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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.com | DownloadCambridge Greek Testament for Schools and Colleges - Matthew 23:15 - 23:15
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This Chapter Verse Commentaries:
15. περιάγετε, ‘go about,’ ‘traverse.’ The word is used of our Lord’s ‘circuits’ in Galilee, ch. Mat 4:23; Mat 9:35.
προσήλυτον. Literally, one who approaches, hence, ‘a worshipper,’ (cp. Heb 10:1), ‘a convert.’ The word occurs in three other passages Act 2:11; Act 6:5; Act 13:43. Elsewhere proselytes are called οἱ σεβόμενοι, εὐλαβεῖς and οἱ φοβούμενοι θεόν. The word occurs in no classical author. It is used in the LXX. for ‘one who comes,’ i.e. a stranger (Hebr. ger), like the classical ἐπήλυτος and ἔπηλυς. Cp. Exo 12:48, νόμος εἷς ἔσται τῷ ἐγχωρίῳ καὶ τῷ προσελθόντι προσηλύτῳ ἐν ὑμῖν. The passage shows the word would easily pass from the meaning of ‘stranger’ to that of one who conforms to the law—a convert. The Pharisee, St Paul, carried with him into his new faith the same zeal, with a higher motive. He describes (2Co 11:26) ‘the perils by water, perils in the city, and perils in the wilderness,’ which this eager ‘compassing of land and sea’ brought to him.
Judaism has been classed among the non-missionary religions. This is true at the present day, and through most of its history. Indeed, Rabbinical sayings display jealousy of proselytes. On the other hand, John Hyrcanus imposed Judaism on Edom at the point of the sword (1Ma 5:65-66). The conversion is recorded of whole tribes in Arabia, and on the shores of the Caspian. Also, it appears from the Acts that the number of proselytes in Asia Minor and in Greece was considerable. And in later days Solomon Malco, a Portuguese Jew, was burnt to death under Charles V. on a charge of proselytizing. Probably the proselytism in the text is connected with the charge of rapacity; the Pharisees seeking to convert wealthy Gentiles, over whom they obtained influence.
The decrees recorded by Tacitus and Suetonius against the introduction of Jewish rites point to the same spirit of proselytism: ‘actum et de sacris Ægyptiis Judaicisque pellendis,’ Tacit. Ann. II. 85. The result was the deportation of 6000 ‘libertini generis’ to Sardinia. ‘Extimas cæremonias Ægyptios Judaicosque ritus compescuit (Tiberius)’, Suet. Tib. 36.
υἱὸν γεέννης διπλότερον ὑμῶν. In accordance with a tendency in new converts to exaggerate the external points of the creed which they adopt, Gentile proselytes strained to the utmost the worst features of Pharisaism.
υἱὸν γεέννης. ‘Subject to the doom of Gehenna,’ i.e. either (1) to the severest sentence known to the Jewish law—to be slain and then flung into the accursed valley of Hinnom; or (2) worthy of being cast into the Gehenna of the after world—that division of Sheol (Hades) into which the accursed were thrown. But the two thoughts were so closely connected in the Jewish mind as scarcely to be separable. In neither view should the expression be literally pressed. Oriental speech delights in strong expressions, and the absence of superlatives in Hebrew necessitated the use of such phrases. Comp. ‘a son of death,’ i.e. ‘worthy of death,’ or ‘doomed to die.’
Observe the contrast between Mat 23:14-15. The Pharisee suffers not those who are entering the kingdom to come in, to their salvation—whereas he spares no effort to bring in a single proselyte, to his ruin. The verbal correspondence between τοὺς εἰσερχομένους … εἰσελθεῖν and προσήλυτον is probably not unintentional though it does not appear to have been noticed.