Haggai 1:1-15

1:1 In the second year of King Darius, in the sixth month, on the first day of the month, the word of the LORD came by the prophet Haggai to Zerubbabel son of Shealtiel, governor of Judah, and to Joshua son of Jehozadak, the high priest: 2 Thus says the LORD of hosts: These people say the time has not yet come to rebuild the LORD's house. 3 Then the word of the LORD came by the prophet Haggai, saying: 4 Is it a time for you yourselves to live in your paneled houses, while this house lies in ruins? 5 Now therefore thus says the LORD of hosts: Consider how you have fared. 6 You have sown much, and harvested little; you eat, but you never have enough; you drink, but you never have your fill; you clothe yourselves, but no one is warm; and you that earn wages earn wages to put them into a bag with holes.

7 Thus says the LORD of hosts: Consider how you have fared. 8 Go up to the hills and bring wood and build the house, so that I may take pleasure in it and be honored, says the LORD. 9 You have looked for much, and, lo, it came to little; and when you brought it home, I blew it away. Why? says the LORD of hosts. Because my house lies in ruins, while all of you hurry off to your own houses. 10 Therefore the heavens above you have withheld the dew, and the earth has withheld its produce. 11 And I have called for a drought on the land and the hills, on the grain, the new wine, the oil, on what the soil produces, on human beings and animals, and on all their labors.

12 Then Zerubbabel son of Shealtiel, and Joshua son of Jehozadak, the high priest, with all the remnant of the people, obeyed the voice of the LORD their God, and the words of the prophet Haggai, as the LORD their God had sent him; and the people feared the LORD. 13 Then Haggai, the messenger of the LORD, spoke to the people with the LORD's message, saying, I am with you, says the LORD. 14 And the LORD stirred up the spirit of Zerubbabel son of Shealtiel, governor of Judah, and the spirit of Joshua son of Jehozadak, the high priest, and the spirit of all the remnant of the people; and they came and worked on the house of the LORD of hosts, their God, 15 on the twenty-fourth day of the month, in the sixth month. (Haggai 1:1-15a, NRSV)

On October 25, 2009 ( the Sunday closest to October 26, Year One), the reading, Haggai 1:1-2:9, included readings for today and tomorrow (Fri. and Sat., Dec. 11 and 12, 2009). The comments then were repeated from comments on Haggai 1:1-15 and 2:1-19 of December 14 and 15, 2007 (Friday and Saturday in the week of the Second Sunday of Advent, Year Two), comments that were repeated from October 28, 2007 (the Sunday closest to October 26, Year One), when comments were repeated with editing and supplement from October 23, 2005 (the Sunday closest to October 26, Year One). The following comments are repeated from relevant comments of October 25, 2009, with editing and supplement:

Have you ever given advice that was acted upon immediately? Have you preached and found your people doing just what you said? Sometimes it takes a while. We are called to be faithful, and let others judge the results. In the beginning of this reading from the Book of Haggai, the prophet preaches one of the more effective sermons on record, in terms of its practical effect. He urges those who had returned from Babylon some eighteen years earlier to finish what they came for, to finish rebuilding the temple.

According to Peter R. Ackroyd, Haggai is the name of “an OT prophetic book and the prophet named in that book who, with Zechariah, is also mentioned in Ezra 5:1 and 6:14; . . . there is no biographical material given in either book and, as a result, we know little more than the prophet’s name” (Harper’s Bible Dictionary, rev. ed., 1996, s.v. Haggai).

The Book of Haggai, and so this reading, begins with a date. “In the second year of King Darius in the sixth month, on the first day of the month, the word of the LORD (hvhy-rbaD4, d ^evar-YHWH) came by the prophet Haggai to Zerubbabel son of Shealtiel, governor of Judah, and to Joshua son of Jehozadak, the high priest” (Hag. 1:1). The sixth month would be Elul (August-September). “According to Gregory Mobley, the date by our calendar is “August 29, 520 BCE” (NOAB, 3^rd ed., augmented, 2007, on Hag. 1:1). W. Sibley Towner says, “In contrast to the person of the author, information about the date of the book of Haggai is unusually precise. The chronological notices attached to the four oracles of the book place Haggai’s work between mid-August and mid-December, 520 BCE, early in the reign of Darius I (the Great), who ruled the Persian Empire from 522 to 486 BCE” (HarperCollins Study Bible, rev. ed., 2006, in the Introduction to Haggai). Ackroyd says, “The framework to the book associates the message with dates in the second year of Darius I . . . The similarity of this material to elements in the Priestly Code, the last of the four Pentateuchal sources, and also to Chronicles, suggests that this framework may be of later, editorial, origin” (loc. cit.). Ackroyd’s view is clearly related to theories widely held but even so, somewhat controversial, in modern scholarship. However, his suggestion of later editing and publishing of the book, likely in any case, does not challenge the reported date of Haggai’s prophetic activity or its effect.

