Matthew 23
DODDMatthew 23:1-22
Christ discourses with the Pharisees in the temple, repeating the charges and cautions which he had formerly advanced at the house of one of that sect. Mat. XXIII. 1—22. Mark XII. 38—40. Luke XX. 45, to the end.
MAT. XXIII. 1. THEN spake Jesus [in his doctrine], [LUKE, in the audience of all the people, unto his
MAT. XXIII. 1.
THEN Jesus, in the progress of his doctrine and discourse, spake to his disciples in the audience of all the people who were present, and took occasion (as he had done formerly, Luke xi. 39, & seq. sect. cx.) to expose and caution them against the pride and hypocrisy of the scribes and Pharisees, Saying openly and
sact. clvii. Mat. xxiii.1
VOL. 2.
Christ warns them against the scribes and Pharisees
freely to them, The scribes and the Pharisees sit in the chair of Moses,ᵃ and are the public teachers and expounders of his law: All therefore whatsoever they shall charge you to observe in virtue of that law,ᵇ pay a becoming deference and regard to, and be ready to observe and do accordingly; but practise not by any means according to their works: for they say well in many instances, but do not themselves practise according to what they teach.
I therefore repeat it again, Beware of imitating the hypocrisy, and following the example of the scribes;ᶜ For by virtue of the traditions which in conjunction with the Pharisees they have added to the law, they bind together grievous and insupportable burdens, and without the least remorse lay them on men’s shoulders, urging them by the heaviest penalties to conform to all their injunctions; but they dispense with [themselves] in the neglect of many of them, and will not so much as move them with a finger of theirs. (Compare Luke xi. 46, sect. cx.)
And even when they do conform in other instances to their own rules, it is generally from
ᵃ Sit in the chair of Moses.] Some think here is an allusion to those pulpite which Ezra made for the expounders of the law (Neh. viii. 4); and which were afterwards continued in the synagogue, from whence the rabbies delivered their discourses sitting. It is probably called Moses’ chair, because it was that from whence the books of Moses were read and explained; so that he seemed to dictate from thence. It is strange that Lightfoot, (Hor. Heb. in loc.) and Gussatus, should explain this of a legislative authority; since the scribes and Pharisees, as such, had no peculiar authority of that kind.
ᵇ In virtue of that law.] If this limitation be not supposed, this passage will be inconsistent with all those in which he condemns the doctrines of the scribes and Pharisees. Had he meant (as Orobio, and some Popish writers have unaccountably pretended) to assert their infallibility, and to require an absolute submission to their dictates, he must have condemned himself, as it was known he was rejected by them. See Limborch. Collat. Amic. p. 58,114.
ᶜ Beware of the scribes.] The word scribe in general signifies any one conversant
about books and writings; and is sometimes put for a civil officer, whose business probably resembled that of a Secretary of state (2 Sam viii. 17; 1 Kings iv. 3; 2 Kings xix. 2): at other times it is used at large for a man of learning and ability (1 Chron. xxvii. 32; Jer. xxxvi, 26; Ezra vii. 6; Mat. xxiii. 34; 1 Cor. i. 20). But as biblical learning was most esteemed among the Jews, the word in the New Testament seems to be chiefly appropriated to those that applied themselves to the study of the law (perhaps including those whose business it was to transcribe it). Of these the public professors, who read lectures upon it, were called doctors, or lawyers; and, probably, they who were invested with some public offices in the sanhedrim, or other courts, scribes of the people (Mat. ii. 4). But that the scribes, as Trigland labours to prove (de Secta Karaeor. p. 68), were karaites, or textuaries, who rejected those traditions which the Pharisees inculcated, seems, from this text especially, utterly improbable. Our Lord commonly joins them with the Pharisees, and probably most of them were of that sect.
the shew more than the substance of religion.
a bad principle ; for there is none of all their works but what they chiefly do with a design to be viewed and taken notice of by men, as examples of extraordinary piety. For this purpose, in particular, they make their phylacteries remarkably broad, that it may be thought they write more of the law on those scrolls of parchment than others do, or desire to be more frequently reminded of Divine things by the size of them ; and, for the same reason likewise, they make the fringes and tassels, which the law requires them to wear on the borders of their garments, as large as may be, that they may seem peculiarly desirous to remember the Divine commandments whenever they look upon them. (Compare Numb. xv. 38—40.)
