Matthew 23

Matthew 23:1

Then Jesus having quit himself from the Pharisees and Sadducees, spake to the multitude— The scribes and Pharisees, &c., those that are of the sanhedrim, are by you to be looked on as your lawful rulers, that have authority over you, succeeding Moses and the seventy elders, Num. xi. 16.

Matthew 23:3

And therefore do ye live in obedience to all their lawful commands, in all regular subjection and obedience. But let not their actions be your exam- In, &c. conspire. the Christ, τοῦ Χριστοῦ.

Matthew 23:4

For many severe ordinances they impose on others over and above what the law exacts, but will not themselves be persuaded to take the least pains to do those things which by the clear law of God are most necessary.

[a] heavy burdens] Heavy burdens imposed on men by the Pharisees may be discerned by their own writers. R. Joshua before Christ’s time, among the several things that are pernicious to the world, numbers בְּכוֹת פְּרוּשִׁין, plagas Pharisaeorum, “the strokes, or severities of the Pharisees.” And these are mentioned in the Talmud* tr. Sotah, Plagas Pharisaeorum vocat superfluos cultus, ac ritus molestos ab ipsis in religionem lege Mosaica præscriptam subintroductos, “By the strokes of the Pharisees he means superfluous worships and troublesome rites, introduced by them underhand into the Jewish

• Cap. iii. §. 4.

Matthew 23:5

All that they exercise themselves in most industriously are the performances which will bring them in most of praise. The law, which they were commanded, Deut. vi. 8, to bind upon their hands, &c., that is, to lay it near their hearts, to practise it diligently, they write in rolls, and hang them in their foreheads, and bind them on their wrists, &c., count them as a kind of charms, and make them as large as they can, to be seen of men, and one to exceed the other. And for the fringes of their garments, which they were indeed commanded to wear, Num. xv. 38, Deut. xxii. 12, to remember them of the law, and as a peculiar fashion to discriminate them from other men, they either for an ostentation of piety which those were to remember them of, or to express the greater strictness in separating from all others, wear these fringes very large; and so, whether for observances invented and prescribed by themselves only, or for those which the law prescribes, all their care is to be praised of men.

[b] phylacteries] The phylacteries were a great part (though a great mistake and deceit) of the religion of the latter Jews. Upon God’s commandment, Deut. vi. 8, Exod. xiii. 16, of binding those words for a sign upon their hands, and as frontlets between their eyes, and writing them upon the posts of their doors, and of their gates, (which certainly were but figurative expressions of that which was before mentioned, Deut. vi. 7, Thou shalt teach them diligently unto thy children, and shalt talk of them when thou sittest in thy house, and when thou walkest in the way, &c.) this carnal people, which were apt to turn all inward piety into outward formality, and matter of ambition and ostentation, would needs understand this precept literally, and made them scrolls of parchment, in which they wrote four sections of the Pentateuch; 1. the nine former verses of Deut. vi.; 2dly, the nine first verses of the xiiith of Exodus; 3dly, the eight last verses of the same chapter; 4thly, from the 13th to the 22nd of Deut. xi. These rolls of parchment were by them prepared with a great multitude of ceremonies and decrees made by them of the creatures of whose skins that parchment was to be made, of the knives with which it was to be cut, and a great deal more. Being made, they fitted and applied them to the foreheads and to the wrists, and they were called by them in Hebrew tephillin, because the special use of them was in their prayers, and here φυλακτήρια, either because they were to help keep the law in their memory, or because they were a kind of amulet or charm against fascinations and diseases, against the malus genius, saith Paulus Fagius. This being the nature of the phylacteries, a carnal observation of their own, set out with many ceremonies, and yet by them affixed on God, as if commanded by him; the Pharisees, the most exact among the Jews, that would go beyond all others in performances, and withal the most ostentatious of any, and willing to be differenced from all others by such marks of extraordinary piety, did πλατύνειν φυλακτήρια, wear these of a greater breadth than any others, and are here said properly to do this, πρὸς τὸ θεοθῆναι τοῖς ἀνθρώποις, that they may be looked on by men.

