Matthew 22:27 Meaning and Explanation
“And last of all the woman died also.”
King James Version (KJV)
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Read Full Chapter →Eight words in the King James, and the woman at the center of the story finally gets a sentence of her own. She has been described only by whom she married. Her death is what completes the puzzle the Sadducees want to pose, and it is worth asking what a person becomes when she is used as the hinge of somebody else's argument.
The woman's death ends the Sadducees' story and sets up their question about the resurrection. Eight deaths have now been reported in three verses, and the whole case rests on that finality.
The Context of Matthew 22:27
The Sadducees are speaking, in the temple courts during the final week before the crucifixion. Their premise appears in verse 24, where they cite the law about raising up seed for a brother who died childless. Verse 25 introduces seven brethren and the first marriage. Verse 26 runs the pattern through the remaining six. Verse 27 records the woman's death, and verse 28 asks whose wife she will be in the resurrection. Jesus replies in verses 29 through 32, and verse 33 notes that the crowd listening was astonished at his teaching.
What Does Matthew 22:27 Mean?
Last of all places her death at the end of a sequence, after every one of the seven. The word also ties her to them, as though her dying completed a set. Matthew gives her no name, no words, and no children, and the story assigns her no feeling about any of it. She is present in the account entirely as the woman all seven had. Read on its own, the sentence is the plainest thing in the passage: a person lived through repeated loss and then died. Everything the Sadducees want to argue depends on the reader accepting that sentence as the end of her story.
Death arrives eight times in three verses, and the passage treats each one as a simple fact. Scripture is realistic in that way throughout, from the refrain in Genesis 5 that each man lived and begat and died, to the statement in Hebrews that dying once is appointed to us. The Sadducees are accurate about mortality. Their error lies elsewhere, in supposing that God's dealings with a person conclude at the grave. Jesus locates the mistake precisely in verse 29 by saying they know neither the scriptures nor the power of God, and then he addresses both halves of that sentence in turn.
Within days of this exchange the man answering the question would himself be dead and buried in that same city. Matthew 22 stands in the last week of his life, and the argument about whether the dead are raised was about to be settled by an event more than by debate. The one who said that God is the God of the living walked out of a tomb on the third day. That is why the eighth death in this passage looks different from the far side of the Gospel. A woman who died after burying seven husbands is exactly the kind of person the resurrection is for.
Matthew 22:27 in the Original Language
hysteron (ὕστερον), 'last of all' -- an adverb meaning afterward, later, or finally. Matthew uses it to place the woman's death after the whole series, closing the sequence the Sadducees have been building and clearing the way for the question in verse 28.
Bible Verses Related to Matthew 22:27
“Therefore in the resurrection whose wife shall she be of the seven? for they all had her.”
- Matthew 22:28
“Jesus answered and said unto them, Ye do err, not knowing the scriptures, nor the power of God.”
- Matthew 22:29
“I am the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob? God is not the God of the dead, but of the living.”
- Matthew 22:32
“Last of all the woman died also.”
- Luke 20:32
Where Matthew 22:27 Echoes in Scripture
Revelation 21:4 answers this verse from the far end of Scripture, describing a city where God wipes away every tear and where death itself has passed away along with sorrow and crying and pain. The Sadducees ended their story with a funeral. John's vision ends the whole story with the end of funerals. Set beside each other, the two passages show how much rests on the question Jesus was being asked in the temple that day, and how much hangs on the answer he gave.
How to Apply Matthew 22:27 Today
Some people carry a run of losses that sounds unbelievable when listed out loud. Widows, parents who have buried children, families that have been through several rounds of grief are sitting in our congregations and neighborhoods. This verse invites us to see the person inside the summary. A meal, a visit on the anniversary, a willingness to hear the same story again, and the simple act of using her husband's name in conversation all say that a life is more than a case study. Grief handled gently in our company is part of what hope looks like in practice.
Reflection & Prayer
Who in our life has been reduced to their circumstances, and what would it take to know them as a person again? A prayer: Lord of the living, you hold everyone I have lost and everyone I am afraid of losing. Teach me to grieve with hope, and make me gentle with people whose sorrow I have only heard summarized.