The New Testament is our divinely inspired commentary on the Old Testament. When studying a passage, it’s often helpful to see how other biblical authors understood it. Here is Matthew’s quotations and allusions to the Old Testament in his gospel.
| Matthew | Old Testament | Type of use |
| Mt 1:23 – “Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son,and they shall call his name Immanuel” (which means, God with us). | Isa 7:14 | |
| Mt 2:6 – “ ‘And you, O Bethlehem, in the land of Judah, are by no means least among the rulers of Judah; for from you shall come a ruler who will shepherd my people Israel.’ ” | Mic 5:2 | |
| Mt 2:15 -and remained there until the death of Herod. This was to fulfill what the Lord had spoken by the prophet, “Out of Egypt I called my son.” | Ho 11:1 | |
| Mt 2:18 – “A voice was heard in Ramah, weeping and loud lamentation, Rachel weeping for her children; she refused to be comforted, because they are no more.” | Jer 31:15 | |
| Mt 3:3 – For this is he who was spoken of by the prophet Isaiah when he said, “The voice of one crying in the wilderness: ‘Prepare the way of the Lord; make his paths straight.’ ” | Isa 40:3 | |
| Mt 4:4 – But he answered, “It is written, “ ‘Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God.’ ” | De 8:3 | |
| Mt 4:6 – and said to him, “If you are the Son of God, throw yourself down, for it is written,“ ‘He will command his angels concerning you,’ and “ ‘On their hands they will bear you up, lest you strike your foot against a stone.’ ” | Ps 91:11-12 | |
| Mt 4:7 – Jesus said to him, “Again it is written, ‘You shall not put the Lord your God to the test. | De 6:16 | |
| Mt 4:10 – Then Jesus said to him, “Be gone, Satan! For it is written, “ ‘You shall worship the Lord your God and him only shall you serve.’ ” | De 6:13; De 10:20 | |
| Mt 4:15-16 – “The land of Zebulun and the land of Naphtali, the way of the sea, beyond the Jordan, Galilee of the Gentiles— the people dwelling in darkness have seen a great light, and for those dwelling in the region and shadow of death, on them a light has dawned.” | Isa 9:1-2; Isa 42:7 | |
| Mt 5:5 – “Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth. | Ps 37:11 | allusion |
| Mt 5:21 – “You have heard that it was said to those of old, ‘You shall not murder; and whoever murders will be liable to judgment.’ | Ex 20:13; De 5:17 | allusion |
| Mt 5:27 – “You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall not commit adultery.’ | Ex 20:14; De 5:18 | allusion |
| Mt 5:31 – “It was also said, ‘Whoever divorces his wife, let him give her a certificate of divorce.’ | De 24:1 | allusion |
| Mt 5:33 – “Again you have heard that it was said to those of old, ‘You shall not swear falsely, but shall perform to the Lord what you have sworn.’ | Ex 20:7; Le 19:12 | allusion |
| Mt 5:38 – “You have heard that it was said, ‘An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.’ | Ex 21:24; Le 24:20; De 19:21 | allusion |
| Mt 5:43 – “You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ | Le 19:18 | allusion |
| Mt 5:48 – You therefore must be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect. | Ge 17:1 | |
| Mt 7:23 – And then will I declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from me, you workers of lawlessness.’ | Ps 6:8 | |
| Mt 8:4 – And Jesus said to him, “See that you say nothing to anyone, but go, show yourself to the priest and offer the gift that Moses commanded, for a proof to them.” | Le 14:2,3 | allusion |
| Mt 8:17 – This was to fulfill what was spoken by the prophet Isaiah: “He took our illnesses and bore our diseases.” | Isa 53:4 | |
| Mt 9:13 – Go and learn what this means: ‘I desire mercy, and not sacrifice.’ For I came not to call the righteous, but sinners.” | Ho 6:6 | |
| Mt 10:35-36 – For I have come to set a man against his father, and a daughter against her mother, and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law. And a person’s enemies will be those of his own household. | Mic 7:6 | allusion |
| Mt 11:5 – the blind receive their sight and the lame walk, lepers are cleansed and the deaf hear, and the dead are raised up, and the poor have good news preached to them. | Isa 35:5; Isa 29:18 | allusion |
| Mt 11:10 – This is he of whom it is written, “ ‘Behold, I send my messenger before your face, who will prepare your way before you.’ | Mal 3:1 | |
| Mt 11:14 – and if you are willing to accept it, he is Elijah who is to come. | Mal 4:5 | allusion |
