Lectionary Commentaries for February 15, 2026
Transfiguration of Our Lord
from WorkingPreacher.org
Gospel
Commentary on Matthew 17:1-9
Eugene Park
First Reading
Commentary on Exodus 24:12-18
Valerie Bridgeman
I have stood looking onto the horizon at sunset in Sedona, Arizona. I saw what looked like “clouds on fire,” the shimmer of the sunset on the edge of cumulus clouds that blurred the boundary between heaven and earth. The clouds seemed ablaze. I wonder, as I reread this pericope, whether what I saw in Sedona was anywhere near what Moses, the elders, and the people saw as they looked up at Mount Sinai, encased in clouds at the summit—clouds that gleamed with the glory of God.
The context for this pericope is important and is one of canonical scripture’s oddities. Moses, Aaron, Nadab, Abihu, and 70 elders seal with a meal the covenant sealed in blood at the beginning of Exodus 24:3–8. A covenant is made before rules are in place. The covenant precedes law and commandments. In other words, God seeks renewed relationship before God teaches the people how to be in relationship with the divine.
What makes it odd for me is the setting for the meal at the foot of the mountain, where the meal is “with God,” and where they “saw the God of Israel. Under his feet there was something like a pavement of sapphire stone, like the very heaven for clearness. God did not lay his hand on the chief men of the Israelites; they beheld God, and they ate and drank.” (24:10–11).
Given that readers are told later in the canonical text, “You cannot see My face, for no man can see Me and live!” (Exodus 33:20) and that later in the New Testament, in the Johannine corpus (John 1:18; 5:37; 6:46; and 1 John 4:12, 20), the phrase in this pericope, “God did not lay his hand on the chief men of the Israelites,” makes sense. God chooses to let them live even after seeing the Holy One of Israel. Such texts lead us to reflect on the fact that being “with God” and God “being with us” can be both comforting and disconcerting. To be in God’s presence should come with a fearsome awe.
This covenant meal in the very near presence of God would have been, itself, worth quaking about. It is the quintessential “God is with us” moment. This beatific wonder happens even before Moses ascends further up the mountain to await the stone tablets bearing the law and the commandment, about which the editors say God says, “I have written [them] for their instruction” (24:12). I don’t imagine the preacher can address this oddity of God’s writing finger, but I do want to acknowledge it. This phrase is a part of what makes scripture seem untouchable and unquestionable for some people—God’s own Self wrote these words.
In fact, after Moses receives the law and commandment in the time he is on the mountain, later in Exodus 31:18 we read, “When God finished speaking with Moses on Mount Sinai, he gave him the two tablets of the covenant, tablets of stone, written with the finger of God.” When Moses descends, the writer emphasizes, “The tablets were the work of God, and the writing was the writing of God, engraved upon the tablets” (32:16). And again, after the golden calf debacle when Moses, in his anger, broke those tablets, God calls Moses back up Mount Sinai so that God can write on a new set of tablets (34:1).
This anthropomorphic description of God writing connotes God’s authority and power, both of which are to be considered when reading Torah. As earlier Jewish scholars like Maimonides noted, we should be careful to take the anthropomorphic language about God as anything other than a metaphor of this authority and power.
The text has a shifting set of characters, which provides another oddity. Moses ascended the mountain with his assistant Joshua, not mentioned in the earlier gathering (24:13), and left Aaron, mentioned before, and Hur, not mentioned in the earlier group, to attend to any disputes that might arise among the elders, who were to wait at the base of the mountain where they had the meal (24:14). It may be an indication that the account reflects more than one tradition of this story, but the editors see no reason to amend it. Such willingness to let the traditions live together in the same space often unnerves especially Western sensibilities. But stories of encounters with God are unnerving.
Moses goes up—I assume without his assistant, because Joshua is not mentioned again—and enters into the region of the mountain where clouds are at the summit. I have never climbed Mount Kilimanjaro, but I have friends who have. The most consistent story from them is how thin the air is, and how hard it is to breathe when you are surrounded by clouds. The air is thin; the temperature is cold. It seems that God gave Moses six days to acclimate to breathing in thin air and being surrounded by the cold temperature before speaking to him.
