Depend (on) translates a verb which literally means “hang on” (see New English Bible, New Jerusalem Bible, Moffatt, New International Version). Translators who follow this interpretation can say “All the Law of Moses and the teachings of the Prophets are based on these two commandments.” But it may also mean either “sum up” (An American Translation) or “contain” (Bibel im heutigen Deutsch, 1st edition “In these two commands is contained everything that the Law of Moses and the teaching of the prophets have said concerning God’s will”).

Matthew here inserts the modifier all (Good News Translation “whole”) before the set phrase the law and the prophets (see comment at 5.17; 7.12).

For English speakers it is more natural to make a slight shift in the word order of the sentence (see Good News Translation), which may be the case for certain other languages as well.

Quoted with permission from Newman, Barclay M. and Stine, Philip C. A Handbook on the Gospel of Matthew. (UBS Handbook Series). New York: UBS, 1988. For this and other handbooks for translators see here .