), for verily I say to you, if you have faith like a grain of mustard seed, you will say to this mountain, 'Go from here to there,' and it will go away, and nothing will be impossible for you."

What Mark's version says: Only God can perform certain healings through prayer. Matthew's version rather says: you are capable of it, if only you had the faith to lift the mountains. Once again, all this shows how faith is a central element of Christian faith in Matthew.

It is in this context that we must read our v. 31 where Matthew again presents us with the expression "little faith", but this time addressed to Peter. One may be surprised and even shocked that Matthew has the audacity to present the spokesman for the disciples as a man of little faith. But this is his way of emphasizing the vital role of faith, and that no matter what role one person plays in the community, no matter how important, all must follow the path of unshakeable trust in the presence and support of the risen Christ.

Ekopasen is the verb kopazō in the indicative aoristic tense, 3rd person singular. Literally it means: to get tired, to calm down, to stop. It is practically absent from the New Testament. Mark seems to have introduced this verb for the scene of the stilling storm and walking on water, taken up by Matthew: Mt = 1; Mk = 2; Lk = 0; Jn = 0; Acts = 0; 1Jn = 0; 2Jn = 0; 3Jn = 0.

Also, we must turn to the Septuagint to get a better idea of how this verb is used. Now, we notice that kopazō concerns three different realities.

1. It concerns first of all the elements of nature.
   • For example, with the story of the flood, it is used to describe the fact that the water has stopped rising, and instead it is retreating: LXX "And God remembered Noe, and all the wild beasts, and all the cattle, and all the birds, and all the reptiles that creep, as many as were with him in the ark, and God brought a wind upon the earth, and the water ceased (kopazō)" (Gen 8: 1)
   • It is God's destructive fire that stops: LXX "And the people cried to Moses: and Moses prayed to the Lord, and the fire ceased (kopazō)." (Num 11; 2), or an epidemic sent to punish the sinful people: LXX "And he stood between the dead and the living, and the plague ceased (kopazō)" (Num 17: 13); this is also what Pincas is trying to stop: LXX Then Phinees stood up, and made atonement: and the plague ceased (kopazō) (Ps 106 (105), 30)
   • In the story of Jonah, the raging sea is calmed when the prophet is thrown into the water: LXX And Jonas said to them, Take me up, and cast me into the sea, and the sea shall be abated (kopazō): for I know that for my sake this great tempest is upon you (Jon 1: 12)

   Thus, nature appears as a hostile force, associated with the evil that humans have done, which must now be appeased and stopped.

2. It also concerns human beings in their destructive moods.
   • It was Samson who was furious, taking revenge on the Philistines: LXX "And Sampson said to them, Though ye may have dealt thus with her, verily I will be avenged of you, and afterwards I will cease (kopazō)" (Judg 15: 7)
   • It's King David stopping his rage against Absalom: LXX "And king David ceased (kopazō) to go out after Abessalom, for he was comforted concerning Amnon, touching his death" (2 Sam 13: 39)
   • It is the people of Israel who sin and whom Ezekiel wishes to see changed: LXX "And thou, son of man, shew the house to the house of Israel, that they may cease (kopazō) from their sins; and shew its aspect and the arrangement of it" (Ezek 43: 10)
   • It's the king's fury we're appeasing: LXX "So Aman was hanged on the gallows that had been prepared for Mardochaeus: and then the king's wrath ceased (kopazō)" (Esth 7: 10)
   • It's the shameless man who must stop: LXX "All bread is sweet to a whoremonger, he will not cease (kopazō) off till he die." (Sir 23: 17)

3. Finally, it is God's anger at evil that needs to be appeased.
   • For example, in a period of drought seen as a punishment from God, Jeremiah makes a prayer: LXX "Cease (kopazō) for thy name's sake, destroy not the throne of thy glory: remember, break not thy covenant with us" (Jer 14: 21)
   • In a similar drought situation where fire is spreading, Amos has this vision: LXX "Then I said, O Lord, cease (kopazō), I pray thee: who shall raise up Jacob? for he is small in number. Repent, O Lord, for this" (Am 7: 5)
   • One of God's instruments in his anger is the wind: LXX "There be spirits that are created for vengeance, which in their fury lay on sore strokes; in the time of destruction they pour out their force, and abated (kopazō) the wrath of him that made them." (Sir 39: 28)

This long detour through the Septuagint makes us aware of one thing: kopazō is always associated with a destructive force that we try to contain. And according to the mentality of antiquity, of which Judaism is an example, the destructive forces of nature take their source in the anger of God who expresses his feelings in the face of evil.

