Mat 23:34-37, Act 7:52, 1Th 2:15, Heb 11:36-37 | Barnes | STEP | Verse 34. I send unto you prophets , etc. He doubtless refers here to the apostles, and other teachers of religion. Prophets, wise men, and scribes, were the names by which the teachers of religion were known among the Jews; and he, therefore, used the same terms when speaking of the messengers which he would send. I send has the force of the future, I will send. Some of them ye shall kill . As in the case of Stephen, , and James, . Crucify . Punish with death on the cross. There are no cases of this mentioned; but few historical records of this age have come down to us. The Jews had not the power of crucifying, but they gave them into the hands of the Romans to do it. Shall scourge . . This was done, . Persecute , etc. . This was fulfilled it the case of nearly all the apostles. (q) "shall kill" (r) "ye scourge" (s) "city to city"

Matthew 23:34-37

Verse 34. I send unto you prophets, etc. He doubtless refers here to the apostles, and other teachers of religion. Prophets, wise men, and scribes, were the names by which the teachers of religion were known among the Jews; and he, therefore, used the same terms when speaking of the messengers which he would send. I send has the force of the future, I will send.

Some of them ye shall kill. As in the case of Stephen, Acts 7:59, and James, Acts 12:1,2.

Crucify. Punish with death on the cross. There are no cases of this mentioned; but few historical records of this age have come down to us. The Jews had not the power of crucifying, but they gave them into the hands of the Romans to do it.

Shall scourge. Mt 10:17. This was done, Acts 22:19-24, 2Cor 11:24,25.

Persecute, etc. Mt 5:10. This was fulfilled it the case of nearly all the apostles.

(q) "shall kill" Acts 7:59 (r) "ye scourge" Acts 5:40, 2Cor 11:24,25 (s) "city to city" Heb 11:37 Verse 35. That upon you may come, etc. That is, the nation is guilty Your fathers were guilty. You have shown yourselves to be like them. You are about, by slaying the Messiah and his messengers, to fill up the iniquity of the land. The patience of God is exhausted; and the nation is about to be visited with signal vengeance. These national crimes deserve national judgments; and the proper judgments for all these crimes are about to come upon you in the destruction of your temple and city.

All the righteous blood. That is, all the judgments due for shedding that blood. God did not hold them guilty for what their fathers did; but temporal judgments descend on children in consequence of the wickedness of parents--as in the case of drunken and profligate parents. A drunken father wastes the property that his children might have possessed. A gambler reduces his children to poverty and want. An imprudent and foolish parent is the occasion of leading his sons into places of poverty, ignorance, and crime, materially affecting their character and destiny. Rom 5:12, also Rom 5:13-19. So of the Jews. The appropriate effects of their fathers' crimes were coming on the nation, and they would suffer.

Upon the earth. Upon the land of Judea. The word is often used with this limitation. See Mt 4:8.

Righteous Abel. Slain by Cain, his brother, Gen 4:8,9. Zacharias son of Barschias. It is not certainly known who this was. Some have thought it was the Zechariah whose death is recorded in 2Chr 24:20,21. He is there called the son of Jehoiada; but it is known that it was common among the Jews to have two names, as Matthew is called Levi; Lebbeus, Thaddeus; and Simon, Cephas. Others have thought he referred to Zechariah the prophet, who might have been massacred by the Jews, though no account of his death is recorded. It might have been known by tradition.

Whom ye slew. Whom you, Jews, slew. Whom your nation killed.

Between the temple and the altar. Between the temple, properly so called, the sanctuary, and the altar of burnt-offering in the court of the priests. See the plan of the temple, Mt 21:12.

(u) "Abel" Gen 4:8 (v) "Zacharias" 2Chr 24:20,21 Verse 36. Upon this generation. The destruction of Jerusalem took place about forty years after this was spoken. See the next chapter. Verse 37. O Jerusalem, etc. Lk 19:41,42.

Would have gathered. Would have protected and saved.

Thy children. Thy people.

