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?
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 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 vv2–33 2 Saying, The scribes and the Pharisees sit in…
2 Saying, The scribes and the Pharisees sit in Moses’ seat:
Ver. 2. Sit in Moses’ chair] i.e. Have the ordinary office of teaching the people, but quo iure, by what law, he questioneth not. The priests and Levites should have done it, but the Scribes and Pharisees had for present taken it upon them, stepped into the chair, and there set themselves, {a} Rom 2:20. So Hildebrand and his successors have invaded Peter’s chair, as they call the see of Rome; but what said an ancient? Non habent Petri haereditatem, qui Petri fidem non habent. They have no right to Peter’s chair that have not Peter’s faith. The Index Expurgatorius commands ( sublata fide) endure for the faith, instead of Fidem Petri, the Faith of Peter, to print it Sedem Petri. The seat of Peter, Perfrica frontem, said Calvus to Vatinius, et digniorem te dic qui Praetor fieres quam Catonem, Put on a good face, and say that thou art fitter for the office than Cato himself. (Quintil. lib. ix. cap. 2.) But what a bold face had Barcaena the Jesuit, who, Diabolo advenienti occurrit obviam petiitque ut cathedram eius occuparet, quia erat dignior, meeting the devil, required his chair of him, as one that better deserved it. He had his desire, I doubt not. But if Scribes and Pharisees sat in Moses’ chair, it is no news than for bad men to succeed better; as Timotheus Herulus did Proterius the good Bishop of Alexandria, and as Arminius did Junius in the professor’s place at Leyden.
Read full note →
{a} καθιζω, Sedeo. colloco. I sit, I lie down.
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 vv4, 5, 6, 8, 11, 13, 14, 15, 16, 23, 24, 25, 27, 29, 31 Our Saviour saith the same of the lawyers, Luk…
Our Saviour saith the same of the lawyers, Luk 11:46. The
burdens here mentioned were not their traditions and ritual things, Christ would never have before commanded his disciples to observe and do them, but the things truly commanded by the law of God, especially the ceremonial law, called a yoke, Act 15:10, which (say the apostles) neither our fathers nor we were able to bear. They are, saith our Saviour, rigid exactors and pressers of the law of God upon others, but will not themselves use the least endeavours (such as the putting to of a finger) themselves to do them.
Read full note →
1. He blames them that their own lives no way answered their doctrine.
2. It may be, he also blames their too rigid pressing the law in all the minute things of it.
There may be a too rigorous pressing of the law. Good teachers will be faithful in delivering the whole counsel of God, yet teaching no more than themselves will endeavour to practise; and being conscious of human infirmity, they will do it with great tenderness and compassion, joining law and gospel both together.
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 vv4, 5, 8, 13, 14, 15, 16, 23, 25, 27, 29 These heavy burdens which the Pharisees laid upon the…
These heavy burdens which the Pharisees laid upon the people’s shoulders, were counsels and directions, rules and canons, austerities and severities, which the Pharisees introduced and imposed upon their hearers, but would not undergo the least part of those severities themselves. If we do not follow our own counsels, we must not think to oblige others what he is unwilling to perform himself. It is very sinful to give that counsel to others, which we refuse to take ourselves.
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 vv2–33 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 vv2, 3, 4, 5, 8, 11, 12, 13, 14, 16, 20, 23, 24, 25, 26, 30, 31, 32, 33 The scribes sit in the chair of Moses -…
The scribes sit in the chair of Moses - That is, read and expound the law of Moses, and are their appointed teachers.
John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the Whole Bible (1754–1765) — public domain. Text via the GEBible commentary corpus.
Adam Clarke 1810 · Public Domain On vv3, 4, 5, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 20, 21, 23, 24, 25, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33 Verse 3. All therefore whatsoever] That is, all those…
Verse 3. All therefore whatsoever] That is, all those things which they read out of the law and prophets, and all things which they teach consistently with them. This must be our Lord's meaning: he could not have desired them to do every thing, without restriction, which the Jewish doctors taught; because himself warns his disciples against their false teaching, and testifies that they had made the word of God of none effect by their traditions. See Mt 15:6, &c. Besides, as our Lord speaks here in the past tense - whatsoever they HAVE commanded, οσαειπωσιν, he may refer to the teaching of a former period, when they taught the way of God in truth, or were much less corrupted than they were now.
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 vv4, 5, 8, 11, 13, 16, 23, 25, 27, 32 Mat 23:4. For they bind heavy burdens — Not…
Mat 23:4. For they bind heavy burdens — Not only insisting upon the most minute circumstances of the ceremonial law, called a yoke, Act 15:10; and pressing the observation of them with more strictness and severity than God himself did; but by adding to his word, and imposing their own inventions and traditions under the highest penalties: witness their many additions to the law of the sabbath, by which they made that day a burden, which was designed to be a joy and delight: but they themselves will not move them with one of their fingers — They press upon the people a strictness in religion which they themselves will not be bound by, but secretly transgress their own traditions, which they publicly enforce.
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 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 vv2, 3, 4, 5, 7, 8, 9, 13, 14, 15, 16, 19, 21, 23, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 32 The Scribes. They, who professed the greatest zeal for…
The Scribes. They, who professed the greatest zeal for the law of Moses, and gloried in being the interpreters of it, sat upon the chair of Moses, succeeded to his authority of governing the people of God, of instructing them in his law, and of disclosing to them his will. Such, therefore, as did not depart from the letter of the law, were called Scribes. But such as professed something higher, and separated themselves from the crowd, as better than the ordinary class of men, were called Pharisees, which signifies, separated. (Origen) --- God preserveth the truth of the Christian religion in the apostolic See of Rome, which in the new law answers to the chair of Moses, notwithstanding the disedifying conduct of some few of its bishops. Yes, though a traitor, as vile as Judas himself, were a bishop thereof, it would not be prejudicial to the integrity of the faith of God’s Church, or to the ready obedience and perfect submission of sincere good Christians, for whom our Lord has made this provision, when he says: do that which they say, but do not as they do. (St. Augustine, Ep. clxv.)
George Leo Haydock (1774–1849), Haydock's Catholic Family Bible and Commentary, 1859 edition — public domain. Excludes Psalms (Douay-Rheims chapter numbering differs from Protestant) and Deuterocanonical books (Catholic canon only).
Robert Jamieson, A. R. Fausset & David Brown 1871 · Public Domain On vv2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 19, 20, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 33 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 vv2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 23, 24, 25, 26, 28, 29, 30, 33 2. Sit in Moses’ seat — By being the…
2. Sit in Moses’ seat — By being the transcribers, readers, and teachers of Moses’ words. The seat or cathedra was also used by Grecian philosophers in lecturing, who were thence called cathedrarii. The synagogue expounders stood while reading the very words of the law, but sat while expounding it. These scribes and Pharisees were in no way the successors of Moses by ordination or lineal descent. They had not, any more than the Sadducees or Herodians, a regular organic office. Their seat was not an apostolic throne, an episcopal see, or any successional position whatever. All they had was a reading desk and chair, from which, as from Moses himself, the words of Moses could come forth. The Greek word for sit signifies, have seated themselves.
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 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 vv2, 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 (2) The scribes and the Pharisees sit in Moses’…
(2) The scribes and the Pharisees sit in Moses’ seat.—The words were probably spoken of their collective action as represented in the Sanhedrin, rather than of their individual work as interpreters of the Law. As such, they claimed to be the authoritative exponents of the Law, and our Lord recognises (unless we suppose a latent protest in His words, like that which is veiled in the “full well ye reject” of Mar_7:9) their official claim to reverence.
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 vv2, 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 Vers. 2-12. The moral character of the scribes and…
Vers. 2-12. The moral character of the scribes and Pharisees, and warning to Christ"s disciples.
The scribes and the Pharisees sit in Moses" seat. In the seat of the great judge and lawgiver. This is stated as an undoubted fact (ekayisan), with no idea of blame attached. Literally, sat on the seat of Moses from time immemorial. These (meaning not individuals, but the collective body) are the authorized expounders and teachers of the Law; their position is assured; they are not to be displaced. The scribes were the party chiefly denoted; they were of the Pharisaical sect; hence the addition, "and the Pharisees," by which is intimated, not that these latter, qua Pharisees, had any teaching office, but that the former shared their religious opinions. The Sadducees seem to have had no popular influence, and were never recognized as leaders. The Levitical priests never appear in the Gospels as teachers or expositors of the Mosaic system; this function of theirs had devolved upon scribes and lawyers.
Read full note →
HOMILIES BY MARCUS DODS Vers. 2-33. Pharisees and Sadducees.
The Pharisees first appear under this name in Jewish history about the year B.C. 160. There had been Separatists, or Puritans, as far back as the Captivity, but it was alter the return to Palestine that events gave an impulse to the Separatist idea so strong as to consolidate what might otherwise have remained a tendency. The Jews had learned the value of commerce, and it was found impossible, in dealing with foreign merchants, to observe the minute regulations prescribed by the more zealous. The minority, who even pretended to this, were obliged to become Separatists, not only from the Gentiles, but from their own less scrupulous coreligionists. Hence their frequent connection with the scribes. There had always been scribes in Israel, men who could draw state or legal documents. But after the influence of Ezra had stimulated, if it had not created, a desire to know the Law, synagogues were to be found in every town. And a synagogue implied a copy of the Law and a person who could read it. The scribes therefore necessarily became a profession, with just such a curriculum for pupils and candidates as distinguish professions among ourselves. It was inevitable that they should acquire great influence among the people. For in their best days they were the guardians of the Law, and strove unceasingly to make it supreme over every act of every person. Not only did the scribe discharge all the functions of a modern lawyer, but he was appealed to in all circumstances where the application of the law might seem obscure. They were both the makers of the law and its administrators, and they did not scruple, sitting apart; from active life, to enforce on men engaged in it all the wire drawn and fantastic distinctions which their minds, imbecile with attention to the letter of the Law and with unpractical pedantry, could contrive. It was this inconsiderate exercise of their authority which provoked our Lord"s rebuke. But burdensome as was the teaching of the scribes, two causes operated to make them the most popular members of the community.
1. To them was committed the key of the kingdom of heaven; they had power to bind and loose they alone could give a man assurance that he had actually attained to the righteousness required by the Law.
2. The people were at one with them in their grand aim to give the Law absolute sway over the life of every Jew. The Pharisees who did live as the scribes enjoined, were in the eyes of the people the true Israel, the pattern Jews. The scribes and Pharisees, then, though not identical, were closely related, so closely that our Lord subjects them to one common rebuke. The Zealots, who repudiated any king but Jehovah, and refused to pay tribute to Caesar, were the natural result of Pharisaic teaching. And indeed the Pharisees did themselves refuse to swear allegiance to Herod. They may be looked on, therefore, as the national party. Their influence was not solely and throughout evil, for to them and to the scribes was due the knowledge of the Law to which our Lord so often appealed. But the grave defects of their teaching, and its ruinous influences on the religious character, are so distinctly enounced in the Gospels that they need not be dwelt on. The origin of the Sadducees explains their position in the state. It is generally agreed that they take their name from Zadok, who was elevated to the high priesthood by Solomon. It was the same line which inherited the office after the Exile, and through all the changes in the Hebrew state the high priests maintained great influence, and in our Lord"s time we find them still sitting as presidents in the highest court, the Sanhedrin. Still, also, there were grouped round them the Sadducees! It was to this party that men of wealth, men in office, and men of pure priestly descent, attached themselves, although many of the priests leant more to the Pharisees. They lived in luxury, and their morality was not high. At the same time, whether from envy of the popularity of the Pharisees, or from common sense, they resisted the Pharisaic additions to the Law. Thus they refused to accept the doctrine of the resurrection, not being able to find it in the Books of Moses. They are rarely mentioned in the Gospels, because they were mostly in Jerusalem, and their ideas had found no acceptance with the people. From the leaven of Pharisaism, or ultra-legalism, three mischievous results follow.
