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“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,
Matthew 23:27-29 sits inside this longer paragraph.
“Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you are like whitened tombs, which outwardly appear beautiful, but inwardly are full of dead men’s bones, and of all uncleanness. Even so you also outwardly appear righteous to men, but inwardly you are full of hypocrisy and iniquity.
“Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you build the tombs of the prophets, and decorate the tombs of the righteous, and say, ‘If we had lived in the days of our fathers, we wouldn’t have been partakers with them in the blood of the prophets.’ Therefore you testify to yourselves that you are children of those who killed the prophets. Fill up, then, the measure of your fathers. You serpents, you offspring of vipers, how will you escape the judgment of Gehenna? Therefore behold, I send to you prophets, wise men, and scribes. Some of them you will kill and crucify; and some of them you will scourge in your synagogues, and persecute from city to city; that on you may come all the righteous blood shed on the earth, from the blood of righteous Abel to the blood of Zachariah son of Barachiah, whom you killed between the sanctuary and the altar. Most certainly I tell you, all these things will come upon this generation.
“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,
Wo be to you Scribe and Pharises ypocrite for ye are lyke vnto paynted tombes which appere beautyfull outwarde: but are with in full of deed bones and of all fylthynes.
So are ye for outwarde ye appere righteous vnto me when within ye are full of ypocrisie and iniquite.
Wo be vnto you Scribes and Pharises ypocrites: ye bylde the tombes of the Prophetes and garnisshe the sepulchres of the righteous
Wo be to you, Scribes and Pharises, hypocrites: for ye are like vnto whited tombes, which appeare beautifull outward, but are within full of dead mens bones, and all filthines.
So are ye also: for outwarde ye appeare righteous vnto men, but within ye are full of hypocrisie and iniquitie.
Wo be vnto you, Scribes and Pharises, hypocrites: for ye build the tombes of the Prophets, and garnish the sepulchres of the righteous,
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Geneva Bible translators 1599 · Public Domain On v29 Hypocrites when they go most about to cover their…
Hypocrites when they go most about to cover their wickedness, then do they by the just judgment of God, shame themselves.
Geneva Bible (1599) marginal notes — public domain.
John Trapp 1656 · Public Domain On vv27–29 27 Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for…
27 Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye are like unto whited sepulchres, which indeed appear beautiful outward, but are within full of dead men’s bones, and of all uncleanness.
Ver. 27. Ye are like unto whited sepulchres] The Jews had their vaults or caves for burial. These the wealthier sort would paint, garnish, beautify at the mouth or entrance of them. And hereunto our Saviour alludeth, Intus Nero, foris Cato: loquitur hic ut Piso, vivit ut Gallomus, &c. It was said of the Sarmatians, that all their virtue was outward; and of Sejanus, that he had only a semblance of honesty, Intus summa adipiscendi libido, within he was full of extortion and excess. {a} Hypocrites seem as glowworms, to have both light and heat; but touch them, and they have neither. The Egyptian temples were beautiful on the outside, when within ye should find nothing but some serpent or crocodile. Apothecaries’ boxes often have goodly titles, when yet they hold not one dram of any good drug. A certain stranger coming on embassy unto the senators of Rome, and colouring his hoary hair and pale cheeks with vermilion hue, a grave senator espying the deceit, stood up, and said, "What sincerity are we to expect from this man’s hands, whose locks, and looks, and lips do lie?" Think the same of all painted hypocrites. These we may compare (as Lucian doth his Grecians) to a fair gilt bossed book; look within it, and there is the tragedy of Thyestes; or perhaps Arrius’ Thalya; the name of a muse, the matter heresy: or Conradus Vorstius’ book monster, that hath De Deo Concerning God, in the front, but atheism and blasphemy in the text.
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{a} Omnis Sarmatarum virtus extra ipsos. Tac. i. 10. Palam compositus pudor, &c. Tac.
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 vv27, 29 The similitude is of the same import with the…
The similitude is of the same import with the other, to show that the Pharisees had only a vizard of strictness and holiness, when in the mean time their hearts were full of lusts, hypocrisy, and iniquity. The Jews had two sorts of graves; some for ordinary persons, which appeared not (to which our Saviour likened the Pharisees, Luk 11:44); others that were covered with tombs, which were wont to be kept whited, so as they looked very fair outwardly, but had within nothing but rottenness and putrefaction. To these he compares them in this place. They were men that made a great show, but had nothing of any inward purity or cleanness, but were full of iniquity. Thus Paul called Ananias a whited wall; and, Psa 5:9, the psalmist saith of the throat of the wicked that it is an open sepulchre.
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 vv27, 29 Here we have a woe denounced against the Pharisees…
Here we have a woe denounced against the Pharisees for cheating and deceiving the people with an outward shew, and external appearance of piety and religion: their lives were seemingly very religious but their hearts were full of hypocrisy and all impurity, like sepulchres painted without, and full of rottenness within.
Whence, Learn, That the great design of hypocrisy is to cheat the world with a vain and empty shew of piety. The ambition of the hypocrite is to be thought good, not to be so; he is the world’s saint, not God’s.
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 vv27–29 Even so ye also outwardly appear righteous,.... By making…
Even so ye also outwardly appear righteous,.... By making broad their phylacteries, enlarging the borders of their garments, praying long prayers, compassing sea and land to make one proselyte, paying tithes of all manner of herbs, and cleansing the outside of the cup and platter, and doing all their works, prayers, fastings, and alms deeds, to be seen of men. This is the accommodation of the above simile; by reason of these things they looked like whited sepulchres, outwardly beautiful: so these appeared outwardly righteous, they looked like righteous persons, and were not; they were what Hagar, as the Jews say, charged her mistress with being; for so they interpret these words, "her mistress was despised in her eyes", Gen 16:4 (b),
"She said, this Sarah is not secretly, what she is openly; she appears , "as if she was righteous" and she is not righteous.
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The same they say of (c) Leah. This was a misrepresentation; but the representation Christ gives of these men, is right; they were of that sort of the Pharisees, which they call "the dyed", or "coloured" ones: it is said of Jannai the king, that he should say to those of his family (d),
"Do not be afraid of them that are Pharisees, (that are truly so,) nor of them that are not Pharisees; but of them that are, "dyed", for they are like to Pharisees; for their works are as the works of Zimri, (adulterers, as these were,) and they expect the reward as Phinehas.
The gloss upon it is,
"the Pharisees hated him, because he had slain many of their wise men, and was turned Sadducee; and when he was dying, his wife was afraid of them, lest they should take away the kingdom from her sons, and she desired him to seek their favour for her; but he said unto her, do not be afraid of the Pharisees, for they are "righteous", and will not render evil to thee, nor to thy sons; for they have not sinned against them; nor of them that are not Pharisees, for they are their friends; but of "the dyed ones": as if he had said, their appearance is not according to their nature, but they are dyed without,
, "and their inside is not as their outside": for their works are as the work of Zimri, for they are ungodly; and they expect the reward as Phinehas, saying to men, to honour them as Phinehas.
But this outward show and appearance of righteousness, was only "unto men", not unto God: they did not appear so to him, who is the searcher of hearts, and knows what is in man, and knew all the secret wickedness that was in them; for though they imposed upon, and deceived men, they could not deceive God; nor was their iniquity hid from Christ, who adds, "but within ye are full of hypocrisy and iniquity": and which was evident from their ambition and vain glory, in desiring the uppermost rooms at feasts, the chief places in the synagogue, greetings in the markets, and titles of honour and grandeur; from their avarice and cruel oppression of the widows, and fatherless, under a pretence of long prayers; from their neglecting the weightier matters of the law, judgment, mercy, and faith, and practising extortion and excess: that saying of their's (e), may be applied to themselves,
"every disciple of a wise man, , "whose inside is not as his outside", is no disciple of a wise man.
