Matthew 23:35 — meaning, Hebrew and Greek word study, commentary
Matthew 23:35
That upon you may come all the righteous blood shed upon the earth, from the blood of righteous Abel unto the blood of Zacharias son of Barachias, whom ye slew between the temple and the altar.
to be a murderer (of) · verb — aorist active indicative, 2nd person plural
between
μεταξὺmetaxu
G3342
betwixt (of place or person) · preposition
the temple
ναοῦnaou
G3485
a fane · noun — genitive singular masculine
and
καὶkai
G2532
and · conjunction
the altar
θυσιαστηρίου.thusiastēriou
G2379
a place of sacrifice · noun — genitive singular neuter
Strong's Exhaustive Concordance (James Strong, 1890/1894), public domain; digitized by Open Scriptures (CC BY-SA). KJV word tagging: eBible.org (public domain). Original-language text, parsing and brief lexicon: STEPBible.org data from Tyndale House, Cambridge (CC BY 4.0).
Cross-references
2 Chronicles 24:20-22 And the Spirit of God came upon Zechariah the son of Jehoiada the priest, which stood above the people, and said unto them, Thus saith God,…
Hebrews 11:4 By faith Abel offered unto God a more excellent sacrifice than Cain, by which he obtained witness that he was righteous, God testifying of h…
Zechariah 1:1 In the eighth month, in the second year of Darius, came the word of the LORD unto Zechariah, the son of Berechiah, the son of Iddo the proph…
Genesis 4:8 And Cain talked with Abel his brother: and it came to pass, when they were in the field, that Cain rose up against Abel his brother, and sle…
Revelation 18:24 And in her was found the blood of prophets, and of saints, and of all that were slain upon the earth.
Jeremiah 26:15 But know ye for certain, that if ye put me to death, ye shall surely bring innocent blood upon yourselves, and upon this city, and upon the…
2 Kings 21:16 Moreover Manasseh shed innocent blood very much, till he had filled Jerusalem from one end to another; beside his sin wherewith he made Juda…
2 Kings 24:4 And also for the innocent blood that he shed: for he filled Jerusalem with innocent blood; which the LORD would not pardon.
Cross-references from OpenBible.info (CC BY), in the lineage of the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge (public domain).
Commentary
Jamieson-Fausset-Brown on Matthew 23:34
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 onl…
That upon you may come all the righteous blood,.... Or "the blood of all the righteous men", as the Syriac: Arabic, Persic, and Ethiopic versions read; for there is no righteousness in blood, nor any conveyed by it: all men are of one blood, and that is tainted, they that are righteous, are not so naturally, nor by any righteousness of their own, but by the righteousness of Christ: and such were the persons here meant, whose blood being shed in the cause of righteousness, God would revenge; and the punishment for such a crime, and the vengeance of God for it, were to come upon the nation of the Jews by this means, through their crucifying of Christ, and killing, and persecuting his apostles;…
Matthew 23:29-39
Matthew 23:29-39
Luke 11:47-51
29. Woe to you scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for you build the sepulchers of the prophets and embellish the monuments of the righteous, 30. And say, If we had been in the days of our fathers, we would not have been their associates in the blood of the prophets. 31. Thus you testify against yourselves, that you are the children of those who killed the prophets. 32. Do you also fill up the measure of your fathers. 33. Serpents, offspring of vipers, how shall you escape the judgment of hell? 34. Therefore, lo, I send to you prophets, and wise men, and scribes, and some of them you will slay and crucify, and some of them you will scourge in…
The Church Fathers
That is, all the vengeance due for the shedding of the blood of the righteous.
Then to show them that they should not do this without punishment, He holds out an unspeakable terror over them, That upon you may come all the righteous blood.
Moreover, He names Abel, to show that it would be out of envy that they would kill Christ and His disciples. He names Zacharias, because there was a twofold resemblance in his case, the sacred place, as well as the sacred person.
The Church Fathers: public-domain translations (Ante-Nicene and Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers), verse-indexed by SermonIndex (CC BY 4.0).
Dictionary and topics
Abel — (Heb. Hebhel), a breath, or vanity, the second son of Adam and Eve. He was put to death by his brother Cain (Gen. 4:1-16). Guided by the instruction of their father, the two brothers were trained in…
Barachias — (Matthew 23:35) [Zacharias]
Barachias, Berechiah — 4 (q.v.), whom Jehovah hath blessed, father of the prophet Zechariah (Zech. 1:1, 7; Matt. 23:35).
Chronicles, Books of — The two books were originally one. They bore the title in the Massoretic Hebrew Dibre hayyamim, i.e., “Acts of the Days.” This title was rendered by Jerome in his Latin version “Chronicon,” and hence…
Earth — (1.) In the sense of soil or ground, the translation of the word adamah’. In Gen. 9:20 “husbandman” is literally “man of the ground or earth.” Altars were to be built of earth (Ex. 20:24). Naaman…
Joash — Whom Jehovah bestowed. (1.) A contracted form of Jehoash, the father of Gideon (Judg. 6:11, 29; 8:13, 29, 32). (2.) One of the Benjamite archers who joined David at Ziklag (1 Chr. 12:3). (3.) One of…
Scribes — Anciently held various important offices in the public affairs of the nation. The Hebrew word so rendered (sopher) is first used to designate the holder of some military office (Judg. 5:14; A.V.,…
Zacharias — (1.) A priest of the course of Abia, the eighth of the twenty-four courses into which the priests had been originally divided by David (1 Chr. 23:1-19). Only four of these courses or “families” of…
Zechariah — Jehovah is renowned or remembered. (1.) A prophet of Judah, the eleventh of the twelve minor prophets. Like Ezekiel, he was of priestly extraction. He describes himself (1:1) as “the son of…
The span from Abel (Gen 4:8-11) to Zechariah (2 Chr 24:15-22) follows the order of the Hebrew Bible, in which 2 Chronicles is the last book. The implication is that this generation will be guilty of every murder of the righteous in the Old Testament (cp. Matt 27:25).
Dictionary: Easton's (1897) and Smith's (1863), public domain. Topics: Nave's Topical Bible (1896) and Torrey's Topical Textbook (1897), public domain. Both as parsed by NEUU (CC BY 4.0).
