{"commentary":{"id":"jamieson-fausset-brown","name":"Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary","website":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jamieson-Fausset-Brown_Bible_Commentary","licenseUrl":"https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/mark/1.0/","licenseNotes":null,"licenseNotice":null,"englishName":"Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary","language":"eng","textDirection":"rtl","sha256":"db3d4c8b3c1f32ef9d1430a57392e02bda3a17aac1f9bbe398461de021a3cb13","availableFormats":["json"],"listOfBooksApiLink":"/api/c/jamieson-fausset-brown/books.json","listOfProfilesApiLink":"/api/c/jamieson-fausset-brown/profiles.json","numberOfBooks":66,"totalNumberOfChapters":1187,"totalNumberOfVerses":17056,"totalNumberOfProfiles":0,"languageName":"English","languageEnglishName":"English"},"book":{"id":"MAT","commentaryId":"jamieson-fausset-brown","name":"Matthew","commonName":"Matthew","introduction":"THE author of this Gospel was a publican or tax gatherer, residing at Capernaum, on the western shore of the Sea of Galilee. As to his identity with the \"Levi\" of the second and third Gospels, and other particulars, see on Mat 9:9. Hardly anything is known of his apostolic labors. That, after preaching to his countrymen in Palestine, he went to the East, is the general testimony of antiquity; but the precise scene or scenes of his ministry cannot be determined. That he died a natural death may be concluded from the belief of the best-informed of the Fathers--that of the apostles only three, James the Greater, Peter, and Paul, suffered martyrdom. That the first Gospel was written by this apostle is the testimony of all antiquity.\n\nFor the date of this Gospel we have only internal evidence, and that far from decisive. Accordingly, opinion is much divided. That it was the first issued of all the Gospels was universally believed. Hence, although in the order of the Gospels, those by the two apostles were placed first in the oldest manuscripts of the Old Latin version, while in all the Greek manuscripts, with scarcely an exception, the order is the same as in our Bibles, the Gospel according to Matthew is \"in every case\" placed first. And as this Gospel is of all the four the one which bears the most evident marks of having been prepared and constructed with a special view to the Jews--who certainly first required a written Gospel, and would be the first to make use of it--there can be no doubt that it was issued before any of the others. That it was written before the destruction of Jerusalem is equally certain; for as HUG observes [Introduction to the New Testament, p. 316, FOSDICK'S translation], when he reports our Lord's prophecy of that awful event, on coming to the warning about \"the abomination of desolation\" which they should \"see standing in the holy place,\" he interposes (contrary to his invariable practice, which is to relate without remark) a call to his readers to read intelligently--\"Whoso readeth, let him understand\" (Mat 24:15) --a call to attend to the divine signal for flight which could be intended only for those who lived before the event. But how long before that event this Gospel was written is not so clear. Some internal evidences seem to imply a very early date. Since the Jewish Christians were, for five or six years, exposed to persecution from their own countrymen--until the Jews, being persecuted by the Romans, had to look to themselves--it is not likely (it is argued) that they should be left so long without some written Gospel to reassure and sustain them, and Matthew's Gospel was eminently fitted for that purpose. But the digests to which Luke refers in his Introduction (see on Luk 1:1) would be sufficient for a time, especially as the living voice of the \"eye-witnesses and ministers of the Word\" was yet sounding abroad. Other considerations in favor of a very early date--such as the tender way in which the author seems studiously to speak of Herod Antipas, as if still reigning, and his writing of Pilate apparently as if still in power--seem to have no foundation in fact, and cannot therefore be made the ground of reasoning as to the date of this Gospel. Its Hebraic structure and hue, though they prove, as we think, that this Gospel must have been published at a period considerably anterior to the destruction of Jerusalem, are no evidence in favor of so early a date as A.D. 37 or 38--according to some of the Fathers, and, of the moderns, TILLEMONT, TOWNSON, OWEN, BIRKS, TREGELLES. On the other hand, the date suggested by the statement of IRENÆUS [Against Heresies, 3.1], that Matthew put forth his Gospel while Peter