3. The minute regulations which are extended to the whole of life leave no room for conscience to exercise itself, and accordingly it pines and dies. Minute observances obtain a magnified importance.
4. The bare performance of the duty enjoined is reckoned everything, while the state of heart is overlooked. We shall escape the leaven of the Pharisee if we learn to pay more attention to the heart than to the conduct; if we have so true a delight in pleasing the Lord that we do not consider what men think of us. The leaven of the Sadducees is perhaps even more certainly fatal to true religion. The Pharisee has sincerity, though it is quite superficial; he has zeal, though misdirected; but the Sadducee has neither. He is all for this world, and, save to forward him in it, religion is an encumbrance. His heart is not gladdened with any loving thoughts of God, nor his spirit refreshed by fellowship with the unseen world. If we escape these influences we shall do what few have done. For all men are under the temptation either to make too much of the observances of religion or to make them a mere form. Worldliness deadens a man"s spirit to spiritual impressions, and gradually saps his faith till he ceases to believe in anything but the palpable world with which he has now to do. On the other hand, if the leaven of the Pharisee prevails to the extent of making us fear God more than we love him, and do by constraint what we ought to do because we delight in it, we are in as unwholesome a state as the Sadducee we reprobate. D.
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 v13 Mat 23:13-39.
Mat 23:13-39.
Woes Denounced Upon The Scribes And Pharisees
Read full note →
This is given by Matthew only. Luke records several similar woes, (Luk 11:37-54) which appear to have been pronounced some months earlier, compare above on Mat 22:1 and on Mat 19:1. Our Lord now ceases to address his disciples and the people in general, (Mat 23:1) and turns back to the Scribes and Pharisees, pronouncing upon them a series of mournful woes, Mat 19:13, Mat 19:15, Mat 19:16-22, Mat 19:23 f., 25 f., 27 f., 29-36, closing with an apostrophe to Jerusalem, 37-39. In each case some special form of wickedness is made the ground of this stern denunciation, and the solemnly repeated address at the opening of the successive paragraphs gives them a rhythmical character, like strophes in an ode. Keim : "In the seven woes, the first place is given (first and second woes) to the judgment against the foes of the kingdom of God, whose proselyting zeal for their lost cause stands in sharp contrast to the hindrances to the progress of the kingdom of heaven. The third and fourth woes denounce their false teaching of the law; the fifth and sixth, the slovenly efforts after purity by the ’pure’; the seventh definitely reverts to the attitude of the Pharisees towards the prophets—the announcers and forerunners of Jesus—whose graves they build, and in doing so prove themselves to be the sons of those that murdered the prophets."
I. Mat 23:13. [1] They Shut The Kingdom
Woe is a solemn warning and also an expression of pity—alas for you. (Mat 18:7) With these eight ’woes’ (the eighth given by Mark and Luke), compare six ’woes’ in Isaiah 5, and five in Hab 2:6 ff. Scribes, see on "Mat 2:4"; Pharisees, see on "Mat 3:7"; hypocrites, see on "Mat 6:2"; kingdom of heaven, see on "Mat 3:2". Our Lord implies that the Messianic reign has already ’begun, as he did even in Mat 11:12. Ye shut. These religious teachers ought to have set men in general the example of promptly and joyfully entering the Messianic kingdom, but they actually prevented others from entering. Against men, literally before men (Rev. Ver. margin), and so all English versions before K. James. The image is of the people at large as moving towards the open gate of the kingdom, and on the point of entering; but their religious leaders, heading the procession, refuse to enter themselves, and practically shut the gate in the people’s face. (Compare on Mat 16:19.) They do this by denying that the kingdom of heaven is at hand, and striving to turn the popular mind away from the rising persuasion that Jesus is the Messiah, (Mat 21:9, Mat 21:15, Mat 21:44 f.) and from entering the Messianic kingdom through penitent faith. They paraded themselves as leaders of the people, while really (Weiss) they were misleaders.
[1] Westcott Hort, and also Stephens’ third ed., which in England is called the Textus Receptus, put this as Mat 23:14. The spurious verse follows Mat 23:12 in most of the documents which contain it. The early English versions probably followed the Vulgate in giving the other order.
Mat 23:14. This verse of Com. Ver. is here spurious,[2] but genuine in Mar 12:40, and Luk 20:47, so that it was actually spoken on this occasion, though not included in Matthew’s report. Widows, being without a male representative in business, have always been in Asia specially exposed to fraud and other wrong. (Compare Luk 18:3 Act 6:1 Jas 1:27) To seize their property, even their homes, is in other parts of the world also a common practice of men who commend themselves by "making long prayers" (compare Mat 6:7) as extraordinarily devout, and therefore trustworthy. The expression, "shall receive greater condemnation," suggests degrees in future punishment, a subject of very great practical importance. See the Commentaries on Mark and Luke.
[1] It is wanting in the earliest and best Greek manuscripts, and several early versions, is evidently unknown here to Origen, and Eusebius and Jerome, and was obviously brought in from Mark and Luke. Being written on the margin of Matthew by some student, and known by subsequent copyists to be a real saying of Jesus, it readily crept into the text, being placed in many copies after Mat 23:12, but in some after Mat 23:13. Such introduction of an addition at two different points in different copies is not infrequent, and sheds light on the treatment of parallel passages by students and copyists.
II. Mat 23:15. They Proselyte With Wrong Aims
This saying is not elsewhere recorded. Woe unto you, etc., see on "Mat 23:13". Hypocrites, because they pretend to be zealous for the promotion of the true religion and for the religious benefit of men, when they are really aiming only to multiply partisans, and are making them not better, but worse. Ye compass sea and land, literally, the dry (land), as so often in Old Testament The hyperbolical expression shows how zealous and active they were in order that even a single Gentile might become a Jew. An interesting example of proselyting even beyond the Tigris, a few years after our Lord said this, may be seen in Josephus ’Ant’, 20,2,2 ff. The same false zeal appeared afterwards in the Judaizers who followed Paul, Gal 6:13. The notion of Chrys. and others that Jesus reproaches the Pharisees with the small results of their immense activity, is quite foreign to the connection. He is speaking not of small results, but of bad results. To make one proselyte. This word is found elsewhere in New Testament only in Act 2:10, Act 6:5, Act 13:43, but very often in Septuagint It signified originally an immigrant, a foreigner who had ’come to’ a community for the purpose of dwelling there; this is its common use in Sept., English ’stranger.’ By an easy transition it denoted a Gentile who became a Jew, which is its use in New Testament What is involved in ’make’ one proselyte? To convince him that Jehovah the God of Israel is the only true God (Deu 6:4 f.), and induce him to be circumcised and set out to keep the law of Moses. (Exo 12:48) Those who were convinced, but unwilling to submit to this unpopular rite (Josephus "Ant.," 20, 2, 4), were called "proselytes of the gate," as if not fully entering the city and becoming citizens, but merely sitting in the gate; the others were called "proselytes of righteousness," righteous proselytes, who did their whole duty. After the ceremony of circumcision, the proselyte must of course give himself a thorough purification, as he would after any other thorough defilement, before approaching the altar with a sacrifice. In later times, after the destruction of the temple by Titus, and the consequent cessation of sacrifices, this purification of the proselyte was the final act, and came to be then regarded as a special rite, which by modern writers is called "proselyte baptism," see on "Mat 3:6". Tyndale and Gen. have here ’to bring one into your belief,’ which is not a bad paraphrase. A picture of a real proselyte to the true faith is given in 1Pe 4:2-4. Talmud Bah. says that a heathen inclined to become a proselyte should be told that "the Israelites are now enfeebled, persecuted, and distressed." But this by no means proves, as Wun; and others argue, that the Jews were never much given to proselyting. The attempt in later centuries to check the influx of proselytes by speaking of the then depressed condition of Israel, implies a previous contrary course. Tacitus ("Hist.,"Mat 23:5) says that the Jews grew because all the worst men left their national religions and became Jews. See Juvenal, "Sat.," 14, 96-106, and other statements to the same effect in Wet., and compare Edersh. And when he is made, Rev. Ver., he is become so, or ’is become’ (a proselyte), as in Mat 4:13, Mat 13:32, Mat 18:3; ’made’ was here a bad rendering of the Greek word, as it confounds this term with the term ’make’ that precedes and follows; it was an imitation of the Vulgate. The child, a son (Wyclif) is the exact translation, as in Mat 5:9 Rev. Ver. and Mat 8:12, etc. Hell is here Gehenna, the place of torment, see on "Mat 5:22". ’A son of hell’ would be one having a hellish character, as a child is apt to resemble the parent (compare on Mat 8:12), and so suited to dwell in hell. This, then, was the ground of the woe; not that they zealously made proselytes, which was entirely proper if rightly done, but that they made them bad men like themselves, yea, doubly as bad. These proselytes retained the essential faults of the heathen, and took on the faults of the Pharisees. So some of our "civilized" Indians are still savages, with the vices of civilization, and compare the heathen converts made by some Jesuit missionaries. In these proselytes the good was more superficial than in the Pharisees—who often retained some roots of old convictions—while the hypocrisy was not less deep. Pupils in error and vice frequently surpass their teachers. Very likely also some became proselytes for the sake of gain. Yet not all the proselytes of the tithe came under the condemnation here uttered, for some of them were among the early converts of the apostles. (Act 2:10, Act 6:5, Act 10:2; Act 13:43, Act 13:50, Act 16:14, Act 17:4, Act 17:17, Act 18:7) Other proselytes would naturally be very bitter against Christianity; and Justin Martyr, after quoting this passage, says to Trypho (ch. 122), "But the proselytes not only do not believe, but twofold more than you they blaspheme against his name." Proselytes are often mentioned in the Talmud with suspicion or contempt. Plump.: "The popular Jewish feeling about them was like the popular Christian feeling about a converted Jew. Proselytes were regarded as the leprosy of Israel, hindering the coming of the Messiah. It became a proverb that no one should trust a proselyte, even the twenty-fourth generation."
III. Mat 23:16-22. By Foolish Distinctions They Excuse The Violation Of Oaths
This is found in Matt. only. As to the general subject of oaths, compare on Mat 5:33-37. Here the Saviour confines himself to one point, viz., that the Scribes and Pharisees wickedly encourage the people to violate oaths, by making untenable and silly distinctions between certain oaths as binding and certain others as not binding. Woe unto you, as in Mat 5:13. Ye blind guides, see on "Mat 15:14". A religious teacher who gives misleading instruction is strikingly represented by a blind guide. Our Lord does not in this case call them hypocrites, as in the other woes. The temple is here the naos, the sacred house, see on "Mat 4:5".
