Matthew 23:1
Then — Leaving all converse with his adversaries, whom he now left to the hardness of their hearts.... [ Continue Reading ]
Then — Leaving all converse with his adversaries, whom he now left to the hardness of their hearts.... [ Continue Reading ]
The scribes sit in the chair of Moses — That is, read and expound the law of Moses, and are their appointed teachers.... [ Continue Reading ]
All things therefore — Which they read out of the law, and enforce therefrom.... [ Continue Reading ]
Luke 11:46.... [ Continue Reading ]
Their phylacteries — The Jews, understanding those words literally, It shall he as a token upon thy hand, and as frontlets between thine eyes, Exodus 13:16. And thou shalt bind these words for a sign upon thine hand, and they shall be as frontlets between thine eyes, Deuteronomy 6:8; used to wear li... [ Continue Reading ]
The Jewish rabbis were also called father and master, by their several disciples, whom they required, To believe implicitly what they affirmed, without asking any farther reason; To obey implicitly what they enjoined, without seeking farther authority. Our Lord, therefore, by forbidding us either to... [ Continue Reading ]
Matthew 20:26.... [ Continue Reading ]
Whosoever shall exalt himself shall be humbled, and he that shall humble himself shall he exalted — It is observable that no one sentence of our Lord's is so often repeated as this: it occurs, with scarce any variation, at least ten times in the evangelists. Luke 14:11; Luke 18:14.... [ Continue Reading ]
Wo to you — Our Lord pronounced eight blessings upon the mount: he pronounces eight woes here; not as imprecations, but solemn, compassionate declarations of the misery, which these stubborn sinners were bringing upon themselves. Ye go not in — For ye are not poor in spirit; and ye hinder those that... [ Continue Reading ]
Mark 12:40; Luke 20:47.... [ Continue Reading ]
Wo to you, ye blind guides — Before he had styled them hypocrites, from their personal character: now he gives them another title, respecting their influence upon others. Both these appellations are severely put together in Matthew 23:23 and Matthew 23:25; and this severity rises to the height in Ma... [ Continue Reading ]
He that sweareth by the altar, sweareth by it, and by all things thereon — Not only by the gift, but by the holy fire, and the sacrifice; and above all, by that God to whom they belong; inasmuch as every oath by a creature is an implicit appeal to God.... [ Continue Reading ]
Judgment — That is, justice: Faith — The word here means fidelity.... [ Continue Reading ]
Ye blind guides, who teach others to do as you do yourselves, to strain out a gnat — From the liquor they are going to drink! and swallow a camel — It is strange, that glaring false print, strain at a gnat, which quite alters the sense, should run through all the editions of our English Bibles.... [ Continue Reading ]
Full of rapine and intemperance — The censure is double (taking intemperance in the vulgar sense.) These miserable men procured unjustly what they used intemperately. No wonder tables so furnished prove a snare, as many find by sad experience. Thus luxury punishes fraud while it feeds disease with t... [ Continue Reading ]
Ye build the tombs of the prophets — And that is all, for ye neither observe their sayings, nor imitate their actions.... [ Continue Reading ]
We would not have been partakers — So ye make fair professions, as did your fathers.... [ Continue Reading ]
Wherefore ye testify against yourselves — By your smooth words as well as devilish actions: that ye are the genuine sons of them who killed the prophets of their own times, while they professed the utmost veneration for those of past ages. From Matthew 23:3 is exposed every thing that commonly passe... [ Continue Reading ]
Fill ye up — A word of permission, not of command: as if he had said, I contend with you no longer: I leave you to yourselves: you have conquered: now ye may follow the devices of your own hearts. The measure of your fathers — Wickedness: ye may now be as wicked as they.... [ Continue Reading ]
Ye serpents — Our Lord having now lost all hope of reclaiming these, speaks so as to affright others from the like sins.... [ Continue Reading ]
Wherefore — That it may appear you are the true children of those murderers, and have a right to have their iniquities visited on you: Behold, I send — Is not this speaking as one having authority? Prophets — Men with supernatural credentials: Wise men — Such as have both natural abilities and exper... [ Continue Reading ]
That upon you may come — The consequence of which will be, that upon you will come the vengeance of all the righteous blood shed on the earth — Zechariah the son of Barachiah — Termed Jehoiada, 2 Chronicles 24:20, where the story is related: Ye slew — Ye make that murder also of your fathers your ow... [ Continue Reading ]
Luke 13:34.... [ Continue Reading ]
Behold your house — The temple, which is now your house, not God's: Is left unto you — Our Lord spake this as he was going out of it for the last time: Desolate — Forsaken of God and his Christ, and sentenced to utter destruction.... [ Continue Reading ]
Ye — Jews in general; men of Jerusalem in particular: shall not see me from this time — Which includes the short space till his death, till, after a long interval of desolation and misery, ye say, Blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord — Ye receive me with joyful and thankful hearts. This... [ Continue Reading ]