And it is expressly ascribed by some of their writers to one sort of the Pharisees, of whom they say (f),
"they are desirous to appear to men to be holy, but their inside is not as their outside;
which is much the same Christ here says of them. What our Lord charges these men with, is owned by their own doctors; they say (g), that "the iniquity of those that were under the first temple, was open and manifest, but the iniquity of those that were under the second temple, was not open.
But as the gloss says,
"the children of the second temple, , "were secretly wicked".
(b) Bereshit Rabba, sect. 45. fol. 40. 3. Jarchi in Gert. xvi. 4. (c) Bereshit Rabba, sect. 71. fol. 63. 2. (d) T. Bab. Sota, fol. 22. 2. (e) T. Bab. Yoma, fol. 72. 2. (f) Bartenora in Misn. Sota, c. 3. sect. 4. (g) T. Bab. Yoma, fol. 9. 2.
John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
Adam Clarke 1810 · Public Domain On vv27–29 Verse 27. For ye are like] παρομοιαζετε, ye exactly…
Verse 27. For ye are like] παρομοιαζετε, ye exactly resemble - the parallel is complete.
Whited sepulchres] White-washed tombs. As the law considered those unclean who had touched any thing belonging to the dead, the Jews took care to have their tombs white-washed each year, that, being easily discovered, they might be consequently avoided.
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 v27 Mat 23:27. Wo unto you, for you are like…
Mat 23:27. Wo unto you, for you are like whited sepulchres — Here we have the seventh wo. Dr. Shaw, (Trav., p. 285,) gives a genial description of the different sorts of tombs and sepulchres in the East — concluding with this paragraph — “Now all these, with the very walls of the enclosure, being always kept clean, white-washed, and beautified; continue to this day to be an excellent comment upon Mat 23:27.” The scribes and Pharisees, like fine whited sepulchres, looked very beautiful without, but within were full of all uncleanness, and defiled every one who touched them. This was a sore rebuke to men who would not keep company with publicans and sinners for fear they should have been polluted by them!
Mat 23:29-31. Wo unto you, because ye build the tombs of the prophets — Here we have the eighth and last wo. “By the pains they took in adorning the sepulchres of their prophets, they pretended a great veneration for their memory; and, as often as their happened to be mentioned, condemned their fathers who had killed them, declaring that if they had lived in the days of their fathers, they would have opposed their wickedness; while, in the mean time, they still cherished the spirit of their fathers, persecuting the messengers of God, particularly his only Son, on whose destruction they were resolutely bent.” Ye build the tombs of the prophets — And that is all, for ye neither observe their sayings nor imitate their actions. And say, We would not have been partakers, &c. — Ye make fair professions, as did your fathers. Wherefore ye be witnesses, &c. — By affirming that if you had lived in the days of your fathers you would not have been partakers with them in the blood of the prophets, ye acknowledge that ye are the children of them who murdered the prophets. But I must tell you, that you are their children in another sense than by natural generation; for though you pretend to be more holy than they were, you are like them in all respects; particularly in that you possess their wicked, persecuting spirit, and cover it by smooth words, thus imitating them, who, while they killed the prophets of their own times, professed the utmost veneration for those of past ages.
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 vv27, 29 Like unto whited sepulchres - For the construction of…
Like unto whited sepulchres - For the construction of sepulchres, see the notes at Mat 8:28. Those tombs were annually whitewashed to prevent the people from accidentally coming in contact with them as they went up to Jerusalem. This custom is still continued. Dr. Thomson (The Land and the Book, vol. i. p. 148) says, “I have been in places where this is repeated very often. The graves are kept clean and white as snow, a very striking emblem of those painted hypocrites, the Pharisees, beautiful without, but full of dead men’s bones and of all uncleanness within.” The law considered those persons unclean who had touched anything belonging to the dead, Num 19:16. Sepulchres were therefore often whitewashed, that they might be distinctly seen. Thus “whited,” they appeared beautiful; but within they contained the bones and corrupting bodies of the dead. So the Pharisees. Their outward conduct appeared well, but their hearts were full of hypocrisy, envy, pride, lust, and malice - suitably represented by the corruption within a whited tomb.
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 vv27–29 Whitened sepulchres. The Jews, lest they should be defiled…
Whitened sepulchres. The Jews, lest they should be defiled with touching the sepuchres, whitened them on the outside, in order to distinguish them. But this exterior whiteness, covering interior corruption, was a genuine picture of the pharisaical character. But these men, says St. Gregory, can have no excuse before the severe judge at the last day; for, whilst they shew to the view of mankind so beautiful an appearance of virtue, by their very hypocrisy they demonstrate that they are not ignorant how to live well. (Moral. xxvi.) --- Tell me, you hypocrite, what pleasure there is in wickedness? why do you not wish to be what you wish to appear? What it is beautiful to appear, is beyond a doubt more beautiful to be. Be therefore what you appear, or appear what you really are. (St. John Chrysostom)
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 v27 Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye…
Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye are like whited sepulchres--or, whitewashed sepulchres. (Compare Act 23:3). The process of whitewashing the sepulchres, as LIGHTFOOT says, was performed on a certain day every year, not for ceremonial cleansing, but., as the following words seem rather to imply, to beautify them.
which indeed appear beautiful outward, but are within full of dead men's bones, and of all uncleanness--What a powerful way of conveying the charge, that with all their fair show their hearts were full of corruption! (Compare Psa 5:9; Rom 3:13). But our Lord, stripping off the figure, next holds up their iniquity in naked colors.
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Wherefore ye be witnesses unto yourselves, that ye are the children of them which killed the prophets--that is "ye be witnesses that ye have inherited, and voluntarily served yourselves heirs to, the truth-hating, prophet-killing, spirit of your fathers." Out of pretended respect and honor, they repaired and beautified the sepulchres of the prophets, and with whining hypocrisy said, "If we had been in their days, how differently should we have treated these prophets?" While all the time they were witnesses to themselves that they were the children of them that killed the prophets, convicting themselves daily of as exact a resemblance in spirit and character to the very classes over whose deeds they pretended to mourn, as child to parent. In Luk 11:44 our Lord gives another turn to this figure of a grave: "Ye are as graves which appear not, and the men that walk over them are not aware of them." As one might unconsciously walk over a grave concealed from view, and thus contract ceremonial defilement, so the plausible exterior of the Pharisees kept people from perceiving the pollution they contracted frown coming in contact with such corrupt characters.
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 vv28–29 28. Righteous unto men… full of hypocrisy and iniquity…
28. Righteous unto men… full of hypocrisy and iniquity — The SEVENTH WOE is pronounced upon pious hypocrisy, or religious insincerity. Our Lord illustrates this by a most striking metaphor, taken from a class of objects very familiar around Jerusalem.
“There is one [custom] to which our Saviour alludes, that of whitewashing the sepulchres, which should not pass unnoticed. I have been in places where this is repeated very often. The graves are kept clean and white as snow, a very striking emblem of those painted hypocrites, the Pharisees, beautiful without, but full of dead men’s bones and all uncleanness within.” — Dr. Thomson.