These are the selfconceited and vainglorious men, who affect to walk in long garments, that they may appear with an air of distinguished gravity and stateliness ; And love the uppermost places at feasts, where guests of the first quality are used to sit ; and are ambitious to secure the highest seats even in the very synagogues, where they should meet to prostrate themselves in the Divine presence with the lowest abasement of soul : And, on the same principle of vainglory and ostentation, they desire to receive salutations in the markets, and other places of common concourse, (compare Luke xi. 43, sect. cx.) and to be called by men, Rabbi, rabbi, a title of honour which they are
They make their phylacteries remarkably broad.] I doubt not but most of my readers very well know that the Jews (understanding Exod. xiii. 9, 16 ; and Deut. vi. 8 ; xi. 18, which commanded them to bind the law on their heads, and to let it be as frontlets between their eyes, in a literal sense) used to wear little scrolls of parchment, on which those passages were written, bound to their foreheads and wrists. It is generally supposed they were called phylacteries in Greek, as being looked upon as a kind of amulet to keep them from danger. See Serrar. Trikær. p. 38 ; and Drus. de tribus sectis, p. 263, 266.
The highest seats in the synagogues.] The doctors had seats by themselves, with their backs towards the pulpit in which the law
was read, and their faces towards the people. These were accounted the most honourable ; and therefore these ambitious scribes and Pharisees contended for them. See Reland. Antiq. Heb. p. 61 ; Vitring. de Synag. Vet. p. 191, 2° seq. and Wolf. in loc.
To be called by men, Rabbi, rabbi.] Many learned men have observed that an extravagant notion of respect went along with this title, which was derived from you, a word which signifies both magnitude and multitude, and seems intended very emphatically to express both the greatness and the variety of that learning which they who bore it were supposed to be possessed of (L’Enfant’s Introd. p. 98). Dr. Lightfoot tells us (Hor. Heb. in loc.) that the words of the scribes are declared to be
He openly reproves them for their pride
fond of having repeated in every sentence, and almost at every word.
But as for you, my disciples, be not you called Rabbi, nor value yourselves on the name, if it should ever happen to be given you; for one is your Master, [even] Christ; and ye are all brethren,ᵍ and as such should treat each other with a loving freedom and familiarity. And call not [any one] on earth your father,ʰ nor be fond of receiving this title from men, who may be ready to speak of themselves as but children in comparison of you, and implicitly to follow all your dictates; for one is your Father, and that of the whole family, [even] he who dwells in the highest heaven, and before whom all the most distinguished honours of the children of men disappear, as less than nothing and vanity. Neither be ye called masters and guides; for one is your great Master and Instructor, [even] Christ,ⁱ whose dictates you are ever to receive, and in whose name and authority alone you are to teach others. But, on the contrary, he that is, and would appear in the eyes of God to be, the greatest among you, shall be most eminent for condescension and humility, and will be ready to wait on the rest, and to behave himself on all occasions as your servant. (Compare Mat. xx. 26, 27, p. 260.) And what I have often told you will assuredly be found to be a certain truth, That whosoever shall attempt in an ambitious way to
more amiable and weighty than those of the prophets, and equal to those of the law: so that Gamaliel advised to get a rabbi, that one might no longer doubt of any thing. More passages to this purpose may be seen in Dr. Gale’s Sermons, Vol. I. p. 80, and in Whitby and Elsner, in loc. They fully shew the necessity there was for such repeated cautions as our Lord gives, and are an abundant answer to what Orobio objects to our Lord’s conduct in this respect (see Limborch. Collat. p. 119); for, considering their inveterate prejudices against Christ, it could never be supposed that the common people would receive the gospel till such corrupt teachers as these were brought into a just disgrace.
*Ye are all brethren.] It is observable,
that not one word is said of Peter’s authority over the rest, either here, or on the application made by Zebedee’s children; though had such an authority been intended, nothing could have been more natural, or necessary than to have mentioned and adjusted it. Compare note 8 on Mat. xx. 26, p. 260.
ʰ Call not [any one] on earth your father.] The Pharisees, no doubt, had this title given them; and Bishop Wilkins observes, that it is a title which assuming priests of all religions have greatly affected.