While Moses, his crew, and the elders saw God at the foot of the mountain, at this level on Mount Sinai, Moses encounters the glory of the Lord “like a devouring fire on the top of the mountain in the sight of the Israelites” (24:17). This cloud—the devouring-fire one—is the one Moses enters for a long time, which is what the phrase “forty days and forty nights” (24:18) means, to commune with God and to receive and understand the law.
In this transfiguration moment in the Old Testament, the experience is the holy on the mountain itself. Mountains as sites of holy mystery and encounters are a recurring theme throughout the ancient world, and into our time. As Edwin Bernbaum notes in his book Sacred Mountains of the World, “Summits can reveal our world as a place of unimaginable mystery and splendor. In the fierce play of natural elements that swirl about their summits—thunder, lightning, wind, and clouds—mountains also embody powerful forces beyond our control, physical expressions of an awesome reality that can overwhelm us with feelings of wonder and fear.”1
Perhaps as the people looked up from the foot of Mount Sinai and watched Moses ascend into the fiery clouds, fear and wonder gripped them. They had already seen terrifying displays on Mount Sinai and trembled as thunder, lightning, and a thick cloud engulfed the mountain and the people had a sonic experience of loud trumpet blasts that made them afraid. The mountain was “wrapped in smoke, because the Lord had descended upon it in fire; the smoke went up like the smoke of a kiln, while the whole mountain shook violently” (Exodus 19:18).
Moses goes up and down the mountain several times to meet with God, get instructions, and return to tell the people. Before the covenant, Moses was getting communal and traveling directives. No wonder the people quaked.
As preachers approach these verses, as I have noted, there are a number of oddities, and perhaps choosing one or the other would be helpful. Or another way is to focus on the role of “mountaintop experiences” and the awe, and sometimes dread, they bring. Of course, considering that God is with us, close and far, near and ethereal, but with us, is also a plan. As we honor the Transfiguration, seeing the ways God glistened for humans long before Jesus met with the ancestors, Moses and Elijah makes this text available for preaching.
Notes
- Edwin Bernbaum, “Introduction,” Sacred Mountains of the World, Second Edition (Cambridge University Press, 2022), 1.
Psalm
Commentary on Psalm 2
Cameron B.R. Howard
Psalm 2 does little to contradict the common stereotype that “the God of the Old Testament” is a deity overflowing with wrath.1
The poem uses a variety of synonyms to refer to God’s anger, wrath, or fury (verses 5, 12). It employs a violent image of God’s chosen king using an iron rod to break the nations, which then shatter into bits like an ordinary piece of pottery (verse 9). The psalmist even offers a glimpse of God seated in the heavens, laughing scornfully and inspiring terror in the world’s rulers below (verses 4–5).
Yet, the psalmist does not present God’s rage as unprovoked. The psalm begins with a rhetorical question that invites the audience’s incredulity. Why must the nations continue to conspire against the Lord and against the Lord’s anointed one, the Israelite king? How could the nations—even all nations joined as one force—imagine they could overpower the sovereign God of Israel and the earthly ruler whom he has appointed? It is this hubris that inspires mockery by God and by us, the readers, drawn in by the psalmist’s rhetoric. God scoffs at the efforts of the most powerful leaders on earth; their conspiracies are but a joke to God. Their plans are thwarted before they are even formulated.
The behavior of the nations—then and now—is terror and violence. Their fury incites God’s fury. In response to their conspiracies, their plots, their war plans, God unleashes wrath. Swirling anger is not, however, the only experience of God articulated in the psalm.
The anointed one, the king, testifies to God’s claim on his life: “He said to me, ‘You are my son; today I have begotten you'” (verse 7). In addition to evoking a familial tenderness that stands in stark contrast to the international antagonism prominent in the psalm, this claim of parentage is also a legal claim. As Yahweh’s son, the king is Yahweh’s legal heir. The inheritance is no small parcel of land, but rather “the nations,” even to the “ends of the earth” (verse 8).
Psalm 2 draws connections between Israelite kingship and God’s cosmic kingship and, therefore, is classified as a royal psalm. As William Brown explains, royal psalms create “an indissoluble link between King and king. … God’s sovereign rule is made manifest through the earthly king (2:7–12).”2 That link is drawn in this psalm through the parental metaphor. Thus, as God’s heir, the king becomes the one who wields the iron rod that destroys the conspiratorial nations. The Israelite king is the instrument of God’s power in the world.