The oath by the temple would naturally be often used, and so would be often violated, until men did not feel very solemnly bound by it to speak the truth or keep an engagement. Then a new oath was invented, by the gold of the temple, and this as being new was felt to be more binding. This gold would mean the gold plates with which much of the temple was covered (Josephus "War," 5, 5, 8-6), and the golden vessels of the temple (6, 8, 8); probably also the coin from contributions. Josephus states ("Ant.," 14, 7, 1) that Crassus took from the temple eight thousand talents of gold, say ten million dollars. It is nothing. The Mishna on Vows (Nedarim, 1, 8) speaks of vowing, "This shall be to me as the lamb, as the wood, as the fire, as the altar, as the temple, as Jerusalem;" and adds "Rabbi Jehuda says, If one says ’Jerusalem’ (i. e., not ’as Jerusalem’), he has said nothing." (Compare Wun.) The Scribes and Pharisees had conformed to popular custom and feeling by actually teaching that the old and common oath by the temple was not binding, but only the new-fashioned oath by the gold. The Saviour shows this to be an absurd distinction, since it was the temple that gave to this gold such Sacredness as to make it the natural subject matter of an oath.
So as to the old oath by the altar, and the new oath by the gift that is upon it. It was only the altar that made the gift a holy thing, so as to render it natural that men should swear by the gift. He adds (Mat 23:20) that to swear by the altar included swearing by the gift, for the former suggested and involved the latter. In like manner, the old and slighted oath ’by the temple’ really involved swearing by him that dwelleth therein, who gives to the temple its sacredness. The Jews would avoid literally taking in vain any name of Jehovah their God, and when swearing only by things associated with him, as the temple, heaven, etc., they imagined that they would not break the third commandment in violating such an oath. The Mishas on Oaths (Shebuoth, 4, 18) says if one adjures others by heaven and by earth, they are not bound; but they are bound if he adjures them by a d, representing Adonai (Lord), or by j, h, representing Jehovah, or by Sabaoth (Jehovah of hosts), or by any divine attribute or divine name. The Gemara on this passage of the Mishna explains (Wun.) that this is because these terms must mean the divine being, while heaven and earth can be conceived of as mere objects, without reference to the Creator. This is exactly the notion that our Lord here condemns. Heaven and earth, when used in oaths, do suggest the Creator. So the Mohammedans will take many oaths without pretending to act accordingly, but an oath by the Koran they must keep. The Bohemian in "Quentin Durward" glibly utters many profuse oaths, but when required to swear "by the three kings of Cologne," and that with his face turned towards the east, he feels bound. Compare above, "Hom. and Pract.", see on "Mat 5:37". He is a debtor (Mat 23:16) means that he owes what he has thus solemnly declared or promised, and must pay it—he is bound by his oath (Rev. Ver. margin). The same Greek word is used in Mat 5:18, but Com. Ver., as so often, must needs vary the translation, and give he is guilty. That hath sanctified, is in Mat 5:17 the correct Greek text; in Mat 5:19 it is that sanctifieth. The assimilation of the former to the latter was a characteristic act of copyists.[1] So with the addition of ’fools’ in Mat 5:19 from Mat 5:17.
[1] He that sweareth’ in Mat 23:20-21, Mat 23:22 is the aorist participle, of which Meyer here gives a hopelessly artificial explanation, and which none of the grammars treat satisfactorily. It presents the simple notion of the action without any such idea of continuance or repetition or custom as the present participle would give. In general, the aorist tense ("second aorist") is the original root of the verb, presenting the unmodified action. As various tense forms were devised, the present system, the perfect system, etc., to express particular modifications, the aorist continued to be used whenever no one of these others was distinctly wanted. This history appears to explain the use of the aorist in the subj., opt., imperative, infinitive, and participle; the aorist is in all these employed as a matter of course, unless the distinctive sense of the present or perfect tense be specially desired—because the aorist is the original verb. When the so-called "first aorist" form was subsequently invented, it came to be used in the same sense as the old aorist. Apparent exceptions to this theory of the aorist are believed to be only apparent. If the aorist subjunctive is sometimes naturally translated by the Latin future perfect (as some would do in Mat 23:16, Mat 23:18), this is merely suggested by the nature of the ease, Just as when the aorist indicative is translated by the pluperfect. So when the aorist participle denotes an action antecedent to the time of the principal verb, this is only through a suggested contrast to the present participle, which would of necessity give an action contemporaneous with that of the principal verb; and In a case like that before us the suggestion of such a contrast is excluded by the nature of the case. Compare on Mat 21:18. In the indicative mood the aorist bears the same relation to the imperfect that it bears in the other moods to the present. If these views of the aorist be correct, there is no occasion for the various artificial definitions of that tense which are given by many grammarians and commentators.—In Mat 21:21 the aorist participle for ’dwelleth,’ given by many documents and editors, is probably an alteration of the copyists to make it correspond outwardly to the tense of ’sweareth.’
IV. Mat 23:23 f. Scrupulous As To Minor Matters, But Neglecting Great Moral Duties.
Woe unto you, etc., see on Mat 23:18. The law required the Israelites to pay tithes of agricultural products, including fruits (Lev 27:30; Deu 14:22 ff.); and these punctilious Pharisees took pains to tithe every product that was edible and could be preserved. (Talmud.) Our Lord mentions as specimens, mint and anise and cummin; on the former occasion he gave ’mint and rue and every herb.’ (Luk 11:42, R. V.) Compare the boast "I give tithes of all that I get." (Luk 18:12, R.V.) Some even gave tithes of what they purchased for use. (Hansrath.) The Greek word here used for mint means ’sweet-smelling,’ though the Greek also had the word mintha; our words anise and cummin are borrowed from the Greek. The leaves of mint and the seeds of anise (or dill) were used both for flavouring food and as valuable carminative medicines; the seeds of cummin were used for the former purpose. Judgment, mercy, and faith, i. e., good faith, fidelity, (Rom 3:3) the common classical sense of the term. In Luke, it is ’judgment and the love of God.’ Compare Mic 6:8. The American Revisers properly urge that not ’judgment,’ but ’justice,’ is the correct translation here and in Luke, though the Greek word is correctly rendered ’judgment’ in Mat 23:33, and so rendered elsewhere. To render a Greek term everywhere by the same word is very desirable, but not always practicable. The weightier matters of the law. We have seen (on Mat 22:36) that the Rabbis called some commandments of the law weighty and others right. Jesus recognizes that such a distinction is legitimate, but draws the line very differently from their teachings, for he makes the fundamental, ethical, and spiritual duties (compare Luke) the weightier matters. Compare ’one of these least commandments.’ (Luk 5:19) As to the superiority of the ethical to the ceremonial, compare on Luk 9:11 and Luk 12:7. And not to leave the other undone. The old English plural use of ’other’ here creates momentary difficulty, as if referring to a singular, and there is no propriety in retaining it. Our Lord beautifully adapts his two expressions. They were strict as to the slightest externals, and left undone the ethical; he says that the ethical duties ought to be done, and the others not to be neglected. So Luk 11:42, and compare above on Luk 12:7. He does not forbid the tithing of herbs, but sets in strong contrast with this scrupulosity their neglect of great moral duties. Ye blind guides, as in Luk 12:16, leading the people utterly astray by false teaching and bad example. The image in Luk 12:24 expresses the same thing as Luk 12:23. The Talmud speaks (Wet.) of straining wine in order to remove minute unclean creatures. (Lev 11:41-43) The Buddhists in Ceylon strain their wine for a similar reason. Gnats sip at wine, and so may fall into it. Trench (on Rev.) tells of a soldier in Morocco who always placed the end of his turban over the vessel from which he drank water, avowedly for the purpose of straining out the gnats, "whose larvae swarm in the water of that country." The gnat and the camel are put in contrast as extremes in regard to size; the latter is obviously a strong hyperbole, for the camel was the largest animal familiarly known to the Jews. (Compare on Mat 19:24) Observe that it also was "unclean." (Lev 11:4) Thus these persons carefully strain out the smallest creature, and swallow the largest; they are very scrupulous about the minutest matters of ceremonial observance, and then neglect the highest ethical duties enjoined by the law. The translation strain at is generally supposed to have been a mere misprint, in the original edition of K. James’ version, for ’strain out,’ which had been given by Tyn., Cran., and Gen. The Greek means ’thoroughly filter,’ thoroughly strain, applied to wine in Amo 6:6, and here to that which is removed by filtering wine. Alford thinks that the K. J. revisers purposely gave ’strain at,’ meaning ’strain (the wine) at (the occurrence of) a gnat,’ but this is highly improbable.
V. Mat 23:25 f. Caring For Outward Purification Rather Than For True Morality.
Compare what Luke gives, (Luk 11:38) as spoken some time earlier. Woe unto you, etc., see on "Mat 23:13". Of all the requirements of the law, purification was that on which the Pharisees seem to have laid most stress; compare on Mat 15:2. There is here a regular progression, oaths, tithes, purifications. They were careful about not only the actual cleaning, but the ceremonial cleaning of the cup and the platter, Mar 7:4. ’Platter’ is in the Greek a rare word, denoting a side dish, some delicacy set on the side-table, and only handed to the guests, and derivatively the dish used for such dainties. Full of from (Rev. Ver.) extortion and excess, or ’intemperance,’ in the original sense of that term. The contents of the cup and dish, namely the wine and food, are the product of extortion, and the cup and dish are filled in consequence of desire for excess in eating and drinking. The image seems to change slightly, the full cup and platter being due in one sense to extortion, and in another to excess.[1] Thou blind Pharisee, not now reproached as blindly leading others astray (Mat 23:16, Mat 23:24), but as blindly going astray himself. Cleanse first that which is within. Let the contents of the cup and dish be the fruit of honest industry and not of extortion, and be used temperately and not in excess; then your ceremonial cleansing of the vessels themselves, will be real, and acceptable to God. Compare on Mat 6:8. May be clean; Rev. Ver. may become clean is the exact meaning of the Greek and suits the connection.
[1] This was not understood, and many manuscripts have ’extortion and iniquity,’ and several leading early versions have ’extortion and uncleanness’; both are obviously changes to remove the difficulty, and, for once, the simplification did not pass into the Textus Receptus. So, also, some documents omit the preposition rendered ’from,’ because it was not understood, and the early English versions fail to translate it, giving simply ’full of,’ which is correct in Luk 11:39, and below in Luk 11:27.