and Paul were at Rome preaching and founding the Church--or after A.D. 60--though probably the majority of critics are in favor of it, would seem rather too late, especially as the second and third Gospels, which were doubtless published, as well as this one, before the destruction of Jerusalem, had still to be issued. Certainly, such statements as the following, \"Wherefore that field is called the field of blood unto this day\" (Mat 27:8); \"And this saying is commonly reported among the Jews until this day\" (Mat 28:15), bespeak a date considerably later than the events recorded. We incline, therefore, to a date intermediate between the earlier and the later dates assigned to this Gospel, without pretending to greater precision.\n\nWe have adverted to the strikingly Jewish character and coloring of this Gospel. The facts which it selects, the points to which it gives prominence, the cast of thought and phraseology, all bespeak the Jewish point of view from which it was written and to which it was directed. This has been noticed from the beginning, and is universally acknowledged. It is of the greatest consequence to the right interpretation of it; but the tendency among some even of the best of the Germans to infer, from this special design of the first Gospel, a certain laxity on the part of the Evangelist in the treatment of his facts, must be guarded against.\n\nBut by far the most interesting and important point connected with this Gospel is the language in which it was written. It is believed by a formidable number of critics that this Gospel was originally written in what is loosely called Hebrew, but more correctly Aramaic, or Syro-Chaldaic, the native tongue of the country at the time of our Lord; and that the Greek Matthew which we now possess is a translation of that work, either by the Evangelist himself or some unknown hand. The evidence on which this opinion is grounded is wholly external, but it has been deemed conclusive by GROTIUS, MICHAELIS (and his translator), MARSH, TOWNSON, CAMPBELL, OLSHAUSEN, CRESWELL, MEYER, EBRARD, LANGE, DAVIDSON, CURETON, TREGELLES, WEBSTER and WILKINSON, &c. The evidence referred to cannot be given here, but will be found, with remarks on its unsatisfactory character, in the Introduction to the Gospels prefixed to our larger Commentary, pp. 28-31.\n\nBut how stand the facts as to our Greek Gospel? We have not a title of historical evidence that it is a translation, either by Matthew himself or anyone else. All antiquity refers to it as the work of Matthew the publican and apostle, just as the other Gospels are ascribed to their respective authors. This Greek Gospel was from the first received by the Church as an integral part of the one quadriform Gospel. And while the Fathers often advert to the two Gospels which we have from apostles, and the two which we have from men not apostles--in order to show that as that of Mark leans so entirely on Peter, and that of Luke on Paul, these are really no less apostolical than the other two--though we attach less weight to this circumstance than they did, we cannot but think it striking that, in thus speaking, they never drop a hint that the full apostolic authority of the Greek Matthew had ever been questioned on the ground of its not being the original. Further, not a trace can be discovered in this Gospel itself of its being a translation. MICHAELIS tried to detect, and fancied that he had succeeded in detecting, one or two such. Other Germans since, and DAVIDSON and CURETON among ourselves, have made the same attempt. But the entire failure of all such attempts is now generally admitted, and candid advocates of a Hebrew original are quite ready to own that none such are to be found, and that but for external testimony no one would have imagined that the Greek was not the original. This they regard as showing how perfectly the translation has been executed; but those who know best what translating from one language into another is will be the readiest to own that this is tantamount to giving up the question. This Gospel proclaims its own originality in a number of striking points; such as its manner of quoting from the Old Testament, and its phraseology in some peculiar cases. But the close verbal coincidences of our Greek Matthew with the next two Gospels must not be quite passed over. There are but two possible ways of explaining this. Either the translator, sacrificing verbal fidelity in his version, intentionally conformed certain parts of his author's work to the second and third Gospels--in which case it can hardly be called Matthew's Gospel at all--or our Greek Matthew is itself the original.