Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of Matthew 23:27
Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye are like unto whited sepulchers, which indeed appear beautiful outward, but are within full of dead [men’s] bones, and of all uncleanness.
27. like unto whited sepulchres ] In Luke the comparison is to “graves that appear not,” by walking over which men unconsciously defile themselves. To avoid this ceremonial defilement the Jews carefully whitewashed the graves or marked them with chalk on a fixed day every year the fifteenth of Adar. The custom still exists in the East. One of the spiteful devices of the Samaritans against the Jews was to remove the whitewash from sepulchres in order that the Jews might be contaminated by walking over them.
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
Like unto whited sepulchres – For the construction of sepulchres, see the notes at Mat 8:28. Those tombs were annually whitewashed to prevent the people from accidentally coming in contact with them as they went up to Jerusalem. This custom is still continued. Dr. Thomson (The Land and the Book, vol. i. p. 148) says, I have been in places where this is repeated very often. The graves are kept clean and white as snow, a very striking emblem of those painted hypocrites, the Pharisees, beautiful without, but full of dead mens bones and of all uncleanness within. The law considered those persons unclean who had touched anything belonging to the dead, Num 19:16. Sepulchres were therefore often whitewashed, that they might be distinctly seen. Thus whited, they appeared beautiful; but within they contained the bones and corrupting bodies of the dead. So the Pharisees. Their outward conduct appeared well, but their hearts were full of hypocrisy, envy, pride, lust, and malice – suitably represented by the corruption within a whited tomb.
Fuente: Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible
Verse 27. For ye are like] , ye exactly resemble – the parallel is complete.
Whited sepulchres] White-washed tombs. As the law considered those unclean who had touched any thing belonging to the dead, the Jews took care to have their tombs white-washed each year, that, being easily discovered, they might be consequently avoided.
Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible
The similitude is of the same import with the other, to show that the Pharisees had only a vizard of strictness and holiness, when in the mean time their hearts were full of lusts, hypocrisy, and iniquity. The Jews had two sorts of graves; some for ordinary persons, which appeared not (to which our Saviour likened the Pharisees, Luk 11:44); others that were covered with tombs, which were wont to be kept whited, so as they looked very fair outwardly, but had within nothing but rottenness and putrefaction. To these he compares them in this place. They were men that made a great show, but had nothing of any inward purity or cleanness, but were full of iniquity. Thus Paul called Ananias a whited wall; and, Psa 5:9, the psalmist saith of the throat of the wicked that it is an open sepulchre.
Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole
27. Woe unto you, scribes andPharisees, hypocrites! for ye are like whited sepulchresor,whitewashed sepulchres. (Compare Ac23:3). The process of whitewashing the sepulchres, as LIGHTFOOTsays, was performed on a certain day every year, not for ceremonialcleansing, but, as the following words seem rather to imply, tobeautify them.
which indeed appear beautifuloutward, but are within full of dead men’s bones, and of alluncleannessWhat a powerful way of conveying the charge, thatwith all their fair show their hearts were full of corruption!(Compare Psa 5:9; Rom 3:13).But our Lord, stripping off the figure, next holds up their iniquityin naked colors.
Wherefore ye be witnessesunto yourselves, that ye are the children of them which killed theprophetsthat is, “ye be witnesses that ye have inherited,and voluntarily served yourselves heirs to, the truth-hating,prophet-killing, spirit of your fathers.” Out of pretendedrespect and honor, they repaired and beautified the sepulchres of theprophets, and with whining hypocrisy said, “If we had been intheir days, how differently should we have treated these prophets?”While all the time they were witnesses to themselves that they werethe children of them that killed the prophets, convicting themselvesdaily of as exact a resemblance in spirit and character to the veryclasses over whose deeds they pretended to mourn, as child to parent.In Lu 11:44 our Lord givesanother turn to this figure of a grave: “Ye are as graves whichappear not, and the men that walk over them are not aware of them.”As one might unconsciously walk over a grave concealed from view, andthus contract ceremonial defilement, so the plausible exterior of thePharisees kept people from perceiving the pollution they contractedfrom coming in contact with such corrupt characters.
Fuente: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown’s Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible
Woe unto you Scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites,…. It is much these men could bear to hear themselves so often called by this name; and it shows great courage in our Lord, so freely to reprove them, and expose their wickedness, who were men of so much credit and influence with the people:
for ye are like unto whited sepulchres; or “covered with lime”, as the Syriac, Arabic, and Persic versions, render it. For the Jews used to mark their graves with white lime, that they might be known: that so priests, Nazarites, and travellers, might avoid them, and not be polluted with them. This appears from various passages in their writings:
“The vineyard of the fourth year, they marked with clods of earth, and an uncircumcised one with dust, , “and graves with chalk”, mixed (with water) and poured (on them x.)”
