Yoke and burden 1/4

Matthew 11:30
For my yoke [is] easy,
and my burden is light.

Study

Other translations

English Standard Version
New International Version
For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.”

New Living Translation
For my yoke is easy to bear, and the burden I give you is light.”

Berean Study Bible
For My yoke is easy and My burden is light.”

Berean Literal Bible
New King James Version
For My yoke [is] easy and My burden is light.”

New American Standard Bible
For My yoke is comfortable, and My burden is light.”

Amplified Bible
For My yoke is easy [to bear] and My burden is light.”

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For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light. 

Question

Our Saviour had before told us that the way to heaven is a strait way (Matthew 7:13,14), how does he now tell us His yoke is easy and His burden light?

Answer:

1. Nothing makes it hard or burdensome but our corruption, which floweth from the depravation of human nature.
2. It is much easier than the yoke and burden of the law.
3. Though it be hard to beginners, yet it is easy when we have once accustomed ourselves to it.
4. It is easy, considering that we do it not in our own strength, but by assistance from God (Jeremiah 31:33;  Ezekiel 36:25,26; John 15:3), we are delivered even from the moral law, considered as a covenant, and as merely commanding us, and affording no help and assistance.
5. It is also easy; as we are by the love of God constrained to our duty, so we are freed from the rigour of the law. It is easy and light, as it is a course of life highly consonant to our reason, once delivered from a bondage to our passions. Finally, it is much more easy and light than the service of our lusts is.

There is no greater slavery than a subjection to our lusts, that if a drunkard saith “Come,” we must come, if an harlot saith “Go,” we must go.
Or than our service to the world, etc.

To say nothing of the exceeding easiness of it, from the prospect of the great reward proposed and promised to those who keep the commandments of Christ, the exceeding and eternal weight of glory (2 Corinthians 4:17); as Jacob’s hard service of fourteen years seemed to him but a few days.

My yoke is easy

That is, the services that I shall require are easily rendered.
They are not burdensome, like all other systems of religion.

So the Christian always finds them.

• In coming to him there is “a peace which passeth all understanding;”
• in believing in him, “joy;”
• in following him “through evil and good report,” a comfort “which the world giveth not;”
• in bearing trials and in persecution, “the hope of glory;”
• and in keeping his commandments, great reward.

Christ calls a profession of faith in Him, and subjection to His ordinances,
▪︎ a yoke, in allusion to the law of Moses, and in distinction from it;
▪︎ and a “burden”, with respect to the very heavy ones the Scribes and Pharisees laid upon the shoulders of the people, obliging them to a strict observance of them; though of a different nature from either of them;

For his commandments are not grievous, hard and heavy to be borne, as their’s were, but “easy and light”: not that they are so to unregenerate men, or are easily performed by the strength of nature, and power of men’s free will: but they are good and amiable, and lovely in their own nature, and are cheerfully complied with, and abundance of spiritual pleasure and delight is enjoyed in them by believers, when they have the presence of God, the assistance of his Spirit, and the discoveries of his love.

Moreover, the commands of Christ, and the ordinances of the Gospel, are so in comparison of the law of Moses; which required perfect obedience, but gave no strength to perform, and threatened with condemnation and death, in case of the least failure; and of the numerous, and some very severe rites and usages of the ceremonial law; and of the bulky and heavy traditions of the elders, and ordinances of men.

Easy

The Greek has a wider range of meaning: good, helpful, kind, profitable.

My burden is light

The “burden” of Christ was the commandment that most characterised His teaching: the new commandment that men should love one another; and those who obeyed that commandment would find all to which it bound them light and easy.

Greek

For ☆ γὰρ (gar) ☆ Conjunction ☆ For. A primary particle; properly, assigning a reason.

My ☆ μου (mou) ☆ Personal / Possessive Pronoun – Genitive 1st Person Singular ☆ I, the first-person pronoun. A primary pronoun of the first person I.

Yoke ☆ ζυγός (zygos) ☆ Noun – Nominative Masculine Singular ☆ From the root of zeugnumi; a coupling, i.e. servitude; also the beam of the balance.

Is easy ☆ χρηστὸς (chrēstos) ☆ Adjective – Nominative Masculine Singular ☆ Useful, gentle, pleasant, kind. From chraomai; employed, i.e. useful.

And ☆ καὶ (kai) ☆ Conjunction ☆ And, even, also, namely.

My ☆ μου (mou) ☆ Personal / Possessive Pronoun – Genitive 1st Person Singular ☆ I, the first-person pronoun. A primary pronoun of the first person I.

Burden ☆ φορτίον (phortion) ☆ Noun – Nominative Neuter Singular ☆ A burden; the freight of a ship. Diminutive of phortos; an invoice, i.e. a task or service.

Is ☆ ἐστιν (estin) ☆ Verb – Present Indicative Active – 3rd Person Singular ☆ I am, exist. The first person singular present indicative; a prolonged form of a primary and defective verb; I exist.

Light ☆ ἐλαφρόν (elaphron) ☆ Adjective – Nominative Neuter Singular ☆ Light, not burdensome. Probably akin to elauno and the base of elasson; light, i.e. Easy.

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