Luke 11:44

hypocrites The first meaning of the word is -actors."

as graves which appear not Any contact with sepulchres involved Levitical uncleanness. Hence graves and tombs were whitewashed that none might touch them unawares. Perhaps our Lord was alluding to Tiberias, which when it was being built was discovered to be partly on the site of an old unsuspected cemetery; so that every true Jew regarded it as pollution to live there, and Herod could only get it inhabited partly by bribes, partly by threats. In St Matthew several of whose particulars are differently applied they are called - whited sepulchres, fair outside, polluted within. Here they are unsuspected graves.