Matthew 23:29 – 35

The Continuing Hypocrisy of the Jews.

29 “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! Because you build the tombs of the prophets and adorn the monuments of the righteous,

30 and say, ‘If we had lived in the days of our fathers, we would not have been partakers with them in the blood of the prophets.’

31 “Therefore you are witnesses against yourselves that you are sons of those who murdered the prophets.

32 Fill up, then, the measure of your fathers’ guilt.

33 Serpents, brood of vipers! How can you escape the condemnation of hell?

34 Therefore, indeed, I send 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,

35 that on you may come all the righteous blood shed on the earth, from the blood of righteous Abel to the blood of Zechariah, son of Berechiah, whom you murdered between the temple and the altar.

Jesus was not condemning the hypocrites because of their restoring of the tombs of the prophets who had been slain centuries before. He is condemning them for their statements and actions which will be given in the following verses.

Their statement which means they would not have participated in the murders of those prophets of God was not what was hypocritical, but how their lives and actions would show their hypocrisy condemns their false piety and false righteousness.

They made great claims of being like their ancestors but then claimed to be different was in itself hypocritical. So Jesus tells them they are condemning themselves.

He tells them because of these statements they measure up to being as guilty as their ancestors who actually killed the prophets.

Being compared to snakes, and the vipers which are the deadliest of the snake family, means they are as evil, deceptive, and poisonous as the snakes. John the Baptist also had used this description of the Jews in Matthew chapter 3. Their actions would condemn them to the same lake of fire which Satan and his angels were condemned to experience.

Jesus said they would be just like their fathers, the fathers killed the prophets and He would be sending good Christian messengers of God's word to them and they would be killing and persecuting them. It would not be long until Herod to please these Jews would execute the apostle James and Paul under the name of Saul would begin his great assault on the church beginning with the stoning of Stephen and continuing until he was converted on the road to Damascus.

They would be as guilty as Cain killing Abel and the deaths of the prophets in the old testament even the death of Zechariah which was related to us in 2 Chronicles 24:20 – 21.