Earlier, there was a beginning of rebuilding the temple, but the rebuilding has been aborted and the temple “lies in ruins” (Hag. 1:4). Apparently, the people are procrastinating. “Thus says the LORD of hosts (tOxbAc4 hvhy rmaxA hKo, kōh ’āmar YHWH ts ^evā’ôth),” prophesies Haggai: “These people say the time has not yet come to rebuild the LORD’s house” (v. 2). According to Ehud Ben Zvi,

The text implies that the people thought that there was a correct, prescribed time for rebuilding the Temple, and that such a time had not yet come (cf. 2 Chron. 36:20-23; Ezra 1:1-2). In the ancient Near East, temples were not supposed to be built by anyone except royal figures . . . and they were not supposed to be built at any random time, but at the time favored by the gods. The people’s attitude is facilitated by the success they felt in Babylonia, where God’s presence was not expressed through the building of a temple. (The Jewish Study Bible, 2004, on Hag. 1:2)

According to Towner,

These people,” means either the entire Judean community or the remnant (see v. 12) who had returned from Babylonian exile more than two decades earlier; however, the reference to paneled houses in v. 4 suggests that the message of the prophet was directed to the more affluent community leaders. The same contrast between the LORD’s house and the houses of the human authorities is present in 2 Sam. 7:1-17. On the eve of Babylonian captivity, the prophet Jeremiah too had railed against the cedar paneling of the king’s house (Jer. 22:13-17). (op. cit., on Haggai 1:2)

But, on the authority of “the word of the LORD (hvhy rbaD4, d ^evar YHWH)” (v. 3), the prophet challenges the people’s claim with a rhetorical question: “Is it a time for you yourselves to live in your paneled houses, while this house lies in ruins?” (v. 4). Note that the language introducing a divine oracle, “thus says the LORD” (vv. 2, 5, 7, cf. vv. 8, 9), “the word of the LORD” (v. 3), doubles up, even multiplies here. As the oracle continues, the people are reminded of their poor conditions. “Now therefore thus says the LORD of hosts: Consider how you have fared. You have sown much, and harvested little; you eat, but you never have enough; you drink, but you never have your fill; you clothe yourselves, but no one is warm; and you that earn wages earn wages to put them into a bag with holes” (vv. 5-6). According to Mobley, “The poor conditions in Judah were evidence of the people’s disobedience to the covenant (Lev. 26), and are presented here in the form of futility curses (cf. Deut. 28:30-41)” (on vv. 5-6).

“Consider how you have fared,” says the LORD (v. 7), repeating the earlier formula (v. 5). He calls for the work on the temple to resume. “Go up to the hills and bring wood and build the house, so that I may take pleasure in it and be honored, says the LORD” (v. 8). The people’s futile actions are further described. “You have looked for much, and, lo, it came to little; and when you brought it home, I blew it away” (v. 9a). “Why?” asks the LORD. “Because my house lies in ruins (breHA, chārēv), while all of you hurry off to your own houses” (v. 9b). According to Towner, “The forms of productivity listed in v. 11 were considered blessings by the ancient Judahites, but they lacked all of them. Haggai identifies the cause: God’s house is neglected while individuals hurry off uncaringly to their own houses. It is noteworthy that, although earlier prophets found the cultic worship of their own day corrupt and repugnant (e.g., Am. 5:21-24; Isa. 1:10-15; Mic. 6:6-8), Haggai and Zechariah focus on a different community abuse: the failure to restore the temple and its ritual system” (op. cit., on v. 9). This neglect of the job of rebuilding the temple is cited as the reason for their poor conditions. “ Therefore the heavens above you have withheld the dew, and the earth has withheld its produce. And I have called for a drought (br,Ho, chōrev) on the land and the hills, on the grain, the new wine, the oil, on what the soil produces, on human beings and animals, and on all their labors” (vv. 10-11). “These verses,” says Mobley, “are built around a Heb. Pun; as long as the Temple is in ruins, ‘chareb,’ the people will suffer drought, ‘choreb’ ” (op. cit., on vv. 9-11). According to Ben Zvi, “The basic message is that the presence of the Temple is a necessary condition for the prosperity of the land and the people, Of course, the Temple, to be effective, must be a proper one from a divine perspective” (op. cit., on vv. 4-10). “The passages that follow in the book,” he adds, “deal with that matter” (ibid.).

