Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of Matthew 23:31
Wherefore ye be witnesses unto yourselves, that ye are the children of them which killed the prophets.
31. witnesses unto yourselves ] You call yourselves children, and indeed you are children of those who slew the prophets. You inherit their wickedness in compassing the death of the Prophet of the Lord.
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
Ye be witnesses unto yourselves – The emphasis, here, lies in the words to yourselves. It is an appeal to their conscience. It was not by their building the tombs that they were witnesses that they were the children of those who killed the prophets; but that, in spite of all this pretence of piety, under all this cloak of profession, they knew in their consciences, and were witnesses to themselves, that it was mere hypocrisy, and that they really approved the conduct of those who slew the prophets.
Children of them … – Resembling them; approving their conduct; inheriting their feelings. See the notes at Mat 1:1. They not only showed that they were descended from them, but that they possessed their spirit, and that, in similar circumstances, they would have done as they did.
Fuente: Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible
Verse 31. Ye be witnesses] Ye acknowledge that ye are the children of those murderers, and ye are about to give full proof that ye are not degenerated.
There are many who think that, had they lived in the time of our Lord, they would not have acted towards him as the Jews did. But we can scarcely believe that they who reject his Gospel, trample under foot his precepts, do despite to the Spirit of his grace, love sin, and hate his followers, would have acted otherwise to him than the murdering Jews, had they lived in the same times.
Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible
You (saith our Lord) confess that you are lineally descended from those who killed the prophets: you have not only their blood communicated to you, but their spirit; your behaviours and carriages towards me and my disciples have witnessed, and will yet further testify, that you are the children of those who killed the prophets in a moral as well as a natural sense; you inherit the same spirit, and are full of the same malice and rancour. They killed them, and you bury them: seeing there is no reclaiming you, go you on, fill up the measure of your fathers sins. There is something more to be added to make the iniquity of this nation full. You are a company of serpents, vipers, that cannot escape the damnation of hell.
Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole
Wherefore ye be witnesses unto yourselves,…. Or “against yourselves”, as the Syriac reads; for what they said was a plain acknowledgment, and a full confession, what their fathers had done, and whose offspring they were; and from whom better things were not to be expected; since they were their fathers’ own children, and of the same temper and disposition with them:
that ye are the children of them that killed the prophets. They plainly owned, that their fathers killed the prophets, and that they descended from them; though they meant not so much to reproach, their ancestors, as to give themselves a greater character; yet it did not with those, that knew them; not with our Lord: for as their own words testified against them, that they were a seed of evildoers; their practices showed them to be of the same spirit and principles with their progenitors.
Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible
(31) Ye be witnesses unto yourselves.Their words were true in another sense than that in which they had spoken them. They were reproducing in their deeds the very lineaments of those fathers whom they condemned.
Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)
“Thus you witness to yourselves, that you are sons of those who slew the prophets. Fill you up then the measure of your fathers.”
Jesus then points out to them that by all this they are simply drawing attention to the fact that they are the sons of those who slew the prophets. They are of the same blood and, although they may not think it, are demonstrating the same attitude, for they are at this very time plotting His death.
‘Fill you up then the measure of your fathers.’ This was a sarcastic way of telling them to carry on their plots against Him. It was all that could be expected for they were like their fathers and could therefore only be expected to behave like them. ‘The measure’ probably indicates that they will finally fill up what their fathers have commenced, referring to the limit put by God on the amount of sin He will tolerate, which once it is reached causes Him to act (compare Gen 15:16; 1Th 2:16).
Fuente: Commentary Series on the Bible by Peter Pett
31 Wherefore ye be witnesses unto yourselves, that ye are the children of them which killed the prophets.
Ver. 31. Wherefore ye be witnesses, &c. ] Here our Saviour casts all their cost in their teeth, as if thereby they had meant to commend their fathers’ cruelty in killing the prophets, since they abetted it by persecuting him and his to the death. Malice is commonly hereditary, and runs in the blood; and (as we use to say of runnet) the older it is, the stronger; as in the deadly feud of Scotland taken away by King James.
Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
Mat 23:31 . , with indicative expressing result = therefore. , to and against yourselves. Jesus reads more meaning into their words than they intended: “our fathers”; yes! they are your fathers, in spirit as well as in blood.
Fuente: The Expositors Greek Testament by Robertson
Wherefore = so that.
children = sons. App-108.
Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics
Mat 23:31. , ye bear witness) sc. by your deeds, Mat 23:29, by your words, Mat 23:30.
Fuente: Gnomon of the New Testament
witnesses: Jos 24:22, Job 15:5, Job 15:6, Psa 64:8, Luk 19:22
that: Act 7:51, Act 7:52, 1Th 2:15, 1Th 2:16
Reciprocal: Num 12:6 – a prophet Num 32:14 – an increase Num 35:33 – it defileth 2Ki 21:16 – Manasseh Job 21:19 – for his Psa 69:27 – Add Psa 78:8 – as their Psa 109:14 – Let the Isa 30:9 – this is Isa 59:7 – and they Isa 65:7 – Your iniquities Jer 26:8 – the priests Lam 4:13 – that Dan 9:16 – for the Hos 5:5 – testify Hos 10:9 – did Zec 11:3 – a voice Mat 5:12 – for so Mat 21:35 – General Luk 3:20 – General Luk 6:23 – for in Rom 9:22 – fitted Heb 6:6 – they crucify
Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge
3:31
The point Jesus made was upon the admission of these pretenders that it was their fathers who had slain the prophets. That fleshly relation would not have placed any blame on them had it not been a prominent practice of them to justify their lives by boasting of their great ancestry.
Fuente: Combined Bible Commentary
Mat 23:31. So then. You acknowledge the sins of your fathers, but hypocritically deny your own, adding hypocrisy to impiety,
Ye witness to yourselves, your own consciences condemning you, that ye are the sons (morally as well as naturally) of them that slew the prophets. Some find here an allusion to a Jewish proverb: One kills him, and another digs his grave (comp. Luk 11:47), asserting complicity in guilt; but our Lord assumes that evil moral characteristics are hereditary; therefore those whose conduct did not oppose the false principles and crimes of their forefathers, were partakers in their guilt (Mat 23:32; Mat 23:35-36). Doing this in appearance only, the Pharisees showed that they had no true conception of either their own condition, or the crime of their fathers. Possibly attributing such violence to the barbarity of ancient times, they failed to see that these persecutions sprang from the same hatred of real righteousness which produced their hypocritical service. A common mistake.
Fuente: A Popular Commentary on the New Testament
"Consequently" refers to the Pharisees’ acknowledgment of themselves as the sons of those who killed the prophets (Mat 23:30), not to their tomb-building (Mat 23:29). The Pharisees were the descendants of those who killed the prophets more than they knew, not just physically but also spiritually. They were plotting to kill the greatest Prophet (Mat 21:38-39; Mat 21:46).