\n\nMoved by these considerations, some advocates of a Hebrew original have adopted the theory of a double original; the external testimony, they think, requiring us to believe in a Hebrew original, while internal evidence is decisive in favor of the originality of the Greek. This theory is espoused by GUERICKS, OLSHAUSEN, THIERSCH, TOWNSON, TREGELLES, &c. But, besides that this looks too like an artificial theory, invented to solve a difficulty, it is utterly void of historical support. There is not a vestige of testimony to support it in Christian antiquity. This ought to be decisive against it.\n\nIt remains, then, that our Greek Matthew is the original of that Gospel, and that no other original ever existed. It is greatly to the credit of DEAN ALFORD, that after maintaining, in the first edition of his Greek Testament the theory of a Hebrew original, he thus expresses himself in the second and subsequent editions: \"On the whole, then, I find myself constrained to abandon the view maintained in my first edition, and to adopt that of a Greek original.\"\n\nOne argument has been adduced on the other side, on which not a little reliance has been placed; but the determination of the main question does not, in our opinion, depend upon the point which it raises. It has been very confidently affirmed that the Greek language was not sufficiently understood by the Jews of Palestine when Matthew published his Gospel to make it at all probable that he would write a Gospel, for their benefit in the first instance, in that language. Now, as this merely alleges the improbability of a Greek original, it is enough to place against it the evidence already adduced, which is positive, in favor of the sole originality of our Greek Matthew. It is indeed a question how far the Greek language was understood in Palestine at the time referred to. But we advise the reader not to be drawn into that question as essential to the settlement of the other one. It is an element in it, no doubt, but not an essential element. There are extremes on both sides of it. The old idea, that our Lord hardly ever spoke anything but Syro-Chaldaic, is now pretty nearly exploded. Many, however, will not go the length, on the other side, of HUG (in his Introduction to the New Testament, pp. 326, &c.) and ROBERTS (\"Discussions of the Gospels,\" &c., pp. 25, &c.). For ourselves, though we believe that our Lord, in all the more public scenes of His ministry, spoke in Greek, all we think it necessary here to say is that there is no ground to believe that Greek was so little understood in Palestine as to make it improbable that Matthew would write his Gospel exclusively in that language--so improbable as to outweigh the evidence that he did so. And when we think of the number of digests or short narratives of the principal facts of our Lord's history which we know from Luke (Luk 1:1-4) were floating about for some time before he wrote his Gospel, of which he speaks by no means disrespectfully, and nearly all of which would be in the mother tongue, we can have no doubt that the Jewish Christians and the Jews of Palestine generally would have from the first reliable written matter sufficient to supply every necessary requirement until the publican-apostle should leisurely draw up the first of the four Gospels in a language to them not a strange tongue, while to the rest of the world it was the language in which the entire quadriform Gospel was to be for all time enshrined. The following among others hold to this view of the sole originality of the Greek Matthew: ERASMUS, CALVIN, BEZA, LIGHTFOOT, WETSTEIN, LARDNER, HUG, FRITZSCHE, CREDNER, DE WETTE, STUART, DA COSTA, FAIRBAIRN, ROBERTS.\n\nOn two other questions regarding this Gospel it would have been desirable to say something, had not our available space been already exhausted: The characteristics, both in language and matter, by which it is distinguished from the other three, and its relation to the second and third Gospels. On the latter of these topics--whether one or more of the Evangelists made use of the materials of the other Gospels, and, if so, which of the Evangelists drew from which--the opinions are just as numerous as the possibilities of the case, every conceivable way of it having one or more who plead for it. The most popular opinion until recently--and perhaps the most popular still--is that the second Evangelist availed himself more or less of the materials of the first Gospel, and the third of the materials of both the first and second Gospels. Here we can but state our own belief, that each of the first three Evangelists wrote independently of both the others; while the fourth, familiar with