Ib. [c] borders] The κρίσπεδα are the fringes, that God commands the people to use, Num. xv. 38, and wear on the borders of their garment, with a blue ribband on the fringe. And the use of it there assigned was, 1. that they may look upon it, and remember all the commandments of God, and do them; 2. that they seek not after their own hearts, and their own eyes, after which they use to go a whoring, that is, that they take not up the customs or fashions of other nations, which they were very apt and prone to do, ever since they came out of Egypt, and therefore are by this forewarned that they keep themselves a peculiar people to God, in outward fashions, and consequently in inward purity of heart (in order to which the other was designed) discriminated from all the nations of the earth. By this it appears how this custom of the fringes differs from the other of the phylacteries: that was wholly a tradition and invention of the Jews, on a mistake of God’s command, and then an enlarging of this to vanity and ostentation; but this hath a truth in God’s precept, was really commanded

Matthew 23:6

They love to have the first place, if it be but at an ordinary meal; and in the consistories they are ambitious of the headships, and when they teach in the synagogues, or are there to hear others teach, and, as the manner was, sit in chairs while they do so, they are ambitious of getting the uppermost chairs,

Matthew 23:7

And to receive the civilities and adorations and commendations of men above all others, as the greatest doctors and leaders of others; which is an evidence of their temper, what it is that they principally design in all their religious performances.

Matthew 23:8

But do not ye contend thus for superiorities, for precedence one above another, for you are all fellow-servants by being fellow-Christians.

Matthew 23:9

And give not up your faith absolutely to be swayed and ruled by any man, as children are to be swayed wholly by their parents’ bare will, and as these men, Pharisees, &c., have their admirers and followers in religion, whereas indeed God your Father

¹ fringes. ² meals, Science.

[d] father] The wise man, the principal of the school of the prophets, who had the great authority among them, no man contradicting what he said, was by them then called אב, father. So Maimonides Com. ad Peah, c. i. §. 1. כבוד אבות והחכמים שהם אבות הכל “The parents must be honoured, and the wise men, which are the fathers of all;” and in this respect, and this sense of the word father among the Jews, all Christians, being now taught of God by Christ, are appointed to acknowledge no father in earth.

Matthew 23:10

And do not ye pretend to be leaders or teachers, but all fellow-disciples that receive the faith from me, and so communicate it to others.

Matthew 23:11

As for any precedency or superiority, which shall hereafter be instituted in the church, ye are not to look upon that but as an office of burden and duty, of watching and waiting on them over whom ye are placed.

Matthew 23:12

And indeed for this, this ought to be the rule, that whosoever is ambitious of dignity in Christ’s church ought never to be admitted to it, but he that shall think himself unworthy of it is fittest to be advanced to it.

ye keep the multitude from embracing the gospel or doctrine of Christ, to which they are generally inclined; ye suppress the meaning of the scriptures which belong to the Messias; and not only reject Christ yourselves, but prohibit others from believing on him, which, were it not for fear of you, would willingly embrace him.

for instead of shewing mercy and charity to them that are left destitute, ye, on the other side, are greedy and rapacious, grind the face of the poor, and devour the remainder of their substance whom ye ought in reason to relieve; and that ye may do these acts of uncharitableness more securely, ye pretend to great piety, and for a colour or fair show, (that you may be the more trusted, and so have opportunities to do it the better,) use to make long prayers: but for this, for your making piety a colour and guise, under which to practise the greater sins, ye shall receive—

to get one Gentile to your religion, and when he is so, by teaching him the worser part of your doctrine, that which fortifies him against the receiving of Christ, and by pressing him to that legal strictness, (which is commanded you as Jews, but belongs not to him,) you put him into a far worse and more dangerous estate, and make him more vehemently to oppose the gospel than yourselves or your own children, natural Jews.