Haggai’s preaching–presenting “the word of the LORD”– takes effect. “Then Zerubbabel son of Shealtiel, and Joshua son of Jehozadak, the high priest, with all the remnant of the people, obeyed the voice of the LORD their God, and the words of the prophet Haggai, as the LORD their God had sent him; and the people feared the LORD” (v. 12). Haggai, called here “the messenger ( j`xal4ma, mal’ak) of the LORD,” reminds the people of the LORD’s presence with them as he speaks “to the people with the LORD’s message (tUkxAl4ma, mal’ ^akûth), saying, I am with you, says the LORD” (v. 13). And we are told that the work on the temple resumes as “ the LORD stirred up the spirit of Zerubbabel son of Shealtiel, governor of Judah, and the spirit of Joshua son of Jehozadak, the high priest, and the spirit of all the remnant of the people; and they came and worked on the house of the LORD of hosts, their God” (v. 14; cf. Ezra 5:1-2). The date for this new beginning is given: “the twenty-fourth day of the month, in the sixth month” (v. 15), that is, according to Mobley, “September 21, 520 BCE (op. cit., on v. 15). According to R. Lansing Hicks and Walter Brueggemann, “It is best to regard this as the date for the oracle in 2:15-19, which originally may have stood at this point” (NOAB, 2^nd ed., 1994, on Haggai 1:15a).

The traditional Hebrew text includes the words “In the second year of King Darius” (Haggai 1:15b) with verse 15a (cf. v. 1), and this sentence and paragraph division is followed by the Septuagint and several English translations (AV/KJV, NKJV, NIV, New Living Bible, English Standard Version, New Century Version, and the paraphrase, The Message). But in some modern versions the verse is divided and the new sentence begins with “In the second year of King Darius” (cf. RSV, NRSV, TNIV [changed from NIV!], NJPS). Carol L. Meyers and Eric M. Meyers follow the former in their translation (Haggai, Zechariah 1-8, A New Translation with Introduction and Commentary, Anchor Bible, vol. 25B, p. 4). They explain as follows:

Although all of verse 15 is perfectly and properly positioned at the end of the first chapter, the regnal information may at the same time be read in relation to the second chapter. More specifically, verse 1 5b would surely supply 2:1 with the missing year. Consequently, ‘in the second year of Darius’ may have been intended to do double duty. Another possibility is that haplography may have caused the loss of one year phrase, if the two phrases had originally stood back to back in 1:15 and 2:1” (ibid., pp. 36-37, on v. 15).

Pieter A. Verhoef offers a somewhat different view, though also recognizing the “another possibility” of C. and E. Myers::

The consensus of modern opinion . . . is that the double dating suggests a division between v. 15a and 15b-2:1, and that the usual order of year-month-day, when reference is made to the kingship of Darius, endorses this division. An alternative point of view, however, is that the phrase in the second year of King Darius (v. 15b) really does double duty; it concerns both dates. These clauses could be rendered as follows: ‘(It happened) on the twenty-fourth day of the sixth month in the second year of King Darius. (In the second year of King Darius), on the twenty-first day of the seventh month’ (cf. Notes to the TEV translation, NIV, Groot NB). (The Books of Haggai and Malachi, NICOT, 1986, p. 89, on Hag. 1:15)

Revelation 2:18-29

18 "And to the angel of the church in Thyatira write: These are the words of the Son of God, who has eyes like a flame of fire, and whose feet are like burnished bronze:

19 "I know your works-your love, faith, service, and patient endurance. I know that your last works are greater than the first. 20 But I have this against you: you tolerate that woman Jezebel, who calls herself a prophet and is teaching and beguiling my servants to practice fornication and to eat food sacrificed to idols. 21 I gave her time to repent, but she refuses to repent of her fornication. 22 Beware, I am throwing her on a bed, and those who commit adultery with her I am throwing into great distress, unless they repent of her doings; 23 and I will strike her children dead. And all the churches will know that I am the one who searches minds and hearts, and I will give to each of you as your works deserve. 24 But to the rest of you in Thyatira, who do not hold this teaching, who have not learned what some call 'the deep things of Satan,' to you I say, I do not lay on you any other burden; 25 only hold fast to what you have until I come. 26 To everyone who conquers and continues to do my works to the end,