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 vv27, 29 27. like unto whited sepulchres] In Luke the comparison…
27. like unto whited sepulchres] In Luke the comparison is to “graves that appear not,” by walking over which men unconsciously defile themselves. To avoid this ceremonial defilement the Jews carefully whitewashed the graves or marked them with chalk on a fixed day every year—the fifteenth of Adar. The custom still exists in the East. One of the spiteful devices of the Samaritans against the Jews was to remove the whitewash from sepulchres in order that the Jews might be contaminated by walking over them.
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 vv27–29 (27) Ye are like unto whited sepulchres.—Contact with a…
(27) Ye are like unto whited sepulchres.—Contact with a sepulchre brought with it ceremonial uncleanness, and all burial-places were accordingly white-washed once a year, on the 15th day of the month Adar—i.e., about the beginning of March—that passers-by might be warned by them, as they were of the approach of a leper by his cry, “Unclean, unclean!” (Lev_13:45). The word translated “whited,” means literally, “smeared with lime powder”—i.e., “whitewashed,” in the modern technical sense of the word. It should be noticed that the similitude in Luk_11:44 is drawn from the graves that were not whitened, or from which the whitewash had been worn away, and over which men passed without knowing of their contact with corruption. Some have thought, indeed, that this passage also refers to graves which had lost the coat of whitewash, and were “beautiful with grass and flowers.” It seems hardly likely, however, that the perfect participle would be used to describe such a state of things, and it is more probable, looking to the date above given, that our Lord pointed to some tombs that were shining in their new whiteness.
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 vv27, 29 Vers. 27, 28. Seventh woe against another form of…
Vers. 27, 28. Seventh woe against another form of the same hypocrisy. (Luk_11:44) Whited (kekoniamenoiv) sepulchres. Once a year, about the fifteenth of the month Adar, the Jews used to whitewash the tombs and the places where corpses were buried, partly out of respect for the dead, but chiefly in order to make them conspicuous, and thus to obviate the risk of persons incautiously contracting ceremonial defilement by touching or walking over them. (Num_19:16) To such sepulchres our Lord compares these Pharisees, because their outwardly fair show concealed rottenness within. (comp. Act_23:3) Indeed, it might be said that their seeming exceptional purity was a warning of internal corruption, a sign post to point to hidden defilement. Obtrusive religiousness, emphatic scrupulosity, are marks of pride and self-righteousness, utterly alien from real devotion and holiness.
Appearance and reality.
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"Ye also outwardly appear righteous unto men, but within ye are full of hypocrisy and iniquity." This is the revelation, not of a mere observer of men, but of a Divine Heart searcher, a Divine Thought reader.
I MAN JUDGES BY THE OUTWARD APPEARANCE, AND MAKES MISTAKES. When Samuel saw the handsome eldest son of Jesse, he said, "Surely the Lord"s anointed is before him." But he was reproved. "The Lord seeth not as man sooth; for man looketh on the outward appearance, but the Lord looketh on the heart". (1Sa_16:7)
1. Man can only judge by the help of appearances, because he cannot read the heart.
2. Man is disposed to judge of religion by appearances, because he is daily judging everything in this way.
3. Man is always liable to make mistakes, because appearances often accidentally, and more often intentionally, fail to present realities. The peril of trusting to appearances may be illustrated by the way in which goods are dressed up to attract sale. The same thing is found in religious spheres. Credit is gained by the show of piety; and the hypocrite is ever overanxious about his external observances. Our Lord"s figure of the cup is common to every age; his figure of the "whited sepulchres" belongs to the East. Sepulchres were whited so that Jews might not unconsciously walk over them, seeing that this involved ceremonial defilement. The outsides of burial places were whitewashed once a year. It is not enough to see a man"s devoutness at church. See him at home. See him in business. See him in private prayer. See him as God sees him.
II GOD JUDGES BY THE INWARD REALITY, AND MAKES NO MISTAKE. He looks inside the cup. He knows what is inside the sepulchre. He reads the secret life of the fastidiously devout Pharisees. He finds David right hearted, and chooses him rather than his handsome brother. St. Paul intimates that the Christian man should be so absolutely sincere and true, that he could readily stand out in the sunshine, and let it look him through and through, and round and round. See how the good man comes altogether to prefer the Divine appraisement, and to say, "Search me, O God, and know my heart." Impress that when the man is heart right with God, he is properly anxious about his appearance before men. He wants that to tell, as fully as possible, the truth of his inner life. R.T.
The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Biblical Illustrator 1887 · Public Domain On v29 Mat_23:29; Mat_23:33; Mat_23:36
Mat_23:29; Mat_23:33; Mat_23:36
How can ye escape the damnation of hell?
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The difficulty of escaping the damnation of hell
I. What your situation actually is.
1. You are even now under sentence of condemnation.
2. You need to be awakened, no man will escape a danger he does not perceive.
3. In order to escape final condemnation you must pursue religion with perseverance.
II. The obstacles.
1. The effect of sin is to make men blind to their own sins.
2. The sinner often seeks deliverance in a way in which it cannot be obtained.
3. The unbelieving heart will not submit to God until its opposition be removed.
4. The fascinating power of worldly objects.
5. Then you say the difficulties are so great that you have not courage to make the attempt to escape. (E. Payson, D. D.)
Pretence vain
To pretend holiness when there is none is a vain thing. What were the foolish virgins better for their blazing lamps when they wanted oil? What is the lamp of profession without the oil of saving grace? What comfort will a show of holiness yield at last? Will painted gold enrich? Painted wine refresh him that is thirsty? Will painted holiness be a cordial at the hour of death? A pretence of sanctification is not to be rested in. Many ships have had the name of Hope, the Safeguard, the Triumph, yet have been cast away upon the rocks; so many who have had the name of saintship have been cast into hell. (T. Watson.)
Suspension and infliction of judgments
1. It is not right that God should punish one generation for the sins of another.
2. It is just that God should punish all generations for their own sins.
3. God might if He pleased pass by the sins of all generations; He might punish them hereafter, not here.
4. It is right that God should punish one generation and not another. He has always acted as a Sovereign in sparing or punishing particular generations. God delayed to destroy the Egyptians.
5. When God does spare one generation and punish another He always has some good reason for both sparing and punishing.
6. The sins of one generation may be a good reason why God should punish the sins of another.
7. It is criminal and foolish for one generation to imitate the sins of a former.
8. It is well for the present generation to discountenance open vices prevailing.
9. Sinners always are the troublers of the world. (N. Emmons, D. D.)
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 vv27–29 27. For ye are like unto whited sepulchres. It…
27. For ye are like unto whited sepulchres. It is stated that on the 15th of the month of Adair, before the Passover, the Jews whitewashed all the spots where graves were situated. This was done both to beautify them and to mark the spots as to prevent any one from passing over them, which would occasion Levitical defilement. For this practice, Num. 19:16 and Ezek. 39:15 were cited. This custom gave the basis for the Savior's figure. In plain view of the Savior and his hearers, as they stood in the temple court, could be seen the whitened tombs along the western slope of Olivet, some of which are still seen to this day. Beautiful outward, but are within full of dead men's bones. A powerful figure to show forth the contrast between the sanctimonious professions of the Pharisees and their unholy lives.
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 v29 Mat_23:29. Build the tombs, etc.—See R.V. A portion of…
CRITICAL NOTES
Mat_23:29. Build the tombs, etc.—See R.V. A portion of the temple offerings were devoted to this purpose.
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Mat_23:31. The children.—You inherit their wickedness in compassing the death of the prophet of the Lord (Carr).
Mat_23:32. Fill ye up, etc.—Or, more literally, “And ye! fill ye up the measure of your fathers!” The Saviour’s heart was heaving, and He felt the inadequacy of all common modes of expression to convey the commotion of His emotions. Hence the brokenness, abruptness, and boldness of His phraseology (Morison).
