Biblion Bible Commentary
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Walking on the Water
Matthew 14:22-33
22 Immediately Jesus made the disciples get into the boat and go ahead of him to the other side, while he sent the multitudes away. · WEB
He comes to them across the lake before dawn — and Peter asks to come out, which only this Gospel records.
Immediately Jesus made the disciples get into the boat and go ahead of him to the other side, while he sent the multitudes away Matthew 14:22.
The verb is forceful: he made them go. They are put out onto the water deliberately, by him, and the storm they meet there is not a mistake in the itinerary. After he had sent the multitudes away, he went up into the mountain by himself to pray. When evening had come, he was there alone Matthew 14:23. He finally gets the solitude he set out for at the start of the day, and he spends it praying while they row.
The crossing is told in the earlier account Mark 6:30–56: the contrary wind, the fourth watch — the last stretch of the night, somewhere between three and six in the morning, so they had been fighting the Sea of Galilee for the better part of nine hours — and the terror at the sight of a figure on the water. "It's a ghost!" Matthew 14:26 is what men that tired conclude.
"Cheer up! It is I! Don't be afraid" Matthew 14:27. The middle phrase is bare in the Greek, simply I am, which is the ordinary way of saying it is me and is also the name spoken at the bush Exodus 3:14. The wording is not pressed here; it is left where the account leaves it.
What this Gospel adds is Peter.
"Lord, if it is you, command me to come to you on the waters" Matthew 14:28. The request is characteristic, and it is not a test of the figure's identity so much as a demand to be included in it. He does not ask to be rescued from the boat. He asks to be ordered out of it, and the answer is a single word: "Come!"
Peter stepped down from the boat and walked on the waters to come to Jesus Matthew 14:29. That sentence stands, and it is usually skipped on the way to the failure. He walked. Whatever happens next, one man got out of a boat in a gale and did what he asked to do.
But when he saw that the wind was strong, he was afraid, and beginning to sink, he cried out, saying, "Lord, save me!" Matthew 14:30. The failure has a precise cause: he looked at the conditions. The wind had been strong the whole time and had not been a problem while he was watching the person who called him. And the sinking man's prayer is three words long, which is all there was time for and all that was required.
Immediately Jesus stretched out his hand, took hold of him Matthew 14:31. The rescue comes before the rebuke, and the rebuke when it comes is a question. "You of little faith, why did you doubt?" Little faith is not no faith — it is the word this Gospel uses for the disciples throughout Matthew 6:30 Matthew 8:26, and it is aimed at men who are already following. The doubting is dated to the moment he looked away, not to the moment he climbed out.
Those who were in the boat came and worshiped him, saying, "You are truly the Son of God!" Matthew 14:33. The men who stayed dry make the confession, and it arrives two chapters before Caesarea Philippi, out of a crew of frightened fishermen in the dark. What produced it was not the walking but the wind stopping when he got in.
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