(x) "gathered thy children" De 32:11.12, Ps 91:4

Acts 7:52

Verse 52. Which of the prophets, etc. The interrogative form here is a strong mode of saying that they had persecuted all the prophets. It was the characteristic of the nation to persecute the messengers of God. This is not to be taken as literally and universally true; but it was a general truth; it was the national characteristic. See Notes, Mt 21:33-40, 23:29-35.

And they have slain them, etc. That is, they have slain the prophets, whose main message was that the Messiah was to come. It was a great aggravation of their offence, that they put to death the messengers which foretold the greatest blessing that the nation could receive.

The Just One. The Messiah. Acts 3:14. Of whom ye, etc. You thus show that you resemble those who rejected and put to death the prophets. You have even gone beyond them in guilt, because you have put the Messiah himself to death.

The betrayers. They are called betrayers here, because they employed Judas to betray him--agreeable to the maxim in law, He who does anything by another, is held to have done it himself.

1 Thessalonians 2:15

Verse 15. Who both killed the Lord Jesus. Acts 2:23. The meaning here is, that it was characteristic of the Jews to be engaged in the work of persecution, and that they should not regard it strange, that they who had put their own Messiah to death, and slain the prophets, should now be found persecuting the true children of God.

And their own prophets. Mt 21:33, and following; Mt 23:20-37, and following; Acts 7:52.

And have persecuted us. As at Iconium, (Acts 14:1,) Derbe, and Lystra, (Acts 14:6) and at Philippi, Thessalonica, and Berea. The meaning is, that it was characteristic of them to persecute, and they spared no one. If they had persecuted the apostles themselves, who were their own countrymen, it should not be considered strange that they should persecute those who were Gentiles.

And they please not God. Their conduct is not such as to please God, but such as expose them to his wrath, 1Thes 2:16. The meaning is, not that they did not aim to please God--whatever may have been the truth about that--but that they had shown, by all their history, that their conduct could not meet with the Divine approbation. They made extraordinary pretensions to being the peculiar people of God, and it was important for the apostle to show that their conduct demonstrated that they had no such claims. Their opposition to the Thessalonians, therefore, was no proof that God was opposed to them, and they should not allow themselves to be troubled by such opposition. It was, rather, proof that they were the friends of God--since those who now persecuted them had been engaged in persecuting the most holy men that had lived.

And are contrary to all men. They do not merely differ from other men in customs and opinions--which might be harmless-- but they keep up an active opposition to all other people. It was not opposition to one nation only, but to all; it was not to one form of religion only, but to all, even including God's last revelation to mankind; it was not opposition evinced in their own country, but they carried it with them wherever they went. The truth of this statement is confirmed, not only by authority of the apostle and the uniform record in the New Testament, but by the testimony borne of them in the classic writers. This was universally regarded as their national characteristic, for they had so demeaned themselves as to leave this impression on the minds of those with whom they had intercourse. Thus Tacitus describes them as "cherishing hatred against all others"--adversus omnes alios hostile odium, Hist. v. 5. So Juvenal, (Sat. xiv. 103, 104,) describes them. Non monstrare vias eadem nisi sacra colenti,

Quasitum ad fontem solos deducere verpos.

"They would not even point out the way to any one except of the same religion; nor, being asked, guide any to a fountain except the circumcised." So they are called by Appollonius, "atheists and misanthropes, and the most uncultivated barbarians"--αθεοικαι μισανθρωποικαιαφυεστατοιτωνβαρβαρων Josephus Con. Ap. ii, 15. So Diodorus Sicuhs, (xxxiv. p. 524,) describes them as "those alone among all the nations who were unwilling to have any intercourse [or intermingling--επιμιξιας] with any other nation, and who regarded all others as enemies"--καιπολεμιουςυπολαμβανεινπαντας-. Their history had given abundant occasion for these charges.

(a) "their own prophets" Acts 7:52 (1) "persecuted us" "chased us out" (+) "contrary to all men" "Against all men"

Hebrews 11:36-37

Verse 36. And others had trial of cruel mockings. Referring to the scorn and derision which the ancient victims of persecution experienced. This has been often experienced by martyrs, and doubtless it was the case with those who suffered on account of their religion before the advent of the Saviour as well as afterwards. Some instances of this kind are mentioned in the Old Testament, (2Kgs 2:23, 1Kgs 22:24;) and it was frequent in the time of the Maccabees.

