Matthew 23:15

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. WOE UNTO YOU, SCRIBES AND PHARISEES, HYPOCRITES! FOR YE COMPASS SEA AND LAND TO MAKE ONE PROSELYTE - from paganism. We have evidence of this in Josephus. AND WHEN HE IS MADE, YE MAKE HIM TWO-FOLD MORE THE CHILD OF HELL THAN YOURSELVES - condemned, for the hypocrisy he would learn to practice, both by the religion he left and that he embraced....

15._For you compass sea and land. _The _scribes _had also acquired celebrity by their zeal in laboring to bring over to the Jewish religion the strangers and uncircumcised. And so, if they had gained any one by their false appearances, or by any other stratagem, they gloried wonderfully over it as an increase of the Church. On this account also they received great applause from the common people, that by their diligence and ability they brought strangers into the Church of God. Christ declares, on the contrary, that so far is this zeal from deserving applause, that they more and more provoke the vengeance of God, because they bring under heavier condemnation those who devote themselves to their sect. We ought to observe how corrupt their condition at that time was, and what confusion existed in religion; for as it was a holy and excellent work to gain disciples to God, so to allure the G...

13-33 The scribes and Pharisees were enemies to the gospel of Christ, and therefore to the salvation of the souls of men. It is bad to keep away from Christ ourselves, but worse also to keep others from him. Yet it is no new thing for the show and form of godliness to be made a cloak to the greatest enormities. But dissembled piety will be reckoned double iniquity. They were very busy to turn souls to be of their party. Not for the glory of God and the good of souls, but that they might have the credit and advantage of making converts. Gain being their godliness, by a thousand devices they made religion give way to their worldly interests. They were very strict and precise in smaller matters of the law, but careless and loose in weightier matters. It is not the scrupling a little sin that Christ here reproves; if it be a sin, though but a gnat, it must be strained out; but the doing tha...

Verse Matthew 23:15. _COMPASS SEA AND LAND_] A proverbial expression, similar to ours, _You leave no stone unturned_; intimating that they did all in their power to gain converts, not to God, but to their sect. These we may suppose were principally sought for among the _Gentiles_, for the bulk of the Jewish nation was already on the side of the Pharisees. _PROSELYTE_] προσηλυτος, a _stranger_, or _foreigner_; one who _is come from his own people_ and country, to sojourn _with another_. See the different kinds of proselytes explained in _Clarke's note on "_Exodus 12:43_"_. _THE CHILD OF HELL_] A Hebraism for an excessively wicked person, such as might claim _hell_ for his _mother_, and the...

YE COMPASS SEA AND LAND - You take every means, spare no pains, to gain proselytes. PROSELYTE - One that comes over from a foreign nation, religion, or sect to us - a convert. Among the Jews there were two kinds of proselytes: * “Proselytes of righteousness,” or those who wholly and fully embraced the Jewish religion, who were baptized, who were circumcised, and who conformed to all the rites of the Mosaic institutions. * “Proselytes of the gate,” or those who approved of the Jewish religion, renounced the pagan superstitions, and conformed to some of the rites of the Jews, but were not circumcised or baptized. TWOFOLD MORE THE CHILD OF HELL - That is, twice as bad. To be a child of hell was a Hebrew phrase, signifying to be deserving of hell, to be awfully wicked. Compare the notes at...

EXPOSITION MATTHEW 23:1 _Denunciation of the scribes and Pharisees, and lamentation over Jerusalem which followed their guidance to her own destruction. _(Peculiar to St. Matthew.) MATTHEW 23:1 THEN SPAKE JESUS. Some small portion of this discourse, the close of our Lord's public teaching, is found in Mark 12:38 and Luke 20:45-42 (comp. also Luke 11:1., Luke 11:13.). It is here addres

WOE UNTO YOU SCRIBES AND PHARISEES, HYPOCRITES,.... The same character, and woe, are still continued, and a new reason added, confirming the justness of them, in order to awaken and convince them, or, however, to caution the people against them: FOR YE COMPASS SEA AND LAND TO MAKE ONE PROSELYTE; that is, to the Jewish religion, and their particular sect. There were two sorts of proselytes among them; one was called גר תושב, "a proselyte of the gate", one that might dwell in any of their towns, and cities, and who is thus described a; "Who is a proselyte of the gate? whosoever takes upon him, before three neighbours, that he will not commit idolatry. R. Meir and the wise men say, whosoever takes upon him the seven precepts which the sons of Noah took upon them: others say, these do not come into the general rule of a proselyte of the gate: who is then a proselyte of the gate? this is a...

HELL Gehenna. (_ See Scofield) - (Matthew 5:22). _...

11. THE WOES OF THE KING AND HIS LAMENTATION OVER JERUSALEM. CHAPTER 23 _ 1. The Hypocrisy of the Pharisees.(Matthew 23:1 .) 2. The Woes of the King upon Them.(Matthew 23:13 .) 3. The Lamentation over Jerusalem. (Matthew 23:37 .)_ For the last time we have seen the Pharisees in the presence of the Lord in the previous chapter. What an important part these ecclesiastical leaders of the professing people of God play in this Gospel. They rejected Him; hated Him without a cause, and after they found they could not ensnare Him they resorted to that which Satan had put into their wicked hearts “that they might kill Him.” That which the Lord had foretold in His parable of the vineyard is now soo

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