Biblion Bible Commentary
Read the introduction to Matthew · About this commentary
The Ninety-Nine
Matthew 18:10-14
10 See that you don’t despise one of these little ones, for I tell you that in heaven their angels always see the face of my Father who is in heaven. · WEB
A shepherd leaves a whole flock to go after one animal that wandered off, because losing it is not acceptable.
"See that you don't despise one of these little ones, for I tell you that in heaven their angels always see the face of my Father who is in heaven" Matthew 18:10.
The warning is against contempt, which is the quiet version of the sin the millstone was for. And the reason given is startling: the people easiest to overlook have representatives with permanent access to the throne. Whatever else is in that sentence, its use here is plain — these are not marginal cases in heaven's reckoning, whatever they are in yours.
"For the Son of Man came to save that which was lost" Matthew 18:11, and then the parable that shows the shape of it.
"If a man has one hundred sheep, and one of them goes astray, doesn't he leave the ninety-nine, go to the mountains, and seek that which has gone astray?" Matthew 18:12.
The question expects agreement, and any shepherd would have given it. The arithmetic looks reckless stated coldly — ninety-nine exposed for the sake of one — and it is not how a manager thinks about inventory. It is how anyone thinks about something that belongs to them and is in danger.
The verb matters: the sheep goes astray. It was not stolen and did not rebel. It drifted, one mouthful of grass at a time, in the way sheep do, and looked up eventually to find nothing familiar. That is the loss this parable is about — the one nobody decided on.
"If he finds it, most certainly I tell you, he rejoices over it more than over the ninety-nine which have not gone astray" Matthew 18:13. The joy is not a comparison of worth. Nobody celebrates the sheep that stayed home, because there is nothing to celebrate; the intensity belongs to recovery, not to ranking.
"Even so it is not the will of your Father who is in heaven that one of these little ones should perish" Matthew 18:14.
The application is stated as God's will rather than as an emotion, which is the strongest form available. It is also placed where it is for a reason. The discourse is addressed to the people who will be responsible for the flock, and it stands between a warning about tripping the small and an instruction about what to do when someone goes wrong. Both of those are read in its light: the aim of everything that follows is to get the one back.
settled What this mark means