Matthew 23
WesleyMatthew 23:2
Matthew 23:3
Matthew 23:4
Now there were with us seven brethren - This story seems to have been a kind of common - place objection, which no doubt they brought upon all occasions.
Matthew 23:8
Ye err, not knowing the Scriptures - Which plainly assert a resurrection. Nor the power of God - Which is well able to effect it. How many errors flow from the same source?
Matthew 23:9
They are as the angels - Incorruptible and immortal. So is the power of God shown in them! So little need had they of marriage!
Matthew 23:10
Have ye not read - The Sadducees had a peculiar value for the books of Moses. Out of these therefore our Lord argues with them.
Matthew 23:11
I am the God of Abraham - The argument runs thus: God is not the God of the dead, but of the living: (for that expression, Thy God, implies both benefit from God to man, and duty from man to God) but he is the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob: therefore, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob are not dead, but living. Therefore, the soul does not die with the body. So indeed the Sadducees supposed, and it was on this ground that they denied the resurrection. Exodus 3:6.
Matthew 23:12
At his doctrine - At the clearness and solidity of his answers.
Matthew 23:13
Matthew 23:14
A scribe asking him a question, trying him - Not, as it seems, with any ill design: but barely to make a farther trial of that wisdom, which he had shown in silencing the Sadducees.
Matthew 23:16
Matthew 23:18
Matthew 23:21
Matthew 23:22
How doth David then by the Spirit - By inspiration, call him Lord? If he be merely the son (or descendant) of David? If he be, as you suppose, a mere man, the son of a man?
Matthew 23:23
The Lord said to my Lord - This his dominion, to which David himself was subject, shows both the heavenly majesty of the king, and the nature of his kingdom. Sit thou on my right hand - That is, remain in the highest authority and power. Psalms 110:1.
Matthew 23:25
Neither durst any question him any more - Not by way of ensnaring or tempting him.
Matthew 23:27
Then - Leaving all converse with his adversaries, whom he now left to the hardness of their hearts.
Matthew 23:28
The scribes sit in the chair of Moses - That is, read and expound the law of Moses, and are their appointed teachers.
Matthew 23:29
All things therefore - Which they read out of the law, and enforce therefrom.
Matthew 23:30
Matthew 23:31
Their phylacteries - The Jews, understanding those words literally, It shall he as a token upon thy hand, and as frontlets between thine eyes, Exodus 13:16. And thou shalt bind these words for a sign upon thine hand, and they shall be as frontlets between thine eyes, Deuteronomy 6:8; used to wear little scrolls of paper or parchment, bound on their wrist and foreheads, on which several texts of Scripture were writ. These they supposed, as a kind of charm, would preserve them from danger. And hence they seem to have been called phylacteries, or preservatives. The fringes of their garments - Which God had enjoined them to wear, to remind them of doing all the commandments, Numbers 15:38. These, as well as their phylacteries, the Pharisees affected to wear broader and larger than other men. Mark 12:38.
Matthew 23:34
The Jewish rabbis were also called father and master, by their several disciples, whom they required, To believe implicitly what they affirmed, without asking any farther reason; To obey implicitly what they enjoined, without seeking farther authority. Our Lord, therefore, by forbidding us either to give or receive the title of rabbi, master, or father, forbids us either to receive any such reverence, or to pay any such to any but God.
Matthew 23:35
The Jewish rabbis were also called father and master, by their several disciples, whom they required, To believe implicitly what they affirmed, without asking any farther reason; To obey implicitly what they enjoined, without seeking farther authority. Our Lord, therefore, by forbidding us either to give or receive the title of rabbi, master, or father, forbids us either to receive any such reverence, or to pay any such to any but God.
Matthew 23:36
The Jewish rabbis were also called father and master, by their several disciples, whom they required, To believe implicitly what they affirmed, without asking any farther reason; To obey implicitly what they enjoined, without seeking farther authority. Our Lord, therefore, by forbidding us either to give or receive the title of rabbi, master, or father, forbids us either to receive any such reverence, or to pay any such to any but God.
Matthew 23:37
Matthew 23:38
Whosoever shall exalt himself shall be humbled, and he that shall humble himself shall he exalted - It is observable that no one sentence of our Lord’s is so often repeated as this: it occurs, with scarce any variation, at least ten times in the evangelists. Luke 14:11; 18:14.
Matthew 23:39
Wo to you - Our Lord pronounced eight blessings upon the mount: he pronounces eight woes here; not as imprecations, but solemn, compassionate declarations of the misery, which these stubborn sinners were bringing upon themselves. Ye go not in - For ye are not poor in spirit; and ye hinder those that would be so.