Then Jesus spoke to the multitudes and to his disciples, saying, “The scribes and the Pharisees sat on Moses’ seat. All things therefore whatever they tell you to observe, observe and do, but don’t do their works; for they say, and don’t do. For they bind heavy burdens that are grievous to be borne, and lay them on men’s shoulders; but they themselves will not lift a finger to help them. But they do all their works to be seen by men. They make their phylacteries broad, enlarge the fringes of their garments, and love the place of honor at feasts, the best seats in the synagogues, the salutations in the marketplaces, and to be called ‘Rabbi, Rabbi’ by men. But don’t you be called ‘Rabbi,’ for one is your teacher, the Christ, and all of you are brothers. Call no man on the earth your father, for one is your Father, he who is in heaven. Neither be called masters, for one is your master, the Christ. But he who is greatest among you will be your servant. Whoever exalts himself will be humbled, and whoever humbles himself will be exalted.
“Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you devour widows’ houses, and as a pretense you make long prayers. Therefore you will receive greater condemnation.
“But woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! Because you shut up the Kingdom of Heaven against men; for you don’t enter in yourselves, neither do you allow those who are entering in to enter. Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you travel around by sea and land to make one proselyte; and when he becomes one, you make him twice as much a son of Gehenna as yourselves.
“Woe to you, you blind guides, who say, ‘Whoever swears by the temple, it is nothing; but whoever swears by the gold of the temple, he is obligated.’ You blind fools! For which is greater, the gold, or the temple that sanctifies the gold? ‘Whoever swears by the altar, it is nothing; but whoever swears by the gift that is on it, he is obligated?’ You blind fools! For which is greater, the gift, or the altar that sanctifies the gift? He therefore who swears by the altar, swears by it, and by everything on it. He who swears by the temple, swears by it, and by him who has been living in it. He who swears by heaven, swears by the throne of God, and by him who sits on it.
“Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you tithe mint, dill, and cumin, and have left undone the weightier matters of the law: justice, mercy, and faith. But you ought to have done these, and not to have left the other undone. You blind guides, who strain out a gnat, and swallow a camel!
“Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you clean the outside of the cup and of the platter, but within they are full of extortion and unrighteousness. You blind Pharisee, first clean the inside of the cup and of the platter, that its outside may become clean also.
“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.
“Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you build the tombs of the prophets, and decorate the tombs of the righteous, and say, ‘If we had lived in the days of our fathers, we wouldn’t have been partakers with them in the blood of the prophets.’ Therefore you testify to yourselves that you are children of those who killed the prophets. Fill up, then, the measure of your fathers. You serpents, you offspring of vipers, how will you escape the judgment of Gehenna? Therefore behold, I send to you prophets, wise men, and scribes. Some of them you will kill and crucify; and some of them you will scourge in your synagogues, and persecute from city to city; that on you may come all the righteous blood shed on the earth, from the blood of righteous Abel to the blood of Zachariah son of Barachiah, whom you killed between the sanctuary and the altar. Most certainly I tell you, all these things will come upon this generation.
“Jerusalem, Jerusalem, who kills the prophets, and stones those who are sent to her! How often I would have gathered your children together, even as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, and you would not! Behold, your house is left to you desolate. For I tell you, you will not see me from now on, until you say, ‘Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord!’ ”
Geneva Bible translators 1599 · Public Domain On vv2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 22, 23, 25, 29, 32, 33, 34, 35, 37 We ought to hear whatsoever any wicked teachers teach…
We ought to hear whatsoever any wicked teachers teach us purely out of the word of God, yet so that we eschew their evil manners.
Because God appointed the order, therefore the Lord would have his word to be heard even from the mouth of hypocrites and hirelings.
Geneva Bible (1599) marginal notes — public domain.
John Trapp 1656 · Public Domain On vv1–39 1 Then spake Jesus to the multitude, and to…
1 Then spake Jesus to the multitude, and to his disciples,
Ver. 1. Then spake Jesus to the multitude, &c.] Christ having confuted and confounded the Scribes and Pharisees, turns him to the people and to his disciples; and that he might do nothing to the detriment of the truth, he here cautioneth that they despise not the doctrine of the Pharisees so far as it was sound and sincere without leaven; but try all things, holding fast that which was good. Be advised, and remember to search into the truth of what you hear, was the counsel of Epicharmus. Νηφε και μεμνησο απιστειν, Videas cui fidas. Deligas quem diligas. To whom may you seem faithful. Let you chose what you like.
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 On vv1, 4, 5, 6, 8, 11, 13, 14, 15, 16, 23, 24, 25, 27, 29, 31, 34, 37 Our Lord having now done with the Pharisees, turneth…
Our Lord having now done with the Pharisees, turneth his discourse to the more docible people, who (as we heard before) heard him attentively and gladly, Mar 12:37; Luk 19:48. Our Saviour foresaw that some unwary hearers might make two ill uses of what he had spoke against the scribes and Pharisees.
1. Some might report him an enemy to the law, the interpreters of which the Pharisees were.
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2. Others might contemn the authority of the law, because he had represented these men, in whose hand the interpretation of it at present was, so truly contemptible.
Whereas, on the other side, many might run into errors of practice, from the example of the scribes and Pharisees, their magistrates and teachers. Against all these mistakes he cautions them in this chapter, showing that he did not undervalue the law of Moses, nor would have his reflections on the Pharisees prejudice any thing which they taught them of it, and according to it; neither would he have his people take the copy of the law from their actions.
The scribes and the Pharisees sit in Moses’s seat: these men were the ordinary readers and interpreters of the law of God. Moses is here put for the law, as Luk 16:31, If they hear not Moses and the prophets; and so Mat 23:29, They have Moses and the prophets. Moses’s seat signifieth the seat appointed for those that gave the sense of the law, or judgment upon it; thus, Moses of old time hath in every city those that preach him, being read in the synagogues every sabbath day, Act 15:21; 2Co 3:15. Their way was, while they read the Scriptures they stood up: (paying a particular reverence to the pure word of God), Luk 4:16; when they had done reading, they sat down and opened it. Their sitting in the seat of Moses did not signify a succession to Moses, for he had no successor, being the Mediator of the Old Testament; but the delivering and interpreting the doctrine and law of Moses. Dr. Lightfoot thinks it is rather to be understood of the chair of magistracy than the doctrinal chair. The Pharisees being exercised in that, it may be understood of both, for the reading and interpreting the law chiefly belonged to the scribes.
All therefore whatsoever they bid you observe, that observe and do; that is, whatsoever is in Moses which they bid you observe and do. The term all is to be understood restrainedly, with respect to the subject matter or persons spoken of, in multitudes of scriptures. Our Saviour’s cautioning his disciples so often against the leaven of these men, and their traditions, plainly showeth us that must be here the sense of it: Let not the law of God lose his authority with you because of those wicked men. He doth not command them to hear none but them, for then to what purpose did he himself preach, or send out the twelve, if none might hear them? All that can be concluded from this text is that the law of God, or word of God, is not to be despised, whoever reads or delivereth it. He goeth on,
But do not ye after their works: for they say, and do not. We are naturally more led by example than by precept. Men had therefore need be cautioned against ill living teachers. Odi philosophum qui non sapit sibi. A man had need very well know the medicine which he taketh from a physician he seeth sick of the same disease, when he himself refuseth and abominates it. He that says and does not, may be heard, but not imitated. There may be a time when men can ordinarily hear no others, which was the present case.
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 On vv1, 4, 5, 8, 13, 14, 15, 16, 23, 25, 27, 29, 34, 37 The Scribes and Pharisees, so often mentioned in the…
The Scribes and Pharisees, so often mentioned in the gospels, were the great doctors and spiritual guides amongst the Jews. Scribe is the name of an office; Pharisee the name of a sect. They were both learned in the law, and teachers of the law of Moses.
Our blessed Saviour, in the former part of his gospel, held many conferences with these men, and used the most persuasive argument to convince them both of their errors and wickedness. But their obstinancy and malice being such, that neither our Saviour’s ministry nor miracles could convince them: hereupon our Lord denounces, in this chapter, eight several woes against them.
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But first he charitably warns his disciples and the man, saying, The Scribes and Pharisees sit in Moses’ seat; that is, they teach and expound the law of Moses, which they were wont to do sitting, Whatsoever they bid you observe, that observe and do.
That is, "What they teach you consonant to the word of God, and agreeable to the writings of Moses and the prophets: if they go not out of Moses’ chair into their own unwritten traditions, follow their doctrine, and obey their precepts; but do not after their works, follow not their example, take heed of their pride and hypocrisy, of their ambition and vain-glory. Obey their doctrine wherein it is sound; but follow not their example wherein it is corrupt."
Learn, 1. That the personal miscarriages of ministers, must by no means beget a disesteem of their office and ministry. Charity must teach us to distinguish betwixt the calling and the crime.
2. That the infallible truths of God, recommended to us by a vicious teacher, ought to be entertained and obeyed by us, without either scruple or prejudice. What the Pharisees themselves, says Christ, bid you observe, that observe and do.
3. That no people are obliged to follow their teacher’s pattern and example any farther than it is agreeable to scripture-rule, and conformable to Christ’s example: Do not after their works, who say, and do not.
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 On vv2–38 Saying, the Scribes and Pharisees,.... The Persic version adds,…
Saying, the Scribes and Pharisees,.... The Persic version adds, the priests: but Christ does not here speak of the sanhedrim, or grand council of the nation, and of their legislative power; but of those that were the teachers of the people, and the interpreters of the law; and of those, who, though they corrupted the word with their glosses and traditions, yet retained some truth, and at least came nearer truth, than the Sadducees; who therefore are omitted, and only Scribes and Pharisees mentioned, who gave the literal and traditional sense of the Scriptures; of whom he says, they
sit in Moses's seat: not that they were his successors in his office as a legislator and mediator; though the Persic version reads it, "sit in the place and chair of Moses"; but they read his law, and explained it to the people: this post and place, as yet, they kept in the office they were, and were to continue; and the people were to regard them so far as they spoke consistent with the law, until it had its full accomplishment in Christ. The allusion is not to the chairs in which the sanhedrim sat in trying and determining causes, but to those in which the doctors sat when they expounded the law; for though they stood up when they read the law, or the prophets, they sat down when they preached out of them: this custom of the synagogue was observed by our Lord; see Luk 4:16.
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 On vv1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 8, 11, 12, 13, 14, 16, 20, 23, 24, 25, 26, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 37, 38, 39 Then - Leaving all converse with his adversaries, whom…
Then - Leaving all converse with his adversaries, whom he now left to the hardness of their hearts.
John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the Whole Bible (1754–1765) — public domain. Text via the GEBible commentary corpus.
Adam Clarke 1810 · Public Domain On vv1, 3, 4, 5, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 20, 21, 23, 24, 25, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37, 38, 39 The character of the scribes and Pharisees, and directions…
CHAPTER XXIII.
The character of the scribes and Pharisees, and directions to
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the people and the disciples to receive the law from them, but
not to follow their bad example, 1-7.
The disciples exhorted to humility, 8-12.
Different woes pronounced against the scribes and Pharisees
for their intolerance, 13;
rapacity, 14;
false zeal, 15;
superstition in oaths and tithes, 16-23;
hypocrisy, 24-28.
Their cruelty, 29-32.
Their persecution of the apostles, c. Their destruction
foretold, 33-36.
Christ's lamentation over Jerusalem, 37-39.
NOTES ON CHAP. XXIII.
Verse 2. The scribes and the Pharisees sit in Moses' seat] εκαθισαν. - They sat there formerly by Divine appointment: they sit there now by Divine permission. What our Lord says here refers to their expounding the Scriptures, for it was the custom of the Jewish doctors to sit while they expounded the law and prophets, (Mt 5:1 Lu 4:20-22,) and to stand up when they read them.
By the seat of Moses, we are to understand authority to teach the law. Moses was the great teacher of the Jewish people; and the scribes, &c., are here represented as his successors.
Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Joseph Benson 1811 · Public Domain On vv1, 4, 5, 8, 11, 13, 16, 23, 25, 27, 32, 37, 38 Mat 23:1-3. Then spake Jesus to the multitude —…
Mat 23:1-3. Then spake Jesus to the multitude — Leaving all converse with his adversaries; whom he now gave up to the hardness of their hearts. The scribes and Pharisees sit in Moses’s seat — Or, chair — That is, read and expound the law of Moses, and are the appointed teachers of the people. The Jewish doctors, as is well known, always taught sitting. The name Pharisees being the appellation of a sect, it cannot be supposed that our Lord meant to say of all the party that they sat in Moses’s chair. Such a character was applicable to none but the doctors of the sect; for which reason we must suppose that the name scribes and Pharisees is a Hebraism for the Pharisean scribes. All therefore they bid you observe, &c. — That is, all that they read out of the law, and enforce on the manifest authority thereof, that observe and do — Readily and cheerfully: “All,” says Theophylact, “that they require, εκ των Μοσεως βιβλων, απο του
Θεου νομοου, from the law of God out of the books of Moses.” An interpretation which must be allowed of. Because Christ elsewhere requires his disciples to beware of the leaven, that is, the doctrine, of the scribes and Pharisees; because they taught for doctrines the commandments of men, and by their traditions made void the law of God; and were blind leaders of the blind. But do not ye after their works — By no means imitate their practices; for they say and do not — They give many precepts to their disciples, which they do not perform themselves. As we must not receive corrupt doctrines for the sake of any laudable practices of those that teach them; so we must not imitate bad examples for the sake of the plausible doctrines of those that give them.
Joseph Benson's Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1811–1818) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Albert Barnes 1834 · Public Domain On vv2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37, 38, 39 Scribes and Pharisees - See the notes at Mat…
Scribes and Pharisees - See the notes at Mat 3:7.
Moses’ seat - Moses was the great legislator of the Jews. By him the Law was given. The office of explaining that Law among the Jews devolved on the scribes and Pharisees. In the synagogues they sat while expounding the Law, and rose when they read it. By “sitting in the seat of Moses” we are to understand authority to teach the Law; or, as he taught the nation by giving the Law, so they taught it by explaining it.
Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible (1834–1885) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Haydock's Catholic Bible Commentary 1859 · Public Domain On vv1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 7, 8, 9, 13, 14, 15, 16, 19, 21, 23, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 32, 35, 36, 37, 38, 39 Then Jesus, &c. Jesus thus spoke to the multitude…
Then Jesus, &c. Jesus thus spoke to the multitude a few days previous to his passion. It is here observable that our Saviour, after he had tried all possible remedies, after he had taught and confirmed his doctrines by innumerable miracles, after he had secretly by his parables reprehended them for their wickedness, but without effect, not publicly upbraids their vices. But before his reprehension of the Pharisees, he instructs the people, lest they should despise the authority of the priesthood. (Salmeron)
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).
John Nelson Darby 1862 · Public Domain On v1 Matthew Chapter 23
Matthew Chapter 23
Chapter 23 clearly shews how far the disciples are viewed in connection with the nation, inasmuch as they were Jews, although the Lord judges the leaders, who beguiled the people and dishonoured God by their hypocrisy. He speaks to the multitude and to His disciples, saying, “The scribes and the Pharisees sit in Moses’ seat.” Being thus expositors of the law, they were to be obeyed in all that they said according to that law, although their own conduct was but hypocrisy. That which is important here is the position of the disciples; it is in fact the same as that of Jesus. They are in connection with all that is of God in the nation, that is to say, with the nation as the recognised people of God-consequently, with the law as possessing authority from God. At the same time the Lord judges, and the disciples also were practically to judge, the walk of the nation, as publicly represented by their leaders. While still forming part of the nation, they were carefully to avoid the walk of the scribes and Pharisees. After having reproached these pastors of the nation with their hypocrisy, the Lord points out the way in which they themselves condemned the deeds of their fathers-by building the sepulchres of the prophets whom they had slain. They were, then, the children of those who slew them, and God would put them to the test by sending them also prophets and wise men and scribes, and they would fill up the measure of their iniquity by putting these to death and persecuting them-condemned thus out of their own mouths-in order that all the righteous blood which had been shed, from Abel’s to that of the prophet Zechariah, should come upon this generation. Frightful amount of guilt, accumulated from the beginning of the enmity which sinful man, when placed under responsibility, has ever shewn to the testimony of God; and which increased daily, because the conscience became more hardened each time that it resisted this testimony! The truth was so much the more manifest from its witnesses having suffered. It was a rock, exposed to view, to be avoided in the people’s path. But they persisted in their evil course, and every step in advance, every similar act, was the proof of a still increasing obduracy. The patience of God, while graciously dealing in testimony, had not been unobservant of their ways, and under this patience all had accumulated. All would be heaped upon the head of this reprobate generation.
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Remark here the character given to the apostles and Christian prophets. They are scribes, wise men, prophets, sent to the Jews-to the ever rebellious nation. This very clearly brings out the aspect in which this chapter regards them. Even the apostles are “wise men,” “scribes,” sent to the Jews as such.
But the nation-Jerusalem, God’s beloved city-is guilty and is judged. Christ, as we have seen, since the cure of the blind man near Jericho, presents Himself as Jehovah the King of Israel. How often would He have gathered the children of Jerusalem, but they would not! And now their house should be desolate, until (their hearts being converted) they should use the language of Psa 118:1-29, and, in desire, hail His arrival who came in the name of Jehovah, looking for deliverance at His hands, and praying to Him for it-in a word, until they should cry Hosanna to Him that should come. They would see Jesus no more until, humbled in heart, they should pronounce Him blessed whom they were expecting, and whom they now rejected-in short, until they were prepared in heart. Peace should follow, desire precede, His appearing.
The last three verses exhibit clearly enough the position of the Jews, or of Jerusalem, as the centre of the system before God. Long since, and many times, would Jesus, Jehovah the Saviour, have gathered the children of Jerusalem together, even as a hen gathereth her chickens under her wings, but they would not. Their house should remain forsaken and desolate, but not for ever. After having killed the prophets, and stoned the messengers sent unto them, they had crucified their Messiah, and rejected and slain those whom He had sent to proclaim grace unto them even after His rejection. Therefore should they see Him no more until they had repented, and the desire to see Him was produced in their hearts, so that they should be prepared to bless Him, and would bless Him in their hearts, and confess their readiness to do so. The Messiah, who was about to leave them, should be seen of them no more until repentance had turned their hearts unto Him whom they were now rejecting. Then they should see Him. The Messiah, coming in the name of Jehovah, shall be manifested to His people Israel. It is Jehovah their Saviour who should appear, and the Israel who had rejected Him should see Him as such. The people should thus return into the enjoyment of their relationship with God.
Such is the moral and prophetic picture of Israel. The disciples, as Jews, were viewed as part of the nation, though as a remnant spiritually detached from it, and witnessing in it.
John Nelson Darby — Synopsis of the Books of the Bible: the New Testament (c. 1857–1862) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Lange's Commentary on the Holy Scriptures 1864 · Public Domain On v1
SEVENTH SECTION
FINAL JUDJEMENT OF CHRIST UPON THE PHARISEES AND SCRIBES. CHRIST OF HIS OWN ACCORD LEAVES THE TEMPLE
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23–24:1
( Mat_23:34-39, Scripture Lesion for St. Stephen’s Day.)
1Then spake Jesus to the multitude [multitudes, τοῖς ὄχλοις], and to his disciples,
A. The Reproof generally. Mat_23:2-7. (The law, Mat_23:3; the inconsistency and falsehood, Mat_23:3 : “but do not;” the traditional statutes, Mat_23:4; the hypocritical sanctimoniousness and unholy ambition, Mat_23:5-7.)
2Saying, The scribes and the Pharisees sit [sat down]1 in Moses’ seat [καθέδρα]: 3All therefore whatsoever they bid you observe,2 that observe and do [do and observe];3 4but do not ye after their works: for they say, and do not. For [But]4 they bind heavy burdens and grievous to be borne,5 and lay them on men’s shoulders; but they themselves will not move them with one of their fingers [with their finger, τῷ δακτύλῳ αὐτῶν]. 5But all their works they do for to be seen of [by] men: they make broad their phylacteries [protectives], and enlarge the borders [fringes, τὰ κράσπεδα] of their garments,6 6And love the uppermost rooms [first place, πρωτοκλισίαν] at feasts, and the chief seats 7[πρωτοκαθεδρίας] in the synagogues, And [the, τούς] greetings in the markets, and to be called of men, Rabbi, Rabbi. 7
Its Application. Mat_23:8-12
8But be not ye called Rabbi: for one is your Master [Leader, καθηγητής; better: Teacher, διδάσκαλο],8 even Christ;9 and all ye are brethren. 9And call no man your [spiritual] father upon the earth: for one is your Father, which [who] is in heaven [the 10one in heaven, or, the heavenly, ὁ ἐν τοῖς οὐρανοῖς]. Neither [Nor] be ye called masters [leaders, καθηγηταί] for one is your Master [Lender], even Christ [the Christ, Χριστός]. 11But he that is greatest among you [the greater of you, ὁ μείζων ὑμῶν] shall he your servant. 12And whosoever shall exalt himself shall be abased; and he that shall humble himself shall be exalted.
B. The Particular Reproof: the Seven Woes. Mat_23:13 to Mat_24:1. (Avarice and hypocrisy, Mat_23:13; unbelief and fanaticism, Mat_23:14; fanatical proselyting, Mat_23:15; casuistry, Mat_23:16-22; hypocritical legalism, yen. 23–26; spiritual deadness, Mat_23:29-32; the judgment, Mat_23:33-36; Jerusalem’s guilt and doom, Mat_23:37-39; Christ’s exodus from the temple, Mat_24:1.) .
13But woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for [because, ὅτι, as in Mat_23:29] ye shut up the kingdom of heaven against men: for ye neither go in yourselves, neither 14[nor] suffer ye them that are entering to go in. Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites I for [because] ye devour widows’ houses, and for a pretence make long prayer: therefore ye shall receive the greater damnation.10 15Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for [because] ye compass [go about] sea and land to make one proselyte; and when he is made [becomes so, γένηται], ye make him twofold more the child of hell than yourselves. 16Woe unto you, ye blind guide?, which [who] say, Whosoever shall swear by the temple, it is nothing; but whosoever shall swear by the gold 17of the temple, he is a debtor [ὀφείλει]! Ye fools and blind! for whether [which] is greater, the gold, or the temple that sanctifieth the gold? 18And, Whosoever shall swear by the altar, it is nothing; but whosoever sweareth [shall swear] by the gift that Isaiah 19 upon it, he is guilty [a debtor, ὀφείλει]. Ye fools and11 blind: for whether [which] is greater, the gift, or the altar, that sanctifieth the gift? 20Whoso therefore shall swear [He therefore that sweareth, ὁ οὐν ὀμόσας] by the altar, sweareth by it, and by all things thereon. 21And whoso shall swear (lie that sweareth, ὁ ὀμόσας by the temple, sweareth by it, and by him that dwelleth [did dwell]12 therein. 22And he that shall swear [sweareth, ὁ ὀμόσας] by heaven, sweareth by the throne of God, and by him that sitteth thereon. 23Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye pay tithe of [the] mint and anise [the dill] and [the] cummin,13 and have omitted the weightier matters [things, τὰ βαρύτερα] of the law, judgment, [and, καί] mercy, and faith:[14] 24[but]15 these ought ye to have done, and not to leave the other undone. Ye blind guides, which [who] strain at [out]16 a [the] gnat, and swallow a [the] camel. 25Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for [because] ye make clean the outside of the cup and of the platter, but within they are full of extortion [rapacity, ἁρπαγμῆς] and 26excess.17 Thou blind Pharisee, cleanse first that which is within [the inside of, τὸ ἐντὸς τοῦ ] the cup and [the] platter, that the outside of them may be clean also. 27Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for [because] ye are like unto whited sepulchres, which indeed appear beautiful outward, but are within [which outwardly indeed appear beautiful, but within are] full of dead men’s bones, and of all uncleanness. 28Even so ye also outwardly appear righteous unto men, but within ye are fall of hypocrisy and iniquity. 29Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! because ye build the tombs of the prophets, and garnish the sepulchres of the righteous, 30And say, If we had been in the days of our fathers, we would not have been partakers with them in the blood of the prophets. 31Wherefore ye be [are] witnesses unto yourselves, that ye are the children of them which [that] killed the prophets. 32Fill ye up18 then the measure 33of your fathers. Ye serpents, ye generation [brood] of vipers, how can ye escape the damnation [judgment, κρίσεως] of hell? 34Wherefore, behold, I send unto you prophets, and wise men, and scribes: and some of them ye shall [will] kill and crucify; and some of them shall ye [ye will] scourge in your synagogues, and persecute them from city to city: 35That upon you may come all the righteous blood shed upon the earth, from the blood of righteous Abel unto the blood of Zacharias [Zachariah] son of Barachias 36[Barachiah], whom ye slew between the temple and the altar. Verily I say unto you, All these things shall come upon this generation. 37O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, thou that killest the prophets, and stonest them which [that] are sent unto thee, how often would I have gathered thy children together, even as a hen gathereth her chickens under her wings, and ye would not! 38Behold, your house is left unto you desolate.19 39For I say unto you, Ye shall not see me henceforth, till ye shall say, Blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord.
Mat_24:1 And Jesus went out, and departed from the temple: and his disciples came to him for to shew him the buildings of the temple.
EXEGETICAL AND CRITICAL
The Great Denunciatory Discourse against the Pharisees and Scribes, addressed to the People.—This crisis is analogous to that of Mat_15:10, when Jesus turned away from the Galilean Pharisees, after an annihilating rebuke, and turned toward the people. The provincial example must have its wider consummation in the temple. But the permanent significance of the present crisis is this: Christ turns from the self-hardening hierarchy, and speaks immediately to the people. The unity of this discourse has been denied by Schleiermacher, Schulz, Schneckenburger, and others, on the ground of Luke having given some parts of it on a previous occasion in Matthew 11. Ewald thinks that the discourse was compounded out of a large variety of original elements. But de Wette and Meyer for good reasons are strenuous supporters of the original unity of the whole discourse. De Wette: “It is very appropriate that Jesus should now first utter Himself so fully and comprehensively against His enemies.” Meyer: “The whole composition has a character of such living force and unity, that it is hardly possible to deny its originality and genuineness.”20 Heubner: “It is not an invective, or utterance of scorn, as many have called it: for instance, Ammon (Life of Jesus, 3:229), who thinks that on that very account it never could have been thus delivered by Jesus.” The condemnation naturally included the Sadducees, so far as they were found among the scribes, and belonged to the dominant hierarchy. In themselves, and as a party, they were of no importance; nor were they ever recognised as leaders of the people.
[Dr. Nast: “Although the Sadducees were also included among the scribes, yet our Lord in His terrible condemnation singles out the Pharisees, who for the last one hundred and fifty years had enjoyed the highest respect of the people for their zeal and rig d observance of the law. During His whole ministry He had been making pharisaic formalism the constant object of reproof, while almost ignoring the unbelief of the Sadducees.”—It is certainly remarkable that the severest language which Christ ever used, was directed, not against the people, of whom He rather spoke with pity and compassion, nor against the Sadducees, with whom He came less in contact, but against the orthodox, priestly, sanctimonious, hypocritical Pharisees, the leaders of the hierarchy, and rulers of the people. Let ministers and dignitaries in the Church never forget this! Nevertheless the Pharisees with all their wickedness had more moral and religious earnestness and substance, than the Sadducees, and when once thoroughly converted, they made most serious and devoted Christians, as the example of St. Paul abundantly shows. No such convert ever proceeded from the indifferent, worldly, and rationalistic Sadducees.—M. Baumgarten in his History of Jesus (as quoted by Dr. Nast in loc.) makes the following striking remark on this denunciatory discourse: “As Christ once commenced His Sermon on the Mount in Galilee with pronouncing eight beatitudes, so He closes His last public address with pronouncing eight woes on Mount Moriah, declaring thereby most distinctly that all manifestation of His divine love and meekness had been in vain, and must now give way to stern justice. Of that awful delusion which has done at all times so much harm in the Church—namely, that the office sanctifies the officer, at least before the people—there is here not the most distant trace [not even Mat_23:2-3], but the very opposite. The office held by the scribes and Pharisees Jesus fully recognizes; but the sacredness of the office, instead of furnishing any apology for their corrupt morals, increases only their guilt, and He, therefore, exposes with the utmost severity the wickedness of their lives. Never did any prophet deliver such a discourse as this. We see here turned into wrath the holy love of Jesus, which is unwilling to break the bruised reed or to quench the smoking flax ( Mat_12:19), which seeks and fosters what is lost, which casts out none, but attracts all that show themselves in the least degree susceptible.”—This fearful denunciation of the dignitaries and representatives of the Jewish theocracy, which must shake every sensitive reader to the very foundation of his moral nature, could only proceed from one who knew Himself free from sin and clothed with divine authority and power. Having exhausted, in the intensity of His love for sinners, high and low, rich and poor, every effort to bring them to repentance and a better mind, Jesus now speaks, at the close of His earthly ministry and in full view of the approaching crucifixion, with all the dignity and stern severity of a judge, yet without any passion or personal bitterness. This awful saverity is as much a proof of His divine mission and character as the sweet tenderness of His invitation to the sinner to come to Him for rest and peace.—P. S.]