Mat_23:33. Generation.—Offspring (R.V.). Damnation of hell, or, judgment of Gehenna. This expression, the “judgment of hell” was not invented by our Saviour. It was current among the Rabbis. See Wetstein in loc.
Mat_23:34. Wherefore.—Therefore (R.V.). That solemn “therefore” looks back to the whole preceding context, and forward to the whole subsequent. Because the rulers professed abhorrence of their father’s deeds, and yet inherited their spirit, they, too, would have their prophets, and would slay them. Christ’s 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 (Maclaren). 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 man since, whose pen has loved to write the Name above every name (ibid.).
Mat_23:35. Zacharias.—If the reading “son of Barachias” be retained (it is omitted in the Sinaitic MS.) a difficulty arises; for the Zacharias, whose death “in the court of the house of the Lord” is recorded 2Ch_24:20-22, was the son of Jehoiada. The words, however, do not occur in Luk_11:51, and are possibly interpolated. Zechariah the prophet was a son of Barachias: but of his death no record is preserved. Another explanation has been offered. At the commencement of the Jewish war with Vespasian a Zacharias, son of Baruch, was slain in the temple by two zealots (Jos., B. J., IV. Mat_23:4). Accordingly, many commentators have thought that Jesus spoke prophetically of that event. The coincidence is remarkable, but the explanation is hardly probable (Carr). 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’s, who confused the author of the prophetic book with the person whose murder is narrated in 2 Chronicles 24. 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 (Maclaren). Dr. Plumptre says that the omission of the words “son of Barachiah” in the Sinaitic MS. betrays the hand of a corrector cutting the knot of the difficulty. Altar.—Viz., of burnt-offering before the temple.
Mat_23:36. All these things shall come.—Viz., in their penalty.
Mat_23:37. O Jerusalem, Jerusalem!—See R.V. In the original Jerusalem is not spoken to, but spoken of; and therefore if any interjection should be desired, ah! would be better than O! (Morison). I.—He is a young man of little more than thirty; but His personal consciousness runs back through all the ages of the past, through all the times of the killing of the prophets and stoning of the messengers of God, from Abel on to Zechariah: and not only so, but this Son of Israel speaks in the most natural way as the brooding mother of them all through all their generations (Gibson).
Mat_23:38. Your house.—The temple, which Jesus was leaving (Mat_24:1). It was no longer “My Father’s house.”
Mat_23:39. Till ye shall say.—In the future general conversion of Israel (Romans 11; Zec_12:10; Isa_66:20) (Lange). Blessed, etc.—Psa_118:26. They would say so when reciting the Hallel at the Passover, but without applying the words to Jesus (Bengel).
MAIN HOMILETICS OF THE PARAGRAPH.—Mat_23:29-39
Cumulative transgression.—This last accusation of the scribes and Pharisees is one which stands by itself. Probably, because in some respects it is also the worst. Just there when their true spirit was worst, they declare it to be best (Mat_23:30). It is with this assertion the Saviour now deals. His way of doing so is marked, first, by great wisdom; secondly, by great faithfulness; thirdly, by tenderest love.
I. Great wisdom.—This is shown, on the one hand, in the way of insight. He sees at once the true value of this idle respect for the dead. On the one hand, there is nothing to be lost by it from the point of view of the scribes. A dead prophet, in some senses, is a prophet no more. He can no longer disturb such men as the Pharisees by the holiness of his life, or the faithfulness of his reproaches, or the success of his mission. There is no reason to them, therefore, against making much of his memory. There is much reason rather, for doing so, with their views and desires. The names in question, by this time, have become popular names. It would cause these men, therefore, to become popular also, if they took up the same line. And that, as we know, was, above all things, the thing they desired (Mat_23:5-7, etc.). In reality, therefore, they were the same kind of men as their fathers had been; animated by the same spirit, though in different ways, because under a different set of conditions (Mat_23:31). On the other hand, by great foresight. The Saviour beheld, only too clearly, all that was about to be done. Who were to come in His name, even men equal in every way (Mat_23:34) to any before. How they would be dealt with, even with at least equal cruelty (ibid.) to any before; and so with even greater pertinacity (“city to city,” etc.) than ever before. And in this, therefore, would appear to be the full answer to the preceding assertion of change. If they were honouring those dead witnesses, as affirmed, they were not treating living witnesses in that way. If they had not used their fangs for a time, it would soon be seen that they were very far from being without them. Both true “serpents” themselves, in short, and the “offspring of vipers” as well, Jesus here both sees and foresees them to be (Mat_23:33, R.V.).
II. Great faithfulness.—Things being so, these men must be taught clearly all that was implied on their part. All that was implied, on the one hand, in regard to their guilt. Continuance in evil implies not only progression—it implies rapid progression—in sin. To disobey, and be warned, and punished—and then to be delivered and spared for a time—and then to be guilty over again of that same disobedience—is to do more, very much more, than twice as bad as before. And this is true even where the repetition may be regarded as being of a representative kind, as where the children, e.g., have been warned in the person of their fathers; and where the sin of the fathers has been repeated, as it were, in the person of their offspring. Such children are more responsible, and therefore, when they do sin, are also more guilty, than they would have otherwise been. Hence, therefore, the fulness of the guilt resting on the “generation” before Him (Mat_23:31). Hence, therefore, what He tells them, next, of the awful severity of its doom. The true inheritor (as He has shown) of the spirit of the past, it is also the heir of its judgments. Of all overt sin nothing is like the persecution of God’s representatives in proving enmity against Him. In regard to nothing, consequently, is He wont to exact a stricter account. Never yet had there been a generation which inherited so large an amount of responsibility on this score. Never yet a generation which added to it so much responsibility of its own. So the event would only too fully make plain. Upon it, therefore, is to descend, in all its fulness, what had been held back for so long. This is the rule with the long-suffering judgment of God. The “generation” which finally “fills” the cup (Mat_23:32) has to exhaust it as well.
III. Tenderest love.—As this meekest of Kings foresees these terrible griefs and foretells them, a sorrow of almost equal intensity seizes on Himself. What a sight is here of the past! What a sight, on His side, to begin! Often and often in bygone ages, with yearning affections—see how much is revealed here of the mysterious depths both of His nature and heart!—would He have gathered together the “children” of “Jerusalem” under His wings. What a sight on their side as well! Just as often, with invincible aversion, had His love been rejected! What a sight, therefore, in both respects, of the future! Never, now, can He make such offers again. Never, either, as things are, will they see Him again. When He does come (for come He will), nothing shall be as it was. Their “house” will be gone! Their spirit changed! And this cry in His ears: “Blessed be He that cometh in the name of the Lord” (Mat_23:38-39).
See, therefore, at the last, what it is that Jesus asks from the worst! That they should accept His love as it is! Here is the great lesson of all! Here, where the Saviour is the severest, He is also most loving of all. On the other hand, however, we must not cancel the obverse side of this coin. Here, where He is most loving, He is also severest of all (Psa_101:1; Rom_11:22). Let no man dream, because of Christ’s love, that it is good to continue in sin. Not even that love can cause this to be true!
