Matt 16:18-19 And I say also unto thee, That thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church; and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. And I will give unto thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven: and whatsoever thou shalt bind on earth shall be bound in heaven: and whatsoever thou shalt loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven. (KJV)
One of the first and foremost Hebraist of the reformation, John Lightfoot (1602- 1675) recognized early in his scholarly pursuit to understand difficult passages of scripture, that it was necessary to get back as close as one could to the way in which the people of that day would of heard and understood the words of Yeshua. This is what he had to say pertaining to that time. "All the books of the New Testament were written by Jews, and among Jews, and unto them; and when all the discourses made there, were made in like manner by Jews, and to Jews, and among them; I was always fully persuaded, as if a thing past all doubting, that that Testament could not but everywhere taste of and retain the Jews style, idiom, form, and rule of speaking. I also concluded, that in the obscurer places of that Testament ( which are very many), the best and most natural method of searching out the sense is, to inquire how, and in what sense, those phrases and manners of speech were understood, according to the common dialect and opinion of that nation; and how they took them, by whom they were spoken, and by whom they were heard. For it is no matter what we can beat out concerning those manners of speech on the anvil of our own conceit, but what they signified among them, in their ordinary sense and speech. This could be found out no other way then by consulting Talmudic authors, who both speak in the common dialect of the Jews, and also handle and reveal all Jewish matters." (1.)

Until fairly recent, obscure passages of scripture like the one above and Matt 18 among many others have been misinterpreted, misconstrued, and in some cases made to sound chimerical (absurd). The words that Yeshua spoke here and in other places that seem difficult for a person reading the scriptures in our day were perfectly understood by the hearers in his day as to what He meant by them. While word studies have their place, all the word studies in the world won’t give you the proper understanding of how a phrase, idiom, or figure of speech was understood within the social- matrix in which it was used. With that in mind let us now look at the above passage. In laying a foundation for the authority of "binding & loosing" we will have to look to the Book of Deuteronomy:

Deut 17:8-11 If there arise a matter too hard for thee in judgment, between blood and blood, between plea and plea, and between stroke and stroke, being matters of controversy within thy gates: then shalt thou arise, and get thee up into the place which the LORD thy God shall choose; And thou shalt come unto the priests the Levites, and unto the judge that shall be in those days, and inquire; and they shall shew thee the sentence of judgment: And thou shalt do according to the sentence, which they of that place which the LORD shall choose shall shew thee; and thou shalt observe to do according to all that they inform thee: According to the sentence of the law which they shall teach thee, and according to the judgment which they shall tell thee, thou shalt do: thou shalt not decline from the sentence which they shall shew thee, to the right hand, nor to the left. (KJV)

As Israel grew and its religion developed there arose a great need for clarification in many areas of the Law. A few examples of this were the laws of keeping the Sabbath properly, what was considered work and what was not, what one could or could not do on the Sabbath, in fact, the laws of binding and loosing for the Sabbath were the most extensive and detailed of all the commandments. During the time of Ezra or shortly there after, there arose what has become known as "The Great Assembly" ( Abot 1.1). One of their maxims was, "Make a Fence for the Law," that is, protect it by surrounding it with cautionary rules to halt a man like a danger signal before he gets within breaking distance of the divine statute itself. The explicit prohibition in Deut 4:2 ‘Ye shall not add unto the word which I command you, neither shall ye diminish ought from it’ was easily got over by the exegesis of the schools interpretation of Deut 17:11. (2.)

By protecting the Law from infringement by a thick-set hedge of prohibitions more stringent then the letter as the changing times seemed to demand it, the rabbis in council or individually did not hesitate to suspend or set aside laws in the Pentateuch on their own authority. Another justification offered for extraordinary liberties of this kind is the interpretation of Psalm 119:126. Instead of, "It is time for thee, LORD, to work: for they have made void thy law" the verse is taken, " It is time to do something for the Lord." (3.)

There are in fact numerous rabbinical enactments from all periods which are more or less at variance with the plain letter and intent of the Law. When we come to the days in which Yeshua lived there was a large legislative body called the Sanhedrin as well as the Sadducees, Pharisees, and the schools of learning (bet hamidrash) of which there were two, the School of Shammai, and the School of Hillel. By now the phrase, to bind and loose in the Jewish schools was very usual and was spoken of things, not of persons or any entity.

This phrase is met with thousands of times over in Jewish writings of which I shall give but a few examples: "Concerning the moving of empty vessels on the Sabbath Day, of the filling of which there is no intention; the school of Shammai binds it (forbids) and the school of Hillel looseth it (permits)." "Concerning the gathering of wood on a feast-day scattered about a field, the school of Shammai binds it, the school of Hillel looseth it." "Women may not look into a looking-glass on the Sabbath Day if it is fixed to a wall, Our Rabbi loosed it, but the wise men bound it." "To them that bathe in the hot-baths in the Sabbath Day, they bind the washing, but they loose the sweating." " The wise men ( The Sanhedrin) bind the eating of leaven from the beginning of the sixth hour, of the day of the Passover." "They do not send letters by the hand of a heathen on the eve of a Sabbath, nor on the fifth day of the week, the school of Shammai binds it even until the forth day of the week, but the school of Hillel looseth it." " R. Meir loosed the mixing of wines and oil, to anoint a sick man on the Sabbath." (4.)

