“Woe
to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you build the tombs of the prophets, and decorate the tombs of the righteous, and say, ‘If we had lived in the days of our fathers, we wouldn’t have been partakers with them in the blood of the prophets.’ Therefore you testify to yourselves that you are children of those who killed the prophets. Fill up, then, the measure of your fathers. You serpents, you offspring of vipers, how will you escape the judgment of Gehenna? Therefore behold, I send to you prophets, wise men, and scribes. Some of them you will kill and crucify; and some of them you will scourge in your synagogues, and persecute from city to city; that on you may come all the righteous blood shed on the earth, from the blood of righteous Abel to the blood of Zachariah son of Barachiah, whom you killed between the sanctuary and the altar. Most certainly I tell you, all these things will come upon this generation.
Matthew 23:29-36
Matthew 23 [27.] “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you are like whitened tombs, which outwardly appear beautiful, but inwardly are full of dead men’s bones, and of all uncleanness. Even so you also outwardly appear righteous to men, but inwardly you are full of hypocrisy and iniquity.
Matthew 23 [29.] “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you build the tombs of the prophets, and decorate the tombs of the righteous, and say, ‘If we had lived in the days of our fathers, we wouldn’t have been partakers with them in the blood of the prophets.’ Therefore you testify to yourselves that you are children of those who killed the prophets. Fill up, then, the measure of your fathers. You serpents, you offspring of vipers, how will you escape the judgment of Gehenna? Therefore behold, I send to you prophets, wise men, and scribes. Some of them you will kill and crucify; and some of them you will scourge in your synagogues, and persecute from city to city; that on you may come all the righteous blood shed on the earth, from the blood of righteous Abel to the blood of Zachariah son of Barachiah, whom you killed between the sanctuary and the altar. Most certainly I tell you, all these things will come upon this generation.
Matthew 23 [37.] “Jerusalem, Jerusalem, who kills the prophets, and stones those who are sent to her! How often I would have gathered your children together, even as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, and you would not! Behold, your house is left to you desolate. For I tell you, you will not see me from now on, until you say, ‘Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord!’”
Meaning:
This is the last and most severe of the woes Jesus spoke against the scribes and Pharisees in the temple. It brings together the whole history of Israel’s rejection of God’s messengers and announces that judgment will fall on the generation that rejects God’s Son. Luke records a similar saying spoken at a Pharisee’s table (Luke 11:47-51).
- “you build the tombs of the prophets”
The leaders honored the prophets of the past by building and decorating their tombs. They claimed, “If we had lived in the days of our fathers, we wouldn’t have been partakers with them in the blood of the prophets.” But by calling the killers “our fathers”, they admitted their family connection. Honoring dead prophets is easy; listening to living ones is harder. These same men were already planning to kill Jesus (Matthew 21:45-46). Stephen later asked their council, “Which of the prophets didn’t your fathers persecute?” (Acts 7:52).
- “Fill up, then, the measure of your fathers”
This is a sorrowful, ironic command. Sin was being added up like liquid in a measuring vessel. God told Abraham that his descendants must wait, “for the iniquity of the Amorite is not yet full” (Genesis 15:16). By rejecting and killing Jesus, this generation would fill the measure of their fathers’ guilt to the top.
- “You serpents, you offspring of vipers”
John the Baptist had used the same words for the Pharisees and Sadducees who came to his baptism, warning them “to flee from the wrath to come” (Matthew 3:7). Jesus now asks, “how will you escape the judgment of Gehenna?”
- “I send to you prophets, wise men, and scribes”
Jesus speaks with God’s authority. He would send his apostles and messengers, and they too would be persecuted. Stephen was stoned (Acts 7:58), and Herod “killed James, the brother of John, with the sword” (Acts 12:2).
- “from the blood of righteous Abel to the blood of Zachariah”
Abel was the first person murdered in Scripture; God said to Cain, “The voice of your brother’s blood cries to me from the ground” (Genesis 4:10). Zechariah the son of Jehoiada was stoned “in the court of Yahweh’s house” for rebuking the people, and as he died he said, “May Yahweh look at it, and repay it” (2 Chronicles 24:20-21). Chronicles is the last book in the Hebrew Bible, so these two murders span the whole Old Testament. Matthew calls him “son of Barachiah”, the name of the father of the prophet Zechariah (Zechariah 1:1); interpreters have explained this in different ways, but the reference to the death “between the sanctuary and the altar” points to the account in Chronicles.
- “all these things will come upon this generation”
About forty years later, in AD 70, Jerusalem and the temple were destroyed by the Romans. The generation that rejected the Messiah experienced the climax of judgment for the long history of rejecting God’s messengers.
The Significance of Matthew 23:29-36
- Honoring God’s word, not just its messengers
It is possible to admire the heroes of faith while resisting the same message today. Real honor for the prophets means obeying the word they spoke.
- Blood that speaks better
Abel’s blood cried out for justice, but Jesus’ blood brings forgiveness. Believers have come “to the blood of sprinkling that speaks better than that of Abel” (Hebrews 12:24).
Cross-References:
Luke 11:47: “you build the tombs of the prophets, and your fathers killed them.” Luke’s account.
Acts 7:52: “Which of the prophets didn’t your fathers persecute?” Stephen’s charge.
2 Chronicles 24:21: “They conspired against him, and stoned him with stones.” The death of Zechariah.
Conclusion: In his final woe Jesus condemned the leaders who honored the dead prophets while plotting to kill him. They were completing their fathers’ sins, and the guilt for all the righteous blood from Abel to Zechariah would come upon that generation. God’s patience is great, but persistent rejection of his messengers brings judgment; the answer is to receive his Son, whose blood speaks forgiveness.
PIB Scriptures are derived from the World English Bible