All this gives us a context for understanding our v. 31, especially the beginning of the story of Jonah (Jonah 1:1-16). Let us remember that the Lord sent him to Nineveh to preach his word and ask for his conversion. But the prophet flees on a ship to Tarshish. Then the Lord throws such a strong wind on the sea that the ship is in danger of breaking up. The crew consults the spells that designated Jonah as responsible for God's wrath. They cast Jonah into the sea, and immediately the sea stood still. This story most likely influenced the story that has been told in two versions with a similar theme, the stilling storm and the walking on the waters. For we are in front of a raging sea, a symbol of evil, which threatens to destroy the boat and its occupants. In the story of Jonah, the sailors pray to the Lord before eliminating the one who has displeased him, and then calm is achieved; calm is linked with a certain synchronicity with God. In the story of walking on the waters, calm is achieved when Jesus becomes present in the boat, symbol of the faith regained, and therefore of a certain synchronization with God.

We will have noticed that, contrary to the story of the calm storm, Jesus does not make any exorcism gesture to ask the wind to stop. The wind stops when Jesus gets into the boat. Now, Jesus can only get into the boat by faith. Matthew's message is clear to his community: "As long as you do not allow yourself to be guided by faith, the sea of opposition will continue to frighten you, for you will only feel a certain serenity when in faith you let the Lord Jesus enter the Church that you are". What is this faith? V. 33 gives us the answer.

Prosekynēsan is the verb proskyneō in the indicative aorist tense, 3rd person plural, because the subject is: the disciples. Apart from Matthew, John and Revelation, it is not very frequent in the New Testament, and especially in the Gospel-Acts : Mt = 13; Mk = 2; Lk = 3; Jn = 11; Acts = 4; 1Jn = 0; 2Jn = 0; 3Jn = 0. But even the number of occurrences is deceptive in John, for of the 11 presences of the verb, 9 appear in the dialogue with the Samaritan woman where the place of worship is discussed (proskyneō).

What does this verb mean? Usually it is translated as: to prostrate oneself. In the ancient Eastern world, one would kneel down and touch the ground with his forehead to express his reverence before someone, for example a king or ruler; it is a way of acknowledging his authority and promising obedience. In the religious world, it will be a way of expressing one's reverence to the deity, of worshipping him, which the Latins will express with the word: to adore, worship or venerate. But sometimes, at a less extreme level, the verb can be used to express respect for someone or to greet him respectfully. What about the New Testament?

1. To prostrate before God

   When the object of prostration is God, proskyneō is very often synonymous with worship, as shown in the following passage from Document Q :

   Jesus answered him, "It is written, ' Prostrate (proskyneō) before the Lord your God, and serve only him.'" (Lk 4: 8 || Mt 4: 10)

   The idea of expressing devotion or reverence to God is often expressed by the verb "to worship" as seen in the way in which several biblical translations, including the NRSV, translate the story of the Samaritan woman. For example:

   Our ancestors worshiped (proskyneō) on this mountain, but you say that the place where people must worship (proskyneō) is in Jerusalem (Jn 4: 20)

   Or the idea of worship can be expressed by "to be on a pilgrimage" as the Jerusalem Bible did. For example:

   So he set off on his journey. Now it happened that an Ethiopian had been on pilgrimage (proskyneō) to Jerusalem; he was a eunuch and an officer at the court of the kandake, or queen, of Ethiopia, and was in fact her chief treasurer (Acts 8: 27)

2. To prostrate before another person

   When the object is another person, prostrating oneself expresses a respectful homage to the other: out of respect, one puts the other in a position of superiority by throwing oneself on the floor. This is what Cornelius does in front of Peter, but the latter will take it up again by saying: "I too am only a man".