Mat_23:2. Sit in Moses’ seat.—The question arises, whether Moses’ sea! means his whole vocation and office, or only a part of it. De Wette: His seat as judge and lawgiver. But Moses as lawgiver, or organ of revelation, did not speak from his seat, but from Mount Sinai; and in this capacity he could be succeeded21 only by prophets, or conclusively by Christ Himself. The seat of Moses is described Exo_18:13. Moses sat in the function of judge and administrator; and in this he might and did allow others to represent himself, who were to judge and rule according to the law of revelation. We have the more formal establishment of the office of elders in Num_11:16. The rule of the scribes and Pharisees was the rule of the Sanhedrin. But between the prophetic rule of Christ, and the political rule of the Romans, there only remained to them the Old Testament ecclesiastical function of explaining the law and administering discipline. Εκάθισαν, they sat down and sit. “Among the Rabbins, the successor of a Rabbi was called the representative of his school, יוֹשֵׁב עַל־כִּסְאוֹ; Vitringa, Syn.” Meyer.
Mat_23:3. All therefore.—The therefore, οῦ̓ν emphatic, as Meyer correctly urges. It alludes to the established order and office. All whatsoever.—Chrysostom and others say that the ceremonial system, and everything false and immoral, were to be excepted; since all this could not have been taught ὰπὸ τῆς Μωϋσέως καθεδρας. De Wette and Meyer: Jesus had in view only the contrast between their teaching and their life; and left the perversion of the office itself, as it existed in praxi, out of the question. But their doctrine was corrupt, not only in accidental practice, but in essential principle. We must limit the εἰπεῖν, which is used by Matthew throughout in its full significance, to the official utterance. Thus it means: Act according to their words in relation to the theocratic order of the Jewish church, but not in relation to the way of salvation. It was in harmony with the heavenly prudence of Jesus, and with the spirit of all His teaching, that He should express the fullest acknowledgment of the official authority of the Pharisees and scribes, even while He was preparing to unmask and spiritually to annihilate them. He did not on this account impose upon His hearers a permanent subjection to the rule of the scribes and Pharisees. They could, however, be free only in Him and through Him: they must through the law die to the law. He whom the law has slain and excommunicated, is alone free from its claims.22
Mat_23:4. But they bind.—See Luk_11:46. The binding together of individual things into a mass, has reference here rather to burdens of wood than to burdens of grain. Thus they compact their traditionary statutes into intolerable burdens. A fourfold rebuke: 1. they make religion a burden; 2. an intolerable burden; 3. they lay it upon the shoulder of others; 4. they leave it untouched themselves, i.e., they have no idea of fulfilling these precepts in spirit and in truth. [Alford refers the heavy burdens?, φ ορ τίβαρέα, not to human traditions, as most interpreters do, but to the severity of the law, which they do not observe (Rom_2:21-23); answering to the βαρύτερα τοῦ νόμου of Mat_23:23. The irksomeness and unbearableness of these rites did not belong to the Law in itself as rightly explained, but were created by the rigor and ritualism of these men who followed the letter and lost the spirit Similarly Stier and Nast who refer for analogy to our modern moralists who preach duty, duty! and nothing else.—P. S.]
Mat_23:5. But all their works.—Luk_11:43.—Their phylacteries, φυ λα κτήρια, remembrancers and preservatives.—Literal application of the figurative expressions of Exo_13:9; Exo_13:16; Deu_6:8-9; Mat_11:18. Thence arose the “תְּכִּלִּין, containing passages of the law upon leaves of parchment—Exo_13:1-16; Deu_6:4-9; Deu_11:13-22—which the Jews at the time of prayer bound, one on the left arm, one on the forehead, to show that the law should be in the heart and in the head. Buxtorf, Syn. Matthew 9 p. 170; and Rosenmüller, Morgenland, 5:82. The term phylactery was doubtless formed from the φυλάξασθε τὸν νόμον, Exo_13:10. It is not right, therefore, with de Wette and Meyer, at once to explain them as preservatives or amulets, having magical power. At first, they were simply remembrancers of the law; the heathen notion, that they were personal means of defence against evil spirits, did not arise till afterward. It is probable that the perversion was not perfect at the time of our Lord; otherwise He would have done more than condemn their enlargement of these phylacteries, i.e., hypocrisy and boastfulness in matters of religion. It is probably a result of this rebuke, that at the present day the size of these phylacteries is limited.—The borders or fringes, κράσπεδα.— Mat_9:20; comp. Num_15:38. These zizith were fastened with blue ribands to the garments (see BÆhr: Symbolik des Mos. Cultus, vol. 1 p. 329.) Blue was the symbolical color of heaven, the color of God, of His covenant, and of faithfulness to that covenant The tassels themselves signified flowers, or birds; probably pomegranates, and therefore crimson, and not blue, as the ribands were. Thus they were remembrancers that fidelity to the covenant should flourish; or they were tokens that the flower of life was love, and that love must spring from faithfulness to the covenant.
Mat_23:6. The chief seat, τὴν ππωτοκλισίαν.—“The first place at table; that is, according to Luk_14:8 (comp. also Joseph. Antiq. xv. 2, 4), the highest place on the divan, as among the Greeks. The Persians and Romans held the middle place to be the seat of honor. The word is not preserved, except among the Synoptists and the Fathers. Suid.: πρωτοκλισία ἡ πρώτη καθεδρα.” Meyer.
Mat_23:7. Rabbi, Rabbi—The teacher was called by his title, not by his name. “My master, my master,”—the customary repetition of greeting on the part of the scholar among the Jews. רַבִּי was more honorable than רַב, i.e., much, great, amplissimus.23 Buxt. Lexic. Talm. “Matter (καθηγητής) is more than Rabbi. The Rabbi was the teacher in a synagogue. Master was the head of a whole section, a leader who might be followed by many Rabbis (נִגִיר ,נָשִׂיא, rector, princeps). The proud spirit of the Rabbis has crept into the Christian Church. The Reformers protested against it.” Heubner.
Mat_23:8. But ye.
Mat_23:8-12 contain a warning application to the disciples of what had been said. The emphasis is on ὐμεῖς and ὑμῶν, placed first. Properly: over you one it Matter.
Mat_23:9. Father.—Father, אָכ , the supreme title of a teacher.—On earth.—With allusion to the antithesis of the Father in heaven. The earth has, however, in the New Testament a symbolical meaning also in opposition to the sea, the fluctuating world of the nations (see Rev_13:11, comp. Mat_23:1; Joh_3:12; Joh_3:31; Mat_16:19), as being the cultured world, the civil and ecclesiastical order.
Mat_23:10. Master, better: Leader, in the spiritual sense,—καθηγητής, not to be confounded with κατηχητής:. The third denomination has a special importance among the three: the first points mainly to the Jewish, the second to the Romish, hierarchy. No one should seek the distinction of being the founder of a church or sect.
[Albert Barnes, in his Notes, understands the prohibition of titles by our Saviour literally, and hence opposes (and personally always rejected) the title “Doctor of Divinity” the Christian equivalent of the Jewish Rabbi, as contrary to the command of Christ, to the simplicity of the gospel, and the equality of ministers, and as tending to engender pride and a sense of superiority. But to be consistent, the title Reverend, Mr. and Mrs., etc., should likewise be abolished, and the universal thou of the Quakers and Tunkers be introduced. And yet Paul called himself the (spiritual) father of the Corinthians, 1Co_4:15, and Timothy his son in the faith, 1Ti_1:2, and Titus likewise, Tit_1:4; Peter uses the same term of Mark (probably the evangelist), 1Pe_5:13. It is plain, therefore, that the Saviour prohibits not so much the titles themselves, as the spirit of pride and ambition which covets and abuses them, the haughty spirit which would domineer over inferiors, and also the servile spirit which would basely cringe to superiors. In the same way Christ does not forbid in Mat_23:6 to occupy the first seats, for some one must be uppermost (as Matthew Henry remarks)—but to seek and love them. Alford: “To understand and follow such commands in the slavery of the letter, is to fall into the Pharisaism against which our Lord is uttering the caution.”—P. S.]
Mat_23:9-12.—Comp. Mat_18:1; Mat_20:20; Luk_14:11; Luk_18:14. Meyer: “These prohibitions of Jesus refer to the hierarchical spirit which practically attached to the titles named at that period. Titles of teachers cannot be dispensed with, any more than the class of teachers; but the hierarchy, as it was re-introduced in the Romish Church, is quite contrary to the spirit and will of Christ. Well observes Calvin on Mat_23:11 : “Hac clausula ostendit, se non sophistice litigasse de vocibus, sed rem potius spectasse.”24 We must mark the distinction: Ye shall call no man father, and shall not be called by any, master, nor leader (πατὴρ, ῥοββ, διδάσκαλοςand . The worst corruption is the calling any man father; that is, to honor in any man an absolute spiritual authority. This religious homage is a contradiction to the absolute authority of the Father in heaven. Grotius; “Deus dogmatum auctor. Jer_31:34; Isa_54:13; Joh_6:45, ἔσονται πάντες διδακτοιΘ εχ οῦ; 1Th_4:9, θεοδίδακ τι ι. Sed alio sensu patres recte vocantur, qui nos in Christo per Evangelium genuer int, 1Co_4:15.”—The title of Rabbi referred to a constrained honor, which took away the brotherly equality of the faithful; or, in other words, the stamping of humanscholastic teaching with the dignity of law. That both these errors touched too closely the authority of Christ, is asserted in the third exhortation: They should not be called spiritual guides, founders, etc., because One only had that dignity, Christ. See 1Co_1:12. It can scarcely be denied that the designation of an ecclesiastical community by the name of a man, is inconsistent with this express prohibition, although much depends upon the origin of the name and the spirit with which it is used. Names of reproach have frequently become names of honor in the history of the church. The expression, ὁδηγός, Mat_23:16 and Mat_15:14, Rom_2:19-20, is not quite so strong as καθηγητής.
[Alford, following a hint of Olshausen (Christus der einige Master), refers the three titles to the three persons of the Holy Trinity, viz., πατήρ, Mat_23:9 to God the Father, διδάσκαλος, Mat_23:8 (according to the true reading, instead of the καθηγητής of the text, rec., see my Crit. Note 8, p. 408) to the Holy Spirit (comp. Joh_14:26; Jer_31:33-34; Eze_36:26-27), not named here, because his promise was only given in private to the disciples, and καθηγητής to Christ. “If this be so, we have God, in His Trinity, here declared to us as the only One, in all these relations, on whom they can rest or depend. They are all brethren, all substantially equal—none by office or precedence nearer to God than another; none standing between his brother and God.” Nast adopts this interpretation, which he thinks throws a flood of light upon the passage. But it is rather far-fetched, and the position of the Teacher (the Holy Spirit) between the Father and the Leader, instead of being mentioned last, is decidedly against it.—P. S.]
Mat_23:13. Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees.—There are seven woes according to general reckoning: the first, therefore, might seem superfluous; and this recommends, again, the omission of Mat_23:13, which is also critically contested. But, if we compare this discourse with the seven beatitudes of the Sermon on the Mount, we observe that the eighth woe is a summary of the seven in a concrete form, just as is the case with the eighth and ninth beatitudes. There, the concrete unity of all the benedictions is the being persecuted for righteousness’ sake, for Christ’s sake, as the prophets were persecuted in old time. But here, the eighth woe has the same force with respect to the Pharisees, who adorned the graves of the prophets, and yet showed that they themselves were no better than murderers of the prophets. This, therefore, leads to the supposition of a sustained antithesis between the benedictions and the woes:—
1. Poverty In spirit.—Devouring widows’ houses, and for a pretence making long prayers (being spiritually rich).2. The mourners.—The kingdom of heaven shut against others, while they go not in themselves. Fanaticism as opposed to repentance.3. The meek.—Zeal of proselytism.4. Hungering and thirsting after righteousness—Casuistical morality, which after corrupts the doctrine of sin, and raises the human above the divine. Swearing by the gold of the temple, by the offering.5. The merciful.—Tithing mint and anise; and leaving out righteousness, mercy, and faith,6. The pure in heart.—Cleansing the outside of the platter, the inside being full of uncleanness and covetousness.7. The children of peace (mossengers of life).—Sepulchres, fill of hypo risy and lawlessness.Summary of the Seven. Persecuted for righteousness sake as the prophets were persecutedMurderers of the prophetsPersecuted for Christ’ sakeThe ninth woe is wanting and this is very significant. Instead of it we hear the lamentation of Christ over Jerusalem. (see the Doctrinal Thought below.) Mat_23:14. Ye devour.—We put Mat_23:14 before Mat_23:13 (see the different readings). It is to be remarked that our Lord here establishes precisely the same connection between the worldly care and covetousness of the Pharisees, and their hypocritical formality, as in Mat_6:1; Mat_6:19; but in that passage the order is inverted, as the Lord there proceeds from the hypocrisy to its root—worldliness of mind and covetousness. The ὅτι gives the reason; because.—Devour widows’ houses, i.e., to obtain them unrighteously. This was damnable in itself, but much more when it was done under the cloak of piety, or καἱ προφάσει. The καί “mechanically brought from Mark.” It marks an advancement in the guilt. The περισσότερ ον κριμα we refer, as a prolonged sentence, to the lengthened hypocritical prayers which went before. “At a very early date this avarice in securing legacies crept into the Christian Church; and therefore Justinian passed ordinances forbidding the clergy to inherit possessions.” Heubner.
Mat_23:13. Ye shut up.—The kingdom of heaven, appearing with Christ, is represented as a palace, or, more precisely, a wedding-hall, with open doors. The hypocrites shut the kingdom of heaven before the people, ἔμπροσθεν.—For ye neither go in yourselves.—The shutting up is therefore twofold: 1. by their own guilt and wicked example; 2. by the actual keeping back of those who are entering, who not only would go in, but have their feet already on the threshold. So was it with Israel. The people were on the point of believing, when their hierarchical authorities drew them back into unbelief.
Ver.I5. Ye compass sea and land.—Fanatical proselytism. Danz: De cura Hebræoram in conquirendis proselytis in Meuschenii N. T. ex .Talm. illust. p. 649. That the Pharisees undertook actual missionary journeys, cannot be inferred with certainty from Joseph. Antiq. xx. 2, 4 (not 3 and not 1); for this passage speaks of a Jewish merchant who made proselytes, and the remnant of the Ten Tribes were very abundant in Adiabene. But we may suppose that there were such missions, and, indeed, that a proselyting impulse generally drove the Jews through the world. The real Pharisee did not make proselytes from heathenism to Judaism merely, but also from Judaism to Pharisaism.—The child of hell.—One who is doomed to perish or at least in great danger.—Twofold more than yourselves.—Διπλότερον, according to Valla, must be taken as an adjective, and not, as is customary, adverbially. But how was the proselyte worse than the Pharisee? Olshausen: Because the proselytes were without the spiritual substratum of the Mosaic economy, which was an advantage the Pharisees still possessed. That is, the latter were Jews and Pharisees, while the proselytes were only a caricature of Pharisaism. De Wette: Error and superstition are doubled by communication. Meyer: Experience proves that proselytes become worse and more extreme than their teachers. Thus the proselyte is a Pharisee of a higher degree. We might point to the Idumeans as examples, who converted John Hyrcanus (not till afterward a Sadducee) by force in their ξ ηρά—“ τὴν θὰλασσαν καὶ ξηράν—Or Petra. The house of Herod afforded a striking illustration of the character of such proselytes, in whom the dark elements of heathenism were blended with the dark elements of Judaism. The proselyte Poppœa probably urged Nero to the persecution of the Christians. But that the misleader is generally worse than the misled, is a fact which does not here come into view; it is a wicked conversion or perversion that is spoken of, and the intensification of Pharisaism with the course of time. De Wette rightly observes, that Jesus does not here mean the endeavor to convert the Gentiles to Judaism generally. Meanwhile Judaism as Judaism was not called to the work of heathen missions except in the way of mere preparation. The law can only make proselytes; the gospel alone can convert. See Heubner on Proselytes and Proselytizing, p. 346. Cardinal Dubois, under the regency in France, convertisseur en chef. Several Jewish proselytes of modern times.25
Mat_23:16. Woe unto you, ye blind guides!—Casuistry as the lax perversion of the fundamental laws of religion and morality. The mark common to both the examples given is this, that the divine institution, imposing holy obligation, is counted for nothing; and that, on the other hand, the human work which requires sanctification through the divine is placed in its stead. “The Pharisees distinguished oaths, in respect to their validity, according to external, superficial [or rather fundamentally wrong] notes, only in the interest of unscrupulousness.” De Wette.—By the temple.—The oath is very frequent, by this dwelling,המעון הזה. (Wetstein and Lightfoot).—By the gold of the temple.—By its golden adornments and vessels of gold; or by the temple-treasure. Jerome and Maldonatus are in favor of the latter. When we distinguish between the essential house of God, and the house of God as ceremonially adorned with gold, then Pharisaism swears only and always by the gold of the temple: it cannot swear by the temple itself. The outer manifestation is to it the reality itself: that is, for example, a church “with naked walls” is no church. “Meanwhile it is probable that the pharisaic and hierarchical covetousness preferred the oath by the treasure of the temple, as that by the sacrifice.” De Wette.—It is nothing.—It has no significance, and imposes no obligation (the Italian peccadiglio): the reservatio mentalis of Jesuitical morality.—He is a debtor.—Bound to observe the oath.
Mat_23:17. For which is greater?—Superiority of the originally holy, the divine, to that which is derivatively holy, the human, which is made holy only by the divine. The same relation which the gold bears to the divine house, the human offering bears to the divine fire which makes the altar an altar.
Mat_23:18. Whoso shall swear by the altar.—To any living view of the altar, the offering is one with the altar. Casuistry cuts asunder the living relations of religion, kills its life, denies its spirit and idolizes its body.
Mat_23:21. And whoso shall swear by the temple.—We expect to hear, “he sweareth also by the gold of the temple.” But this is self-understood; and therefore Christ returns back to the Lord of the temple, who makes the temple what it is, and makes heaven, the great temple, what it is. The oath has its significance generally in this, and in this only, that it is a confirmation by God, a declaration uttered as before God.
Mat_23:22. And he that shall swear by heaven.—Meyer: “The contrary of Mat_23:22 is found in Schevuoth, f. 35, Matthew 2 : Quia prœter Deum, cœli et terra creatorem, datur etiam ipsum cœlum et terra, indubium esse debet, quod is, qui per cœlum et terram jurat, non per eum juret, qui ilia creavit, sed per illas ipsas creaturas.”
Mat_23:23. For ye pay tithe.—The ordinances concerning tithes (Lev_27:30; Num_18:21; Deu_12:6; Deu_14:22-28) placed the fruits of the field and of the trees under the obligation; but tradition applied the law to the smallest produce of the garden, to the mint, the dill, and the cummin (Babyl. Joma, f. 83, 2. Lightfoot, Hottinger: De decimis Judœor.)—The weightier things: βαρύτερα.—De Wette: Those things which were harder, difficiliora. Meyer: The more important, graviora. “It is very probable that Jesus referred to the analogy of the praœpta gravia (חמורים) et levia (קלים) among the Jewish teachers. (See Schöttgen, p. 183.)” But there is no need to distinguish things so closely connected: the important supposes the difficult. Pharisaism is led into legalism and ceremonialism by its aversion to the difficult requirements of internal spiritual religion.—Judgment, κρίσις, מִשְׁפָּט.—See Isa_1:17. Thus, not righteousness itself, but fidelity in the discharge of duties according to the principles of righteousness. The mark of this care for right is, that it is one with mercy; and this mercy cannot be replaced by a hypocritical appearance, the almsgiving of the Pharisees (Mat_6:1).—Faith, τὴνπισ τι ν.—Luther, “faith;” de Wette and Meyer, “fidelity,” as in Rom_3:3; Gal_5:22. The opposite is ἀπιστια. Scriptural language does not distinguish between the two ideas, as ours does. Faith and fidelity are one in the principle of trust. But here ethical, subjective faith, or fidelity, is meant. Christ marks the moral development of the law in three stages: 1. The faithfulness of the Mosaic position: rigid care of law and right (Elijah). 2. The prophetic position: mercy to sinners, and even to the heathen, as the internal principle of legality. 3. Messianic fidelity as the fulfilment of the whole law. True fidelity is identical with this fidelity. Heubner: “κρίσις, conscientiousness: πίστις, sincerity. “It presupposes a blunted moral feeling to show much concern about little faults, but to care nothing for great ones. (Luther, Works, 10: 1986, applies the same passage to the papal laws.)”
These ought ye to have done, and not to leave the other undone.—Reverse order. True and internal adherence to law places the great matter first, without being lax in the less.
Mat_23:24. Blind guides, comp. Mat_23:16.—The term implies that they not only acted as hypocrites, but also taught as hypocrites. Mat_23:16 pronounces a separate woe against all casuistry. But here the words, and what follows them, explain the woe of Mat_23:23 rather in its dogmatic side. The appellations, “Ye fools and blind,” Mat_23:17; Mat_23:19, represent them as self-blinded and in voluntary delusion.
Strain out26a gnat.—Ye strain (the wine) in order to separate off the gnats. The liquare vinum had among the Greeks and Romans only a social significance; but to the Pharisees it was a religious act. It was supposed that the swallowing of the gnat would defile them; and therefore the Jews strained the wine, in order to avoid drinking an unclean animal. (Buxtorf, Lex. Talm. Wetstein, from Chollin, fol. 67, culices pusillos, quos percolant.) The actual custom is here a symbol of the highest Levitical scrupulosity; and the opposite, the swallowing of camels, which of course could only signify the most enormous impurities in the enjoyment of life and its earthly pleasures, was the symbol of unbounded and unreflectingly stupid eagerness in sin. The expression is of a proverbial type. The camel was in the law unclean, because it had no divided hoof, Lev_11:4; and, moreover, this hypothetical swallowing of the camel would involve a thorough violation of the Noachic prohibition of eating blood and things strangled.
Mat_23:25. The outside of the platter.—Figurative description of the legal appearance of gratification. Cup and platter: meat and drink, or the enjoyment of life in all its forms.—But within.—Here we have the internal and moral side of gratification.—They are full of extortion and excess.—“That of which they are full, wine and food, was the produce of robbery and incontinence (ἀκρασία, a later form of ἀκράτεια).” Meyer. See Isa_28:7 sqq.
Mat_23:26. Thou blind Pharisee, cleanse first.—The rebuking adjective blind points here also to the absurdity of their practice.—Cleanse the inside. Sanctify thy enjoyment by righteousness and temperance.—That the outside may be clean.—Fritzsche: May be able to be cleansed. Meyer, better: That the purity of the externals may follow. “External purity is not here declared useless (de Wette); but it is declared not to be true holiness, which implies the preceding purification of the inner man.” It is here presupposed that all their adorning of the outside must fail to make even that clean, so long as the inside is full of defilement: that is, Levitical purity without moral purity is itself defilement. (Bengel, in a gentler expression, non est mundities.)
Mat_23:27. Whited sepulchres.—“The graves were every year, on the 15th Adar, whitened with a kind of chalk (κονία)—a practice derived by the Rabbins from Eze_39:15; not merely for the sake of appearance, but also that these places, the touch of which was defilement (Num_19:16), might be more easily seen and avoided. (See the rabbinical passages in Lightfoot, Schöttgen, and Wetstein.) Thus they always had a pleasant outward appearance.” Meyer. But thus also they were adorned. Luk_11:44 is a similar thought, not, however, the same.
Full of dead men’s bones.—Dead bodies were unclean according to the law, and the touch of them defiled (Num_5:2; Num_6:6): this was specially the case with the bones of the dead and the odor of decay from the grave. Impurity has a deadly effect. Spiritual death exerts a deadly influence (1Jn_3:14-15); and thus what follows, the murder of the prophets, is introduced.
Mat_23:28. Hypocrisy is here the wicked disguise; and iniquity, ανμία, is not simply immorality, but consummate theocratical lawlessness.
Mat_23:29. Ye build the tombs of the prophets.—Construction of sepulchral graves, stones, and monuments, with various designs and inscriptions on consecrated burial ground. The antithesis is delicate: And garnish the sepulchres of the righteous (canonized saints). The latter are acknowledged at once, and receive their monuments; the prophets, on the other hand, often lay long in unknown and even dishonored graves. Later generations then began to become enthusiastic about them, and make their common graves elaborate monuments. “The custom of building monuments to ancient and celebrated persons, has existed among all peoples and in all ages. Comp. Wetstein, Lightfoot, Jahn, Arch. Mat_1:2.” De Wette. Consult Robinson’s Researches on the remarkable sepulchres around Jerusalem, and the so-called sepulchres of the prophets.
Mat_23:30. And say.—First of all, by the fact of adorning their sepulchres.—If we had been in the days of our fathers. Not: if we were (Meyer), which here gives no sense.—Of our fathers.—Primarily, by natural lineage, but also in the sense of fellowship: Sons of the murderers, in a spiritual sense; which de Wette, without any reason, opposes.
Mat_23:31. Ye be witnesses unto yourselves.—How this? De Wette: By virtue of the guilt transmitted to you. Meyer: “When ye thus speak of your fathers, ye give testimony against yourselves, that ye belong to the kin of the murderers of the prophets.” But the meaning is rather, the opposite of this: Since ye repute the fathers, in spite of their murderous spirit against the prophets, as being in the fullest sense of the word, in your traditions, your fathers; and explain the ancient blood-guiltiness, which has been transmitted to you, only as accidental evils into which they fell, or as the product of a barbarous age. Just as in these days the horrors of the inquisition are excused on account of the barbarism of the Middle Ages, although they had their essential root in the fanaticism of the principle of tradition. The continued acknowledgment of those old false principles, from which those murders sprang, establishes the community of guilt, and the propagation of the old guilt to consummate judgment. Heubner quotes: “Sit licet divus, dummodo non vivus.”27
Mat_23:32. Fill ye up then the measure.—Chrysostom says that this πλρώσατε was spoken prophetically; Grotius, permissively. De Wette and Meyer make it an ironical imperative. De Wette: “The πληρώσατε presupposes the ability and willingness in the mind of the Pharisees which merely needs encouragement.” (!) The difficult analogon of this difficult passage is the word of Jesus to Judas, Joh_13:27 : “What thou intendest to do, do quickly.” The last means to scare the wicked from their gradually ripening iniquity is the challenge: Do what ye purpose at once! If this is irony, it is divine Irony, as in Psa_21:4.28—Fill ye up.—The ancient crime of the prophet-murdering spirit ran on continuously through the ages, (See Isaiah 6; Mat_13:14; Act_28:26.) Its consummation was the murder of Christ.—Fill up then, even ye,—καὶ ὑμεῖς. The emphasis, however, falls upon the πληρώσατε. Ye, who condemn the murderers of the prophets, will even fulfil the measure of their guilt.—The measure of guilt. The expression was, according to Wetstein, current among the Rabbins. With the full measure of guilt, judgment begins. The passage, Exo_20:5, which de Wette quotes, describes the generic nature of guilt in the reduced sphere of a single house; and the guilt of a community, of a church, of an order, is to be distinguished as an enlarged measure of the more limited family guilt.
Mat_23:33. Serpents.—Comp. Luk_3:7. Πῶς φύγητε. The Conj. delib. supposes the matter to be inwardly decided. The judgment of hell, ἀπὸ τῆς κρίσεως τῆς γεέννης. The sentence which condemns to hell. The expression, judicium Gehennœ was used by the Rabbins (Wetstein).
Mat_23:34. Wherefore I send, etc.—Fearful teleology of judgment. The messengers of salvation must hasten the process of doom for the hardened. Sin, which will not be remedied, must be drawn out into its full manifestation, that it may find its doom and destruction in the judgment.—Behold, I send unto you—This is difficult, inasmuch as Jesus seems to bring down into the present, as His own sending, the sending of the prophets who had appeared in earlier times. (I) Van Hengel: The quotation of an old prediction. (2) Olshausen refers to Luk_11:49, Jesus speaking here as the essential Wisdom. (3) De Wette: Jesus utters this with the feeling of His Messianic dignity; these prophets and wise men are His own messengers, the Apostles, etc. But here it is not merely the New Testament martyrdoms that are meant; the whole history of the persecutions of the prophets appears Ideologically, i.e., as judgment. Hence Jesus speaks out of the central consciousness of the theocratical wisdom, and in unison with the consciousness of the Father: comp. Mat_11:19. As the last who was sent of God, He was the moving, actuating principle of all the divine missions: comp. Joh_1:26. But as the Old Testament times were not excluded, so the New Testament times are included.29 The futures are prophetic, as is the whole passage. Hence in the σταυρώσετε Jesus thought assuredly of Himself. Meyer refers to the crucifixion of Simeon, bishop of Jerusalem and Pella: Euseb. Hist. Ecc_3:22.—The expression καὶ ἐξ αὐτῶν is very strong. They will be no better than brands for the fire of your fanaticism.