Matthew 23:15

[e] proselyte] A proselyte is one that, being a Gentile by birth and religion, comes over to the Jewish religion, either in whole or in part; for there are three sorts of strangers, and two of proselytes among the Jewish writings. The first sort of strangers are those which continue open idolaters, who were not permitted to live, or have any place of being in the land of Israel; the second sort of strangers are the first of proselytes, which though they embraced not the whole Jewish religion of circumcision, washing and sabbatizing, &c., yet renounced the idolatry and πολυβέστης or multitude of the Gentile gods, and assented to some foundations of the Jewish religion, which they called the seven precepts of the sons of Adam, and of Noah, of which we shall have a fitter occasion to say more on Acts xv. These were called proselytes of the gates, were permitted to live among them, to come into one court, the outer, of the temple, (called atrium Gentilium, divided by a low wall or sept from the other, called by St. Paul μεσότοιχον φραγμόν, Ephes. ii. 14, a half-wall of partition, on which, saith Josephus, was written μὴ δεῖν ἀλλόφυλον ἐντός ἰέναι, “that no stranger might go into the inner court”) and, in brief, were by the Jews allowed to have portionem in vita futura, “a portion in the life to come,” whether that be heaven, or the kingdom of the Messias, Maimon. de Pœn. c. 3. §. 5. And yet of these it is observable, that after the Jews came under the Roman yoke, and so were unable to keep their proselytes of the gates within their prescribed rules, having no jurisdiction over them, their wise men determined that they should have no commerce with them, which was accordingly observed, till St. Peter’s vision (Acts x.) assured the Christian Jews that this was not required of them. The third sort of strangers, and second of proselytes, are those which embraced the whole Jewish religion, submitted to be circumcised, and to perform the whole number of the precepts of the law; and these are admitted to privileges proportionably, and differ nothing from a Jew, but only that they are not born in the land, (as the Mamluchi, among the Mahomedans,) of whom it is ᵇJustin Martyr’s affirmation, προσήλυτος ὁ

ᵇ Dial. cum Tryph. p. 275.

Matthew 23:16

Woe unto you which take upon you to be the leaders of the blind, Rom. ii. 19, and are blind yourselves, saying, If a man swear by the temple he is not obliged by that oath, but he that swears by the gold

obliged, &c.

[f] swear by the temple] It seems by this, which Christ here affirms of the Pharisees, that they had a tradition that those oaths only were obligatory which were conceived by God, or something immediately consecrated to him; meaning thereby not the temple and altar, which had only an universal consecration, (being set apart to his service,) but other particular oblations and gifts, which were by the voluntary piety of men devoted unto him. Of this sort is the gold of the temple, and the gift on the altar, wherein it seems they placed a more especial sanctity than in the other. This Christ looks on as a pitiful, nice piece of deceit, either to frustrate the obligation of some oaths, (it being ordinary with them to swear per templa tonantis, saith the poet, “by the temple,” when, it seems by him, they did not think themselves obliged by such an oath,) or to make a nice distinction of sanctity, where indeed there was none, the whole sanctity of the gold or gift flowing from the temple or altar, to which, and the God in it, they were consecrated. What should be the colour or pretence of this doctrine of theirs, it would be hard to guess, unless perhaps it was that they conceived the temple, by its having been demolished, to have lost its sanctity, and not to have recovered it at its rebuilding and increase by Herod; whereas the gold or the gift which the piety of the Jewish donor had consecrated might be allowed by them to have that sanctity: but this, being so weak a reason, leaves it liable to the censure of hypocrisy which Christ here lays upon it; the true cause surely being, that by persuading men that the gold and gifts brought to the temple were the holiest things in the world, holier than the temple or altar itself, they might bring men to great liberality that way, and so make gain of their doctrine.

Matthew 23:17

What a sottish senseless folly is this, which your deep learning hath advanced you to! For sure the gold of the temple, which receives all the sacredness it hath above other gold merely from being the gold of the temple, cannot be more sacred than the temple itself, nor consequently the oath by the gold obliging, when an oath by the temple itself is not.