Of this marking of the graves, the reason of it, the time and manner of doing it, Maimonides y gives us this account:
“Whoever finds a grave, or a dead carcass, or anything for the dead that defiles, by the tent he is obliged to put a mark upon it, that it may not be a stumbling to others; and on the intermediate days of a feast, they go out from the sanhedrim, to mark the graves.–With what do they mark? , “with chalk infused” in water, and poured upon the unclean place: they do not put the mark upon the top of the unclean place, (or exactly in it,) but so that it may stand out here and there, at the sides of it, that what is pure may not be corrupted; and they do not put the mark far from the place of the uncleanness, that they may not waste the land of Israel; and they do not set marks on those that are manifest, for they are known to all; but upon those that are doubtful, as a field in which a grave is lost, and places that are open, and want a covering.”
Now because when the rains fell, these marks were washed away, hence on the first of Adar (February) when they used to repair the highways, they also marked the graves with white lime, that they might be seen and known, and avoided; and so on their intermediate feast days z: the reason why they made use of chalk, or lime, and with these marked their graves, was because it looked white like bones a; so that upon first sight, it might be thought and known what it was for, and that a grave was there: hence this phrase, “whited sepulchres”:
which indeed appear beautiful outward; especially at a distance, and when new marked:
but within are full of dead men’s bones, and of all uncleanness; worms and rottenness, which arise from the putrefied carcasses, and are very nauseous and defiling.
x Misn. Maaser Sheni, c. 5. sect. 1. y Hilch. Tumath Meth, c. 8. sect. 9. z Misn. Shekalim, c. 1. sect. 1. & Moed Katon, c. 1. sect. 2. Maimon. & Bartenora in lb. a Jarchi in Misu. Moed Katan, c. 1. sect. 2. & Bartenora in Misn. Maaser Sheni, c. 5. sect. 1.
Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible
Whited sepulchre ( ). The perfect passive participle is from and that from , dust or lime. Whitened with powdered lime dust, the sepulchres of the poor in the fields or the roadside. Not the rock-hewn tombs of the well-to-do. These were whitewashed a month before the passover that travellers might see them and so avoid being defiled by touching them (Nu 19:16). In Ac 23:3 Paul called the high priest a whited wall. When Jesus spoke the sepulchres had been freshly whitewashed. We today speak of whitewashing moral evil.
Fuente: Robertson’s Word Pictures in the New Testament
Whited sepulchres [ ] . Not the rock – tombs, belonging mostly to the rich, but the graves covered with plastered structures. In general, cemeteries were outside of cities; but any dead body found in the field was to be buried on the spot where it had been discovered. A pilgrim to the Passover, for instance, might easily come upon such a grave in his journey, and contract uncleanness by the contact (Num 19:16). It was therefore ordered that all sepulchres should be whitewashed a month before Passover, in order to make them conspicuous, so that travelers might avoid ceremonial defilement. The fact that this general whitewashing was going on at the time when Jesus administered this rebuke to the Pharisees gave point to the comparison. The word kekoniamenoiv (whitened, from koniv, dust) carries the idea of whitening with a powder, as powdered lime.
Fuente: Vincent’s Word Studies in the New Testament
27 You are like whitened sepulchers. This is a different metaphor, but the meaning is the same; for he compares them to sepulchers, which the men of the world ambitiously construct with great beauty and splendor. As a painting or engraving on sepulchers draws the eyes of men upon them, while inwardly they contain stinking carcasses; so Christ says that hypocrites deceive by their outward appearance, because they are full of deceit and iniquity. The words of Luke are somewhat different, that they deceive the eyes of men, like sepulchers, which frequently are not perceived by those who walk over them; but it amounts to the same meaning, that, under the garb of pretended holiness, there lurks hidden filth which they cherish in their hearts, like a marble sepulcher; for it wears the aspect of what is beautiful and lovely, but covers a stinking carcass, so as not to be offensive to those who pass by. Hence we infer what I have formerly said, that Christ, with a view to the advantage of the simple and ignorant, tore off the deceitful mask which the scribes held wrapped around them in empty hypocrisy; for this warning was advantageous to simple persons, that they might quickly withdraw from the jaws of wolves. Yet this passage contains a general doctrine, that the children of God ought to desire to be pure rather than to appear so.