Mat_23:35. That upon you may come.—The common expression for judgment, Eph_5:6, as intimating its inevitableness, suddenness, power, and grandeur.—The righteous (innocent) blood, דָּם נָקִי; that is, the punishment for it, comp. Mat_27:25, but such as the righteous blood has awakened. Innocent blood appears as the leader of avenging powers: comp. Gen_4:10; Heb_12:24; Rev_6:10. Certainly the blood of Christ speaketh better things than the blood of Abel; but that blood has also its condemning character, and indeed in the shedding of that blood the judgment of the world was completed. The righteous blood is here emphatic: the consecrated, sanctified blood of the prophets. Bengel: “αῖ̓μα, ter hoc dicitur uno hoc versu magna vi.” ’Ε κχυνόμενον, in the present tense. The blood is a continuous stream, which still flows and will flow, being present especially in its spiritual influence. Rev_6:10,
Zachariah, son of Barachiah.—See 2Ch_24:20. Zachariah, the son of the high-priest Jehoiada, stoned in the court of the temple by command of the king. There are difficulties here:1. He was not the last of the martyrs of the Old Testament: the murder of Urijah, Jer_26:23, was of a later date. But besides the order of the Hebrew canon, there was something pre-eminently wicked in the destruction of the former. Zachariah was the son of a high-priest of the greatest merit; he was murdered between the temple and the altar, and died crying, The Lord seeth, and will avenge it. And, moreover, his destruction was always vividly in the remembrance of the Jews. See Lightfoot on this passage, and Targum Thren. Mat_2:20. 2. The father of Zachariah was Jehoiada, here called Barachiah. Different explanations: (a) Beza, Grotius, al.: his father had two names; (b) van Hengel, Ebrard: Barachias was the father, Jehoiada the grandfather; (c) Kuinoel supposes that the words, “son of Barachiah,” are a gloss, (d) de Wette, Bleeck, Meyer [and Al-ford] decide that an error in the name has crept in. “Probably Jesus Himself did not mention the name of the father (Luk_11:51), and it was added from an original tradition: the error being the result of confounding the person of Zachariah with the better known Zechariah the prophet, whose father was named Barachiah (Zec_1:1). This tradition was followed by Matthew; but in the Gospel of the Hebrews the error was not found (according to Jerome, the name there was Jehoiada).” Meyer, (e) According to Hammond and Hug, the Zachariah meant was the son of Baruch, who was killed in the temple after the death of Christ (Joseph. Bell. Judges 4, 6, 4). Hug thinks that Jesus spoke in the future, but that the Evangelist, after the event had taken place, put it in the preterite. But this is an untenable notion, even apart from the difference between Baruch and Barachiah. Ammon, who also refers the words to the Zachariah of Josephus, explained them as interpolation. (f) Chrysostom quoted an ancient opinion, according to which it was the last but one of the lesser prophets, Zechariah. (g) Origen, Basil, and others, thought it was Zacharias, the father of John the Baptist—following a mere legend; to which the objection holds good, that if Jesus had come down to such recent times, he would doubtless have mentioned John the Baptist Himself. The Lord moreover speaks not of the blood-guiltiness of the present generation, but of the guilt of former times, which came upon the present generation because they filled up the iniquities of their fathers. (Comp. art. in “Studien und Kritiken” for 1841, p. 20, and Pharmaci des, περὶ Ζαχαριου υἱοῦ Βαραχίου. Athens, 1838.) We prefer the solution sub (b). But if there was an error of name (see (d)), we might ascribe it, with Amnion and Eichhorn, to the translator of St. Matthew rather than the primitive evangelical tradition, as de Wette and Meyer do. It is very difficult to determine whether Matthew, in his familiarity with the genealogies, had a more correct account than that of the Book of Chronicles, or whether his translator made the change. It is in favor of the second supposition of Jehoiada being the grandfather, that he died at the age of 130, and that Zechariah, who is called his son, was laid hold on by the Spirit at a later time, and appeared as a prophet.30
Mat_23:37. Jerusalem, Jerusalem (Luk_13:34, where it is placed earlier for pragmatic reasons).—Language of the more mighty emotion of compassion after the stern language of judgment. But with the change of feeling there is also a change of subject, and of the exhibition of the guilt. In the place of the Pharisees and scribes, it is Jerusalem; that is, the centre of the hierarchy, but also of the people, and this name combines the poor misled and the blind misleaders,—the present, also, and the past. In the place of the punishment of ancient blood-guiltiness spoken of before, Jerusalem’s own personal guilt is denounced now as justifying this condemnation.—Thou that killest.—The expressions ἀποκτείνουσα and λθοβλοῦσαare emphatic in two ways: first, through the participial form, and, secondly, through the present tense,—the habitual murderess of the prophets, the stoner of the messengers of God.—How often would I have gathered!—The Lord still speaks out of the theocratic and prophetical consciousness which embraces in one the Old and New Testaments; yet the “how often” presupposes a frequent operation of the Lord’s grace in Jerusalem, and visits which the Evangelist was acquainted with, but which did not fall within his plan. Comp. here the Gospel of John. —Thy children.—That is, thy inhabitants. But, in a wider sense, all Israelites were children of Jerusalem.—As a hen.—Allusion to the destruction which impended over Jerusalem, in a figure which signifies that He would have taken Jerusalem under the protection of His Messianic glory, if it had turned to Him in time. The figure of the hen was often used by the Rabbins concerning the Shechinah, as gathering the proselytes under the shadow of its wings.—But ye would not.—The one guilt of Jerusalem was unfolded in the guilt of her individual children. Jesus knew that with the obduracy of the authorities the obduracy of the city and its inhabitants was decided. Hence He used the preterite, not the present tense. Jerusalem’s children had made their choice. The crucifixion of Jesus and the fall of the city were decided. It is quite an independent question, how many of the individual inhabitants of Jerusalem were saved by apostolical preaching. Historical notices on the later deplorable condition of Jerusalem, see in Heubner’s Com. p. 349.31
Mat_23:38. Behold, your house.—No longer “My Father’s house.” According to Grotius, Meyer etc., the city; according to de Wette and others, temple and city. But the only true interpretation is that of Theophylact, Calvin, Ewald, the temple. For the word marks the moment at which Jesus leaves the temple, and leaves it for a sign that it was abandoned by the Spirit of the theocracy. Indeed, the leaving of the temple intimated that not merely the city, but also the land, was forsaken of the Spirit; for the temple is referred to in its symbolical meaning. We retain the addition “desolate,” i.e., a spiritual ruin. It was omitted in some copies, probably because it was thought that the word would open up some prospect of a restoration of the temple. But the prospect of the restoration of Israel involves only the spiritual rebuilding of Israel’s temple in the Spirit of Christ.
Mat_23:39. For I say unto you.—Most solemn declaration.—Ye shall not see Me henceforth:—In My Messianic work and operation. From that, as among the Jews, He now entirely withdrew. See Joh_12:37 sq. After the resurrection, He showed Himself only to His own people.—Till ye shall say.—Neither at the destruction of Jerusalem (Wetstein), nor at the advent of Christ (Meyer), but in the future general conversion of Israel (Romans 11; Zec_12:10; Isa_66:20, etc.).—Blessed be He that cometh, Psalms 118—See the notes on the entry into Jerusalem, Mat_21:9-10. Jerusalem itself had not met the Redeemer with these words of greeting, but had asked, Who is this (Mat_21:10)? Thus it is an intimation of a future conversion. Not tragic and judicial, as Meyer explains it.
Matthew 24 : Mat_23:1. And Jesus went out.—It is not merely a local and temporary departure from the temple that is meant. It is true that He had overcome all the assaults of His enemies in the temple; but still they had declined to give Him their faith, and at length had declined it by their absolute silence. And as the Lord of the temple, the temple had rejected Him, in the person of those who had legal authority in it. That was the fall of the temple; and it was then decided that it was no more now than a den of robbers, in which all—the Messiah, and the Spirit, and the hope of the Gentiles, and the blessing of Israel—was as it were murdered. He takes farewell of the temple; and from that time forward it became no better than a hall of desolation, a dreary and forsaken ruin. According to a Jewish legend in Joseph. Bell. Jdg_6:5; Jdg_6:3, the guardian angels of the temple deserted it at a much later period. “At the Pentecost, when the priests for the night went into the temple to perform the divine service, they heard a great and rushing sound, and then the cry, μεταβαίνωμεν ἐντεῦθεν.—Tacitus, Hist. Mat_5:13 : Expresses repente delubri fores et audita major humana vox. Excedere deos; simul ingens motus excedentium. In the fortieth year before the destruction of Jerusalem, the lamp in the temple was extinguished of itself, according to Jewish accounts (see Lightfoot, Hor. Heb. ad Mat_26:3). The synagogue is still a place void of God, because it knows not Christ.” Heubner. Indeed, this departure of Christ was not absolutely the last; for, after the resurrection, He solicited His enemies there, in the person of His Apostles. For the last time He left it when Paul was condemned in it (Act_21:33; Act_22:22), and James the son of Alphæus was slain (Joseph. Antig. xx. 9, 1).
DOCTRINAL AND ETHICAL
1. See the preceding Exegetical Notes.
2. The seven benedictions of the Sermon on the Mount were summed up in an eighth: Blessed are all who are persecuted for righteousness’ sake. And this benediction has here its counterpart in a comprehensive woe, the eighth, upon the murderers of the prophets. But the ninth benediction, “Blessed are ye, if ye be scorned and persecuted for My sake,” has no counterpart among the woes, but the cry of distress over Jerusalem. True, that the Jews themselves afterward cried: “His blood be on us and on our children” ( Mat_27:25); but Jesus Himself knew that His “blood would speak better things than the blood of Abel.” Hence the change of the ninth woe into the lament over Jerusalem.
3. The guilt of the scribes and Pharisees became now, to the Lord’s view, the guilt of Jerusalem, and then the guilt of the nation itself. For Jerusalem was the representative of the spirit of the Pharisees and of the national genius. But Jerusalem represents also32 the life and the honor, the fathers and the glory, the youth and the hope of the nation. Jerusalem represents the children of the nation, so often threatened by tempests of ruin, and now threatened by the saddest of all. Therefore the Lord mourns and laments over His own ruined Jerusalem. All the missions and messages of God which had been sent to Jerusalem, and which formed the ground of Israel’s judgment, to Him appeared now rather as so many efforts and impulses of God to save them. His own compassionate desire to save them had been active throughout all those ages of divine mission; but especially had it been active during the time of His own labors and ministry. His whole pilgrimage on earth was troubled by distress for Jerusalem, like the hen who sees the eagle threatening in the sky, and anxiously seeks to gather her chickens together under her wings. With such distress, Jesus saw the Roman eagles approach for judgment upon the children of Jerusalem, and sought with the strongest solicitations of love to save them. But in vain! They were like dead children to the voice of maternal love!
4. Stier, ii. Matt 527: “Jehovah represented His dealing with His people, first, as that of an eagle, hovering over her young and bearing them on her wings (Deu_32:11); but at last, as that of a hen which strives to extend her wings over her imperilled chickens.” Antithesis between the fidelity of ruling power, and the fidelity of suffering mercy.
5. Behold, your house.—Words which were sealed even by the vain attempt of Julian to build the temple again, as well as by its whole subsequent fate. Comp. Rauschesbusch (sen.): Leben Jesu, p. 327.
6. Till ye shall say, Blessed.—sepp, Life of Christ 3:31: The Jewish rulers failed in this greeting in the day of the Palm-entry, and the people owe it to Christ to this day. This word contains, however, a definite promise of the national restoration of Israel, as it is set forth in Romans 11, and in many passages of the prophets. See Alfred Meter: der Jude, Frankfort 1856; where, however, there is too much intermin gling of Jewish Christian expectations.
7. Jesus, after departing from the temple, still remained quietly in the court of the women, and blessed the widow’s gift: thereby blessing true and simple piety, in the midst of debased and degraded ceremonialism. Comp. Mar_12:41; Luk_21:1; and the author’s Leben Jesu, ii. 3, p. 1249.
HOMILETICAL AND PRACTICAL
1. The Preface (vers.1–3) and the Discourse as a whole.—The preaching of the truth must, according to the repeated example of the Lord, turn from priests and teachers who persistently scorn it, to the common people.—The great condemnation pronounced by Jesus in the temple upon the Pharisees and the scribes.—The Lord vindicates and protects appointed ordinances, even while vehemently condemning those who administered them.—High esteem for the office never excludes free condemnation of the abuses of those who hold it.—Hypocrites condemn their own works by their own words.
2. The General Rebuke (vers.4–7).—Dead traditionalism : 1. Its hardness; 2. its falsehood; 3. its selfishness.—Despotism in holy apparel and in the domain of the conscience: 1. Doubly fearful; 2. doubly ruinous; 3. doubly impotent.—The Lord holds up to His disciples the image of spiritual ambition and pride for an everlasting warning.—The power of faith disposes of the pretensions of spiritual ambition: faith in the only Teacher: faith in God as the only Father; faith in Christ as the only Lord and Guide. (Thus the Apostle’s Creed, rightly understood, is threefold Protestant.)—Out of the humility of fidelity springs the courage of freedom.
3. Specific Rebuke: the seven woes (vers.13–37).—The seven benedictions and the seven woes.—The eighth woe as the summary of the seven: like the eighth benediction.—The ninth woe is changed into a lamentation over Jerusalem.—First woe: Spiritual avarice and greediness for securing legacies; petitioners changed into beggars.—The long prayers of the hypocrites, and the long sentence of judgment.—Second woe; Those who shut the kingdom of heaven to others, and exclude themselves. Third woe: Proselytism; soul-winners and soul-ruiners.33—Fourth woe: The work of man up, the work of God down: the inward nothing, the outward everything.—The true oath always by the living and true God.—The blindest ignorance connected with a conceit of keenest insight into the laws of the kingdom of God.—Fifth woe: Legality in little things; lawlessness in great Straining out gnats; swallowing camels.—Sixth woe. The outside and the inside of the cup and the platter; or, the feast of the religious and moral hypocrite: 1. In the outward form, consecrated or adorned; 2. in the inner character, abominable and reprobate.—Seventh woe: The whited sepulchres: 1. Like pleasant abodes outwardly; 2. caves of bones, diffusing death, within.—Spiritual death, in the guise of spiritual bloom: 1. Captivating; 2. destructive.—The eighth woe: The murderers of the prophets.—How the garnishing the sepulchres of the prophets may be auspicious: 1.When it bears witness to a diseased hanging on to antiquity [false and morbid medievalism.—P. S.]; 2. when it robs the prophets of the present of their rights.—To persecute Christ in His saints is to persecute Christ Himself.—He who would free himself from the blood-guiltiness of olden times, must, free himself from the principles which created it then.—Ancient guilt finds its sure consummation in terrible judgment, however long delayed.—The sinner’s inherited guilt becomes his own only through his own personal guilt.—Jerusalem, Jerusalem!—How often.
4. The Departure from the Temple.—The temple desecrated by obduracy: 1. A house of men, forsaken of God; 2. a house of desolation, forsaken of the Spirit; 3. a house of misery and death, forsaken of Christ.—The golden sunset after the evening storm; or, the prospect of the restoration of Israel.—The departure of Christ from the temple of the Jews: 1. The close of a mournful past; 2. the sign of a miserable present; 3. the token of a sad futurity.—The last word of the Lord to His people, the announcement of His first royal advent to punish His people (in the destruction of Jerusalem).
Starke:—All hypocrites are severe toward others, but very indulgent toward themselves.—Canstein: A faithful teacher uses severity toward himself, but he rules those who are under him with gentleness.—By thy words wilt thou be condemned.—They would fain have men believe that there was a special sanctity in the habit of their order.—Canstein: Pharisaic folly; elegant Bibles and books of prayer, and no devotion in the heart.—One is our Master, Christ.—Quesnel: God’s word and truth is an inheritance common to all the brethren. He who would glory in being its lord, and keep his brethren from the use of it, is a robber of the Church’s inheritance.—The Church of Christ is a family, of which God alone is the Father.—[Quesnel on Mat_23:1 : Let us always look with respect on Christ and His authority, even in the most imperfect of His ministers. The truth loses nothing of its value by the bad lives of its ministers. The faith is not built upon the lives of pastors, but upon the visible authority of the Church (? rather upon Christ and His word).—P. S.]—Hedinger: Let no man vaunt himself of his position and office.—The gifts by which we are useful to others are from Christ, and they are the gifts of grace.—Humility is the true way to abiding dignity.—Hypocrites would convert others, while they are themselves unconverted; hence their converts generally go from worse to worse.—It is not God, but gold, not the altar, but what is on it, that they are concerned with.—Swearing by the name of the great God, is, Indeed, a matter of tremendous importance.—Sins reproduce one another; when one has wasted what he has robbed, he robs again that he may waste.—The unconverted man is like a sepulchre, in which man lies in his corruption.—Quesnel: Many are Christians in name and appearance; few in spirit and in truth.—Canstein: At last the whited mask drops off, and the hypocrite is naked and discovered.—Garnishing the graves of the old martyrs, and making new martyrs.—When men in their wickedness receive no more exhortation, but make a mock of God and His servants, the measure of wrath is very near being filled up.—Wherefore I send unto you. Rom_2:4 : The goodness and long forbearance of God.—God remembers all the blood-guiltiness of the history of mankind: woe to them who become partakers of the guilt!
Verily I say unto you. God’s threatenings are not in sport.—Jerusalem, Jerusalem: the fatherly heart of God is earnest in calling men to salvation.—The cause of ruin is the evil will of man.—Osiander: Contempt of God’s word is followed by the downfall of all rule, authority, and good institutions, Dan_9:6; Dan_9:11-12.—Canstein: There is a time of grace; there is also a day of judgment.
Gerlach:
Mat_23:6. Notwithstanding these solemn prohibitions, how much of these sins have been found in all churches and sects, from the highest to the least!
Mat_23:16 sq. These rules of the Pharisees about swearing were doubtless designed, first, to relax the strict obligation of certain oaths of common life; and then to enrich the temple-treasure, by attributing a greater sanctity and more rigid obligation to the gold which was ordained for the temple, and the sacrifices which were ordained for the altar, and which were partly the perquisite of the priests. Comp. Mat_15:5; Mar_7:11.
Mat_23:36. Every sinner who, in spite of the divine warnings, walks in the footsteps of his fathers, draws down upon his own head the punishment which was in their times mercifully deferred and suspended.
Lisco:—The condemnation of Jesus affects all who are contented with appearing that which they should be.—The woe is upon their deceiving of souls; their hypocritical covetousness; their hypocritical proselyting; their hypocritical trafficking with oaths; their hypocritical pedantry; their hypocritical righteousness; their hypocritical respect for the saints of God.
Heubner:—The dignity of the ministry is to be honored for its own sake.—The ordinances of men always a burden; the commandments of God and of Christ are always a gentle yoke.—Spiritual pride and ambition always one of the chief temptations and dangers of ministers.—Christ does not forbid the title, but the ambition for it. Application to the Romish Church, and the name Papa universalis. Pater.—Not ruling, but serving, makes greatness.—Great difference between zeal for conversion and ambition for conversion [or missionary spirit and selfish proselyting.—P. S.].—Hypocrisy in vows, reservatio mentalis.—Ask whether anything impure clings to your enjoyment: the tears and sighs of the poor.—It is a base reverence for the great of olden time, which will not seek to imitate them.—Every generation should be improved by the preceding; if not, it is made worse.—The great design of Jesus is to gather in poor, wandering, and scattered children of men into one family of God.—Desolate. Every Christian temple, in which Christ is not preached, is empty; so is every heart in which He does not live.
Footnotes:
[1] Mat_23:2.—[̓Ε κάθισαν (aorist), seated themselves; Coverdale: are sat down; Conant: have sat down (with the Implication of continuance); Ewald: liessen sich nieder; Luther, de Wette, Lunge: sitzen. The phrase does not necessarily convey blame for usurpation, but states a matter of fact, the act and its result: having seated themselves they sit, and we invested with official authority as teachers and judges.—P. S.]
[2] Mat_23:3.—Τηρεῖν is omitted by B., D., L., Z., al., [Cod. Sinait.], Lachmann, Tischendorf, etc.
[3] Mat_23:3.—Codd. D., L., D.: ποιήσατε καὶ τηρεῖτε, do and observe. The reverse order [τηρεῖτε και ποιεῖτε in the text. Rec. is explanatory.
[4] Mat_23:4.—Δέ (is better supported than γάρ [which seems to be substituted as more suitable].
[5] Mat_23:4.—Tischendorf omits δυσβάστακτα without sufficient cause. [Lachmann retains it, Alford omits it, so also Cod. Sinait.]
[6] Mat_23:5.—Of their garments, τῶν ἱματίων αὐτῶν αὐτῶν, seems an explanatory addition to the text, but necessary in the translation. [They are wanting in the best authorities, including Coil. Sinait.]
[7] Mat_23:7.—[Some of the best authorities, including (Cod. Sinait., and the critical editions of Lachmann and Tregelles read: ῥαββί (or ῥαββεί) only once; but Tischendorf and Alford retain the text, rec.—P. S.]
[8] Mat_23:8.—[Dr. Lange, in his Version (Meister), retains with Meyer the text rec.: καθηγητής. But Lachmann, Tischendorf, Tregelles, Alford, and even Wordsworth, who generally adheres to the received text, react with the best ancient authorities: διδάσκαλος, teacher, and this is preferable also on account of Mat_23:11, to avoid repetition.—P. S.]
[9] Mat_23:8.—O ̔Ο Χριστός is an addition from Mat_23:10, and omitted in the critical editions.
[10] Mat_23:14—[ Mat_23:14, from κριμα, is omitted in the oldest MSS., including Cod. Sinait., versions, and seems to be inserted from Mar_12:40 and Luk_20:47. See the critical summaries in Lachmann, Tischendorf Tregelles, and Alford. But Griesbach. Scholz, and Fritzsche, according to Codd. E., F., G., H., etc., assume a transposition of Mat_23:13-14. So also Dr. Lange in hi3 German Version, who regards it as very improbable that Matthew should have omitted such an important feature.—P. S.]
[11] Mat_23:19.—Μωροὶ is wanting in D., L., Z., [and In Cod. Sinait. which reads simply τυῖλοι], omitted by Tischendorf [and Alford], and enclosed in brackets by Lachmann. [The words may have been Inserted from Mat_23:17, where they are genuine.—P. S.]
[12] Mat_23:22.—Text. Rec. (retained by Lachmann on the authority of Cod. B.): κατοικοῦντι, but Tischendorf, with nearly all the uncial MSS., reads κατοικήσαντι. [So also Tregelles and Alford. The latter suggests that the aorist implies that God did not then dwe1 in the temple, nor had He done so since the Captivity. But in the cleansing of the temple Christ evidently treated it as the house of God, Mat_21:13.—P. S.]
[13] Mat_23:23.—The definite article before these petty items, as in the Greek (ὸ ἡδύοσμον καὶ ͂ὸ ἄνηθον καὶ τὸ κύμινον) and in the German Versions of Lange and others, should be retained, as it adds emphasis.—P. S.]
[14] Mat_23:23.—[Lange translates τὴν κρισιν καὶ τὸν ἔλεοζ και τὴν πιστιν: die (mosaische) Rechtspflege und das (prophetische) Erbarmen und die (messianische) Glaubenstreue. See his Exeg. Notes.—P. S]
[15] Mat_23:23.—After ταῦτα is to be inserted according to Codd. B., C, etc., and the critical editions.
[16] Mat_23:24.—[The word at before strain was originally a printing error for out, which first appeared in King James’s revision in 1611, and was faithfully copied ever after. All the older English Versions, from Tyndale to the Bishops’ Bible (except the N. T. of Rheims, of 1562, which renders: strain a gnat, omitting out), correctly translate οὶ διυλιζοντες τὸν κώκωπα: strain out, etc. Alford, however, thinks that the phrase in the Authorized Version was no typographical blunder, as is generally supposed, but a deliberate alteration, meaning “strain (out the wine) at (the occurrence of) a gnat” But this is rather far-fetched, and Bishop Lowth is certainly right when he remarks: “The Impropriety of the preposition (at) has wnolly destroyed the meaning of the phrase.” The phrase refers to the use of a strainer, and is plain enough with out. The Jews carefully strained their wine and other beverages, from fear of violating Lev_11:20; Lev_11:23; Lev_11:41-42, as do now the Buddhists in Ceylon and Hindustan.—P. S.]
[17] Mat_23:25.—For ἀκρασιας Griesbach and Scholz read ἀδικίας, unrighteousness. But B., D., L. speak for the former reading.
[18] Mat_23:32.—Πληρώσατε, implete, is the correct reading. ̓Επληρώσατε H., al.) and πληρώσατε (B., al.) originated in the desire to soften the sense.
[19] Mat_23:38.—Codd. B., L., al., and Lachmann omit ἔρημος, but it must be retained as essential.
[20][Comp. Alford: “There can, I think, he no doubt that this discourse was delivered, as our Evangelist here relates it. all at one time, and in these the. last days of our Lord’s ministry.…It bears many resemblances to the Sermon on the Mount, and may be regarded as the solemn close, as that was the opening, of the Lord’s public teaching.”—P. S ]
[21][The Edinb trsl. has here: relaœed, perhaps a printing error, for released, abgelöst.]
[22][Alford: “The οῦ̓ν here is very significant,—because they sit in Moses sent, and this clears the meaning, a d shows it to be, all things which they, as successor of Moses, out of his law, command you to observe, do; then being a distinction between their lawful teaching ns expounders of the law, and their frivolous traditions superadded thereto, and blamed below.”—P. S.]
[23][The title was used in three forms: Rab, master, doctor; Rabbi. my master; Rabboni, my great master.—P. S.]
[24][Comp. the remark of Alford on Mat_23:11 : “It may serve to show us how little the letter of the letter of a precept has to do with Its true observance, if we reflect that he who of all the Heads of sects has most notably violated this whole command, and caused others to do so, calls himself ‘serous servorum Dei’ ”—P. S.]
[25][Comp. here some excellent remarks quoted from an English periodical, the Homilist. in Nast’s Commentary, p. 520, on the great difference between the genuine missionary and the proselyting spirit, the godly zeal, and the sectarian zeal—P.S.]
[26][Not: at, which Is In all probability originally a typographical error for out. See the critical note above, No. 16, p. 408. Another striking example of the tenacity of a typographical blunder which found Its way Into many editions of the English Bible, is vinegar for vineyard in Mat_20:1. Hence the term: The Vinegar-Bible.—P. S.]
[27][Dr. Crosby, Explanatory Notes or Scholia in, loc, in view of the parallel passage in Luk_11:47, where the word for makes a connection between building the tombs and approving their fathers’ crimes, suggests the conjecture that there was a proverb among the Jews asserting complicity in crime, like “One kills him, and another digs his grave.” Stier and Alford: The burden of this hypocrisy is, that they, being one with their fathers, treading in their steps, but vainly disavowing their deeds, were, by the very act of building the sepalehres of the prophets, Joined with their fathers’ wickedness. See Luk_11:47-48. Instead of the penitent confession: “We have Binned, we and our fathers,” this last and worst generation in vain protests against their participation In their fathers’ guilt, which they are meanwhile developing to the utmost and filling up Its measure.—The Pharisees called the murderers of the prophets rightly their fathers: they are even worse than their fathers, because they add hypocrisy to impiety,—P.S.]
[28][Psalms 20 contains no trace of irony, and there must be tome error here, probably for Psa_2:4.—P. S.]
[29][The Edinb. trsl. has here again just the reverse: “the New Testament times were not Included.” Lange says: “So wenig die altleslamentliche Zeit ausgeschlossen ist, so wenig die neutestamentliche.”—P. S.]
[30][Wordsworth in an elaborate note assigns a mystic reason for the use of the patronymic viz., it refers to Christ Himself as the true Zachariah=Remembrancer of God (from זִכַי reoordatus fuit, and "יָהּ, Jehovah), and the true Son of Barachiah, i.e., the Son of the Blessed (from בָּרַךְ benedixit, and יָהּ), who had been typified by all the martyrs of the Old Testament from Abel to Zachariah, the ton of Jehoiada. And ho sees in εὐλογηενος—κυρίου, Mat_23:39, an allusion to the name Βαραχίας in Mat_23:35. But be omits the circumstance that Zechariah the prophet was the son of Barachiah, Zec_1:1.—P.S.]
[31][The words: οὐκ ἠθελήσατε, ye would not, are important for the doctrine of the freedom and responsibility of man which must not be sacrificed to, but combined with, the opposite, though by no means contradictory doctrine of the absolute sovereignty and eternal decrees of God. Alford in loc.: “The tears of our Lord over the perverseness of Jerusalem are witnesses of the freedom of man’s will to resist the grace of God.”—P. S.]
[32][The Edinb. Version rends: “Jerusalem was the sole representative;” mistaking the German allein (=aber, [illegible] before (not after) Jerusalem (Allein Jerusalem repräsentive auch), and thus destroying the necessary antitheeil to the preceding sentence.—P. S.]
[33][In German: Seelenwerber und Seelenwerber:—P.S.]
Lange's Commentary on the Holy Scriptures (Critical, Doctrinal, and Homiletical), ed. John Peter Lange, English translation edited by Philip Schaff (1864–1880) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Robert Jamieson, A. R. Fausset & David Brown 1871 · Public Domain On vv2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 19, 20, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 33, 34, 36, 37, 38, 39 Saying, The scribes and the Pharisees sit--The Jewish teachers…
Saying, The scribes and the Pharisees sit--The Jewish teachers stood to read, but sat to expound the Scriptures, as will be seen by comparing Luk 4:16 with Mat 23:20.
in Moses' seat--that is, as interpreters of the law given by Moses.
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown — Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
Daniel D. Whedon 1874 · Public Domain On vv1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 23, 24, 25, 26, 28, 29, 30, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37, 38, 39 Tuesday of Passion Week.
Tuesday of Passion Week.
§ 116. — JESUS, vv. IN HEARING OF HIS DISCIPLES AND THE MULTITUDE, vv. REPROVES SCRIBES AND PHARISEES WITH A DIVINE ELOQUENCE, Mat_23:1-39.
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1. To the multitude, and to his disciples — His active enemies have each made their assault and departed. He now turns to his own disciples and the multitude, warns them of the wickedness and danger of these his enemies, (1-12,) pronounces the approaching woes of Jerusalem, (13-36,) and closes with a strain of melting tenderness over the guilty city, (37-39.)