VI. Mat 23:27 f. They Are Whited Sepulchres.
Compare Luk 11:44. The transition from outward and inward purity of vessels to outward and inward personal purity, is natural and immediate. Woe unto you, etc., see on "Mat 23:13". Whited sepulchres. Tombs of the better class about Jerusalem were caves, or artificial chambers cut in the limestone rock. (Mat 27:60) The exterior of these was whitewashed, mainly to prevent persons from touching them unawares and thus becoming unclean, (Num 19:16) but also for agreeable appearance and perhaps for sanitary reasons. The Mishna states (Shekalim 1, 1) that on the 15 of Adar (roughly answering to our March, when the rains are over) people repair the roads, and public baths and other public works, and whitewash the tombs. The Jerusalem Gemara (tr. of Schwab) explains that this is because the rain may have washed off the lime. The Talmud also represents (Lightf.) that sometimes they whitened the whole tomb, in other cases made on it the figure of a bone or bones, and adds that as the leper said, "Unclean, unclean", (Lev 13:45) so here "uncleanness cries out to you and says, ’Come not near.’ " Our Lord is speaking at the Passover, when the recent whitening would be very noticeable. Which appear beautiful outward, not simply through the whitewashing, but architectural ornament, as seen in tombs still remaining. In Act 23:3 Paul calls a hypocrite a ’whited wall.’ And of all uncleanness is a delicate reference to the other products of the gradual decay besides the bones. These products according to the Mosaic law and Jewish feeling produced the highest degree of ceremonial uncleanness. In Luk 11:44, Rev. Ver., as spoken on a former occasion, the image is somewhat different, ’ye are as the tombs which appear not, and the men that walk over them know it not.’ It is likely that the masses of the people buried in the ground, as we commonly do, and as is done with most of the Jews now dying at Jerusalem; while the sepulchres in the rocks would correspond to our vaults and tombs above ground, though much oftener employed. The different Greek terms in Matthew and Luke do not suggest any practical distinction, for that of Luke is the same as the second term below in Luk 11:29, and as in Joh 11:28. In Joh 11:28, iniquity is more exactly lawlessness, anomia, violation of law, as in Mat 7:28, Mat 13:41, Mat 24:12. This word is not used by the other Gospels, but was a natural term for a gospel addressed especially to Jews and for Paul, while John particularly needs it in 1Jn 3:4., ’iniquity,’ or’ injustice,’ is not used by Matthew, but several times by Luke, Paul, and others, and Matthew has its adjective in Mat 5:45, and its verb in Mat 20:13. Are full here represents a different word from that of Mat 20:25 and Mat 20:27, but our language cannot conveniently express the difference, and it has no practical importance.
VII. Mat 23:29-36. They Resemble Their Wicked Ancestors, Who Slew The Prophets
Compare Luk 11:47-51, probably spoken some months earlier, see on "Mat 23:1". Woe unto you, etc., see on "Mat 23:13". There is no practically important difference between the sepulchres and the tombs. The word rendered garnish, means literally, adorn, ’ornament,’ as in Mat 12:44; compare Mat 25:7. The prophets,... the righteous. (Compare Mat 10:41, Mat 10:13-17) In 1Ma 13:27-30, is described a grand tomb which Simon the Maccabee built for his father and brothers. Josephus tells us ("Ant.," 16, 17, 1) how Herod built a marble monument over the tombs of David and Solomon, to atone for his attempt to plunder them. It is very doubtful whether the elaborate structures on the lower slope of Olivet, southeast of the city, which are now called "tombs of the prophets," have any proper claim to that name; but they appear to date from the time of the Herods (Robinson, Thomson), and may thus give an idea of the tombs referred to. One of them is now called the tomb of Zechariah, with evident reference to 1Ma 13:35. A little later than our Lord’s time, we have account in Josephus of several grand tombs, as that of Annas, the High Priest ("War," 5, 12, 2), of Philip, the Tetrarch ("Ant., "18, 4, 6), and of Queen Helena, of Adiabene, and her son-with three pyramids ("Ant.," 20, 4, 3).
Mat 23:31. Wherefore, or more exactly so that. Ye be witnesses unto, or, witness to yourselves, i. e., in this case (Winer) ’against yourselves,’ it being a testimony to their hurt. (Compare Jas 5:3) In the very self-excuse of Mat 23:30, they acknowledge themselves the children of those who slew the prophets, and our Lord intimates that here, as is usual, the offspring resemble the parents, (Mat 5:45 Joh 8:41, Joh 8:44) though they pretend the contrary in their case. The rulers are already plotting to murder Jesus (Mat 21:46) They are minded to do as their fathers did in this very matter, and piously pretending to be altogether different. (Compare Luk 11:48) "Ye are witnesses and consent unto the works of your fathers." (Compare above on Mat 21:39 ff., and see Act 7:51 f., and 1Th 2:14-15)
Mat 23:32. Fill ye up then, or literally, and do ye fill up, the ’ye’ being expressed in Greek, and thus emphatic, viz., ’ye,’ as set over against your fathers. The expression is gravely ironical (Winer),[1] a thing natural in so impassioned and pointedly personal a discourse, which has kept growing in earnestness. This generation ought to turn from their fathers’ sins, but instead of that they were adding like sins, and the new divine warnings did not stop them. So with mournful irony he bids them go on and fill the measure full. (Gen 15:16)
[1] The ironical imperative was not understood, and by the change of one letter might be converted into a future, ’ye will fill up,’ which is read in B and a very few other documents. Westcott Hort cling to B, and place it in their margin, though plainly a correction.
Mat 23:33. Ye serpents, ye generation (offspring) of vipers, see on "Mat 3:7"; see on "Mat 12:34". This corresponds to Mat 12:31; they are like their ancestors—they are serpents and the offspring of serpents. How can ye escape, or ’how are you to escape’, implying that it is impossible to see any way. As they resemble their ancestors, and are busily filling up the measure of their ancestors’ sins, it is not possible that they should escape. (Compare Mat 11:22 Joh 3:19) The damnation (judgment) of hell, i. e., the judgment which condemns to punishment in hell, is a phrase also used several times in the Talmud (Wun.). ’Judgment’ is the correct translation of; it is that signifies condemnation, the idea formerly expressed in English by ’damnation.’ This last word now denotes in English the eternal penalty resulting from judgment or condemnation, and while often necessarily suggested, this is not what the Greek terms themselves express. Accordingly, the words ’damn’ and ’damnation’ must now give way to ’judge,’ ’condemn,’ etc., leaving the punishment to be suggested, as it is in the Greek. (See Mar 3:29, Mar 12:40, Mar 16:16 Luk 20:47 Joh 5:29 Rom 3:8, Rom 13:2, Rom 14:23, 1Co 11:29, 2Th 2:12; also (Greek meaning ’perdition’) 2Pe 2:1, 2Pe 2:3) The changes thus made in the Revised Version do not at all proceed from any change in exegetical views or in theological opinion, but are simply required by the altered meaning of an English word. (Compare as to ’hell,’ on Mat 16:18 ) ’Hell’ is here (Gehenna), the place of torment, as in Mat 12:15, see on "Mat 5:22".
Mat 23:34-36, Wherefore, behold, I send unto you. The ’I’ is expressed in Greek, and so is emphatic. Jesus speaks as the divine representative, (Joh 3:2) as having plenary authority in the whole matter of human salvation; (Mat 28:18) he utters the divine decree, which in the similar passage of Luke (Luk 11:49) is referred to ’the wisdom of God.’ ’Send in the present tense, because the mission is arranged and on the point of beginning. Wherefore, or therefore, because they are like their fathers, and will treat God’s messengers as their fathers did, he sends them messengers to be persecuted; it will thus become manifestly right that they should be held guilty for their ancestors’ sin and their own. (Mat 23:35.) God of course does not wish men to sin, but he tests them, so as to show to themselves and others their real character, and vindicate the justice of their punishment. Wise men, and scribes are Jewish terms, used because of what precedes (Mat 23:29 and Mat 23:2, Mat 23:7), ’wise men’ being a common appellation of the Rabbis. But they may be fulfilled in apostles and evangelists also. (compare Mat 13:52) The distinction between them should not here be insisted on. The decree to send, and their treatment of the persons sent, may include all the divine messengers to that generation, from John the Baptist to the destruction of Jerusalem. (Mat 23:36, Mat 24:34) Jesus intimates his knowledge that they will not only kill him, (Mat 21:38) but also kill or maltreat his messengers hereafter sent. (compare 1Th 2:15) And crucify, see on "Mat 27:35". This may include the ease of Jesus himself. It is a tradition that Peter was crucified, and Simeon, a brother of Jesus. Some of them shall ye scourge in your synagogues, as he had already foretold to his followers. (Mat 10:17) And persecute them from city to city, compare Mat 10:23 Act 9:2, Act 13:50 f.; Act 14:6; Act 17:10 ff. That upon you may come is the divine purpose, not that of the Jews. (Compare Mat 2:23, and see on "Mat 1:22".) There here comes before us what recent philosophical writers are fond of calling "the solidarity of the race." Plump.: "Men make the guilt of past ages their own, reproduce its atrocities, identify themselves with it; and so, what seems at first an arbitrary decree, visiting on the children the sins of the fathers, becomes in such cases a righteous judgment. If they repent, they cut off the terrible entail of sin and punishment; but if they harden themselves in their evil, they inherit the delayed punishment of their father’s sins as well as of their own." The Jewish multitude afterward voluntarily took upon themselves and their children the blood of Jesus. (Mat 27:25) Notice here the solemn threefold repetition of ’blood.’ Shed is present tense; the totality of the righteous blood is conceived as in the process of being shed, the whole past and present thrown together.
Zacharias, the son of Barachias. There is here a well-known difficulty, which various theories have attempted to remove. (1) Some think that the prophet Zechariah is meant, who was son of Berechiah (Zec 1:1 ;) but we have no account of his being slain. (2) Some Fathers supposed Zachariah the father of John the Baptist to be meant, and had traditional stories of his being killed for asserting the perpetual virginity of the mother of Jesus; but all this is without historical foundation, excessively improbable, and very likely suggested by the present allusion. (3) Aug. and some others have supposed that our Lord is predicting the death of Zachariah son of Baruch, killed in the temple during the subsequent siege of Jerusalem, as described by Josephus. ("War," 4, 5, 4.) But the temple is there only, which means the general enclosure, Baruch is quite a different name from Barachiah, and our Lord is evidently speaking of things already past (’ye slew’), while this event was forty years later. (4) In 2Ch 24:20-22, we read that a priest named Zechariah was stoned "in the court of the house of Jehovah." His dying words are quite in accordance with the reference our Lord here makes, "Jehovah look upon it and require it," and correspond to the other ease of Abel’s blood. (Gen 4:10) In the ancient Hebrew grouping of the books, as in Hebrew Bibles now, the Chronicles seem to have stood at the end; so that from Abel to this Zachariah would include all the cases from beginning to end of the sacred books. All these circumstances fit exactly. Both the Jerusalem and the Babylon Talmud, as also some Midrashim (Lightf., Wun.), contain wild legends about the blood of this Zachariah as continuing to bubble for more than two centuries until the captivity—which go to show that his murder in the court of the priests was regarded as a notable event. But this Zachariah is expressly described as son of Jehoiada, the priest, whose kindness King Joash was thus ill requiting. Some make haste to say that Matt. has fallen into the error of confounding this Zechariah with the prophet who was son of Berechiah, while Luke gives no name of his father. (Luk 11:51) But we ought certainly to be very slow to remove difficulties by a supposition so improbable in the case of an inspired writer.
