Matthew 23:38

Behold, your house is left unto you desolate. BEHOLD YOUR HOUSE - the Temple, beyond all doubt; but their house now, not the Lord's. See the note at Matthew 22:7. IS LEFT UNTO YOU DESOLATE, [ ereemos (G2048)] - 'deserted;' that is, of its Divine Inhabitant. But who is that? Hear the next words:...

38_Lo, your house is left to you desolate. _He threatens the destruction of the temple, and the dissolution of the whole frame of civil government. Though they were disfigured by irreligion, crimes, and every kind of infamy, yet they were so blinded by a foolish confidence in the temple, and its outward service, that they thought that God was bound to them; and this was the shield which they had always at hand: “What? Could God depart from that place which he has chosen to be his only habitation in the world? And since he dwells in the midst of us, we must one day be restored.” In short, they looked upon the temple as their invincible fortress, as if they dwelt in the bosom of God. But Christ maintains that it is in vain for them to boast of the presence of God, whom they had driven away by their crimes, and, by calling it _their house, (lo, your house is left to you,) _he indirectly int...

34-39 Our Lord declares the miseries the inhabitants of Jerusalem were about to bring upon themselves, but he does not notice the sufferings he was to undergo. A hen gathering her chickens under her wings, is an apt emblem of the Saviour's tender love to those who trust in him, and his faithful care of them. He calls sinners to take refuge under his tender protection, keeps them safe, and nourishes them to eternal life. The present dispersion and unbelief of the Jews, and their future conversion to Christ, were here foretold. Jerusalem and her children had a large share of guilt, and their punishment has been signal. But ere long, deserved vengeance will fall on every church which is Christian in name only. In the mean time the Saviour stands ready to receive all who come to him. There is nothing between sinners and eternal happiness, but their proud and unbelieving unwillingness....

Verse Matthew 23:38. _BEHOLD, YOUR HOUSE_] Ο οικος, _the temple_: - this is certainly what is meant. It was once the Lord's _temple, God's_ OWN _house_; but now he says, YOUR _temple_ or _house _- to intimate that God had _abandoned_ it. Matthew 23:21; _see also Clarke on "_Luke 13:35_"_....

YOUR HOUSE - The temple. The house of worship of the Jews. The chief ornament of Jerusalem. DESOLATE - About to be desolate or destroyed. To be forsaken as a place of worship, and delivered into the hands of the Romans, and destroyed. See the notes at Matthew 24....

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

BEHOLD YOUR HOUSE IS LEFT UNTO YOU DESOLATE. Signifying that the city in which they dwelt, where they had their ceiled houses, and stately palaces, would, in a little time, within the space of forty years, be destroyed, and become a desert; and the temple, formerly the house of God, but now only their's, and in which they trusted, would be abandoned by God, he would grant his presence no more in it; and the Messiah, the proprietor of it, and who was now in it, would then take his leave of it, and never more return to it; and that also should share the same fate as the city, and at the same time. Our Lord seems to have in view those passages in Jeremiah 12:7 and which the Jewish o writers understood of the temple. The author of the apocryphal the second book of Esdras has much such an expression as this: "Thus saith the Almighty Lord, Your house is desolate, I will cast you out

Matthew 23:29. _Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! because ye build the tombs of the prophets, and garnish the sepulchers of the righteous, And say, If we had been in the days of our fathers, we would not have been partakers with them in the blood of the prophets. Wherefore ye be witnesses unto yourselves, that ye are the children of them which killed the prophets._ They talk in the same conceited manner, and they claim self-righteousness, as their fathers did; and if their ancestors killed the prophets, these men garnish their sepulchers, and so are sharers in their forefathers' deeds. How often it happens that men say they would not have done such crimes as others have committed, whereas they do not know the vileness of their own hearts. If they were under the same conditions as others, they would act in the same way. It would have been a better sign if the sc

MATTHEW 23:38 u`mw/n e;rhmoj {B} On the one hand, it can be argued that copyists added e;rhmoj in order to conform the quotation to the text of Jeremiah 22:5. On the other hand, however, in view of what was taken to be the preponderant weight of external evidence a majority of the Committee preferred to include e;rhmoj, explaining its absence in some witnesses as the result of deletion by copyists who thought the word superfluous after avfi,etai....

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