Matthew 22:26 Meaning and Explanation
“Likewise the second also, and the third, unto the seventh.”
King James Version (KJV)
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Read Full Chapter →Short verses can look like filler until we ask why they are there. This one exists to make a story airtight. The Sadducees are building a case designed to make resurrection look ridiculous, and the piling up of brothers is the engine of their argument. Seeing how the case is constructed helps us understand the answer Jesus gives a few verses later.
A single compressed sentence carries six more marriages and six more deaths in the Sadducees' test case, moving their hypothetical from the first brother through the seventh without slowing down.
The Context of Matthew 22:26
It is the last week of Jesus' public teaching in Jerusalem, and a series of groups have come to question him. The Pharisees and Herodians asked about tribute in verses 15 through 22. Verse 23 brings the Sadducees, whom Matthew identifies as those who say there is no resurrection. They cite the law of Moses about a man dying childless in verse 24, then set out their case in verse 25 with seven brethren and a first marriage that ended in death. Verse 26 continues the sequence, verse 27 closes it, and verse 28 poses the question.
What Does Matthew 22:26 Mean?
Ten English words cover six lifetimes. Likewise the second also, and the third, unto the seventh compresses marriage, childlessness, and death into a formula, because the speakers need the pattern more than the people. The word likewise does the work: each brother did what the law required, each union produced no heir, each man died. Matthew's Greek is as clipped as the King James rendering. Nothing is said about grief, about the household, or about the woman living through it. The verse reads like a legal brief, which is exactly what it is, and its brevity is a clue to how the Sadducees regarded the case they were making.
The law standing behind the story is a genuine kindness. Deuteronomy 25 provided that a brother should marry the widow of a man who died childless, so that the dead man's name would continue in Israel and the widow would have a place and an inheritance. Judah invoked it for Tamar, and Boaz acted in that spirit for Ruth, raising up the name of the dead upon his own inheritance. The provision protected the vulnerable and treated a person's name as something worth preserving. The Sadducees take that good law and stretch it to seven repetitions in order to embarrass the doctrine of resurrection. Jesus answers by saying they know neither the scriptures nor the power of God.
Seven is a number of completeness in Scripture, and the Sadducees use it to make their case exhaustive. Their construction assumes that death is the last word about a marriage, a family, and a person. Jesus takes the question seriously enough to answer it from the very books they accepted, pointing to God's words at the bush, where he names himself the God of Abraham and of Isaac and of Jacob long after those men had died. From that naming Jesus draws the conclusion that God is the God of the living. The seven deaths in this hypothetical meet an answer larger than the puzzle.
Matthew 22:26 in the Original Language
homoios (ὁμοίως), 'likewise' -- an adverb meaning in the same way or similarly. It carries the whole repeated pattern of marriage and death from the second brother to the seventh without restating any of it, which is why the verse can be so short.
Bible Verses Related to Matthew 22:26
“If brethren dwell together, and one of them die, and have no child, the wife of the dead shall not marry without unto a stranger: her husband’s brother shall go in unto her, and take her to him to wife, and perform the duty of an husband’s brother unto her.”
- Deuteronomy 25:5
“And Judah said unto Onan, Go in unto thy brother’s wife, and marry her, and raise up seed to thy brother.”
- Genesis 38:8
“Moreover Ruth the Moabitess, the wife of Mahlon, have I purchased to be my wife, to raise up the name of the dead upon his inheritance, that the name of the dead be not cut off from among his brethren, and from the gate of his place: ye are witnesses this day.”
- Ruth 4:10
“And the second took her, and died, neither left he any seed: and the third likewise.”
- Mark 12:21
Where Matthew 22:26 Echoes in Scripture
Ruth 4:10 shows this body of law working in real life instead of in a hypothetical. Boaz announces before the elders at the town gate that he is taking Ruth as his wife so that the name of her dead husband will continue on his inheritance and stay attached to that place. The Sadducees flatten the same provision into a formula. Ruth records it as costly public faithfulness that ended in a marriage, a child, and eventually the line that produced David.
How to Apply Matthew 22:26 Today
Arguments built to win rarely leave room for the people inside them. It is worth checking our own hard questions for that shape, especially the ones we bring to God. A question asked to corner someone tends to close off the answer it might have received. There is a second thing here too. When we design a scenario to prove a point, real people usually get flattened in the process. Slowing down enough to ask what a widow in that story would have felt belongs to handling truth honestly.
Reflection & Prayer
What question have we been holding as a weapon rather than carrying as a genuine ask? A prayer: Lord, I have some arguments I would rather win than resolve. Teach me to bring my hardest questions to you plainly, and give me patience for answers that are bigger than the shape I made for them.