The next instance of fire in Matthew on the list from this concordance appears quite soon after the passage discussed in the last two posts. Jesus concludes his explanation of the parable, and then proceeds to describe the Kingdom of Heaven in a quick successions of additional parables.  In 13:44, the Kingdom of Heaven is compared to a treasury found in a field, in vv. 45-46 to a pearl of great price.  In both instances people are described as selling everything that they have to purchase the treasury or pearl. Matthew 13:47-50 then reads:

[47] Again, the Kingdom of heaven is like a net cast into the sea and it would gather together all species. [48] Which, when it was filled is brought up upon the shore, and sitting, they gather the good into a vessel and the rotten they cast outside. Thus shall it be in the fulfillment of the age. The angels will go out and set apart the wicked from the middle of the righteous [50] and they shall cast them into a furnace of fire. In that place there shall be a wailing and gnashing of teeth.  

The language at the end of this passage should be quite familiar to us, and in fact vv. 42 and vv. 50 are word-for-word matches.  The rest of this parable is quite similar to the parable in vv. 26-30, 36-42, although obviously the metaphor has changed to fishing from harvesting.  Both passages are unique to Matthew, and so the repetition of the same passage from Daniel twice in short order surely tells us something about Matthew’s view of Judgment Day. The fact that these passages are not found in the other Gospels implies that those Gospels might have a different view of judgment day, just as Matthew’s understanding of Judgment Day is slightly different from Daniel’s, despite the fact that Daniel’s understanding is important to shaping Matthew’s understanding.

This series of parables in Matthew concludes with vv. 51-52, which read:

[51] Do you understand all these things? They said to him, ‘Yes.’ [52] And he said to them, by this every scribe who is a disciple of the Kingdom of Heaven is like a person who is the master of the house, who casts out from his treasury new things and old things.

This passage is somewhat besides the point in our examination of how Matthew uses the word fire, but nevertheless I thought it was interesting to highlight for a few reasons. The first is that Matthew generally takes a dim view of scribes, who are often lumped in with the Pharisees and high priests for condemnation by Jesus.  So it is interesting that this group of scribes who are schooled in the Kingdom of Heaven appears, and more so because they are described as pulling both old and new things from their treasury.  This is fitting in the context of the passages we have described above, where Matthew has borrowed from Daniel but also created original passages and interpretations.