HOMILIES ON THE VERSES
Mat_23:29-32. The penalty of prophesying.—It must have appeared to be in itself a very seemly thing, this honouring of the great and good men of former generations, to whom the religion of Israel owed so much. It must, therefore, have been startling to such men to hear Christ’s sarcastic comment upon this apparently praiseworthy movement, and to find Him denouncing it as an aggravation of the sin of those who were promoting it, and basing on it a charge against them of insincerity and hypocrisy. It was true, doubtless, as any cynic in Jerusalem might have pointed out to them, that those prophets, whom they were so eager to honour now that they were dead, had met with very different treatment while they were living. But their answer would have been, “We sorrowfully confess it. That is the very reason for this zeal in sepulchre building. We mean by this to dissociate ourselves from the conduct of our fathers. It is our way of putting on permanent record our protest against their sin, and our conviction that if we had been in the day of our fathers, we would not have been partakers with them in the blood of the prophets. It expresses a genuine national repentance and desire to make reparation.” And there were obvious and indisputable facts which seemed to go a considerable way to justify such an attitude. They were fairly entitled to say, “Is there not an immense difference between our religious condition ‘to-day and that of our fathers who persecuted the prophets? What were the sins which the prophets rebuked? Were they not idolatry, the worship of Jehovah fearfully corrupted by the admixture of polluted rites adopted from the Canaanite and Phœnician religions, altars on high places and in sacred groves, associated with gross licentiousness? Have we not changed all that? If the prophets were to come back today, is there a single one of these points on which they could challenge our conduct? Are not their demands carried out by us most scrupulously? Where, then, is the insincerity in our honouring them, since we are obeying them?” And so far the defence would have been plausible. Yet our Lord sets it aside. He tells them, “You are labouring under a self-complacent delusion. You have no sympathy with the spirit of those you are professing to honour; you have no true sense of the moral grandeur of those men and of their protest; your reverence is taught by the precept of men, not by the prompting of your own hearts. Your homage is merely conventional. You are manifesting the very same spirit as your fathers, and in this very matter of monument-building, instead of severing yourselves from them you are in reality serving yourselves—heirs to their sin.” With biting irony He says, “There is a peculiar propriety in your building the tombs of those whom your fathers slew. You are completing their work. They killed, and you bury; the spirit is the same.” Christ does not here state explicitly the ground of this condemnatory judgment. But we know the principle on which it was based. Apart from that sure moral insight by which He discerned beneath the smooth and decorous surface of their life the working of the same spirit—the same tempers and vices, the same outwardness and formalism—which had characterised ancient Israel, His condemnation was justified by their attitude towards Himself. The way in which they treated Him, the living Prophet, was an infallible indication of the way in which they would have treated the prophets, whom they professed to honour, if they had been in their day. The spirit and conduct which Christ thus reprobated is not confined to the Pharisees of Jerusalem. It is an exemplification of a constant tendency of human nature.
I. Why were the prophets hated in their own day?—
1. They proclaimed new and unpopular truth.—Mr. John Morley remarks that the popular teacher in any department is he who is most in accord with the average sentiment of his day, who happens to chime in most harmoniously with its prepossessions, or most effectually to nurse and exaggerate them. That is precisely what the prophets were not.
2. They made powerful application of moral and religious truth to human life.—If it is a thankless and dangerous task to attack men’s traditional preconceptions, it is still more dangerous to touch their selfish interests. And that is what the prophets did, not in mere harmless generalities which hurt nobody, but with definite pointed application to particular prevalent sins and social wrongs.
3. The true prophet of God bore no outward sign by which he could be recognised as such.—It needed a heart in sympathy with God to discern a true prophet.
II. Why were they honoured by later generations?—That, too, is in accordance with human nature. It is not only that death softens all animosities. There was more than that in the reaction of feeling towards the prophets. A dead prophet is no longer to be dreaded. He is no longer dangerous in the way of drawing attention to the existing evils or stirring men’s minds to ask inconvenient questions. Truth and real greatness have in them vitality and permanence which compel men at last to recognise them. The true poet sometimes, despite the depreciation of contemporary critics, becomes a classic, and then he is awarded the conventional admiration of those who could never of themselves have discovered in him anything to admire. So it was with the prophets of Israel. Men inspired by the same Spirit which spoke in the prophets and in Christ may come to us, and we may prove as blind to every token of the Divine in them, and as deaf and unresponsive to their message, as did the Israelites in Old Testament history, or the Pharisees in the time of Christ. Our reverence for the past will be proved not by our being mere imitators of those who were great because they imitated none, not by standing immovably on their position and repeating their phrases, but by going forward in their spirit, welcoming all fresh light, proving all things, and holding fast that which is good.—A. O. Johnston, M.A.
Mat_23:31-32. Judicial abandonment.—
1. Christ’s enemies shall not want a witness of their malicious opposing of Him; yea, from their own words and purposes He shall bring matter of conviction against them—their never-dying worm shall breed in their own bosom. “Ye are against yourselves witnesses.”
2. Christ will give over desperate enemies to their own malicious disposition, and will defy them, as here He saith, “Fill ye up the measure of your fathers.”
3. There is a measure set to be filled up with the transgressions of the Lord’s enemies, and till this cup be full to the lip, they shall be suffered to go on; but when this cup is full, then the cup of God’s wrath shall be full also, and run over upon them to their destruction. Therefore saith He, “Fill ye up the measure”; that is, Go on till you kill Me, as your fathers did the prophets.—David Dickson.
Mat_23:32. A terrible command!—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.—A. Maclaren, D.D.
Mat_23:33. The sin that hath never forgiveness.—I think that the most awful word which has ever been written by a human pen is, “the wrath of the Lamb.” There is something which always seems very terrible when I open this chapter. These words are doubly awful on the lips of the patient and forgiving Christ. There is a sin which remains unconquerable, even by the love and pity of the Incarnate Word; which remains insoluble even in the menstruum of the grace of Christ; and which defies every effort of the Redeemer to transfigure its hideous form and make it, transformed, the attendant and minister of the eternal triumph of His cross. There is a sin which can draw down on a man, even from the Divine lips, the sentence, “It had been better for that man if he had never been born.”
I. We will endeavour to identify the spiritual condition on which this hateful epithet is branded by John the Baptist and by the Lord. In each case the term is aimed expressly, by name, at the same class, and presents a vivid image of the same sin. This is surely a very important indication to guide us in determining what this unpardonable sin may be. It is the sin of these vipers, be they who they may. It is the spirit which searches for love that it may wound it, for grace that it may poison it, for life that it may kill it, lest the world should live anew by grace, be comforted and cherished by love, and link itself on by hope to the bliss and glory of heaven. It is the spirit which, seeing this love incarnate on its Divine errand, seeing the world’s death-pallor tinged with the rosy glow, and the rigid limbs stirring under the currents of a new-born life, said straightway, “This is of the devil”; and stung the Divine One—though it could not touch the fountain of His power, the love which drew Him from heaven to Calvary—even unto death (see Mat_3:7; Mat_12:10-14; Mat_12:22-24; Mat_12:34; Mat_23:13-15). “Then the Pharisees went out, and held a council against Him, that they might destroy Him” (Mat_12:14). Mark the occasion. A man made whole on the Sabbath day—a great healing accomplished, a great burden lifted, a great joy poured into a sad, weary heart, a great ray of the love of God sent streaming into the darkness of the world. But a Pharisaic regulation had been broken. Perish the healing, perish the Healer, but let the rule of the Pharisees live! Do you wonder at the sequel? “Wherefore I say unto you, all manner of sin and blasphemy shall be forgiven unto men,” etc. In this chapter it is precisely the same. It is the wrongs and miseries of others, of hearts bruised under the heel of the Pharisees’ insolence, and bleeding from the strokes of their rods, which stir the Saviour’s indignation.
