NEW TESTAMENT CONTEXTUAL COMMENTARY

by Dr. Robert R. Seyda

GOSPEL OF MATTHEW

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

Part XI

Verses 33-34: “You snakes! You are from a family of poisonous snakes! You cannot hide from God. You will all be judged guilty and end up in torment! So I tell you this: I will send to you preachers and teachers who are wise and know the Scriptures. You will kill some of them. You will hang some of them on crosses. You will beat some of them in your synagogues. You will chase them from town to town.”

This was a harsh accusation, but it wasn’t the first time. Both John the Baptizer and Jesus called the Sadducees and Pharisees serpents back in Chapters 3:7 and 12:34. It was intended to define their craftiness and subtleties, their inward poison, and venomous nature; their pious costume on the outside, and insincere pretenses on the inside; their hypocrisy, malice, and wickedness; in which they were like the old serpent, their father the devil, and also their ancestors who murdered the prophets. Therefore, could any good thing be expected from such a viperous generation? Our Master says they will be held accountable for their actions. In one ancient version of Matthew, it reads, “…where can you escape?” In other words, what recourse did they have? What could they use to hide behind? Where could they go so they wouldn’t be discovered? There was only one place for them, and Jesus tells them it is Gehenna, the agonizing place of fire.

This reference to Gehenna as a place of punishment was not new to His Jewish listeners. In their Talmud we read: “Our Rabbis taught: A man who counts out money for a woman from his hand into hers or from her hand into his, in order that he might look at her, will not be free from the judgment of Gehenna even if he is [in other respects] like our Master Moses who received the law at Mount Sinai; and concerning him Scripture said: Hand to hand, he will not be free from evil [which means,] he will not be free from the judgment of Gehenna.” Also, in the Talmud, it says: “Death shall be chosen for the wicked, in order that they may not live in this world and thus sin and fall into Gehenna,”¹ and there are many other references. So they understood the future threat of torment and the everlasting vengeance and wrath of God; the unquenchable fire prepared for the devil and his angels which unrepentant, unbelieving sinners cannot escape. If Jesus ever preached a hellfire and brimstone message, this is it.

During this discourse, it appears that Jesus is taking the actions and hypocrisy of the Scribes and Pharisees, personally. But in these verses, He seems to detach Himself from the present tense and regresses to the past. Here, He speaks with the knowledge of one who was present at the time of Abel’s murder and Zachariah’s assassination. His switch seems almost subconscious as though He did not flinch revealing that although He is the eternal Son of God He feels trapped in His human body only for a season; to a specific time and place. Why the scribes? They were those in charge of keeping the sacred script of all the writings of Moses and the prophets. Therefore, when a legal issue arose they were consulted not only about the commandment or law involved but to the proper rendering of holy writ. As such, it often fell to them to give an interpretation that condemned or acquitted an alleged violator. In many cases, they decided against the defendant based on their own religious or political views rather than the pure Word of Scriptures.

The Pharisees, on the other hand, were a later addition to the Jewish religious hierarchy. They built a bridge between the sacred writings and verbal teachings as well as the customs and wise sayings passed down through the ages by noted rabbis. One problem, though, they took the liberty of turning and twisting these texts to fit their own biases and prejudices. As a result, they were never wrong, it was always the other person. This should help us understand what Jesus was up against in His effort to spread the good news about the kingdom of heaven. But then our Lord looks to the future when those preachers He sends out will get the same treatment. If any of the disciples were listening, and I’m sure they were, the road ahead did not look bright for them. But they knew, that with God’s help they could overcome.

Verse 35: “So you will be guilty of the death of all the good people who have been killed on earth. You will be guilty of the killing of that godly man Abel. And you will be guilty of the killing of Zechariah son of Berachiah. He was killed between the Temple entrance and the altar. You will be guilty of the killing of all the good people who lived in between the time of Abel and the time of Zechariah.”