Fuente: Calvin’s Complete Commentary
(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 Adari.e., about the beginning of Marchthat passers-by might be warned by them, as they were of the approach of a leper by his cry, Unclean, unclean! (Lev. 13:45). The word translated whited, means literally, smeared with lime powderi.e., whitewashed, in the modern technical sense of the word. It should be noticed that the similitude in Luk. 11:44 is drawn from the graves that were not whitened, or from which the whitewash had been worn away, and over which men passed without knowing of their contact with corruption. Some have thought, indeed, that this passage also refers to graves which had lost the coat of whitewash, and were beautiful with grass and flowers. It seems hardly likely, however, that the perfect participle would be used to describe such a state of things, and it is more probable, looking to the date above given, that our Lord pointed to some tombs that were shining in their new whiteness.
Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)
“Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for you are like whited sepulchres, which outwardly appear beautiful, but inwardly are full of dead men’s bones, and of all uncleanness. Even so you also outwardly appear righteous to men, but inwardly you are full of hypocrisy and lawlessness.”
It was the custom in Palestine as the Feast of Passover approached, to generally clear up the highways and especially to mark the graves. This would be done by whitewashing them, so that pilgrims who did not know the district would not accidentally come into contact with them and be rendered ‘unclean’ for seven days (Num 19:16), thus missing out on the Feast. Thus for a time they looked sparkling white, they were ‘beautiful’. But it did not obscure the fact that inside the tombs were rotting flesh and dead men’s bones. The same was true of the Scribes and Pharisees. They put on a show on the outside but they were dead and putrefying inside.
We do not need to over-emphasise ‘beautiful’. Jesus is not setting an aesthetic standard but indicating the difference between an unkempt and uncared for grave, and their smartness once they had been cleaned up and painted, and looked respectable. Indeed in many cases the whitewashing would draw attention to their beauty, for the purpose of tombstones and monuments was often in order to be ‘beautiful’ as the resting place of their occupants. It is, however, quite possible that people did tend to try to actually beautify them as well, especially at such times.
Jesus applies the picture to the Scribes and Pharisees. They too ‘whitewashed’ themselves by their ritual activities, but were inwardly unclean, ‘full of hypocrisy and lawlessness’. They were in total contrast with the pure in heart (Mat 5:8) who saw God. The charge of ‘lawlessness’ is especially poignant, for they prided themselves on observing the Law. But that was their problem. They selected which parts they would keep, and those tended to concentrate on the religious ritual which was observable by God and men. Instead of being pure in heart (Mat 5:8) they were whitewashed on the outside. There may also be a reference in this ‘whiteness’ to the fact that some wore white robes in order to make an impression of purity.
Fuente: Commentary Series on the Bible by Peter Pett
The seventh woe:
v. 27. Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For ye are like unto whited sepulchers, which indeed appear beautiful outward, but are within full of dead men’s bones, and of all uncleanness.
v. 28. Even so ye also outwardly appear righteous unto men, but within ye are full of hypocrisy and iniquity. It was a custom among the Jews, derived by the Rabbis from Eze 39:15, and said to extend back to the time of Joshua, that every year on the fifteenth of Adar, one month before the Passover, the graves of such as were buried on the hillsides or near the highways had to be whitened with a sort of chalk. They thus became conspicuous both by day and night, and the pilgrims to the great festival that were not acquainted with the country could avoid Levitical contamination by going around such graves, for the contact with a grave would defile a Jew. Exactly like such graves, according to Christ’s judgment, are the scribes and Pharisees. Their life, as they present it in the view of the multitude, was fair, inviting nothing but commendation, but its actual loathsomeness, when one penetrated beyond the outside shell and examined the heart, was so great as to provoke nothing but condemnation. Hypocrites they are, whose very boast of the Law is resolved into lawlessness and opposition to the Law.
Fuente: The Popular Commentary on the Bible by Kretzmann
Mat 23:27-28. Ye are like unto whited sepulchres 7. The seventh woe is denounced for the excess of their hypocrisy. By their care of external appearances, the Pharisees and Scribes made a fair shew, and deceived the simple. Like fine whited sepulchres, they looked beautiful without, but within were full of uncleanness, and defiled every one that touched them. This was a severe rebuke to men, who would not keep company with publicans and sinners, for fear they should have been polluted by them. The truth is, these hypocrites were publicly decent, but privately dissolute: they put on a saint-like look, but in reality were the very worst of men. A French commentator observes, that the Jews used to paint or whiten their sepulchres or tombs at certain seasons of the year; that people might discern that they were polluted places. See Luk 11:44.
