Matthew 23
Jesus Condemns the Leaders' Hypocrisy 1–12
Seven Woes Against the Scribes and Pharisees 13–33
Lament Over Jerusalem and Final Prophecy 34–39
Bible text: King James Version (1769 Blayney text) · Public domain
Study Notes for Matthew 23
Verse 2
sit in Moses’ seat — Kathedra, a seat, here the seat of those who read and explained the law Moses gave, as Ezra was ‘a ready scribe in the law of Moses’ (Ezra 7:6) and the readers in Neh 8:8 ‘gave the sense, and caused them to understand’. Mal 2:7 states the office: ‘they should seek the law at his mouth’. The words are spoken ‘to the multitude, and to his disciples’ (v.1).
Verse 3
All therefore whatsoever they bid you observe — What is taught from Moses’ seat (v.2) is to be kept (tereo) and done. The same men are charged elsewhere with making ‘the commandment of God of none effect by your tradition’ (Matt 15:6). Paul presses the point against teachers who do not do what they teach: ‘thou therefore which teachest another, teachest thou not thyself?’ (Rom 2:21).
Verse 4
heavy burdens and grievous to be borne — Phortion, a load, is the word Christ uses of his own: ‘my yoke is easy, and my burden is light’ (Matt 11:30). Dysbastaktos, ‘grievous to be borne’, is hard to carry. The lawyers receive the same charge in Luke 11:46, and Acts 15:10 speaks of a yoke ‘which neither our fathers nor we were able to bear’.
Verse 5
phylacteries — Phylakterion occurs only here. The practice rests on Deut 6:8, ‘bind them for a sign upon thine hand, and they shall be as frontlets between thine eyes’. The ‘borders’ (kraspedon) are the fringes of Num 15:38–39, given ‘that ye may look upon it, and remember all the commandments of the LORD’. ‘To be seen’ (theaomai) is the aim Christ names in Matt 6:1.
Verse 8
be not ye called Rabbi — Rhabbi is a teacher’s title, given to Christ himself (John 1:38; 3:2). ‘Master’ here is kathegetes, a leader or guide, found only here and in v.10. The reason given is one Master, ‘even Christ’, and a common standing among the others: ‘all ye are brethren’.
Verse 11
shall be your servant — Diakonos, one who serves, answers the question of 18:1, ‘Who is the greatest’ (meizon, the same word as ‘greatest’ here). The saying is given in Mark 10:43, ‘whosoever will be great among you, shall be your minister’, and in Luke 22:26, ‘he that is chief, as he that doth serve’. Verse 12 adds the reversal.
Verse 13
ye shut up the kingdom of heaven against men — Kleio, to shut. Luke 11:52 says the same to the lawyers: ‘ye entered not in yourselves, and them that were entering in ye hindered’. The woe is the first addressed to ‘scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites’ (hypokrites), a word Matthew has used from 6:2 on and repeats in the woes that follow.
Verse 14
ye devour widows’ houses — Katesthio, to eat up. Mark 12:40 and Luke 20:47 give the saying almost word for word: ‘devour widows’ houses, and for a pretence make long prayers: these shall receive greater damnation’. The law protects the widow: ‘Ye shall not afflict any widow, or fatherless child’ (Ex 22:22).
Verse 15
one proselyte — Proselytos is a convert to the worship of Israel’s God, as in Acts 13:43, ‘religious proselytes’. ‘Compass’ is periago, to go round about. ‘Twofold more the child of hell’ (huios geennes, a son of Gehenna) names the place of judgment Christ calls ‘hell fire’ in Matt 5:22.
Verse 16
blind guides — Typhlos hodegos, the phrase of Matt 15:14, ‘blind leaders of the blind’. The oath-sayings that follow are answered in vv.17–22, and Christ’s own rule is in Matt 5:34–35, ‘Swear not at all’. James repeats it: ‘swear not, neither by heaven, neither by the earth’ (Jas 5:12).
Verse 23
the weightier matters of the law — Barys, heavy: ‘judgment, mercy, and faith’ (krisis, eleos, pistis). Mic 6:8 names what the LORD requires, ‘to do justly, and to love mercy’, and Christ quotes Hos 6:6, ‘I desired mercy’, in Matt 9:13. The tithing is not rebuked: ‘these ought ye to have done, and not to leave the other undone’ (cf. Lev 27:30).
