Matthew 23:14

ὑποκριταί. Vide at Matthew 6:2. This epithet is applied to the scribes and Pharisees in each of the woes with terrific iteration. κλείετε, ye shut the gates or the doors of the Kingdom of God, conceived as a city or palace. This the real effect of their action, not the ostensible. They claimed to be opening the Kingdom while really shutting it, and therein lay their hypocrisy. ἔμπροσθεν τ. ἀ.: as it were in men's faces, when they are in the act of entering. ὑμεῖς γὰρ, etc. Cf. Matthew 5:20. They thought themselves certainly within, but in the judgment of Jesus, with all their parade of piety, they were without. τ. εἰσερχομένους, those in the mood to enter, in the act of entering; the reference is to sincere seekers after God, and the statement is that the scribes were the worst advisers such persons could go to: the effect of their teaching would be to keep them out. This is the position implied throughout the Sermon on the Mount and in Matthew 11:28-30.