II. What lies at the root of this state of mind and spirit? Whence does it spring? Not from the perversities, infirmities, lusts, and vices which belong to the prodigal’s character, and are unveiled in the prodigal’s life (cf. 1Jn_1:5-10 with the spirit of the Pharisee in Luk_18:10-14). The sin which saith, “I have no sin,” remaineth. Even against God’s love it is hard as adamant and cold as death. The Pharisee’s spirit, which would dash fiercely the cup of life from the lips of a dying world, lest its own privilege should perish; which would brand the spirit of the Divine Healer, Teacher, and Saviour of the world, as devilish, and hunt it from the earth, stung to death with its viperous fang; which holds every wide gospel proclamation an intolerable insult, and every healing touch of Divine love a bitter pain—it is this, and nothing which a poor lost soul can brood over in its anguish, which is the unpardonable sin. This was the python on which the sun-bright Saviour rained the arrows of His indignation and hate. “Ye serpents,” etc.—J. Baldwin Brown, B.A.
Holy indignation.—I heartily sympathise with Adam Smith, who said, as a man who had made excuses for a bad character left the company, “I can breathe more freely now. I cannot bear that man; he has no moral indignation in him.” The mind of Christ is far too seldom followed in the conduct of our social relations.—United Presbyterian Magazine.
Faithful preaching.—Said Robert Morris to Dr. Rush, “I like that preaching best which drives a man into the corner of his pew and makes him think the devil is after him.”—Thwing.
Mat_23:34-35. The process of condemnation.—
1. Our Lord, in the face of His enemies, avowed Himself to be God, having authority to send out prophets, and to bestow gifts on men.
2. Our Lord knoweth how His servants will be served in every place they come unto, and what measure of sufferings each of them will meet with from the wicked.
3. The Lord’s servants (albeit they know that sufferings abide them) must, notwithstanding, go on in their message; for this is the forewarning given unto His servants also, “I send you prophets, and some of them ye shall kill,” etc.
4. They who go on in the course of any sin, do subscribe unto the sins of such as before them did follow that sort of sin, and justly may be condemned and punished as guilty of the sin of others, which they do approve; for so Christ reckoneth, saying, “That on you may come all the blood,” etc.
5. The sufferers for righteousness, from the beginning of the world, are all in the rank of martyrs, and their sufferings are kept in fresh remembrance. “From righteous Abel unto Zacharias,” etc.
6. Raging persecutors look neither to place nor person nor consequence of their cruelty, but as blind beasts do follow forth their own fury; for “betwixt the porch and the altar” was Zacharias slain.—David Dickson.
Mat_23:35. Nemesis!—In whose mind was the intent or design that is referred to when it is said, “That upon you might come all the righteous blood shed upon the earth”? If we view the subject philosophically, and as regards the theological substrate that underlies the free-and-easy phraseology, we must at once answer, with Calvin, In the mind of God. It would be contrary to sound theology, and to sound philosophy, to ignore the agency of God in the matter—His intentional agency, and thus His intent. He “suffered” them to walk in their own ways (Act_14:16). He did not deem it right to break in upon the mental and moral constitution. He had given them, that He might arrest the murderous strokes that were about to fall. On the contrary, He had long continued to maintain, and He intended still to maintain, that constitution; and when He foresaw that they would madly persist in abusing it, and bid defiance to His righteousness and grace, He resolved that by “suffering” them meanwhile, as long as wisdom would permit, and then by-and-by bringing on them, after their cup of iniquity was full, the consummation of the doom which was their due, He would turn them to account, as beacons in His universe. There is, however, nothing in all this of the nature of unconditional intent, purpose, or decree. And it is noteworthy, besides, that in the connection of Mat_23:34-35 the reference to the action of God is only theologically and philosophically implied, not formally expressed. There is, instead, express reference to the action of the scribes and Pharisees themselves. They acted in their own infatuated way, in order that all the righteous blood shed on the earth might come upon them; that is, they acted as if they were intending and desiring that the blood might come on them. They were like those who “love death” and “seek” it—“seek destruction” (Pro_8:36; Pro_17:19; Pro_21:6). They did not, indeed, “formally”—as logicians speak—love, seek, and intend their own death and destruction. But they “formally” loved, sought, and intended that which God had connected with death and destruction. And thus, while dashing along in their loved career, they “materially”—as logicians phrase it—and “virtually” rushed voluntarily upon their deserved retribution.—J. Morison, D.D.
Mat_23:36. Forewarned!—It is a special motive unto repentance to tell men of the propinquity of judgment.—David Dickson.
National catastrophes.—It takes centuries for the mass of heaped-up sin to become top-heavy; but when it is, 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-horn-full of the train are 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 wake 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.”—A. Maclaren, D.D.
Mat_23:37. The Saviour’s sorrow over a sinful world.—These words form the concluding portion of our Saviour’s last public discourse. They were the last utterances from His lips in the temple—they mark the end of His ministry. His subject has been the wickedness of the Pharisees, and His words have risen into a vehement and terrible invective. But this stern work is hard for the gentle Christ. He cannot, without pain, go on with this denouncing of doom upon His chosen people. All at once He breaks down; the pentup pity, the infinite compassion, leapt from His aching heart, and the language of His spurned affection, the ineffable sadness of His sympathising spirit, came wailing forth in the melting tenderness of this most sorrowful apostrophe, “O Jerusalem, Jerusalem! thou that killest the prophets,” etc. The text reveals the heart of Christ.
I. See how earnestly Jesus desires to save the guilty.—Jerusalem is under the shadow of death. But she does not realise it; she does not know her danger. It is not always easy to warn men of their peril. Jerusalem had been warned; the Son of God had pleaded with her, He had wept over her, He had invited her to repent; and the end of all is this confession of defeat: “I would … and ye would not.” You will see how, in His opening words, “O Jerusalem, Jerusalem!” His love shines out.
1. It is not diminished by any wickedness.
2. It is not chilled by perversity.
3. It is not outwearied by delay.—At this very hour if Jerusalem had repented, all heaven would have been jubilant.
II. See how tenderly He gives shelter and rest to those who come.—“Even as a hen,” etc.
III. See how, in spite of all the love of God and Christ, some men will perish.—“I would … and ye would not,” and you have your way. I sometimes think this is the saddest and darkest word in all the Book. Oh! the awful dignity of the human will—this great and dreadful power in me that can flaunt itself in the face of a gracious God and defeat His purpose.—W. J. Woods, B.A.
Christ a Shelter.—I. The first thing suggested by this symbol is the idea of danger.—Great as was the political calamity that menaced them, their greatest danger was spiritual; the danger shared by all, in every age, who have broken the law, but have not accepted the Saviour. Infraction of law must be followed by infliction of penalty.
II. The symbol of a shelter is so presented as to set forth the glory of Him who is thus revealed.—The overshadowing wing of omnipotence is spread in your defence.
III. This symbol of a shelter illustrates in the highest degree the condescending tenderness of Christ.—It does so by its homely simplicity, as well as by its ineffable pathos.
IV. This symbol of Christ is so set forth as to suggest the idea of a shelter, afforded by one who interposes His own life between us and danger.—Christ is a shelter to trusting souls only by interposing His own life between them and the shock of doom.
V. Note the ends to be attained by the sinner’s flight to the Saviour.—It is obvious that the immediate result is safety. But it would be a radical mistake to suppose that the gospel urges men to seek safety only for safety’s sake. Safety in Christ is the first step to practical godliness.
VI. This symbol of Christ is drawn in such a way as to show that man is responsible in the matter of his own salvation.—C. Stanford, D.D.