ⁱ One is your Master, [even] Christ.] It is remarkable that this occurs twice in the very same words (here, and in verse 8). Our Lord knew how requisite it would be to attend to it, and how ready even his ministers would be to forget it.
exhorts his disciples to humility.
exalt himself, shall sooner or later, by one method or another, be abased; and whosoever, on the other hand, shall humble himself, shall be exalted to the highest honour.ᵏ
Then Jesus, turning from his disciples, to whom he had hitherto been speaking, addressed himself boldly to those crafty enemies who stood around him, waiting for nothing but an opportunity of mischief, and said, Wo unto you, ye scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for by the prejudices you are so zealous to propagate among the people, you shut up the kingdom of heaven against men, and do all you can to prevent their regarding it; for you neither go in yourselves, nor permit them that are awakened to a desire of entering, to go in; and thus you make yourselves in some degree chargeable with their destruction as well as with your own, by the false notions you instil into their minds, and the prejudices you raise against me and my doctrine. (Compare Luke xi. 52, sect. cx.)
Wo unto you, ye scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites, that impose upon men by specious forms of devotion! but these forms cannot impose upon God, nor prevent his vengeance from falling heavy upon you: for, by your cruel extortions, you devour the houses of widows and orphans, whose helpless circumstances, if you had any remains of humanity and generosity, might rather engage you to protect and vindicate them; and it is only for a pretence to cover these crying immoralities, that you make such long and seemingly earnest prayers, hoping thereby to engage the esteem and confidence of others, that you may have the greater opportunity to injure and defraud them: but this complicated wickedness shall cost you dear; for therefore shall you receive greater and more dreadful damnation, than if you had never prayed at all, nor made any pretences to religion.
ᵏ Whosoever shall exalt himself, &c.] Christ seems by the frequent repetition of this maxim to intimate that he intended it, not only for those who were to be teachers of others, but for all his disciples without exception. And it is well worthy of our observation, that no one sentence of our Lord’s is so frequently repeated as this; which occurs at least ten times in the evan elists. Compare Mat. xviii 4; xx.
26, 27; xxiii. 10, 11; Mark ix. 35; x. 43, 44; Luke xiv. 11; xviii. 14; xxii. 26; and John xiii. 14.
ᵏ Hypocrites.] Dr. More with great propriety observes, that the word hypocrites [ὑποκαίαι] in its most exact application, signifies players, who, according to the unnatural custom of the ancients, acted a part under a mask. More’s Theolog. Works, p. 293.
Their folly is discovered with respect to
Wo unto you, ye scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites as you are! for with indefatigable industry you do, as it were, compass the sea and the land to make one proselyte to your own particular sect and party; and when he is become [so], you often make him even doubly more a child of hell than you yourselves are; while, in order to approve the sincerity of his conversion to you, he is obliged to vie with you in all the excesses of your superstition and bigotry.
Wo unto you, ye blind guides, who have invented so many nice distinctions, to make men easy in their sins, and subservient to your secular interests! who say, for instance, Whosoever shall swear only by the temple, it is nothing; but whosoever shall swear by the gold of the temple, whether by that with which a part of it is overlaid, or by that which is laid up in its treasures, he is obliged by it. Ye foolish and blind [creatures], is not the stupid sophistry of this distinction apparent to the weakest understanding? for which of these is greater, the gold, or the temple that sanctifies the gold, which without its relation to the temple would have nothing in it more sacred than any common metal? And ye also say, just with the same degree of sense and piety as before, Whosoever shall swear only by the altar of God, it is nothing; but whoever shall swear by the gift which is upon it, he is obliged to the performance of his oath. Ye foolish and blind [wretches], what an idle and senseless distinction is this? for which can you suppose is greater, the gift, or the altar that sanctifies the gift, which, before it was brought thither, was only a common thing, and might be used to any of the ordinary purposes of human life? The truth of the case is therefore plain and obvious: he that swears by the altar, swears in effect by it, and by all the things that are offered upon it to him whose
Whosoever shall swear by the temple, it is nothing.] It seems the Pharisees taught, that oaths by the creatures might be used on trifling occasions, and violated without any great guilt. (See note 6 on Mat. v. 34, vol. I. p. 222.) But they excepted oaths the carban, and by sacrifices; in which
it is plain that, without any regard to common sense or decency, they were influenced merely by a view to their own interest; and therefore represented these to the people as things of more eminent sanctity than even the temple or altar itself.
