A court official in Jerusalem loses his post for carving himself a showpiece tomb while the Assyrian army is on its way, and the key of the house of David moves to another man’s shoulder. More than seven centuries later, in Gentile country beneath a shrine to Pan, Jesus hands Simon the keys of the kingdom and calls him the rock. Matthew reaches back and takes hold of Isaiah 22 deliberately, and Harrington puts the result plainly: Peter’s role in the kingdom is the steward Eliakim’s in the king’s palace. What follows works through all four readings, with Cyril, Chrysostom, and Aquinas on what the rock is, what the gates are, and why the keys were forged in the Passion.

The Readings

First Reading: Isaiah 22:19-23

I will thrust you from your office, and you will be cast down from your station. In that day I will call my servant Eliakim the son of Hilkiah, and I will clothe him with your robe, and will bind your girdle on him, and will commit your authority to his hand; and he shall be a father to the inhabitants of Jerusalem and to the house of Judah. And I will place on his shoulder the key of the house of David; he shall open, and none shall shut; and he shall shut, and none shall open. And I will fasten him like a peg in a sure place, and he will become a throne of honor to his father’s house.

Responsorial Psalm: Psalm 138:1-2, 2-3, 6, 8

I give thee thanks, O Lord, with my whole heart; before the gods I sing thy praise; I bow down toward thy holy temple and give thanks to thy name for thy steadfast love and thy faithfulness; for thou hast exalted above everything thy name and thy word. On the day I called, thou didst answer me, my strength of soul thou didst increase.

For though the Lord is high, he regards the lowly; but the haughty he knows from afar.

The Lord will fulfil his purpose for me; thy steadfast love, O Lord, endures for ever. Do not forsake the work of thy hands.

Second Reading: Romans 11:33-36

O the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are his judgments and how inscrutable his ways! “For who has known the mind of the Lord, or who has been his counselor?” “Or who has given a gift to him that he might be repaid?” For from him and through him and to him are all things. To him be glory for ever. Amen.

Gospel: Matthew 16:13-20

Now when Jesus came into the district of Caesarea Philippi, he asked his disciples, “Who do men say that the Son of man is?” And they said, “Some say John the Baptist, others say Elijah, and others Jeremiah or one of the prophets.” He said to them, “But who do you say that I am?” Simon Peter replied, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.” And Jesus answered him, “Blessed are you, Simon Bar-Jona! For flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father who is in heaven. And I tell you, you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the powers of death shall not prevail against it. I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.” Then he strictly charged the disciples to tell no one that he was the Christ.

Scriptural Analysis

The First Reading: A Court Official Loses His Keys

This Sunday hands you one of the tightest Old Testament and Gospel pairings in the three-year cycle, and the hinge is a single piece of hardware. Reading 1 and the Gospel both turn on a key.

Isaiah 22 sits oddly in the book, lodged among the oracles against the nations though it contains oracles against Jerusalem itself (vv. 1-14) and then against a named individual, Shebna, who was over the household at the court of King Hezekiah of Judah, probably around 710 BC (cf. Isa 36:3, 11, 22; 37:2; 2 Kings 18:26, 37; 19:2).[1] Isaiah reproaches him for ostentation, and the detail is specific: the man was carving himself a showpiece tomb high on the rock (v. 16), building his own monument while the Assyrian army was coming. Aquinas catches the sting: “you think of yourself as if you were of some value, when you are nothing.”[2]

The office Shebna held matters more than the man. The Hebrew title is 'al habbayit, “over the household,” the highest government position in Judah under the king. Jotham is “over the household” while acting as regent (2 Kings 15:5), and Gedaliah, the first Chaldean governor installed after 586 BC, carries the same title on his official seal.[3] The holder of the keys was the king’s steward and his voice, opening and closing the day’s official court business in his name.[4]