There are several possible ways of explaining the matter. Zachariah’s father, Jehoiada, may have had the surname of Berechiah, ’blessed of Jehovah,’ a name borne by six or seven persons in the history, and which might have been given to the great priest for saving his country. Or, Jehoiada, who had just died at the age of one hundred and thirty, (2Ch 24:15) may have been the grandfather of Zechariah, and his father a Berechiah, not otherwise mentioned. So the prophet is in Zec 1:1, called "Zechariah, the son of Betschiah, the son of Iddo," while in Ezr 6:14, he is called "Zechariah, the son of Iddo." Or it may be (Luketter.) that there was some other murder near to the time of Jesus, and known to his hearers. All these are unsupported hypotheses, but they are certainly possible, and so it is by no means necessary to suppose that Matt. fell into an error. Not a few cases that long appeared as difficult as this have been cleared up by the progress of knowledge within the present half century.[1] (Compare on Mat 20:29.) Whom ye slew, viz., through your fathers. They are held guilty of their father’ conduct because they have imitated it. The temple is here, the sacred house, as in Ezr 6:17, see on "Mat 4:5"; the altar is the great altar of burnt offering, which stood in the Court of the Priests in front of the sacred house. ’Between the temple and the altar’ would be a natural expansion of the statement in Chron., where Zechariah the priest stands "above the people, "in the Court of the Priests. Upon this generation compare Mat 11:16 , and see on "Mat 24:34"; the idea is kept up by Mat 24:38 f. These are our Lord’s farewell words to the Jews at large.
[1] The omission of Barachiah in à, and the change to Jehoiada, which Jerome found in the Gospel used by the Nazarenes, are obviously mere attempts to get rid of the discrepancy. Westcott Hort, say (App. p. 282), "it is difficult to believe that all the words as they stand have apostolic authority." But conjectural emendation to remove a patent difficulty, would of course be extremely precarious.
VIII. Mat 23:37-39. A Mournful Apostrophe To Jerusalem
Our Lord’s thoughts had been turning sadly toward Jerusalem for more than a half year, compare on Mat 16:21, Mat 20:18 f. Now the conclusion of the series of woes having pointed directly to dreadful and speedy judgments upon the persons addressed, which would be connected especially with the destruction of Jerusalem, he breaks into a grieved and compassionate apostrophe. That such feelings should have taken this form when speaking of Jerusalem at a distance, (Luk 19:41-44) again when coming in sight of the city during the triumphal entry, (Luk 19:41-44) and now again in closing his last address to the people, is in every respect natural; and there is not the slightest occasion for supposing that the saying has been displaced by one or the other Gospel. The doubled address, and the frequent changes of person, are also natural in the language of passionate emotion: "Jerusalem, Jerusalem—thou that killest... sent unto thee... thy children... your house... ye shall not see." Thou that killest the prophets gives the point of connection between this and the preceding paragraph. And stonest them. The Zechariah just before mentioned (according to the view preferred) was Stoned to death. How often implies frequent visits to Jerusalem during his ministry, and special efforts to save her people, and this agrees with the Gospel according to John. Others would suppose that he speaks of the frequent divine wish in past generations. As a hen gathereth her chickens. This beautiful comparison is the only passage of the Bible, except Mat 26:34, etc., in which barnyard fowls are expressly mentioned, but see probable allusion in Psa 17:8, Psa 91:4 Jer 48:40; compare Deu 32:11 Psa 36:7, etc. Wilkinson says they are not represented in the old Egyptian paintings. Yet they are now extremely common in both countries, and must have been so from early times. There was simply no occasion for more frequent reference to them. Proselytes are spoken of in the Talmud (Wun.) as taking shelter under the wings of the Shechinah. How often would I... and ye would not. ’I’ and ’ye’ are not separately expressed in the Greek, and so cannot be taken as emphatic. The reference here is to the divine wish and not to the divine purpose. God’s will of purpose is always carried out; his will of desire often fails, because the free will of men will not yield; compare on Mat 6:10. Your house is left, present tense, ’is now being left. ’The city’, which is the house or dwelling of the people, is now in process of being left desolate, causes are in operation that must have this result.[1] Some think that ’house’, means the temple rather than the city. For introduces the proof that this process of leaving them desolate is going on, viz., in the fact that the Messiah who has so often wished to gather and save, is now on the point of turning away. Ye shall not see me henceforth. After the resurrection he was not seen by the people at large, but only by chosen witnesses, Act 10:40 f. Till ye shall say, viz., at his second coming, of which he will presently speak fully to his disciples (ch. 24 and 25.) At the triumphal entry (ch. 24 and 25) some said this, but the people of Jerusalem in general did not. At the second coming all will sincerely, though some most unwillingly and sadly, recognize him as the Messiah, that cometh in the name of the Lord, Mat 24:30 f., compare Rev 1:7 Php 2:9-11. From Rom 11:25 ff. we may hope that among those who then joyfully recognize him will be many Jews.
[1] ’Desolate’ is omitted here by B, L, an Old Latin copy, and a quotation in Origen. In Luk 13:35 it is omitted by most documents, and its chief supports are there "Western." It seems pretty clear that the word is spurious in Luke and genuine in Matthew, as this supposition accounts for all the phenomena. W. H. omit it in Matthew also, placing it in the margin. But we have found various instances in which B, with some other documents, must be regarded as wrong.
Mat 23:14. Origen: "Two faults. (1) They do not themselves enter the kingdom. (2) They do not suffer those that are trying to enter. These two sins are naturally inseparable; he Who commits the one cannot refrain from committing the other; he who refrains from the one is sure to refrain from the other also."-What an evil thing it is by our teaching to shut the gate of salvation in men’s faces; what a blessed thing to open the gate, and lead men to enter.
Mat 23:15. False religious teaching is very apt to make the pupils worse than the teacher; (1) more extreme in opinion; (2) more sure they are right; (3) more unhesitating in action; (4) more uncharitable to those who think otherwise.—Origen: "To the son of Gehenna, Christ’s teaching gives the right to become the child of God." (Joh 1:12)
Mat 23:16-22. Discrimination is an indispensable element of sound judgment, in the sphere of thought or of action; but false distinctions are one of the commonest means of self-deception.—The fact that oaths wear out is not a reason for inventing new ones, but for refraining from oaths, Save when used on extraordinary occasions and in a reverent spirit; compare on Mat 5:34.
Mat 23:17. The Saviour calls these men ’fools,’ notwithstanding what he said in Mat 5:22. He infallibly knows them to be fools, and he says it with perfectly right aims and feelings.
Mat 23:28. The centre of gravity, even in the Mosaic system, lay in the ethical and not in the ceremonial, and still more is that the case with Christianity; but even apparently slight matters of external observance, if divinely enjoined, should by no means be neglected. Origen applies this to persons who neglect wholesome instruction, and care only for rhetorical ornament; compare 1Co 1:17.
Mat 23:24. Blind guides. Chrys.: "For if for a blind man not to think he needs a guide be extreme misery and wretchedness; when he wishes himself to guide others, see to what a gulf it leads."
Mat 23:25. Scrupulosity in religious ceremonial cannot atone for extortion in business or for indulgence of appetite to excess. Indeed, religious ceremonial is itself unacceptable to God when performed by the immoral 1Ti 2:8 Pro 15:8, Pro 21:27.
Mat 23:28. Rochefoucauld: "Hypocrisy is a sort of homage that vice pays to virtue." Pollok: "He was a man who stole the livery of the court of heaven to serve the devil in."
Mat 23:30 f. It is very easy to condemn severely the misconduct of others, while secretly guilty of essentially the same sin. But "God is not mocked," Gal 6:7. Henry: "The deceitfulness of sinners’ hearts appears very much in this, that while they go down the stream of the sins of their own day, they fancy they should have swum against the stream of the sins of former days; that if they had had other people’s opportunities, they would have improved them more faithfully; if they had been in other people’s temptations, they would have resisted them more vigorously; when yet they improve not the opportunities they have, nor resist the temptations they are in."
Mat 23:32. Filling up the measure. (1) In one sense men are accountable only for their own sins; "the soul that sinneth it shall die," Eze 18:4. (2) Yet all men suffer the consequences of the wrong doing of others—ancestors, present kindred, rulers, neighbours. (3) Human wickedness goes on increasing in lines of descent or of other relation till there comes a time of reckoning, till the full measure of guilt overflows in destruction. (4) The only escape is in really turning from the sin of wicked ancestors, so as to interrupt the transmission of wickedness and guilt; yea, in turning from all sin to the sin-hating and sin-pardoning God.
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 vv8, 13, 16, 23, 25, 29, 33 But be not ye called Rabbi.
Mat_23:8-12
But be not ye called Rabbi.
Read full note →
Christians are brethren
The late Rev. Wm. Jay, in a sermon at Surrey Chapel, said Some time ago a countryman observed to me, I was exceedingly alarmed this morning, sir. I was going down in a lonely place, and I thought I saw a strange monster. It seemed in motion, but I could not make out its form. I didnt like to turn back, but my heart beat, and the more I looked the more I was afraid. But, as we came nearer each other, I saw it was a man, and who do you think it was? I know not. Oh, it was my brother John! Ah, said I to myself, as he added that it was early in the morning, and very foggy, how often do we thus mistake our Christian brethren!
Christian brethren not to be treated as enemies
During the Peninsular war, an officer of artillery had just served a gun with admirable precision against a body of men posted in a wood to his left. When the Commander-in-Chief rode up, after turning his glass for a moment in the direction of the shot, he said, in his cool way, Well aimed, captain; but no more; they are our own 99th. This sad blunder has been repeated too often in the armies of Jesus. The great guns of the Church, which might have battered down the citadels of Satan, have been misdirected against Christian brethren!
A bond of union
A Hindoo and a New Zealander met upon the deck of a missionary ship. They had been converted from their heathenism, and were brothers in Christ, but they could not speak to each other. They pointed to their Bibles, shook hands, smiled in each others faces, but that was all. At last a happy thought occurred to the Hindoo. With sudden joy he exclaimed, Hallelujah! The New Zealander, in delight, cried out, Amena! Those two words, not found in their own heathen tongues, were to them the beginning of one language and one speech.
Recognition of Christian brotherhood
It was on a sacramental Sabbath, and at the close of the service, Dr. Cumming invited Christs followers to remain and partake of the emblems of His atoning love. As we changed our seat to take our place among the communicants, we found ourselves in the pew of the Duke of Sutherland. The only two persons in the pew, besides our republican self, were the beautiful Duchess (then apparently about five-and-thirty years of age) and a poor, coarsely-clad woman, who had strayed in there from her seat in the gallery. On seeing the name of the titled owner of the pew upon the psalm-book, the poor woman looked disconcerted, as if she was in the wrong box. But when the sacramental bread was passed, the Duchess very courteously took the plate and handed it to her neighbour with such delicate graciousness that the puir body was made to feel quite at ease immediately. It was a striking illustration of the unity of Christs household, in which the rich and the poor, the lofty and the lowly, meet together and feel that Jesus is the Saviour of them all. When the service ended I said to myself, Now, which of these two women has had the most serious obstacle to contend with in taking up the cross for Christ? That poor labouring woman probably lives in some back alley, and thanks God for her daily meal of potatoes and salt. Her worldly temptations are few; her sources of enjoyment are few; and perhaps her chief comfort in life is found in her Bible, her prayers, her communion with Christ, and her hope of heaven. The Duchess dwells amid the splendours of Stafford House, with everything to attract her toward this world, and very little to remind her of eternity. She has troops of friends, and luxury tends to self-indulgence. The atmosphere of high life is unfavourable usually to godliness. Gold is often a hardener of the heart. So I decided that it required more grace to make the lady of rank a humbleminded, devoted disciple than it did to make the poor woman at her side a Christian. Was I not right? Remember the dear Master said, How hard it is for them that have riches to enter into the kingdom of God. (T. L. Cuyler, D. D.)
