Matthew 23:27

Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye are like unto whited sepulchres, which indeed appear beautiful outward, but are within full of dead men's bones, and of all uncleanness. WOE UNTO YOU, SCRIBES AND PHARISEES, HYPOCRITES! FOR YE ARE LIKE WHITED (OR 'WHITE-WASHED') SEPULCHRES (cf. ). The process of white-washing the sepulchres, as Lightfoot says, was performed on a certain day ever year, not for ceremonial cleansing, but, as the following words seem rather to imply, to beautify them. WHICH INDEED APPEAR BEAUTIFUL OUTWARD, BUT ARE WITHIN FULL OF DEAD MEN'S BONES, AND OF ALL UNCLEANNESS. What a powerful way of conveying the charge, that with all their fair show their hearts were full of corruption! (Compare ;...

27_You are like whitened sepulchers. _This is a different metaphor, but the meaning is the same; for he compares them to _sepulchers, _which the men of the world ambitiously construct with great beauty and splendor. As a painting or engraving on _sepulchers _draws the eyes of men upon them, while inwardly they contain stinking carcasses; so Christ says that hypocrites deceive by their outward appearance, because they are full of deceit and iniquity. The words of Luke are somewhat different, that they deceive the eyes of men, _like sepulchers, which frequently are not perceived by those who walk over them; _but it amounts to the same meaning, that, under the garb of pretended holiness, there lurks hidden filth which they cherish in their hearts, like a marble _sepulcher; _for it wears the aspect of what is beautiful and lovely, but covers a stinking carcass, so as not to be offensive to t...

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 23:27. _FOR YE ARE LIKE_] παρομοιαζετε, _ye exactly_ _resemble _- the parallel is complete. _WHITED SEPULCHRES_] _White-washed tombs_. As the law considered those unclean who had touched any thing belonging to the dead, the Jews took care to have their tombs white-washed each year, that, being easily _discovered_, they might be consequently _avoided_....

LIKE UNTO WHITED SEPULCHRES - For the construction of sepulchres, see the notes at Matthew 8:28. Those tombs were annually whitewashed to prevent the people from accidentally coming in contact with them as they went up to Jerusalem. This custom is still continued. Dr. Thomson (_The Land and the Book_, vol. i. p. 148) says, “I have been in places where this is repeated very often. The graves are kept clean and white as snow, a very striking emblem of those painted hypocrites, the Pharisees, beautiful without, but full of dead men’s bones and of all uncleanness within.” The law considered those persons unclean who had touched anything belonging to the dead, Numbers 19:16. Sepulchres were therefore often whitewashed, that they might be distinctly seen. Thus “whited,” they app

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,.... It is much these men could bear to hear themselves so often called by this name; and it shows great courage in our Lord, so freely to reprove them, and expose their wickedness, who were men of so much credit and influence with the people: FOR YE ARE LIKE UNTO WHITED SEPULCHRES; or "covered with lime", as the Syriac, Arabic, and Persic versions, render it. For the Jews used to mark their graves with white lime, that they might be known: that so priests, Nazarites, and travellers, might avoid them, and not be polluted with them. This appears from various passages in their writings: "The vineyard of the fourth year, they marked with clods of earth, and an uncircumcised one with dust, ושל קברות בסיד, "and graves with chalk", mixed (with water) and poured (on them x.)'' Of this marking of the graves, the reason of it, the time and manner...

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

SCRIBES AND PHARISEES (Matthew 23:1-39) If a man is characteristically and temperamentally an irritable, ill-tempered and irascible creature, notoriously given to uncontrolled outbursts of passionate anger, his anger is neither effective nor impressive. Nobody pays any attention to the anger of a bad-tempered man. But when a person who is characteristically meek and lowly, gentle and loving, suddenly erupts into blazing wrath, even the most thoughtless person is shocked into taking thought. That is why the anger of Jesus is so awe-inspiring a sight. It is seldom in literature that we find so unsparing and sustained an indictment as we find in this chapter when the wrath of Jesus is directed against the Scribes and Pharisees. Before we begin to study the chapter in detail, it will be well to see briefly what the Scribes and Pharisees stood for. The Jews had a deep and las