At verse 10, the psalmist shifts his address to the very kings and rulers he mocked at the beginning of the poem. Though they have provoked God’s wrath, anger need not be the nations’ only experience of God. They have the opportunity to orient their posture away from the service of their own power and toward the service of Yahweh (verses 11–12a). Without that change in orientation, God’s anger inevitably will flare, and the nations will indeed perish.
The last line of Psalm 2, “Happy are all who take refuge in him,” echoes the initial words of Psalm 1, “Happy are those …” This repetition brackets Psalms 1 and 2 together, and the unit serves to introduce the book of Psalms as a whole. However, the line also provides a fitting conclusion to Psalm 2 on its own. The last image of God provided by the psalm is not an angry God prepared to destroy the nations but, rather, God as refuge, a place of quiet and safety in the midst of the world’s raging.
The description here resonates with Psalm 46, where the language of God as refuge is woven throughout that psalm. Perhaps most evocative of Psalm 2 is Psalm 46:6–7: “The nations are in an uproar, the kingdoms totter; he utters his voice; the earth melts. The Lord of hosts is with us; the God of Jacob is our refuge.”
The violence of the world, brought on by the hubris of the nations, will continue. Nonetheless, God provides protection from the uproar that rages in the earth. Even as God wreaks havoc on those who oppose him, God provides a refuge for those who serve him.
The references in Psalm 2 to God’s “anointed one” (Hebrew mashiah, “messiah”) refer quite concretely to the earthly Davidic monarch ruling over Israel. The New Testament later adopts this same language of God’s anointed one, or messiah, to describe Jesus. The language of Jesus as Son of God, also a favorite term in the New Testament, similarly echoes the parental metaphor used of Yahweh and the Davidic king in this psalm.
At the Transfiguration of Jesus, read from Matthew 17:1–9 with this week’s lectionary, the voice from the cloud invokes this same parent-child relationship, declaring, “This is my Son, the Beloved” (Matthew 17:5). Thus it is clear that the “God of the Old Testament” and the images used to describe God there—be they furious and wrathful or tender and parental—persist in the New Testament as well. Indeed, the God of the Old Testament and the God of the New Testament are one and the same. The powers of this world continue in their conspiratorial fervor, while God—the one God, sovereign over the earth—remains our refuge.
Notes
- Commentary previously published on this website for March 6, 2011.
- William P. Brown, Seeing the Psalms: A Theology of Metaphor (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2002), 188.
Second Reading
Commentary on 2 Peter 1:16-21
Ruth Anne Reese
Peter has written to the believers, reminding them that through God’s divine power they have already been given everything they need for life and godliness (1:3), and he has encouraged them to add virtuous living to their life of faith (1:5–7). Peter prompts them to confirm their calling through their righteous behavior so that they can enter the kingdom of Jesus (1:10–11). And he indicates that he is writing this letter to serve as a reminder about these things (1:12–15). But how can his audience know that what Peter wants to remind them of is true?
Knowing what’s true
Peter’s first claim is that we (the apostles and perhaps his audience) did not follow cleverly devised myths. The verb sophizō (cleverly devised) has the implication of self-serving cleverness or ingeniously or slyly concocting something. We see such self-serving myths springing up even in the Gospel of Matthew around the resurrection account. There, the chief priests pay the soldiers who were guarding the tomb to say, “His disciples came by night and stole him away while we were asleep” (Matthew 28:13). The “spin” around Jesus started early.
In our own time, a whole vocabulary has developed related to the narratives we encounter. We use words like “alternative facts,” “misinformation,” and “fake news,” and arguments unfold all around over who is telling the truth and what kind of bias they have. Peter declares that his purpose is to make known the powerful second coming of Christ. This declaration is based on the eyewitness account of Jesus’ majesty. Peter indicates that he was present on the mountain and heard the voice that spoke from heaven identifying Jesus Christ as the Son of God (see also Matthew 17:1–8; Mark 9:2–8; Luke 9:28–36).