Matthew 23:20

The swearing by the altar contains in it that other oath, which ye take to be so much more obliging, that by all the free-will offerings presented at or on the altar, and so cannot possibly be less obliging than that alone

‘by God, who although he have his throne in heaven, yet is pleased to own the temple as his place of residence or dwelling upon earth.

in matter of paying tithes you are as exact as any the strictest lawyer would require of you, descending to the tithing of herbs, of which there was doubt and dispute whether they ought to be paid or no; but for the great moral duties, both of the second and even the first table, just dealing, and works of mercy towards men, and the great duty, (even of the law,) faith in God, you are far from the practice of these, which being the most considerable weighty duties, ought most precisely to be walked in, to be made your work and care; and the other, though not to be left undone, yet counted inferior to those.

are very scrupulous in small, and very adventurous in the greatest matters.

‘ye are all for washing of outsides, as of your vessels to eat and drink in, so also of your hands and whole bodies, and in the mean while leave your souls full of all abominable impurities, such as, Gen. vi. 11, are expressed by corrupt and full of violence; which is as if you should make clean only the outside of a cup or platter, and leave the inside, where the drink and meat is put, full of all kind of filth: see Luke xi. 39.

’ obliged.

Matthew 23:23

[g] judgment] For the discerning the meaning and difference of these three, the best rise will be from the observation of Maimonides,

Matthew 23:26

Thou hypocrite, that art so like a blind man as to wash one part only, and then think all is clean, see to the cleansing thy heart, which is as it were the inside of the vessel, and that is the true way of cleansing the outside, the actions also; at least let the first care be taken for the inside, and the outward cleanness will have its place, and praise will be to some purpose. ye may fitly be resembled to sepulchres, which are fain to be whited over that they may be discerned to be such, and so avoided, being otherwise grown

over with grass, and not discernible from other ordinary ground by the outside, Luke xi. 44, whilst yet

within, like real sepulchres, ye are full of all pollution.

Matthew 23:27

[A] whited sepulchres] There is little difficulty to determine what is meant by τάφοι κεκονισμένοι, sepulchres washed over with white lime, on purpose that they may be discerned by passengers, and avoided lest they contract legal pollution by them; for thus the Jews were wont to mark sepulchres: Calcem aqua maceratam effundit in locum immunditiei, “They use lime macerated with water, and pour it upon the place of uncleanness.” Yad. Tum. Met. c. 8; and Rashi ad Gemar. Moed kat. c. i. f. 5, renders the reason, quod ipsa alba sit instar ossium, quam ergo videntes, eo non accederent, “because lime is white like bones, and therefore they see and go not near it.” So among the Christians in Optatus: Corpora (occisorum) per dealbatas aras aut mensas poterunt numerari, “The bodies of the slain may be yet numbered by the whited altars or tables,” that is, by the tombs in fashion of an altar or table, laid over them and whited. All the difficulty is, in what respect it here follows that they appear Ἔξωθεν ὡραίοι, outwardly fair, when, Luke xi. 44, it is said of them that they are ὡς μνημεῖα δδηλα, as graves that appear not. And this will be fitly salved by considering that this fairness is not all one with their being whited before, but denotes the reason why they had need of being thus whited. These graves were, it seems, grown over with grass, and so were undistinguishable from other ordinary ground, were outwardly as fair green grass, as if there were no graves under; and so, as they are properly said to appear ὡραίοι Ἔξωθεν, outwardly fair, so most fitly is it said of them in Luke that they are δδηλα μνημεῖα, undiscernible graves or monuments; so that the men that go over them are not aware of their being graves, and so are polluted by going over them; and that makes it necessary that they should have some mark set upon them, be washed over with lime; proportionable to which was Christ’s reproving of these Pharisees’ hypocrisy, that so, as fair as they were outwardly, they might not deceive and pollute silly disciples, which were not aware of their wickedness. See Mr. Pocock, Miscell. c. 5.

Matthew 23:28

Even so are ye the fairest in outward guise and show, but in your hearts, designs, and actions that flow from thence, the most noisome and polluted

that can be, nothing but contrariety to your professions, and instead of justice and charity, which ye

pretend, the most greedy and ravenous oppressors, ver. 14. you do honour unto the prophets slain by your forefathers.

