Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you are like hidden graves, and the men who walk over them don’t know it.”
Parallel Translations
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Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you are like hidden graves, and the men who walk over them don’t know it.”
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Wo be to you scribes and pharises ypocrites for ye are as graves which appere not, and the men that walke over them, are not ware of them.
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Wo be to you, Scribes and Pharises, hypocrites: for ye are as graues which appeare not, and the men that walke ouer them, perceiue not.
Cross-references (5)
Passages linked to Luke 11:44 in the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge, ordered by reader-vote popularity; verse text shown in World English Bible.
- Matthew 23:27-28 “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you are like whitened tombs, which outwardly appear beautiful, but inwardly are full of dead men’s bones, and of all uncleanness. Even so you also outwardly appear righteous to men, but inwardly you are full of hypocrisy and iniquity.
- Psalms 5:9 For there is no faithfulness in their mouth. Their heart is destruction. Their throat is an open tomb. They flatter with their tongue.
- Numbers 19:16 “Whoever in the open field touches one who is slain with a sword, or a dead body, or a bone of a man, or a grave, shall be unclean seven days.
- Acts 23:3 Then Paul said to him, “God will strike you, you whitewashed wall! Do you sit to judge me according to the law, and command me to be struck contrary to the law?”
- Hosea 9:8 A prophet watches over Ephraim with my God. A fowler’s snare is on all of his paths, and hostility in the house of his God.
Cross-references from openbible.info (CC BY 4.0)
Explain this verse (13 sources)
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Geneva Bible translators 1599 · Public Domain Hypocrites deceive men with an outward show.
Hypocrites deceive men with an outward show.
Geneva Bible (1599) marginal notes — public domain.
John Trapp 1656 · Public Domain 44 Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for…
44 Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye are as graves which appear not, and the men that walk over them are not aware of them.
Ver. 44. For ye are as graves] As the deep grave keeps the stinking carcase from offending any one’s smell, so doth the dissembling hypocrite so cleanly carry the matter that hardly the sharpest nose, &c.
John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Matthew Poole 1685 · Public Domain See Poole on "Mat 23:27", where our Saviour compares…
See Poole on "Mat 23:27", where our Saviour compares the Pharisees to whited sepulchres: here he compares them to sepulchres, but not as there to denote their hypocrisy, appearing white, but having nothing within but rottenness; but upon the account of the contagion of them, and their pollution of others that were not aware of them. To understand our Saviour, we must consider the Levitical law, Num 19:16; where we shall find that not only he that touched a dead body, but he that touched a grave, was legally unclean for seven days. Christ here alludes to that, though he be speaking not of legal, but moral uncleanness. By reason of the law afore mentioned, the Jews took care to whiten their graves, that people might see them, and avoid that danger. To such whited sepulchres Christ compares the Pharisees, Mat 23:27. But some graves might not be whited, or the colour washed off, so as they did not appear, and men could not be aware of them, but ran into a pollution by them. To such graves he in this place compares them. They were men that externally appeared not to be what they were. The Jews took the Pharisees’ for great saints, (the strictest sect of their religion), so strict they were in their duties to their traditions, &c.; which external severity and formal behaviour covered their extortion, and covetousness, and malice, and erroneous opinions, so as people did not suspect them of any such guilt.
Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
William Burkitt 1703 · Public Domain Another woe is here denounced against the Pharisees, for…
Another woe is here denounced against the Pharisees, for cheating and deceiving the people with an outward show and appearance of piety and religion. They were like graves and sepulchres grown over with grass, which though they held dead men’s bones, yet the putrefaction not outwardly appearing, men walked unawares over them, and so were polluted by them, intimating, that the inward rottenness and filthy corruptions of the Pharisees not appearing unto men, the people were easily deceived by outward shows of Pharisaical sanctity, and so fell into a dangerous imitation of them.
Learn thence, that the great design of hypocrites is to cheat the world with an empty show of piety: the hypocrite’s ambition is to be thought good, not to be so.
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Learn, 2. That nothing is more fatally dangerous to the souls of men, and draws persons to an admiration and imitation of hypocritical professors, like their outward shows of sanctity, and their extraordinary appearances of devotion and piety. This it was that gained the Pharisees such a veneration and esteem among the people, that it became a proverb among them. "If but two men went to heaven, the one must be a Pharisee." But their counterfeit piety being double iniquity, they did receive for it double damnation.
William Burkitt's Expository Notes on the New Testament (1700–1703) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
John Gill 1763 · Public Domain And he said, woe unto you also, ye lawyers,....…
And he said, woe unto you also, ye lawyers,.... Christ was so far from calling back what he had said or suggested, that he repeats and confirms it, and more particularly names them, and enlarges on their evil practices:
for ye lade men with burdens grievous to be borne, and ye yourselves touch not the burdens with one of your fingers;, Mat 23:4.