Mat_23:38. The departure of Christ from the temple.—
I. The close of a mournful past.
II. The sign of a miserable present.
III. The token of a sad futurity.—J. P. Lange, D.D.
The desolate temple.—Every Christian temple in which Christ is not preached, is empty; so is every heart in which He does not live.—Heubner.
Mat_23:39. Christ hiding Himself.—
1. It is righteousness with Christ to smite them with judicial blindness who refuse obstinately to acknowledge Him when He offers Himself unto them; as here He saith, “Ye shall not see Me henceforth”; that is, you shall not perceive Me to be the Messiah; for otherwise bodily they did see Him, and did crucify Him, but they saw not who He was; for had they known, they would not have crucified the God of glory.
2. At last, Christ’s most cruel enemies shall see and know and acknowledge Him to be that blessed Messiah; for all knees shall bow to Him, and all tongues shall confess to Him, and these His adversaries among the rest shall say, Now we see that Jesus is the blessed Son of God, and the true Lamb of God, hills and mountains fall on us, and hide us from the wrath of the Lamb; yonder is the blessed Saviour, who came in the name of the Lord.—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.
Alexander MacLaren 1905 · Public Domain On v27 Mat 23:27 - Mat 23:39.
Matthew
THE KING’S FAREWELL
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Mat 23:27 - Mat 23:39.
If, with the majority of authorities, we exclude Mat 23:14 from the text, there are, in this chapter, seven woes, like seven thunders, launched against the rulers. They are scathing exposures, but, as the very word implies, full of sorrow as well as severity. They are not denunciations, but prophecies warning that the end of such tempers must be mournful. The wailing of an infinite compassion, rather than the accents of anger, sounds in them; and it alone is heard in the outburst of lamenting in which Christ’s heart runs over, as in a passion of tears, at the close. The blending of sternness and pity, each perfect, is the characteristic of this wonderful climax of our Lord’s appeals to His nation. Could such tones of love and righteous anger joined have been sent echoing through the ages in this Gospel, if they had not been heard?
I. The woe of the ‘whited sepulchres.’
The first four woes are directed mainly to the teachings of the scribes and Pharisees; the last three to their characters. The two first of these fasten on the same sin, of hypocritical holiness. There is, however, a difference between the representation of hypocrites under the metaphor of the clean outside of the cup and platter, and that of the whited sepulchre. In the former, the hidden sin is ‘extortion and excess’; that is, sensual enjoyment wrongly procured, of which the emblems of cup and plate suggest that good eating and drinking are a chief part. In the latter, it is ‘iniquity’-a more general and darker name for sin. In the former, the Pharisee is ‘blind,’ self-deceived in part or altogether; in the latter, stress is rather laid on his ‘appearance unto men.’ The repetition of the same charge in the two woes teaches us Christ’s estimate of the gravity and frequency of the sin.
The whitened tombs of Mohammedan saints still gleam in the strong sunlight on many a knoll in Palestine. If the Talmudical practice is as old as our Lord’s time, the annual whitewashing was lately over. Its purpose was not to adorn the tombs, but to make them conspicuous, so that they might be avoided for fear of defilement. So He would say, with terrible irony, that the apparent holiness of the rulers was really a sign of corruption, and a warning to keep away from them. What a blow at their self-complacency! And how profoundly true it is that the more punctiliously white the hypocrite’s outside, the more foul is he within, and the wider berth will all discerning people give him! The terrible force of the figure needs no dwelling on. In Christ’s estimate, such a soul was the very dwelling-place of death; and foul odours and worms and corruption filled its sickening recesses. Terrible words to come from His lips into which grace was poured, and bold words to be flashed at listeners who held the life of the Speaker in their hands! There are two sorts of hypocrites, the conscious and the unconscious; and there are ten of the latter for one of the former, and each ten times more dangerous. Established religion breeds them, and they are specially likely to be found among those whose business is to study the documents in which it is embodied. These woes are not like thunder-peals rolling above our heads, while the lightning strikes the earth miles away. A religion which is mostly whitewash is as common among us as ever it was in Jerusalem; and its foul accompaniments of corruption becoming more rotten every year, as the whitewash is laid on thicker, may be smelt among us, and its fatal end is as sure.
II. The woe of the sepulchre builders {Mat 23:29 - Mat 23:36}.
In these verses we have, first, the specification of another form of hypocrisy, consisting in building the prophets’ tombs, and disavowing the fathers’ murder of them. Honouring dead prophets was right; but honouring dead ones and killing living ones was conscious or unconscious hypocrisy. The temper of mind which leads to glorifying the dead witnesses, also leads to supposing that all truth was given by them; and hence that the living teachers, who carry their message farther, are false prophets. A generation which was ready to kill Jesus in honour of Moses, would have killed Moses in honour of Abraham, and would not have had the faintest apprehension of the message of either.
It is a great deal easier to build tombs than to accept teachings, and a good deal of the posthumous honour paid to God’s messengers means, ‘It’s a good thing they are dead, and that we have nothing to do but to put up a monument.’ Bi-centenaries and ter-centenaries and jubilees do not always imply either the understanding or the acceptance of the principles supposed to be glorified thereby. But the magnifiers of the past are often quite unconscious of the hollowness of their admiration, and honest in their horror of their fathers’ acts; and we all need the probe of such words as Christ’s to pierce the skin of our lazy reverence for our fathers’ prophets, and let out the foul matter below-namely, our own blindness to God’s messengers of to-day.
The statement of the hypocrisy is followed, in Mat 23:31, with its unmasking and condemnation. The words glow with righteous wrath at white heat, and end in a burst of indignation, most unfamiliar to His lips. Three sentences, like triple lightning flash from His pained heart. With almost scornful subtlety He lays hold of the words which He puts into the Pharisees’ mouths, to convict them of kindred with those whose deeds they would disown. ‘Our fathers, say you? Then you do belong to the same family, after all. You confess that you have their blood in your veins; and, in the very act of denying sympathy with their conduct, you own kindred. And, for all your protestations, spiritual kindred goes with bodily descent.’ Christ here recognises that children probably ‘take after their parents,’ or, in modern scientific terms, that ‘heredity’ is the law, and that it works more surely in the transmission of evil than of good.
Then come the awful words bidding that generation ‘fill up the measure of the fathers.’ They are like the other command to Judas to do his work quickly. They are more than permission, they are command; but such a command as, by its laying bare of the true character of the deed in view, is love’s last effort at prevention. Mark the growing emotion of the language. Mark the conception of a nation’s sins as one through successive generations, and the other, of these as having a definite measure, which being filled, judgment can no longer tarry. Generation after generation pours its contributions into the vessel, and when the last black drop which it can hold has been added, then comes the catastrophe. Mark the fatal necessity by which inherited sin becomes darker sin. The fathers’ crimes are less than the sons’. This inheritance increases by each transmission. The cloak strikes one more at each revolution of the hands.
It is hard to recognise Christ in the terrible words that follow. We have heard part of them from John the Baptist; and it sounded natural for him to call men serpents and the children of serpents, but it is somewhat of a shock to hear Jesus hurling such names at even the most sinful. But let us remember that He who sees hearts, has a right to tell harsh truths, and that it is truest kindness to strip off masks which hide from men their own real character, and that the revelation of the divine love in Jesus would be a partial and impotent revelation if it did not show us the righteous love which is wrath. There is nothing so terrible as the anger of gentle compassion, and the fiercest and most destructive wrath is ‘the wrath of the Lamb.’ Seldom, indeed, did He show that side of His character; but it is there, and the other side would not be so blessed as it is, unless that were there too.
