Confusing Sayings: Matthew 11:12

From the days of John the Baptist until now, the kingdom of heaven has been subjected to violence, and violent people have been raiding it.

This article is part of a series explaining Jesus’s Confusing Sayings. Many of these sayings do not look confusing in English translation, but that is because much of what Jesus originally said is simplified or obscured by that translation.

If any of Jesus’s verse’s are confusing for you, let me know in a comment so I can analyze its Greek in a future article.

The followers of John the Baptist ask if Jesus is the one they have expected. John is currently imprisoned by Antipas, the tetrarch. Jesus sends them back to tell John what they have seen and heard, describing his miracles, curing people. Jesus then says that John was the predicted messenger sent before the Messiah. Then as John’s followers are leaving, Jesus says, that John is the greatest among those born of women, but the least in the realm of the skies is greater than he. To this confusing statement, Jesus adds Matthew 11:12:

NIV: From the days of John the Baptist until now, the kingdom of heaven has been subjected to violence, and violent people have been raiding it.

• The words in boldface are explained in this article.

This makes it sound like people have been raiding the kingdom of heaven, but how can people raid heave and for what? Doesn’t God protect his realm from those stealing from it? This idea seems very confusing.

However, this verse says something very simple about John, but the translation confuses it. John was the first to announce the coming of “the kingdom of heaven,” which is better translated as “the realm of the skies.” Jesus is describing the days since the Baptist started getting attention. The Baptist developed a group of people who followed him as a new prophet announcing the coming of the Messiah. Then Baptist’s message change to condemned Antipas’s marriage to Herodias as Antipas’s brother’s divorced wife. This drew political opposition and distracted from the realm of the skies.

Being Controlled

The real confusion in this verse starts with the next verb, which is translated as "subjected to violence." This does not refer to John being subjected to violence, but “the realm” or “the kingdom.” How can this kingdom of God be subject to violence. The verb is used by Jesus in only two verses by Jesus, this one and the similar verse of Luke 16:16, where it is translated as “forcing their way.” Neither of these translations respects the primary meaning of this verb.

This verb means to "constrain”, "to be hard pressed or be overpowered”, "be forced or constrained to do”, and "to contend or argue vehemently”. In English, we use the word “control” to capture this range of ideas. It is best to think of this Greek verb as describing various forms of control: legal, political, social, financial, and so on, not necessarily violence. This idea of control is not just a negative concept. It includes many negatives: "to be forcibly made slaves,” "to be carry by force”, "to be acted upon with violence”, and "to be subject to force, but on the more positive side, it can also mean "to be made good (by an action)” and "to suffice to discharge a debt.” All of these are forms of control.

When faced with such a large range of meanings, my tendency is to go with the primary meaning of “constrain” or “control.” In both this verse and Luke’s version, this verb is in the form of the present tense in the passive or middle voice. The subject in this verse is the “realm of the skies” (AKA ”the kingdom of heaven”), so the sense is that the realm “is controlled”—passive voice—or “controls itself”—middle voice. In the Luke verse, the subject is “everyone,” so everyone “is controlled” or ”controls themselves” in the realm. These phrases mean the same thing if we think of “the realm of the skies” as those within that kingdom or state of mind who are are controlled or who are controlling themselves.

Violent People Raiding

This brings us to the next clause “and violent people have been raiding it.” The problem is that the Greek adjective translated as “violent” means "forceful," "one who uses force," and "mighty." This Greek word is the adjective form of the verb “to control” so its sense is “controlling.” The adjective is used as a plural noun, the subject of the verb. We add "the" in front of it to indicate that we mean a group of people, “the controlling.”

The word translated as "raiding" simply means "to snatch away," "to pluck" or "to catch." Jesus usually uses it negatively in the sense of "to plunder." It is in the present tense. There are no words in this verse that mean “by force,” which follows this in its NIV translation. These words were added by the translators to support their sense of violence here. The simple sense of this part of the verse is “the controlling snatch it away.”

What Was Heard:

Remember, this line was spoken to the followers of John the Baptist. They would relate it to his situation of being in prison. The general sense of this verse would have been:

Listeners Heard: However, from the time of John the Dunker until just now, the realm of the skies is controlled and the controlling snatch it away.

This is part of Jesus’s answer to John’s question about whether or not Jesus is the Messiah. Jesus connects John with their shared message: the coming of the realm of the skies. Jesus praises John, but then he expresses John’s limitations. Under his teaching, the power of the realm was limited: John was not a miracle worker. Because of this and because his message went beyond announcing the coming of the kingdom to condemning Antipas, John fell into the hands of the authorities. He is now controlled in prison. Because he will soon die, his message has been “snatched away.”

This demonstrates an clear awareness on the part of Jesus about the pitfalls of what he is trying to do in announcing the realm of the skies. He must stick to his mission and not get distracted by temporary political issues. John fell in the realm of the skies because he was distracted by those local, political issues, but, at this point, John is being compared only to the Christ.