Clarke's Bible Commentary - Matthew 23:27
Verse 27. For ye are like] paromoiazete, ye exactly resemble- the parallel is complete. Whited sepulchres] White-washed tombs. As the law considered those unclean who had touched any thing belonging to the dead, the Jews took care to have their tombs white-washed each year, that, being easily discovered, they might be consequently avoided.
John Gill's Bible Commentary
Ver. 27. Woe unto you Scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites , etc.] It is much these men could bear to hear themselves so often called by this name; and it shows great courage in our Lord, so freely to reprove them, and expose their wickedness, who were men of so much credit and influence with the people: for ye are like unto whited sepulchres ; or covered with lime, as the Syriac, Arabic, and Persic versions, render it. For the Jews used to mark their graves with white lime, that they might be known: that so priests, Nazarites, and travellers, might avoid them, and not be polluted with them.
This appears from various passages in their writings: The vineyard of the fourth year, they marked with clods of earth, and an uncircumcised one with dust, dysb twrbq lw , and graves with chalk, mixed (with water) and poured (on them f1304 .) Of this marking of the graves, the reason of it, the time and manner of doing it, Maimonides gives us this account: Whoever finds a grave, or a dead carcass, or anything for the dead that defiles, by the tent he is obliged to put a mark upon it, that it may not be a stumbling to others; and on the intermediate days of a feast, they go out from the sanhedrim, to mark the graves. With what do they mark? hjmm dysb , with chalk infused in water, and poured upon the unclean place: they do not put the mark upon the top of the unclean place, (or exactly in it,) but so that it may stand out here and there, at the sides of it, that what is pure may not be corrupted; and they do not put the mark far from the place of the uncleanness, that they may not waste the land of Israel; and they do not set marks on those that are manifest, for they are known to all; but upon those that are doubtful, as a field in which a grave is lost, and places that are open, and want a covering.
Now because when the rains fell, these marks were washed away, hence on the first of Adar (February) when they used to repair the highways, they also marked the graves with white lime, that they might be seen and known, and avoided; and so on their intermediate feast days f1306 : the reason why they made use of chalk, or lime, and with these marked their graves, was because it looked white like bones f1307 ; so that upon first sight, it might be thought and known what it was for, and that a grave was there: hence this phrase, whited sepulchres: which indeed appear beautiful outward ; especially at a distance, and when new marked: but within are full of dead mens bones, and of all uncleanness ; worms and rottenness, which arise from the putrefied carcasses, and are very nauseous and defiling.
Matthew Henry Commentary
Verses 13-33 - The scribes and Pharisees were enemies to the gospel of Christ, an therefore to the salvation of the souls of men. It is bad to keep awa from Christ ourselves, but worse also to keep others from him. Yet it is no new thing for the show and form of godliness to be made a cloa to the greatest enormities. But dissembled piety will be reckone double iniquity. They were very busy to turn souls to be of their party. Not for the glory of God and the good of souls, but that the might have the credit and advantage of making converts. Gain being their godliness, by a thousand devices they made religion give way to their worldly interests. They were very strict and precise in smalle matters of the law, but careless and loose in weightier matters. It is not the scrupling a little sin that Christ here reproves; if it be sin, though but a gnat, it must be strained out; but the doing that and then swallowing a camel, or, committing a greater sin. While the would seem to be godly, they were neither sober nor righteous. We ar really, what we are inwardly. Outward motives may keep the outsid clean, while the inside is filthy; but if the heart and spirit be mad new, there will be newness of life; here we must begin with ourselves The righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees was like the ornament of a grave, or dressing up a dead body, only for show. The deceitfulness of sinners' hearts appears in that they go down the streams of the sins of their own day, while they fancy that they shoul have opposed the sins of former days. We sometimes think, if we ha lived when Christ was upon earth, that we should not have despised an rejected him, as men then did; yet Christ in his Spirit, in his word in his ministers, is still no better treated. And it is just with God to give those up to their hearts' lusts, who obstinately persist i gratifying them. Christ gives men their true characters.
Greek Textus Receptus
ουαι 3759 INJ υμιν 5213 P-2DP γραμματεις 1122 N-VPM και 2532 CONJ φαρισαιοι 5330 N-VPM υποκριται 5273 N-VPM οτι 3754 CONJ παρομοιαζετε 3945 5719 V-PAI-2P ταφοις 5028 N-DPM κεκονιαμενοις 2867 5772 V-RPP-DPM οιτινες 3748 R-NPM εξωθεν 1855 ADV μεν 3303 PRT φαινονται 5316 5727 V-PEI-3P ωραιοι 5611 A-NPM εσωθεν 2081 ADV δε 1161 CONJ γεμουσιν 1073 5719 V-PAI-3P οστεων 3747 N-GPN νεκρων 3498 A-GPM και 2532 CONJ πασης 3956 A-GSF ακαθαρσιας 167 N-GSF
Vincent's NT Word Studies
27. Whited sepulchres (tafoiv kekoniamenoiv). Not the rock-tombs, belonging mostly to the rich, but the graves covered with plastered structures. In general, cemeteries were outside of cities; but any dead body found in the field was to be buried on the spot where it had been discovered. A pilgrim to the Passover, for instance, might easily come upon such a grave in his journey, and contract uncleanness by the contact (Num. xix. 16). It was therefore ordered that all sepulchres should be whitewashed a month before Passover, in order to make them conspicuous, so that travelers might avoid ceremonial defilement. The fact that this general whitewashing was going on at the time when Jesus administered this rebuke to the Pharisees gave point to the comparison. The word kekoniamenoiv (whitened, from koniv, dust) carries the idea of whitening with a powder, as powdered lime.
Robertson's NT Word Studies
23:27 {Whited sepulchre} (tafois kekoniamenois). The perfect passive participle is from konia" and that from konia, dust or lime. Whitened with powdered lime dust, the sepulchres of the poor in the fields or the roadside. Not the rock-hewn tombs of the well-to-do. These were whitewashed a month before the passover that travellers might see them and so avoid being defiled by touching them (#Nu 19:16). In #Ac 23:3 Paul called the high priest a whited wall. When Jesus spoke the sepulchres had been freshly whitewashed. We today speak of whitewashing moral evil.
