That upon you may came all the righteous blood, &c.— The meaning is, "As by your cruel and persecuting temper you seem to approve of all the murders which have been committed since the beginning of the world, you shall be as severely punished as if you yourselves had been the authors of them." This refers to temporal punishment, because in the life to come men will not be punished for the sins of others to which they were not accessary. But Dr. Campbell makesthe following observation on this passage: "As I understand it, this expression must not be interpreted as implying that those individual crimes, which happened before the time of the people then living, would be laid to their charge; but that, with every species of cruelty, oppression, and murder, which had been exemplified in former ages, they of that age would be found chargeable; inasmuch as they had permitted no kind of wickedness to be peculiar to those who had preceded them; but had carefully imitated, and even exceeded, all the most atrocious deeds of their ancestors from the beginning of the world. There is no hyperbole in the representation. The account given of them by Josephus, who was no Christian, but one of themselves, shews, in the strongest light, how justly they are here characterized by our Lord." The Zechariah here spoken of, is thought by many learned commentators to be that Zechariah who is expressly said to have been slain in so remarkable a manner, between the temple and the altar, 2 Chronicles 24:20-21.
Related Commentaries of Matthew 23:35
Matthew 23:35-36
35 That upon you may come all the righteous blood shed upon the earth, from the blood of righteous Abel unto the blood of Zacharias son of Barachias, whom ye slew between the temple and the altar.
36 Verily I say unto you, All these things shall come upon this generation.#rl