The woe ends with the double prophecy that that generation would repeat and surpass the fathers’ guilt, and that on it would fall the accumulated penalties of past bloodshed. Note that solemn ‘therefore,’ which looks back to the whole preceding context, and forward to the whole subsequent. Because the rulers professed abhorrence of their fathers’ deeds, and yet inherited their spirit, they too would have their prophets, and would slay them. God goes on sending His messengers, because we reject them; and the more deaf men are, the more does He peal His words into their ears. That is mercy and compassion, that all men may be saved and come to the knowledge of the truth; but it is judgment too, and its foreseen effect must be regarded as part of the divine purpose in it. Christ’s desire is one thing, His purpose another. His desire is that all should find in His gospel ‘the savour of life’; but His purpose is that, if it be not that to any, it shall be to them the savour of death. Mark, too, the authority with which He, in the face of these scowling Pharisees, assumes the distinct divine prerogative of sending forth inspired men, who, as His messengers, shall stand on a level with the prophets of old. Mark His silence as to His own fate, which is only obscurely hinted at in the command to fill up the measure of the fathers. Observe the detailed enumeration of His messengers’ gifts,-’prophets’ under direct inspiration, like those of old, which may especially refer to the apostles; ‘wise men,’ like a Stephen or an Apollos; ‘scribes,’ such as Mark and Luke and many a faithful servant since, whose pen has loved to write the name above every name. Note the detailed prophecy of their treatment, which begins with slaying and goes down to the less severe scourging, and thence to the milder persecution. Do the three punishments belong to the three classes of messengers, the severest falling to the lot of the most highly endowed, and even the quiet penman being hunted from city to city?
We need not wriggle and twist to try to avoid admitting that the calling of the martyred Zacharias, ‘the son of Barachias,’ is an error of some one who confused the author of the prophetic book with the person whose murder is narrated in 2Ch 24:1 - 2Ch 24:27 We do not know who made the mistake, or how it appears in our text, but it is not honest to try to slur it over. The punishment of long ages of sin, carried on from father to son, does in the course of that history of the world, which is a part of the judgment of the world, fall upon one generation. It takes long for the mass of heaped-up sin to become top-heavy; but when it is so, it buries one generation of those who have worked at piling it up, beneath its down-rushing avalanche.
‘The mills of God grind slowly,
But they grind exceeding small.’
The catastrophes of national histories are prepared for by continuous centuries. The generation that laid the first powder-hornful of the train is dead and buried, long before the explosion which sends constituted order and institutions sky-high. The misery is that often the generation which has to pay the penalty has begun to awake to the sin, and would be glad to mend it, if it could. England in the seventeenth century, France in the eighteenth, America in the nineteenth, had to reap harvests from sins sown long before. Such is the law of the judgment wrought out by God’s providence in history. But there is another judgment, begun here and perfected hereafter, in which fathers and sons shall each bear their own burden, and reap accurately the fruit of what they have sown. ‘The soul that sinneth, it shall die.’
III. The parting wail of rejected love.
The lightning flashes of the sevenfold woes end in a rain of pity and tears. His full heart overflows in that sad cry of lamentation over the long-continued foiling of the efforts of a love that would fain have fondled and defended. What intensity of feeling is in the redoubled naming of the city! How yearningly and wistfully He calls, as if He might still win the faithless one, and how lingeringly unwilling He is to give up hope! How mournfully, rather than accusingly, He reiterates the acts which had run through the whole history, using a form of the verbs which suggests continuance. Mark, too, the matter-of-course way in which Christ assumes that He sent all the prophets whom, through the generations, Jerusalem had stoned.
So the lament passes into the solemn final leave-taking, with which our Lord closes His ministry among the Jews, and departs from the temple. As, in the parable of the marriage-feast, the city was emphatically called ‘their city,’ so here the Temple, in whose courts He was standing, and which in a moment He was to quit for ever, is called ‘your house,’ because His departure is the withdrawing of the true Shechinah. It had been the house of God: now He casts it off, and leaves it to them to do as they will with it. The saddest punishment of long-continued rejection of His pleading love, is that it ceases at last to plead. The bitterest woe for those who refuse to render to Him the fruits of the vineyard, is to get the vineyard for their own, undisturbed. Christ’s utmost retribution for obstinate blindness is to withdraw from our sight. All the woes that were yet to fall, in long, dreary succession on that nation, so long continued in its sin, so long continued in its misery, were hidden in that solemn departure of Christ from the henceforward empty temple. Let us fear lest our unfaithfulness meet the like penalty! But even the departure does not end His yearnings, nor close the long story of the conflict between God’s beseeching love and their unbelief. The time shall come when the nation shall once more lift up, with deeper, truer adoration, the hosannas of the triumphal entry. And then a believing Israel shall see their King, and serve Him. Christ never takes final leave of any man in this world. It is ever possible that dumb lips may be opened to welcome Him, though long rejected; and His withdrawals are His efforts to bring about that opening. When it takes place, how gladly does He return to the heart which is now His temple, and unveil His beauty to the long-darkened eyes!
Alexander MacLaren, Expositions of Holy Scripture (1904–1910) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
C. I. Scofield 1917 · Public Domain On v28 Lit. Lawlessness. (See Scofield "Rom 3:23").
iniquity
Lit. Lawlessness. (See Scofield "Rom 3:23").
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 vv27, 29 The seventh woe:
The seventh woe:
v. 27. Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For ye are like unto whited sepulchers, which indeed appear beautiful outward, but are within full of dead men’s bones, and of all uncleanness.
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v. 28. Even so ye also outwardly appear righteous unto men, but within ye are full of hypocrisy and iniquity.
It was a custom among the Jews, derived by the Rabbis from Eze 39:15, and said to extend back to the time of Joshua, that every year on the fifteenth of Adar, one month before the Passover, the graves of such as were buried on the hillsides or near the highways had to be whitened with a sort of chalk. They thus became conspicuous both by day and night, and the pilgrims to the great festival that were not acquainted with the country could avoid Levitical contamination by going around such graves, for the contact with a grave would defile a Jew. Exactly like such graves, according to Christ’s judgment, are the scribes and Pharisees. Their life, as they present it in the view of the multitude, was fair, inviting nothing but commendation, but its actual loathsomeness, when one penetrated beyond the outside shell and examined the heart, was so great as to provoke nothing but condemnation. Hypocrites they are, whose very boast of the Law is resolved into lawlessness and opposition to the Law.
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 vv27, 29 you are like whitewashed tombs ... unclean
you are like whitewashed tombs ... unclean
This is a simile that means the scribes and Pharisees may appear to be pure on the outside, but they are wicked on the inside. (See: Simile)
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whitewashed tombs
"tombs that someone has painted white." The Jews would paint tombs white so that people would easily see them and avoid touching them. Touching a tomb would make a person ceremonially unclean. (See: Assumed Knowledge and Implicit Information)
translationWords
woe
scribe
Pharisee
hypocrite
grave
die
clean
righteous
hypocrite
iniquity
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 vv27, 29 23:27-28 It was a Jewish custom to coat limestone…
23:27-28 It was a Jewish custom to coat limestone tombs (perhaps funerary urns or ossuaries) with a mixture of marble and lime to fill their porous surfaces, giving them a more pleasing appearance and helping visitors to Jerusalem to notice the graves and avoid touching them so as not to contaminate themselves. Jesus is not criticizing the adorning of tombs; rather, he points to the similarity between these whitewashed tombs and the teachers of religious law and Pharisees. Both may have looked good on the outside, but both were contaminated and impure within.
Tyndale Open Study Notes — © Tyndale Open Resources, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Text via the HelloAO Bible API.