on the pride, &c. o the scribes and Pharisees.
altar it is : And he that swears by the temple, swears by it, and by him also that dwells in it, even the eternal and ever blessed Jehovah, who honours it in a special manner with the tokens of his presence : And he that swears by heaven, which some of you are foolish enough to think a little oath, swears by the throne of the most high God, and by him who sits upon it, and fills all the train of attendant angels with the humblest reverence and prostration of mind. Now did you and your disciples consider this, that every oath by a creature is an implicit appeal to God, you could not surely talk of such expressions in so light and dangerous a manner as you commonly do.
IMPROVEMENT.
As an earring of gold, and an ornament of fine gold, so is a wise reprover upon an obedient ear (Prov. xxv. 12). Christ was indeed a wise and faithful Reprover ; but the ears of these Pharisees were disobedient and uncircumcised. Let us, however, who are his disciples, attend to these instructions of our heavenly Master, and avoid every thing which has the remotest tendency to what he here condemns with so just a severity.
Let not our zeal spend itself upon the externals of religion. Let us not impose heavy burdens upon each other ; nor lay down rules for the conduct of others, by which we do not in like circumstances think fit to govern ourselves. Let us not impose our own decisions in a magisterial manner on our fellow Christians, nor affect to be called fathers, masters, and teachers ; remembering, that Christ alone is our Master, and God our Father, and that it is a dangerous presumption and folly to set ourselves in the place of either. Let us be upon our guard against that vain ostentation that would lead us to place any part of our happiness in precedence, and to value ourselves upon our rank, or upon any airy titles of honour, by which, perhaps rather by accident than merit, we are distinguished from others ; and which to a truly wise man, and especially to an humble follower of Jesus, will appear to be a very little matter. Let us desire that honour which arises from condescending to others, and serving them in love ; that honour which springs from the Divine approbation, which it will be impossible to secure without unaffected piety. (John v. 44.)
God forbid that our devotions should ever be intended as a cloak of maliciousness, or as the instrument of serving any mean and vile purpose ! Such prayers would return in curses on our own heads, and draw down on them aggravated damnation.
The Pharisees reproved for their hypocrisy.
God forbid that we should spend that time, and that ardency of spirit, in making proselytes to our own peculiar notions and party, which ought to be laid out in making them the servants of God through Christ! God forbid that we should delude ourselves or others by such idle distinctions in matters of conscience, as those which our blessed Redeemer has with so much reason and spirit exposed!
17-22 Let us retain the greatest reverence for an oath, and not accustom ourselves to trifle with any thing which looks like it. Let us consider heaven as the throne of God, and often think of the majesty and glory of that illustrious Being that sits thereon; for a sense of his continual presence will form us to a better temper, and engage us with a righteousness far exceeding that of the scribes and Pharisees, to walk before him in all his commandments and ordinances blameless.
Matthew 23:23
Christ continues his discourse with the Pharisees, reproving them for their hypocrisy, and threatening them with approaching judgments. Mat. XXIII. 23, to the end.
MAT. XXIII. 23.
OUR Lord farther proceeded in his discourse, and said, Wo unto you, ye scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! you may justly expect the severest vengeance; for ye are careful to tithe mint, and anise, and cummin, and every other common herb which grows in your gardens; and yet have wholly neglected the weightier matters of the law, justice, and mercy, and fidelity: these should chiefly have been regarded by you as what ye ought more especially to have practised, and indeed not to have omitted the other, as a reverent observance is due even to the least of God’s commandments. (Compare Luke xi. 42, sect. cx.) Ye blind guides of blind and wretched followers, who do (as it is proverbially said) carefully strain out a gnat from the liquor you are going to drink, and
MAT. XXIII. 23.
WO unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye pay tithe of mint, and anise, and cummin, and have omitted the weightier matters of the law, judgment, mercy, and faith: these ought ye to have done, and not leave the other undone.