| Mt 12:3 – He said to them, “Have you not read what David did when he was hungry, and those who were with him: | 1Sa 21:6 | allusion |
| Mt 12:5 – Or have you not read in the Law how on the Sabbath the priests in the temple profane the Sabbath and are guiltless? | Nu 28:9,10 | allusion |
| Mt 12:7 – And if you had known what this means, ‘I desire mercy, and not sacrifice,’ you would not have condemned the guiltless. | Ho 6:6 | |
| Mt 12:18-21 – “Behold, my servant whom I have chosen, my beloved with whom my soul is well pleased. I will put my Spirit upon him, and he will proclaim justice to the Gentiles. He will not quarrel or cry aloud, nor will anyone hear his voice in the streets; a bruised reed he will not break, and a smoldering wick he will not quench, until he brings justice to victory; and in his name the Gentiles will hope.” | Isa 42:1-4 | |
| Mt 12:40 – For just as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of the great fish, so will the Son of Man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth. | Jon 1:17 | allusion |
| Mt 12:42 – The queen of the South will rise up at the judgment with this generation and condemn it, for she came from the ends of the earth to hear the wisdom of Solomon, and behold, something greater than Solomon is here. | 1Ki 10:1 | allusion |
| Mt 13:14 – Indeed, in their case the prophecy of Isaiah is fulfilled that says:“ ‘ “You will indeed hear but never understand, and you will indeed see but never perceive.” | Isa 6:9,10 | |
| Mt 13:35 – This was to fulfill what was spoken by the prophet: “I will open my mouth in parables; I will utter what has been hidden since the foundation of the world.” | Ps 78:2 | |
| Mt 15:4 – For God commanded, ‘Honor your father and your mother,’ and, ‘Whoever reviles father or mother must surely die.’ | Ex 20:12; Ex 21:17; De 5:16; Le 20:9; Pr 20:20 | |
| Mt 15:8-9 – “ ‘This people honors me with their lips, but their heart is far from me; in vain do they worship me, | Isa 29:13 | |
| Mt 16:4 – An evil and adulterous generation seeks for a sign, but no sign will be given to it except the sign of Jonah.” So he left them and departed. | Jon 1:17 | allusion |
| Mt 17:10 – And the disciples asked him, “Then why do the scribes say that first Elijah must come?” | Mal 4:5 | allusion |
| Mt 18:15 -“If your brother sins against you, go and tell him his fault, between you and him alone. If he listens to you, you have gained your brother. | Le 19:17 | allusion |
| Mt 18:16 – But if he does not listen, take one or two others along with you, that every charge may be established by the evidence of two or three witnesses. | Le 19:15; De 19:15 | allusion |
| Mt 19:4 – He answered, “Have you not read that he who created them from the beginning made them male and female, | Ge 1:27 | allusion |
| Mt 19:5 – and said, ‘Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh’? | Ge 2:24 | |
| Mt 19:7 – They said to him, “Why then did Moses command one to give a certificate of divorce and to send her away?” | De 24:1 | allusion |
| Mt 19:18 – He said to him, “Which ones?” And Jesus said, “You shall not murder, You shall not commit adultery, You shall not steal, You shall not bear false witness, | Ex 20:12 | |
| Mt 19:19 – Honor your father and mother, and, You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” | Le 19:18 | |
| Mt 19:26 – But Jesus looked at them and said, “With man this is impossible, but with God all things are possible.” | Jer 32:17 | allusion |
| Mt 21:5 – “Say to the daughter of Zion, ‘Behold, your king is coming to you, humble, and mounted on a donkey, on a colt, the foal of a beast of burden.’ | Zec 9:9 | |
| Mt 21:9 – And the crowds that went before him and that followed him were shouting, “Hosanna to the Son of David! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord! Hosanna in the highest!” | Ps 118:26 | |
| Mt 21:13 – He said to them, “It is written, ‘My house shall be called a house of prayer,’ but you make it a den of robbers.” | Isa 56:7; Jer 7:11 | |
| Mt 21:16 | Ps 8:2 | |
| Mt 21:33 – “Hear another parable. There was a master of a house who planted a vineyard and put a fence around it and dug a winepress in it and built a tower and leased it to tenants, and went into another country. | Isa 5:1 | allusion |
| Mt 21:42 – and they said to him, “Do you hear what these are saying?” And Jesus said to them, “Yes; have you never read,“ ‘Out of the mouth of infants and nursing babies you have prepared praise’?” | Ps 118:22,23 | |