As we can see from the above quotations that there was a common usage and understanding of this phrase. First, that it was used in doctrine, and in judgments, concerning things allowed (permitted) or not allowed (forbidden) in the Law. "To think that Yeshua, when he used that commonly understood phrase, was not understood by his hearers in the common sense of it, shall I call it a matter of laughter or of madness?" (5.)

"Therefore the words that Yeshua spoke to Peter here in Matt 16 meant that when the Mosaic Law, or some part of it was to be abolished and left off; and as to the other part of it, was to continue, and last forever, he granted Peter, and the rest of the apostles, a power to confirm or abolish what they thought good, and as they thought good, being taught by his teaching and led of the Holy Spirit. That whatsoever you shall bind in the law of Moses, that is forbid, that shall be forbidden, the divine authority confirming it; and whatsoever you shall loose, that is permit, or shall teach, that it is permitted and lawful, shall be lawful and permitted." (6.)

A fine example of this is shown in Acts 15 where the question of circumcision upon the believing Gentiles is disputed. Here Peter loosed that injunction that had been previously part of a proselyte's conversion to Judaism and the Covenant of God; the Kingdom of God was now open to all through Yeshua and the work that he accomplished. James did however forbid them to practice customs and a way of life that many of them were doing that were against the ways of God. In fact, he says that as they hear the Torah read every sabbath in the synagogue they would hear and learn the ways of God growing up in their salvation. Peter makes one other statement that deserves attention as it has been misconstrued by some as to the doing away of the commandments. Peter said, "Now therefore why tempt ye God, to put a yoke upon the neck of the disciples, which neither our fathers nor we were able to bear? Acts 15:10." For the new disciples that were coming into the kingdom in following Yeshua, none of the "Traditions of the Fathers", what was known as the Oral Torah, would be mandatory for them to learn and do. In the first century it was required that a proselyte not only keep the written Torah, but the Oral as well and to cast off one was considered as casting off the whole Yoke of the Kingdom of God. Paul speaks of this in, Gal 5:3: For I testify again to every man that is circumcised, that he is a debtor to do the whole law.

In the Matthew the usage is the same but the case different:

Matt 18:15-20 Moreover if thy brother shall trespass against thee, go and tell him his fault between thee and him alone: if he shall hear thee, thou hast gained thy brother. But if he will not hear thee, then take with thee one or two more, that in the mouth of two or three witnesses every word may be established. And if he shall neglect to hear them, tell it unto the church: but if he neglect to hear the church, let him be unto thee as an heathen man and a publican. Verily I say unto you, Whatsoever ye shall bind on earth shall be bound in heaven: and whatsoever ye shall loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven. Again I say unto you, That if two of you shall agree on earth as touching any thing that they shall ask, it shall be done for them of my Father which is in heaven. For where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them.

This has to do with the treatment of a brother who sins, the binding & loosing here have to do with the authority to forgive sins or excommunicate unrepentant persons from the community (church). The same idea is expressed in the book of John:

John 20: 21-23 Then said Jesus to them again, Peace be unto you: as my Father hath sent me, even so send I you. And when he had said this, he breathed on them, and saith unto them, Receive ye the Holy Ghost: Whose soever sins ye remit, they are remitted unto them; and whose soever sins ye retain, they are retained.

The usage and understanding is the same except that in Matt 16 it is of doctrine and not of persons and in Matt18 it is of persons obstinate, or not obstinate, to be punished by them, or not punished by them, and not of doctrine. I also might add here that there was another figure of speech used by the Rabbis and teachers that meant to excommunicate a person, and that was, "Turn them over to Satan." Paul used that term in 1 Cor 5:5.

There is another kind of "binding " of which Yeshua spoke of in Matt 12:29, Mk 3:27, Luke11:21-22, all which relate to the same thing, but that is a topic for another time as it is quite lengthy. A historical peeling back within the fabric of the social-culture of the time with all the different beliefs in magic, incantations, and the use of amulets by the religious order of that time period is needed to show how Yeshua's words would of been understood by them.

Yeshua's empowering of the disciples was in no way an ambiguous statement that could have any other meaning then the way He intended for it to be understood by them. So when Yeshua gave Peter and the apostles the authority to bind and loose, he was not giving them the right or power to "bind Satan and demons and diseases and the powers and rulers of darkness" and to "loose angels and ministering spirits and power and health and wealth." Rather, he was investing them with the authority to make decisions for the church about what rules to follow and about how to deal with the sins of its members. He was letting them know that when they made these decisions, they would be acting on God's authority and with his and heaven's support.