Daniel D. Whedon (gen. ed.), Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1874–1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges 1878 · Public Domain On vv2, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 10, 11, 13, 14, 15, 16, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 29, 31, 33, 34, 35, 37, 38, 39 2. sit in Moses’ seat] i. e. succeed him…
2. sit in Moses’ seat] i. e. succeed him as teachers. For sitting as the posture of a teacher cp. ch. Mat_5:1.
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 On vv1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37, 38, 39 (1) To the multitude.—Now, as in Mat_15:10, but here…
XXIII.
(1) To the multitude.—Now, as in Mat_15:10, but here more fully and emphatically, our Lord not only reproves the hypocrisy of the Pharisees, but warns the multitude against them. He appeals, as it were, to the unperverted conscience of the people, as against the perversions of their guides. In some points, as, e.g., in Mat_23:16-21, it presents a striking parallel to the Sermon on the Mount (Mat_5:33-37). Our Lord closes His public teaching, as He began, by a protest against that false casuistry which had substituted the traditions of men for the commandments of God.
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 On vv1, 2, 3, 4, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 22, 23, 25, 26, 27, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37, 38, 39 Vers. 1-39. Denunciation of the scribes and Pharisees, and…
Vers. 1-39. Denunciation of the scribes and Pharisees, and lamentation over Jerusalem which followed their guidance to her own destruction. (Peculiar to St. Matthew)
Then spake Jesus. Some small portion of this discourse, the close of our Lord"s public teaching, is found in Mar_12:38-40 and Luk_20:45-47. (comp. also Lu 11,lu 13) It is here addressed to the multitude, and to his disciples, and seems to have been designed to comfort the former under the difficulty of having accredited teachers who were proved to have misunderstood Scripture, and were incapable of interpreting it aright. He willed to show how far they were to follow these instructors, and where it was necessary to draw a line beyond which they were not to be obeyed. Some modern critics have suggested that this discourse was not spoken at this time, but that St. Matthew has here collected into one body certain sayings of our Lord uttered at different times and places. It is far more natural to suppose that St. Matthew"s statement of the occasion of this discourse is historically true, and that Christ here repeated some parts of the censure he had already, in the course of his ministry, found it necessary to pronounce. The unity of this utterance in form and essence, its logical sequence and climactic character, prove that it was delivered at one time, and was intended to form the Lord"s farewell address to the wayward people who would not come unto him that they might have life. The discourse may be divided into three parts.
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HOMILIES BY J.A. MACDONALD Vers. 1-12. Ethics of authority.
After Jesus had put the Jewish sectaries to silence, he addressed his disciples and the people, who had witnessed his encounters, as to how they should deport themselves in respect to the scribes and Pharisees.
I SECULAR AUTHORITY SHOULD BE RESPECTED.
1. Jewish magistrates were to be obeyed.
(1) "The scribes and Pharisees sit in Moses" seat." Moses is figuratively represented as then still sitting to deliver his oracles. (cf. Act_15:21) Note here the lessons of posthumous influence.
(2) The Law of Moses was the municipal law of the state. The scribes and Pharisees, being members of the Sanhedrin and inferior councils, "sat in Moses" seat," viz. as magistrates. As expounders of the municipal law, they did not travel out of their depth, and were therein sufficiently learned to give them weight and reputation.
(3) Evil men occupy good places. The seat of Moses must not be overturned because its occupants dishonour it. It must rather be upheld to make them ashamed.
2. Pagan rulers are to be obeyed.
(1) Any regular government is better than none. The tyranny of a monarch is more tolerable than the anarchy of a mob.
(2) Christ submitted to the rule of Caesar, and to that of the inferior Roman magistrates. This he did purely for our example.
(3) His inspired apostles encouraged obedience to existing authorities as being "ordained of God." They were therefore to be held in reverence. They were to be supported. Taxes were to be paid to them. Prayer was to be made for them.
II THE EXAMPLE OF EVIL RULERS MUST BE AVOIDED.
1. As inconsistent teachers.
(1) The scribes and Pharisees did not fill the chair of Moses as theologians with the sanction of Christ. On the contrary, he showed that they made void the Law by their traditions. He warned his followers to beware of their doctrine. (see Mat_16:6)
(2) They might be obeyed in what they read from the Law and the prophets. The "therefore" limits the application of the "all things whatsoever" to precepts of inspiration as distinct from the traditions of the elders. We may not reject sound teaching because of the unworthiness of the teacher.
(3) Yet must we be suspicious of the teaching of the wicked. People must be warned of wolves and dogs and deceitful workers. (cf. Act_20:29, 30 Php_3:2 2Co_11:13)
2. As inconsistent workers.
(1) "They say, and do not." The study of the hypocrite is to seem religious in the sight of men, rather than to be religions in the sight of God.
(2) They would aggravate the burden of the Law, which was sufficient in itself, (see Act_15:10) by the addition of traditional imposts.
(3) The burden they imposed upon the people they would not touch with a finger themselves. They were the priests who fasted upon wine and sweetmeats, while they forced the people to fast upon bread and water!
(4) How different the example of Christ, who took upon himself our heaviest burden, to make all easy for his people!
3. As examples of pride and ostentation.
(1) The scribes and Pharisees literally interpreted Exo_13:16 and Deu_6:8, and wore scrolls of paper or parchment with texts of Scripture written on them, bound round their wrists and foreheads. The fringes on their garments, which God enjoined upon the Israelites to remind them of doing all the commandments, (see Num_15:38) they wore broader and longer than other men. They paraded their piety "at feasts," and "in synagogues" and "in markets," where they might be seen.
(2) In all this ostentation there was superstition. They looked upon their phylacteries as preservatives in the sense of amulets.
(3) Such aspirants must be jealousy watched. "Mark and Luke have selected from our Lord"s discourses, handed down in full in Matthew, the sins of pride, avarice, and hypocrisy, as those most suited to show why they should "beware of the scribes (Harmer).
III CHRIST MUST BE EXALTED EVERMORE.
1. By refusing the arrogance of his enemies.
(1) The scribes and Pharisees would set aside the claims of Christ. They affected to be called "Rabbi," "Father," "Master," in an unwarrantable sense. The Talmud pretends that "King Jehoshaphat used to salute the wise men with the titles, Father, Father; Rabbi, Rabbi; Master, Master!" This claim purported that, as the "wise men," they should be implicitly believed in what they affirmed, without asking any further question. It purported, moreover, that they should be implicitly obeyed in what they enjoined without seeking further authority.
(2) But here they must be resisted. The Christian has but one infallible Teacher. So has he but one absolute Father the heavenly. So has he but one supreme Master Christ. None but Christ has ever fully illustrated his doctrine in his life.
2. By cultivating true humility.
(1) In this is Christian greatness. Love is greatness. The heart is at once the most important and most laborious organ; the servant, yet the ruler of all. Self-love is purified and dignified by being subordinated to the love of God and our neighbour.
(2) The Christian will not exalt himself. He must not covet the titles affected by the scribes, nor must he assume the authority and dominion implied in these names. When self-love is exalted, self itself becomes abased.
(3) The Christian will not unduly exalt his fellow. "All ye are brethren." Ministers are to each other brethren. They are brethren to the people. Christ himself is the "Firstborn among many brethren". (Rom_8:29) What an example to his disciples!
(4) The Christian loses himself in exalting Christ. "Call no man," etc., i.e. ascribe infallibility to none. (see 1Co_3:5, 1Co_3:6) The whole passage (vers. 3-7), like Mat_20:25, may justly be regarded as a prophecy and warning to the Christian Church. "Among Christians there is none to sit in Christ"s seat" (Alford). It was George Herbert"s habit, when he mentioned the name of Christ, to add, "my Master.
3. Christ will abase the proud, and exalt the humble.
(1) "Whosoever shall exalt himself shall be humbled." "All the world cannot exalt a proud man, because God will pull him down" (Anon.).
(2) "Whosoever shall humble himself shall be exalted." No sentence of our Lord"s is so often repeated. It occurs in the evangelists, with little variation, at least ten times. Pride is as natural to man as it is hateful to God.
(3) "Honour is like the shadow, that flees from those who pursue it, but follows those who flee from it" (Henry). J.A.M.
Vers. 1-12. The scribes and Pharisees.
I THEIR CHARACTER.
1. Their position. "They sit in Moses" seat." The scribes were the recognized teachers of the Law. The Pharisees exercised the greatest influence in the council and among the nation at large. Moses sat to judge the people; (Exo_18:18) now the scribes taught and expounded the Law. Therefore the Lord enjoined obedience to their precepts. But we must mark the word "therefore." They were to be obeyed because they sat in.Moses" seat as the successors, in some sense, to his authority, as the expounders of his Law. So far they were to be obeyed; but not, the Lord himself elsewhere cautions us, in their misinterpretations, in their contrivances for evading the plain meaning of the Law, in their many quibbles and their endless distinctions. We see here that the Lord bids us obey constituted authorities in all things lawful. Those who are set over us may not always be orthodox in their opinions; their characters may not always command our respect; but the very fact that they are set over us makes it our duty to treat them with respect and to obey their directions, whenever such obedience is not inconsistent with our duty to God. Submission to our superiors, even if they are unworthy of their position, is an exercise of humility, and agreeable to the will of God; for "the powers that be are ordained of God: whosoever therefore resisted the power, resisteth the ordinance of God." We observe that the Lord does not here condemn the priests. They do not seem, as a body, to have taken a prominent place in the opposition to his teaching. The chief priests, who were Sadducees, did so. But we are told, early in the history of the Acts of the Apostles, that "a great company of the priests were obedient to the faith." "The priests" lips should keep knowledge, and they should seek the Law at his mouth." But in our Lord"s time a separation had been made between the duties of the teacher and the priest. The scribes taught the people; the priests ministered in the temple. The scribes, puffed up with their minute knowledge of the letter of the Law, were intensely antagonistic to the holy Teacher who brought out its spiritual meaning. The priests, excepting always their Sadducean leaders, do not seem to have been so hostile. They were occupied with their temple ministrations; they were, as a body, not recognized as public teachers, and were probably not so influential as the scribes, not brought so prominently before the eyes of the people. The Lord came to fulfil the Law. He attended the great festivals; he bade the leper whom he healed to show himself to the priest, and offer the gift which Moses commanded. He did not interfere with the ministrations of the priests, nor does he here censure their life and conduct. The chief priests were hostile to him, probably because he exercised authority in the temple which they regarded as their own domain, and diminished their revenues by expelling the traffickers from the sacred precincts. The scribes opposed the Lord, so did the chief priests; in both cases from selfish motives. Let us beware of selfishness, and fight against it. It poisons the very life of the soul; it sets men against the Lord; it leads them to say in their hearts, "Not thy will, but mine be done.
2. Their conduct.
(1) "They say, and do not," the Lord said. They made the Law a heavy burden, a yoke which men were not able to bear, by their practice of "making a fence round the Law." Such were their rigid and wearisome regulations about the observance of the sabbath, and the minute rules concerning the washing of vessels mentioned by St. Mark. (Mar_7:4) But they themselves would not help to move that burden with one of their fingers. The teacher who lives a holy, self-denying life helps men by his example to bear the burden which he lays upon them. His conduct proves the reality of his convictions; it shows the strength of the motives which he enforces, the power of that grace which he preaches. Preaching, without practice, as in the case of the scribes, has little sanctifying influence, cannot much help men to deny themselves and lead a godly life. A life of real self-denial is the most convincing sermon.
(2) All their works they did "for to be seen of men." They did not care for that inward purity of heart which does not win human praise. They strove to catch the eyes of men by the outward show of devotion. They delighted in phylacteries larger than usual, in borders and fringes more conspicuous than those commonly worn. There was no harm in wearing the phylactery or the fringe; the one was certainly ordered by the Law, probably also the other. The harm lay in the desire to attract attention, in the craving for display, in the tendency to exalt these outward things above inner spiritual religion.
(3) They coveted pre-eminence; they eagerly desired the chief places at feast or at synagogue; they liked to hear themselves called "Rabbi, Rabbi." Their religion was outside show; they had no real love for God, no desire for spiritual holiness.
II THE CONTRAST.
1. The disciples of Christ must not seek for titles of honour. "Be not ye called Rabbi," the Lord said. There is one Teacher, one Father, one Master. The Lord"s people must not seek for distinctions, for pre-eminence; they are all brethren. We are not to take the words literally. To do so would be to follow the Pharisees. They were slaves of the letter; the Lord"s lessons are spiritual. St. Peter speaks of Mark as his son; so does St. Paul of Timothy and Titus; he describes himself as the spiritual father of his Corinthian converts. (1Co_4:15) St. John addresses some to whom he writes as "fathers". (1Jn_2:13) In the Epistle to the Hebrews (Heb_13:7, Heb_13:17) we are bidden to obey them that have the rule over us, where the Greek verb is that from which the word rendered "master" in ver. 10 is derived. But Christian men are not to seek after these and such-like titles; they are not to set store by them. If they come to us in the course of God"s providence, we may accept them. To reject them might be no true humility, but only the affectation of it. The difficult lesson is to be humble in heart, in lowliness of mind to esteem others better than ourselves.
2. They must be truly humble. The greatest, the most advanced Christians, will readily consent to be last of all and servants of all; for every advance in holiness brings us nearer to him who took upon him the form of a servant, and came not to be ministered unto, but to minister. It is a first principle in Christ"s religion that "whosoever shall exalt himself shall be abased, and he that shall humble himself shall be exalted." The Lord uses these words again and again. (Luk_14:11 Luk_18:14) His apostles echo them. (Jam_4:6 1Pe_5:5) The Lord Jesus had taught the blessedness of humility in the first of the Beatitudes. He illustrated his lesson in his own holy character, in the meekness and lowliness of his life. But the lesson is very high and difficult, hard for human nature to learn. Therefore it is enforced constantly in Holy Scripture, that this frequent repetition may help us to feel its deep importance, and urge us to cultivate that precious grace of lowliness without which we can make no real progress in the narrow way that leadeth unto life. The Pharisees exalted themselves. They loved sounding titles, high place, the praise of men. The Christian must learn of Christ to abase himself. Self-exaltation leads to spiritual ruin; for "God resisteth the proud.
LESSONS.
1. Obey in all things lawful those who are set over you, not only the good and gentle, but also the froward.
2. Better to do and say not, than, like the Pharisees, to say and do not.
3. Flee from the love of display; it poisons the life of the soul.
4. Pray earnestly for constant growth in humility.
The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
John A. Broadus 1886 · Public Domain On vv1, 13 Mat 23:1-12.
Mat 23:1-12.
Warnings Against The Scribes And Pharisees
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Partly found also in Mar 12:38 f.; Luk 20:45 f. This discourse probably belongs to Tuesday, three days before the crucifixion. The solemn intimations made early in the day that he knew the Jewish rulers would reject and kill him, and would be terribly punished for it, (Mat 21:23 to Mat 22:14) were followed by the sharp questioning of Mat 22:14-46; and now, having vanquished his opponents in question and answer, Jesus speaks out plainly about the Scribes and Pharisees, first warning the people against them, (Mat 23:1-12) and then denouncing upon them a series of mournful woes. (Mat 23:13-39) After that he will speak no more in public, but will leave the temple, and give the final discourse to his disciples on the Mount of Olives. (Matthew 24 and Matthew 25.) All these discourses follow each other in natural connection, and to all appearance were spoken on the same day. The attempts of some critics to scatter them upon different days are arbitrary and useless. Of these warnings and woes found in Matthew 23, Mark and Luke give only a very small portion.
Mat 23:1. Then naturally suggests, though it does not necessarily mean (see on "Mat 3:13"), that the following was on the same day as the foregoing. To the multitude and to his disciples. His previous discourses during the day were addressed mainly to the rulers and the persons who came questioning—though in hearing of others. (Luk 20:9) He now turns away from these leading persons and addresses himself to the people at large and to his immediate followers, the latter being specially addressed in Mat 22:8-12. Luke has, (Luk 20:45. Rev. Ver.) "In the hearing of all the people he said unto his disciples"; which does not materially differ. A year before (compare on Luk 15:7), Jesus had begun to censure the Scribes and Pharisees with outspoken severity; and within a few months, probably in Perea, clearly not at Jerusalem, he had denounced woes upon them and warned the people against them. (Luk 11:37-54) Now he does the same thing at Jerusalem, in the temple court, during the great feast of the Passover; and these denunciations form the climax and conclusion of his public discourses. It is natural that he should have thus spoken out earlier elsewhere than at Jerusalem during the feast; and it is much more reasonable to suppose such a repetition under these changed circumstances (compare at beginning of Matthew 5), than to suppose that either Luke or Matthew has utterly displaced these momentous teachings. Notice that Mark and Luke both report at this same quarter small portions of the discourse given by Matthew.
I. Mat 23:2-4. The Scribes And The Pharisees Do Not Practice What They Teach
The Scribes, see on "Mat 2:4"; the Pharisees, see on "Mat 3:7". Sit in Moses’ seat, has in the Greek sentence an emphatic position. Literally the verb is sat, ’have sat,’ have taken a seat there—which leaves it to be understood that they so remain; Comp Heb 8:1. Not only the judge (Exo 18:13) but in later the teacher, usually spoke in a sitting posture. (Mat 5:1, Mat 13:2 Luk 4:20 Act 22:3) The Greek term for ’seat’ is kathedra, and as borrowed into Latin gave the phrase "to speak ex cathedra," i.e.,"from the seat " of an authoritative teacher. The Rabbinical writers speak of a Rabbi’s successor as sitting in his seat; so we, as to a professor’s "chair," which word is our contracted form of cathedra (Skeat). Our Lord means, then, that the Scribes and Pharisees are in some sense successors of Moses, teachers of the law as he was. They claimed this, and to a certain extent the claim was just, since most of their explanations were substantially conformed to Scripture. The time had not come for turning away from their teachings to new and better teachers. All therefore whatsoever they bid you is set in contrast to their works. He meant in a general way to commend their instructions in eligious duty as correct, and then to contrast strongly their practice as wrong. We know that he condemned the exaggerated importance they attached to their traditions, (Mat 15:3, Mat 15:6) and their general spirit. (Mat 16:6) The common Greek text has ’bid you observe,’ but the authority against adding ’observe’ is overwhelming. Observe and do, the verb being in the tense of continued action—continually observe. They say, and do not. So he had already declared in Galilee, (Mat 15:7-9) and now repeats in Jerusalem on the most public occasion. For they bind, yea represents the correct Greek text. Heavy burdens, the (compare Mat 11:28) strict requirements of tradition as to ceremonial Observances and the details of moral duty; compare Luk 11:46 , Peter substantially repeated this statement in Act 15:10. The image is of binding fagots of wood or bundles of grain; the idea is of combining many separate precepts or requirements until together they make a heavy load.
The term rendered grievous to be borne does not belong here, but was brought in by copyists from Luk 11:46.[1] Will not move them with one of their fingers does not mean that the burdens are easy to move, but that they will not make the slightest exertion to move them; far less will they take them on their shoulders.
[1] It is wanting in several early versions and some MSS., and Origen on Matthew expressly mentions that Luke adds this term. It might be easily inserted here from Luke, while on the other hand no one could have any reason for omitting it if originally present; so it is doubtless spurious in Matthew Westcott Hort place it in their margin here, apparently because B has it, and because the documents for omitting have an "Alexandrian" look.
II. Mat 23:5-7. The Scribes And The Pharisees Are Ostentatious
Mar 12:38 f.; Luk 20:46. To be seen of men, ’with a view to be looked at by men,’ the same phrase as in Mat 6:1. The desire for human praise was, and often is, a great hindrance to believing in’ Christ, and confessing him. (Joh 5:44, Joh 12:42 f.)
For they make is the correct Gr. text, and introduces the proof of the foregoing. They make broad their phylacteries . In Exo 13:16 Deu 6:8, Deu 11:18, it was said to Israel concerning the teachings of the law, that they should be bound "for a token upon thine hand, and for frontlets between thine eyes." Here an image seems to be drawn from the old Egyptian practice of wearing amulets; the Israelites were to keep the law always near them, always in mind. In the interbiblical period we find the Jews converting this figure into outward fact. They took four passages adjacent to the thrice repeated injunction, viz., Exo 13:2-10, Exo 13:11-17 Deu 6:4-9, Deu 11:13-22, and writing them on strips of parchment, encased the folded strips in minute leather boxes. These four boxes were set on edge and fastened upon one leather base, which was placed on the middle of the forehead, and held there by a string tied round the head with peculiar knots, which had a mystical meaning. Four similar strips were placed in a smaller single box, which was worn on the palm of the hand by the Sadducees, apparently because the hand is mentioned in the figurative injunction, but by the Pharisees on the left arm near the heart, because of Deu 6:6, "and these words;.... shall be in (or upon) thy heart." They placed the box on the bare arm, as near the heart as possible, fastening it with a mystically knotted string, and then covering it with the sleeve. These leather boxes must be made from the skin of a "clean" animal, and coloured black. Phylacteries similar to those thus described by the Rabbinical writers are now worn by the stricter Jews, the details slightly varying in different countries; and those long used by some deceased Rabbi may be bought in the shops of Jerusalem. These little boxes with their contents are called by the Targum of Onkelos and by the Rabbinical writers tephillin, "prayers," because put on before praying (see Buxtorf); they were worn by men in general during public worship, but by the Pharisees worn continually. Matthew’s term phylactery, found nowhere else in the Greek Bible, signifies in classical Greek a guarded post, then a safeguard, finally an amulet, as guarding against evils. The Rosetta stone speaks of "golden phylacteries;" worn by the kings of Egypt. (Lid. and Scott.) The Rabbinical writings show that many Jews regarded the phylacteries as amulets; and it seems most likely that the Greek term was commonly employed among the Jews in that sense (so Jerome), and Matt. merely used it because it was common. The term might etymologically mean ’a place for guarding’ the divine word (Schottgen, Stier), but there is no usage for that sense. Justin Martyn tells Trypho (ch. 46) that Moses commanded the people to wear a phylactery, but does not throw any light in his connection upon the meaning of the term. The Pesh. here translates by ephillin, the Rabbinical word. The Council of Laodicea (fourth century) forbade clerics to make phylacteries, declaring (with a play upon the word) that they are prisons of their souls, and those who wear them must be expelled from the church. (Suicer.) Chrys. compares the fact that "many of our women now wear Gospels hung from their necks." Some modern writers have maintained that Moses intended these literal frontlets and armlets to be worn as a substitute for the superstitious Egyptian amulets. But how could Moses fail to see that they would themselves be worn as amulets? We find no evidence of their use until the latter part of the interbiblical period, and the general tendency to scrupulosity about externals would account for their appearance at that time. The Karaite Jews (who arose in the eighth Christian century) have always understood these passages of the law as figurative, holding that the hand represents precepts for action, and the head represents the mental and spiritual. Compare Pro 3:3, Pro 6:21 Eze 24:17. Making their phylacteries unusually broad would show every casual observer that the Pharisees were remarkably pious. The head being bare, or covered only with a cloth, this cube of some two inches on every side, projecting from the centre of the forehead, would attract great attention. Enlarge the borders (of their garments). These peculiar ’borders’ were commanded to be worn, (Num 15:38) and were worn by Jesus. (See on "Mat 9:20".) It does not follow that he wore the phylacteries. Matthew’s Jewish readers would at once understand ’enlarge the borders’; but many copyists thought it necessary for perspicuity to add, ’of their garments,’ and this naturally crept into the Common text. Love the uppermost rooms (or chief place) at feasts. The feast is here deipnon see on "Mat 22:4". The guests reclined on couches, see on "Mat 8:11". The place of highest honour for a guest apparently was to recline just in front of the host, so that the head could be laid back in the host’s bosom. (Joh 3:23, Joh 3:25 Luk 16:22) In general, the most honourable places were those near the host. Mark and Luke have the plural, ’chief places’; all three use the same Greek word, literally, chief reclining-place. The old rendering, ’rooms,’ really meant simply places, but would now suggest apartments. ’Upper, most’ was probably used here by Tyn., Cran., K. J., because of the phrase ’come up higher’, (Luk 14:10) and the English expression, "the upper end of the table." The chief seats in the synagogues were the front seats nearest to the place in which the rolls of the law were kept. For ’synagogues,’ see on "Mat 4:23", And greetings (salutations) in the markets , that is, the market places. They were the general places of assembly, for men of all pursuits. Indeed, the Greek word denotes primarily a place of gathering or assembly, the thought of buying and selling being subordinate. The Asiatics have always attached great importance to profoundly respectful salutations in public intercourse. Not in Paris, but only in China, could one ’find such elaborate courtesy as in an old-fashioned sheik who meets you in Palestine, as he touches his lips and forehead and breast, each time bowing low, and saying,"Salaam to you!" And to be called of men, Rabbi, the common Jewish word for teacher. (See on "Mat 8:19".) It means, etymologically, ’great one’ or ’superior,’ like master from mag-ister, and somewhat like "His Excellency," "Your Highness," etc. The office and its title were much coveted among the Jews in the time of Christ and afterwards. Statements of later writers make it probable (Herzog) that the use, or at any rate the frequent use, of the title began in the time of Hillel and Shammai, in the generation preceding the Christian era.[1]
[1] The doubling of Rabbi (common Greek text) is against the earliest Greek MSS. and most of the early versions. Yet the doubling accords with a frequent Jewish practice (Lightfoot), While to copyists, ignorant of that practice, it would be apt to seem superfluous; so we cannot entire confidence, reject it. ’Even (the) Christ’ (Mat 23:8), is no doubt spurious, added from Mat 23:10; as also ’teacher’ was here changed by some documents to ’guide,’ the word in Mat 23:10.
III. Mat 23:8-12. Christ’s Disciples Must Not Be Like The Scribes And Pharisees
Jesus turns from his account of the inconsistent and ostentatious Jewish teachers to warn his disciples (compare Mat 23:1) against doing likewise. Keim thinks it impossible that in an address to the people (Mat 23:1) Jesus should have introduced admonitions to the disciples concerning their one Teacher the Messiah, and should then have launched ’woes’ against the Pharisees, "as if he were speaking to them." But what strange criticism is here. With a heterogeneous crowd thronging around him, nothing was more natural than that an impassioned popular speaker should turn from one class of his hearers to another. After Mat 23:12 it might even be supposed that some of the Scribes and Pharisees, hearing in the outskirts of the throng that he was warning the people against them, had pressed their way through and were just then drawing near with hostile looks, so as to furnish an immediate occasion for his addressing them.
Be not ye called Rabbi, with emphasis on ’ye,’ as the Greek indicates. Do not crave the honour of being recognized as a religious teacher. For one is your Master, teacher. The Rabbis were independent, and any one of them might found a distinct school. But Christians are all pupils in one school of Jesus, and among them is no difference of dignity. So Ignatius addresses the Ephesians (ch. 3) as his "schoolmates." As Rabbi is equivalent to the Latin Doctor, ’teacher,’ some literalists urge that to call a minister "Doctor " is here definitely prohibited. But the matter goes far deeper. What our Lord prohibits is desire for the distinction involved in being recognized as a religious teacher. A man who shows great desire to be "invited into the pulpit," or otherwise publicly treated as a minister, is exactly violating this command. The title of Doctor of Divinity is often so conferred, so sought, so borne, and sometimes so declined, as to come under this head, but it is the spirit involved rather than the phrase that should be condemned. It would be better to have no distinctive titles, seeming to set one minister above others, for there really is danger of forgetting that all ye are brethren. Yet (Schaff) "our addressing others by the usual titles is not forbidden; pride taking the form of want of courtesy cannot find shelter here." The folly of mere verbal and literalistic interpretation is seen in the fact that persons who vehemently declaim against the use of "Doctor," as being prohibited in Mat 23:8, are often fond of calling some venerable minister "Father," which is equally prohibited in Mat 23:9. The Jews often addressed a religious teacher as ’Father’ (Buxtorf, compare 2Ki 2:12), even as the "sons of the prophets" and the "sons" of the Pharisees were their pupils. (Compare on Mat 12:27) Romanists habitually call a priest "Father," and the sovereign priest they call "Holy Father." So Abbot is derived from abba, ’father,’ and Pope is the same word as the English papa; in the Greek Church papas is applied to any priest. In the Church of England a bishop is sometimes formally addressed as "Right Reverend Father in God." While earnestly condemning all this, we do well to remember that Stephen said, "Brethren and fathers, hearken" (Act 7:2); compare also 1Co 4:15. One is your Father, which is in heaven, more exactly as by Amer. Revisers, ’even he who is in heaven,’ literally ’the heavenly (one),’ compare on Mat 6:9.
Mat 23:10 ff. Master is here kathegetes, guide, instructor, see on "Mat 8:19". Even (the) Christ, the Messiah, see on "Mat 2:4". Jesus is not here distinctly saying before the hostile hearers that he is the Messiah. His disciples so understood him, but he did not publicly avow himself as such until he appeared before the Sanhedrin. (Mat 26:64, compare on Mat 21:16) He that is greatest among you, etc., is repeated from Mat 20:26. ’Greatest’ is here literally’ greater (than all others),’ as in Mat 18:1. In this matter also there may be loud professions without the reality. One who with strict and ostentatious literalness calls himself "servant of servants of the servants of God," yet claims to be sovereign of the Christian world. Whosoever shall exalt himself, seeking to attract human notice and praise. Shall be abased. The Greek has humbled.... humble; the early English versions, except Rheims, unnecessarily varied the translation, e. g., Com. Version. The saying of Mat 18:12 had been given before, probably a week or two earlier, in Perea, Luk 18:14. It is very natural that any saying uttered at a distance should afterwards be repeated in Jerusalem. The lesson of humility is one peculiarly needing to be often repeated. In one form or another, Jesus has taught it many times; compare on Mat 18:4; and compare Pro 15:33, Pro 29:23 Jas 4:6, 1Pe 5:5. The Talmud has similar sayings, especially one (Wun.), "Whoever humbles himself God exalts, and whoever exalts himself God humbles," which may have been borrowed from the Gospels, or may have been built on Eze 21:26.
