28 “Come to me, all you who labor and are burdened, and I will give you rest. 29 Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am meek and humble of heart; and you will find rest for your selves. 30 For my yoke is easy, and my burden light.” 

The last three verses of the chapter contain many echoes of the invitation of Jesus Ben Sira (Sir 51:23–27; cf. also Sir 6:24–31) for men to come and learn from him and take up wisdom’s yoke, so that they may find rest. No doubt Jesus and his hearers knew and valued this book, but Jesus’ invitation reveals a higher authority: it is his own yoke that he offers, and he himself gives the rest which Ben Sira had to win by his ‘little labors’.

The word labor (kopiao) is translated literally. But there is also a figurative sense beyond “to be engaged in hard work, implying difficulties and trouble.” The figurative sense means “to become emotionally fatigued and discouraged,” e.g., “to give up, to lose heart” [EDNT 2:307]. We hear that in other places when the same word (kopiao) is translated as “weary” – Come to me, all you who are weary. The invitation to rest is not just for the physically tired but also those whose emotional energies are spent.

In its own way the invitation to rest in these verses spell out that this is the result of the unique relationship of the Father and the Son.  Just as only God knows Wisdom (Wis 8:4; 9:1-18), so only the Father knows the Son.  Just as only Wisdom makes known the divine mysteries (Wis 9:1-18, 10:10), so Jesus is the revealer of God’s hidden truths. As the personified divine Wisdom calls people to take up her yoke and find rest (Sir 51:23-30; Prov 1:20-23; 8:1-36), so Jesus extends the same invitation. For Matthew, Jesus is not the messenger of Wisdom, but is identified with the heavenly Wisdom of God; he speaks not only for Wisdom, but as the divine Wisdom.

The yoke was sometimes in the Old Testament a symbol of oppression (Isa. 9:4; 58:6; Jer. 27–28), but was also used in a good sense of the service of God (Jer. 2:20; Lam. 3:27). Later it came to be used commonly in Jewish writings for obedience to the law—the ‘yoke of the law’ is one every Jew should be proud to carry. Such a yoke should not be oppressive, for after all the function of a yoke (the sort worn by humans) is to make a burden easier to carry. But through the seemingly arbitrary demands of Pharisaic legalism and the uncertainties of ever-proliferating rabbinic case law the law had itself become a burden, and a new yoke was needed to lighten the load. Jesus’ yoke is easy (chrēstos normally means ‘good’, ‘kind’ – and perhaps in a play on words chrestos is only one letter different from christos = “Christ”), not because it makes lighter demands, but because it represents entering into a disciple-relationship (learn from me) with one who is meek and humble of heart (cf. 2 Cor 10:1). The words echo the description of God’s servant in Isaiah 42:2–3; 53:1–2, and especially the words of Zechariah 9:9 which Matthew will pick up again at 21:4–5. It is also the character Jesus expects, and creates, in his disciples (5:3ff.)

You will find rest for your selves is an echo of the Hebrew text of Jeremiah 6:16 (lxx), where it is the offer of God to those who follow his way; Jesus now issues the invitation in his own name!

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