Word Pictures in the New Testament - David Cox

Word Pictures in the NT [Matthew: Chapter 23].
iteration" (Bruce) save in the third of the seven woes
(23:13,15,23,25,27,29). The verb in the active (\hupokrin•\)
meant to separate slowly or slightly subject to gradual inquiry.
Then the middle was to make answer, to take up a part on the
stage, to act a part. It was an easy step to mean to feign, to
pretend, to wear a masque, to act the hypocrite, to play a part.
This hardest word from the lips of Jesus falls on those who were
the religious leaders of the Jews (Scribes and Pharisees), who
had justified this thunderbolt of wrath by their conduct toward
Jesus and their treatment of things high and holy. The _Textus
Receptus has eight woes, adding verse 14 which the Revised
Version places in the margin (called verse 13 by Westcott and
Hort and rejected on the authority of Aleph B D as a manifest
gloss from Mr 12:40 and Lu 20:47). The MSS. that insert it
put it either before 13 or after 13. Plummer cites these seven
woes as another example of Matthew's fondness for the number
seven, more fancy than fact for Matthew's Gospel is not the
Apocalypse of John. These are all illustrations of Pharisaic
saying and not doing (Allen). {Ye shut the kingdom of heaven}
(\kleiete t•n basileian t•n ouran•n\). In Lu 11:52 the lawyers
are accused of keeping the door to the house of knowledge locked
and with flinging away the keys so as to keep themselves and the
people in ignorance. These custodians of the kingdom by their
teaching obscured the way to life. It is a tragedy to think how
preachers and teachers of the kingdom of God may block the door
for those who try to enter in (\tous eiserchomenous\, conative
present middle participle). {Against} (\emprosthen\). Literally,
before. These door-keepers of the kingdom slam it shut in men's
faces and they themselves are on the outside where they will
remain. They hide the key to keep others from going in.
23:15 {Twofold more a son of hell than yourselves} (\huion
geenn•s diploteron h–m•n\). It is a convert to Pharisaism rather
than Judaism that is meant by "one proselyte" (\hena
pros•luton\), from \proserchomai\, newcomers, aliens. There were
two kinds of proselytes: of the gate (not actual Jews, but
God-fearers and well-wishers of Judaism, like Cornelius), of
righteousness who received circumcision and became actual Jews.
But a very small per cent of the latter became Pharisees. There
was a Hellenistic Jewish literature (Philo, Sibylline Oracles,
etc.) designed to attract Gentiles to Judaism. But the Pharisaic
missionary zeal (compass, \periag•te\, go around) was a
comparative failure. And success was even worse, Jesus says with
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