Homiletical And Practical
Mat 23:2-4. Teaching without practising, (1) A very faulty man may give teaching that is Scripturally correct. (2) A man who utterly neglects his own duty is often very severe in laying down the duty of others. (3) We must often disregard a teacher’s evil example, and heed his correct precept. (4) Yet how much better, for teacher and for hearers, when he that says, also does. Chrys.: "For what can be more wretched than a teacher, when it is the preservation of his disciples not to give heed to his life." Henry: "What greater hypocrisy can there be, than to press that upon others to be believed and done, which they themselves disbelieve and disobey; pulling down in their practice what they build up in their preaching; when in the pulpit, preaching so well that it is pity they should ever come out; but when out of the pulpit living so ill that it is pity they should ever come in."
Mat 23:5. A man’s aims determine the moral quality of his actions. The desire for popular applause may render a man very careful about outward religious observances or formal orthodoxy, but not about inward piety.
Mat 23:5-12. Ministerial greatness lies (1) not in dress, or any outward display of pious punctilio; (2) not in social honours, or public recognition; (3) not in titles, or admiring followers; but (4) in humble service of others.
Mat 23:11 f. Humility. (1) Professed humility is often only covert pride. (2) Effort to be humble in hope of exaltation may impose on ourselves, and on many of our fellow-men, but cannot deceive God. (3) True humility has not time to think of self, because busy with serving others, speech and action. (4) Genuine humility will lead to exaltation, in God’s own good time and way. (1Pe 5:6 f.)
John A. Broadus, Commentary on the Gospel of Matthew (American Baptist Publication Society, 1886) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Biblical Illustrator 1887 · Public Domain On vv1, 8, 13, 16, 23, 25, 29, 33, 36, 37 The scribes and the Pharisees sit in Moses seat.
Mat_23:1-7
The scribes and the Pharisees sit in Moses seat.
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Christs reproaches of Pharisees
There must be some just, reasonable, and great cause of our Lords indignation, and this we find was an accumulation of great wickedness in these men, which received aggravations
(1) from their pretences to greater sanctity than others;
(2) from their having greater opportunities of being better than others;
(3) because they, being many of them in public places, their practice must have a bad influence on their followers. For they who pretend holiness, and are wicked; they who are wicked, though they have great helps to be good; and by being wicked cause others to be so too, their sin is exceeding sinful.
The particulars for which our Saviour taxes them, were principally these:
1. Their great pride. Under the title of Rabbi they affected a greater authority than is compatible to men.
2. Their wretched covetousness, which showed itself in the instances of devouring widows houses, of esteeming the gifts and the gold above the altar and the temple.
3. Their abominable hypocrisy, shown in teaching others to do what they themselves would not do; in serving a carnal interest by a religious carriage. It might have been supposed that Christs disciples had been out of danger of these evils, that they would not have come near the place where their Pilot had set a sea-mark. But whoso takes a view of the Christian Church, as Erasmus hath represented it, hell say, that Pharisaism then lived and reigned as much as ever. (Hezekiah Burton.)
Origin of Pharisaism
There was a great religious revival among the Jews after their return from the captivity, which continued for a considerable time; and which, after they had rebuilt the temple, sent them back to the law with a sincere desire to honour God by keeping its commands. So long as the life remained, the obedience was the real outcome of an inward principle; but when the life died out, then the obedience became only a fossil, and was soon covered over with corruption, until it became what we see it to have been in the days of the Saviour upon earth. The same danger attends on every spiritual movement. A real devotion to Christ stimulates to reverent attention to the forms of worship, and so long as that is simply an expression of loyalty to Him, all is well; but by and by all thought of Him drops out, and then only the ritual remains, becoming the idol of the heart, and so the life departs. Thus what was a voice full of sincerity in one generation, is often only an empty echo in that which follows. (W. M. Taylor, D. D.)
Evil ministers better in speech than works
If ministers do well, it is their own gain; if they say well, it is thine. Take thou what thine own is, and let alone what is another mans. Sylla and King Richard III. commanded others, under great penalties, to be virtuous and modest, when themselves walked the clean contrary way. A deformed painter may draw a goodly picture; a stinking breath sounds a mighty blast; and he that hath but a bad voice may show cunning in descant. A blind man may bear a torch in a dark night, and a harp wake music to others, which itself is not sensible of. Posts set for directions of passengers by the highway side do point out the way which themselves go not; and sign-posts tell the traveller there is wholesome diet or warm lodging within, when themselves remain in the storms without. Lewd preachers are like spire-steeples, or high pinnacles, which point up to heaven, but press down to the centre. (J. Trapp.)
Ministerial inconsistency
They had tongues which spake by the talent, but their hands scarce wrought by the ounce; like that ridiculous actor at Smyrna, who, pronouncing, O coelum, O heaven, pointed with his finger toward the ground: so these Pharisees had the heaven commonly at their tongues end, but the earth continually at their fingers end. In a certain battle against the Turks, there was a bishop who thus encouraged the army: Play the men, fellow-soldiers, to-day: and I dare promise you, that if ye die fighting, ye shall sup to-night with God in heaven. Now after the battle was begun, the bishop withdrew himself; and when some of the soldiers inquired among themselves what was become of the bishop, and why he would not take a supper with them that night in heaven, others answered, This is fasting-day with him, and therefore he will eat no supper, no, not in heaven! (J. Trapp.)
Selfish religious pride
Thirty miles north-east of Sholapoor, at Toolazapoor, is the great temple of the goddess Bhowani, and twice in the year the place is thronged by men and women of every grade, who come to pay their vows and sacrifices to the idol. Besides this, at every full moon long trains of pilgrims may be seen flocking thither; and such is the faith of the people in the healing powers of the goddess, that the sick are resorting there constantly in the vain hope of some relief. The temple at Punderpoor is still more renowned. Not to speak of the myriads who go there at the great festivals, persons make a pilgrimage thither every month from a distance of fifty or a hundred miles; and the practice is kept up for many years. One man, who had apparently come from a distance, the writer saw near Barsee, making the journey by prostrations, measuring his length upon the ground. It was under the burning sun of noonday; and, hardly able to proceed, he seemed the very picture of despair. But a case still more remarkable was that of a man performing the journey by rolling himself upon the ground. We came up with him two miles east of Wairag, and asked him where he was going, and why he was thus torturing himself. He at first did not seem to hear; but at length stopping, he lay exhausted upon the ground, and answered in a faint voice that he was going to Punderpoor. After some further questions, as the writer remonstrated with him upon the folly of such a course, he raised his head from the ground, and half reclining, said that he had come so far already he could not desist now. He stated that his village was near Chandrapoor, 450 miles to the east from there, that he had spent fifteen months on the way thus far, and that it was forty miles more, and he wished to complete the pilgrimage. He was accustomed to go about a mile each day. He would then note the place where he had stopped, and walking back to the nearest village, would remain until the next day, receiving his food from the villagers. Then he would return, and from the place left the previous day would begin his toilsome pilgrimage. If he came to a river that could not be passed in this manner, he would go back a distance equal to this space, and roll over the ground a second time. He had for clothing only a coarse cloth bound tightly about his loins, and another about his head; and thus, almost naked, over roads extremely rough and stony, exposed to heat and cold, sometimes drenched with rain or covered with mud-for a year and three months this poor man had been rolling himself along towards the shrine of Vithoba. Yet it was not a sense of sin or a desire for pardon that induced him to undertake this painful journey. But it was evident, upon further conversation, that he was urged on by no higher motive than a selfish pride. He sought a reputation for holiness. (Bombay Times.)
Worthless ceremonies
When corn runs into straw and chaff, those who feed on it may well be thin and lean; but when it runs into ears and kernel, thou mayest expect such as eat of it to be fat and well-favoured. When religion runs into formalities and ceremonies, her followers can never be thriving spiritually. They may starve, for all the gaudy flowers wherewith several dishes on her table are decked and set forth. (Swinnock.)
Deceptive, religious obedience
The shops in the square of San Marco were all religiously closed, for the day was a high festival. We were much disappointed, for it was our last day, and we desired to take away with us some souvenirs of lovely Venice; but our regret soon vanished, for on looking at the shop we meant to patronise, we readily discovered signs of traffic within. We stepped to the side door, and found when one or two other customers had been served, that we might purchase to our hearts content, saint or no saint. After this fashion too many keep the laws of God to the eye, but violate them in the heart. The shutters are up as if the man no more dealt with sin and Satan; but a brisk commerce is going on behind the scenes. From such deceit may the Spirit of Truth preserve us. (C. H. Spurgeon.)
Best places at feasts
When Hanway was in Persia, a certain governor rose from his seat and left the room, because Hanway had inadvertently taken his seat higher than he, though at the opposite side of the table,
Pope and councils not infallible
There is no external supreme, infallible judge in the Church of God, to whom all Christians are obliged to submit their faith and consciences in all matters of religion. Argument
I. This authority which they pretend to is a greater authority than the apostles themselves did ever claim or exercise in the Church of God, as plainly appears from 2Co_1:24 -Not that we have dominion over your faith. This was very agreeable to the nature and person of Christ. Argument
II. Such an authority as they pretend to is contrary to that command of the trial of doctrines which is laid upon all Christians; for if there be an infallible judge to whom I ought to submit my falth and conscience in all matters of religion, what need I try doctrines?
1. Christians have ability to try things with.
2. They have a rule to try things by.
3. Christians have a promise of discovery upon trial. Argument III., against the supremacy and the infallible authority of the pope, is taken from the danger of following false guides. People may sin in following their guides and teachers. Argument IV., and last, against this doctrine is, from the want of a Divine appointment and promise. Inference
II. Forasmuch as there is no person upon earth that can infallibly guide you to salvation, it concerns you to have the greater care of your own salvation.
1. Study the Holy Scriptures.
2. Pray fervently for the guidance of Gods Spirit.
3. If you would discern and hold fast the truth, love and practise it. (M. Pool.)
A proud title the sign of usurped authority
But, indeed, there was a deeper and worse design than this in it; they did not only aim at splendid and glorious titles, but they did usurp authority and dominion over the consciences of the people, whereof this was but a sign: as amongst us the flag is a sign of the dominion of the seas, so.this title was an indication and sign of that authority which they usurped over the people. (M. Pool.)
The Biblical Illustrator, edited by Joseph S. Exell (c. 1880s–1900s) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
B. W. Johnson 1891 · Public Domain On vv1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 18, 21, 23, 24, 25, 27, 28, 29, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37, 38, 39 1. Jesus spake to the multitudes and to his…
1. Jesus spake to the multitudes and to his disciples. This discourse, delivered in the courts of the temple on the Tuesday before the Lord was crucified, has never been surpassed in indignant rebuke, withering denunciation, and tearful sorrow over the coming fate of sinner who would not be saved. It contains Christ's last words to the Jewish nation. The contest had been growing fiercer, the opposition of his enemies was more bitter, their plots against his life were working, their utter perverseness was fully manifested, the time for tender appeal has passed by, and the Lord turns upon the “whited sepulchers,” the “generation of vipers,” the hypocritical pretenders, in a philippic that we believe has never been equaled. But even in the midst of it, like a rift of blue sky in the fearful storm-cloud, his love and pity shine forth with wonderful beauty in the pathetic exclamation of verse 37. Only a part of the discourse is found in Mark 12:38–40; some similar sayings occur in Luke 11:39–52, and a reference to its occurs in Luke 20:45–47.
B. W. Johnson's The People's New Testament with Notes (1889–1891) — public domain. Electronic text from the Christian Classics Ethereal Library (CCEL) ThML edition.
The Preacher's Complete Homiletical Commentary 1892 · Public Domain On vv1, 13, 16, 29 Mat_23:1. Then spake Jesus.—The day of grace is over…
CRITICAL NOTES
Mat_23:1. Then spake Jesus.—The day of grace is over for the leaders of the people; but for the people themselves there may still be hope; so the Lord of the temple turns to the multitude, the general throng of worshippers, mingled with whom were several of His own disciples, and solemnly warns them against their spiritual guides. There is every reason to suppose that many of the scribes and Pharisees were within hearing; for when He has finished what He has to say to the people, He turns round and addresses them directly in that series of terrible denunciations which follow.—(Gibson).
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Mat_23:2. In Moses’ seat.—That is, as interpreters of the law given by Moses (Brown).
Mat_23:3. Do, but do not.—(See R.V.). His warning is couched in such a way as not in the least degree to weaken their respect for Moses, or for the sacred Scriptures, the exposition of which was the duty of their spiritual guides. He separates sharply between the office and the men who hold it (Gibson).
Mat_23:5. To be seen of men.—They did works, many works; but they did them theatrically (Morison). Phylacteries.—Passages of the law upon leaves of parchment which the Jews at the time of prayer bound, one on the left arm, one on the forehead, to show that the law should be in the heart and in the head. At first, they were simply remembrancers of the law; the heathen notion, that they were personal means of defence against evil spirits, did not arise till afterward. It is probable that the perversion was not perfect at the time of our Lord; otherwise He would have done more than condemn their enlargement of these phylacteries, i.e. hypocrisy and boastfulness in matters of religion (Lange). The borders of their garments.—The wearing of memorial fringes on the borders of the garments rested on a Divine ordinance (Num_15:37-40; Deu_22:12). In Scripture these fringes are prescribed to be of blue, the symbolical colour of the covenant; but the Mishnah allows them also to be white (Edersheim).
Mat_23:6. Uppermost rooms.—Chief place (R.V.). The Jews, like the Romans, reclined at meals on couches, called triclinia—each seat containing three seats, and each seat having its special dignity (Carr). Chief seats in the synagogues.—These were at the upper or Jerusalem end of the synagogue, where was the ark, or chest that contained the law. These were given, either by common consent, or by the elders of the synagogue, to those who were most conspicuous for their devotion to the law, and, as such, were coveted as a mark of religious reputation (Plumptre).
Mat_23:7. Rabbi.—The word Rabbi was just budding into common use about our Saviour’s time. It is a Hebrew word, properly meaning “my Master,” and was originally used not in speaking of a master, but, vocatively. in speaking to a master (Morison). The true teaching on this point is found in the Talmud, “Love the work, but hate the title” (Carr).
Mat_23:8. Master.—Teacher (R.V.). Even Christ.—Wanting in best MSS. and omitted in R.V. Probably crept into the text from a marginal explanatory note, completing the sense as in Mat_23:10.
Mat_23:9. Father.—Abba (father) is a name of honour corresponding to Rabbi (Juchasin, fol. 31, 2). To understand and follow such commands in the slavery of the letter, is to fall into the Pharisaism against which our Lord is uttering the caution (Alford).
Mat_23:10. Masters.—The word is not the same as in Mat_23:8, and signifies “guide” or “leader”; the “director” of conscience rather than the teacher. Cf. Rom_2:19 (Plumptre).
Mat_23:11. Shall be your servant.—This plainly means, “shall show that he is so (greatest) by becoming your servant”; as in Mat_20:27, compared with Mar_10:44 (Brown).
MAIN HOMILETICS OF THE PARAGRAPH.—Mat_23:1-12
The rights of enemies.—In the temporary confusion which follows that overthrow of His enemies which we described in our last, how does Jesus behave Himself towards them? In what language does He speak concerning them to those that stand by? This we are told in the verses before us. He speaks, on the one hand, in the language of testimony. He speaks, on the other hand, in the language of caution.
I. In the way of testimony.—Testimony which is not a little striking regarded in itself. “The scribes and Pharisees sit in Moses’ seat” (Mat_23:2). Their duty is to explain and enforce that which Moses has taught. To obey them, therefore, when they do this faithfully, is to obey Moses himself. It is also, He implies, and that with much emphasis, to do what is pleasing to Him. “Whatsoever they bid you” in this manner, that “do and observe” (Mat_23:3, R.V.). Testimony which is still more striking when taken in connection with certain previous words and actions of His own. Long before He had made the announcement, “I am not come to destroy the law, but to fulfil it” (Mat_5:17). Here He upholds the authority of those undertaking to explain it. Some time before He Himself had shown respect to this kind of authority by directing Peter to pay for both of them the temple-tribute at Capernaum (Mat_17:24-27). Now He goes farthest of all and openly enjoins on all who listen to Him to pay similar deference too. Most striking of all is this testimony when considered in connection with what has just been spoken to Him. What a juncture is that chosen by Him for this declaration of His will! Just after these scribes and Pharisees have been most unscrupulously plotting against His authority, He is thus scrupulous about theirs! Just when they have most disgraced their office, He honours it most! In the time of their confidence He had withstood them. In this time of their discomfiture He upholds them. What forbearance—what mercy—what meekness, are here!
II. In the way of caution.—While it is thus important to both the “multitude” and the “disciples” alike (Mat_23:1) that they should honour every one to whom honour is due, it is equally important that they should not be seduced thereby into the commission of sin. Hence the counsels which follow. Counsels to all (apparently) about these teachers. Distinguish carefully between their teaching and their example. Their practice is faulty, even when their precepts are right. On the one hand, they “say and do not” (Mat_23:3). The more onerous and irksome the precepts of Moses, the greater their eagerness in laying these requirements, not on themselves, but on others. On the other hand, in all such outward obedience as they themselves render to Moses there is an evil motive at work. To appear pious before men in their dress and demeanour, and to receive honour from men when appearing before them, are the real aims they pursue. Hence, even when they attain to success, their success is a loss. Special counsels next, on account of these things, to the disciples themselves. Do you who wish to be My disciples indeed, look to yourselves on these points. Look on one another only as brethren in Me (Mat_23:8). Call no man your father (except in a subordinate sense) upon earth (Mat_23:9). To you there must be but one ultimate Object of trust and source of command (Mat_23:8-10). Amongst yourselves let your great object be not to be great. Pride, in short, is the object of those teachers. Humility must be yours. Wisely so, too (Mat_23:12).
How insidious a thing is the love of human applause! This seems the great lesson to be learned here by ourselves. Our Saviour had dwelt on this much, at the beginning of His ministry, in the Sermon on the Mount (Mat_6:1-18). And here again, towards its close, when arrived at Jerusalem, and not far from the cross, He does the same thing. This love of men’s praise—this desire to be “seen” (Mat_23:5)—this anxiety to be “chief” (Mat_23:6)—was the thing which lay at the root of all the evil traceable in those teachers who were now seeking His death. It was to be specially avoided, therefore, by those other teachers who were about to go forth in His Name. What had ruined those who sat in Moses’ seat would be equally ruinous, if not avoided, to those who should stand in His place. It would be so because of the insidious and subtle manner in which it wrought on men’s minds. One principal peril of physical stimulants is to be found in the fact that they create a thirst for themselves. The more a man takes, the more he desires. The more, also, he thinks he requires. The like is true of that spiritual intoxicant—the love of distinction and praise. Therefore it is that the wise man has said, as in Pro_27:21. Equally mischievous is it also in shutting out the love of that which is better (Joh_5:44). There are few things, therefore, which the true follower of Jesus must be more careful to avoid.
HOMILIES ON THE VERSES
Mat_23:1-3. The attitude to be taken towards the Pharisees.—Our Lord, having put His adversaries to silence, endeavours to save His people from their ways.
1. The people must be warned to beware of the contagion of corrupt teachers, when they will not amend their doings; for this is the course which Christ taketh about the Pharisees and scribes.
2. Albeit the faults of teachers must not be spared, yet their authority and office must be guarded, lest the message of God by their mouth be marred; their office must be defended, albeit their persons be corrupt. Therefore saith He, They sit in Moses’ seat, i.e. they succeed to Moses in the ordinary office of teaching the Word of God.
3. What Moses’ successors teach, as Moses’ successors, must be obeyed; that is, the truth which from the warrant of God’s word is recommended unto us from corrupt teachers, clad with lawful authority to teach, we ought to obey, because the message is the doctrine of God, albeit the messenger be corrupt.
4. People are in danger of following the example of the evil life of corrupt teachers rather than the command of God delivered in their doctrine, and therefore have need to be warned. “After their works do not.”
5. Whatsoever commanded works a man doth, and not for the commanded ends before God, it is as good as no doing; therefore, albeit the Pharisees did many works commanded in the law, yet because they did them to be seen of men, and as works meritorious to oblige God, and were more careful of the outward ceremonies of the law than to observe the moral duties of justice and mercy; therefore what they did was counted as if they did it not. “They say and do not.”—David Dickson.
Official relation to the law.—I. It is possible to know the law, and not obey it.
II. It is possible to teach, and not obey; hence:
III. Our duty is to be decided by the law, and not by the example of its teachers.
IV. In Jesus alone is perfect harmony between the teacher and the teaching.—J. C. Gray.
Mat_23:4-7. Dead traditionalism.—
I. Its hardness.
II. Its falsehood. III. Its selfishness.—J. P. Lange, D.D.
Mat_23:5. Phylacteries.—If the practice of wearing borders with fringes had Scriptural authority, we are well convinced that no such plea could be urged for the so-called “phylacteries.” The observance arose from a literal interpretation of Exo_13:9, to which even the later injunction in Deu_6:8 gives no countenance. This appears even from its repetition in Deu_11:18, where the spiritual meaning and purport of the direction is immediately indicated, and from a comparison with kindred expressions, which evidently could not be taken literally—such as Pro_3:3; Pro_6:21; Pro_7:3; Son_8:6; Isa_49:16. The very term used by the Rabbis for phylacteries—“tephillin,” prayer-fillets—is of comparatively modern origin, in so far as it does not occur in the Hebrew Old Testament. The Samaritans did not acknowledge them as of Mosaic obligation, any more than do the Karaite Jews, and there is, what seems to us, sufficient evidence, even from Rabbinical writings, that in the time of Christ phylacteries were not universally worn, nor yet by the priests while officiating in the temple. Although the words of our Lord seem only expressly to condemn the making broad of the phylacteries for purposes of religious ostentation, it is difficult to believe that He Himself had worn them. At any rate, while any ordinary Israelite would only put them on at prayer or on solemn occasions, the members of the Pharisaic confraternity wore them all day long. The “tephillin” were worn on the left arm, towards the heart, and on the forehead. They consisted—to describe them roughly—of capsules, containing, on parchment (that for the forehead on four distinct parchments), these four passages of Scripture: Exo_13:1-16; Deu_6:4-9; Deu_11:13-21. The capsules were fastened on by black leather straps, which were wound round the arm and hand (seven times round the former, and three times round the latter), or else fitted to the forehead in a prescribed and mystically significant manner. The wearer of them could not be mistaken. But as for their value and importance in the eyes of the Rabbis, it were impossible to exaggerate it. They were reverenced as highly as the Scriptures, and, like them, might be rescued from the flames on a Sabbath, although not worn, as constituting “a burden!” It was said that Moses had received the law of their observance from God on Mount Sinai; that the “tephillin” were more sacred than the golden plate on the forehead of the high-priest, since its inscription embodied only once the sacred name of Jehovah, while the writing inside the “tephillin” contained it not less than twenty-three times; that the command of wearing them equalled all other commands put together; with many other similar extravagances. How far the profanity of the Rabbis in this respect would go, appears from the circumstance, that they supposed God Himself as wearing phylacteries (Ber., 6 a).—A. Edersheim, D.D.
Mat_23:8. Christ Lord: Christians brethren.—
I. The Lordship of Christ.—
1. Why is Christ our moral Master? His is no arbitrary pre-eminence, but in harmony with Reason, Conscience, Fact. Recall:
(1) What He is.—His nature is Divine, His character perfect, His teaching complete.
(2) What He has done.—He has ransomed us. He has renewed us.
2. How is Christ our moral Master?
(1) He regulates our conduct.
(2) He enlightens our intellect.
(3) He controls our affections.
II. The brotherhood of Christians.—
1. Why are Christians brethren? Not alone on the ground of mere humanity. Nor merely through acceptance of a common creed. Nor merely through union with a common society. Common relationship to Christ creates, and constant communion with Christ sustains, the brotherhood of Christians.
2. How do Christians show that they are brethren? Among the members of a home there is:
(1) A family interest.
(2) A family likeness.
(3) A family life.—U. R. Thomas, B.A.
True churchmanship.—The principles of church organism, arising from the two facts of the Lordship of Christ and the brotherhood of Christians are:—
I. The church must consist of Christian men.—Membership cannot consist in:—
1. Local residence.—He only is a Christian man who calls Christ “Master,” and who feels a brother to Christ’s disciples.
2. Ceremonial observance.—The passing through any form of church membership fails to unite to the true church.
3. Any money relationship.
II. The church must promote the brotherhood of Christians.—There are three great errors at whose root our Saviour’s words here lay an axe; errors that seem greatly to hinder the brotherhood of Christians.
1. The social error of caste and class feeling.
2. The sectarian error of denominationalism.
3. The ecclesiastical error of hierarchism.
Here is a protest on behalf of Christian brotherhood.
(1) To those who might be tempted to haughtiness. To all such as claim infallibility, or the exclusive right of teaching, or absolute power of discipline, Christ says, “Be not called masters; all ye are brethren.” “None by office or precedence is nearer to God than another, none stands between his brother and God” (Alford).
(2) To those in danger of servility. Lest the spiritual Israel should repeat the error of their great type and cry “Give us a king,” Christ enjoins “Call no man master.” The gospel promotes social freedom, mental independence, spiritual liberty.
III. The church must testify to the supremacy of the living, personal Christ.—To the churches still, in authority, oversight, discipline, this one Master remains; for did He not say, “I am with you alway”? etc.—Ibid.
Christ the Master of life.—On the walls of the chapel in Yale College, America, there is the following inscription about Christ: “Dux, Lux, Lex, Rex”—Leader, Light, Law, King.
Jesus is absolute Master in the sphere of religion, which is a science dealing, not with intellectual conceptions, but with spiritual facts. His ideas are not words, they are laws; they are not thoughts, they are forces. He did not suggest, He asserted what He had seen at first sight. He did not propose, He commanded as one who knew there was no other way. One of His chief discoveries was a new type of character, His greatest achievement its creation. It is now nineteen centuries since He lived on earth, but to-day in every country of the Western world there are men differing from their neighbours as Jesus did from His contemporaries. Jesus was a type by Himself, and they are of the same type. He presented to the world a solitary ideal, and in innumerable lives has made it real.—John Watson, M.A., in “Expositor.”
Mat_23:8-10. Titles of honour.—Not that deserved honour is to be disesteemed and eschewed. Far from that. We are expressly commanded “to render honour to whom honour is due” (Rom_13:7). We are to honour the king” (1Pe_2:17). And in whomsoever we find any true kingliness of soul, him assuredly we should honour. We are to “honour all men” (1Pe_2:17), for when we consider the Godlike make of man (see Psa_8:5 in the Hebrew), and how God Himself has “crowned him with glory and honour,” we cannot but find, even underneath a mass of most dishonouring wickedness, much to honour. And in the more honourable of men, there will be still more that is worthy of honour. Nevertheless, the mind is bent in a totally wrong direction when it is preponderatingly ambitious of honour. It should be far more ambitious of doing honour, than of getting it. And, as to honorary titles—if a man loves them for their own sake, or for the sake of thereby strutting before his fellow-men, or of uplifting himself above his peers, he is altogether unworthy of them, and will be injured, not benefited, by receiving them. In so far as they are coveted, or sought for, and especially if sought for as means of self-glorification, and very especially if sought for by means that are dishonourable, they are to be utterly deprecated. But if they be modest and truthful in their import, on the one hand, and meted out impartially, on the other, then they will but express facts of inward conviction, which facts must have names of one kind or another. If a man is really worthy of being honoured, not merely as a man, but in some particular outcome or effort of his manhood, and if he is in fact honoured according to his worthiness, then there can be no harm in giving expression to the fact in a name. The name, however, ought to be truthful and modest. And hence there was reason to object to Rabbi, “My great One, “Your Highness,” as it were. No wonder that our Saviour, at the time of which He spoke—when the title was just pushing its way into currency—proscribed its use among His disciples. It should never have been used. But it has now lost, we presume, its original immodesty of import, and is tantamount to a mere designation of office. We must ever bear in mind that there are conventionalisms in words, and that these conventionalisms may change; so that, in a living language, the associations and acceptations of a word may change. Barnes objects to the title “Doctor of Divinity,” and thinks that “the spirit of our Saviour’s command is violated by the reception of it.” But he overlooks the fact that the title is modest in its meaning, “Teacher of Theology”; and he also fails to note that, if it be really deserved, there is no reason why men should not think so, and say so.—J. Morison, D.D.