The narrative about Christ’s transfiguration is not just a story that Peter and the apostles made up to manipulate potential converts. Instead, they are sharing an eyewitness account of a supernatural experience that transformed their understanding of Jesus. He was not just a messiah but was also the Son of God who embodied the glory of God.
Glory, majesty, and honor
Our passage is full of ideas connected to the concept of honor. In the first century, honor was an important value connected to one’s status and social standing. An important source of honor was derived from one’s family. Here, we see that Jesus is identified as majestic, alluding to his royal status (verse 16). And he receives honor (a manifestation of esteem) and glory (a recognition of his status associated with his transcendence) from God the Father.
As part of God’s family, Christ shares in the honor of that family. God is also identified as magnificent (verse 17), and God shares these qualities with the Son, who is identified as beloved and one who pleases God. Each of these—honor, glory, familial identity, being beloved, and being well-pleasing—points to the high status of Christ in this passage. Both God and Christ are worthy of deep honor.
The prophetic word
In addition to the eyewitness account of the transfiguration, Peter points to the prophetic word, a reference to the Old Testament prophets, as further evidence that he isn’t just making up myths about Jesus. But note that the prophetic word is temporary—it is an ongoing word for the dark places and dark times that we live in. Yet, our anticipation is for the dawn of a new day when the morning star—Jesus himself (see also, Revelation 22:16)—will rise in our hearts. This is another reference to the second coming of Jesus and the dawn of a new age with Jesus as the true ruler of humanity.
There are two different translations of 2 Peter 1:20. Either the New Revised Standard Version Updated Edition’s “no prophecy of scripture is a matter of one’s own interpretation” (also English Standard Version, New American Standard Bible) or “no prophecy of scripture came about by the prophet’s own interpretation of things” (New International Version, similar New Living Translation, New English Translation).
Both are grammatically possible. As Michael Green says, “The two main ways of taking it are, first, no prophecy arises from the prophet’s own interpretation—in other words, it is given by God; and second, no prophecy is to be understood by private interpretation—in other words, but as the church interprets it” (113).
The majority of scholars take the first view, arguing that in the context the point is that the surety of the prophetic word comes about because it is spoken by God. Richard Bauckham has shown that in both Jewish and non-Jewish contexts prophets were a conduit for the divine voice and that their utterances were not their own interpretation. Those who take the second view argue that the word “prophet” is missing in the Greek, making it a matter of “one’s own” interpretation. Instead, the prophetic word came about through the movement of the Holy Spirit bringing the divine message.
Both Peter’s eyewitness account and the work of the Holy Spirit through the prophets are support for the reliability of Peter’s testimony about Jesus. He who was transfigured is able to transform (see also verses 4–7). He who was spoken of through prophecy calls his people to the kingdom (see also verses 10–11).
Conclusion
As we teach on the transfiguration of our Lord, let us remember that it is also a foretaste of the second coming, a reminder that our majestic king is returning to make all things new (2 Peter 3:13). Until his coming, we are blessed to have the witness of the apostles as recorded in the New Testament and the wisdom of the Old Testament to guide the church as it seeks to live in light of the truth God has spoken.
Resources
Richard J. Bauckham, Jude, 2 Peter, Word Biblical Commentary (Zondervan, 1983).
Michael Green, 2 Peter and Jude, Tyndale New Testament Commentaries (IVP Academic, 2009).
After the story of Peter’s confession (Matthew 16:13–20) and the subsequent passion prediction of Jesus (16:21–23), Matthew presents the episode of Jesus being transformed (metamorphoũsthai, verse 2) into a luminary figure.1 If one follows the Two-Source Hypothesis, Matthew’s source for this passage is Mark 9:2–13, while the question of Mark’s source for this pericope cannot be answered. In his form-critical study of the synoptic traditions, Bultmann hypothesized that this “legend” was originally a resurrection-story (Auferstehungsgeschichte) interjected into the Galilean phase of Jesus’ ministry.2
An interesting parallel can be found in the apocryphal Gospel of Peter, which is the only early Christian literature depicting the resurrection event itself. In verses 35–42, on the day of the resurrection, the heavens were opened and two (unnamed) men (duo andras in Greek), who were radiant, descended from the heavens and entered the tomb of Jesus. Then they brought Jesus out, each supporting him from one side, followed by a cross. The heads of the two unnamed men reached the heavens, while the head of Jesus reached beyond the heavens. A voice from the heavens was heard, “Have you proclaimed to those who have fallen asleep [tois koimomenois in Greek]?” An answer came forward from the cross, “Yes.”