I will give authority over the nations;

27 to rule them with an iron rod,

as when clay pots are shattered-

28 even as I also received authority from my Father. To the one who conquers I will also give the morning star. 29 Let anyone who has an ear listen to what the Spirit is saying to the churches. (Revelation 2:18-29, NRSV)

The following comments are based, with editing and supplement, on those of January 9, 2009 (Friday in the week of the Second Sunday after Christmas, ref. for Jan. 9, Year One), when comments were repeated with editing and supplement from December 14, 2007 (Friday in the week of the Second Sunday of Advent, Year Two), when comments were repeated from December 9, 2005 (Friday in the week of the Second Sunday of Advent, Year Two):

The fourth letter of the seven in Revelation, chapters 2 and 3, is addressed to Thyatira, which Charles H. Miller identifies as “a city (modern Akhisar) about fifty-five miles northeast of Izmir (Smyrna), Turkey. . . . Founded as a Hellenistic city by Seleucus I Nicator in 306 B.C., it had developed many industrial and commercial guilds by the first century A.D.” (Harper’s Bible Dictionary, rev. ed., 1996, s.v. Thyatira). As the letter to Thyatira is introduced, the Lord refers to the imagery of chapter 1: “And to the angel of the church in Thyatira write: These are the words of the Son of God, who has eyes like a flame of fire and whose feet are like burnished bronze” (Rev. 2:18; cf. 1:14, 15). Jean-Pierre Ruiz refers also to Daniel 10:6 (NOAB, 3^rd ed., 2001, on Rev. 2:18). The church is commended: “I know your works–your love, faith, service, and patient endurance. I know that your last works are greater than the first” (v 19). But they are also rebuked for tolerating the teaching of a woman called “Jezebel”: “But I have this against you: you tolerate that woman Jezebel, who calls herself a prophet and is teaching and beguiling my servants to practice fornication and to eat food sacrificed to idols” (v. 20). According to Ruiz, this is “John’s characterization of a female opponent at Thyatira, here identified contemptuously with the Phoenician wife of King Ahab, the queen who worshiped Baal and who opposed the prophet Elijah (1 Kings 16:31; 19:1-2)” (op. cit., on v. 20). According to David E. Aune, “her teachings were, in his view, leading Christians astray. Since the weapons of ancient slander routinely included charges of immorality, it is difficult to know what the real situation was” (HarperCollins Study Bible, rev. ed., 2006, on Rev. 2:20).

“I gave her time to repent,” says the Lord, “but she refuses to repent of her fornication” (v. 21). “Beware,” says the Lord,, “I am throwing her on a bed” (v. 22a). Ruiz calls this “punishment with serious sickness . . . threatened for the Thyatiran Jezebel” (op. cit., on v. 22). The punishment also includes her followers: “and those who commit adultery with her I am throwing into great distress, unless they repent of her doings; and I will strike her children dead (vv. 22b, 23a). “Those who commit adultery with her,” says Ruiz, “are those who are complicit in her idolatry. In the Hebrew Bible idolatry is often called adultery, with marital infidelity used as a metaphor for worship of other gods than the LORD (Deut. 31:16; Judg. 2:17; 1 Chr. 5:25)” (ibid.). “Her children,” he adds, are “those who follow her teachings” (ibid., on v. 23; cf. Aune, op. cit., on v. 23).

The Lord defines his role in judgment, even “in the house of God” (cf. 1 Pet. 4:17): “And all the churches will know,” he says, “that I am the one who searches minds and hearts, and I will give to each of you as your works deserve” (Rev. 2:23b). But he gives encouragement to those who have not followed the teachings of this “Jezebel.” “But to the rest of you in Thyatira, who do not hold this teaching, who have not learned what some call ‘the deep things of Satan,’ to you I say, I do not lay on you any other burden; only hold fast to what you have until I come” (vv. 24-25). “Deep things of Satan,” says Ruiz, is “a sarcastic reference to heretical teachings (contrast 1 Cor. 2:10)” (op. cit., on v. 24). Without this reference, Aune nevertheless echoes 1 Corinthians 2:10: “The deep things of Satan,” he says, is “perhaps a sarcastic revision of the prophetess’s motto, which probably was ‘the deep things of God’ ” (op. cit., on v. 24).

