Read the passage and its setting
Matthew 28:1–28:10, King James Version
Italic words were supplied in the English translation for clarity.
Matthew 28:1–28:10
Women receive the resurrection announcement and meet Jesus
The Main Point
Mary Magdalene and the other Mary come at dawn, an earthquake and angel open the guarded tomb, the angel announces Jesus raised and sends them to disciples, and Jesus meets and commissions them.
What Is Happening Here?
Mary Magdalene and the other Mary come at dawn, an earthquake and angel open the guarded tomb, the angel announces Jesus raised and sends them to disciples, and Jesus meets and commissions them.
What Came Before—and What Comes Next?
Matthew 27:62–27:66 has just shown that Chief priests and Pharisees approach Pilate after preparation day, recall Jesus' three-day claim, request security against removal, and seal and guard the tomb with Roman permission.
Matthew 28:11–28:15 will show that Some guards report to chief priests, leaders pay them to say disciples stole the body during sleep, promise protection from the governor, and Matthew says the account circulated among Jews.
Follow the King and His Teaching
See why this section appears here and how the author's Gospel movement leads to its meaning.
Why Is This Passage Here?
Women receive the resurrection announcement and meet Jesus advances Matthew's movement from “Authorities secure the tomb” toward “A paid counter-story answers the empty tomb report”.
Follow the Scene or Teaching Unit
Mary Magdalene and the other Mary come at dawn, an earthquake and angel open the guarded tomb, the angel announces Jesus raised and sends them to disciples, and Jesus meets and commissions them.
Matthew foregrounds women's testimony in a world that often discounted it; Gospel sequence differences and the narrated miracle should be acknowledged rather than flattened or claimed independently proved.
This account does not erase women as first commissioned witnesses, coerce belief, promise modern apparitions, or treat questions about Gospel differences as disloyal.
What Is the Author Saying?
Why This Interpretation Fits
Unit movement
Mary Magdalene and the other Mary come at dawn, an earthquake and angel open the guarded tomb, the angel announces Jesus raised and sends them to disciples, and Jesus meets and commissions them.
Literary-form control
Matthew narrates Passion and resurrection through differentiated participants, Roman state power, Israel's Scriptures, and theological signs. Foreknowledge or fulfillment never erases human agency, and no named leader or crowd represents Jewish people across time.
Material uncertainty
Matthew foregrounds women's testimony in a world that often discounted it; Gospel sequence differences and the narrated miracle should be acknowledged rather than flattened or claimed independently proved.
Understand the Meaning and Its Boundaries
Clarify the words that matter and keep the conclusion no broader than the passage allows.
Words That Matter
make disciples
See SBLGNT and STEP data for the exact inflected form · matheteuo
the governing commission verb, enacted by going, baptizing, and teaching
What the Passage Is Not Saying
Reading Matthew 28:1–28:10 inside Matthew and the complete thought unit rules out this use:
This account does not erase women as first commissioned witnesses, coerce belief, promise modern apparitions, or treat questions about Gospel differences as disloyal.
Context check: Mary Magdalene and the other Mary come at dawn, an earthquake and angel open the guarded tomb, the angel announces Jesus raised and sends them to disciples, and Jesus meets and commissions them. Matthew narrates Passion and resurrection through differentiated participants, Roman state power, Israel's Scriptures, and theological signs. Foreknowledge or fulfillment never erases human agency, and no named leader or crowd represents Jewish people across time.
What Remains True Today
Faithful reading of Matthew 28:1–28:10 preserves its unit movement, first audience, Jewish setting, affected people, literary form, and material uncertainty before application. This account does not erase women as first commissioned witnesses, coerce belief, promise modern apparitions, or treat questions about Gospel differences as disloyal.
Respond and Remember
Let the meaning shape life carefully, then practice explaining the section in context.
How This Should Shape Us
Why these applications follow
Mary Magdalene and the other Mary come at dawn, an earthquake and angel open the guarded tomb, the angel announces Jesus raised and sends them to disciples, and Jesus meets and commissions them.
Mary Magdalene and the other Mary come at dawn, an earthquake and angel open the guarded tomb, the angel announces Jesus raised and sends them to disciples, and Jesus meets and commissions them. Matthew narrates Passion and resurrection through differentiated participants, Roman state power, Israel's Scriptures, and theological signs. Foreknowledge or fulfillment never erases human agency, and no named leader or crowd represents Jewish people across time.
