hang on (depend on)

In the Gospel According to Matthew 22:40 (NABRE), Jesus makes a fascinating point that’s easy to misinterpret when he says: “The whole law and prophets depend on these two commandments.” The word depend here carries a lot of weight and suggests an interesting dependency.

The Greek verb that is translated as depend is κρεμάννυμι (kremannumi), a word that literally means hang. With that in mind, the statement in the Gospel According to Matthew is that the law and the prophets hang on the two commandments of loving God and loving one’s neighbor. This statement is frequently interpreted as a suggestion that the law and the prophets are summarized in these two commandments, which seems like a fair assessment but also isn’t the claim that Jesus is making. The point isn’t that these two commandments are the entirety of God’s revelation but that these two commandments hold up all of the law and prophets. Without this the other laws and commandments become insignificant.

Why is this distinction important? There are many laws and prophecies in the Bible and in Tradition that God has revealed to his people, and these have been given for our benefit. In context, Jesus is engaged in a conversation with legal scholars about which is most important. With his response, Jesus makes clear that endless study and debate over the law isn’t the most fruitful course of action. For those of us seeking to live a life pleasing to God, these things—loving God and loving one another—seem like they ought to be our main focus and concern. If we spend more time doing these things rather than arguing about or even focusing on other less important points we can make great progress.

you also may like our study of the book of Revelation
The Revelation of Jesus Christ: The Faithful Witness, a 23-lesson Catholic Bible study with an imprimatur, examines ways in which our traditional Christian view of heaven is built on Hebrew apocalyptic visions recorded in the Old Testament. This recently revised study includes maps and additional commentary and takes a close look at the role of the prophets in present-day Christianity. Illustrations by Tami Palladino depict the often-misunderstood images in the book of Revelation. Click here to view a sample of the first lesson.

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