what is the meaning of "woe to you"

Question

What are the seven woes of Matthew 23?

Answer

In Matthew 23, Jesus pronounces vii "woes" on the religious leaders of His day. A "woe" is an exclamation of grief, like to what is expressed by the word alas. In pronouncing woes, Jesus was prophesying judgment on the religious elite who were guilty of hypocrisy and sundry other sins.

The King James Version and some other translations list eight woes in Matthew 23, but older manuscripts leave out verse 14, in which the scribes and Pharisees are condemned for taking advantage of widows and making lengthy prayers for show. Elsewhere, Jesus speaks against those very sins (Mark 12:40 and Luke 20:47); most probable, withal, Matthew did not include them among the other woes of chapter 23.

The seven woes are addressed to the teachers of the police and Pharisees; in one of the woes, He calls them "bullheaded guides" (Matthew 23:16). At the cease of His denunciations, He calls them "snakes" and "breed of vipers" (verse 33). Prior to Jesus' condemnation of the religious hypocrites, they had been following Him to test Him and effort to trick Him with questions almost divorce (Matthew xix:3), almost His authority (Matthew 21:23), about paying taxes to Caesar (Matthew 22:17), about the resurrection (poetry 23), and about the greatest commandment of the law (verse 36). Jesus prefaced His vii woes by explaining to the disciples that they should obey the teachings of the Jewish leaders—as they taught the law of God—but non to emulate their behavior because they did not practice what they preached (Matthew 23:3).

The get-go of Jesus' seven woes condemned the scribes and Pharisees for keeping people out of the kingdom of heaven: "Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, yous hypocrites! Yous shut the door of the kingdom of heaven in people's faces. You yourselves exercise not enter, nor will you let those enter who are trying to" (Matthew 23:13). Jesus is the only Savior and the merely way to sky. In their rejection of Jesus Christ, the Pharisees were effectively refusing to enter the kingdom of heaven. They too hindered the common people from believing in Him, thereby blocking the style to heaven for others. Repentance and faith in Christ is the door of access into this kingdom, and nil could exist more disagreeable to the Pharisees, who saw no demand for repentance in their ain lives and attempted to justify themselves by strict adherence to the law.

In the 2nd of the vii woes, Jesus condemned the leaders for didactics their converts the aforementioned hypocrisy that they themselves practiced. They led their converts into a organized religion of works, but not into true righteousness, making them "twice as much a child of hell" (Matthew 13:15).

The 3rd woe Jesus pronounced referred to the religious elite equally "blind guides" and "bullheaded fools" (Matthew 23:16–17). The hypocrites fancied themselves guides of the bullheaded (meet Romans 2:19), simply they themselves were blind and therefore unfit to guide others. Their spiritual blindness acquired them to exist ignorant of many things, including the identity of the Messiah and the fashion of salvation. They were blind to the true meaning of Scripture and to their own sin. They purported to guide the people into the truth, but they were incapable of doing so because they had no personal knowledge of the truth. Instead of instruction spiritual truth, they preferred to quibble over irrelevant matters and find loopholes in the rules (Matthew 23:xvi–22).

The fourth of the seven woes chosen out the scribes and Pharisees for their hypocrisy in the practise of tithing. They made a big deal of small things like tithing spices, while they ignored crucial matters. They diligently counted their mint leaves to give every tenth one to the temple, but they "neglected the more important matters of the law—justice, mercy and faithfulness" (Matthew 23:23). Turning to hyperbole, Jesus said, "You strain out a gnat but swallow a camel" (verse 24). In other words, they were careful to avoid law-breaking in minor things of little importance (straining gnats), while tolerating or committing great sins (swallowing camels).

In the fifth, sixth, and seventh woes, Jesus further illustrated the different aspects of hypocrisy that characterized the religious leaders. In the fifth woe, Jesus likened them to dishes that were scrupulously cleaned on the outside merely left muddy within. Their religious observances made them announced make clean and virtuous, merely inwardly their hearts were full of "greed and self-indulgence" (Matthew 23:25).

In the sixth woe, Jesus compared them to "whitewashed tombs, which look beautiful on the outside but on the inside are total of the bones of the expressionless and everything unclean" (Matthew 23:27). The rotting corpse within a tomb was like the hypocrisy and lawlessness in the hearts of the scribes and Pharisees. They appeared righteous on the outside, merely they were merely beautified tombs; inwardly, they were spiritually expressionless.

The hypocrisy Jesus addressed in the seventh woe was directed to those who erected monuments and decorated the tombs of the prophets of old. Jesus points out that those prophets had been slain by the Pharisees' own ancestors. They imagined themselves much better than their fathers, saying, "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" (Matthew 23:30). Just in that very statement they best-selling their lineage: Jesus says they were truly their fathers' sons; they had inherited their ancestors' wickedness and were following in their steps. Jesus knew their evil hearts, which would soon plot to murder Him (Matthew 26:4) just as their ancestors had murdered the righteous men of former.

The seven woes of Matthew 23 were dire warnings to the religious leaders of Jesus' twenty-four hour period. Only they too serve to warn us against religious hypocrisy today. Nosotros are called to true godliness, sincere dear, and enduring faith. Pretension, affectation, and hypocrisy will merely pb to woe.

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This folio terminal updated: Jan 4, 2022

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