Matthew 23:30

And express your dislike of them that killed them, and say that, if you had then lived, you would sure never have used them as your fathers did. And this you do, that men, seeing this indignation of yours against your fathers’ bloodiness, may believe all wicked whom you persecute. 31, 32. Hereby you do avowedly confess that you

are the children of those bloody men, and consequently that if you go on in their sins, it is most just

that all the vengeance due to them should with advantage fall on you; and now are ye going on in

their steps, (see note [f] on ch. x.) and all your declaiming against their bloodiness, all your condemning of them, is but a piece of hypocrisy, you being

now as bloodily disposed as any of them, and as ready to perfect that work of cruelty begun by them, and so bring all that blood on you: see Luke xi. 47.

Matthew 23:33

And being of such a serpentine viperous race, and filling up the measure of your fathers’ sins, in going on still in their bloody course, ver. 37, how is it possible for you to escape that final destruction which attends all this guilt, and those torments of hell consequent to it?

violence and incontinence, ἀρπαγῆς καὶ ἀκρατίας; see note [h] on 1 Cor. v. the inside

of, τὸ ἑστὸς τοῦ. 1 that, ὅτι. 2 And do ye fill up, καὶ ὑμεῖς πληρώσατε, or, And ye have

filled up; for the Gr. and Lat. MS. reads, ἐκληρώσατε, implextis.

Matthew 23:34

Wherefore, behold, I send unto you prophets, and wise men, and scribes: and some of them ye shall kill and crucify; and some of them shall ye scourge in your synagogues, and persecute them from city to city: I tell you plainly that I am that God that send to you prophets, and others learned in your religion, which receiving the faith, ch. xiii. 52, shall preach it to you. And I now foretell you, that, contending that they are no prophets, &c., some of them ye shall kill in zeal and fury; others ye shall press the Romans to crucify (which is the very thing which your fathers, whom ye condemn, did before you, for they contended that they were not prophets); others ye shall scourge in your public judicatures, though ye do not put, or cause them to be put, to death. And the issue of it will be,

Matthew 23:35

That upon you may come all the righteous blood shed upon the earth, from the blood of righteousness Abel unto the blood of [i] Zacharias son of Barachias, whom ye slew between the temple and the [k] altar.

36. That not reforming the sins of your fathers and all other bloody men that have been before you, (the foulness of whose crimes ought to have warned you from the like guilts, though they were not all your lineal progenitors, as Cain,) but still continuing and going on in them, and filling up the measure of

their sins, you shall now in this age have all that destruction come upon you which hath been merited by

the shedding of those just men’s blood, (a grievous and, in scripture style, a crying sin, that is said to have called to God for the avenging of it): such was Abel, whose blood was said to cry, and such Zacharias the

son of Baruch, who is like to be slain in this generation, between the porch of the temple and altar

without in the court, and immediately to usher in that destruction upon you. how many passionate invitations and calls have I given you to bring you to repentance, to persuade you to be gathered under the wings of the divine presence, that is, to become proselytes to me, to be born again, and lead new lives, (see note [d] on Luke xiii.) but ye refused all!

