The “throne of glory” may mean the throne of God on which the Son of
Man will sit. Together with the Son of Man the twelve apostles will “judge”
Israel on their thrones. That κρίνω could mean “to rule” is a philological fiction that is clearly false,
even though it has enjoyed near-universal acceptance since H. Grotius,71
who may have been the first to suggest it. That the evangelist is not
interested in the concept of judgment in any detail is clear from the fact that
in 25:31 he can recall our verse even though there it is not the twelve
apostles but the “least of the brothers” who are present at the judgment of the
Son of Man, and it is not the twelve tribes of Israel but “all the nations” (πάντα τὰ ἔθνη) who are judged. Our context is not
interested in what may have been a polemical element in earlier stages of the
tradition—viz., that it is Israel and not the Gentiles that the twelve judge.
In the Matthean context the logion is simply a word of promise. In view of what
they have to give up in the present, the twelve are promised an incredible
exaltation that is out of all proportion to their present sacrifice. The
“hundredfold” of v. 29 is but a natural extension of this promise. (Ulrich
Luz, Matthew 8-20: A Commentary on Matthew 8-20 [Hermeneia—a
Critical and Historical Commentary on the Bible; Minneapolis: Augsburg, 2001],
517)
