Matthew 23:13-32 - Arthur Peake's Commentary on the Bible

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Bible Comments

Seven Woes. Seven is a sacred number and often used in Mt., as in OT (cf. especially Isaiah 5) and Rev. The first three treat of Pharisaic teaching, the last three of Pharisaic character, the fourth is transitional. i.-iii. The Scribes refused to accept the preaching of Jesus, and deterred others from accepting it (Matthew 23:13; cf. Luke 11:52). While they are thus eager to prevent Jews from becoming Christians, they are keen to make converts either from the Gentiles to Judaism, or, more probably, from Jews to Pharisaism, and such converts become excessively Pharisaical (Matthew 23:15); they make casuistical and perverse distinctions with regard to oaths which subvert men's notions of truthfulness and honour (Matthew 23:16-22). iv. They are scrupulously careful about minute ceremonial detail, but lax in fundamental moralities (cf. Luke 11:42). Note that Jesus does not attack the Law. v.-vi. While insisting on ritual cleanliness and the appearance of a good life, they are really given to extortion and avarice, like a cup or a tomb, fair on the outside, filthy within (Matthew 23:25-28; cf. Luke 11:39-41; Luke 11:44). vii. They pay great homage to the martyred prophets, but do their best to martyr John and Jesus, the prophets of their own day (Matthew 23:29-36).

Matthew 23:14. An interpolation from Mark 12:40.

Matthew 23:16. Ye blind guides: in place of the usual Scribes and Pharisees. Perhaps something about heaven and the throne (corresponding to Matthew 23:22) has been left out here. he is a debtor =the oath is binding. With Matthew 23:16-22; cf. Matthew 5:33-37.

Matthew 23:23. anise: better dill; cummin resembles caraway. The three little herbs were used in cookery and medicine.

Matthew 23:24. strain out, not at; the reference is to the fear of swallowing an unclean insect in a drink. Note the humour of swallow a camel (Glover, The Jesus of History, p. 49.)

Matthew 23:25. full from: i.e. as the result of avarice; the food and drink may be ceremonially clean while morally tainted because dishonestly obtained.

Matthew 23:27. Tombs were whitewashed on the 15th of Adar (just before the Passover, the time when Jesus was speaking), that passers-by might not become polluted through inadvertently touching them.

Matthew 23:29. The seventh woe is linked with the sixth by the word sepulchres. The honour shown to the graves of the prophets is sheer hypocrisy, for the Pharisees are not only lineally but morally descended from the murderers.

Matthew 23:32. Fill up: the variant You will fill up, though it has good authority, is an attempt to soften the irony.

Related Commentaries of Matthew 23:13

Matthew 23:13-32

13 But woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye shut up the kingdom of heaven against men: for ye neither go in yourselves, neither suffer ye them that are entering to go in.

14 Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye devour widows' houses, and for a pretence make long prayer: therefore ye shall receive the greater damnation.#rl

15 Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye compass sea and land to make one proselyte, and when he is made, ye make him twofold more the child of hell than yourselves.

16 Woe unto you, ye blind guides, which say, Whosoever shall swear by the temple, it is nothing; but whosoever shall swear by the gold of the temple, he is a debtor!

17 Ye fools and blind: for whether is greater, the gold, or the temple that sanctifieth the gold?

18 And, Whosoever shall swear by the altar, it is nothing; but whosoever sweareth by the gift that is upon it, he is guilty.b

19 Ye fools and blind: for whether is greater, the gift, or the altar that sanctifieth the gift?#rl

20 Whoso therefore shall swear by the altar, sweareth by it, and by all things thereon.

21 And whoso shall swear by the temple, sweareth by it, and by him that dwelleth therein.#rl

22 And he that shall swear by heaven, sweareth by the throne of God, and by him that sitteth thereon.

23 Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye pay tithe of mint and anisec and cummin, and have omitted the weightier matters of the law, judgment, mercy, and faith: these ought ye to have done, and not to leave the other undone.

24 Ye blind guides, which strain at a gnat, and swallow a camel.

25 Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye make clean the outside of the cup and of the platter, but within they are full of extortion and excess.

26 Thou blind Pharisee, cleanse first that which is within the cup and platter, that the outside of them may be clean also.

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.

28 Even so ye also outwardly appear righteous unto men, but within ye are full of hypocrisy and iniquity.

29 Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! because ye build the tombs of the prophets, and garnish the sepulchres of the righteous,

30 And say, If we had been in the days of our fathers, we would not have been partakers with them in the blood of the prophets.

31 Wherefore ye be witnesses unto yourselves, that ye are the children of them which killed the prophets.

32 Fill ye up then the measure of your fathers.