[i] Zacharias son of Barachias] Who this Zacharias was, is L. 3. p. 90. L 2

[k] altar] There were two sorts of altars, one the θυμιατήριον, the altar of incense, within the temple, (ἴνδον πρὸς τὸ ἐπιθυμᾶν in Philo,) the other θυσιαστήριον, the altar of holocaust or burnt offering, that was without in the court, (ἴξω πρὸς τὰ ἱερεία, see note [e] Apoc. vi.) Of both of them Philo’s words are perspicuous, and worth setting down: ‘Ὁ νόμος προστάξας δύο κατασκευασθῆναι βωμοὺς, καὶ ταῖς ὕλαις, καὶ τοῖς τόποις, καὶ ταῖς χρήσεσι διαφέροντας, “The law appointed two altars to be made, differing in matter and place and uses;” ὁ μὲν γὰρ ἐκ λίθων λογάδων ἀτμήτων συνῳκοδόμηται, καὶ ἐν ὑπαίθρῳ πυρὰ ταῖς τοῦ νεῷ προβάσεσιν ἴδρυται, καὶ γέγονε πρὸς χρείαν τὴν τῶν ἑναίμων, “for the one was built of choice unhewed stones, and was set in the open court by the ascent or stairs of the temple, and was for the bloody sacrifices;” ὁ δὲ χρυσοῦ μὲν κατεσκεύασται, ἴδρυται δὲ ἐν ἀδύτῳ εἴσω τοῦ προτέρου καταπετάσματος, δὲ οὐδενὶ τῶν ἄλλων ἐστὶν ὁρατὸς, ὅτι μὴ τοῖς ἀγνεύουσι τῶν ἱερίων, καὶ γέγονε πρὸς τὴν χρείαν τὴν τῶν θυμιαμάτων, “the other was made of gold, set in the inner court within the first veil, which cannot be seen by any other but only by those of the priests that are clean, and this was for the offering of incense.” And so that which was said of Zacharias, 2 Chron. xxiv. 21, that he was stoned in the court of the house of the Lord, that is, in the court of the temple, (as ναὸς, temple, here, and οἶκος, house, Luke xi. 51, are directly all one,) might be well enough agreeable to what is here said, that he was slain betwixt the temple and the altar, to wit, this altar of holocaust, peculiarly θυσιαστήριον, as here, which was without in the court; and to that also belongs as properly that which Josephus saith of the other Zacharias, son of Baruch, that he was “slain” ἐν μέσῳ τῷ ἱερῷ, “in the midst of the temple,” that is, not of the ναὸς or sanctuary, rendered temple here, but of the ἱερὸν, that is, the whole fabric of the court, &c. Beyond this altar and court was Solomon’s porch, built before the temple, or at the entrance to it; and the space betwixt that portal and the altar of incense was, saith Codex Middoth, c. 3, twenty-two cubits. Thither the priest was wont to enter at other times, with incense at that altar, to sanctify the prayers of the people; but on days of expiation he was not to approach so far, but without the door of the porch to prostrate himself, as unworthy to approach the sanctuary, and there to confess the sins of the people,

Matthew 23:36

Verily I say unto you, All these things shall come upon this [l] generation.

[l] generation] Γενεὰ, generation, signifies not a whole secle, but rather the third part of a secle, or hundred years; as in Homer, when of Nestor it is said,

Τῇ δ’ ἤδη δύο μὲν γενεαί, Πλ. α’. 250.

the two generations signify about sixty years; and so in m Herodotus, τριακοσίαι μενεαὶ δύνανται μύρια ἤτη, three hundred generations are equivalent to ten thousand years; and Clem. Alex. Strom. l. 2, εἰς τὰ ἱκατὸν ἤτη τρεῖς ἐγκαταλέγονται γενεαὶ, three generations amount to an hundred years; so Phavorinus, γενεαὶ κατὰ τοὺς παλαιούς τριάκοντα χρόνοι, the ancients used the word to signify thirty years; and, citing that of Nestor’s age in Homer, saith it signifies that ὑπερίβη τὰ ἑξήκοντα ἤτη, “he was above sixty years old.” So in Hesychius the word is taken to signify either the life of a man, or thirty years, or twenty-five, or twenty, (as it is also taken for seven years by the physicians, and for ten clearly in Jeremy’s Epistle, v. 2,) where the life of a man signifies not the ordinary space of a man’s life from birth to death, for that may be sixty or eighty years, but so as the space of the life of fourteen men, children to one another, and succeeding one another, make up fourteen generations, Matt. i. By all which it appears what is meant here by the phrase this generation, such a space that they that were then alive might and should live to see it. And so Christ here foretells, 1. the great persecutions from the Jews, and, 2. the great judgments and destruction that should then come upon that people within few years, n about forty, saith Eusebius, Eccl. Hist. l. 3. c. 7, within the space of the life of some that were then alive, as was said, ch. xvi. 28, (see the note there,) and is more largely shewed, ch. xxiv., where that which was said of the destruction of the Jews was occasioned by this speech of Christ’s in this chapter. See note [c] Luke xviii. 7.

