Matthew 23:15

“Woe/alas to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for you compass sea and land to make one proselyte, and when he is become so, you make him twofold more a son of Gehenna than yourselves.”

The idea of the prevention of others from entering the Kingly Rule of Heaven is taken a step further by considering their efforts to win even Gentiles to God's Law, and then to so concentrate their minds on their own one-sided interpretation of it that they made them worse than themselves, and more fitted for Gehenna even than they were. Compare here Matthew 18:6. His words to His own disciples had been equally as severe, the only difference being that while for them it was only potential, for the Scribes and Pharisees it had actually happened. They had a zeal for God, but not according to knowledge, and had become prisoners of their own emphases, and they had failed to shake themselves out of it when it was drawn to their attention (Luke 11:42). There is a warning in this for us all not to become so tied down in detail that we overlook the greater truths.

‘Proselyte.' A technical term for a convert to Judaism who had been circumcised and had thus become accepted as a Jew. There is possibly an indication here of the fact that the zeal of some of these Scribes and Pharisees was so great that they made great efforts (‘travel over land and sea' is probably a proverbial saying) to bring the attention of Gentiles to the Law of God, but more probably a specific case is in mind. We can compare here Philo, Josephus and the inter-testamental writers, although how far their efforts were intended to produce conversions rather than just ensure acceptability for Judaism is debatable. However, Jesus may well have had in mind a specific case where a particularly important Gentile (or group of Gentiles) had shown interest in Judaism and had been assiduously courted with much effort, even involving sending leading Teachers abroad in order to advise them. Or it may have in mind that once a Gentile entered a synagogue as a God-fearer because of his appreciation of the moral teaching of the Law, he could count on being immediately surrounded by Scribes and Pharisees who would then seek to ground him in their own ideas. The result would be that the converts, who had originally been attracted by the morality found in the Law, would find themselves given a very one-sided view of the Law with an overemphasis on ritual, and so would become even more fanatical than their teachers (as often happens to converts). If a specific case was in mind in which what Jesus describes had happened it would explain such a generalisation. Josephus mentions the fact that aspects that were often of particular interest to Gentiles were Sabbath keeping, fasting, lighting of lamps and abstention from certain foods, hardly things that God had intended should attract the most attention, but certainly things favoured by the Pharisees.

‘Land and sea.' Perhaps Jesus had in mind His own outreaches to the Gentiles which had involved longer journeys and crossing the Sea of Galilee (Matthew 8:23; Matthew 8:28; Matthew 9:1; Matthew 15:21; Matthew 16:5; Matthew 16:13). We must remember that Jesus was rarely outside Palestine. Crossing land and sea must have seemed to Him a huge effort. Or as we have suggested He may well have had a particular example in mind.

‘A son of Gehenna'. Contrast ‘sons of the Kingly Rule' and compare ‘sons of the evil one' (Matthew 13:38). They had entered the road that led to destruction (Matthew 7:13) and had made themselves deserving of it. Gehenna (based on the idea of the burning rubbish dumps in the Valley (ge) of Hinnom) signifies the place of final punishment.

Note that in Matthew 5:4 the blessed will be comforted and strengthened, that is will receive all the good things that God has for them, but these on whom He declares ‘woes' become sons of Gehenna.