   On Peter's arrival Cornelius met him, and falling at his feet, prostrated (proskyneō) before him. (Acts 10: 25)

   Above all, it is before a sovereign that one prostrates oneself, and this is what the Roman soldiers will do in derision before Jesus, after having clothed him with a king's robe and a crown of thorns:

   They struck his head with a reed, spat upon him, and knelt down prostrating (proskyneō) before him. (Mk 15: 19)

   Prostration is also used to express an intense supplication: one humbles oneself, one recognizes the greatness of the one to whom one makes the request :

   So the slave, falling, prostrated (proskyneō) before him, saying, 'Have patience with me, and I will pay you everything.' (Mt 18: 26)

   The gesture of prostrating oneself expresses fundamentally the submission to someone else, the recognition of his authority and the commitment to obey him. This is what the devil clearly asks of Jesus:

   If you, then, will prostrate (proskyneō) before me, it will all be yours." (Lk 4: 7)

3. To prostrate before Jesus

   The interpretation of this gesture is more complex. For the Gospels were written on the basis of faith in the resurrection of Jesus and that God made him Lord, sitting at his right hand, i.e. sharing his privileges. Depending on whether the emphasis is on the historical Jesus or the resurrected Lord, proskyneō will take on a different meaning.

   But it can rarely be a simple sign of greeting, because even in situations where it would be appropriate, the words used suggest more. Take the example of the demonic behavior of a man from the Decapolis, where Mark writes: "When he saw Jesus from a distance, he ran and prostrated (proskyneō) before him" (Mk 5:6). All this seems rather banal. But the following verse brings a specific light: "With a loud voice he cries out, 'What are you meddling with, Jesus, Son of the Most High God?" Even if this last expression does not have all the meaning that it would later take on in the Christian creed, it nevertheless expresses a privileged relationship with God, and therefore the gesture of prostrating oneself is intended to recognize a certain greatness in Jesus. Likewise, when Matthew writes: "Then the mother of the sons of Zebedee came to him with her sons, and prostrated (proskyneō) before him, she asked a favor of him" (Mt 20:20). At first glance, one may have the impression that this was simply a gesture of politeness and courtesy. But what follows points us in another direction: "He said to her, 'What do you want?' 'Command,' she said, 'that in your kingdom my two sons sit, one on your right hand and one on your left'" (Mt 20:21). Jesus is presented as a Lord who will reign in the Kingdom of God. Jesus is not presented as an ordinary being. Also "to prostrate" expresses the recognition of a form of lordship.

   On a few occasions, "prostrating oneself" appears in situations of intense supplication. For example:

   But she came and prostrated (proskyneō) before him, saying, "Lord, help me." (Mt 15: 25)

   Most of the time, in Matthew, this supplication is addressed to Jesus as Lord.

   Again in Matthew, we see the verb "to prostrate" three times in his infancy narrative. For example:

   On entering the house, they saw the child with Mary his mother; and falling they prostrated (proskyneō) before him. Then, opening their treasure chests, they offered him gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh (Mt 2: 11)

   The gifts offered are royal gifts, and therefore "prostrating" means the recognition by the Magi that Jesus is their sovereign, their king. With good reason some Bibles have translated proskyneō as: paying homage. All this assumes a look of faith. In John there is only one instance of proskyneō that is addressed to Jesus, and it is in a context of faith:

   He said, "Lord, I believe." And he prostrated (proskyneō) before him (Jn 9: 38)

   Otherwise, proskyneō appears in scenes after Easter and concern the resurrected Jesus. For example:

   Suddenly Jesus met them and said, "Greetings!" And they came to him, took hold of his feet, and prostrated (proskyneō) before him (Mt 28: 9)

   Therefore, unless it is in the context of an instant healing prayer, proskyneō should be interpreted as an expression of faith in Jesus as known after his resurrection.

