XXIII. (1) TO THE MULTITUDE. — Now, as in Matthew 15:10, but here more fully and emphatically, our Lord not only reproves the hypocrisy of the Pharisees, but warns the multitude against them. He appeals, as it were, to the unperverted conscience of the people, as against the perversions of their gu... [ Continue Reading ]
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... [ Continue Reading ]
ALL THEREFORE WHATSOEVER... — Followed, as the words are, by repeated protests against special and grave errors in the teaching of the Pharisees, it is obvious that they must be received with an implied limitation. So far as they really sit in Moses’ seat, and set forth his teaching — as, _e.g.,_ th... [ Continue Reading ]
HEAVY BURDENS. — The thought was involved in our Lord’s call to the “heavy laden,” in the words that spoke of His own “burden” as “light” (Matthew 11:28; Matthew 11:30). Here it finds distinct expression. That it appealed to the witness which men’s hearts were bearing, secretly or openly, we see fro... [ Continue Reading ]
TO BE SEEN OF MEN. — As with a clear insight into the root-evil of Pharisaism, and of all kindred forms of the religious life, our Lord fixes, as before in Matthew 6:1, on the love of man’s applause as that which vitiated the highest ethical teaching and the most rigorous outward holiness. The fact,... [ Continue Reading ]
THE UPPERMOST ROOMS. — Better, _the first places,_ the word “room,” which had that meaning at the time when the English version was made, having now become identical with “chamber.” Strictly speaking, they would be the first places, nearest to the host, on the couches or ottomans (as we have learnt... [ Continue Reading ]
GREETINGS IN THE MARKETS. — The greetings referred to were more than the familiar “Peace with thee,” and involved the language of formal reverence (comp. Note on Luke 10:4) paid to those whom men delighted to honour. RABBI, RABBI. — The title, which properly meant a “great” or “chief” one, as in Rab... [ Continue Reading ]
BE NOT YE CALLED RABBI. — The teaching of our Lord was not without its foreshadowings in that of the better scribes, and a precept of Shemaiah, the predecessor of Hillel, lays down the rule that “men should love the work, but hate the Rabbi-ship.” ONE IS YOUR MASTER. — The word, as found in the bett... [ Continue Reading ]
CALL NO MAN YOUR FATHER. — This also, under its Hebrew form of _Abba,_ was one of the titles in which the scribes delighted. In its true use it embodied the thought that the relation of scholars and teachers was filial on the one side, paternal on the other; but precisely because it expressed so nob... [ Continue Reading ]
NEITHER BE YE CALLED MASTERS. — The word is not the same as in Matthew 23:8, and signifies “guide,” or “leader;” the “director” of conscience rather than the teacher. (Comp. Romans 2:19.)... [ Continue Reading ]
HE THAT IS GREATEST AMONG YOU. — Literally, _the greater of you._ The words admit of a two-fold meaning. Either (1), as in Mark 9:35, they assert a law of retribution — the man who seeks to be greatest shall be the servant of all; or (2) they point out the other law, of which our Lord’s own life was... [ Continue Reading ]
WHOSOEVER SHALL EXALT HIMSELF. — The precept seems to have been one which our Lord desired specially to imprint on the hearts of the disciples. It had been spoken at least twice before, as in Luke 14:11; Luke 18:14. The echoes of it in James 4:10; 1 Peter 5:6, show that the impression had been made.... [ Continue Reading ]
WOE UNTO YOU. — We enter in these verses on the sternest words of condemnation that ever came from our Lord’s lips; but it may be questioned whether our English “Woe unto you” does not exclude too entirely the element of sorrow, as well as indignation, of which the Greek interjection (as in Mark 13:... [ Continue Reading ]
YE DEVOUR WIDOWS’ HOUSES. — The avarice thus described may have attained its end either (1) by using the advantages which they possessed, as the jurists and notaries of the time, to press unjust claims against wealthy widows, or to become their heirs, or (2) by leading devout women, under the show o... [ Continue Reading ]
TO MAKE ONE PROSELYTE. — The zeal of the earlier Pharisees had showed itself in a propagandism which reminds us rather of the spread of the religion of Mahomet than of that of Christ. John Hyrcanus, the last of the Maccabean priest-rulers, had offered the Idumeans the alternative of death, exile, or... [ Continue Reading ]
WHOSOEVER SHALL SWEAR BY THE TEMPLE. — On the general teaching of the Pharisees as to oaths, see Notes on Matthew 5:33. It is not easy to trace the currents of thought that run through a corrupt casuistry, but probably the line of reasoning that led to this distinction was that the “gold of the Temp... [ Continue Reading ]