Faithful reading of Matthew 28:1–28:10 preserves its unit movement, first audience, Jewish setting, affected people, literary form, and material uncertainty before application. This account does not erase women as first commissioned witnesses, coerce belief, promise modern apparitions, or treat questions about Gospel differences as disloyal.
What accountable response follows?
For Matthew 28:1–28:10, name what the unit says—Mary Magdalene and the other Mary come at dawn, an earthquake and angel open the guarded tomb, the angel announces Jesus raised and sends them to disciples, and Jesus meets and commissions them. Then preserve this interpretive limit: Matthew foregrounds women's testimony in a world that often discounted it; Gospel sequence differences and the narrated miracle should be acknowledged rather than flattened or claimed independently proved. Practice the proportionate truth without crossing this boundary: This account does not erase women as first commissioned witnesses, coerce belief, promise modern apparitions, or treat questions about Gospel differences as disloyal.
A Concrete Example
Before using Matthew 28:1–28:10 in teaching, care, policy, or conflict, name the full unit, first audience, affected person, source limit, and this rejected misuse: This account does not erase women as first commissioned witnesses, coerce belief, promise modern apparitions, or treat questions about Gospel differences as disloyal.
Teach It Back
Explain Matthew 28:1–28:10 in your own words. Name its movement, one affected person or audience, one text-based conclusion, one source-controlled uncertainty, its place in Matthew, and one use the unit explicitly rejects.
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Go Deeper
The main explanation above stands on its own. Open these optional sections for fuller language, history, disagreements, and source locations.
Read it sentence by sentenceEach line inside the larger movement
What the unit does
Mary Magdalene and the other Mary come at dawn, an earthquake and angel open the guarded tomb, the angel announces Jesus raised and sends them to disciples, and Jesus meets and commissions them.
How to read its form
Matthew narrates Passion and resurrection through differentiated participants, Roman state power, Israel's Scriptures, and theological signs. Foreknowledge or fulfillment never erases human agency, and no named leader or crowd represents Jewish people across time.
What the unit cannot be made to do
This account does not erase women as first commissioned witnesses, coerce belief, promise modern apparitions, or treat questions about Gospel differences as disloyal.
Original-language wording and grammarTechnical detail appears only where it helps
make disciples
the governing commission verb, enacted by going, baptizing, and teaching
How certain? probableWhat the first readers would have understoodRelevant history and culture
First-century setting and recoverable limits
Matthew foregrounds women's testimony in a world that often discounted it; Gospel sequence differences and the narrated miracle should be acknowledged rather than flattened or claimed independently proved.
How certain? probableWhy translations sometimes differMaterial translation choices
Pinned KJV and Greek control
The pinned KJV remains the displayed text. SBLGNT, STEP morphology, and the exact NET notes were checked for Matthew 28:1–28:10; older KJV diction is clarified only where it changes ordinary understanding.
How certain? strongEarlier Scripture and inherited backgroundSupported quotations, allusions, and inherited ideas
Israel's Scriptures and Jewish setting
Matthew presents Jesus, disciples, crowds, interpreters, institutions, practices, and disputes within Israel's scriptural story and first-century Jewish diversity. Mary Magdalene and the other Mary come at dawn, an earthquake and angel open the guarded tomb, the angel announces Jesus raised and sends them to disciples, and Jesus meets and commissions them.
How certain? strongHow this connects with the rest of ScriptureThe passage's own meaning remains primary
Scripture, Gospel parallels, and later reading
Interpret Matthew 28:1–28:10 first within Matthew. Synoptic and wider canonical connections may clarify repetition and difference but must not silence Matthew's wording, unit boundary, Jewish setting, or visible uncertainty.
How certain? strongTextual variantsManuscript differences only when they affect meaning
Material textual or Synoptic issue
Matthew foregrounds women's testimony in a world that often discounted it; Gospel sequence differences and the narrated miracle should be acknowledged rather than flattened or claimed independently proved.
How certain? probableWhere careful interpreters disagreeThe strongest options and their difficulties
Which judgment needs visible uncertainty?
Best judgment: Matthew foregrounds women's testimony in a world that often discounted it; Gospel sequence differences and the narrated miracle should be acknowledged rather than flattened or claimed independently proved.