Verse 24
strain at a gnat, and swallow a camel — ‘Strain at’ renders diylizo, to filter through, so the sense is to strain a gnat out. The camel is one of the unclean animals of Lev 11:4. Christ uses the camel again, as the thing that cannot pass ‘through the eye of a needle’ (Matt 19:24). The ‘blind guides’ are those of v.16.
Verse 25
the outside of the cup and of the platter — Luke 11:39–40 gives the same charge: ‘do ye Pharisees make clean the outside of the cup and the platter; but your inward part is full of ravening and wickedness’, and asks ‘did not he that made that which is without make that which is within also?’ Harpage, ‘extortion’, is plunder. Verse 26 gives the cure.
Verse 27
whited sepulchres — Koniao, to whiten. A grave or a human bone made the one who touched it unclean for seven days (Num 19:16). The whited tombs ‘appear beautiful outward’ and hold ‘dead men’s bones, and… all uncleanness’ (akatharsia). Verse 28 applies the picture: ‘within ye are full of hypocrisy and iniquity’.
Verse 29
ye build the tombs of the prophets — Luke 11:47–48 gives the saying: ‘ye build the sepulchres of the prophets, and your fathers killed them’. Verses 30–31 draw the conclusion, ‘ye be witnesses unto yourselves, that ye are the children of them which killed the prophets’. Stephen makes the same charge: ‘Which of the prophets have not your fathers persecuted?’ (Acts 7:52).
Verse 33
ye generation of vipers — John the Baptist used the same words to the Pharisees and Sadducees (Matt 3:7), and Christ himself in 12:34. Krisis, ‘damnation’, is the judgment passed, and geenna, ‘hell’, is the place Christ names in Matt 5:22 and 5:29. The question ‘how can ye escape?’ echoes the Baptist’s ‘who hath warned you to flee from the wrath to come?’
Verse 34
I send unto you prophets, and wise men, and scribes — ‘I’ is stated: Luke 11:49 gives it as the saying of ‘the wisdom of God’, ‘I will send them prophets and apostles’. Christ had told the Twelve ‘they will scourge you in their synagogues’ (Matt 10:17), and Paul describes the practice from the other side: ‘I imprisoned and beat in every synagogue them that believed on thee’ (Acts 22:19).
Verse 35
from the blood of righteous Abel — Abel’s killing is the first recorded, in Gen 4:8, and Heb 11:4 says ‘he obtained witness that he was righteous’. The verse names ‘Zacharias son of Barachias’, killed ‘between the temple and the altar’. 2 Chr 24:20–22 tells of Zechariah, son of Jehoiada, stoned ‘in the court of the house of the LORD’, and the church has weighed which man of that name is meant.
Verse 36
All these things shall come upon this generation — Genea, a generation, the people living in one age. The coming of ‘all these things’ is traced in Luke 21:20–24: ‘Jerusalem compassed with armies’, and ‘trodden down of the Gentiles’. Matt 24:34 uses the same word: ‘This generation shall not pass, till all these things be fulfilled.’
Verse 37
as a hen gathereth her chickens under her wings — Episynago, to gather together, and pteryx, a wing. Luke 13:34 gives the same lament. Shelter under wings is the LORD’s in Ps 91:4, ‘under his wings shalt thou trust’, and Ruth 2:12, ‘under whose wings thou art come to trust’. ‘Would’ (thelo) is the same word in ‘I would’ and ‘ye would not’.
Verse 38
your house is left unto you desolate — In Matt 21:13 Christ called the temple ‘my house’; here it is ‘your house’. Aphiemi, ‘left’, is the verb of Matt 24:2, ‘There shall not be left here one stone upon another’, and eremos, ‘desolate’, is a place deserted. Luke 13:35 gives the same words, and Jer 22:5 threatens a house with desolation.
Verse 39
Blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord — The words are Ps 118:26, ‘Blessed be he that cometh in the name of the LORD’, which the crowds cried at the entry into Jerusalem (Matt 21:9). Luke 13:35 gives the saying with ‘Ye shall not see me, until the time come when ye shall say’. Paul sets a term to Israel’s blindness: ‘until the fulness of the Gentiles be come in’ (Rom 11:25).