Ye blind guides, which strain at a
- Fidelity.] The word arisus has undoubtedly this signification in many places. (Compare Tit. ii. 10; Gal. v. 22; and Rom. iii. 3.) But there are many more in which it signifies the confidence reposed in another; and it is of great importance to observe this. See Col. i. 4; and 1 Pet. i. 21.
ey are compare to white sepulchres.
yet can swallow down a camel;ᵇ you affect to scruple little things, and disregard those of the greatest moment.
Wo unto you, ye scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye cleanse the outside of the cup and of the dish, and are mighty exact in the observance of external rights and washings of the body; but are regardless of the inner parts, and unconcerned about your hearts and consciences, which are full of uncleanness, and of all kinds of rapine and intemperance. (Compare Luke xi. 39, sect. cx.) Thou blind and senseless Pharisee, first begin with the heart, and thereby, as it were, cleanse the inside of the cup and of the dish, that thus the outside of them may be clean also; for the life will of course be reformed when the heart is purified.
Wo unto you, ye scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye resemble whited sepulchres, which indeed appear fair and beautiful without,ᶜ but within are full of the bones of the dead, and of all that uncleanness which arises from their putrefying bodies. Even so you also do indeed outwardly appear righteous unto men, who view nothing more than the external part of your character; but in the sight of an heart searching God, who has a clear and perfect view of all that lies within, you are full of that hypocrisy and iniquity which is infinitely more loathsome to him than the most disagreeable objects can be to the human eye.
Wo unto you, ye scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for, under a pretence of your regard
ᵇ Strain out a gnat, and swallow down a camel.] In those hot countries, as Serrarius well observes (Triheres. p. 51), gnats were apt to fall into wine, if it were not carefully covered; and passing the liquor through a strainer, that no gnat, or part of one, might remain, grew into a proverb for exactness about little matters. Could any authority be produced in which KALMANS signifies a large insect, I should with great pleasure follow the translation of 1727, in rendering the latter clause, swallow a beetle.
ᶜ Whited sepulchres, which indeed appear beautiful without.] Though the first intention of whitening sepulchres might be only to mark them out, that they might be voided; and so (as some Jewish writers,
and particularly Maimonides, have observed) a heap of lime laid upon the grave might answer the end; it is evident they were sometimes adorned (ver. 29), probably not only with plastering and white washing, but with marble and other stone monuments: and notwithstanding all the applause which Vitringa (Observ. Sacr. lib. i. p. 201) gives to the interpretation which Dr. Lightfoot (Hor. Heb. in loc.) and Dr. Pocock (Port. Mos. cap. v. p. 73) have advanced, I conclude that such ornaments were here referred to; for I cannot think Christ would have called these sepulchres beautiful if they had been nothing but heaps of earth covered with grass. Compare note 6, on Luke xi. 44, sect. cx.
VOL. 2.
They were filling up the measure of their fate
and veneration for their characters, you sumptuously build up the sepulchres of the ancient prophets, and adorn the monuments of the other righteous men of former generations, as desirous to preserve and honour their memories:ᵈ And ye say, If we had been living in the days of our fathers, we would not have been partakers with them in the blood of the holy prophets which they shed, but would have treated them in another manner than our fathers did. So that you really bear witness to yourselves, that you are the sons of those that murdered the prophets; and indeed your present temper and conduct more certainly speaks you to be their genuine offspring, and to be full of that very malignity which you pretend to condemn in them. (Compare Luke xi. 47, 48, sect. cx.) And do you [then] fill up, as soon as you think fit, what yet remains to be completed of the measure of your fathers’ sins, that wrath may come upon this guilty land to the uttermost.
Ye painted and deceitful serpents, ye brood of specious, but venomous and mischievous, vipers, how artfully soever you may evade human censures, how can you so much as hope, by any of these vain pretences, to escape what is infinitely more dreadful, that righteous sentence of the unerring Judge which will consign you over to the damnation of hell?ᵉ (Compare Mat. iii. 7, Vol. I. p. 103.)
