Matthew 23:27-32

Expository Notes of Dr. Thomas Constable - Matthew 23:31

"Consequently" refers to the Pharisees’ acknowledgment of themselves as the sons of those who killed the prophets (Matthew 23:30), not to their tomb-building (Matthew 23:29). The Pharisees were the descendants of those who killed the prophets more than they knew, not just physically but also spiritually. They were plotting to kill the greatest Prophet (Matthew 21:38-39; Matthew 21:46). read more

Thomas Constable

Expository Notes of Dr. Thomas Constable - Matthew 23:32

The Old Testament idea behind this verse is that God will tolerate only so much sin. Then He will act in judgment (cf. Genesis 6:3; Genesis 6:7; Genesis 15:16; cf. 1 Thessalonians 2:14-16). Here Jesus meant that Israel had committed many sins by killing the prophets. When the Pharisees killed Jesus and His disciples (cf. Matthew 23:34) the cup of God’s wrath would be full, and He would respond in wrath. The destruction of Jerusalem and the worldwide dispersion of the Jews resulted in A.D. 70. read more

John Darby

Darby's Synopsis of the New Testament - Matthew 23:27

23:27 which (b-14) 'Which are such as.' read more

John Dummelow

John Dummelow's Commentary on the Bible - Matthew 23:1-39

Denunciation of the Pharisees1-36. Final denunciation of the Scribes and Pharisees. The other synoptists insert in this place a brief utterance directed against the scribes (Mark 12:38-40; Luke 20:45-47), but the discourse as it stands is peculiar to St. Matthew. A portion of it, however, is inserted by St. Luke at an earlier period, on the occasion of a dinner at a Pharisee’s house (Luke 11:37-52) and this suggests that we have here a collection of sayings against the scribes and Pharisees... read more

Charles John Ellicott

Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers - Matthew 23:27

(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!” (Leviticus 13:45). The word translated “whited,” means literally, “smeared with lime powder”—i.e., “whitewashed,” in the modern technical sense of... read more

Charles John Ellicott

Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers - Matthew 23:28

(28) 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, lawlessness—a reckless disregard of the very Law of which they professed to be the interpreters. read more

Charles John Ellicott

Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers - Matthew 23:29

(29) 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 Herodian dynasty. These may, therefore, well have been the very sepulchres of which our Lord spoke, and to which, it may be, He pointed. They bear at present the names of Zechariah, Absalom,... read more

Charles John Ellicott

Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers - Matthew 23:30

(30) 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 luxury, or greed—and then has yielded to the same sins itself. read more

Charles John Ellicott

Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers - Matthew 23:31

(31) 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. read more

Charles John Ellicott

Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers - Matthew 23:32

(32) 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 passes, adds something to the ever-accumulating mass of evil. At last the penalty falls, as though the long-suffering of God had been waiting till the appointed limit had been reached, and the measure... read more

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