Revised Standard Version follows the order of the Greek text, but Good News Translation inverts the order of the two clauses, thereby introducing the negative clause first and concluding with a positive statement: “instead, he taught with authority.”

Taught … authority contrasts the teaching of Jesus with that of the scribes. Elsewhere in the Gospel the noun authority is used in 8.9; 9.6, 8; 10.1; 21.23, 24, 27; according to 28.18 the exalted Lord has been given “all authority.”

The idea of teaching with authority has often been misunderstood. Many have translated it as “he taught with power,” for example. However, this verse is contrasting the way Jesus taught with the way the teachers of the Law taught. Their manner was to take a Scripture verse and cite what a variety of other rabbis or teachers had said about it. But Jesus taught directly without referring to other teachers. As Barclay phrases it, “he taught as one who needed no authority beyond his own.” Another way to express this may be “he taught as one who had authority himself to teach the truth.”

Scribes (Good News Translation “the teachers of the Law”) is first used in 2.4 (see comments there), though it is also found earlier in the Sermon itself (5.20). They were teachers and interpreters of the Jewish Law, and one of their primary concerns was the perpetuation of traditional decisions based on it. Jesus, on the other hand, was more concerned with the plain meaning of Scripture than with the intricate legal system that had been developed from it.

Worthy of comment is Matthew’s use of their in the phrase their scribes. Matthew probably intends to differentiate between the Jewish teachers of Scripture and a similar class of teachers who were interpreters of the Christian tradition. Therefore he uses “their teachers” as opposed to “the teachers” of Mark 1.22. Compare also 12.9, where Matthew refers to “their synagogue”; Mark 3.1 and Luke 6.6, in the parallel passage, have “the synagogue.”

For their scribes, translators sometimes have to put “the teachers of the Law of those people” or “… of the Jews.” This makes it clear who their refers to.

As in Good News Translation, it may be necessary to reverse the last part of the verse: “He didn’t teach like their teachers of the Law. He needed no authority other than his own.”

It is to be noticed that in the Gospel of Mark (1.22) this verse is set in a totally different context, thus giving it an entirely different meaning and function.

Quoted with permission from Newman, Barclay M. and Stine, Philip C. A Handbook on the Gospel of Matthew. (UBS Handbook Series). New York: UBS, 1988. For this and other handbooks for translators see here .