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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.comRobertson Word Pictures - Matthew 23:15 - 23:15
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Twofold more a son of hell than yourselves (huion geennēs diploteron hūmōn). It is a convert to Pharisaism rather than Judaism that is meant by “one proselyte” (hena prosēluton), from proserchomai, newcomers, aliens. There were two kinds of proselytes: of the gate (not actual Jews, but God-fearers and well-wishers of Judaism, like Cornelius), of righteousness who received circumcision and became actual Jews. But a very small per cent of the latter became Pharisees. There was a Hellenistic Jewish literature (Philo, Sibylline Oracles, etc.) designed to attract Gentiles to Judaism. But the Pharisaic missionary zeal (compass, periagēte, go around) was a comparative failure. And success was even worse, Jesus says with pitiless plainness. The “son of Gehenna” means one fitted for and so destined for Gehenna. “The more converted the more perverted” (H.J. Holtzmann). The Pharisees claimed to be in a special sense sons of the kingdom (Mat 8:12). They were more partisan than pious. Diplous (twofold, double) is common in the papyri. The comparative here used, as if from diplos, appears also in Appian. Note the ablative of comparison hūmōn. It was a withering thrust.