Here again, the Lord gives promises to those who are faithful: “To everyone who conquers and continues to do my works to the end,

I will give authority over the nations;

to rule them with an iron rod,

As when clay pots are shattered–

even as I also received authority from my Father” (vv. 26-28a, citing Ps. 2:8, 9). To this we may compare a Jewish first century B.C. expectation about “their king, the son of David” whom the Lord will “raise up unto them . . . At the time in the which Thou seest, O God” (Psalms of Solomon 17:23 [21]). The prayer continues, that “he shall thrust out sinners from (the) inheritance, He shall destroy the pride of the sinner as a potter's vessel. With a rod of iron he shall break in pieces all their substance, He shall destroy the godless nations with the word of his mouth” (Psalms of Solomon 17:26 [23, 24]). The text of the Psalms of Solomon in English translation is on the internet at http://www.goodnewsinc.net/othbooks/psalmsol.html (accessed Dec. 10, 2009); compare the text at the Wesley Center Online (http://wesley.nnu.edu/biblical_studies/noncanon/ot/pseudo/psalms-solomon.htm#, accessed Dec. 10, 2009). In Revelation, the Lord explains, “even as I also received authority from my Father. To the one who conquers I will also give the morning star” (Rev. 2:28). According to Aune, “Morning star (the bright planet Venus) [is] an epithet of Christ (22:16) and a messianic symbol (Num. 24:17; Mt. 2:2, 10)” (op. cit., on v. 28).

This letter to the fourth church is the first of four (the last four) to close with the admonition, “Let anyone who has an ear listen to what the Spirit is saying to the churches” (v. 29; cf. 3:6, 13, 22; cf. also 13:9; Mt. 11:15; 13:9, 43). According to Ruiz, the words “is saying” refer to what the Spirit is saying “in this revelation” (op. cit., on v. 29).

Matthew 23:27-39

27 "Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you are like whitewashed tombs, which on the outside look beautiful, but inside they are full of the bones of the dead and of all kinds of filth. 28 So you also on the outside look righteous to others, but inside you are full of hypocrisy and lawlessness.

29 "Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you build the tombs of the prophets and decorate the graves of the righteous, 30 and you say, 'If we had lived in the days of our ancestors, we would not have taken part with them in shedding the blood of the prophets.' 31 Thus you testify against yourselves that you are descendants of those who murdered the prophets. 32 Fill up, then, the measure of your ancestors. 33 You snakes, you brood of vipers! How can you escape being sentenced to hell? 34 Therefore I send you prophets, sages, and scribes, some of whom you will kill and crucify, and some you will flog in your synagogues and pursue from town to town, 35 so that upon you may come all the righteous blood shed on earth, from the blood of righteous Abel to the blood of Zechariah son of Barachiah, whom you murdered between the sanctuary and the altar. 36 Truly I tell you, all this will come upon this generation.

The Lament over Jerusalem (Lk 13.34-35)

37 "Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to it! How often have I desired to gather your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you were not willing! 38 See, your house is left to you, desolate. 39 For I tell you, you will not see me again until you say, 'Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord.' " (Matthew 23:27-39, NRSV)

On July 12, 2009 (the Sunday closest to July 13, Year One), comments were repeated from July 9, 2008 (Wednesday in the week of the Sunday closest to July 6, Year Two), when comments were repeated from December 14, 2007 (Friday in the week of the Second Sunday of Advent, Year Two), when comments were repeated from July 15, 2007 (the Sunday closest to July 13, Year One), when they were combined with revision and supplement from July 10, 2005 (the Sunday closest to July 13, Year One), and from July 12, 2006 (Wednesday in the week of the Sunday closest to July 6, Year Two), when comments were based on those from July 7, 2004 in an email sent July 5, 2004, for July 5-11, and from December 9, 2005 (Friday of the week of the Second Sunday of Advent, Year Two). The combined comments are repeated here with editing and supplement:

Recent comments on Luke 11:37-52 in the Archive for October 29, 2008 (Thursday in the week of October 26, Year Two) include comments on Luke 11:44-51, comparable to parts of this reading from Matthew. Recent comments on Luke 13:34-35 may be found in the Archive for November 7, 2008 (Friday in the week of the Sunday closest to November 2, Year Two).