Let's get back to Matthew. In the Gospels, he's the one who uses proskyneō the most. Not only is he the one who uses this verb the most, but out of the 13 occurrences 10 are addressed to Jesus, and these ten occurrences are his own. This is Matthew's expression of a high theology, where Jesus is presented under his divine figure. Also, we must read our v. 33 in this context: the Jesus before whom the disciples prostrate in the boat is the Jesus known after Easter, the one who shares the prerogatives of God. It is useless to try to obtain a video of the scene: one would be very embarrassed to find room in the small boat for all the disciples to lie down on the floor in a prostrate gesture. Matthew is in the world of catechesis and faith.

The expression theou huios is surprising, because theou (God) is a singular masculine genitive, therefore the complement of the noun huios (son), which is in the singular masculine nominative form: the noun's complement precedes the noun it completes, and therefore instead of having "son of God", we have here : "of God son". Since the sentence ends with the verb to be, we must translate: of God son you are. Of all the evangelists, Matthew is the only one to use this construction. Here are two other passages:

• Mt 27: 43: "He trusts in God; let God deliver him now, if he wants to; for he said, 'I am God's Son ( theou eimi huios ).'"
• Mt 27: 54: "Now when the centurion and those with him, who were keeping watch over Jesus, saw the earthquake and what took place, they were terrified and said, "Truly this man was God's Son (theou huios)!'"

Why this reversal of the normal order? We reverse the order of an expression in a language when we want to emphasize one of the words, usually the first one. For example, if I say of someone: the prince of Siberia, I emphasize the fact that he is a prince, and Siberia only specifies on which territory he is a prince. But if I say: of Siberia, he is the prince, I emphasize the immense territory of Siberia, and the word "prince" just clarifies who plays a role in that territory. One might guess that this is Matthew's intention: to emphasize God is to emphasize the person whose son he is, as if he were saying, "Be aware? It is of God that he is the son. The three occurrences of this inversion are accompanied by the verb "to be". Let us not forget that Matthew has a high theology, in which he insists on the transcendent side of Jesus.

In the rest of the Bible there are two other occurrences of this inversion, 2 Corinthians 1:19 and Wisdom 18:13 where the author refers to the people of Israel. But the same logic on what is sought to be emphasized prevails.

Now, let us ask ourselves the question: what does the expression "son of God" mean in Matthew? Unfortunately, the word son has multiple meanings. The clearest is the biological meaning, for example: the mother of the sons of Zebedee (Mt 27:56). But there is also the genealogical lineage, for example: Jesus is sometimes called "son of David" (e.g. Mt 9:27), not because he is a biological son, but according to his genealogy he would have King David as his ancestor. Then there is the group or race to which one belongs, for example: the sons of Israel (Mt 27:9). We can add this meaning that comes from the allegiance at the level of ideas and values to a master or a group of people, for example: the sons of the Pharisees (Mt 12:27). Within the setting of these categories, where is the expression "sons of God" to be found? In the strictest sense, it could be an adherence to the values that we believe have God as their source. But if people can call themselves "sons of God", is this what Matthew and the other evangelists mean with respect to Jesus?

The Old Testament

In order to fully understand what this is all about, we must start with the Old Testament universe. It is possible that this universe integrated from the Greco-Roman world or from the surrounding peoples a multiplicity of gods, supra-human powers, while submitting them to the one God, called ʾēl, or to the plural of majesty ĕlōhîm, of which one of the possible etymologies would be the root ʾōl (powerful being, pre-eminent being) (see Jean-Pierre Prévost, ēl, Nouveau vocabulaire biblique. Paris-Montréal: Bayard-Médiaspaul, 2004, p. 125).

Thus Genesis tells us of the sons of God who would have mated with women of the earth to give birth to giants, famous men (Genesis 6:2-4). To speak of "sons of God" here means to share a little of God's power and pre-eminence. When Psalm 82:1 says, "God stood in the assembly of the gods," we can think that these "gods" are either heavenly beings, angels, or earthly judges. Whatever the case, they are always beings endowed with a certain authority, and therefore share a divine privilege. When the Septuagint encounters the Hebrew expression "sons of God," it will often translate it as angels, for example Job 1:6: LXX "Now in one of those days the angels of God (hoi angeloi tou theou, Heb. benê ĕlōhîm: sons of God) came to appear before the Lord, and the devil came with them" (see also Job 2:1; 38:7; Ps 29:1).