Therefore,ᶠ behold I send unto you prophets, and wise men, and scribes instructed to the
ᵈ You build the sepulchres of the prophets, c.] I can by no means think, with Marius (Exercit. p. 229), many of whose criticisms are very low and fanciful, that Christ here blames the building the sepulchres of those holy men;ᵉ which, as Elsner (Vol. I. p. 160) and Raphelius (Annot. ex. Xen. p. 48) shew, was a piece of respect which most nations have paid to persons of distinguished merit, especially to those who fell in a good cause. What Vitringa (de Synag. p. 221) tells us of the extraordinary honours paid to the sepulchre of Mordecai, is an agreeable illustration of these words. Josephus also, from Nicolaus Damascenus, mentions Herod’s repairing in a very splendid manner the sepulchre of David.
(Joseph. Antiq. lib. xvi. cap. 7 (al. 11), § 1.) Compare Acts ii. 29. Grotius is certainly right in saying that the four verses in this paragraph are to be considered as one sentence; of which perhaps ver. 31 may be a parenthesis.
ᶜ How can you hope by any of these vain pretences to escape that sentence, &c.] Raphelius has abundantly proved that ἀποφυγὶν κρμὰ (which is the same in sense with the original) properly signifies to evade conviction in a court of judicature, which is often done by the artifice of the criminal. Annot. ex. Xen. p. 50, 51.
ᶠ Therefore.] Though Olearius here would render διὰ τίθι in the mean time, the version is so unexampled that I cannot
or for all the righteous blood that had been she .
kingdom of heaven, to try you once more, and to give you the last call to repentance and reformation which you must ever expect : but I know that this last attempt will, with regard to the generality of you, be entirely in vain ; and that [some] of them ye will kill, and carry your malice so far as to crucify them like common slaves ; and when ye cannot effect that, [some] of them ye will scourge in your synagogues, and persecute [them] from city to city. For thus will God in righteous judgment permit you to act, that ye may become the distinguished trophies of his displeasure, as if he were reckoning with you for the guilt of all former ages ; so that upon you may seem to come the vengeance due for all the righteous blood which has been poured forth on the earth from the beginning of the world ; even from the blood of Abel, that eminently righteous man, whom his brother Cain then slew, to the blood of Zechariah, the son of Barachiah, one of the last of the prophets, whom ye murdered while he was ministering between the temple and the altar,⁸ impiously presuming to intrude into the
acquiesce in it ; and if the connection, as it stands, could not be accounted for, I should think it better to connect this phrase with the close of the preceding verse : How can ye escape the damnation of hell for this ? or avoid the judgment of God for this mixture of injustice, cruelty, and hypocrisy ?
⁸ To the blood of Zechariah, the son of Barachiah, &c.] Though very learned men have interpreted this of four different persons, I do not, with the learned and candid Witsius (Misc. Vol. I. p. 269), think it an inexplicable difficulty which of these is referred to. I scruple not, with Grotius, Drusius, Casaubon, Erasmus, and many more, to explain it of that Zechariah who is expressly said to have been slain in that remarkable manner between the temple and the altar (2 Chron. xxiv. 20, 21), though I take not upon me to determine whether (as Christostom asserts) Jehoiada his father was also called Barachiah, which signifies one that blesses the Lord, as Jehoiada does one that confesses him ; or whether the original reading was different from ours, as Jerom says he found in the gospel of the Nazarenes, or the Hebrew version of
Matthew. It is by no means necessary, with Cappellus, to allow that it was a slip in the evangelist’s memory ; but much more decent to suppose it an officious addition of some early transcriber, who might confound this martyr with Zechariah, one of the twelve minor prophets, who was indeed the son of Barachiah, but who does not by any means appear to have been murdered ; nor is there any reason to imagine the Jews, so soon after their return from captivity, would have attempted so flagitious an act. Though Theophylact understands the text of Zechariah the father of John the Baptist, on the credit of an idle tale of Origen’s, confuted by Jerom, in which he tells us that this good man was murdered in the temple, (see Erasmus, in loc.) he has had few followers ; and indeed the story seems to have been made on the mistaken authority of the text in question. Yet after all it seems still more unreasonable, with Archbishop Tillotson (Vol. I. p. 197, 198), to understand these words as a prophecy of that Zechariah, the son of Baruch, who, a Josephus says (Bell. Jud. lib. iv. cap. (al. v. 1), § 4), was assassinated in the middle of the temple, just before the Roman
Jesus laments the unhappy case of Jerus
court of the priests, to perpetrate that most horrible murder as near as possible to God’s most immediate presence. Verily I say unto you, That even the guilt of all this righteous blood, and all these things that are included in the woes I have denounced, shall come on this generation of men; so dreadful are the calamities which God will shortly bring upon it. (Compare Luke xi. 49, 50, 51, sect. cx.)
