Luke 11:47

Woe unto you! for ye build the tombs of the prophets, and your fathers killed them. So ye are witnesses and consent unto the works of your fathers: for they killed them, and ye build their tombs.

This is Woe 2. Gilmour thought "the argument here is obscure";[47] but it is actually quite clear. The hypocritical conduct of lawyers in building impressive tombs to the honor of God's prophets whose words they themselves despised and were in the process of violating (through their opposition to Jesus) was one and the same quality of action as that of killing the prophets. The character of those tomb-builders made the tombs they built monuments to the killing, and not to the prophets! It was in that light that Jesus looked upon those tombs, viewing them as evidence that the evil generation before him was of the same perverse and rebellious nature as that of their ancestors. Summers observed that "The lawyers kept the view alive (that God's prophets should be killed) by building the memorial reminders."[48] Phillips' translation catches the spirit of the Lord's word in this place thus: "You show clearly enough how you approve your fathers' actions. They did the actual killing and you put up a memorial to it."

[47] S. MacLean Gilmour, The Interpreter's Bible (New York: Abingdon Press, 1952), Vol. VIII, p. 218.

[48] Ray Summers, op. cit., p. 150.