But there is one office in particular that deserves the title of son of God, that of king. Thus, at his enthronement, Ps 2:7 was recited: "Let me quote the decree of the Lord; he said to me, 'You are my son. Today I have begotten you". We can speak of spiritual filiation or adoption, inasmuch as God delegates some of his privileges to the king to exercise his role of judging and governing. And among these royal sons of God, stands out the figure of the Messiah or Christ (anointed), a descendant of David, according to the author of 2 Samuel 7:14 where God gives this message to the prophet Nathan that he must transmit to King David, a message in which he assures him a long descent, and of his successor and of all his successors he says : LXX "I will be a father to him, and he shall be a son to me; and if any iniquity befalls him, I will chasten him with the rod that chastises men, and I will strike him with the blows that are dealt to the sons of men". Thus, in spite of the hazards of royalty, in spite of exile and the presence of foreign forces, faith in the promise of God of a figure like David has been maintained, as Psalm 132:17: LXX (131) sings: "There will I cause to spring up a horn to David, there I have prepared a lamp for my Christ (Christos, Heb. māšîaḥ: Messiah)".

In the Old Testament, the people of Israel are also called sons of God. Why are they called sons of God? We are no longer before beings who share a certain authority. Rather, it is God's choice, according to the implication of Hosea 11:1: "When Israel was young, I loved him, and out of Egypt I called my son". And God commits himself to watch over this son: "The number of the sons of Israel will be like the sand of the sea, which cannot be measured or counted; it will happen that at the place where they were told, 'You are not my people', they will be told, 'Son of the living God'" (Hos 2:1). This is a tradition found almost everywhere in the Old Testament, for example Exodus 4:22: "You shall say to Pharaoh, Thus says the Lord, My firstborn son is Israel" (see also Isaiah 1:2; Jeremiah 3:19; Deuteronomy 32:6; Malachi 1:6). According to the Greek Esther, this is one of the reasons why the Persian king Artaxerxes, in his edict to all the subjects of his kingdom, asks them to help the Jews to repel those who will attack them:

and being the sons of the living God (huioi zōvtos theou), the most high and mighty, who maintains the kingdom, to us as well as to our forefathers, in the most excellent order (Est 8: 12q)

It also happens that some individuals are called "sons of God". This is the case of the righteous, i.e. those who are faithful to the covenant made with God and expressed by His Law.

"For if the just man be the son of God (huios theou), he will help him, and deliver him from the hand of his enemies" (Wis 2: 18)

Thus, at the dawn of the period of the evangelists, the title " Son of God " could designate the king messiah, the whole Jewish people, or individuals considered just before God. They were sons because of a spiritual filiation initiated by God himself, in which they expressed the salvific and compassionate dimension of God, and the privilege they could boast of was that of being supported and protected by God.

The Gospels

In the New Testament, the title "Son of God" applies only to Jesus. But this is not the title that is most often attributed to him, the title of Messiah or Christ being much more common.

Let us look at the evangelists. The occurrences of "Son of God" or equivalent expressions (Son of the Father, my son, only son, the Son) are established as follows: Mt = 13; Mk = 8; Lk = 10; Jn = 24; Acts = 1; 1Jn = 8; 2Jn = 0; 3Jn = 0. According to these numbers, there is a gradation that begins with Mark and reaches its climax with John.