Matthew 23:37

O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, thou that killest the prophets, and stonest them which are sent unto thee, how often would I have gathered thy children together, even as a hen gathereth her chickens under her wings, and ye would not!

Matthew 23:38

Behold, your house is left unto you desolate.

Behold, your desolation of temple, and city, and whole nation is irreversibly at hand.

[r] great] This commandment, by which the worship of the one God is commanded, Deut. vi. 4, is not only one of those which were written in their phylacteries, fastened on their posts, and read in their houses daily, but to note it to be the great commandment indeed above others, it is observable, that in Deut. the words in the Hebrew, which begin and end it, have the last letter written very big, and noted in the margin to be so written.

Matthew 23:39

For I say unto you, Ye shall not see me [m] henceforth, till ye shall say, “Blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord.

And after I am once gone from you, ye shall see me no more, receive no more admonitions from me, till I come to take vengeance of you, at which time you shall be forced to confess me; and those that will not confess me now, would then be most glad (if it would be accepted) to use that acclamation which the children did, when ye were displeased with them, ch. xxi. 9, to obtain any mercy from me.

a bird her young ones, ὕρνει τὰ νοσσία. 10 after a while, till you would say. 11 Blessed

in the name of the Lord be he that cometh: see ch. xxi. 9.

[m] henceforth] Ἀπ’ ἄρτι here, as in some other places, signifies not from henceforth, as it were from that very time wherein he spake,

m L. 2. p. 144. p. 335.

n Τεσσαράκοντα ἐφ’ ὅλοις ἔτεσι μετὰ τὴν κατὰ τοῦ Χριστοῦ τόλμαν, τὸν κατ’ αὐτῶν ἔλεθρον ὑπερθεμίνης προνοίας.

Matthew 23:40

[f] hang] The word κρέμαται may fitly, and according to the notion and use of it in sacred authors, and according to the importance of this place, most properly be rendered conspire or agree, for so the Hebrew קָשַׁר, which signifies an agreement of minds, a covenant, or league, Gen. xliv. 30, is rendered ἐκκρέμαται, where we read, is bound up with, noting an huge kindness and conjunction of affections between Jacob and Benjamin. As in Chrysostom, Epist. κ’. σφόδρα κεκρεμάσθαι τῶν ἐπιστολῶν, is “earnestly to desire his epistles.” So Judith viii. 24, where we vulgarly read their hearts depend on us, it is most proper to render it, their hearts agree or conspire with us, or are bound up with us. So Luke xix. 48, the people ἐξεκρέματο αὐτοῦ ἀκούων, as they heard him they took his part, were of his side, agreed with him. So in Chrysostom, Ep. ξή : Τῆς θεοσεβείας ἐκκρέμαται τῆς σῆς, καὶ ἡμῶν σφοδρός ἐστιν ἑραστής. “He affects you much, and is an earnest lover of me,” and Ep. ρκζ’. ἀγαπώντων καὶ ἐκκρεμαμένων, “loving and tendering.” So in Palladius, ἐκκρεμαμένη πάσῃ ψήφῃ τῇ κόρῃ, “placing all her affection on the young maid.” And so here in these two commandments all the law and the prophets conspire, that is, the whole Old Testament agrees, conspires with these, these are the sum of all that is said there. But if it be rendered hang, then the meaning will be, that all commanded in the Jewish received scripture depends upon one of these two, hangs on one of these great pegs, that is, is in the last resort reducible to one of these heads.

Matthew 23:41

The Pharisees being by this occasion drawn together about him, ver. 34, before they went away again from him, Jesus asked— What is your opinion of the Messias? whose son, or of whose progeny do you find in the scriptures that he shall be? They say— writing by inspiration, prophetically, next unto me, till I subdue all thine enemies under thee.

Matthew 23:46

This question posed them all, and quite put them out of their course (to which formerly they had received some discouragement, ver. 22, 33,) of asking him questions, to take advantage from him, ver. 15, 35. ### CHAP. XXIII.