The guilt Jesus speaks of here is called, “guilt by association.” So when those of old who went before them are judged, they will be included in their number because they possess the same attitude and mindset. Bible scholars are not exactly sure who Zechariah ben Berekiah was, even though the text specifies that he was the one murdered between the Temple and the altar. One explanation involves a passage in Zechariah: “Zechariah son of Berekiah received a message from the LORD. This was in the eighth month of the second year that Darius was king in Persia. (Zechariah was the son of Berekiah, who was the son of Iddo the prophet.)”²

In Ezra, we find him listed as Zechariah the son of Iddo.³ If Zechariah would have been the grandson of Iddo, scholars believe Ezra would not have left out his father Berekiah. They suggest, that a scribe who was copying the Book of Zechariah made this designation because he misidentified him with Zechariah the son of Jeberechiah, whom Isaiah mentions,⁴ and somehow in future copies, Jeberechiah became Berechiah. But the time frame chosen by Jesus may give us a better clue. Abel is the first person mentioned in Hebrew scriptures as having been killed, and Zechariah ben Jehoiada is the last one to meet a violent death in this last part of the Old Testament’s historical chronology.⁵ And it is clear from the text that he was stoned to death in the Temple courtyard.

There has been some debate on just who Jesus was talking about when He mention Zechariah son of Berekiah. There are many comments in Jewish documents on just who this may have been. But in a Jewish paraphrase, we find the follow rendering: “See, O Lord, and consider from heaven against whom you have turned in this way. Is it fitting for the daughters of Israel to eat from hunger the fruit of their wombs, the lovely young men whom they used to swaddle in sheets of fine wool? The Attribute of Justice answered, and thus said: Is it fitting to murder in the House of the Sanctuary of the Lord the priest and the prophet, as you murdered Zechariah the son of Iddo, the high priest and faithful prophet, in the House of the Sanctuary of the Lord on the Day of Atonement, because he admonished you not to do that which was evil before the Lord?”⁶

Since Abel was the first one killed in the Old Testament, and this Zechariah the last, it seems appropriate to accept this as the one Jesus was speaking of, since the Old Testament speaks of him being the son of Berekiah, which spelling could easily have been corrupted from Aramaic into Greek.⁷ Jeremiah faced the possibility of being martyred himself.⁸ So the Jews knew this was not something Jesus made up, it was a sordid stain on their history as God’s people. It makes you wonder why He kept loving them so much. It was all because of Abraham. The same can be said today in a country that claims a Christian heritage but lives in such a moral mud pit. It is all because of Jesus. Our Lord is quick to remind them, that should they continue this practice, the same wrath of God will be poured out on them. Then our Lord seems to turn away from those to whom He was speaking and began to look around as He cried out.

Early church scholar Jerome discusses who was being talked about here: “Because we read about so many Zechariahs in Scripture, we need to inquire into the identity of this particular Zechariah, the son of Berekiah. Lest we mistake him for another, the Gospel specifies “whom you killed between the sanctuary and the altar.” Yet there remains a variety of diverse opinions on this question, each of which ought to be considered. Some say that this Zechariah the son of Berekiah is the eleventh of the twelve minor prophets. Although their fathers share the same name, however, they cannot be the same persons because the prophet Zechariah was never said to have been killed between the sanctuary and the altar and especially because the temple had just recently been destroyed in the prophet’s time. Others want us to believe that this Zechariah is the father of John the Baptist, killed because he proclaimed the advent of the Savior on the basis of something he had dreamed. Because this theory doesn’t have the authority of Scripture, however, it can be disproven as easily as it can be proven. Still, others maintain that this is the Zechariah who was killed between the sanctuary and the altar by Joash the king of Judah, as is chronicled in the book of Kings.⁹ But that Zechariah was the son of Jehoida the priest, not Berekiah, as the Scripture relates: ‘Joash did not remember the good which Jehoida, Zechariah’s father, had done for him.’¹⁰”¹¹

So in a sense, Jesus was simply placing the number of prophets and holy men who were killed in what the Jews accepted as their recorded history. I like the way Eric Lyons explains it: “Was Jesus referring to this particular Zechariah when He rebuked the hardhearted Pharisees? It is possible that He was, and there still be no contradiction. In ancient times, people frequently had more than one name. Moses’ father-in-law was known both as Reuel and Jethro.¹² Gideon acquired the name Jerubbaal after destroying an altar of Baal.¹³ King Jotham’s father is called both Azariah and Uzziah.¹⁴ The names are different, but they refer to the same person.¹⁵ The apostle Peter is sometimes called Simon, Simon Peter, and Cephas.¹⁶”¹⁷