James Trimm’s Nazarene Commentary on Mattitayhu 18
18:15-20
15 And if your brother sins against you, go and reprove him between you and him alone: and if he will hear you, you have won your brother.
16 But if he will not hear you, take to yourself one witness or two: that at the mouth of two or three witnesses, every word may be established. (Deut. 19:15)
17 And if he will not hear them, speak to him in the assembly: but if he neglects to hear in the assembly, let him be to you as a Goy or a transgressor.
18 Truly I tell you, all that you will prohibit on earth has been prohibited in heaven also, and all that you will permit on earth has been permitted in heaven also.
19 Again I tell you: If two of you might be worthy on earth as touching a thing that they will ask, it will be for them of My Father which is in heaven.
20 For in every place where two or three will assemble in My Name, there am I in the midst of them.
(Matthew 18:15-20 HRV)
Notice that verse 16 is quoting from the Torah concerning the law of witnesses. This gives us the context of the “assembly” in verse 17. If we simply look to the context of the passage quotes (Deut. 19:16) we read:
15 One witness shall not rise up against a man for any iniquity, or for any sin, in any sin that he sins. At the mouth of two witnesses, or at the mouth of three witnesses, shall a matter be established.
16 If an unrighteous witness rise up against any man, to bear perverted witness against him,
17 Then both the men, between whom the controversy is, shall stand before YHWH; before the cohanim and the judges that shall be in those days.
18 And the judges shall inquire diligently: and behold, if the witness be a false witness, and has testified falsely against his brother,
(Deut. 18:15-18 HRV)
The “assembly” that hears these witnesses is the beit din, the “judges that shall be in those days”. It is the Torah court, not your local church or synagogue, or the general [worldwide] Church or Assembly!
This “assembly” is the “assembly” that has the power to “bind” and “loose” (as we read in the KJV) in verse 18, which the HRV renders “prohibit” and “permit”. “Bind” and “loose” are idiomatic terms in Hebrew and Aramaic, used in the Talmud to describe the Torah courts prohibiting or permitting activities (as laid out in Deut. 17:8-11), i.e. the halachic authority to determine difficult matters which are not clearly laid out in the written Torah.
Now we see that when verse 19 says “If two of you might be worthy on earth as touching a thing that they will ask, it will be for them of My Father which is in heaven.” in context it is saying: “If two [witnesses] might be worthy on earth as touching a thing that they [the beit din] will ask, it will be for them [the beit din] of My Father which is in heaven.”
Where the Aramaic of Matthew has “might be worthy” (נשתוון) the Greek has “agree”. The Aramaic assumes the agreement of the witnesses, and concentrates on their worthiness. In the Second Temple Era there was some debate as to who was worthy to serve as a witness.
For example, in the Mishnah we read:
And these are they who are invalid to serve as witnesses or judges:
“He who plays dice; he who loans money for interest; those who race pigeons; and those who do business in the produce of the Sabbath Year.”
Rabbi Simeon said, “In the beginning they called them ‘Those who gather Seventh Year produce,’ When oppressors became many (who collected taxes on this produce) they reverted to calling them, ‘Those who do business in the produce of the Seventh Year.”
Rabbi Judah said: “Under what circumstances? When they have only that as their profession. But if they have a profession other than that. They are valid.”
(m.San. 3:3)
And in the Dead Sea Scrolls we read:
“No one who has knowingly violated a single word of the commandment will be considered a reliable witness against his fellow until he is considered fit to return to full fellowship.”
(Damascus Document 4Q270 frag. 9 col. 10 lines 2-3)
(For more light on this issue of valid witnesses from Yeshua see my blog The Woman Caught in Adultery and the Torah). Once you start heading down the path of a true, Torah based understanding of Yeshua’s words, it all starts to fit together and inter-relate!
So Yeshua’s point here (Matthew 18:19) is that if the two witnesses agree and are “worthy” (valid witnesses) then their testimony is to be accepted by the beit din, it is to be counted as “of My Father which is in Heaven”.
Finally Yeshua sums all of this up by saying “For in every place where two or three will assemble in My Name, there am I in the midst of them.” meaning that when these two or more witnesses agree and are worthy, their testimony is to be counted by the beit din as if YHWH was testifying with them.