the first three, wrote to supplement them, and, even where he travels along the same line, wrote quite independently of them. This judgment we express, with all deference for those who think otherwise, as the result of a close study of each of the Gospels in immediate juxtaposition and comparison with the others. On the former of the two topics noticed, the linguistic peculiarities of each of the Gospels have been handled most closely and ably by CREDNER [Einleitung (Introduction to the New Testament)], of whose results a good summary will be found in DAVIDSON'S Introduction to the New Testament. The other peculiarities of the Gospels have been most felicitously and beautifully brought out by DA COSTA in his Four Witnesses, to which we must simply refer the reader, though it contains a few things in which we cannot concur. \n\n\n\nNext: Matthew Chapter 1\n\n","order":40,"numberOfChapters":28,"sha256":"85230502f7845520bbf6f2983f2d40076dbb901c7feac0d1cfa0d62c8b7d54f8","firstChapterNumber":1,"firstChapterApiLink":"/api/c/jamieson-fausset-brown/MAT/1.json","firstChapterReference":{"commentaryId":"jamieson-fausset-brown","book":"MAT","chapter":1},"lastChapterNumber":28,"lastChapterApiLink":"/api/c/jamieson-fausset-brown/MAT/28.json","lastChapterReference":{"commentaryId":"jamieson-fausset-brown","book":"MAT","chapter":28},"totalNumberOfVerses":525},"chapter":{"number":23,"content":[{"type":"verse","number":2,"content":["Saying, The scribes and the Pharisees sit--The Jewish teachers stood to read, but sat to expound the Scriptures, as will be seen by comparing Luk 4:16 with Mat 23:20. \n\nin Moses' seat--that is, as interpreters of the law given by Moses.\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":3,"content":["All therefore--that is, all which, as sitting in that seat and teaching out of that law. \n\nthey bid you observe, that observe and do--The word \"therefore\" is thus, it will be seen, of great importance, as limiting those injunctions which He would have them obey to what they fetched from the law itself. In requiring implicit obedience to such injunctions, He would have them to recognize the authority with which they taught over and above the obligations of the law itself--an important principle truly; but He who denounced the traditions of such teachers (Mat 15:3) cannot have meant here to throw His shield over these. It is remarked by WEBSTER and WILKINSON that the warning to beware of the scribes is given by Mark and Luke (Mar 12:38; Luk 20:46) without any qualification: the charge to respect and obey them being reported by Matthew alone, indicating for whom this Gospel was especially written, and the writer's desire to conciliate the Jews.\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":4,"content":["For they bind heavy burdens and grievous to be borne, and lay them on men's shoulders; but they themselves will not move them--\"touch them not\" (Luk 11:46). \n\nwith one of their fingers--referring not so much to the irksomeness of the legal rites, though they were irksome enough (Act 15:10), as to the heartless rigor with which they were enforced, and by men of shameless inconsistency.\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":5,"content":["But all their works they do for to be seen of men--Whatever good they do, or zeal they show, has but one motive--human applause. \n\nthey make broad their phylacteries--strips of parchment with Scripture--texts on them, worn on the forehead, arm, and side, in time of prayer. \n\nand enlarge the borders of their garments--fringes of their upper garments (Num 15:37-40).\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":6,"content":["And love the uppermost rooms at feasts--The word \"room\" is now obsolete in the sense here intended. It should be \"the uppermost place,\" that is, the place of highest honor. \n\nand the chief seats in the synagogues. See on Luk 14:7-8.\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":7,"content":["And greetings in the markets, and to be called of men, Rabbi, Rabbi--It is the spirit rather than the letter of this that must be pressed; though the violation of the letter, springing from spiritual pride, has done incalculable evil in the Church of Christ. The reiteration of the word \"Rabbi\" shows how it tickled the ear and fed the spiritual pride of those ecclesiastics.\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":8,"content":["But be not ye called Rabbi; for one is your Master--your Guide, your Teacher.\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":9,"content":["And call no man your father upon the earth: for one is your Father, which is in heaven, &c.