Fuente: Commentary on the Holy Bible by Thomas Coke
Mat 23:27 f. The graves were whitewashed with lime ( ) every year on the 15th of Adar (a custom which Rabbinical writers trace to Eze 39:15 ), not for the purpose of ornamenting them, but in order to render them so conspicuous as to prevent any one defiling himself (Num 19:16 ) by coming into contact with them. For the passages from Rabbinical writers, see Lightfoot, Schoettgen, and Wetstein. A kind of ornamental appearance was thus imparted to the graves. In Luk 11:44 , the illustration is of a totally different character.
. . .] ( immorality ): both as representing their disposition . Thus, morally speaking, they were , Lucian, D. M. vi. 2.
Fuente: Heinrich August Wilhelm Meyer’s New Testament Commentary
27 Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye are like unto whited sepulchres, which indeed appear beautiful outward, but are within full of dead men’s bones, and of all uncleanness.
Ver. 27. Ye are like unto whited sepulchres ] The Jews had their vaults or caves for burial. These the wealthier sort would paint, garnish, beautify at the mouth or entrance of them. And hereunto our Saviour alludeth, Intus Nero, foris Cato: loquitur hic ut Piso, vivit ut Gallomus, &c. It was said of the Sarmatians, that all their virtue was outward; and of Sejanus, that he had only a semblance of honesty, Intus summa adipiscendi libido, within he was full of extortion and excess. a Hypocrites seem as glowworms, to have both light and heat; but touch them, and they have neither. The Egyptian temples were beautiful on the outside, when within ye should find nothing but some serpent or crocodile. Apothecaries’ boxes often have goodly titles, when yet they hold not one dram of any good drug. A certain stranger coming on embassy unto the senators of Rome, and colouring his hoary hair and pale cheeks with vermilion hue, a grave senator espying the deceit, stood up, and said, “What sincerity are we to expect from this man’s hands, whose locks, and looks, and lips do lie?” Think the same of all painted hypocrites. These we may compare (as Lucian doth his Grecians) to a fair gilt bossed book; look within it, and there is the tragedy of Thyestes; or perhaps Arrius’ Thalya; the name of a muse, the matter heresy: or Conradus Vorstius’ book monster, that hath De Deo Concerning God, in the front, but atheism and blasphemy in the text.
a Omnis Sarmatarum virtus extra ipsos. Tac. i. 10. Palam compositus pudor, &c. Tac.
Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
Mat 23:27-28 . Sixth woe , referring to no special Pharisaic vice, but giving a graphic picture of their hypocrisy in general ( cf. Luk 11:44 ).
Fuente: The Expositors Greek Testament by Robertson
Mat 23:27 . , in [128] , under either form an hapaxleg. (from , dust, slaked lime), whitewashed, referring to the practice of whitewashing the sepulchres in the month Adar, before passover time, to make them conspicuous, inadvertent approach involving uncleanness. They would be wearing their fresh coat just then, so that the comparison was seasonable ( vide Wetstein, ad loc. ). , , again a contrast between without and within, which may have suggested the comparison. , fair, without; the result but not the intention in the natural sphere, the aim in the spiritual, the Pharisee being concerned about appearance (chap. 6). , etc., revolting contrast: without, quite an attractive feature in the landscape; within, only death-fraught loathsomeness.
[128] Codex Vaticanus (sc. iv.), published in photographic facsimile in 1889 under the care of the Abbate Cozza-Luzi.
Fuente: The Expositors Greek Testament by Robertson
Matthew
THE KING’S FAREWELL
Mat 23:27 – Mat 23:39
If, with the majority of authorities, we exclude Mat 23:14 from the text, there are, in this chapter, seven woes, like seven thunders, launched against the rulers. They are scathing exposures, but, as the very word implies, full of sorrow as well as severity. They are not denunciations, but prophecies warning that the end of such tempers must be mournful. The wailing of an infinite compassion, rather than the accents of anger, sounds in them; and it alone is heard in the outburst of lamenting in which Christ’s heart runs over, as in a passion of tears, at the close. The blending of sternness and pity, each perfect, is the characteristic of this wonderful climax of our Lord’s appeals to His nation. Could such tones of love and righteous anger joined have been sent echoing through the ages in this Gospel, if they had not been heard?