Christ the true Master
I. Human masters may transmit their words; Christ alone can impart His Spirit.
II. Human masters may teach the elements; Christ alone can conduct to the goal.
III. Human masters may establish schools; Christ alone can found a church. (J. P. Lange, D. D.)
Christs right to leadership
I. He Himself, by Himself, teaches us, and leads us by the way of virtue to heavenly glory. All others teach as they have been first taught by Him.
II. All others only teach in words that sound in the outward ears, like a tinkling cymbal; but Christ makes known their meaning inwardly to the mind.
III. All others only show what the law commands and what God requires; but Christ gives grace to the will, that we, when we hear the things which ought to be done, may indeed constantly fulfil the same. (Lapide.)
The true Master
I am my own master, cried a young man, proudly, when a friend tried to dissuade him from an enterprize he had on hand, I am my own master. Did you ever consider what a responsible post that is? asked his friend. Responsible! what do you mean? A master must lay out the work which he wants done, and see that it is done right. He should try to secure the best ends by the best means. He must keep on the look-out against obstacles and accidents, and watch that everything goes straight, else he must fail. To be master of yourself, you have your conscience to keep clear, your heart to cultivate, your temper to govern, your will to direct, and your judgment to instruct. You are master over many servants, and, if you dont master them, they will master you. That is so, said the young man. Now I could undertake no such thing, continued his friend; I should fail if I did. Saul wanted to be his own master, and failed. Herod failed. Judas failed. No man is fit to be his own master. One is your Master, even Christ. I work under His direction.
Calling no man master
I. Christians have a Master and a Father.
II. Christians have but one Master, but one Father.
III. There is no man upon earth that is the Christians father or master.
IV. God is the Christians only Father, Jesus Christ their only Master. (Hezekiah Burton.)
A truth about religion
Religion, like water, will not rise higher than the spring; if it derives its origin from this earth only, it will not rise and raise us up with it to heaven. (Hezekiah Burton.)
Call no man father
The reasons for this caution are evident.
1. When the gospel began to be preached, men who were convinced of its truth, and inclined to receive it, were often in danger of incurring the displeasure of their nearest relations and dearest friends, of father and mother, as also of the rulers in Church and State.
2. The Jews at that time were accustomed to pay a blind and slavish deference to their spiritual fathers, their doctors, and wise men, and to prefer their authority even to that of their prophets and of their own sacred books.
3. Our Saviour foresaw that the same corruption would enter into His Church, and the same slavish obedience to the traditions and doctrines of men; that fathers, and monks, and councils, and synods, and prelates, and popes would at last so engross all power, both spiritual and temporal, and abuse it to such an enormous degree, that scarcely the shadow of Christianity would remain in the Christian Church. (J. Jortin.)
What we may learn from earth masters
The points may be reduced to three.
1. A belief in God, in opposition to atheism.
2. Moral duties, in opposition to vice and debauchery.
3. Christianity, in opposition to infidelity. (J. Jortin.)
God our Father
As God is our Father, a willing compliance and a cheerful obedience are due to Him. God is a Father to us in every sense of the word, bestowing upon us more than we could hope or expect, forgiving us our offences, ruling us with lenity, making allowances for human infirmities, temptations, surprises, mistakes, and errors, for everything that can claim compassion, and is not deliberate and stubborn. We should imitate and resemble Him. We should place our trust and confidence in Him. If God be the Father of all beings, they are all, in some way, related to us. (J. Jortin.)
God the Father of His people
I. He is the Author of their spiritual being, gives life, and imparts His own nature.
II. God supplies all the need of His children. They are dependent, etc.
III. He provides them with a suitable home and habitation-Himself, His Church, His heaven.
IV. He secures the instruction of His children by His works, His word. He has appointed for them teachers.
V. He guards and protects His children.
VI. He gives them a glorious and everlasting portion. Reverence and fear Him; live and delight in Him; follow and obey Him, etc. (J. Burns, LL. D.)
Virtue only commands esteem
It is virtue that puts an esteem upon men, it makes their countenances lovely, their words to be remembered; it casts a perfume on all that men do or say; gives every word or action a rich scent. This will make our so much distasted habits and gestures that they shall not be contemned or derided, but reverenced and honoured. (Hezekiah Burton.)
Authority means service, not proud dominion
Excellent and admirable was the speech of Xunus, Emperor of China, to his son Tunis, who, according to the relation of Martinius, lived 2258 years before the birth of Christ. Take, said he, when he was dying, this sceptre, due to your virtue and merits; remember that you are the father of your people, that you are to deal with them as with your children; that the people are not born to serve you, but that you are born and designed to serve them; and that a king is alone raised up above all the rest that he might alone be able to serve all. (C. Buckley.)
Peril of high things
Do you see, so we have it in Herodotus, how God strikes the taller animals with His thunder, and causes them to disappear; while the small ones are not at all affected by it? Do you see how the loftiest houses and the highest trees are in a like manner thunder-stricken. (C. Buckley.)
Jesus Christ to the brethren
I. A prohibition.
1. Against a proud, ambitious spirit-Be not ye called Rabbi.
2. Against a servile spirit And call no man your father upon earth.
II. A revelation.
1. As to Christ. He was their Master.
2. As to the unseen God. He is our Father in heaven.
III. An ideal-All ye are brethren. (A. Scott.)
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 vv2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 18, 21, 23, 24, 25, 27, 28, 29, 31, 32, 33 2. The scribes and the Pharisees. Associated because almost…
2. The scribes and the Pharisees. Associated because almost all the scribes were of the sect of Pharisees. The scribes, the Jewish scholars, the theologians and lawyers, would naturally be of the religious sect. Sit in the Moses' seat. Are the expounders of the law of Moses.
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 vv13, 16, 29 Mat_23:13. Woe.—There is indignation in the word, and just…
CRITICAL NOTES
Mat_23:13. Woe.—There is indignation in the word, and just denunciation; but, as Vatable long ago remarked, there is “deploration” too. There is wailing in it. It is rendered “alas!” in Rev_18:10; Rev_18:16; Rev_18:19 (Morison). Hypocrites.—See note on Mat_6:2. Shut up the kingdom of heaven.—“Up” omitted in R.V. In allusion to the symbolic “key of knowledge” given to the scribe on admission to the order. They use their keys to shut rather than to open the doors of the kingdom (Carr).
Read full note →
Mat_23:14. Wanting in many MSS., including the Vatican and Sinaitic. Omitted in R.V. Seems to have been transferred from Mar_12:40 and Luk_20:47, in both of which places it is genuine.
Mat_23:15. Twofold more the child of hell.—Lit. “a son of Gehenna,” or, as Sir John Cheke has it, in most expressive slang, “a hell-imp,” i.e. one who derives his peculiarity of character from beneath (Morison). Out of bad heathens they were made worse Jews (Erasmus).
MAIN HOMILETICS OF THE PARAGRAPH.—Mat_23:13-15
The results of hypocrisy.—After the misled, the misleaders—after the too-confiding followers, the faithless guides—are admonished. And that, of course, as with greater cause, so with more manifest force. In the two verses before us now—for we follow the R.V. and other leading authorities in regarding Mat_23:14 as not really part of the text—this is done in two principal ways. These self-deceivers are denounced, first, as being great preventers of good; secondly, as being great aggravaters of evil.
I. Preventers of good.—Hypocrisy prevents men of all classes from learning the truth. As it were, it shuts the door of truth—the very way of access thereto—the beginning of that way—in their faces (Mat_23:13). This is true, first, of such self-deceivers themselves. How can any one who begins with deception finish with truth? He is wrong from the first. This seems to be why the Saviour said before (Mat_5:20) “Except your righteousness shall exceed the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees, ye shall in no case enter into the kingdom of heaven.” Such “righteousness” being really unrighteousness, can only effect what unrighteousness does. It cannot help a man to find the way in. Rather, it is like shooting the bolt of a door the wrong way; a thing which necessarily, instead of opening, fastens it up. Hypocrisy also prevents other men from learning the truth. Even so far as such self-deceivers do point to the right door—and that this is true of them to some extent seems implied in Mat_23:3—they do so in such a way as to deter those who look on. For what is it that such inquirers behold when they do? They see the manifest inconsistencies of these professed dealers in truth—how they “say and do not” (Mat_23:3-4). They see also the real motives by which such men are moved (Mat_23:5-7). And they judge of truth, therefore, by these professors of it, and feel equal objection to both. In the case of men not really desirous of learning the truth, the process is swift and direct. Even the semblance of an obstacle is quite sufficient to keep such reluctant ones off. In other cases, if more roundabout, it is none the less sure. Those who desire the truth are repelled by seeing the manifest untruthfulness of such teachers. Consequently they are led to reject the truth, even when it does fall from their lips. The other set never see the door, and so never go in. These men do see it indeed, but do not know what it is; and so are prevented just as effectually from availing themselves of its good.
II. Aggravaters of evil.—Hypocrisy leads to this, first, by means of the great efforts which it induces men to put forth. Those who follow such self-deceiving ways must sometimes surely have some misgivings about them. To gain others over to the same ways is a sort of testimony in their favour—sufficiently like it, in any case, to pass muster with such, and make them crave it with eagerness. On the other hand, to secure such gains is to gain also what such persons so especially value, namely, distinction and praise (Mat_23:5, etc.). To such truly “sectarian” victors, at all sectarian “feasts,” the very “uppermost rooms” (Mat_23:6) are assigned. Any one such conquest, therefore, is thought worthy of any amount of exertion, by those whose innermost hearts are set on such small glories as these (Mat_23:15). Secondly, by means of the especially evil effects which result from such efforts. See, e.g., what such “proselytes” are brought to! To the same level, of course, as is occupied by those by whom they are brought. To the same hypocrisy, therefore, and self-deception; the same grievous errors both in doctrine and life; the same wilful darkness and guilt. See, on the other hand, from what they are brought. From a condition, at any rate, in which they were not committed to wrong; where they were at least open to influences for good; where the sunshine could reach them, if it happened to shine; where their moral constitution had not been damaged by the experience of a “fall.” These were the things which gave “twofold” (Mat_23:15) seriousness to their condition and case; and which caused such perverts to go even beyond those who perverted them in wrong-doing. Thus using one’s liberty to turn it into bondage is bondage indeed! What abuse of it can be worse?