Mat_23:9. “Pope” and “Father.”—It would seem to be almost in open defiance of His (the Saviour’s) injunction, that, within the limits of the Roman Catholic Church, this designation is universally given to their chief bishop—the “Pope.” The word “Pope” is our corrupted way of pronouncing what the French call Pape, and the Italians Papa, or Father. How strange the designation, as given to the Roman bishop! Strange, when we look at the subject in the light of our Saviour’s injunction! It is strange, too, that every priest, or parish minister, in the Greek Church, is called Papa, or Pope, or Father (πάπας). There are, besides, in the Roman Catholic Church, many professed or professional Fathers under the one great Papa. In some other churches, likewise, there are too many of these professional Fathers; for, as Bishop Wilkins observes, “Father” is a title which assuming priests of all religions have greatly affected (see Doddridge in loc.). And now, though the designation has in great measure got rubbed down into a mere discriminative appellation, marking out a definite ecclesiastical position or office, still its use is unhappy, and has something to do with a wide-spread confusion of ideas on things moral and spiritual. Already, in our Saviour’s time, an element of popery was stealthily lurking, and vigorously germinating, in the use of the designation; and it was, we doubt not, because of this element that the title was greedily courted on the one hand, and too readily accorded on the other, while at the same time, and in the third place, it was earnestly repudiated by our Saviour. It is our Father in heaven who alone has an absolute paternal authority in all things sacred.—Ibid.
Mat_23:10. Christ our Master.—
1. There is no need of any other dominion over conscience than Jesus Christ exerciseth.
2. The exercise of this Christian liberty cannot possibly be an injury to other Christians.
3. Free inquiry in religion is essential to the virtue of a character.
4. A Christian, who takes Christ for his only sufficient Governor, in religion, is supported by the examples of all genuine Christians, from the days of Christ.—Anon.
Mat_23:12. Self-exaltation.—A certain king had a gifted minstrel whom he commanded to play before him; and while the cups were flowing with merry wine, the harp was tuned to its sweetest melodies. But the vain minstrel celebrated his own exploits; and when, at the end of the feast, he asked the king for his reward, the stern answer was, “Thine own praises were thy theme; let these by thy paymaster!” And so, if our good works are done that we ourselves may have praise of men, they will count no more in God’s sight than utter barrenness and neglect.—J. N. Norton.
The humble exalted.—“Whosoever shall humble himself shall be exalted.” By Me, and by My Father, and, in the end, by the intelligent universe at large. The lowliest will be the loftiest. But he who seeks to be the loftiest will be the lowest. The way up leads down. The way down leads up. Jesus Himself ascended by a descending way.—J. Morison, D.D.
The Preacher's Complete Homiletical Commentary (gen. ed. Joseph S. Exell; Funk & Wagnalls, c. 1892) — public domain (pre-1929). A full-Bible homiletical/sermon-outline anthology covering 65 of 66 books (2 John is absent from the source module). Text from a community e-Sword module.
William B. Godbey 1900 · Public Domain On vv1, 13, 37 It is still Wednesday, and the last day our…
WARNINGS AGAINST THE EVIL EXAMPLE OF THE SCRIBES AND PHARISEES
It is still Wednesday, and the last day our Lord ever spoke in the temple. These scribes and Pharisees are thronging Him on all sides, being the great and influential people of the Church. He acquits Himself of all responsibility by publicly exposing their evil example, and warning the people against following them. N.B. — All this He did boldly in their presence; meanwhile they got so awfully mad that they laid violent hands on Him and took His life. Two hundred millions of martyrs have traveled the same road to bloody death. Lord, help us to be true, and tell the whole truth, even under the most embarrassing environments, fearless of men and devils!
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Luk 20:45-46; Mar 12:38-39. “And He spoke to them in His teaching, Beware of the scribes, who wish to walk about in robes, and receive salutations in the markets, and the first seats in the synagogues, and the first couches in the suppers.” All this pompous display panders to pride, feeds vanity, and grieves the Holy Spirit now as in the days of Christ; and is more abominable in preachers and Church members than in debauchees and prostitutes.
Mat 23:1-12. “Then Jesus spoke to the multitudes and to His disciples, saying, The scribes and Pharisees sat in the seat of Moses. Therefore, all things so many as they may say to you to observe, keep and perform; but do not according to their works; for they say, and do not. For they bind heavy burdens and difficult to be borne, and place them on the shoulders of the people; and they do not wish to touch them with their finger.”
How lamentably do we see this identical maladministration on the part of many leading clergymen this day, taxing their members heavily, and even oppressively, while they do not tax themselves! It is a shame for a pastor to enforce the tithe law among his members and not personally lead the way in keeping it. The truth of it is, the tithe is the minimum. We all ought to go vastly beyond it, even to the half of our income in many instances; but the preachers, true to their attitude as leaders of the flock, ought to excel all their members in self-denial, frugality, economy, and consequent liberality to the heathen, the poor, and every laudable philanthropy.
“They do all their works to be seen by the people.” O what abominable pride! Who is guilty? But Jesus is speaking of the preachers. “They broaden their phylacteries, and enlarge the borders of their garments.” These phylacteries were strips of parchment, on which passages of Scripture were written, and swinging about as they moved hither and thither, made quite a conspicuous display. Lord deliver us from all needless ornamentation of every sort!
“They love the first couch at the suppers, and the first seats in the synagogues, and salutations in the forums, and to be called by the people, Doctor, Doctor. Be ye not called Doctor: for one is your Teacher, even Christ: and you are all brothers.” Doctor is a Latin word, from doceo, “to teach,” and literally means a teacher. Here you see that our Savior forbids the use of the honorary epithet, as no man has anything to teach, Christ being our only Teacher, while we are all disciples — i.e., students; for this is the meaning of disciple. This is certainly a final settlement of all questions appertaining to the honorary appellation of “Doctor” as applied to a minister of the gospel. Of course, we can not control the people in their salutations; but we certainly should never recognize the title, nor use it in its application to ourselves, nor encourage the use of it on the part of others. As Jesus well says, none of us preachers are Doctors — i.e., teachers — but all students at the feet of Jesus, who is our only Teacher. As Jesus here well says, we are all “brothers.” So let us lay aside all of this Babylonian pomposity, which sacrifices to pride and grieves the Holy Spirit, and henceforth salute one another by the humble and loving appellation of “Brother” and “Sister.”
“Call no one father upon the earth: for one is your Father, who is in the heavens.” This sweeps away the vanity of Romanism, calling their priests “Father;” while the Protestants salute their preachers with “Doctor,” which means teacher. “Be not called teachers: for one is your Teacher, Christ.” Lord, help us all to abide with Thee in loving obedience in this matter as in all others!
“But let him who is the greater of you, be your servant: for whosoever shall exalt himself, shall be abased; and whosoever shall humble himself, shall be exalted.” All these manifestations of pride grieve the Holy Spirit away and ruin religion. The leading preacher should invariably lead the way in self-denial, self-sacrifice, humility, and meekness; otherwise he is utterly unworthy to be a leader. Why will not the preachers and Church members hear the voice of Jesus, and govern themselves accordingly? If we do not learn of Him, and walk in His commandments, we will erelong encounter the awful embarrassment of the guest at the marriage feast without the wedding garment.
William B. Godbey, Commentary on the New Testament (1896–1900) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Sermon Bible 1900 · Public Domain On v1 The Visible Temple.
Mat 23:17
The Visible Temple.
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I. A Temple there has been upon earth, a spiritual Temple, made up of living stones—a Temple, as I may say, composed of souls. This Temple is invisible, but it is perfect and real because it is invisible, and gains nothing in perfection by possessing visible tokens. There needs no outward building to meet the eye, in order to make it more of a Temple than it already is in itself. God and Christ and angels—souls, are not these a heavenly court, all perfect to which this world can add nothing? This is true and ever to be borne in mind; and yet no one can deny on the other hand, that a great object of Christ’s coming was to subdue the world, to claim it as His own, to assert His right as its Master, to show Himself to all men, and to take possession. When He came He had not a place to lay His head; but He came to make Himself a place, to make Himself a home, to fashion for Himself a glorious dwelling out of the whole world which the powers of evil had taken captive. He was not born in the Temple of Jerusalem; He abhorred the palace of David; He laid Himself on the damp earth in the cold night, a Light shining in a dark place, till by the virtue that went out of Him He should erect a Temple worthy of His Name.
II. And lo! in omen of the future, even in His cradle, the rich and wise of the earth seek Him with gold, and frankincense, and myrrh as an offering. Pass a few generations and the whole face of things is changed; the earth is covered with His temples, as it has been for ages. Go where you will, you find the eternal mountains hewn and fashioned into shrines where He may dwell who was an outcast in the days of His flesh. The invisible temple has become visible, and He has made Him a temple, not only out of inanimate things, but of men also as parts of it. Not gold and silver, jewels and fine linen, and skill of man to use them, make the house of God, but worshippers: the souls and bodies of men whom He has redeemed.
III. The temple is greater than the gold, therefore care not though the gold be away; it sanctifies it, therefore cherish the gold while it is present. Christ is with us, though there be no outward show. Where He really places His Name, there—be the spot a palace or a cottage—it is sacred and glorious. He accepts our gold and our silver, not to honour Himself thereby, but in mercy to us.
J. H. Newman, Parochial and Plain Sermons, vol. vi., p. 280.
References: Mat 23:18.—Clergyman’s Magazine, vol. ix., p. 99. Mat 23:19.—Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. xiv., No. 831. Mat 23:22.—R. W. Evans, Parochial Sermons, vol. ii., p. 248.
Mat 23:23
We learn from the text:—
I. That the commands of God are of different degrees of importance. There are matters of more weight than others among the Divine precepts. That God has commanded a thing always invests it with a certain importance, but all His commandments are not of equal gravity. There are higher and lower obligations; and the higher will be first attended to, nay, if need be, will absorb into them the lower.
II. The weightiest of all God’s commands have respect to judgment, mercy, and faith. That is a truth which is emphasized over and over again by the prophets in the Old Testament, and the Apostles in the New. The inner is more important than the outer; the spirit than the letter; the principle than the action; the character than the isolated deed. The heart is the great thing, for out of it are the issues of life; and therefore it should have the first and the greatest attention. If that be wrong, nothing can be right; but if that be right, everything will partake of its quality.
III. Attention to the matters of less importance will not compensate for the neglect of those which are of essential moment. Punctilious tithe-paying will not condone oppression, or injustice, or the lack of humble faith in God. Ritual is not religion: it is only, even at the best, the outer garment which she wears on certain occasions; but religion herself is character, and that is a moral unit, giving its quality both to the worship and to the ordinary conduct of the man. It is no vindication for not doing a most important duty, to say that I have done something else that is on a far lower plain.
IV. Where the heart is right with God through faith in Jesus Christ, both the weightier matters and those of less importance will be attended to. The performance of one duty must not be pleaded as an excuse for the neglect of another. In all such matters what is put before us is not an alternative—whether we shall do this or that—but an aggregate, for we are to do this and that.
W. M. Taylor, Contrary Winds, p. 356.
I. On closer observation, the sins of the Pharisees resolve themselves chiefly into four—Pride, hypocrisy, superstition, and a dislike to real spiritual religion. To understand Christ’s feelings and actions towards them, you must remember that the men who committed these sins were the enlightened ones of the earth. They knew their Bibles wonderfully. They had the Name and Word of God constantly on their lips. And the cause of truth and of God was committed to them. Hence Christ’s exceeding severity with these men. For there are two points on which Christ was always most jealous: the one was the glory of the Father; and the other the interests of religion, and especially the consciences of young believers. Whatever compared with these, whatever offended against these and hurt them, was sure to awake Christ’s holy anger, and incur His awful malediction. And this is exactly what pride and hypocrisy, superstition and severity, do. Therefore Christ’s utter revulsion of a Pharisee.
II. (1) God is in His holy temple, and all creation lies—poor and sinful—at His feet. Whatever lifts itself up offends against God’s holiness, and rebels against God’s sovereignty. Hence Christ’s detestation of a Pharisee. (2) And the characteristic of our religion as a test of everything is reality. There is no false sheen thrown upon any part of God’s creation. The beauty of the interior generally exceeds the beauty of the, exterior. God in His work and in His truth is all real. He abhors hollowness. Hence Christ’s woe to a Pharisee. (3) Truth is always simple. Superstition complicates and clouds God’s great, simple plan. Therefore God repudiates it. (4) God is one God, therefore He loves unity because it is His own reflection; therefore he hates all separation. All sitting aloof, all unkind feeling towards brethren, all party spirit—is offensive to God; and this is just what the Pharisees did. Hence again, the rejection and curse of a Pharisee.
J. Vaughan, Sermons, 11th series, p. 109.
References: Mat 23:23.—J. Vaughan, Sermons, 9th series, p. 109. Mat 23:23, Mat 23:29.—D. Fraser, The Metaphors of the Gospels, p. 181. Mat 23:31-32.—F. W. Farrar, Christian World Pulpit, vol. xxv., p. 401. Mat 23:32.—Homiletic Magazine, vol. xiii., p. 55. Mat 23:34-39.—Clergyman’s Magazine, vol. iii., p. 347.
Mat 23:37
I. One of the first things which strikes young children as they begin to grow up and look abroad in the world, is the wonderful parental instinct, as it is called, of dumb creatures—that secret and silent law which makes the mother of every animal, almost, so earnestly and affectionately watch over her offspring. Now here our Saviour teaches us that this instinct is not only put into their hearts by Him, but that it is actually a sign and token from Him—a pledge and visible shadow of the peculiar mercy, with which He watches over His Church. Look at the whole history of God’s ancient people, Israel. It is nothing from beginning to end but a course of these parental providences. Everywhere the Lord offers to gather them under His wings.
II. For us it is easier to understand how truly this comparison of the hen describes God’s mercy to each of us one by one. (1) First, our mother’s love, that earliest and sweetest kindness that we are permitted to taste on earth. Whence comes it? Is it not altogether God’s gift. Whatever our mothers did for us, and whatever love it was in their hearts to show us, God alone put it in their hearts; it was but a drop from the overflowing fountain of His love. (2) Again, what shall we say of our spiritual mother the Church? Who can count the number of the fourth part of the graces and lovingkindnesses which He through her is ever bestowing upon us? But our Lord’s words remind us of one particular action of the mother-bird—the spreading her wings to receive and shelter the young ones, when they want warmth, or rest, or protection. "How often would I have gathered thy children together, as a hen gathereth her chickens under her wings!" So the Holy Dove, the Spirit of Christ, comes down and broods over the waters of baptism, over the souls and bodies of those who are there to be new born, or having been so, comes to them continually in more and more warmth, strength, and life. Christ by His Holy Spirit broods over them, sheltering, warming, quickening, doing all that they need. And in order to do this, observe He gathers them. He gathers us into His holy Church. It is there that His wings are spread, other places have no promise of the same heavenly and life-giving shadow.
Plain Sermons by Contributors to "Tracts for the Times." vol. viii., p. 151.
The Saviour’s Sorrow over Lost Men.
I. Words like these, spoken at such a moment, let us see, as far as words can do, into the innermost of Jesus’ heart. They are a wonderful expression of His deep-seated desire to save from ruin the worst of men, to save the unwilling, to save to the very last. (1) If ever excess of guilt could have alienated the Saviour, and steeled Him against mercy, it must have been Jerusalem’s. Her privileges had been surpassing. The centre of God’s worship, the capital of God’s elect, to her citizens revelations had been given with a prodigality which almost wearies us. Nothing could exceed her advantages except her crimes. (2) If sinners’ sins cannot destroy Christ’s willingness to save them, neither can their unwillingness to be saved. Refusal does not overbear this extraordinary desire of God to save us. Neither (3) can delay outweary it. On the contrary, time only tests to the utmost the sincerity of the Divine mercy. The perseverance of the Saviour is the measure of His love.
II. This language of the departing Saviour tells us how He blesses those who will be gathered. Strong love like His is gentle as it is strong. Only let the mighty Lover who made you gather you to Himself, and you will see how He will cradle you like a mother. For when these bursting words of His tell what He would have done with Jerusalem’s citizens, if they would have let Him, they shed light into such secret nests of home tenderness and of low, sweet love, that nothing can be more precious or more wonderful. What wouldest thou, Lord? "I would have gathered thy children together, even as a hen gathereth her chickens under her wings." The very image has its own softness in it. To be sure, it was nothing new to speak of God’s care for men as the wings of a bird. Of old, as Moses sang before he died, Israel had been carried by Jehovah across pathless sand-drifts, as an eagle’s fledglings are borne upon her strong, broad pinions through the desert air—softly carried, safely, grandly, to its rest. To the faithful of later ages, Jehovah’s perpetual keeping was symbolised in the widespread golden wings of cherubim, which cast their shade down upon the mercy-seat of the most holy place, and under that covert pious Hebrew souls were taught to nestle. But these were both majestic types, removed from familiar human things. In the hands of Him who brought divinity down into the bosom of an earthly home, the image grew far lowlier. The fowl of motherly instinct which nestles close upon the ground, and gives of all feathered creatures our homeliest pictures of domestic care—she is His choice; and of all acts of that kindly mother-hen, her most intimate and secret act of love. Ah! it was like the meekness of Jesus to speak thus; and to any fearful, heartbroken evildoer, whose soul craves yet hardly dares to hope for sympathy, is it not heartening to be told in lowly words that you may creep under the mighty shadow of the crucified Redeemer of the world with such confidence as the chicken to its mother’s wing?
III. The words of the text give deeper insight still into the Redeemer’s heart. Underneath the joy of salvation, it touches a fount of tears. It is, in truth, His last wail of sorrow over men who would not be saved. Who knows the bitterness of love that is unprized and useless? When God weeps to win His children back from crime and ruin, and His children laugh and will not, I know no words to sorrow in, but only tears. Love weeps when justice smites. The Lamb sorrows in His wrath. And it only makes justice the more awful when you see that it has so much of pity in it, and so little of poor personal triumph or ungenerous readiness, that the Judge yearns and wails over the soul He dooms.
J. Oswald Dykes, Sermons, p. 356.
I. Consider the enormity of the sins of which a society may be guilty, beyond the will of any individual man to be found there. Jerusalem had slain the prophets; she had overlaid the Law of God with human inventions. The Scriptures told them of Messiah, and He passed before their very eyes, yet they could not see Him. When an impure woman was to be condemned, our Lord saw that there was not out of a crowd of accusers even one whose conscience would not reprove him as guilty of the very same sin.
II. It is remarkable, too, that the social state is worse than any one man—even the wickedest—would wish to make it. In the ancient and the modern world each offender knows that his particular form of vice can only be practised so long as it is not too common—each is ready to condemn the vices which he does not affect. Yet when the various forces of selfishness work together, they do in fact strengthen one another. And on the great aggregate of human wickedness the watchful eye of the Almighty looks down—not with pleasure, His wrath is kindling against us as a consuming fire.
III. But this guilt, real as it is, is often accompanied by a profound unconsciousness. We, with our well-meant cant about national greatness, and the blessings of a Christian country and and the like, do shut our eyes wilfully to fearful signs of evil within.
IV. It is true that a nation goes through a moral probation, as a man does; that up to a certain point she has her opportunities of retrieval, after this sin is finished and brings forth death. Jerusalem slept not less soundly the day after the Crucifixion than the day before; nor were her markets less thronged, nor the proud carriage of her priests at all abated. Yet the transactions of one week had altered utterly the condition of that place. In God’s hand is the sudden thunderbolt that shatters in a moment, and the decay that eats slowly for centuries. But once more, evil itself is punishment and destruction, fraud and wrong-doing are the bandits that steal about and rob you; drunkenness, gambling, impurity, are the monsters that dash your sons and daughters against the stones. But remember that sin, great and potent as it seems, is a conquered kingdom; it looks menacing, its numbers are legion, but the victory gained over it by our Lord was a real victory, and its strength is ready to crumble away when it is touched in earnest. Blessed are all those who make themselves instruments in such a work of love.
Archbishop Thomson, Lincoln’s Inn Sermons, p. 356.
The Invitation refused.
I. To the great fact of God’s continual, efficient calls every man’s own conscience is the best witness. Doubtless these calls fall louder and deeper sometimes on the spiritual ear than they fall at other times. They lie thickest, I believe, in early life. There are states of mind we can scarcely say how, and there are providential scenes we can scarcely say why, which give an intensity to those many voices—when a verse of Scripture will sometimes roll its meaning like thunder, or when a whisper of the soul will carry an accent tenfold with it. But the call is not confined to these specialities. There is a finger of a man’s hand, which is always waking the strings of thought. It is when we lie down; it is when we rise up; it is when we sit in the house; it is when we are walking by the way. Perhaps not a room in which we have ever lain down to sleep; perhaps not a church into which we have ever entered, even with careless foot; perhaps not a sin which we ever deliberately did; perhaps not an incident for weal or woe, that lies on the chequered path of life—but there was something there that swelled that "how often."
II. Some there are who will rise up and say, "I do not consider that I have ever yet been called." And these divide themselves into two classes: (1) Those who wish they could believe that they had been called, but cannot bring their mind to think that anything so good has happened to them, as that God should so remember and desire them as that He should call them; (2) those who virtually complain, "I do not hold that I have yet received my call. Why does not God, if He would yet save me, make some great interposition on my behalf?" Alas! for the guilty unbelief of the one, and the awful presumption of the other. Of all the refusals of God’s love the real secret is the same. They may cover themselves up with various pretexts, but the cause is one. It is not in any outward circumstances; it is not in any particular temperament; it is not in the want of power; but our Saviour points to it at once with His omniscient mind. "How often would I have gathered ye, and ye would not!" It is the absence of the will; it is the want of that setting of the mind to God’s mind; that conformity of the affections to God’s promises; that appreciation of unseen things; that spiritual sense, which is the essence and the beginning of a new life. Therefore they cannot come.
J. Vaughan, Fifty Sermons, 1874, p. 86.
Christ is set forth here under the symbol of a shelter. This is the central thought of the text, and we are now summoned with all humility and reverence to study it.
I. The first thing suggested by this symbol is the idea of danger. Not only or chiefly were the Jews warned of danger from the stroke of the Roman eagle, which was about to rend them as its prey. Great as was the political calamity that menaced them, their greatest danger was spiritual; the danger shared by all, in every age, who have broken the law, but have not accepted the Saviour. Infraction of law must be followed by infliction of penalty. Danger is implied in this very image, though at first sight it seems only to suggest ideas of beautiful tenderness and peace. No place for this figure would have been found in the symbols of Christ if there had been no danger.
II. The symbol of a shelter is so presented as to set forth the glory of Him who is thus revealed. It is Divine protection that is offered you. The overshadowing wing of omnipotence is spread in your defence. All the perfections of the sovereign Spirit combine to make the living shield which beats back the destroying stroke, and which is broad enough to canopy a fugitive world.
III. This symbol of a shelter illustrates in the highest degree the condescending tenderness of Christ. It does so by its homely simplicity, as well as by its ineffable pathos.
IV. This symbol of Christ is so set forth as to suggest the idea of a shelter, afforded by one who interposes his own life between us and danger. A rock, out in the blinding glare of the wilderness, is a shelter to the traveller by being his substitute, and receiving the sunstroke on itself. A shield in the day of battle is a shelter to the warrior only when the shattering blow rings on the shield itself. Christ is a shelter to trusting souls only by interposing His own life between them and the shock of doom.
V. Note the ends to be attained by the sinner’s flight to the Saviour. It is obvious that the immediate result is safety. But it would be a radical mistake to suppose that the Gospel urges men to seek safety only for safety’s sake. Safety in Christ is the first step to practical godliness.
VI. This symbol of Christ is drawn in such a way as to show that man is responsible in the matter of his own salvation.
C. Stanford, Symbols of Christ, p. 275.
I. Men, while they are in a state of nature, are exposed to imminent danger. As transgressors of the law of God, they are liable to its penalty.
II. Our Lord Jesus Christ offers Himself as a shelter against this danger.
III. He fulfils this function with condescending tenderness.
IV. He delivers His people by the substitution of His own life for theirs.
V. The immediate result of application to Him is safety.
VI. Men are responsible in the matter of their own salvation.
G. Brooks, Five Hundred Outlines of Sermons, p. 323.
References: Mat 23:37.—D. Fraser, The Metaphors of the Gospels, p. 209; J. B. French, Christian World Pulpit, vol. xxx., p. 364; J. Keble, Sermons for Sundays after Trinity, part i., p. 323; R. Heber, Parish Sermons, vol. ii., p. 421. Mat 23:37, Mat 23:38.—Clergyman’s Magazine, vol. v., p. 31; J. M. Neale, Sermons in Sackville College, vol. ii., p. 243.
The Sermon Bible, ed. William Robertson Nicoll (1888–1900) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
F. W. Grant 1903 · Public Domain On v1 Subdivision 5. (Mat 23:1-39.)
Subdivision 5. (Mat 23:1-39.)
Judgment pronounced.
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They are silenced, but not won. The human heart is a citadel that can entrench itself against the clearest evidence; and the conscience can harden itself by repeated rejection of the truth, until light be as darkness. Thus it is now that He who would (how often!) have gathered the children of Jerusalem, as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, is forced to give them up to the avenger soon to come. Israel is doomed, and the lips of divine love have to pronounce her doom, until she shall say in truth and penitence, "Blessed be he that cometh in the name of the Lord."
But the terrible denunciation that follows is rather against the leaders that have misled her to her ruin; though the blind leaders and the led fall together into it. From the necessity of the case, the judgment pronounced is given in the most open manner in the presence of the multitude, preceded by that picture of the rule of the rabbi, which could not but appeal to the experience of all who heard it. Yet it left them under it, of their own choice.
1. (1) The scribes and Pharisees had set themselves down in Moses, seat. It was their own act, and yet could not be looked upon wholly as a usurpation. An earnest zeal for the law of God in opposition to prevailing laxity had put them originally in the place that they now occupied. Degeneration had come in, and they had fallen from the ancient spirit while retaining the place - a place in which the Lord evidently recognizes them here, while recognizing fully also the degeneracy. They were now mere barren professors, contradicting their profession with their lives; while the rule of the rabbi was a tyranny of the severest kind, binding upon men’s shoulders burdens grievous to be borne - a growing oppression; more and more intolerable, and never lightened.
"Rabbinism placed the ordinances of tradition above those of the Law, and this by a necessity of the system, since they were professedly the authoritative exposition and the supplement of the written law. And although it was a general rule that no ordinance should be enjoined heavier than the congregation could bear, yet it was admitted that, whereas the words of the Law contained what ’lightened,’ and what ’made heavy,’ the words of the scribes contained only what ’made heavy.’ Again it was another principle that where an aggravation or increase of the burden had once been introduced, it must continue to be observed."* Well might the Lord say, that they would not put forth even a finger to move the intolerable load.
{* Edersheim, vol. 2, p. 407.}
With the people all this, of course, increased their power; and power and place was what they were constantly seeking. Thus they made broad the ’phylacteries’ or parchment strips in which they strove after their peculiar manner to have the law in the most literal way as "frontlets between the eyes" (Deu 6:8)*; while the actually enjoined tasselled "borders" (Num 15:38) they enlarged, to make them conspicuous, as the Lord reproaches them. Naturally with this there was the love of conspicuous places also, at feasts and in the synagogues, and of greetings in the markets in which they were to be accosted as Rabbi, with all due respect.
{*They were "square capsules, covered with leather, containing on small scrolls of parchment these four sections of the law: Exo 13:1-10; Exo 11:1-10; Exo 12:1-51; Exo 13:1-22; Exo 14:1-31; Exo 15:1-27; Exo 16:1-36; Deu 6:4-9; Deu 11:13-21. The phylacteries were fastened by long leather straps to the forehead, and round the left arm, near the heart."}
(2) Such were the Jewish leaders: among the disciples Jesus enjoins them that such things were not to be. They were not to be called Rabbi, but to be all brethren; with Christ alone their real Teacher. There was to be no authority among them but His own; no claim of spiritual fatherhood but for the Heavenly Father; nor of leadership, again; for any but Christ. The "leader" here (kathegetes) is more than teacher: he is the teacher who may have many teachers under him. All this, as it plainly calls for most serious attention on the part of all who call Christ Lord in truth, so also it needs wisdom in the application: for all these terms, "teacher," "father," "leader,*" are applied in Scripture itself to disciples, and cannot be meant, therefore, to be in an absolute way forbidden. But it was in Israel then; as it has come to be so largely in the Christian Church today, that those who should have been the servants of their brethren claimed to be masters, and stood between the consciences of men and Him who is alone the Lord of the conscience. Neither the Church as a whole nor any class of men in it can claim aright authoritative place for their teaching, which Scripture alone (as the word of the Lord) has; and yet this is what, with many modifications, is continually being done, and the people of God also are on their side not merely allowing but prompting the claim. In this way the word of God loses irreparably; it is made plastic in the hands of men; and, dethroned from its place of authority, it becomes subject to the reproach which attaches to all human handiwork: infidelity finds its own in this degradation. The louder and more authoritative the Church’s voice, the more that of God through His word becomes silenced and unheard.
{*The exact word here is only found in the New Testament in this place, but it is only an intensive form of that used in Act 15:22, "leading men" and in Heb 13:7; Heb 13:17; Heb 13:20, "leaders," which the common version translates "those that have the rule."}
But how different is the "ministry" which is really that, which seeks no lordship for itself, and no authority, but, like the Baptist of old, points only to that Other, in whose presence it stands self-emptied, because filled, satisfied, glorified with the light, unseen of the world, into which it has entered! True, it will not lead men universally to faith, which Christ’s own presence in it was not able to do; yet the faith to which it brings men will be how different! But it is not of this the Lord speaks here. He carries us back instead to that glimpse of an open heaven, which He so lately Himself has opened to them, and again He repeats: "The greater of you shall be your servant." In service - in the ability to serve - true greatness is. And if the spirit of service be love, and love be the spirit of heaven, then it must be - there can be no avoidance of so plain a fact -that "whosoever shall exalt himself among you shall be humbled; and whosoever shall humble himself shall be exalted."