How certain? probableTheology that emerges from this passageConclusions drawn after reading the complete section
Theological contribution
Matthew locates this unit within God's kingdom, Jesus' authority and compassion, Israel's Scriptures, accountable discipleship, and the movement toward cross and resurrection: Mary Magdalene and the other Mary come at dawn, an earthquake and angel open the guarded tomb, the angel announces Jesus raised and sends them to disciples, and Jesus meets and commissions them.
How certain? strongTheological contribution
God's action in Matthew 28:1–28:10 cannot be converted into control of bodies, guaranteed outcomes, ethnic superiority, coercion, political dominion, or any misuse explicitly rejected by this unit.
How certain? strongCommon ways this passage gets misusedFair explanation, context check, and stronger reading
This account does not erase women as first commissioned witnesses, coerce belief, promise modern apparitions, or treat questions about Gospel differences as disloyal.
A memorable saying, conflict, miracle, judgment image, or fulfillment line in Matthew 28:1–28:10 can be detached from its complete unit and first-century setting.
Mary Magdalene and the other Mary come at dawn, an earthquake and angel open the guarded tomb, the angel announces Jesus raised and sends them to disciples, and Jesus meets and commissions them. Matthew narrates Passion and resurrection through differentiated participants, Roman state power, Israel's Scriptures, and theological signs. Foreknowledge or fulfillment never erases human agency, and no named leader or crowd represents Jewish people across time.
Keep observation, speaker, narrator, literary image, historical reconstruction, theological synthesis, and modern application in their proper order.
Mary Magdalene and the other Mary come at dawn, an earthquake and angel open the guarded tomb, the angel announces Jesus raised and sends them to disciples, and Jesus meets and commissions them.
Research trail and exact locationsThe source record behind this section
Supports: Exact displayed KJV wording, order, paragraph metadata, supplied-word markup, and thought-unit coverage.
Matthew 28:1–28:10, pinned eng-kjv2006 USFM-derived repository corpus
Supports: Greek wording and punctuation control without treating one edition as a complete apparatus.
SBLGNT official text file data/sblgnt/text/Matt.txt, Matthew 28:1–28:10
Supports: Morphology and lexical cross-check for the expressions actually discussed in this thought unit.
STEP Bible Data TAGNT rows for Matthew 28:1–28:10
Supports: Verse-attached textual, translation, language, historical, Jewish-background, and Synoptic notes for this unit.
NET Bible Matthew PDF, printed pp. 1808-1867, exact tn/tc/sn entries attached to 28:1–28:10
Supports: Critical literary orientation with source, setting, historical, and theological judgments retained as interpretations.
Yale Bible Study, course unit 'Death and Resurrection,' Matthew 26-28 study guide
Supports: Whole-book orientation and unit placement, including visible uncertainty about authorship, date, setting, and purpose.
Enter the Bible Matthew course, 'Summary,' 'Outline,' 'Background,' 'Introductory Issues,' 'Theological Themes,' and passage index entry for Matthew 28:1–28:10
Supports: One complete confessional reading checked against the text, critical scholarship, and Jewish-context controls.
O'Donnell, online Matthew commentary, heading and paragraphs explicitly covering Matthew 28:1–28:10
Supports: Jewish setting, Scripture, Torah debate, named groups, practices, and anti-Judaism control at the passage address.
Gale, Matthew introduction and verse-addressed annotations, first-edition print pp. 1-54, exact annotation at Matthew 28:1–28:10
Supports: Literary-dependence analysis with Markan priority, Two-Source/Q, Farrer, and Matthean-priority alternatives kept distinct.
Goodacre, The Synoptic Problem, chapters 1-5, with the Synoptic parallels and order bearing on Matthew 28:1–28:10
Supports: Specialist control for Matthew's Jewish setting, Torah, Israel and nations, polemic, parables, Passion, resurrection, or mission as material to Matthew 28:1–28:10.
Novakovic on resurrection, printed pp. 347-368; Levine, pp. 449-466
Sources for This Section
These records identify the source, the claim it supports, and the exact location used. A source remains evidence to evaluate; it does not replace the biblical text.
Biblical text
King James (Authorized) Version — eng-kjv2006
eBible.org and CrossWire Bible Society
USFM archive eng-kjv2006_usfm.zip; source files dated 2026-08-19; downloaded 2026-08-24; archive SHA-256 aec1b3b26c622fd3d963d2bbac963016b9513246ffbfa20da00bb100372ea007; normalized corpus SHA-256 09aef51d90488aa7b9722b3fd9a93f4b25f6bf2064c5fd798fb39673c300ddf2.
