Matthew 23:1,2 - Coke's Commentary on the Holy Bible

Then spake Jesus, &c.— Because our Saviour had mentioned the final conquest and destruction of his enemies, who were to be made his footstool, he turned towards his disciples, and in the hearing of all the people solemnly cautioned them to beware of the Scribes and Pharisees; by which he insinuated, and that not obscurely, who the enemies were, whose end he had hinted at. The name of Pharisees being the appellation of a sect, it cannot be supposed that our Lord meant to say of all the party, that they sat in Moses' chair; such a character was applicable to none but the doctors of the sect; for which reason we may suppose that the phrase Scribes and Pharisees, is a Hebraism for the Pharisean Scribes. Some think there is an allusion, Matthew 23:2 to those pulpits which Ezra made for the expounders of the law, Nehemiah 8:4 and which were afterwards continued in the synagogue, from which the rabbies delivered their discourses sitting. It is probably called Moses' Chair, because it was that from which the books of Moses were read and explained; so that he seemed to dictate from thence. It is strange that Lightfoot and others should explain this of a legislative authority, since the Scribes andPharisees, as such, had no peculiar authority of that kind. See Doddridge, and Lightfoot.