What is meant by "Son of God" when the title refers to Jesus? For the period of Jesus, our only clue as to what the title could mean is an isolated and obscure text from Qumran (4Q246) that alludes to a Son of God, perhaps a messianic figure. In fact, several times in the Gospels the title "Son of God" is accompanied by the title Messiah or Christ, as if they were synonymous. This is how Mark's Gospel begins: "Beginning of the Gospel of Jesus Christ (christos), Son of God (huiou Theou)". And all the evangelists present texts where Messiah (Christos) and Son of God are in apposition:

• Mk 14, 61: "But he was silent and did not answer. Again the high priest asked him, 'Are you the Messiah, the Son of the Blessed One (huios tou eulogētou)?'"
• Lk 4: 41: "Demons also came out of many, shouting, "You are the Son of God (huios tou theou)!" But he rebuked them and would not allow them to speak, because they knew that he was the Messiah."
• Mt 16: 16: "Simon Peter answered, "You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God (huios tou theou to zōntos)"
• Jn 20: 31: "But these are written so that you may come to believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God (huios tou theou), and that through believing you may have life in his name."

Moreover, the election of Jesus at his baptism of which Mark 1:11 speaks ("And a voice came from heaven, "You are my Son (huios mou), the Beloved; with you I am well pleased"), taken up by Matthew and Luke, is a way for the evangelist to affirm that Jesus was chosen to fulfill his messianic mission, just like the enthronement of a king expressed in Ps 2:7. This election will be confirmed before his disciples in the transfiguration (Mk 9:7) where God presents him as the prophet to be listened to.

But, as we can well guess, the title "Son of God" is not only synonymous with the Messiah. Here we must follow each evangelist in the clues they give us.

Mark

With Mark, let us note first of all that only supernatural beings are capable of identifying him as a "son of God" during his lifetime, because this is not a reality that can be observed by a human being. Thus, Mark 1:21-28 tells us that an unclean spirit, about to be expelled from a man, will say, "What have you to do with us, Jesus of Nazareth? Have you come to destroy us? I know who you are, the Holy One of God (hagios tou theou)". Thus, he who comes from God has authority over the evil that is sickness (Mk 1:24; see also 3:11; 5:7). Finally, there is the centurion's confession: "Truly this man was a son of God (huios theou)" (15:39). On what basis can he make such a statement? Jesus has just called upon God ("My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?"), and God intervened with darkness for three hours, and especially with the veil of the sanctuary being torn, confirming the word about the destruction of the temple. Jesus is a son of God, not only because he is the Messiah chosen by God, but he shares with God the authority over evil, and God intervened at his prayer.

Luke

First of all, Luke shares the general perception that Jesus is a son of God because he is the Messiah, that promised king from the line of David: "He will be great, and will be called the Son of the Most High (huios hypsistou), and the Lord God will give to him the throne of his ancestor David" (1:32). In the same way, he takes up Mark's assertions about Jesus' authority over evil through his healings, and that in this supernatural beings recognize that he is the Son of God. But Luke adds two attributes to the son of God. First of all, through the account of the temptation of Jesus (4:1-13) which he receives from Document Q, he presents the Son of God as the one who remains totally faithful to his messianic mission and to God, unlike the Israelites in the desert, and therefore is personally victorious over evil by totally assuming his human condition, by refusing power with the related wealth, by refusing a way that would allow him to avoid death; in short, Jesus shows himself to be a son of God by being fully and poorly human. But there is a second attribute that is perhaps even more important: "The angel said to her, "The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you; therefore the child to be born will be holy; he will be called Son of God (huios theou)" (1:35). It is because he is filled with the Holy Spirit that he is able to emerge victorious from his battle against Satan and evil: "Jesus, filled with the Holy Spirit, returned from the Jordan and was led by the Spirit through the wilderness" (4:1). And if he is able to carry out his messianic mission to the end, it is because of this Spirit of God: "The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring the good news" (4:18). And in the Acts of the Apostles, as a son of God, he will pour out the Spirit into the world (2:1-36).