--To construe these injunctions into a condemnation of every title by which Church rulers may be distinguished from the flock which they rule, is virtually to condemn that rule itself; and accordingly the same persons do both--but against the whole strain of the New Testament and sound Christian judgment. But when we have guarded ourselves against these extremes, let us see to it that we retain the full spirit of this warning against that itch for ecclesiastical superiority which has been the bane and the scandal of Christ's ministers in every age. (On the use of the word \"Christ\" here, see on Mat 1:1).\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":11,"content":["But he that is greatest among you shall be your servant--This plainly means, \"shall show that he is so by becoming your servant\"; as in Mat 20:27, compared with Mar 10:44.\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":12,"content":["And whosoever shall exalt himself shall be abased--See on Luk 18:14. What follows was addressed more immediately to the scribes and Pharisees.\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":13,"content":["But woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye shut up the kingdom of heaven against men--Here they are charged with shutting heaven against men: in Luk 11:52 they are charged with what was worse, taking away the key--\"the key of knowledge\"--which means, not the key to open knowledge, but knowledge as the only key to open heaven. A right knowledge of God's revealed word is eternal life, as our Lord says (Joh 17:3; Joh 5:39); but this they took away from the people, substituting for it their wretched traditions.\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":14,"content":["Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye devour widows' houses, &c.--Taking advantage of the helpless condition and confiding character of \"widows,\" they contrived to obtain possession of their property, while by their \"long prayers\" they made them believe they were raised far above \"filthy lucre.\" So much \"the greater damnation\" awaits them. What a lifelike description of the Romish clergy, the true successors of those scribes!\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":15,"content":["Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye compass sea and land to make one proselyte--from heathenism. We have evidence of this in JOSEPHUS. \n\nand when he is made, ye make him twofold more the child of hell than yourselves--condemned, for the hypocrisy he would learn to practice, both by the religion he left and that he embraced.\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":16,"content":["Woe unto you, ye blind guides--Striking expression this of the ruinous effects of erroneous teaching. Our Lord, here and in some following verses, condemns the subtle distinctions they made as to the sanctity of oaths--distinctions invented only to promote their own avaricious purposes. \n\nwhich say, Whosoever shall swear by the temple, it is nothing--He has incurred no debt. \n\nbut whosoever shall swear by the gold of the temple--meaning not the gold that adorned the temple itself, but the Corban, set apart for sacred uses (see on Mat 15:5). \n\nhe is a debtor!--that is, it is no longer his own, even though the necessities of the parent might require it. We know who the successors of these men are. \n\nbut whosoever sweareth by the gift that is upon it, he is guilty--It should have been rendered, \"he is a debtor,\" as in Mat 23:16.\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":19,"content":["Ye fools, and blind! for whether is greater, the gift, or the altar that sanctifieth the gift?--(See Exo 29:37).\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":20,"content":["Whose therefore shall swear by the altar, &c.--See on Mat 5:33-37.\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":23,"content":["Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye pay tithe of mint and anise--rather, \"dill,\" as in Margin. \n\nand cummin--In Luke (Luk 11:42) it is \"and rue, and all manner of herbs.