Today’s reading begins with the last of a series of woes against the scribes and Pharisees (Mt. 23:11-36), which Luke presents on the occasion when a Pharisee invited Jesus to dinner (Lk. 11:37-52). Earlier notes, beginning with the next-to-last woe in Matthew (Mt. 23:27-28) are included from the earlier notes. Matthew follows these woes with Jesus’ lament over Jerusalem (Mt. 23:37-39), which Luke presents in another context (Lk. 13:34-35) when some Pharisees have warned Jesus that Herod wants to kill him (Lk. 13:31). These texts are compared in the following table:

Matthew 23:27-32 reads like an elaboration of Luke 11:44, 47-48. He surely added the “Woe to you, Scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites!” formula (vv. 27, 29, cf. the earlier woes in Mt.), and brought material together–another example of his tendency to arrange material topically–to form the discourse against the scribes and Pharisees. As in the case of the Lord’s Prayer, for example (Mt. 6:9-13; Lk. 11:2-4), which Matthew includes in a group of instructions on Christian piety (Mt. 6:1-21), but Luke probably reports on the occasion when Jesus gave the disciples the prayer in response to their request, “Lord, teach us to pray, as John taught his disciples” (Lk. 11:1), so also here, the Lawyer’s question (Lk. 11:45) was the occasion for some of Jesus’ comments.

In Luke, the third woe, the last against the Pharisees, assumes a background that Matthew elaborates with severe judgment. “Woe to you!” says Jesus in Luke. “For you are like unmarked graves (mnhmei:a, mnēmeia), and people walk over them without realizing it” (Lk. 11:44). According to C. G. Montefiore, “The tombs around Jerusalem used to be whitewashed before Passover so that no ritual impurity might be contracted by stepping upon one unawares. There was no objection to a layman becoming unclean, except when he wanted to enter the Temple and this he would wish to do at the Festival” (The Synoptic Gospels Edited with an Introduction and a Commentary, Library of Biblical Studies, vol. II, 1968, p. 302, on Mt. 23:27, 28). Matthew doesn’t explain this significance, but turns the reference to whitewashed graves into a metaphor of hypocrisy, that is, hidden iniquity. “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you are like whitewashed tombs (tavfoi, taphoi), which on the outside look beautiful, but inside they are full of the bones of the dead and of all kinds of filth. So you also on the outside look righteous to others, but inside you are full of hypocrisy and lawlessness” (Mt. 23:27-28).

One might wonder whether there is a connection between whitewashing tombs (v. 27) and decorating graves (v. 29)–both perhaps with the intention of honoring the dead. According to Matthew, the final woe accuses the scribes and Pharisees, “For you build the tombs (tavfoi, taphoi) of the prophets and decorate the graves (mnhmei:a, mnēmeia) of the righteous, and you say, ‘If we had lived in the days of our ancestors, we would not have taken part with them in shedding the blood of the prophets’ ” (Mt. 23:29-30). “Though this is the seventh Woe [in Mt.], it sees unconnected with the previous sections,” says Montefiore. “The word ‘sepulchres’ [his translation of mnhmei:a, mnēmeia, ‘graves’ NRSV] forms a verbal link. It is the Jews generally who are here addressed, rather than the Scribes or the Pharisees” (op. cit., on v. 29). Luke’s version of Matthew’s final woe, one of those that in Luke is addressed to the lawyers (Lk. 11:45-46), does not have reference to decorating the graves or a disclaimer of responsibility for killing the ancient prophets; rather, it simply says, “Woe to you! For you build the tombs (mnhmei:a, mnēmeia) of the prophets whom your ancestors killed” (Lk. 11:47). In Luke, Jesus continues with a conclusion that links his hearers (the Pharisees and lawyers) with the ancestors: “So you are witnesses and approve of the deeds of your ancestors; for they killed them, and you build their tombs” (v. 48).