*O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, [thou] that killest the prophets, and stonest them that are sent unto thee by God for thy conversion and salvation; thou unhappy city, who hast so often been stained with the blood of the martyrs, that it is grown into a proverb, That a prophet can hardly perish any where else (Luke xiii. 33); how often would I have gathered thy children together unto me, even with as much tenderness as a hen gathereth her chickens together under her wings, to protect them from the assaults of any bird of prey, or whatever else might threaten their safety, and yet ye would not hearken to my compassionate calls, but have hardened your hearts against my love, and repaid me with contempt, hatred, and persecution? Behold, the time is coming when you will see your folly, though too late; for your sacred house, in which you vainly trust, even this magnificent temple in which you now stand, is so near being utterly destroyed, that it may be said to be even already left desolate to you, so that the few who survive the general carnage shall be forced to sit down and weep over its ruins. For I am now making my last visit here, and I say unto you, That henceforth, since you treat me so ill, ye shall not see me any more, till even ye shall say, as the multitudes lately did, but with sublimer passions and nobler views, Blessed [is] he that cometh in the name of the Lord,*ʰ
besieged the city. Had we more evidence of his being a righteous man, it would be harsh to suppose Christ in such a connection to speak of a future fact as what was already done; or to charge that deed on the whole Jewish nation which was done, contrary to the decree of the sanhedrim, by two solute villains. All the martyrs from Abel o Zechariah, seems to have been a proverb; did it might naturally arise from observin
that Abel was the first, and Zechariah in Chronicles the last eminently good man, of whose murder the scripture speaks.
ʰ Till he shall say, Blessed is he that cometh, &c.] This was doubtless spoken after Christ’s triumphant entrance into Jerusalem (though Heinsius most unnaturally supposes it transplaced), which shews the necessity of giving the words some such turn as they have in the paraphrase. If we
eflections on the iniquity of the Pharisees.
that is, till your calamities have taught you eagerly to wish for the Messiah, and Divine grace shall have inclined you, as a nation, gladly to receive me under that character: but you little think through what scenes of desolation, exile, and misery, you must pass for succeeding ages, before that happy time comes. (Compare Luke xiii. 34, 35, p. 138, 139.) And when he had thus spoken he went out of the temple.
IMPROVEMENT.
we ever remember how necessary it is that our right should exceed that of the scribes and Pharisees, if we desire into the kingdom of heaven! (Mat. v. 20.) May our employed on the great essentials of religion, justice, and fidelity, and not be laid out merely or chiefly on the stantials of it!
we be concerned about the purity of our hearts, and not attend to the decency of our external behaviour! May not like painted sepulchres, fair and beautiful without, and uncleanliness within; but rather like the vessel laid up the Lord, whose outside shone with polished gold, while we was replenished with heavenly manna! (Heb. ix. 4.) In many, like these Pharisees, condemn persecution, and themselves are chargeable with the guilt of it! May that our character, lest we be judged out of our own mouths, we thereby fill up the measure of our iniquities!
and the repeated tenderness of our compassionate; even towards that guilty city that killed the prophets, and the messengers of God! He would with the gentlest solicitous care have gathered them, even as a hen gathers mens under her wings! Thus does he still call and invite sinners. Oh that the obstinacy of their own perverse belious wills may not finally withstand all the overtures; lest eternal desolation be their portion, and they in which for the repetition of those calls which they once so despised!
might be allowed, with Grotius, to translate as a truth, till ye would be glad to say, or wish you had said, Blessed is he that cometh, &c. this would give a very plain and easy sense, nearly parallel to Mat. xxvi. 64, where the affi is perhaps used in the same sense. And thus the words might be explained as if our Lord had said, “From the time of my present appearance at this assover,
you shall not see me any more, till that awful hour of judgment, in which I shall appear in such pomp and power, that the proudest of you all shall have reason to wish you had cordially joined in those Hosannahs which you lately rebuked.” This interpretation, could the version be justified, I should vastly prefer to any other.
Jesus comm s the li era ity o a poor