Supports: Exact displayed KJV wording, order, paragraph metadata, supplied-word markup, and thought-unit coverage.
Exact location: Matthew 28:1–28:10, pinned eng-kjv2006 USFM-derived repository corpus
Open source ↗Greek textual evidence
The Greek New Testament: SBL Edition
Michael W. Holmes, editor; Society of Biblical Literature and Logos
Society of Biblical Literature and Logos Bible Software, 2010
Supports: Greek wording and punctuation control without treating one edition as a complete apparatus.
Exact location: SBLGNT official text file data/sblgnt/text/Matt.txt, Matthew 28:1–28:10
Open the Matthew Greek text file ↗Lexical and grammatical evidence
STEP Bible Data
Tyndale House Cambridge
Tyndale House Cambridge, repository snapshot verified 2026
Supports: Morphology and lexical cross-check for the expressions actually discussed in this thought unit.
Exact location: STEP Bible Data TAGNT rows for Matthew 28:1–28:10
Open source ↗open translation and translator notes
NET Bible: Matthew with Translators' and Textual Notes
Biblical Studies Press
Biblical Studies Press, 2005-2026 online edition
Supports: Verse-attached textual, translation, language, historical, Jewish-background, and Synoptic notes for this unit.
Exact location: NET Bible Matthew PDF, printed pp. 1808-1867, exact tn/tc/sn entries attached to 28:1–28:10
Open source ↗open university bible study course
The Gospel of Matthew Course and Study Guides
Harold W. Attridge and Michal Beth Dinkler
Yale Bible Study, Yale Divinity School, current 2026 online edition
Supports: Critical literary orientation with source, setting, historical, and theological judgments retained as interpretations.
Exact location: Yale Bible Study, course unit 'Death and Resurrection,' Matthew 26-28 study guide
Open source ↗open seminary bible study course
Matthew Course
James L. Boyce; revised by Kristofer Phan Coffman
Enter the Bible, Luther Seminary, 2023 revision
Supports: Whole-book orientation and unit placement, including visible uncertainty about authorship, date, setting, and purpose.
Exact location: Enter the Bible Matthew course, 'Summary,' 'Outline,' 'Background,' 'Introductory Issues,' 'Theological Themes,' and passage index entry for Matthew 28:1–28:10
Open source ↗open confessional commentary
Matthew
Douglas Sean O'Donnell
The Gospel Coalition Bible Commentary, current 2026 online edition
Supports: One complete confessional reading checked against the text, critical scholarship, and Jewish-context controls.
Exact location: O'Donnell, online Matthew commentary, heading and paragraphs explicitly covering Matthew 28:1–28:10
Open source ↗scholarly annotated translation
Matthew, in The Jewish Annotated New Testament
Aaron M. Gale; edited by Amy-Jill Levine and Marc Zvi Brettler
Aaron M. Gale, Matthew introduction and annotations, print pp. 1-54; related essays and sidebars in The Jewish Annotated New Testament, first edition.
Supports: Jewish setting, Scripture, Torah debate, named groups, practices, and anti-Judaism control at the passage address.
Exact location: Gale, Matthew introduction and verse-addressed annotations, first-edition print pp. 1-54, exact annotation at Matthew 28:1–28:10
Open source ↗open access scholarly monograph
The Synoptic Problem: A Way Through the Maze
Mark Goodacre
T&T Clark; author-authorized open release, 2001; open release 2011
Supports: Literary-dependence analysis with Markan priority, Two-Source/Q, Farrer, and Matthean-priority alternatives kept distinct.
Exact location: Goodacre, The Synoptic Problem, chapters 1-5, with the Synoptic parallels and order bearing on Matthew 28:1–28:10
Open source ↗open access scholarly essay collection
Matthew within Judaism: Israel and the Nations in the First Gospel
Anders Runesson and Daniel M. Gurtner, editors
SBL Press, 2020
Supports: Specialist control for Matthew's Jewish setting, Torah, Israel and nations, polemic, parables, Passion, resurrection, or mission as material to Matthew 28:1–28:10.
Exact location: Novakovic on resurrection, printed pp. 347-368; Levine, pp. 449-466
Open source ↗