2. The Lord turns now and addresses personally the leaders of the people, smiting them with a sevenfold perfect "woe," because of their condition which He reveals in successive flashes of awful wrath. Yet no mere outburst of passionate emotion is it that manifests itself in these burning words. They are measured utterances in which the truth of divine judgment is as plain as its reality. And even in form, as they are sealed with the number of perfection; which is at the same time the stamp of an oath,* so this seven is in its structure, like that of the creative days, a 3. 3. 1, beginning indeed with the "light," which is in these "blind guides" but darkness, in the first three woes; in the second three, stigmatizing their duplicity - their double life; while the final one, which has the characters of both preceding sections, brands them as the true children of those who slew the prophets, however much (now that these were dead) they might build their sepulchres.
{*"To swear" is in Hebrew to "use or name seven (victims or witnesses) as to oneself, i.e. to bind oneself by an attested oath." (Davies’ Heb. Lexicon.) Compare Gen 21:28. Beersheba is thus the "well of seven" or "of the oath."}
a. (1) The first "woe" deals with their opposition to the Kingdom of heaven; which they shut up in the face of men, themselves neither entering in; nor (as far as lay in them) suffering others to enter. As it is put in Luke, they had "taken away the key of knowledge." With their legal and traditional teachings they had barred man’s approach to the only place of blessing in subjection to the glorious King in whom the Kingdom was presented to them, so that the outcasts of Israel, the "tax-gatherers and harlots," went into it more easily than they.
Thus they had not the light, and had refused the light: for if "light had come into the world," it is necessarily self-manifesting, as well as that which manifests other things; and men who refuse it do so, not because of insufficient evidence, but because they "love darkness rather than light." And such were the leaders of Israel: here is their condition written upon their forehead.
(2) But while they had taken away the key of real knowledge, it was in perfect accord with this that they should be zealots of their own false knowledge, and eager to gain proselytes to it. Perfectly accordant, too, it was that they should, in the condition in which they were, have proselytes that would go beyond themselves. Calling the light darkness they naturally called the darkness light, and as light would propagate it. The second woe, therefore, follows the first in easily intelligible order.*
{*The omission of the fourteenth verse here is justified as well by its character as by the textual evidence; for in this place it would not suit, however characteristic of the leaders it might be, and was. It is found in Mark and Luke.}
(3) The third woe again shows how the light in them was darkened by their inversion of true proportion as to the holy things. With them the gold of the temple was more highly estimated than the temple itself, and the gift than the altar that sanctified it. And then this casuistry was used to teach men how they could swear vain oaths and be excused responsibility - a responsibility which the Lord affirms in every case.
b. (1) The three following woes are plainly different from the preceding ones. They show us the double life of these Jewish leaders. In the first case, the profession of absolute integrity could hardly be more complete than in paying tithes of the very mint and anise and cummin, the least product of their fields; yet on another side there was an absolute deficiency in that which should have been rendered. The moral elements, the weightier matters of the law, were just with them the things that had no weight. They strained carefully out the gnat in such things, but they swallowed easily the camel!
(2) Then the cup and dish they cleansed on the outside; within they could keep them full of rapine and indulgence. With a correct outside the lusts within were retained and sanctioned.
(3) The third woe speaks of spiritual death within; with a good looking exterior only, like a whitened sepulchre. This is the most inward aspect of the evil, but it presents the same duplicity as those preceding it.
c. In the next and last case, there is a return to the beginning. The opposition to God with which this characterization began is here as real as there; yet it is covered with a veil which might hide it, not only from others but from themselves. The dead prophets they memorialized and honored - built sepulchres to the men their fathers killed. And this honor to the dead might well save them from all identification with the men that killed them, though these might unfortunately be their fathers. Alas, their present opposition to the Kingdom of God showed how much value was to be attached to such a profession of regard for men who lay quietly in their graves and never troubled them. They were witnesses themselves that they were children of those who slew the prophets. Let them fill up then the measure of their fathers: fill it up and more they would, as already He had shown them, for these with whom He was now face to face would be His betrayers and murderers.
And He would send them prophets and wise men and scribes, and the old history would be repeated. With the long record of ages before them, and that history of their forefathers preaching to them of God’s controversy with them for their sins, they would renew and consummate it in their own persons, making themselves heirs of all that long reign of unbelief and evil, of the blood-shedding crying out to God from Abel to Zechariah slain between the temple and the altar, in the very face of God Himself. If this were the Zechariah the prophet, of the returned remnant,* how the guilt of Israel is emphasized in this! and "which of the prophets have not your fathers persecuted?" are Stephen’s words to them at a later time. Upon this generation was to come the recompense of that long wearing out of the saints of God.
{*There seems no good reason for supposing any other than Zechariah the prophet to be meant, though Zechariah the son of Jehoiada is generally taken to be. But this leaves the "son of Barachias" to be accounted for, when the "son of Jehoiada" also would have better reminded them of the history. It seems also too far back (in Joash’s time) for the Lord’s purpose, when summing up the guilt of the people.
As to Zechariah the prophet, he was son of Berachiah, and grandson of Iddo, and "the Jewish Targum states that Zechariah the son of Iddo, a prophet and priest, was slain in the sanctuary" (See "The Irrationalism of Infidelity," by J. N. Darby, pp. 150-159).}
3. But here the pent-up love in the heart of Christ breaks out in a lament over the city which had rejected Him. City as it was of murderous hatred against those sent to it of God, how often would He have gathered her children together, as the hen gathers her brood under her wings! but they would not. Now their house - which He could no longer call His Father’s - was left to them as they would have it; but to real desolation. Nor would they see Him henceforth, according to the blessing which those rejected prophets had prophesied should yet be theirs, until, with hearts disciplined with sorrow, and in judgment made to learn the righteousness which alone could be the preparation for it, they should be enabled from their heart to say, "Blessed be he that cometh in the name of the Lord."
F. W. Grant, The Numerical Bible (4th ed., 1903) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Alexander MacLaren 1905 · Public Domain On v27 Mat 23:27 - Mat 23:39.
Matthew
THE KING’S FAREWELL
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Mat 23:27 - Mat 23:39.
If, with the majority of authorities, we exclude Mat 23:14 from the text, there are, in this chapter, seven woes, like seven thunders, launched against the rulers. They are scathing exposures, but, as the very word implies, full of sorrow as well as severity. They are not denunciations, but prophecies warning that the end of such tempers must be mournful. The wailing of an infinite compassion, rather than the accents of anger, sounds in them; and it alone is heard in the outburst of lamenting in which Christ’s heart runs over, as in a passion of tears, at the close. The blending of sternness and pity, each perfect, is the characteristic of this wonderful climax of our Lord’s appeals to His nation. Could such tones of love and righteous anger joined have been sent echoing through the ages in this Gospel, if they had not been heard?
I. The woe of the ‘whited sepulchres.’
The first four woes are directed mainly to the teachings of the scribes and Pharisees; the last three to their characters. The two first of these fasten on the same sin, of hypocritical holiness. There is, however, a difference between the representation of hypocrites under the metaphor of the clean outside of the cup and platter, and that of the whited sepulchre. In the former, the hidden sin is ‘extortion and excess’; that is, sensual enjoyment wrongly procured, of which the emblems of cup and plate suggest that good eating and drinking are a chief part. In the latter, it is ‘iniquity’-a more general and darker name for sin. In the former, the Pharisee is ‘blind,’ self-deceived in part or altogether; in the latter, stress is rather laid on his ‘appearance unto men.’ The repetition of the same charge in the two woes teaches us Christ’s estimate of the gravity and frequency of the sin.
The whitened tombs of Mohammedan saints still gleam in the strong sunlight on many a knoll in Palestine. If the Talmudical practice is as old as our Lord’s time, the annual whitewashing was lately over. Its purpose was not to adorn the tombs, but to make them conspicuous, so that they might be avoided for fear of defilement. So He would say, with terrible irony, that the apparent holiness of the rulers was really a sign of corruption, and a warning to keep away from them. What a blow at their self-complacency! And how profoundly true it is that the more punctiliously white the hypocrite’s outside, the more foul is he within, and the wider berth will all discerning people give him! The terrible force of the figure needs no dwelling on. In Christ’s estimate, such a soul was the very dwelling-place of death; and foul odours and worms and corruption filled its sickening recesses. Terrible words to come from His lips into which grace was poured, and bold words to be flashed at listeners who held the life of the Speaker in their hands! There are two sorts of hypocrites, the conscious and the unconscious; and there are ten of the latter for one of the former, and each ten times more dangerous. Established religion breeds them, and they are specially likely to be found among those whose business is to study the documents in which it is embodied. These woes are not like thunder-peals rolling above our heads, while the lightning strikes the earth miles away. A religion which is mostly whitewash is as common among us as ever it was in Jerusalem; and its foul accompaniments of corruption becoming more rotten every year, as the whitewash is laid on thicker, may be smelt among us, and its fatal end is as sure.
II. The woe of the sepulchre builders {Mat 23:29 - Mat 23:36}.
In these verses we have, first, the specification of another form of hypocrisy, consisting in building the prophets’ tombs, and disavowing the fathers’ murder of them. Honouring dead prophets was right; but honouring dead ones and killing living ones was conscious or unconscious hypocrisy. The temper of mind which leads to glorifying the dead witnesses, also leads to supposing that all truth was given by them; and hence that the living teachers, who carry their message farther, are false prophets. A generation which was ready to kill Jesus in honour of Moses, would have killed Moses in honour of Abraham, and would not have had the faintest apprehension of the message of either.
It is a great deal easier to build tombs than to accept teachings, and a good deal of the posthumous honour paid to God’s messengers means, ‘It’s a good thing they are dead, and that we have nothing to do but to put up a monument.’ Bi-centenaries and ter-centenaries and jubilees do not always imply either the understanding or the acceptance of the principles supposed to be glorified thereby. But the magnifiers of the past are often quite unconscious of the hollowness of their admiration, and honest in their horror of their fathers’ acts; and we all need the probe of such words as Christ’s to pierce the skin of our lazy reverence for our fathers’ prophets, and let out the foul matter below-namely, our own blindness to God’s messengers of to-day.
The statement of the hypocrisy is followed, in Mat 23:31, with its unmasking and condemnation. The words glow with righteous wrath at white heat, and end in a burst of indignation, most unfamiliar to His lips. Three sentences, like triple lightning flash from His pained heart. With almost scornful subtlety He lays hold of the words which He puts into the Pharisees’ mouths, to convict them of kindred with those whose deeds they would disown. ‘Our fathers, say you? Then you do belong to the same family, after all. You confess that you have their blood in your veins; and, in the very act of denying sympathy with their conduct, you own kindred. And, for all your protestations, spiritual kindred goes with bodily descent.’ Christ here recognises that children probably ‘take after their parents,’ or, in modern scientific terms, that ‘heredity’ is the law, and that it works more surely in the transmission of evil than of good.
Then come the awful words bidding that generation ‘fill up the measure of the fathers.’ They are like the other command to Judas to do his work quickly. They are more than permission, they are command; but such a command as, by its laying bare of the true character of the deed in view, is love’s last effort at prevention. Mark the growing emotion of the language. Mark the conception of a nation’s sins as one through successive generations, and the other, of these as having a definite measure, which being filled, judgment can no longer tarry. Generation after generation pours its contributions into the vessel, and when the last black drop which it can hold has been added, then comes the catastrophe. Mark the fatal necessity by which inherited sin becomes darker sin. The fathers’ crimes are less than the sons’. This inheritance increases by each transmission. The cloak strikes one more at each revolution of the hands.
It is hard to recognise Christ in the terrible words that follow. We have heard part of them from John the Baptist; and it sounded natural for him to call men serpents and the children of serpents, but it is somewhat of a shock to hear Jesus hurling such names at even the most sinful. But let us remember that He who sees hearts, has a right to tell harsh truths, and that it is truest kindness to strip off masks which hide from men their own real character, and that the revelation of the divine love in Jesus would be a partial and impotent revelation if it did not show us the righteous love which is wrath. There is nothing so terrible as the anger of gentle compassion, and the fiercest and most destructive wrath is ‘the wrath of the Lamb.’ Seldom, indeed, did He show that side of His character; but it is there, and the other side would not be so blessed as it is, unless that were there too.
The woe ends with the double prophecy that that generation would repeat and surpass the fathers’ guilt, and that on it would fall the accumulated penalties of past bloodshed. Note that solemn ‘therefore,’ which looks back to the whole preceding context, and forward to the whole subsequent. Because the rulers professed abhorrence of their fathers’ deeds, and yet inherited their spirit, they too would have their prophets, and would slay them. God goes on sending His messengers, because we reject them; and the more deaf men are, the more does He peal His words into their ears. That is mercy and compassion, that all men may be saved and come to the knowledge of the truth; but it is judgment too, and its foreseen effect must be regarded as part of the divine purpose in it. Christ’s desire is one thing, His purpose another. His desire is that all should find in His gospel ‘the savour of life’; but His purpose is that, if it be not that to any, it shall be to them the savour of death. Mark, too, the authority with which He, in the face of these scowling Pharisees, assumes the distinct divine prerogative of sending forth inspired men, who, as His messengers, shall stand on a level with the prophets of old. Mark His silence as to His own fate, which is only obscurely hinted at in the command to fill up the measure of the fathers. Observe the detailed enumeration of His messengers’ gifts,-’prophets’ under direct inspiration, like those of old, which may especially refer to the apostles; ‘wise men,’ like a Stephen or an Apollos; ‘scribes,’ such as Mark and Luke and many a faithful servant since, whose pen has loved to write the name above every name. Note the detailed prophecy of their treatment, which begins with slaying and goes down to the less severe scourging, and thence to the milder persecution. Do the three punishments belong to the three classes of messengers, the severest falling to the lot of the most highly endowed, and even the quiet penman being hunted from city to city?
We need not wriggle and twist to try to avoid admitting that the calling of the martyred Zacharias, ‘the son of Barachias,’ is an error of some one who confused the author of the prophetic book with the person whose murder is narrated in 2Ch 24:1 - 2Ch 24:27 We do not know who made the mistake, or how it appears in our text, but it is not honest to try to slur it over. The punishment of long ages of sin, carried on from father to son, does in the course of that history of the world, which is a part of the judgment of the world, fall upon one generation. It takes long for the mass of heaped-up sin to become top-heavy; but when it is so, it buries one generation of those who have worked at piling it up, beneath its down-rushing avalanche.
‘The mills of God grind slowly,
But they grind exceeding small.’
The catastrophes of national histories are prepared for by continuous centuries. The generation that laid the first powder-hornful of the train is dead and buried, long before the explosion which sends constituted order and institutions sky-high. The misery is that often the generation which has to pay the penalty has begun to awake to the sin, and would be glad to mend it, if it could. England in the seventeenth century, France in the eighteenth, America in the nineteenth, had to reap harvests from sins sown long before. Such is the law of the judgment wrought out by God’s providence in history. But there is another judgment, begun here and perfected hereafter, in which fathers and sons shall each bear their own burden, and reap accurately the fruit of what they have sown. ‘The soul that sinneth, it shall die.’
III. The parting wail of rejected love.
The lightning flashes of the sevenfold woes end in a rain of pity and tears. His full heart overflows in that sad cry of lamentation over the long-continued foiling of the efforts of a love that would fain have fondled and defended. What intensity of feeling is in the redoubled naming of the city! How yearningly and wistfully He calls, as if He might still win the faithless one, and how lingeringly unwilling He is to give up hope! How mournfully, rather than accusingly, He reiterates the acts which had run through the whole history, using a form of the verbs which suggests continuance. Mark, too, the matter-of-course way in which Christ assumes that He sent all the prophets whom, through the generations, Jerusalem had stoned.
So the lament passes into the solemn final leave-taking, with which our Lord closes His ministry among the Jews, and departs from the temple. As, in the parable of the marriage-feast, the city was emphatically called ‘their city,’ so here the Temple, in whose courts He was standing, and which in a moment He was to quit for ever, is called ‘your house,’ because His departure is the withdrawing of the true Shechinah. It had been the house of God: now He casts it off, and leaves it to them to do as they will with it. The saddest punishment of long-continued rejection of His pleading love, is that it ceases at last to plead. The bitterest woe for those who refuse to render to Him the fruits of the vineyard, is to get the vineyard for their own, undisturbed. Christ’s utmost retribution for obstinate blindness is to withdraw from our sight. All the woes that were yet to fall, in long, dreary succession on that nation, so long continued in its sin, so long continued in its misery, were hidden in that solemn departure of Christ from the henceforward empty temple. Let us fear lest our unfaithfulness meet the like penalty! But even the departure does not end His yearnings, nor close the long story of the conflict between God’s beseeching love and their unbelief. The time shall come when the nation shall once more lift up, with deeper, truer adoration, the hosannas of the triumphal entry. And then a believing Israel shall see their King, and serve Him. Christ never takes final leave of any man in this world. It is ever possible that dumb lips may be opened to welcome Him, though long rejected; and His withdrawals are His efforts to bring about that opening. When it takes place, how gladly does He return to the heart which is now His temple, and unveil His beauty to the long-darkened eyes!
Alexander MacLaren, Expositions of Holy Scripture (1904–1910) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
J. R. Dummelow 1909 · Public Domain On v1 Denunciation of the Pharisees
Denunciation of the Pharisees
1-36. Final denunciation of the Scribes and Pharisees. The other synoptists insert in this place a brief utterance directed against the scribes (Mar_12:38-40; Luk_20:45-47), but the discourse as it stands is peculiar to St. Matthew. A portion of it, however, is inserted by St. Luke at an earlier period, on the occasion of a dinner at a Pharisee's house (Luk_11:37-52) and this suggests that we have here a collection of sayings against the scribes and Pharisees really spoken on various occasions. The scene is the Temple. In the foreground are Jesus and His disciples; a little farther off the multitudes; in the background are the discomfited Pharisees, who, instead of attacking, are now attacked. Christ addresses first the multitudes (Mat_23:1-7), then the disciples (Mat_23:8-12), finally the scribes and Pharisees (Mat_23:13-36).
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2. Sit in Moses' seat] The scribes (who were ordained with the laying-on of hands) claimed to have received their authority through an unbroken succession from Moses. The 'sitting' refers to the judicial power, and the authority to teach, which all scribes or rabbis possessed, and which was centred in the Great Sanhedrin. In rabbinical writings one who succeeds a rabbi at the head of his school is described as 'sitting on his seat,' because the rabbis taught sitting on a raised seat. Sit] or, 'sat,' i.e. succeeded to Moses' authority.
3. All therefore whatsoever] In spite of the wickedness and hypocrisy of the scribes, they were to be obeyed and respected on account of their office, to which they had a legitimate right, until their place was taken by the Apostles. Similarly a duly ordained Christian minister, however much he may deserve to be despised as a man, is yet to be tolerated as Christ's representative till he be deposed by lawful authority.
4. Luk_11:46. Bind heavy burdens] a metaphor from overloading a beast of burden. The 'burdens,' which they 'bind into bundles,' are the intricate and troublesome observances which the scribes had added to the written Law, and had declared to be more binding than the Law itself: see on Mat_15:2. The one good point about the Sadducees was that they rejected these human traditions. Will not move them (Lk 'touch them') with one of their fingers] much less bear them upon their shoulders. They require their disciples to keep onerous rules, which they themselves will not observe, or (as others interpret it) they will not stretch out a finger to adjust these legal burdens to the backs of others, so that they may comfortably bear them.
5. Make broad their phylacteries] Every male Jew above the age of thirteen was required to say both morning and evening, except on sabbaths and feasts, when the synagogue services took their place, 'the prayers of the phylacteries.' The phylacteries themselves were cubical boxes (size from ½ in. to 1½ in.), made of the skin of a clean animal, and attached to a broad strip of material, by which they were bound to the body at prayer-time. Two were worn. The head-phylactery was so fastened to the brow that the prayer-box came between the eyes. This was the one which the Pharisees made broad, i.e. as large and conspicuous as possible. The arm-phylactery was tied round the left arm on the inside, so as to be near the heart, and during use was invisible, being covered by the sleeve. The head-phylactery was divided into four compartments, containing on little rolls these four portions of scripture: Exo_13:1-10; Exo_13:11-16; Deu_4:4-9; Deu_11:13-21. The arm-phylactery contained the same passages written on a single roll. The rabbis held these phylacteries, or tephillin, in the highest veneration. They were to be kissed when put on or off, they were holier than the frontal of the high priest's mitre, they were a preservative against demons, whence their name phylacteries, i.e. amulets (from a Gk. word meaning 'to guard'). They were sworn by, by touching them. God Himself was said to wear them, and to swear by them when He swore by 'His holy arm.' Orthodox Jews find the wearing of the phylacteries commanded in the Law (Exo_13:9-16; Deu_6:8; Deu_11:18), but the Karaite Jews dispute the interpretation and do not wear them. The phylacterial prayers being said at stated times, the Pharisees would arrange to be seen saying them in public, at the 'corners of the streets': see on Mat_6:5. The borders] or, rather, 'holy tassels': see on Mat_9:20. In our Lord's time they were worn publicly on the four corners of the outer garment. Modern Jews wear them secretly on an under garment called a tallith, for fear of ridicule. In the synagogue a second and larger tallith is worn during the prayers to cover the head and neck. This tallith, or prayer-veil, was perhaps in use in our Lord's time.
6. Luk_11:48; Mar_12:38. The chief seats in the synagogues were the semicircular bench round the ark facing the congregation. See further on Mat_20:28; Mar_12:39; Luk_14:7.
7. Rabbi] (Aramaic) lit. 'my master,' a title of respect applied to a scribe duly ordained in Palestine (cp. our 'Reverend'). Our Lord, though unordained, received the title by courtesy.
9. Father (Aramaic abba) and masters (Mat_23:10) are also titles of the scribes, the former being chiefly used as a prefix to the name, e.g. Abba Shaul. Some Christians take these prohibitions literally, and say that it is antichristian to use such titles of respect as 'Reverend,' 'Father in God,' 'Venerable,' and the like, which correspond to the titles of the scribes. But what Jesus condemned was not the titles themselves, so much as the presumptuous claims which the titles implied. The rabbis really did put themselves in the place of God, and almost on an equality with Him. Their traditions were more binding than the Law, and were regarded as in a sense binding upon God. One rabbi went the length of being buried in white garments to show that he was worthy to appear before his Maker. Another is said to have been summoned to heaven by God to settle a point of the law of ceremonial purification: see on Mat_15:2.
13-36. The Seven Woes on the Scribes and Pharisees. Jesus, knowing that His death was at hand, and that the conversion of His enemies was hopeless, poured upon them a torrent of righteous indignation, in the manner of the prophets of old. These woes apply equally to the ministers of the gospel, who having the cure of souls, abuse it as did the Scribes.
13. Luk_11:52. Shut up, etc.] i.e. prevent the nation from being converted. The Kingdom of Heaven is here the Church.
14. The omission of this v:, which has been wrongly inserted from Mar_12:40; Luk_20:47, reduces the eight woes to seven: see on Mk.
15. To make one proselyte] The Ethiopie version has the interesting reading 'to baptise one proselyte.' As, however, there is no evidence that the Pharisees were particularly anxious to make proselytes to Judaism, it is perhaps more probable that our Lord alludes to their zeal in making proselytes from among the Jews to their own sect.
Child of hell] lit. 'a son of Gehenna,' i.e. one fit to go thither: see on Mat_5:22. Why two-fold more? Because the vices of teachers appear in an accentuated form, and without any redeeming features, in scholars. Others say, 'Because out of a bad heathen they made a worse Jew.' Others suggest a different translation altogether, viz. 'You make him a more deceitful child of hell than yourselves.'
16-22. On dishonest casuistry. The lax moralists of that time invented ways of evading the obligation of truthfulness, by saying that certain forms of swearing were binding and others not. Thus an oath by the Temple or the altar might be broken without sin, but not an oath by the gold of the Temple, or by the gift on the altar. Such refinements were a direct encouragement to dishonesty and untruthfulness, and our Lord denounced them with terrible severity, declaring that a man's word or oath, in whatever words expressed, is absolutely binding. The lesson here taught is truthfulness and honesty in general, as well as the sanctity of oaths. Christ's teaching here is not inconsistent with Mat_5:34, where from a higher ideal standpoint He forbids oaths altogether.
16. It is nothing] i.e. it is not binding. The gold of the temple] J. Lightfoot is probably right in regarding this gold, together with the 'gift on the altar' (Mat_23:18), as dedicated to God, i.e. as Corban. An oath in which the word Corban was mentioned was held to be specially binding: see on Mat_15:5, Mat_15:6. A debtor] i.e. bound by his oath.
23. Luk_11:42. J. Lightfoot remarks, 'The tithing of herbs is from the rabbins. This tithing was added by the scribes, and yet approved of by our Saviour, when He saith, “Ye ought not to leave these undone.” The more scrupulous rabbis tithed not only the seeds but the leaves and stalks of these herbs.
Cummin] used in cooking as a condiment.
The weightier matters] Alluding to bat not adopting the rabbinical distinction between the 'heavy' and 'light' precepts of the Law. Among the 'heavy' precepts were the sabbath, circumcision, and the prohibition to profane the Divine Name. Hillel and Shammai differed somewhat in their classification of the 613 precepts which the Law was supposed to contain. Judgment] stands here, by a Hebraism, for 'righteousness.'. Faith] honesty, truthfulness, trustworthiness. These ought ye] i.e. Ye ought to have observed judgment, mercy and faith, and also to have tithed mint, anise and cummin.
24. A proverb meaning that the scribes scrupulously avoid insignificant breaches of the Law, while continually breaking its great commandments. Strain at a gnat] RV 'strain out a gnat,' viz. out of the wine that you are about to drink. The 'gnat' here is probably a minute animal bred from the fermentation of wine, and regarded by the rabbis as unclean. The camel was also unclean (Lev_11:4).
25. Luk_11:39. Ye make clean] see Mar_7:4; But within they] (i.e. the cups and dishes) are full of food and drink which has been obtained by extortion and excess.
26. Cleanse first that] i.e. first earn your meat and drink by honest labour, not by extortion, then your cups and dishes will be clean in God's sight.
27. Whited sepulchres] Contact with sepulchres defiled, so that the Jews smeared them with limewash yearly on the 15th day of Adar lest travellers touching them unawares should be made unclean. In Luk_11:44; Jesus compares the Pharisees to unmarked, here to marked, sepulchres, because they defiled those who came into close contact with them
28. Alexander Jannæus, the Maccabean king of the Jews (Matthew 104-78 b.c.), gave utterance to a very similar sentiment. On his deathbed he warned his wife to 'take heed of painted men, pretending to be Pharisees, whose works are the works of Zimri, and yet they expect the reward of Phineas.' 'Painted men' are explained to mean 'men whose outward show doth not answer to their nature.'
29-31. Luk_11:47, Luk_11:48.
29. Tombs of the prophets, etc.] It is natural to suppose that Jesus alluded to some actual building operations then going on, or recently completed near Jerusalem. Herod the Great appears to have built or adorned the tombs and cenotaphs of many Jewish worthies. Calvin well remarks, 'It is customary with hypocrites thus to honour after their death good teachers and holy ministers of God, whom they cannot endure while they are alive. It is a hypocrisy which costs little to profess a warm regard for those who are now silent.'
31. Unto yourselves] or, 'against yourselves.' The v. is an ironical commentary on the statement of the Pharisees (Mat_23:30), 'If we had been in the days of our fathers,' etc. Jesus retorts, 'You witness to yourselves by your words that you are the literal sons of those who killed the prophets. You witness against yourselves by your actions that you are also their sons spiritually, for you, like them, reject the words of the prophets who are among you, viz. the Baptist and Myself.'
32. Fill ye up then] i.e. 'Carry out your wickedness to the full, as your fathers did, by putting Me to death. You desire to do so, and I shall not hinder you.'
33. See Mat_3:7; Mat_12:34.
34-36. Luk_11:49-51;
34. I send unto you] The parallel in St. Luke (which see) has 'Therefore also said the wisdom of God, I will send unto them prophets,' etc. The prophets, etc., are the apostles, prophets, teachers, evangelists, and other ministers of the Apostolic Church. Observe that here, as in Mat_13:52, our Lord speaks of Christian ministers under Jewish titles as 'wise men' (i.e. rabbis) and scribes.
35. That upon you] 'The scribes and Pharisees are regarded as the representatives of the people, for whom, as their leaders, they are held responsible' (Meyer). The righteous blood] i.e. the penalty for. shedding it.
Zacharias son of Barachias] Jesus probably said 'Zachariah,' as in St. Luke, without mentioning the father's name, but the evangelist or one of the earliest copyists, who thought it necessary to distinguish among the twentynine Zachariahs of the OT., and understood the canonical prophet to be meant, added the words 'son of Barachias.' There can be no real doubt that the person meant is Zechariah, son of Jehoiada (see 2Ch_24:21), concerning whom there was a Jewish tradition, that his blood could not be removed by washing, but remained bubbling on the ground where it had been shed. In the Jewish arrangement of the books of the sacred Canon, Chronicles stands last, so that Jesus chose His examples from the first and last books of the Jewish Bible.
37-39. Pathetic lament over Jerusalem (Luk_13:34-35). St. Luke places these words in another, and much less suitable connexion. As they occur in St. Matthew they form a worthy close to our Lord's ministry in Jerusalem.