John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
John Wesley 1765 · Public Domain For ye are as graves which appear not -…
For ye are as graves which appear not - Probably in speaking this our Lord fixed his eyes on the scribes. As graves which appear not, being overgrown with grass, so that men are not aware, till they stumble upon them, and either hurt themselves, or at least are defiled by touching them. On another occasion Christ compared them to whited sepulchres, fair without, but foul within; Matt. xxiii, 27.
John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the Whole Bible (1754–1765) — public domain. Text via the GEBible commentary corpus.
Adam Clarke 1810 · Public Domain Verse 44. Ye are as graves which appear not]…
Verse 44. Ye are as graves which appear not] In Mt 23:27, our Lord tells them that they exactly resembled white-washed tombs: they had no fairness but on the outside: (see the note there:) but here he says they are like hidden tombs, graves which were not distinguished by any outward decorations, and were not elevated above the ground, so that those who walked over them did not consider what corruption was within; so they, under the veil of hypocrisy, covered their iniquities, so that those who had any intercourse or connection with them did not perceive what accomplished knaves they had to do with.
Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Haydock's Catholic Bible Commentary 1859 · Public Domain Sepulchres that appear not. This comparison is partly different…
Sepulchres that appear not. This comparison is partly different from that of Matthew xxiii. 27. For there Christ compares hypocrites to whitened sepulchres, which may be seen and avoided; here he compares them to sepulchres covered with grass, which appear not: yet the comparison, in the main, is the same; that whether they appear or not, still under them is corruption: as the interior of the Pharisees was always full of vice and corruption. (Witham) --- Men that walk, &c. Because they bear with them a fair outside, but are made up of nothing but corruption. (St. Ambrose)
George Leo Haydock (1774–1849), Haydock's Catholic Family Bible and Commentary, 1859 edition — public domain. Excludes Psalms (Douay-Rheims chapter numbering differs from Protestant) and Deuterocanonical books (Catholic canon only).
Robert Jamieson, A. R. Fausset & David Brown 1871 · Public Domain appear not, &c.--As one might unconsciously walk over a…
appear not, &c.--As one might unconsciously walk over a grave concealed from view, and thus contract ceremonial defilement, so the plausible exterior of the Pharisees kept people from perceiving the pollution they contracted from coming in contact with such corrupt characters. (See Psa 5:9; Rom 3:13; a different illustration from Mat 23:27).
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown — Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges 1878 · Public Domain 44. hypocrites] The first meaning of the word is…
44. hypocrites] The first meaning of the word is ‘actors.’
as graves which appear not] Any contact with sepulchres involved Levitical uncleanness. Hence graves and tombs were whitewashed that none might touch them unawares. Perhaps our Lord was alluding to Tiberias, which when it was being built was discovered to be partly on the site of an old unsuspected cemetery; so that every true Jew regarded it as pollution to live there, and Herod could only get it inhabited partly by bribes, partly by threats. In St Matthew—several of whose particulars are differently applied—they are called ‘whited sepulchres, fair outside, polluted within. Here they are unsuspected graves.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers 1878 · Public Domain (44) Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites!—The better…
(44) Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites!—The better MSS. give simply, Woe unto you, Pharisees, (See Note on Mat_23:27.)
Ye are as graves which appear not.—The comparison, though drawn from the same object, presents a different phase of it. In St. Matthew the contrast is between the whitened surface and the decaying bones within. Here the whitewash is worn out, and there is nothing to distinguish the graves, and men walk over them without knowing what lies below the surface.
A Bible Commentary for English Readers, edited by Charles John Ellicott (1878–1897) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Pulpit Commentary 1880 · Public Domain Ye are as graves which appear not, and the…
Ye are as graves which appear not, and the men that walk over them are not aware of them. Here and in St. Matthew the same imagery was present in the great Teacher"s mind the whitewashed tombs of a cemetery. But in the report of St. Matthew the Master"s picture drew a sharp contrast between the fair outward appearance of the clean white tomb, and the decaying, loathsome mass of what represented poor humanity within! When Jesus spoke the saying related by St. Luke here, the imagery was still drawn from the graves in a cemetery; but now he compared his hosts and their school of thought to graves, from the wood and stones of which the whitewash was worn off, and passers-by would walk over them, thus touching them and contracting ceremonial defilement, without being conscious what they were walking over and touching. All contact with sepulchres involved ceremonial defilement; hence the fact of their being constantly whitewashed in order to warn passers-by of their presence. This silent warning of the graves has been compared to the leper"s cry, "Unclean, unclean!" with which he warned passers-by of his sad defiling presence. These tombs were whitewashed usually yearly on the fifteenth day of the month Adar (about the beginning of March). Tiberius on the lake was built partly on the site of an old unsuspected cemetery; no true Jew would reside there in consequence.
The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Tyndale Open Study Notes 2022 · CC BY-SA 4.0 11:44 hidden graves in a field: Touching a grave…
11:44 hidden graves in a field: Touching a grave or a dead body rendered a Jew ceremonially unclean. Jesus accused the religious leaders of being a defiling influence rather than a purifying one. This was a strongly offensive accusation (11:45).
Tyndale Open Study Notes — © Tyndale Open Resources, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Text via the HelloAO Bible API.