This striking correspondence between the transfiguration narrative and the resurrection scene in the Gospel of Peter might be just coincidence, but it certainly renders significant support for Bultmann’s hypothesis cited above.
Whether this story was originally from the Easter Christophany tradition or not, its place in Matthew’s plot line—in other words, immediately after the passion prediction—clearly indicates that it offers a glimpse of the future glory of Jesus, which will eventually be manifested in the resurrection story at the end. In the passion prediction (16:21), Jesus foretells his great suffering at the hands of the Jewish leaders (stated) and his execution by the Roman authorities (implied).
The reason for this suffering and death is not provided, but perceptive readers will know that, just as John the Baptizer was executed by Herod Antipas, a puppet tetrarch appointed by the Roman emperor, because of his public ministry and message for the Kingdom of Heavens, Jesus will face the same persecution by the Romans and their Jewish collaborators because of his proclamation of the Kingdom of Heavens. Then, the brief moment of the earthly Jesus being transformed into a shiny figure in this passage functions as a presage for the final vindication by God for the life and ministry of Jesus that would cause his unjust execution.
The location of the transfiguration is on a high mountain (oros in Greek, verse 1). In Matthew, it is also on a mountain (oros) that Jesus gives his first and last great discourse (5:1; 24:3), as well as his final commission to the 11 disciples after his resurrection (28:16). This motif of mountain as the locus of important teaching in the narrative world of Matthew endows the transfiguration episode with the same symbolic significance as one of the most important revelations about Jesus.
Moses and Elijah in this scene are often understood as representatives of the Law and the Prophets.3 This line of interpretation has frequently led to the idea that Jesus is greater than Moses and Elijah and therefore the teaching of Jesus replaces the Hebrew Scriptures. It is certainly an overinterpretation that the text itself does not warrant. It seems to be more influenced by Christian supersessionist theology rather than exegetical observations.
One common aspect between Moses and Elijah is that they both encountered the presence of God on Mount Horeb/Sinai (Exodus 19:1–25; 24:9–18; 1 Kings 19:11–18). Especially, the description of Moses’ face shining after he came down from the mountain (Exodus 34:29–35) adds one more resemblance to the transfiguration story of Jesus. Exodus 34:29 makes it clear that Moses’ shining face is because he was talking with God, which means the glory in Moses’ face is not his own but is God’s glory temporarily reflected on Moses’ body. Likewise, Jesus’ shiny face and his dazzling white clothes also reflect God’s glory reflected in, not necessarily transferred to, the person of Jesus.
The heavenly voice from the cloud (verse 5) saying, “This is my son, my beloved one, in whom I am well pleased,” is a verbatim repetition of the same voice that was heard at the baptism of Jesus (Matthew 3:17). Therefore, it adds no new information for the readers who are hearing/reading the gospel from the beginning. However, it is a new revelation to Peter, James, and John as dramatis personae in the plot line of Matthew’s narrative, since they were recruited by Jesus to follow him only after his baptism (4:18–22).
After this indicative statement of Jesus’ divine sonship, the heavenly voice puts forth a brief, almost aphoristic command in the imperative: “Listen to him.” Again, this symbolizes God’s affirmation and endorsement of what Jesus says. What is remarkable is that in this immediate context Jesus does not say anything, which makes the command “Listen to him” a generic injunction to the audience/followers of Jesus to listen to his proclamation and teaching in general.
Then, in the rest of the gospel, Matthew will keep reminding his audience that the dominant theme of Jesus’ teaching and proclamation is the Kingdom of Heaven. That is, in Matthew’s gospel, Jesus consistently and unswervingly proclaims and teaches the Kingdom of Heavens, and the transfiguration episode demonstrates that this message of the Kingdom of Heavens is indeed a manifestation of God’s will and that God is well pleased with Jesus as the proclaimer of this critical kerygma.
Notes