\" They grounded this practice on Lev 27:30, which they interpreted rigidly. Our Lord purposely names the most trifling products of the earth as examples of what they punctiliously exacted the tenth of. \n\nand have omitted the weightier matters of the law, judgment, mercy, and faith--In Luke (Luk 11:42) it is \"judgment, mercy, and the love of God\"--the expression being probably varied by our Lord Himself on the two different occasions. In both His reference is to Mic 6:6-8, where the prophet makes all acceptable religion to consist of three elements--\"doing justly, loving mercy, and walking humbly with our God\"; which third element presupposes and comprehends both the \"faith\" of Matthew and the \"love\" of Luke. See on Mar 12:29; Mar 12:32-33. The same tendency to merge greater duties in less besets even the children of God; but it is the characteristic of hypocrites. \n\nthese ought ye to have done, and not to leave the other undone--There is no need for one set of duties to jostle out another; but it is to be carefully noted that of the greater duties our Lord says, \"Ye ought to have done\" them, while of the lesser He merely says, \"Ye ought not to leave them undone.\"\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":24,"content":["Ye blind guides, which strain at a gnat--The proper rendering--as in the older English translations, and perhaps our own as it came from the translators' hands--evidently is, \"strain out.\" It was the custom, says TRENCH, of the stricter Jews to strain their wine, vinegar, and other potables through linen or gauze, lest unawares they should drink down some little unclean insect therein and thus transgress (Lev 11:20, Lev 11:23, Lev 11:41-42) --just as the Buddhists do now in Ceylon and Hindustan--and to this custom of theirs our Lord here refers. \n\nand swallow a camel--the largest animal the Jews knew, as the \"gnat\" was the smallest; both were by the law unclean.\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":25,"content":["within they are full of extortion--In Luke (Luk 11:39) the same word is rendered \"ravening,\" that is, \"rapacity.\"\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":26,"content":["Thou blind Pharisee, cleanse first that which is within the cup and platter, that the outside of them may be clean also--In Luke (Luk 11:40) it is, \"Ye fools, did not He that made that which is without make that which is within also?\"--\"He to whom belongs the outer life, and of right demands its subjection to Himself, is the inner man less His?\" A remarkable example this of our Lord's power of drawing the most striking illustrations of great truths from the most familiar objects and incidents in life. To these words, recorded by Luke, He adds the following, involving a principle of immense value: \"But rather give alms of such things as ye have, and behold, all things are clean unto you\" (Luk 11:41). As the greed of these hypocrites was one of the most prominent features of their character (Luk 16:14), our Lord bids them exemplify the opposite character, and then their outside, ruled by this, would be beautiful in the eye of God, and their meals would be eaten with clean hands, though much fouled with the business of this everyday world. (See Ecc 9:7).\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":27,"content":["Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye are like whited sepulchres--or, whitewashed sepulchres. (Compare Act 23:3). The process of whitewashing the sepulchres, as LIGHTFOOT says, was performed on a certain day every year, not for ceremonial cleansing, but., as the following words seem rather to imply, to beautify them. \n\nwhich 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 Psa 5:9; Rom 3:13). But our Lord, stripping off the figure, next holds up their iniquity in naked colors. \n\nWherefore ye be witnesses unto yourselves, that ye are the children of them which killed the prophets--that is \"ye be witnesses that ye have inherited, and voluntarily served yourselves heirs to, the truth-hating, prophet-killing, spirit of your fathers.\" Out of pretended respect and honor, they repaired and beautified the sepulchres of the prophets, and with whining hypocrisy said, \"If we had been in their days, how differently should we have treated these prophets?\" While all the time they were witnesses to themselves that they were the children of them that killed the prophets, convicting themselves daily of as exact a resemblance in spirit and character to the very classes over whose deeds they pretended to mourn, as child to parent. In Luk 11:44 our Lord gives another turn to this figure of a grave: \"Ye are as graves which appear not, and the men that walk over them are not aware of them.\" As one might unconsciously walk over a grave concealed from view, and thus contract ceremonial defilement, so the plausible exterior of the Pharisees kept people from perceiving the pollution they contracted frown coming in contact with such corrupt characters.\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":33,"content":["Ye serpents, ye generation of vipers, how can ye escape the damnation of hell?