I. The woe of the ‘whited sepulchres.’
The whitened tombs of Mohammedan saints still gleam in the strong sunlight on many a knoll in Palestine. If the Talmudical practice is as old as our Lord’s time, the annual whitewashing was lately over. Its purpose was not to adorn the tombs, but to make them conspicuous, so that they might be avoided for fear of defilement. So He would say, with terrible irony, that the apparent holiness of the rulers was really a sign of corruption, and a warning to keep away from them. What a blow at their self-complacency! And how profoundly true it is that the more punctiliously white the hypocrite’s outside, the more foul is he within, and the wider berth will all discerning people give him! The terrible force of the figure needs no dwelling on. In Christ’s estimate, such a soul was the very dwelling-place of death; and foul odours and worms and corruption filled its sickening recesses. Terrible words to come from His lips into which grace was poured, and bold words to be flashed at listeners who held the life of the Speaker in their hands! There are two sorts of hypocrites, the conscious and the unconscious; and there are ten of the latter for one of the former, and each ten times more dangerous. Established religion breeds them, and they are specially likely to be found among those whose business is to study the documents in which it is embodied. These woes are not like thunder-peals rolling above our heads, while the lightning strikes the earth miles away. A religion which is mostly whitewash is as common among us as ever it was in Jerusalem; and its foul accompaniments of corruption becoming more rotten every year, as the whitewash is laid on thicker, may be smelt among us, and its fatal end is as sure.
II. The woe of the sepulchre builders Mat 23:29 – Mat 23:36.
In these verses we have, first, the specification of another form of hypocrisy, consisting in building the prophets’ tombs, and disavowing the fathers’ murder of them. Honouring dead prophets was right; but honouring dead ones and killing living ones was conscious or unconscious hypocrisy. The temper of mind which leads to glorifying the dead witnesses, also leads to supposing that all truth was given by them; and hence that the living teachers, who carry their message farther, are false prophets. A generation which was ready to kill Jesus in honour of Moses, would have killed Moses in honour of Abraham, and would not have had the faintest apprehension of the message of either.
It is a great deal easier to build tombs than to accept teachings, and a good deal of the posthumous honour paid to God’s messengers means, ‘It’s a good thing they are dead, and that we have nothing to do but to put up a monument.’ Bi-centenaries and ter-centenaries and jubilees do not always imply either the understanding or the acceptance of the principles supposed to be glorified thereby. But the magnifiers of the past are often quite unconscious of the hollowness of their admiration, and honest in their horror of their fathers’ acts; and we all need the probe of such words as Christ’s to pierce the skin of our lazy reverence for our fathers’ prophets, and let out the foul matter below-namely, our own blindness to God’s messengers of to-day.
The statement of the hypocrisy is followed, in Mat 23:31 , with its unmasking and condemnation. The words glow with righteous wrath at white heat, and end in a burst of indignation, most unfamiliar to His lips. Three sentences, like triple lightning flash from His pained heart. With almost scornful subtlety He lays hold of the words which He puts into the Pharisees’ mouths, to convict them of kindred with those whose deeds they would disown. ‘Our fathers, say you? Then you do belong to the same family, after all. You confess that you have their blood in your veins; and, in the very act of denying sympathy with their conduct, you own kindred. And, for all your protestations, spiritual kindred goes with bodily descent.’ Christ here recognises that children probably ‘take after their parents,’ or, in modern scientific terms, that ‘heredity’ is the law, and that it works more surely in the transmission of evil than of good.
Then come the awful words bidding that generation ‘fill up the measure of the fathers.’ They are like the other command to Judas to do his work quickly. They are more than permission, they are command; but such a command as, by its laying bare of the true character of the deed in view, is love’s last effort at prevention. Mark the growing emotion of the language. Mark the conception of a nation’s sins as one through successive generations, and the other, of these as having a definite measure, which being filled, judgment can no longer tarry. Generation after generation pours its contributions into the vessel, and when the last black drop which it can hold has been added, then comes the catastrophe. Mark the fatal necessity by which inherited sin becomes darker sin. The fathers’ crimes are less than the sons’. This inheritance increases by each transmission. The cloak strikes one more at each revolution of the hands.