In Matthew, Jesus explains the denial of complicity in the killing of the ancient prophets (Mt. 23:30, above) as self-incrimination, by building their tombs and decorating their graves. “Thus you testify against yourselves that you are descendants (uiJoiv, huioi, literally ‘sons’) of those who murdered the prophets” (v. 31). According to Elwyn E. Tilden and Bruce M. Metzger, “Only one such murder [i.e. of prophets, v. 31] is mentioned in the Hebrew Scriptures (2 Chr. 24:20-22), but Jewish legend had added others to the list of national martyrs" (NOAB, 2^nd ed. 1994, on Mt. 23:30). The words “sons of” may refer to descendants, but it has been suggested that they could refer to persons of similar character. Tilden and Metzger say, “The scribes and Pharisees would admit to being descendants of those who murdered the prophets; Jesus insists that their attitudes are also similar (v. 28)” (ibid., on v. 31). According to the Lexicon, two extended meanings of “son” (uiJovV, huios) are combined here, “human offspring in an extended kind of descent, descendant, son” and “one whose identity is defined in terms of a relationship with a person or thing [that is], of those who are bound to a personality by close, nonmaterial ties; it is this personality that has promoted the relationship and given it its character” (Bauer-Danker-Arndt-Gingrich [BDAG], A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament and other Early Christian Literature, 3^rd ed., 2000, s.v. uiJovV, huios, meanings (1) (c) and (2) (c) a). The scribes and Pharisees addressed by Jesus are thus like the ancient prophet killers. In this context, this relates the killing of the ancient prophets to the forthcoming crucifixion of Jesus, by the Romans, of course, but at the insistence, as Matthew tells the story, of these Jewish leaders. Montefiore, who seems to shift the “blame” for anti-Jewish sentiment here from Jesus himself to “a Christian writer,” says, “The laboured violence of the attack is not very attractive, and there can be little doubt that we have here the bitterness of a Christian writer [the evangelist Matthew?] who conceived that the Jews, and especially the Rabbis, were responsible for the death of Jesus. And so we can readily excuse and forgive this exhibition of hatred” (op. cit., pp. 302-303, on v. 30). In the continuation, this attitude is stressed. “Fill up, then,” says Jesus to the scribes and Pharisees, “the measure of your ancestors. You snakes, you brood of vipers! How can you escape being sentenced to hell?” (vv. 32-33). Matthew’s verse 33, about “snakes” and “you brood of vipers,” has no parallel in Luke.

In Matthew, Jesus continues with a prediction: “Therefore I send you prophets, sages, and scribes, some of whom you kill and crucify and some you will flog in your synagogues and pursue from town to town” (Mt. 23:34), a statement that seems to echo the actions of the tenants in the Parable of the Wicked Tenants (Mt. 21:33-41). In the present context, this sending becomes the occasion for retribution: “so that upon you may come all the righteous blood shed on earth, from the blood of righteous Abel to the blood of Zechariah son of Barachiah, whom you murdered between the sanctuary and the altar. Truly I tell you, all this will come upon this generation” (23:35-36). According to J. Andrew Overman, “The identity of this Zechariah is uncertain; cf. 2 Chr. 24:20-22; Zech. 1:1” (NOAB, 3^rd ed., augmented, 2007, on v. 35). The point, however, is to characterize Jesus’ opponents as being like those earlier Israelites who “murdered” the prophets. In Luke’s version, Jesus cites this prediction from “the Wisdom of God”: “Therefore also the Wisdom of God said, ‘I will send them prophets and apostles, some of whom they will kill and persecute, so that this generation may be charged with the blood of all the prophets shed since the foundation of the world, from the blood of Abel to the blood of Zechariah, who perished between the altar and the sanctuary. Yes, I tell you, it will be charged against this generation” (Lk. 11:49-51). According to Marion Lloyd Soards, “The Wisdom of God said, introduces an apparent quotation, but from neither the Hebrew Bible nor the nonbiblical writings of Judaism” (NOAB, 3^rd ed., augmented, 2007, on Lk. 11:49, apparently meaning the known nonbiblical writings of Judaism). Montefiore sees the reference in Luke as to “some lost apocalyptic writing,” and the differences in Matthew as changes because he “does not like to make Jesus quote an apocryphal book” (op. cit., p. 303, on Mt.23:34-36). G. W. H. Lampe, on the other hand, does not see Luke’s reference as to an apocryphal book at all. “Wisdom of God,” he says, probably means ‘God in his Wisdom’, and does not allude to a ‘Wisdom’ book” (Peake’s Commentary on the Bible, 1962, reprinted 1972, sec. 728 j, on Lk. 11:49).

Dale C. Allison, Jr., reads these Woes against the Pharisees (Mt. 23:1-39) as criticism by their own standards.