And scourging. Whipping. This was a common mode of punishment, and was usually inflicted before a martyr was put to death. Mt 10:17, Mt 27:26. For instances of this, see Jer 20:2; 2 Mac. vii. 1; v. 17.

Of bonds. Chains, Gen 39:20.

And imprisonment. See 1Kgs 22:27, Jer 20:2.

(g) "bonds" Gen 39:20 (h) "imprisonment" Jer 20:2

Verse 37. They were stoned. A common method of punishment among the Jews. Mt 21:35,44. Thus Zechariah, the son of Jehoiada the priest, was stoned. See 2Chr 24:21; comp. 1Kgs 21:1-14. It is not improbable that this was often resorted to in times of popular tumult, as in the case of Stephen, Acts 7:59; comp. Jn 10:31, Acts 14:5. In the time of the terrible persecutions under Antiochus Epiphanes, and under Manasseh, such instances also probably occurred.

They were sawn asunder. It is commonly supposed that Isaiah was put to death in this manner. For the evidence of this, see Introduction to Isaiah, & 2. It is known that this mode of punishment, though not common, did exist in ancient times. Among the Romans, the laws of the twelve tables affixed this as the punishment of certain crimes; but this mode of execution was very rare, since Aulius Gellius says, that in his time no one remembered to have seen it practised. It appears, however, from Suetonius, that the emperor Caligula often condemned persons of rank to be sawn through the middle. Calmet, writing above a hundred years ago, says, "I am assured that the punishment of the saw is still in use among the Switzers, and that they put it in practice not many years ago upon one of their countrymen, guilty of a great crime, in the plain of Grenelles, near Paris. They put him into a kind of coffin, and sawed him lengthwise, beginning at the head, as a piece of wood is sawn." Pict. Bib. It was not an unusual mode of punishment to cut a person asunder, and to suspend the different parts of the body to walls and towers as a warning to the living. See 1Sam 31:10, and Morier's Second Journey to Persia, p. 96.

Were tempted. On this expression, which has given much perplexity to critics, see the Notes of Prof. Stuart, Bloomfield, and Kuinoel. There is a great variety of reading in the Mss. and editions of the New Testament, and many have regarded it as an interpolation. The difficulty which has been felt in reference to it has been, that it is a much milder word than those just used, and that it is hardly probable that the apostle would enumerate this among those which he had just specified, as if to be tempted deserved to be mentioned among sufferings of so severe a nature. But it seems to me, there need be no real difficulty in the case. The apostle here, among other sufferings which they were called to endure, may have referred to the temptations which were presented to the martyrs, when about to die, to abandon their religion and live. It is very possible to conceive that this might have been among the highest aggravations of their sufferings. We know that in latter times it was a common practice to offer life to those who were doomed to a horrid death, on condition that they would throw incense on the altars of a heathen god, and we may easily suppose that a temptation of that kind, artfully presented in the midst of keen tortures, would greatly aggravate their sufferings. Or suppose when a father was about to be put to death for his religion, his wife and children were placed before him, and should plead with him to save his life by abandoning his religion, we can easily imagine that no pain of the rack would cause so keen torture to the soul as their cries and tears would. Amidst the sorrows of martyrs, therefore, it was not improper to say that they were tempted, and to place this among their most aggravated woes. For instances of this nature, see 2 Mac. vi. 21, 22; vii. 17, 24.

Were slain with the sword. As in the case of the eighty-five priests slain by Doeg, (1Sam 22:18;) and the prophets, of whose slaughter by the sword Elijah complains, 1Kgs 19:10.

They wandered about in sheepskins and goatskins. Driven away from their homes, and compelled to clothe themselves in this rude and uncomfortable manner. A dress of this kind, or a dress made of hair, was not uncommon with the prophets, and seems indeed to have been regarded as an appropriate badge of their office. See 2Kgs 1:8; Zech 13:4.

Being destitute, afflicted, tormented. The word tormented here means tortured. The apostle expresses here in general what in the previous verses he had specified in detail.

(i) "stoned" Acts 7:59