It is hard to recognise Christ in the terrible words that follow. We have heard part of them from John the Baptist; and it sounded natural for him to call men serpents and the children of serpents, but it is somewhat of a shock to hear Jesus hurling such names at even the most sinful. But let us remember that He who sees hearts, has a right to tell harsh truths, and that it is truest kindness to strip off masks which hide from men their own real character, and that the revelation of the divine love in Jesus would be a partial and impotent revelation if it did not show us the righteous love which is wrath. There is nothing so terrible as the anger of gentle compassion, and the fiercest and most destructive wrath is ‘the wrath of the Lamb.’ Seldom, indeed, did He show that side of His character; but it is there, and the other side would not be so blessed as it is, unless that were there too.
The woe ends with the double prophecy that that generation would repeat and surpass the fathers’ guilt, and that on it would fall the accumulated penalties of past bloodshed. Note that solemn ‘therefore,’ which looks back to the whole preceding context, and forward to the whole subsequent. Because the rulers professed abhorrence of their fathers’ deeds, and yet inherited their spirit, they too would have their prophets, and would slay them. God goes on sending His messengers, because we reject them; and the more deaf men are, the more does He peal His words into their ears. That is mercy and compassion, that all men may be saved and come to the knowledge of the truth; but it is judgment too, and its foreseen effect must be regarded as part of the divine purpose in it. Christ’s desire is one thing, His purpose another. His desire is that all should find in His gospel ‘the savour of life’; but His purpose is that, if it be not that to any, it shall be to them the savour of death. Mark, too, the authority with which He, in the face of these scowling Pharisees, assumes the distinct divine prerogative of sending forth inspired men, who, as His messengers, shall stand on a level with the prophets of old. Mark His silence as to His own fate, which is only obscurely hinted at in the command to fill up the measure of the fathers. Observe the detailed enumeration of His messengers’ gifts,-’prophets’ under direct inspiration, like those of old, which may especially refer to the apostles; ‘wise men,’ like a Stephen or an Apollos; ‘scribes,’ such as Mark and Luke and many a faithful servant since, whose pen has loved to write the name above every name. Note the detailed prophecy of their treatment, which begins with slaying and goes down to the less severe scourging, and thence to the milder persecution. Do the three punishments belong to the three classes of messengers, the severest falling to the lot of the most highly endowed, and even the quiet penman being hunted from city to city?
We need not wriggle and twist to try to avoid admitting that the calling of the martyred Zacharias, ‘the son of Barachias,’ is an error of some one who confused the author of the prophetic book with the person whose murder is narrated in 2Ch 24:1 – 2Ch 24:27 We do not know who made the mistake, or how it appears in our text, but it is not honest to try to slur it over. The punishment of long ages of sin, carried on from father to son, does in the course of that history of the world, which is a part of the judgment of the world, fall upon one generation. It takes long for the mass of heaped-up sin to become top-heavy; but when it is so, it buries one generation of those who have worked at piling it up, beneath its down-rushing avalanche.
‘The mills of God grind slowly,
But they grind exceeding small.’
III. The parting wail of rejected love.
So the lament passes into the solemn final leave-taking, with which our Lord closes His ministry among the Jews, and departs from the temple. As, in the parable of the marriage-feast, the city was emphatically called ‘their city,’ so here the Temple, in whose courts He was standing, and which in a moment He was to quit for ever, is called ‘your house,’ because His departure is the withdrawing of the true Shechinah. It had been the house of God: now He casts it off, and leaves it to them to do as they will with it. The saddest punishment of long-continued rejection of His pleading love, is that it ceases at last to plead. The bitterest woe for those who refuse to render to Him the fruits of the vineyard, is to get the vineyard for their own, undisturbed. Christ’s utmost retribution for obstinate blindness is to withdraw from our sight. All the woes that were yet to fall, in long, dreary succession on that nation, so long continued in its sin, so long continued in its misery, were hidden in that solemn departure of Christ from the henceforward empty temple. Let us fear lest our unfaithfulness meet the like penalty! But even the departure does not end His yearnings, nor close the long story of the conflict between God’s beseeching love and their unbelief. The time shall come when the nation shall once more lift up, with deeper, truer adoration, the hosannas of the triumphal entry. And then a believing Israel shall see their King, and serve Him. Christ never takes final leave of any man in this world. It is ever possible that dumb lips may be opened to welcome Him, though long rejected; and His withdrawals are His efforts to bring about that opening. When it takes place, how gladly does He return to the heart which is now His temple, and unveil His beauty to the long-darkened eyes!
Fuente: Expositions Of Holy Scripture by Alexander MacLaren
Woe, &c. Compare Mat 5:9, and see App-126.
are like unto. Greek. paromoiazo. Occurs only here.
whited. Sepulchres were whitened a month before the Passover, to warn off persons from contracting uncleanness (Num 19:16).
dead men’s bones = bones of dead people. See App-139.
Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics
Mat 23:27. , …, for, etc.) In this verse the especially distinctive characteristic of hypocrites is described: for hypocrisy is named in Mat 23:28. Cf. Luk 11:44 with the context.-, whited) The Jews used to whiten their sepulchres with chalk.
Fuente: Gnomon of the New Testament
Judgment and Lament
Mat 23:27-39
True goodness recognizes and rewards good in the living; while the evil-minded cannot, or will not, believe that the people whom they meet daily are purely and sincerely good. They pride themselves on what they would have done if they had lived in the great days of the past, but they miss the opportunities which are always ready to hand. In this they judge and condemn themselves.
How sad is this lament over Jerusalem! The yearning love which longed to intercept her descending judgment, as the hen the stroke of danger which menaces her brood, was about to be withdrawn. After striving His best to save them, the worlds Redeemer was abandoning His people to the results of their sin, until the time spoken of in Zec 14:1-4. Oh my soul, see that thou art hidden under those wings, until all calamities are overpast and the day has broken!
Fuente: F.B. Meyer’s Through the Bible Commentary
like: Isa 58:1, Isa 58:2, Luk 11:44, Act 23:3
sepulchres: Num 19:16
Reciprocal: 2Sa 14:25 – But in all Israel 2Ki 23:14 – the bones of men 2Ch 29:16 – all the uncleanness Isa 10:1 – Woe Jer 4:14 – wash Mal 3:7 – Wherein Mat 23:13 – woe Luk 11:42 – woe Rom 3:13 – throat Col 2:23 – a show 2Ti 3:5 – a form Rev 18:24 – in her
Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge
7-28
The inconsistency and hypocrisy of the scribes and Pharisees is the principal subject of many of these verses, and Jesus uses various figures and comparisons for his purpose. Whited sepulchres is the object used in this paragraph for the comparison, and the occasion of their being whited is explained in Smith’s Bible Dictionary as follows: “A natural cave enlarged and adapted by excavation, or an artificial imitation of one, was the standard type of sepulchre. Sepulchres, when the owner’s means permitted it, were commonly-prepared beforehand, and stood often in gardens, by roadsides, or even adjoining houses. Kings and prophets alone were probably buried within towns. 1Ki 2:10; 1Ki 16:6; 1Ki 16:28. Cities soon became populous and demanded cemeteries, Eze 39:15, which were placed without the walls. Sepulchres were marked sometimes by pillars or by pyramids. Such as were not otherwise noticeable were scrupulously `whited,’ Mat 23:27, once a year, after the rains before the passover, to warn passers-by of defilement.”–Article, burial. The beautiful appearance of these whitewashed places contrasted with the decayed and unclean bones within, and the fact was used by Jesus to illustrate the outward fair pretentions of the hypocrites that were opposite to the corruptions of their hearts.
Fuente: Combined Bible Commentary
Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For ye are like unto whited sepulchres, which indeed appear beautiful outward, but are within full of dead men’s bones, and of all uncleanness.
[Ye are like whited sepulchres.] Sepulchres are distinguished by the masters of the Jews into a deep sepulchre; which cannot be known to be a sepulchre; graves that appear not [Luk 11:44]; and a painted sepulchre; such as were all those that were known, and to be seen. Our Saviour compares the Scribes and Pharisees to both; to those, in the place of Luke last mentioned; to these, in the place before us, each upon a different reason.
Concerning the whiting of sepulchres; there are these traditions: “In the fifteenth day of the month Adar they mend the ways, and the streets, and the common sewers, and perform those things that concern the public, and they paint (or mark) the sepulchres.” The manner is described in Maasar Sheni; They paint the sepulchres with chalk, tempered and infused in water. The Jerusalem Gemarists give the reason of it in abundance of places: “Do they not mark the sepulchres (say they) before the month Adar? Yes, but it is supposed that the colours are wiped off. For what cause do they paint them so? That this matter may be like the case of the leper. The leprous man crieth out, ‘Unclean, unclean’; and here, in like manner, uncleanness cries out to you and saith, ‘Come not near.’ ” R. Illa, in the name of R. Samuel Bar Nachman, allegeth that of Ezekiel; “If one passing through the land seeth a man’s bone, he shall set up a burial sign by it.”