YE PAY TITHE OF MINT AND ANISE AND CUMMIN. — The language of Deuteronomy 12:17 seems to recognise only corn, wine, and oil, among the produce of the earth, as subject to the law of tithes. The Pharisee, in his minute scrupulosity (based, it may be, on the more general language of Leviticus 27:30), m... [ Continue Reading ]
STRAIN AT A GNAT. — Better, as in Tyndale’s and other earlier versions, _strain out._ It is sometimes said that the present rendering of the Authorised version is but the perpetuation of a printer’s blunder; but of this there is scarcely sufficient evidence, nor is it probable in itself. In the Gree... [ Continue Reading ]
THE OUTSIDE OF THE CUP AND OF THE PLATTER. — The latter word in the Greek indicates what we should call a “side-dish,” as distinct from the “charger” of Matthew 14:11. The “outside” includes the inner surface. (Comp., as regards the practice, Mark 7:4.) ARE FULL OF EXTORTION AND EXCESS. — The two w... [ Continue Reading ]
THAT THE OUTSIDE OF THEM MAY BE CLEAN ALSO. — The implied premise is that “uncleanness” in its ethical sense was altogether distinct from the outward uncleanness with which the Pharisees identified it. If the contents of the cup were pure in their source and in their use, they made the outside “clea... [ Continue Reading ]
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... [ Continue Reading ]
EVEN SO YE ALSO ... — A like image meets us in the words in which one of the Maccabean princes, Alexander Jannæus, warned his wife on his death-bed to beware of “men who were _painted_ Pharisees, expecting the reward of Phinehas, while their works were the works of Zimri.” INIQUITY. — Better, _lawl... [ Continue Reading ]
YE BUILD THE TOMBS... — Four conspicuous monuments of this kind are seen to the present day at the base of the Mount of Olives, in the so-called Valley of Jehoshaphat, the architecture of which, with its mixture of debased Doric and Egyptian, leads archæologists to assign them to the period of the H... [ Continue Reading ]
IF WE HAD BEEN IN THE DAYS ... — There is no necessity for assuming that the Pharisees did not mean what they said. It was simply an instance of the unconscious hypocrisy of which every generation has more or less been guilty, when it has condemned the wrong-doing of the past — its bigotry, or luxur... [ Continue Reading ]
YE BE WITNESSES UNTO YOURSELVES. — Their words were true in another sense than that in which they had spoken them. They were reproducing in their deeds the very lineaments of those fathers whom they condemned.... [ Continue Reading ]
FILL YE UP THEN ... — The English fails to give the pathetic abruptness of the original: _And ye_ — _fill ye up the measure of your fathers._ The thought implied is that which we find in Genesis 15:16, and of which the history of the world offers but too many illustrations. Each generation, as it pa... [ Continue Reading ]
YE GENERATION OF VIPERS. — Better, as in Matthew 3:7, _brood,_ or _progeny of vipers._ The word of rebuke which had come before from the lips of the Baptist, comes now, with even more intense keenness, from those of the Christ. HOW CAN YE ESCAPE? — Better — to maintain the parallelism with the Bapt... [ Continue Reading ]
BEHOLD, I SEND UNTO YOU PROPHETS. — In the parallel passage of Luke 11:49 these words are introduced by the statement, “Therefore said the wisdom of God,” which has led some to see in them a quotation from some prophetic writing then current (see Note there). The words are, in any case, remarkable a... [ Continue Reading ]
THE BLOOD OF ZACHARIAS SON OF BARACHIAS. — A very memorable martyrdom is recorded in 2 Chronicles 24:20, in which a prophet, named Zechariah, was stoned “in the court of the house of the Lord, at the commandment of the king.” That Zacharias was, however, the son of Jehoiada; and the only “Zechariah... [ Continue Reading ]
ALL THESE THINGS SHALL COME UPON THIS GENERATION. — The words carry on the thought of the measure that is gradually being filled up. 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 chil... [ Continue Reading ]
JERUSALEM, JERUSALEM. — The lamentation had been uttered once before (Luke 13:34), and must, we may believe, have been present to our Lord’s mind when He “beheld the city and wept over it” (Luke 19:41), as He halted on the brow of Olivet. It should be noted that the Hebrew form of Jerusalem (Ἱερουσ... [ Continue Reading ]
YOUR HOUSE. — The word “desolate” is omitted in some of the best MSS. The words “your house” may refer either generally to the whole polity of Israel, or more specifically to the “house” in which they gloried, the Temple, which was the joy of their hearts. It had been the house of God, but He, as re... [ Continue Reading ]
TILL YE SHALL SAY. — There is obviously a reference to the fact that the words quoted from Psalms 118:26, had been uttered by the crowd but a few days before on His solemn entry into Jerusalem. Not till those words should be uttered once again — not in a momentary burst of excitement, not with feign... [ Continue Reading ]