37. How often] 'It is fair to assume that Christ's exclamation over Jerusalem presupposes that the capital had repeatedly been the scene of His ministrations, which coincides with the visits on festival occasions recorded by John: cp. Act_10:39;' (Meyer). Under her wings] see 2Es_1:30.
38. Your house] i.e. either, (1) the city itself, (2) the Temple, or, (3) the Jewish dispensation.
39. Till ye shall say, Blessed is He, etc.] i.e. either, (1) till the Second Advent, when they will see Christ as judge, and will unwillingly say 'Blessed is He that cometh,' or, (2) till the conversion of Israel (see Romans 11), when true believers will see Christ by faith and willingly say,' 'Blessed is He that cometh,' etc.
J. R. Dummelow, A Commentary on the Holy Bible (Macmillan, 1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
J. W. McGarvey 1914 · Public Domain On v1 J. W. McGarvey's The Fourfold Gospel [CX. Last Public…
J. W. McGarvey's The Fourfold Gospel [CX. Last Public Discourse].
CX. JESUS' LAST PUBLIC DISCOURSE. DENUNCIATION OF SCRIBES AND PHARISEES. (In the court of the Temple. Tuesday, April 4, A. D. 30.) aMATT. XXIII. 1-39; bMARK XII. 38-40; cLUKE XX. 45-47.
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a1 Then spake Jesus b38 And in his teaching cin the hearing of all the people he said unto athe multitudes, and to his disciples [he spoke in the most public manner], 2 saying, c46 Beware of the scribes, aThe scribes and the Pharisees sit on Moses' seat: 3 all things whatsoever they bid you, these do and observe: but do not ye after their works: for they say, and do not. [As teachers of the law of Moses the scribes and Pharisees were the only religious guides whom the people had, so they were obliged to follow them as expounders of that law, but they were no means to look to them as living exemplification of that law.] 4 Yea, they bind heavy burdens and grievous to be borne, and lay them on men's shoulders; but they themselves will not move them with their fingers. [The law itself was a heavy yoke ( Act_15:10), but these teachers added to the burden of it a vast volume of traditions, but they themselves did not keep these traditions, excusing themselves by inventing subtle distinctions like those in reference to the Corban ( Mat_15:4-6) and to oaths ( Mat_15:16-22). See Exo_13:3-10, Exo_13:11-16, Deu_6:4-9, Deu_11:13-21. These were enclosed in a leather case and were fastened to the forehead and left arm. The authority for wearing them was purely traditional, and the practice seems to have arisen from a literal interpretation of Exo_13:9, Exo_13:16, Deu_6:8, Deu_11:18. The Pharisees made the leather case large, that their righteousness might be more conspicuous], and enlarge the borders i of their garments [These were the fringes mentioned in Num_15:38, Num_15:39. But the Pharisees offended again, even in their obedience, by wearing broader fringes than other people, that they might appear more religious], cwho desire to walk in long robes [This robe was a professional dress, as marked as that worn by priests and kings. It showed that its wearer was professionally religious], a6 and love the chief places at feasts [see Exo_22:22-24, Deu_27:19.] a8 But be not ye called Rabbi: for one is your teacher [Christ], and all ye are brethren. 9 And call no man your father upon the earth: for one is your Father, i even he who is in heaven. 10 Neither be ye called masters: for one is your Master, even the Christ. 11 But he that is greatest among you shall be your servant. [See pp. 557, 558.] 12 And whosoever shall exalt himself shall be humbled; and whosoever shall humble himself shall be exalted. [See pp. 431, 494, 537. Thus Jesus reproves those who make religion a matter of praise-seeking ostentation, whether they do so by seeking position, or by peculiarity of dress, or by assuming or accepting titles of honor or distinction. This sin of ostentation was the first enumerated sin of the Pharisees.] 13 But woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye shut up the kingdom of heaven against men: for ye enter not in yourselves, neither suffer ye them that are entering in to enter. [Our Lord's language is figurative and presents the kingdom of God as a house around the door of which the Pharisees have gathered, not entering in themselves, and blocking the way against those who would enter. This they did by their opposition to Jesus. For a similar charge see p. 315.] 15 Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye compass sea and land to make one proselyte; and when he is become so, ye make him twofold more a son of hell than yourselves. [Proselytes here meant are not those converted from heathenism to worship God, but Jews converted to Phariseeism. These become worse than their instructors, because each generation drifted farther from the law and became more zealously and completely devoted to the traditions.] 16 Woe unto you, ye blind guides [Jesus above denounced them for their hypocrisy, but this woe is pronounced upon them for their [608] ignorance and folly], that say, Whosoever shall swear by the temple, it is nothing; but whosoever shall swear by the gold of the temple, he is a debtor. [The word "debtor" is here meant to describe one who owes it to himself and to God to keep his oath. The Pharisees graduated oaths according to their own foolish conceptions of the sanctity of the object invoked, so that if the object by which a man swore was not sacred enough, he was not forsworn if he did not keep his oath. Esteeming the gold of the temple more sacred than the temple itself, they held that an oath by the former was binding while an oath by the latter was not. The gold meant is probably the golden ornaments on the temple.] 17 Ye fools and blind: for which is greater, the gold, or the temple that hath sanctified the gold? 18 And, Whosoever shall swear by the altar, it is nothing; but whosoever shall swear by the gift that is upon it, he is a debtor. 19 Ye blind: for which is greater, the gift, or the altar that sanctifieth the gift? 20 He therefore that sweareth by the altar, sweareth by it, and by all things thereon. 21 And he that sweareth by the temple, sweareth by it, and by him that dwelleth therein. 22 And he that sweareth by the heaven, sweareth by the throne of God, and by him that sitteth thereon. [Our Lord designed to teach that all oaths were binding. See p. 243.] 23 Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye tithe mint and anise and cummin, and have left undone the weightier matters of the law, justice, and mercy, and faith: but these ye ought to have done, and not to have left the other undone. [See p. 313. The anise was used for medical purposes and also for culinary seasoning, so that Pliny says "the kitchen can not be without it." Cummin also was a condiment and a medicine, the bruised seed mixed with wine being used as a styptic, especially after circumcision. It was also used as an ingredient for salves and plasters such as were applied to the ulcers of cattle produced from the bites, grubs, etc., of insects.] 24 Ye blind guides, that strain out the gnat, and [609] swallow the camel! [A proverbial expression, indicating care for little faults and a corresponding unconcern for big ones.] 25 Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye cleanse the outside of the cup and of the platter, but within they are full from extortion and excess. [Jesus here compares the Pharisees to a woman who washes the outside of her dishes and leaves the inside unclean. But in describing that inner uncleanness he passes from the figure to the reality, and specifies that it consists of extortion and self-indulgence. They made their outside clean by traditionary ablutions. See pp. 393, 394.] 26 Thou blind Pharisee, cleanse first the inside of the cup and of the platter, that the outside thereof may become clean also. [Here again the literal peeps through the figurative: a pure inner life makes clean outward conduct.] 27 Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye are like unto whited sepulchres, which outwardly appear beautiful, but inwardly are full of dead men's bones, and of all uncleanness. 28 Even so ye also outwardly appear righteous unto men, but inwardly ye are full of hypocrisy and iniquity. [Luke records Jesus as having taught this lesson by an exactly opposite figure. See p. 313. There men were contaminated by the touch of a grave because there was nothing outside to notify them of its presence. Here men are contaminated by the same thing because the outside is rendered so white and beautiful that men are deceived into thinking that the inside is harmless.] 29 Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye build the sepulchres of the prophets, and garnish the tombs of the righteous, 30 and say, If we had been in the days of our fathers, we should not have been partakers with them in the blood of the prophets. 31 Wherefore ye witness to yourselves, that ye are sons of them that slew the prophets. 32 Fill ye up then the measure of your fathers. [See p. 314.] 33 Ye serpents, ye offspring of vipers, how shall ye escape the judgment of hell? [See p. 73.] 34 Therefore, behold, I send unto you [610] prophets, and wise men, and scribes: some of them shall ye kill and crucify; and some of them shall ye scourge in your synagogues, and persecute from city to city: 35 that upon you may come all the righteous blood shed on the earth, from the blood of Abel the righteous unto the blood of Zachariah son of Barachiah, whom ye slew between the sanctuary and the altar. 36 Verily I say unto you, All these things shall come upon this generation. [See pp. 314, 315.] 37 O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, that killeth the prophets, and stoneth them that are sent unto her! how often would I have gathered thy children together, even as a hen gathereth her chickens under her wings, and ye would not! 38 Behold, your house is left unto you desolate. 39 For I say unto you, Ye shall not see me henceforth, till ye shall say, Blessed i is he that cometh in the name of the Lord. [See pp. 491, 492.]
[FFG 606-611]
J. W. McGarvey (with Philip Y. Pendleton), Commentaries on the New Testament (The Fourfold Gospel, 1914; Acts; and the epistles) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
C. I. Scofield 1917 · Public Domain On vv2, 5, 14, 15, 16, 28, 34, 35, 36, 39 sit in
sit in
Cf. Ezr 7:6; Ezr 7:25; Ezr 7:26. Jesus’ disciples were to honour the law, but not the hypocritical teachers of it.
The Scofield Reference Bible (1917 edition), notes by C. I. Scofield — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Arno C. Gaebelein 1922 · Public Domain On v1 11. The Woes of the King and His Lamentation…
11. The Woes of the King and His Lamentation over Jerusalem.
CHAPTER 23
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1. The Hypocrisy of the Pharisees.(Mat 23:1-12.)
2. The Woes of the King upon Them.(Mat 23:13-36.)
3. The Lamentation over Jerusalem. (Mat 23:37-39.)
For the last time we have seen the Pharisees in the presence of the Lord in the previous chapter. What an important part these ecclesiastical leaders of the professing people of God play in this Gospel. They rejected Him; hated Him without a cause, and after they found they could not ensnare Him they resorted to that which Satan had put into their wicked hearts “that they might kill Him.” That which the Lord had foretold in His parable of the vineyard is now soon to take place. They made their plans and are ready to take their King and deliver Him into the hands of the Gentiles to be crucified. He is now soon to be taken, delivered into man’s hand, going to the cross, where He, who knew no sin, was to be made sin for us. How solemn His words when He stood before Pilate and declared, “Thou hadst no authority whatever against me if it were not given to thee from above. On this account he that has delivered me up to thee has greater sin.” But before we reach the story of the passion of the King, so wonderfully told in this Gospel, we find the King first of all passing judgment upon these evil leaders of the people. In the next place we have recorded, as nowhere else in the Gospel records, the great Olivet discourse, in which the King reveals the future. Here we find prophecy concerning the Jews and Jerusalem, the church and the Gentiles.
The chapter which is before us contains the “Woes” of the King upon the Pharisees. It is one of the most solemn ones in Matthew. Pharisaism is still in the earth; Ritualism, Traditionalism and with it the rejection of the authority of the Lord and His written Word, is Pharisaism, that evil leaven against which the Lord warns. This Christian Pharisaism is far worse than the old Jewish system. And where in Christendom is a little of that leaven lacking? Only the Grace of God, an unbroken fellowship with the Father and His Son in the power of the Holy Spirit, can keep the individual believer from manifesting a Pharisaical spirit.
“Then Jesus spoke to the multitude and to His disciples, saying: The scribes and the Pharisees have set themselves down in Moses’ seat; all things therefore, whatever they may tell you, do keep. But do not after their works, for they say and do not, but bind burdens heavy and hard to bear, and lay them on the shoulders of men, but will not move them with their finger. And all their works they do to be seen of men: for they make broad their phylacteries and enlarge the borders of their garments, and love the chief place in feasts, and the first seats in the synagogue, and salutations in the market places, and to be called of men, Rabbi, Rabbi. But ye, be ye not called Rabbi; for one is your instructor, and all ye are brethren. And call not any one your father upon earth; for one is your Father, He who is in the heavens. Neither be called leaders, for one is your leader, the Christ. But the greatest of you shall be your servant. And whoever shall exalt himself shall be humbled, and whoever shall humble himself shall be exalted” (Mat 23:1-12). These are indeed cutting words. Out of His mouth goes a two-edged sword. Well may these words be placed in connection with the church message to Pergamos, in which the glorified Christ saith, “These things says He that has the sharp two-edged sword.” Pergamos shows prophetically that period of the church when Ritualism, Nicolaitanism (Clericalism) came in like a flood and a certain class of men assumed the place of authority in the church, as leaders, priests, and began to dictate and teach the traditions of men. And ever since that time and through that into which Pergamos developed, Thyatira (Roman Catholicism), the leaven of the Pharisees, has worked on in Christendom and is still working. The Lord speaks first of all of the place which the scribes and Pharisees had chosen. They had placed themselves in Moses’ seat. This no doubt He spoke in reference to legislation and not in regard to doctrine.
They had occupied the legislative seat, and when their sect started it was with a zeal for the law, which God had given through Moses. Soon, however, they became corrupt. In that part of the Talmud which is called the Mishnah it is stated that they were to be regarded as if put into that place by Moses himself, taking their places in his seat, and were to be obeyed, so far as outward observations were concerned. [The Talmud is composed of two parts, the Gemara and the Mishna. Mishna means “repetition,” and was a repetition of the written law.]
As far as the God given law was concerned and its observances, they were to do and to keep what the Pharisees said. What a wise exhortation this is! He, the King, fully recognized the position they had taken; if He had spoken otherwise, they might have accused Him of inciting the multitudes to riot against their authority. Rom 13:1-7 contains a similar wise exhortation by the Spirit of God for this present age. Against which the Lord warns is their works. There were two great schools among these Pharisees as we stated before; the school of Hillel and the school of Shammai. These were occupied with interpretations of the law. What strange interpretations were given, what tedious burdens were bound upon the people, which God never meant, could easily be illustrated and demonstrated by quotations from that tremendous literary work, the Talmud. “The burdens became intolerable. The blame rested equally on both the great rabbinic schools. For although the school of Hillel was supposed in general to make the yoke lighter, and that of Shammai heavier, yet not only did they agree on many points, but the school of Hillel was not unfrequently even more strict than that of his rival. In truth their differences seem too often only prompted by a spirit of opposition, so that the serious business of religion became in their hands one of rival authority and mere wrangling” (Edersheim). But while they put these burdens upon the people and domineered over them they neither kept them nor did they move a finger to remove them. In connection with this external show of religion, for which the Pharisees stood, the Phylacteries are mentioned. The general Christian reader has little information about the meaning of this word. The word “phylacteries” means “observatories” to keep the remembrance of the Law alive. In different parts of the Pentateuch we read these words, “And thou shalt bind these words for a sign on thy hand, and they shall be for frontlets between thine eyes. And thou shalt write them upon the posts of thy house, and upon thy gates” (Exo 13:9-16; Deu 6:9, etc.). The last named injunction, “Write them upon the posts of thy house,” is literally practised by orthodox Jews, by writing these words upon a piece of parchment, inclosing them in a tin box, and this box is nailed on the door posts. From the same words the phylacteries, or tephillin, were instituted. These are two strips of leather to each of which is attached a small box; in these boxes there are likewise pieces of parchment upon which the Hebrew text of Deu 6:4-8 is written. The one leather strip with this box is wound around the forehead, the box resting in the middle of the forehead, while the second strip is wound around the arm, the left arm, which is nearest to the heart. The ends of this one is made to form the Hebrew letter “shin,” which stands for Shaddai, the Almighty. Strange and curious laws are connected with the preparation of the phylacteries, the wearing of them; the rabbinical writings contain much on the phylacteries which is superstitious. Thus the talmudical tract Berachoth declares, “It is necessary to wear the phylacteries nights in the home as they drive away the demons.” Orthodox Jews use them as their fathers did, and there is no doubt that the wearing of phylacteries in the twentieth century by strictly orthodox Jews and their belief in them is the same as in the days when our Lord spake these words. It is seen that the phylacteries sprung from a literal interpretation of the above passages in the Pentateuch, an outward religious observance for which there was no foundation whatever in the law. The Lord, however, does not attack this, we believe, ancient custom, but He attacks the habits of the Pharisees to wear the phylacteries and the enlarged borders of their garments (Num 15:38), so as to be seen of men. They did it all for show; selfishness controlled them and they had no heart for the things of God. They loved the first places, the honor and praise of men; flatterers, they enjoyed and loved to receive honoring salutations from the side of men in market places. “Rabbi, Rabbi,” which means teacher or instructor, they loved to be addressed as well as “Abba,” which is “father.” All these titles simply sprang from their self-seeking. The Lord now gives teaching, telling his hearers that which concerns of course disciples alone, that they are brethren and that they have but one teacher, the Christ Himself; that they should not call man father, but one is their Father, God Himself. The greatest of His own is the One, who is a servant of all. This reaches over into the new dispensation. The instructor, the guide, is the Lord and the Holy Spirit. Alas! how the enemy has succeeded in producing and fostering this distinctive mark of Pharisaism in Christendom, with its man-made institutions, titles, honors, offices and leaderships. It was not so in the beginning, but corruption has entered in and we find at the end of the age a Pharisaism far worse than that which the Lord here condemns. And there is a judgment coming upon that boasting, proud, Pharisaical, ritualistic Christendom. The judgment broke over the heads of the Pharisees, their religious system, and so will it break over Christendom. Then those who exalted themselves will be humbled and those who humbled themselves will be exalted. What an encouragement for every true servant of the Lord Jesus Christ to follow strictly these words of our Lord, to go on under Him as Lord and under the guidance of His Spirit, to have no name among men, but to be known of God. In this there is rest and joy and the power of God rests upon the testimony of such who serve in this spirit.
And there is a deeper meaning still to Mat 23:8-10. We quote from one who has expressed it in simple as well as beautiful language. “It is a declaration of the essential relations of man to God. Three things constitute a Christian: What He is, what he believes, what he does; doctrine, experience, practice. Man needs for his spiritual being three things: Life, instruction, guidance; just what our Lord declares in the ten words of the Gospel, ‘I am the way, and the truth and the life.’ The Roman Catholic ‘church’... has caught these three things with its usual insight and avows its ability to supply them. The office of the Roman Catholic ‘church’ is claimed to be threefold: the priestly office imparting and sustaining life by means of the sacraments; the teaching office endowed with infallibility; the guiding office by spiritual confessors. These three things are just what our Lord forbids in the passage under consideration. Acknowledge no man as Father; for no man can impart or sustain spiritual life; install no man as an infallible teacher; allow no one to assume the office of spiritual director; your relation to God and to Christ is as close as that of any other person.” (Western: The Genesis of the New Testament)
And now the Lord takes up His “Woes.” It is a fearful uncovering of the hearts of the Pharisees and their corruption. And thus He lays bare the hidden things. He will do so again. There are eight woes given in this chapter, though it seems the fourteenth verse does not belong to this chapter. It is, however, found in both the Gospels of Mark and Luke, so that it is evident the Lord also uttered these words. In different respects there is a correspondency between the first discourse of our Lord in this Gospel, the sermon on the mountain and the last one addressed to the multitudes and to His disciples. The Olivet discourse is addressed exclusively to the disciples, who have asked Him. The Sermon on the Mount, as generally the great discourse in the fifth, sixth and seventh chapters of this Gospel is called, was addressed to the multitudes and the disciples. What this great discourse stands for, the proclamation of the King, we learned in our exposition. He sat there as the great One greater than Moses, expounding and expanding the Law. Here He is upon the seat of judgment; the King is the Judge. In the sermon on the Mount He utters His Blessings, Beatitudes, but here as judge He pronounces His Woes.
We shall not follow these woes in a detailed exposition, but mention the leading thoughts in them.
“But woe unto you scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites, for ye shut up the kingdom of the heavens before men; for ye do not enter, nor do ye suffer those that are entering to go in” (Mat 23:13). The Kingdom has been preached unto them, but they shut willfully their eyes and turned away from the light, which had burst upon them. They did not enter in and kept others away from it. And this is an awful “woe” which falls likewise upon the modern Pharisees, though in a different sense. How many of the man-made “priests” and “teachers,” following the traditions of men, usurping the place of the Lord Jesus Christ, are themselves unsaved and keep others from knowing the truth.
Omitting that which is given as the next verse, we read the second Woe. “Woe to you scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites, for ye compass the sea and the dry land to make one proselyte, and when he is become such, ye make him twofold more the son of hell than yourselves” (Mat 23:15). Coming from such lips, what a condemnation they contain! They were sectarians, and sectarianism is the fruit of the flesh, as clearly taught in the Epistles. They did everything to make proselytes, and that too for selfish motives. Proselytism was condemned by the rabbinical schools. One of the talmudical sayings is, “Proselytes are as a scab to Israel.” It was for selfish reasons they made proselytes to their sect. Is it any different in the proselyting Christendom, down to the smallest party? And after they had attracted some to themselves they made them worse than they were. An awful indictment indeed.
Woe unto you, blind guides, who say, Whosoever shall swear by the temple, it is nothing; but whosoever shall swear by the gold of the temple he is a debtor. Fools and blind, for which is greater, the gold, or the temple which sanctifieth the gold? And, whosoever shall swear by the altar, it is nothing; but whosoever shall swear by the gift that is upon it is a debtor. Fools and blind ones, for which is greater, the gift, or the altar which sanctifieth the gift? He therefore that sweareth by the altar swears by it and by all things that are upon it. And he that sweareth by the temple swears by it and by Him that dwells in it” (Mat 23:16-22.) Without following this woe in every word, it is evident that these leaders loved the gold of the temple more than the temple and the gift which was upon the altar more than the altar. Fools and blind guides they were.
“Woe to you scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites, for ye pay tithes of mint and anise and cummin, and ye have left aside the weightier matters of the law, judgment and mercy and faith; these ye ought to have done and not have left those aside. Blind guides who strain out the gnat, but drink down the camel” (Mat 23:23-24).
Their self-righteousness and piety consisted in being very scrupulous about minor things, while the important matters were completely ignored by them. They strained at a gnat and swallowed a camel. It is not different today. The little unessential things in religious practices are unduly magnified, while the important matters are ignored. “Woe to you scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites, for ye make clean the outside of the cup and of the dish, but within they are full of rapine and intemperance. Blind Pharisees, make clean first the inside of the cup and of the dish, that their outside also may become clean. Woe to you scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites, for ye are like whited sepulchres which appear beautiful outwardly, but within are full of dead men’s bones and all uncleanness. Thus also ye, outwardly ye appear righteous to men, but within are full of hypocrisies and lawlessness. Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites, for ye build the sepulchres of the prophets and adorn the tombs of the just, and ye say, If we had been in the days of our fathers we would not have been partakers with them in the blood of the prophets. So that you bear witness of yourselves that ye are sons of those who slew the prophets; and ye, fill up the measure of your fathers. Serpents, offspring of vipers, how should ye escape the judgment of hell?” (Mat 23:25-33).
These are the concluding woes. They need not much comment. Pharisiaism keeps the outside clean, while inside there is corruption and death. There is a self-righteous, religious boasting of being more advanced than the fathers, and more tolerant than they were. But the omniscient One, reads their hearts and declares that they fill up the measure of the fathers. They were unsaved men, not the offspring of God, but of vipers; their father, the devil; and they were facing judgment of Gehenna.
Other words were uttered by the King. These are found in the three verses which follow. He would send them prophets and wise men and scribes, and they were to kill them, crucify them, persecute them, and all the righteous blood shed upon the earth should come upon them. This was to come upon that generation. What they hear from His lips another witness filled with the Holy Spirit, Stephen, tells them; with the stoning of Stephen the measure was filled up and judgment came.
And now the sublime, mournful ending. The last word of the King to Jerusalem. “Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones those that are sent to her, how often would I have gathered thy children as a hen gathers her chickens under her wings, and ye would not! Behold your house is left unto you desolate; for I say unto you, Ye shall in no wise see me henceforth until ye say, Blessed be He that comes in the name of the Lord.”
What a loving, sublime lamentation this is! The King is a King of Love and His heart yearns over His city Jerusalem. How He did long for them! The illustration He uses is one they fully understood, not alone by its simplicity, a hen gathering her chickens, but also because their elders had mentioned this very fact. The Rabbis spoke of Messiah under the name of the Shekinah and declared that Israel would be gathered under the wings of the Shekinah, where they would find rest and blessing. And now the Shekinah was with them. The promised One has come and they would not have Him. They turned away from Jehovah, their King. Their house -- no longer “the Father’s house” -- is to be left desolate. They would see Him in no wise henceforth. That this has a national significance, the rejection of them is evident. And no sooner were the words spoken than He left the temple and went away.
But the discourse which has nothing but Woes ends with a “Blessed,” and here comes in the bright ray of hope for Israel. “Ye shall in no wise see me henceforth until ye say, Blessed be He that comes in the name of the Lord.” This is the promise of His second Coming, and when He comes He will find a believing remnant of that very people, welcoming Him with the messianic greeting of the 118th Psalm. Then the Shekinah-Glory will spread over Jerusalem and Israel ‘s land, and He that scattered Israel will gather them from the four corners of the earth. It is a strange and evil doctrine which maintains that inasmuch as the woes were spoken upon these Pharisees, that they are also to see Him again. It is claimed that these wicked Pharisees, the offspring of vipers, who could not escape the judgment of hell, are all to be raised from the dead when Christ comes again and have “a second chance” to see Him, and that then they will receive Him. Such Jewish universalism has no Scripture foundation whatever. It is a remnant which will behold the King coming out of the opened heavens in the day of His manifestation.
Arno C. Gaebelein, The Annotated Bible (1913–1922) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Paul E. Kretzmann 1924 · Public Domain On vv1, 5, 8, 13, 14, 15, 16, 23, 25, 27, 29, 34, 37 The Inordinate Ambition of the Pharisees.
The Inordinate Ambition of the Pharisees.
Hypocrisy in high places:
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v. 1. Then spake Jesus to the multitude and to His disciples,
v. 2. saying, The scribes and the Pharisees sit in Moses’ seat.
v. 3. All, therefore, whatsoever they bid you observe, that observe and do; but do ye not after their works; for they say, and do not.
v. 4. For they bind heavy burdens and grievous to be borne, and lay them on men’s shoulders; but they themselves will not move them with one of their fingers.
The evangelist has here recorded the most relentless, scathing denunciation from the mouth of Jesus of which we have knowledge. It is an arraignment of spiritual wickedness in high places, a treatise on the use and abuse of the Law, which is without equal in the gospels. Jesus addressed this discourse to the people and to His disciples, although the scribes and Pharisees were present. He had definitely turned from these hopeless enemies, in whose case every new effort to win their love only resulted in greater hatred. He defines their position. The scribes and Pharisees formerly sat in Moses’ seat by God’s appointment; they now sit in the place of the teachers of the people by divine permission. Although many of their explanations of the Old Testament were insufficient, inadequate, sometimes even false, yet they held their office as teachers for the time being. "For God had instituted the office of the Levitical priesthood and ministry of the Word, in order that the people might learn the Ten Commandments given by Moses. The entire tribe of Levi was ordained for that purpose, to wait upon Holy Scriptures. That is what the Lord calls the seat of Moses, that is, the ministry of the Word, that they should preach Moses. He says: If you hear the preaching, This the Law and Moses have commanded, then do and observe it, for it is not the word and work of the Pharisees, but that of God and Moses. " If in this sense they enjoin and bid the people something which is plainly stated in the Word of God, if they use their official position and authority in a proper, legal manner, teaching and expounding the Law and the prophets, then the people should do exactly according to their doctrine, make the observance of their precepts a regular habit. But the people should beware of following their example, of patterning their lives after the hypocritical works of these leaders. For they were far from practicing what they preached and exhorted. They bound together, like fagots in a big bundle, grievous burdens, and laid them upon the backs of other people, but they themselves had no desire to touch them with so much as a single finger. They were very severe over against others, but very lenient and indulgent with themselves. The manifold precepts and commands which they added to the Law of Moses, with the expressed or implied order that they were to be placed and regarded as being on a level with the written injunctions of the lawgiver, were an intolerable burden, which they were very careful to omit from their own private life.
Paul E. Kretzmann, Popular Commentary of the Bible (1921–1924) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
unfoldingWord translationNotes 2017 · CC BY-SA 4.0 On vv1, 4, 6, 8, 11, 13, 16, 18, 20, 23, 25, 27, 29, 32, 34, 37 General Information:
General Information:
This is the beginning of a new part of the story that runs through Matthew 25:46, where Jesus teaches about salvation and the final judgment. Here he begins to warn the people about the scribes and Pharisees.
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sit in Moses' seat
Here "seat" represents the authority to rule and make judgments. AT: "have authority as Moses had" or "have authority to say what the law of Moses means" (See: Metonymy)
whatever ... do these things and observe them
"all the things ... do them and observe them" or "everything ... do it and observe it"
translationWords
Jesus
disciple
scribe
Pharisee
Moses
command
imitate
works
unfoldingWord translationNotes — © Distant Shores Media and the Door43 World Missions Community, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Source: git.door43.org/Door43/en_tn.
Tyndale Open Study Notes 2022 · CC BY-SA 4.0 On vv1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 13, 15, 16, 23, 24, 26, 27, 29, 32, 35, 37, 38, 39 23:1–25:46 This final extended discourse (see study note on…
23:1–25:46 This final extended discourse (see study note on Matt 5:1–7:29) centers on judgment for rejecting the Messiah.
23:1 The religious leaders had sought a reason to accuse Jesus publicly (21:23–22:46) but found none. Jesus now turned to the crowds and to his disciples to openly indict the religious leaders for their numerous failures to conform to God’s righteous standards.
Tyndale Open Study Notes — © Tyndale Open Resources, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Text via the HelloAO Bible API.