Matthew

In Matthew we find more or less the same attributes of the Son of God that we were able to identify in Mark and Luke: he is Son of God as Messiah, he is Son of God by his authority over the evil of the disease that supernatural beings perceive well, he is Son of God because he is faithful to the will of God as the scene of the temptation in the desert showed. But he will draw attention to two other attributes. The first is the presentation of the Son of God as one who trusts in God completely and as the one whom God cares for eminently: "He trusts in God; let God deliver him now, if he wants to; for he said, 'I am God's Son ( theou eimi huios )" (27:43); this is a reference to Ps 22:9, the psalm that Jesus began to recite (My God, my God, why have you forsaken me). But above all there is the general authority over the forces of evil represented by the dominion over nature such as walking on the waters (14:22-33), and the earthquake at his death (27:51), and above all represented by the evil par excellence that is death (the bodies of many who died rose from the dead, 27:52): "Now when the centurion and those with him, who were keeping watch over Jesus, saw the earthquake and what took place, they were terrified and said, "Truly this man was God's Son (theou huios)!" (27: 54).

John

In John there are elements similar to those found in the other evangelists, such as the apposition of the title "Son of God" and Messiah: "She said to him, "Yes, Lord, I believe that you are the Messiah, the Son of God (huios tou theou), the one coming into the world" (11:27). In the same way, as we have seen in Luke, the Son of God is the one who received the Holy Spirit: "And I did not know him, but he who sent me to baptize in water said to me, 'He on whom you will see the Spirit descending and dwelling, this is he who baptizes in the Holy Spirit. And I have seen and bear witness that this is the Son of God (huios tou theou)" (1:33-34). But John takes us to another register when he speaks to us of the "only Son" (3:16,18), and above all he presents this Son as the Word of God who became flesh and a perfect reflection of God: "And he who sees me sees him who sent me" (12:45); "Very truly, I tell you, the Son (huios) can do nothing on his own, but only what he sees the Father doing; for whatever the Father does, the Son (huios) does likewise." (5:19); "For just as the Father has life in himself, so he has granted the Son (huios) also to have life in himself" (5:26). And it is this capacity to give life that will provoke in his adversaries the desire to kill him and culminate in this accusation before Pilate: "The Jews answered him, "We have a law, and according to that law he ought to die because he has claimed to be the Son of God (huios tou theou)" (19:7). Thus, for John, Jesus is this only Son because he is the true revealer of what God is, and this revelation is the source of a unique life for the believer, the very life of God.

After this evangelical overview, we can ask the question: when did we begin to give Jesus the title of Son of God? There is no indication that it was during his lifetime. On the contrary, when the evangelists offer us passages where it is said that he is a son of God, they take the precaution of putting him in the mouths of supernatural beings, because it will only be after his death that humans will clearly say so. As for John, this is a long theological reflection some sixty years after Jesus' ministry. These voices from heaven where God says that Jesus is his son are Old Testament quotes. The confession on Jesus as sons of God from the disciples following the walking on the waters and Peter's confession reflect Matthew's editorial work (on this point see R.E. Brown). But what is clear is that the notion of Jesus as the son of God developed at lightning speed after his death, as can be seen, for example, in the Pauline epistles, especially the epistle to the Romans (about A.D. 55).

It is time to return to our v. 33 and to the title "Son of God". In our analysis of this title in Matthew, we have emphasized that this title is given to him as a result of his manifested authority over the forces of evil represented by the waters, the waves and the sea. The sea was also associated with the Abyss, Sheol of the Dead. Two other things must now be emphasized.

1. This confession of the disciples must be related to another confession in Matthew (27: 54), that of the centurion and the Roman guards following the authority shown by Jesus at his death over nature, especially the breaking of the rock and the earthquake, as well as the authority over death, another form of evil, when many bodies come back to life. In both cases, Matthew was careful to use the expression "of God the Son" in the proclamation formula.

2. Why one would create here at v. 33 a confession of faith similar to that of the centurion and the Roman guards at the death of Jesus? The answer is probably given by the important place the disciples occupy in Matthew's gospel. For the evangelist, it was probably unacceptable that the most important proclamation of faith should be on the lips of Roman pagans (the centurion and the guards), whereas in his gospel the disciples are constantly the mediators between Jesus and the crowds. Above all, speaking to a community of Jewish Christians, it was important that the first to proclaim faith in Jesus Son of God came from those who represent them, the community of disciples.