Chapter 23 does not criticize isolated beliefs or activities; rather its charges amount to a rejection of Pharisaism itself. Surprisingly, however, Mt 23 does not censor the scribes and Pharisees for failure to believe in the Messiah Jesus. Instead it convicts them by their own standards. No scribe or Pharisee would have defended hypocrisy, or commend the slaying of ‘God’s prophets, or affirmed that preoccupation with the lesser matters of the law should be at the expense of the greater. So the text presupposes that the scribes and Pharisees actually know better: they are hypocrites in the full sense of the word. The presupposition is possible because the scribes and Pharisees, like those in Matthew’s community, were heirs in the Jewish tradition. Matthew’s Jesus accordingly argues as a Jew with Jews: the leaders have been unfaithful to their own tradition. (Dale C. Allison, Jr., The Oxford Bible Commentary, 2001, pp. 874-875)

One might add that it is probable that Matthew, in telling this story of Jesus’ criticism of the scribes and Pharisees, is in fact directing the criticisms at the faults and hypocrisy within his own Christian, probably, Jewish-Christian, community, rather than at any contemporary non-Christian Jews.

In Matthew, the series of woes leads into Jesus’ Lament over Jerusalem (Mt. 23:37-39; cf. Lk. 13:34-35). Although Luke uses this passage in a different context, we have here one of those examples of nearly verbatim agreement between Matthew’s text and Luke’s. Matthew 23:37 and Luke 13:34 are identical in the English translation (NRSV), but with minor differences in phrasing in Greek. “"Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to it! How often have I desired to gather (ejpisunagagei:n, episynagagein, 2^nd aorist infinitive, Mt.; ejpisunavxai, episynaxai, 1^st aorist infinitive, same verb, Lk.) your children together as a hen gathers ( ejpisunavgei, episynagei, Lk.; verb understood from the previous infinitive in Mt.) her brood (ta; nossiva, ta nossia, neuter plural of nossivon, nossion, ‘the young of a bird,’ Mt.; th;n eJauth:V nossiavn, tēn heautēs nossian, feminine singular of nossiav, nossia, ‘brood, Lk., each term only here in the NT [F. Wilber Gingrich and Frederick W. Danker, Shorter Lexicon of the Greek New Testament, 2^nd ed., 1983, s.v. nossivon, nossion and nossiav, nossia; note the asterisks [*]) under her wings, and you were not willing!” (Mt. 23:37; Lk. 13:34).

The continuation also has very similar wording: “See, your house is left to you, desolate (Mt., not in Lk.). For (Mt.) And (Lk.) I tell you, you will not see me again (Mt.) until the time comes when (Lk.) you say, ‘Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord’ ” (Mt. 23:38-39; Lk. 13:35). These differences–in bold print– reflect minor differences in the Greek text. Matthew’s e[rhmoV (erēmos, “desolate”) is not in Luke. Where Matthew has the conjunction gavr (gar, “for”), Luke has the conjunction dev, de, “and”). And for Matthew’s “again until” (ajp j a[rti e{wV a[n, ap’ arti heōs an), Luke has “until the time comes when” (e{wV (h{xei o{te), heōs hēxei hote). According to Lampe, this passage (Lk. 13:31-35) “is Q material, in a context in Mt. (23:37, 39) which removes the ambiguity of Lk.’s v. 35, and makes it allude to the return of Jesus as Messiah, not to his entry (19:38). This is probably the intended meaning in Lk. also” (op. cit., sec. 730 a, p. 836, on Lk. 13:31-35).

This passage anticipates the destruction of Jerusalem by the Roman armies in A.D. 70. This lament is presented by Luke in a different context (as noted above). In Matthew the lament serves to complete the record of Jesus' public ministry, since chapters twenty-four and twenty-five are addressed to the disciples, and, except for the plot to arrest him (Mt. 26:4) and the arrest (vv. 47-56) Jesus is with the disciples in chapter twenty-six (in Bethany at the house of Simon the Leper, Mt. 26:6-16; in preparation for or at the Last Supper, vv. 17-29; and on the way to or at Gethsemane, vv. 30-46). It also provides a transition to the next chapter, which begins with Jesus’ prediction of the destruction of the temple (24:1-3). “How often have I desired to gather your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you would not!” (23:37b).

Ronald D. Worden, Ph.D.

rdworden@hgst.edu

deanworden@comcast.net