The Glossers deliver both the reason and the manner of it thus: “From the fifteenth day of the month Adar they began their search; and wheresoever they found a sepulchre whose whiting was washed off with the rain, they renewed it, that the unclean place might be discerned, and the priests who were to eat the Trumah might avoid it.” Gloss on Shekalim; and again on Maasar Sheni; “They marked the sepulchres with chalk in the likeness of bones; and mixing it with water, they washed the sepulchre all about with it, that thereby all might know that the place was unclean, and therefore to be avoided.” Concerning this matter also, the Gloss speaks; “They made marks like bones on the sepulchres with white chalk,” etc. See the place.
Fuente: Lightfoot Commentary Gospels
Mat 23:27. Whited sepulchres. On the 15th of Adar, before the Passover, the Jews whitewashed all spots where graves were situated. This was done to prevent the passage over them, which occasioned Levitical defilement (Num 19:16; comp. Eze 39:15, from which passage the custom is derived).
Outwardly indeed appear beautiful. Beside the whitening, much care was bestowed upon sepulchres by the wealthy Jews.
Full of dead mens bones, etc. Comp. the proper sanitary regulation of Mosaic law concerning dead bodies (Num 5:2; Num 6:6).
Fuente: A Popular Commentary on the New Testament
Here we have a woe denounced against the Pharisees for cheating and deceiving the people with an outward shew, and external appearance of piety and religion: their lives were seemingly very religious but their hearts were full of hypocrisy and all impurity, like sepulchres painted without, and full of rottenness within.
Whence, Learn, That the great design of hypocrisy is to cheat the world with a vain and empty shew of piety. The ambition of the hypocrite is to be thought good, not to be so; he is the world’s saint, not God’s.
Fuente: Expository Notes with Practical Observations on the New Testament
Mat 23:27. Wo unto you, for you are like whited sepulchres Here we have the seventh wo. Dr. Shaw, (Trav., p. 285,) gives a genial description of the different sorts of tombs and sepulchres in the East concluding with this paragraph Now all these, with the very walls of the enclosure, being always kept clean, white-washed, and beautified; continue to this day to be an excellent comment upon Mat 23:27. The scribes and Pharisees, like fine whited sepulchres, looked very beautiful without, but within were full of all uncleanness, and defiled every one who touched them. This was a sore rebuke to men who would not keep company with publicans and sinners for fear they should have been polluted by them!
Mat 23:29-31. Wo unto you, because ye build the tombs of the prophets Here we have the eighth and last wo. By the pains they took in adorning the sepulchres of their prophets, they pretended a great veneration for their memory; and, as often as their happened to be mentioned, condemned their fathers who had killed them, declaring that if they had lived in the days of their fathers, they would have opposed their wickedness; while, in the mean time, they still cherished the spirit of their fathers, persecuting the messengers of God, particularly his only Son, on whose destruction they were resolutely bent. Ye build the tombs of the prophets And that is all, for ye neither observe their sayings nor imitate their actions. And say, We would not have been partakers, &c. Ye make fair professions, as did your fathers. Wherefore ye be witnesses, &c. By affirming that if you had lived in the days of your fathers you would not have been partakers with them in the blood of the prophets, ye acknowledge that ye are the children of them who murdered the prophets. But I must tell you, that you are their children in another sense than by natural generation; for though you pretend to be more holy than they were, you are like them in all respects; particularly in that you possess their wicked, persecuting spirit, and cover it by smooth words, thus imitating them, who, while they killed the prophets of their own times, professed the utmost veneration for those of past ages.
Fuente: Joseph Bensons Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
The sixth woe 23:27-28
The Jerusalem Jews whitewashed grave markers just before Passover to alert pilgrims to their presence. They did this so these strangers would not unknowingly touch one, become unclean, and therefore be ineligible to participate in the feast. [Note: Mishnah Shekalim 1:1; Mishnah Kelim 1:4; Mishnah Moed Katan 1:2; Mishnah Masser Sheni 5:1.] It was not so much the whitewashing that made them attractive as it was the monuments themselves that were attractive. Jesus compared these whitewashed monuments to the Pharisees. Both appeared attractive, but both also contaminated people who contacted them. Pharisaic contamination precluded participation in the blessings that Passover anticipated, namely, kingdom blessings.
Jesus’ mention of "lawlessness" is significant (Mat 23:28). The Pharisees prided themselves on punctilious observance of the Law (Gr. nomos). Ironically their failure to understand and apply the Law correctly made them lawless (Gr. anomia) in Jesus’ view. Anomia is a general word for wickedness in the New Testament. Jesus implied that the Pharisees’ whole approach to the Law was really wicked.