Bible Commentaries
Matthew 23

Verses 1-39

This chapter is one of the most sublime and awful in the whole inspired volume. It records the last words of Jesus to the crowds. He summed up, He reached His verdict, He pronounced sentence.

It is awful in its majesty, terrible in its resistless force. With what relentless persistence and unfailing accuracy He revealed the true condition of the leaders of the people, their occupation with externalities and pettiness, and their neglect of inward facts and weightier matters.

Here, indeed, if ever, we have "thoughts that breathe and words that burn." One can almost feel the withering force of His strong and mighty indignation- indignation directed, not against the people, but against their false guides. And yet behind it all is His heart, and the "woes" merge into a wail of agony, the cry of a mother over her lost child.