These considerations help to account for the peculiar severity of the language before us. Nothing was nearer the Saviour’s heart than the salvation of sinners. He came into the world—He gave His whole life—He submitted to death—He endured the cross—for this end. How grievous to Him, therefore, to see this work of His heart thus doubly opposed! To see those inquiring for saving truth either denied it entirely, or else taught deadly error instead! And to see this done, also, by the very hands which were commissioned, in their way, to do the very reverse! Can we wonder at His denouncing such conduct when He thought of those whom it ruined? Can we be surprised at the very depth of His mercy making Him severe on such hands? “Woe is me,” said the Apostle, “if I preach not the gospel.” Why so? Partly because of the disobedience involved in such a refusal. Partly, also, because of the exceeding cruelty involved in such silence. Something the same as would have been true of him in that case was true of the men described here. In their way, they were the pests of their day. Had He spoken of them otherwise, He would have been as cruel and as false as themselves.
HOMILIES ON THE VERSES
Mat_23:13. Our power to help or harm religion.—We cannot get the full force of these words of Jesus unless we remember that they were spoken to those who called themselves, and who, in some true sense were, religious men. They were hindering His work, not merely as any man might have hindered it, but also in a special way in which none but religious men, none but recognised religious teachers, could have hindered it. They were shutting Him out, not merely as any part of the wall might shut a man out, by mere passive obstinacy and hardness, but as only a door can shut a man out by a bolt, deliberately drawn across the leaves. The words of Christ suggest one truth which evidently lies at the root of the whole subject, which is that every hindrance which any Christian puts in the way of other men’s becoming Christians is associated with an imperfection in his own Christian life. “Ye neither go in yourselves,” etc.
I. I mention the look of unreasonableness which much of the way in which Christians deal with Christianity gives to their faith in the eyes of their fellow-men. Christian faith is made by many Christians to seem fantastic and unreasonable, something wholly distinct and apart from, and even contradictory to, the ordinary laws of thought and life, something that cannot be understood except by a special initiation and the use of wholly different faculties besides those which men use on other things.
II. The lack of connection that there often is between our faith and the facts and duties of our daily life. The facts and duties of life are hard but precious tests of the unseen life of character which lies behind them.
III. The lack of sympathy with the life and activity of men into which some Christians seem to be thrown by their Christian faith. If that new life of yours is really life, it ought to quicken a hundredfold your interest in all the forms of life which are to be found in all the struggling degrees of living men.
IV. Another of the dangers of Christians is lest they lose the essential loftiness of the Christian life, and make it seem to other men a sordid and unworthy thing. Have you never been tempted to value the service of Christ for the merely temporal advantages which it might bring you? Have you never made your religion a mere insurance against future punishment? etc.
V. I hesitate to speak of the doctrinal obstacle which many Christian people put in the way of other men becoming Christians, lest I may seem to fall in with the vulgar and thoughtless denial of the importance of religious dogma which we hear on every side. But one may value doctrine very highly indeed, and yet insist that the making of Christianity to be a system of doctrine is very false to the first intention of Jesus, and very harmful to men’s souls.
VI. The effort to be Christians in silence, without making any profession of faith.—Phillips Brooks, D.D.
Mat_23:15. The blind zeal of the Pharisees.—
1. Seducers will be more busy to draw others to their err or than teachers of the truth are for drawing others to the truth.
2. The more pains in false zeal, and the more speed a man cometh in perverting others, the more measure of vengeance abideth on him.
3. The more a man do profit in the school of error and superstition, the more he is the child of hell and Satan, for the original of errors is from hell, and Satan is the father of error, superstition, and heresy.
4. Young proselytes, who drink in superstition at the persuasion of learned seducers, are far more taken with the false opinions, and more addicted to these false superstitions, than their teachers are, conceiving them to be truth, when these old deceivers do but laugh to see the credulity of the deluded. “You make them twofold more the children of hell than yourselves,” to wit, in respect of believing these errors which you teach them, for in other respects the deceivers were the elder sons of Satan.—David Dickson.
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 v13 Luk 20:47, Mar 12:40; Mat 23:13-39. “Woe unto you,…
WOES AGAINST THE SCRIBES AND PHARISEES
Luk 20:47, Mar 12:40; Mat 23:13-39. “Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! because you devour the houses of widows, and through pretense make long prayers; therefore ye shall receive the greater damnation.” You see He withers them awfully for oppressing the widows. You must not here understand a condemnation of long prayers. Jesus Himself sometimes prayed all night. The condemnation is on the hypocrisy, because through pretense they made long prayers. However, we should all take warning and condense our prayers, throwing away all forms and routines, introductories and conclusions, except the simple “Amen,” and by the help of the Spirit focalize and concentrate our prayers, making them multum in parvo; i.e., “much in little.”
Read full note →
“Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! because you shut up the kingdom of the heavens against the people: for you do not come in, neither do you permit those coming in to enter.” What awful preaching to the pastors of the Churches, ruling elders, and leading members, while looking them in the face! How terrible was the grip of Satan on them, that they did not heed the warning, but got violently mad, and killed Him for telling them the truth! Lord help us to walk in Thy footprints! There is a world of truth in this accusation. Those were the very men who would not enter the kingdom nor permit others. If they had repented under the preaching of John the Baptist, instead of getting mad at him for telling them the truth (Mat 3:7), and received their own Christ with open arms, thus passing exultantly from the Mosaic dispensation into the kingdom of heaven, the people would have followed them in solid columns, the whole Jewish nation receiving their own Christ, turning evangelist, preaching Him to all the Gentiles, and actually bringing on she millennium, far back in the early centuries of the Christian era, the Lord returning on the throne of His glory, as He said He would when the gospel was preached to all nations. The same sad phenomenon you may observe this day. If the leading preachers and Church officers throughout Christendom would receive the Holy Ghost and get sanctified wholly, as Jesus is now calling them, the Churches would follow in swelling multitudes, the revival tide of holiness to the Lord inundate the globe like a mighty swelling sea, and bring on the millennium in the present generation. The rank and file of people will follow their leaders. The climacteric trick of Satan in all ages has been to lead the leaders, and thus populate hell with the downward rush of millions lost.
“Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! because you compass sea and land to make one proselyte; and when he may become, you make him twofold more the son of hell than yourselves.” This poor, deluded, heathen proselyte, not only retains his own sins, but takes on those of hypocrisy and formality peculiar to his Jewish leaders. The deader a Church is, the more proselytic, ready to do almost anything to get a member, especially if he has money. Misery loves company. When people have God with them, they are satisfied to walk alone. When they are without God, they seek comfort in all the company they can get, going for the popular Church.
“Woe unto you. blind guides, saying, Whosoever may swear by the temple, it is nothing; but whosoever may swear by the gold of the temple, he is debtor. Ye foolish and blind: for which is the greater, the gold, or the temple that sanctifies the gold? Whosoever may swear by the altar, it is nothing; but whosoever may swear by the gift which is upon it, he is debtor. Ye blind, for which is the greater, the gift, or the altar that sanctifies the gift? Therefore he that sweareth by the altar, sweareth by it, and by all things which are on it; and he that sweareth by the temple, sweareth by it, and by Him that dwelleth in it; and he that sweareth by heaven, sweareth by the throne of God, and by Him that sitteth upon it.” That our Savior is not here condemning judicial oaths,: we have abundant proof, as He Himself responded to Caiaphas when he administered to Him a solemn oath (Mat 26:63), and Paul administered a solemn oath to the Thessalonians that the epistle should be read to all the brethren. But Jesus is here speaking of profane swearing, condemning the use of bywords, which is incitive to profanity at least, and all superfluous language, as indicative of evil and conducive to sin, cutting down our phraseology to simple statements of fact. We have in this paragraph a very important specification, certifying that the altar sanctifies the gift, which has in all ages been a prominent battle-cry in God’s holiness movements. Consecration is man’s work, just as the Jew brought the sheep, with his own hands, and placed it on God’s altar, neither daring to take it off nor thinking of a doubt as to God’s acceptance of it, believing unhesitatingly and unwaveringly that everything on God’s altar was thereby sanctified and holy. Therefore consecration is man’s work, assisted by the Holy Ghost. When we make the clear, unequivocal, and eternal consecration, we should never doubt the sanctification, as we know God is infallible. He never fails to do His work, while doubt is grievous and dishonoring to Him. All we have to do is to keep all on the altar, consecrated for this world arid all other worlds, to live or to die. Then believe without a doubt that God accepts and sanctifies, going on undeviatingly in the line of joyful obedience, never again listening to the devil, who would destroy your experience by the injection of doubts. Once you move out on this line, and abide, your life will quickly become a constant sunshine, a sweet heaven in which to go to heaven, victory night and day brightening the escutcheon of your joyful experience, and proclaiming Satan’s signal and perpetual defeat.
“Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites l because you tithe mint, anise, and cumin, and you pass by the weightier matters of the law, judgment, mercy, and faith: it behooveth to do these, and not to leave those undone.” When preachers and Church members have no salvation, they are apt to be very particular about little things, and ready to criticize harshly all who do not conform to their little, silly notions punctiliously. Jesus does not object to their tithing everything, even these garden vegetables, giving one-tenth of all their produce to the Lord; but lie commends it. Meanwhile lie denounces them awfully for neglecting the great issues of the law; e.g., judgment — i. e., doing right by everybody, vindicating truth and righteousness, at home and abroad, with all classes indiscriminately, exhibiting to the world a life irreproachable from the standpoint of all rectitude. Mercy also must characterize all our deportment, reaching out to man and beast to friends and enemies, Jews and Gentiles, indiscriminately; full of kindness, pity, sympathy, and love for everything that hath feeling; and always holding up the banner of truth. in harmony with the blessed Word of God, enforcing it, not only by precept, but by example, in small matters as well as great, alway and everywhere on the side of truth and righteousness. While those preachers and Church officers were particular about little non-essentials, they were awfully delinquent in the grand and indispensable, item of true and genuine Holy Ghost religion. Our Savior: even charges these scribes and Pharisees with neglecting faith, which is the basis of all salvation, and without which it is impossible to please God. Now, these were the bon tons of the Jewish Church, both clerical and laical, claiming to be paragons of faith, the boasted children of faithful Abraham. But you see they really had no faith. They had plenty of intellectual and doctrinal faith, but were destitute of spirituality. “With the heart man believeth unto righteousness.” (Rom 10:10) None but spiritual faith has any availability, or even possesses the essence of faith, in the Divine estimation.