| Mt 21:44 – And the one who falls on this stone will be broken to pieces; and when it falls on anyone, it will crush him.” | Isa 8:14; Zec 12:3 Da 2:34-35; Da 2:44 | allusion |
| Mt 22:24 – saying, “Teacher, Moses said, ‘If a man dies having no children, his brother must marry the widow and raise up offspring for his brother.’ | De 25:5 | |
| Mt 22:32 – ‘I am the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob’? He is not God of the dead, but of the living.” | Ex 3:6 | |
| Mt 22:37 – And he said to him, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. | De 6:5 | |
| Mt 22:39 – And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. | Le 19:18 | |
| Mt 22:44 – “ ‘The Lord said to my Lord, “Sit at my right hand, until I put your enemies under your feet” ’? | Ps 110:1 | |
| Mt 23:35 – so that on you may come all the righteous blood shed on earth, from the blood of righteous Abel to the blood of Zechariah the son of Barachiah, whom you murdered between the sanctuary and the altar. | Ge 4:8; 2Ch 24:21-22 | allusion |
| Mt 23:38 – See, your house is left to you desolate. | Ps 69:25; Jer 12:7; Jer 22:5 | allusion |
| Mt 23:39 – For I tell you, you will not see me again, until you say, ‘Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord.’ ” | Ps 118:26 | allusion |
| Mt 24:15 – “So when you see the abomination of desolation spoken of by the prophet Daniel, standing in the holy place (let the reader understand), | Da 8:13; Da 9:27; Da 11:31 | allusion |
| Mt 24:21 – For then there will be great tribulation, such as has not been from the beginning of the world until now, no, and never will be. | Jer 30:7 | |
| Mt 24:29 – “Immediately after the tribulation of those days the sun will be darkened, and the moon will not give its light, and the stars will fall from heaven, and the powers of the heavens will be shaken. | Isa 13:9-10; Joe 2:10; Joe 3:15; Eze 32:7 | allusion |
| Mt 24:35 – Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will not pass away. | Isa 51:16 | allusion |
| Mt 24:37 – For as were the days of Noah, so will be the coming of the Son of Man. | Ge 7:4 | allusion |
| Mt 25:41 – Then he will say to those on his left, ‘Depart from me, you cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels. | Ps 6:8 | |
| Mt 26:24 – The Son of Man goes as it is written of him, but woe to that man by whom the Son of Man is betrayed! It would have been better for that man if he had not been born.” | Ps 22:1-31 | allusion |
| Mt 26:31 -Then Jesus said to them, “You will all fall away because of me this night. For it is written, ‘I will strike the shepherd, and the sheep of the flock will be scattered.’ | Zec 13:7 | |
| Mt 26:60 – but they found none, though many false witnesses came forward. At last two came forward | Ps 35:11 | allusion |
| Mt 26:67 – Then they spit in his face and struck him. And some slapped him, | Isa 50:6 | allusion |
| Mt 27:9-10 – Then was fulfilled what had been spoken by the prophet Jeremiah, saying, “And they took the thirty pieces of silver, the price of him on whom a price had been set by some of the sons of Israel, and they gave them for the potter’s field, as the Lord directed me.” | Zec 11:13 | |
| Mt 27:35 – And when they had crucified him, they divided his garments among them by casting lots. | Ps 22:18 | |
| Mt 27:43 – He trusts in God; let God deliver him now, if he desires him. For he said, ‘I am the Son of God.’ ” | Ps 22:7-9 | allusion |
| Mt 27:46 – And about the ninth hour Jesus cried out with a loud voice, saying, “Eli, Eli, lema sabachthani?” that is, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” | Ps 22:1 | |
| Mt 28:18 – And Jesus came and said to them, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me | Da 7:14 | allusion |
A quotation is a word-for-word citation of the original source, often preceded by “it is written” or “saying”.
An allusion is a reference to the original source using the the same key words or thoughts without quoting word for word.
Because the New Testament writers often borrow the language of the Old Testament (allusion) rather than quote verses directly, different scholars suggest different counts for the number of times the New Testament quotes or refers to the Old Testament.
Quotes from the Septuagint (LXX) may have appear to have somewhat different wording than the linked translation of the Hebrew text.