--In thus, at the end of His ministry, recalling the words of the Baptist at the outset of his, our Lord would seem to intimate that the only difference between their condemnation now and then was, that now they were ripe for their doom, which they were not then.\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":34,"content":["Wherefore, behold, I send unto you prophets, and wise men, and scribes--The I here is emphatic: \"I am sending,\" that is, \"am about to send.\" In Luk 11:49 the variation is remarkable: \"Therefore also, said the wisdom of God, I will send them,\" &c. What precisely is meant by \"the wisdom of God\" here, is somewhat difficult to determine. To us it appears to be simply an announcement of a purpose of the Divine Wisdom, in the high style of ancient prophecy, to send a last set of messengers whom the people would reject, and rejecting, would fill up the cup of their iniquity. But, whereas in Luke it is \"I, the Wisdom of God, will send them,\" in Matthew it is \"I, Jesus, am sending them\"; language only befitting the one sender of all the prophets, the Lord God of Israel now in the flesh. They are evidently evangelical messengers, but called by the familiar Jewish names of \"prophets, wise men, and scribes,\" whose counterparts were the inspired and gifted servants of the Lord Jesus; for in Luke (Luk 11:49) it is \"prophets and apostles.\" \n\nunto the blood of Zacharias son of Barachias, whom ye slew between the temple and the altar--As there is no record of any fresh murder answering to this description, probably the allusion is not to any recent murder, but to Ch2 24:20-22, as the last recorded and most suitable case for illustration. And as Zacharias' last words were, \"The Lord require it,\" so they are here warned that of that generation it should be required.\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":36,"content":["Verily I say unto you, All these things shall come upon this generation--As it was only in the last generation of them that \"the iniquity of the Amorites was full\" (Gen 15:16), and then the abominations of ages were at once completely and awfully avenged, so the iniquity of Israel was allowed to accumulate from age to age till in that generation it came to the full, and the whole collected vengeance of heaven broke at once over its devoted head. In the first French Revolution the same awful principle was exemplified, and Christendom has not done with it yet.\n\nLamentation over Jerusalem and Farewell to the Temple (Mat 23:37-39).\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":37,"content":["O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, thou that killest the prophets, and stonest them which are sent unto thee, &c.--How ineffably grand and melting is this apostrophe! It is the very heart of God pouring itself forth through human flesh and speech. It is this incarnation of the innermost life and love of Deity, pleading with men, bleeding for them, and ascending only to open His arms to them and win them back by the power of this story of matchless love, that has conquered the world, that will yet \"draw all men unto Him,\" and beautify and ennoble Humanity itself! \"Jerusalem\" here does not mean the mere city or its inhabitants; nor is it to be viewed merely as the metropolis of the nation, but as the center of their religious life--\"the city of their solemnities, whither the tribes went up, to give thanks unto the name of the Lord\"; and at this moment it was full of them. It is the whole family of God, then, which is here apostrophized by a name dear to every Jew, recalling to him all that was distinctive and precious in his religion. The intense feeling that sought vent in this utterance comes out first in the redoubling of the opening word--\"Jerusalem, Jerusalem!\" but, next, in the picture of it which He draws--\"that killest the prophets, and stonest them which are sent unto thee!\"--not content with spurning God's messages of mercy, that canst not suffer even the messengers to live! When He adds, \"How often would I have gathered thee!\" He refers surely to something beyond the six or seven times that He visited and taught in Jerusalem while on earth. No doubt it points to \"the prophets,\" whom they \"killed,\" to \"them that were sent unto her,\" whom they \"stoned.\" But whom would He have gathered so often? \"Thee,\" truth-hating, mercy-spurning, prophet-killing Jerusalem--how often would I have gathered thee! Compare with this that affecting clause in the great ministerial commission, \"that repentance and remission of sins should be preached in His name among all nations, beginning at Jerusalem!