“Ye blind guides, who are straining out the gnat, but swallowing down the camel.” As the gnat was unclean, and condemned by the Levitical law, they were very careful to strain their wine and milk lest a gnat might happen to be in it; thus straining it out, and not straining at it as in E. V., The camel is an unclean animal, and the largest in that country. Now, what is meant by straining out the gnat and swallowing down the camel? Be sure you understand it. This is a logical conclusion from the preceding verse, in which, calling them hypocrites, He denounces them for tithing mint, anise, and cumin, garden herbs, and at the same time neglecting judgment, mercy, and faith, these grand, cardinal, spiritual graces. If I had the wings: of an angel and the trump of an archangel, I would fly from ocean to ocean, and warn the blind guides in pulpits and Amen-corners who are this clay straining out gnats — i. e., very punctilious about all sorts of Church finances and duties harmonical with the popular shibboleth of Church loyalty — and at the same time deplorably delinquent with reference to the momentous relations to the Divine government, and the immeasurable obligations arising out of the same; and the poor widows, orphans, and. slumites in the neighborhood, are ready witnesses to their deplorable deficiency of that sweet grace denominated mercy; and as to the faith inspired by the Holy Ghost, the only medium through which we can possibly receive anything from God, and without which all are doomed and lost, it has actually become a dead-letter in their Creed. Those Church bon tons, to whom Jesus did this awful preaching, rejected it as an insult, and killed Him for what they regarded as insolence, and even blasphemy. O how the clergy and ruling elders are this day straining out gnats and swallowing down camels I If you are all right on the gnat question — i. e., little Church duties — you can be an acceptable member or preacher though you have a devil in you as big as a camel. You see. here the gnat represents the little items of practical obedience to the moral and ritual law, like tithing everything, Small as well as great; while the camel represents your delinquency in the great and momentous graces of the Spirit; i. e., like justice, mercy, and faith. While our Savior says we should do all the former, so as not to swallow gnats, as they are unclean, you see how your deficiency in, the graces of the Spirit is illustrated by swallowing do the great camel, which is unclean as well as the gnat, and a thousand million times larger. Good Lord, help us to see this truth, and preach it fearlessly, like Jesus!
“Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites because you cleanse the exterior of the cup and the plate, but within they are full of extortion and impurity. Ye blind Pharisee, first purify that which is within the cup, in order that its exterior may also be pure.” The holiness movement is everywhere shouting the battle-cry of a clean heart. You see that is precisely what Jesus is here preaching; i.e., inward purity. O this is the crying need of the Churches — heart holiness. They all want their members to be externally obedient, prompt, faithful, and dutiful in every ramification of Church work, interest, and enterprise. This is all right; the outside of a cup ought to be clean. But Jesus charged the Church leaders in His day with neglecting heart purity. When the people want inward purity, you can not preach entire sanctification too forcefully to suit them. Here the Savior commands them to purify the interior, assuring them that in that case the outside would also be clean. The interior is your immortal spirit, the eternal self, that must live with God in heaven forever or with demons in the regions of woe. Hence, when the immortal spirit is clean, the exterior always falls in line, and everything is right.
“Woe unto you. scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites because you are like whited sepulchers, which indeed appear fair without, but within they are full of dead men’s bones and all impurity.” It is still customary in that country of whitewash the sepulchers. You can see them a fire at way off, because they are white as snow. What a vivid illustration of a fair external profession and inward rottenness! If the leading preachers of the Jewish Church were in that awful condition, and so blind that they were utterly unconscious of it, should we not all fall on our knees before God, and ask Him for the light needed to see our heads as God sees them? I am witness that the sepulchers in that country, externally, appear most beautiful and fair, while within they are full of putrefying bodies.
“Thus you also indeed appear righteous unto the people; but within, you are full of hypocrisy and iniquity.” What awful preaching to the pastors and leading members of the popular Churches while looking them in the face. “Yes; but the Churches at the present day are more spiritual than those to whom Jesus preached.” I hope that is so; yet there is no doubt but multitudes of preachers, Church officers, and leading members, this day, stand precisely where those did. The only remedy for this awful state of things is experimental holiness; i.e., entire sanctification. The very fact that preachers and members kick against the plain truth when preached in its purity, is demonstrative proof that they. are not right.
“Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! because you build the tombs of the prophets, and ornament the sepulchers of the righteous; and you say, If we were in the days of our fathers, we were not their comrades in the blood of the prophets. So you witness to yourselves, that you are the sons of those who murdered the prophets.” Here Jesus turns on them the homogeneity argument; i.e., the very fact that they build the tombs, shows them up as carrying forward the work which their predecessors began, though they aim it to signify the very opposite. Multitudes of preachers and members who now honor John Wesley, close the doors against the men who preach precisely what Wesley did. The same is true of all the great Protestant Churches. John Bunyan among the Baptists, and John Knox among the Presbyterians, would this day meet a very cold reception.
“You fill up the measure of your fathers. Ye serpents, generations of vipers, how can you escape from the damnation of hell?” If the loving Jesus could look people in the face and thus preach, we need not be afraid of using language too strong, if we are sure we are telling the truth. Of course, we can not read their hearts as He did; but the Holy Ghost can, and He will apply the truth Where it belongs.
“Therefore, behold, I send unto you prophets, wise men, and scribes; some of them you will slay and crucify, and some of them you will scourge in your synagogues, and persecute from city to city.” This awful prophecy was literally verified. Soon afterward those same people murdered Stephen and many others in the bloody persecution which followed, doing their utmost to exterminate the Nazarenes in blood. “In order that all the righteous blood shed upon the earth, from the blood of righteous Abel unto the blood of Zacharias, the son of the blessed, may come upon you.” The very fact that those people, who, in less than forty-eight hours after that awful sermon, actually killed Him, and subsequently put Stephen and many others to death, showed them up in the same line with their bloody predecessors, and consequently particeps criminis.
“But Jehoiada waxed old, and was full of days when he died; a hundred and thirty years old was he when he died. And they buried him in the city of David among the kings, because he had done good in Israel, both toward God and toward his house. Now, after the death of Jehoiada came the princes of Judah, and made obeisance to the king. Then the king hearkened unto them. And they left the house of the Lord God of their fathers, and served groves and idols: and wrath came upon Judah and Jerusalem for this their trespass. Yet he sent prophets to them, to bring them again unto the Lord; and they testified against them but they would not give ear. And the Spirit of God came upon Zechariah, the son of Jehoiada the priest, who stood before the people, and said unto them, Thus saith God, Why transgress ye the commandments of the Lord, that ye can not prosper? Because ye have forsaken the Lord, He hath also forsaken you. And they conspired against him, and stoned him with stones at the commandment of the king in the court of the house of the Lord. Thus Joash the king remembered not the kindness which Jehoiada his father had done to him, but slew his son. And when he died, he said, The Lord look upon it,. and require it.” (2Ch 24:15-21)
King Joash was only seven years old when he began to reign, his life having been preserved from the cruel Athaliah, who had murdered all of his brothers; and through the kindness of Jehoiada the priest, he reigned and did well during the lifetime of Jehoiada, his foster-father. But, as you see, after the death of Jehoiada, he was led into idolatry by the princes of Judah, and when God put the spirit of prophecy on Zechariah, the son of Jehoiada, so that he boldly told them the truth, the king encouraged an evil conspiracy against him, and they stoned him to death, as Jesus here says, “between the temple and the altar;” i. e., the brazen altar for burnt offerings, which stood outside of the temple. While this prophet of God was dying, he said, “The Lord look upon it, and require it;” i.e., he turned over the case to the Lord. “Barachias,” in E. V., a proper name, is evidently a mistake, as Zacharias was not the son of a man by that name, but the son of Jehoiada the priest. The plain solution of the matter is, Barachias is a Hebrew word, and simply means “the blessed.” Therefore I translate it, “Zacharias, the son of the blessed,” — an epithet of Jehoiada. That bloody scene took place right there on the spot where they were standing when Jesus referred to it.
“Truly I say unto you, All these things shall come upon this generation;” i.e., the awful Divine retribution for the martyrdoms of God’s prophets and saints, from Abel down, was coming on that generation, because God had sent them all to prepare the people for His Son; and now that He has come, they are rejecting Him, and going to kill Him, thus climaxing all the murders of their predecessors.
William B. Godbey, Commentary on the New Testament (1896–1900) — 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
Read full note →
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.
C. I. Scofield 1917 · Public Domain On vv2, 5, 14, 15, 16, 28 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.
Paul E. Kretzmann 1924 · Public Domain On vv5, 8, 13, 14, 15, 16, 23, 25, 27, 29 Their passion for honor from men:
Their passion for honor from men:
v. 5. But all their works they do for to be seen of men; they make broad their phylacteries, and enlarge the borders of their garments,
Read full note →
v. 6. and love the uppermost rooms at feasts and the chief seats in the synagogues,
v. 7. and greetings in the markets, and to be called of men, Rabbi, Rabbi.
In public, where they were before the eyes of the people, the Pharisees and scribes were models of piety and virtue. Their works, all their public acts, were done with that object in mind, for they were actors that performed beautifully. A few instances of such hypocritical behavior are given. God had commanded the Jews, Deu 6:8, that they should bind His words for a sign upon the hand and as frontlets between the eyes. This the Jewish leaders explained in the literal sense. Hence the phylacteries, or remembrancers, strips of vellum or parchment, about an inch wide and from twelve to eighteen inches long, on which were written Deu 11:13-21; Deu 6:4-9; Exo 13:11-16; Exo 13:1-10. These were placed in tiny chests or boxes, one of which was fastened to the forehead, for the intellect and mind, the other to the left arm, for the heart. The Pharisees made these remembrancers of the Law exceptionally large, either in the size of the parchment or of the letters in which the texts were written. In the same way the Pharisees exaggerated in the matter of the borders, tassels, or fringes on their garments, which the Jews wore according to Num 15:37-40, to remind them of the commandments of the Lord. They were fastened to the garments with blue ribbons, since blue was the symbolical color of God, of heaven, of His covenant, and of faithfulness. Verses from the Law were usually woven into these strips. In making these borders very wide and conspicuous, the scribes and Pharisees wanted to parade their zeal for the Law of God. In the same way they dearly loved, and always tried to get for themselves, the highest seat, the first sofa, the place of honor at a festive meal; they always chose the seat reserved for the elders in the synagogue; their vanity craved the formal address of the public teacher, when the lay people deferentially called them Rabbi. It was an inordinate, a sickening ambition.
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 vv4, 6, 8, 11, 13, 16, 18, 20, 23, 25, 27, 29, 32 they bind heavy burdens that are difficult to carry,…
they bind heavy burdens that are difficult to carry, and then they put them on people's shoulders. But they themselves will not move a finger to carry them
Here "bind heavy burdens ... put them on people's shoulders" is a metaphor for the religious leaders making many difficult rules and making the people obey them. And "will not move a finger" is an idiom that means the religious leaders will not help the people. AT: "they make you obey many rules that are difficult to follow. But they do nothing at all to help the people follow the rules" (See: Metaphor and Idiom)
Read full note →
They do all their deeds to be seen by people
This can be stated in active form. AT: "They do all their deeds so that people can see what they do" (See: Active or Passive)
For they make their phylacteries wide, and they enlarge the edges of their garments
Both of these are things the Pharisees do to appear as if they honor God more than other people. (See: Assumed Knowledge and Implicit Information)
phylacteries
small leather boxes containing paper with scripture written on it
they enlarge the edges of their garments
The Pharisees made the tassels on the bottom of their robes especially long to show their devotion to God.
translationWords
bind
burden
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 vv2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 13, 15, 16, 23, 24, 26, 27, 29, 32 23:2 the Pharisees are the official interpreters of the…
23:2 the Pharisees are the official interpreters of the law of Moses: They transmitted the oral traditions that were associated with the law and thought to be from Moses, and they judged religious and social matters on the basis of these traditions (see 15:2).
Tyndale Open Study Notes — © Tyndale Open Resources, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Text via the HelloAO Bible API.