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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.comRobertson Word Pictures - Matthew 23:13 - 23:13
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Hypocrites (hupokritai). This terrible word of Jesus appears first from him in the Sermon on the Mount (Mat 6:2, Mat 6:5,Mat 6:16; Mat 7:5), then in Mat 15:7 and Mat 22:18. Here it appears “with terrific iteration” (Bruce) save in the third of the seven woes (Mat 23:13, Mat 23:15, Mat 23:23, Mat 23:25, Mat 23:27, Mat 23:29). The verb in the active (hupokrinō) meant to separate slowly or slightly subject to gradual inquiry. Then the middle was to make answer, to take up a part on the stage, to act a part. It was an easy step to mean to feign, to pretend, to wear a masque, to act the hypocrite, to play a part. This hardest word from the lips of Jesus falls on those who were the religious leaders of the Jews (Scribes and Pharisees), who had justified this thunderbolt of wrath by their conduct toward Jesus and their treatment of things high and holy. The Textus Receptus has eight woes, adding Mat 22:14 which the Revised Version places in the margin (called Mat 22:13 by Westcott and Hort and rejected on the authority of Aleph B D as a manifest gloss from Mar 12:40 and Luk 20:47). The MSS. that insert it put it either before Mat 23:13 or after Mat 23:13. Plummer cites these seven woes as another example of Matthew’s fondness for the number seven, more fancy than fact for Matthew’s Gospel is not the Apocalypse of John. These are all illustrations of Pharisaic saying and not doing (Allen).
Ye shut the kingdom of heaven (kleiete tēn basileian tōn ouranōn). In Luk 11:52 the lawyers are accused of keeping the door to the house of knowledge locked and with flinging away the keys so as to keep themselves and the people in ignorance. These custodians of the kingdom by their teaching obscured the way to life. It is a tragedy to think how preachers and teachers of the kingdom of God may block the door for those who try to enter in (tous eiserchomenous, conative present middle participle).
Against (emprosthen). Literally, before. These door-keepers of the kingdom slam it shut in men’s faces and they themselves are on the outside where they will remain. They hide the key to keep others from going in.