You have heard that it was said by them of old time, You shall not kill; and whosoever shall kill shall be in danger of the judgment:
All Commentaries on Matthew 5:21 Go To Matthew 5
John Chrysostom
AD 407
It was he himself who also gave those laws, but in an indirect manner. If on the one hand he had said, “You have heard that I said to those of ancient times,” the saying would have been hard for his present hearers to believe and would have been a roadblock for their understanding. If on the other hand, after Jesus said, “You have heard that it was said to those of ancient times by my Father,” he had added, “But I say,” he still would have seemed to be taking yet more on himself. So he simply states the commandment, attempting to make only one point: to demonstrate that at the right time he had come to clarify this requirement. For by the words “it was said to those of ancient times” he pointed out the length of time since they had received this commandment. He did this to shame those hearers who were still reluctant to advance to the higher levels of his teachings. Jesus spoke much like a teacher to a lazy student: “Don’t you know how much time you have spent learning syllables?” He also covertly intimates this through his use of the expression “those of ancient times.” For the future, Jesus summons his hearers to a loftier order of instruction. It is as though he had said, “You have spent enough time on these lessons. It is now time to press on to lessons higher than these.” It is fitting that Jesus does not disturb the order of the commandments but begins with the earlier ones, those with which the law began, to point to the harmony between them. The Gospel of Matthew, Homily