\" (Luk 24:47). What encouragement to the heartbroken at their own long-continued and obstinate rebellion! But we have not yet got at the whole heart of this outburst. I would have gathered thee, He says, \"even as a hen gathereth her chickens under her wings.\" Was ever imagery so homely invested with such grace and such sublimity as this, at our Lord's touch? And yet how exquisite the figure itself--of protection, rest, warmth, and all manner of conscious well-being in those poor, defenseless, dependent little creatures, as they creep under and feel themselves overshadowed by the capacious and kindly wing of the mother bird! If, wandering beyond hearing of her peculiar call, they are overtaken by a storm or attacked by an enemy, what can they do but in the one case droop and die, and in the other submit to be torn in pieces? But if they can reach in time their place of safety, under the mother's wing, in vain will any enemy try to drag them thence. For rising into strength, kindling into fury, and forgetting herself entirely in her young, she will let the last drop of her blood be shed out and perish in defense of her precious charge, rather than yield them to an enemy's talons. How significant all this of what Jesus is and does for men! Under His great Mediatorial wing would He have \"gathered\" Israel. For the figure, see Deu 32:10-12; Rut 2:12; Psa 17:8; Psa 36:7; Psa 61:4; Psa 63:7; Psa 91:4; Isa 31:5; Mal 4:2. The ancient rabbins had a beautiful expression for proselytes from the heathen--that they had \"come under the wings of the Shekinah.\" For this last word, see on Mat 23:38. But what was the result of all this tender and mighty love? The answer is, \"And ye would not.\" O mysterious word! mysterious the resistance of such patient Love-mysterious the liberty of self-undoing! The awful dignity of the will, as here expressed, might make the ears to tingle.\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":38,"content":["Behold, your house--the temple, beyond all doubt; but their house now, not the Lord's. See on Mat 22:7. \n\nis left unto you desolate--deserted, that is, of its Divine Inhabitant. But who is that? Hear the next words:\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":39,"content":["For I say unto you--and these were His last words to the impenitent nation, see on Mar 13:1, opening remarks. \n\nYe shall not see me henceforth--What? Does Jesus mean that He was Himself the Lord of the temple, and that it became \"deserted\" when HE finally left it? It is even so. Now is thy fate sealed, O Jerusalem, for the glory is departed from thee! That glory, once visible in the holy of holies, over the mercy seat, when on the day of atonement the blood of typical expiation was sprinkled on it and in front of it--called by the Jews the Shekinah, or the Dwelling, as being the visible pavilion of Jehovah--that glory, which Isaiah (Isa 6:1-13) saw in vision, the beloved disciple says was the glory of Christ (Joh 12:41). Though it was never visible in the second temple, Haggai foretold that \"the glory of that latter house should be greater than of the former\" (Hag 2:9) because \"the Lord whom they sought was suddenly to come to His temple\" (Mal 3:1), not in a mere bright cloud, but enshrined in living humanity! Yet brief as well as \"sudden\" was the manifestation to be: for the words He was now uttering were to be HIS VERY LAST within its precincts. \n\ntill ye shall say, Blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord--that is, till those \"Hosannas to the Son of David\" with which the multitude had welcomed Him into the city--instead of \"sore displeasing the chief priests and scribes\" (Mat 21:15) --should break forth from the whole nation, as their glad acclaim to their once pierced, but now acknowledged, Messiah. That such a time will come is clear from Zac 12:10; Rom 11:26; Co2 3:15-16, &c. In what sense they shall then \"see Him\" may be gathered from Zac 2:10-13; Eze 37:23-28; Eze 39:28-29, &c.\n\n\n\n\nNext: Matthew Chapter 25\n\n"]}],"introduction":"DENUNCIATION OF THE SCRIBES AND PHARISEES--LAMENTATION OVER JERUSALEM, AND FAREWELL TO THE TEMPLE. ( = Mar 12:38-40; Luk 20:45-47). (Mat. 23:1-39)\n\nThen spake Jesus to the multitude--to the multitudes, \"and to his disciples.\"\n\n"},"thisChapterLink":"/api/c/jamieson-fausset-brown/MAT/23.json","thisChapterReference":{"commentaryId":"jamieson-fausset-brown","book":"MAT","chapter":23},"nextChapterApiLink":"/api/c/jamieson-fausset-brown/MAT/24.json","nextChapterReference":{"commentaryId":"jamieson-fausset-brown","book":"MAT","chapter":24},"previousChapterApiLink":"/api/c/jamieson-fausset-brown/MAT/22.json","previousChapterReference":{"commentaryId":"jamieson-fausset-brown","book":"MAT","chapter":22},"numberOfVerses":27}