Matthew 23:35

35 . from the blood of righteous Abel unto the blood of Zacharias ] If the reading “son of Barachias” be retained (it is omitted in the Sinaitic MS.) a difficulty arises; for the Zacharias, whose death “in the court of the house of the Lord” is recorded 2 Chronicles 24:20-22 , was the son of Jehoiada. The words, however, do not occur in Luke 11:51 , and are possibly interpolated. Zechariah the prophet was a son of Barachias: but of his death no record is preserved. Another explanation has been offered. At the commencement of the Jewish War with Vespasian a Zacharias, son of Baruch, was slain in the Temple by two zealots (Jos. B. J. iv. 5. 4). Accordingly many commentators have thought that Jesus spoke prophetically of that event. The coincidence is remarkable, but the explanation is hardly probable. The space from Abel to Zacharias, son of Jehoiada, covers the whole history of the Jews; for the Jewish Canon, not being arranged in order of time, closed with the second book of Chronicles. ye slew ] The present generation shares in the guilt of that murder.

{11} That upon you may come all the righteous blood shed upon the earth, from the blood of righteous Abel unto the blood of Zacharias son of {y} Barachias, whom ye slew between the temple and the altar. (11) The punishment of those who persecute the gospel, under the pretence of zeal. (y) Of Joiada, who was also called Barach-jah, that is, blessed of the Lord.

Matthew 23:35 . ὅπως ἔλθῃ : divine intention read in the light of result. God sent messengers that they might be killed, and that Israel by killing them might deserve to suffer in the final generation wrath to the uttermost. Vide on Matthew 22:7 .— αἴμα , thrice named: “ter hoc dicitur uno hoc versu magna vi,” Bengel.— ἀπὸ τ . ἁ ., etc., from the blood of Abel, the first martyr, mentioned in the first book of the Hebrew Bible, to the blood of Zechariah, the prophet named in the last book ( 2 Chronicles 24:20-22 ).— υἱοῦ Βαραχίου , the designation of the last but one of the minor prophets, applied here to the other Zechariah, by inadvertence either of the evangelist or of an early copyist.— ὃν ἐφονεύσατε , whom ye (through your spiritual ancestors) slew; fact as stated in 2 Chronicles 24:21 .

34. Wherefore, behold, I send unto you prophets, and wise men, and scribes—The I here is emphatic: "I am sending," that is, "am about to send." In Lu 11:49 the variation is remarkable: "Therefore also, said the wisdom of God, I will send them," &c. What precisely is meant by "the wisdom of God" here, is somewhat difficult to determine. To us it appears to be simply an announcement of a purpose of the Divine Wisdom, in the high style of ancient prophecy, to send a last set of messengers whom the people would reject, and rejecting, would fill up the cup of their iniquity. But, whereas in Luke it is "I, the Wisdom of God, will send them," in Matthew it is "I, Jesus, am sending them"; language only befitting the one sender of all the prophets, the Lord God of Israel now in the flesh. They are evidently evangelical messengers, but called by the familiar Jewish names of "prophets, wise men, and scribes," whose counterparts were the inspired and gifted servants of the Lord Jesus; for in Luke (Lu 11:49) it is "prophets and apostles." unto the blood of Zacharias son of Barachias, whom ye slew between the temple and the altar—As there is no record of any fresh murder answering to this description, probably the allusion is not to any recent murder, but to 2Ch 24:20-22, as the last recorded and most suitable case for illustration. And as Zacharias' last words were, "The Lord require it," so they are here warned that of that generation it should be required.

(35) The blood of Zacharias son of Barachias. —A very memorable martyrdom is recorded in 2Chronicles 24:20-22 , in which a prophet, named Zechariah, was stoned “in the court of the house of the Lord, at the commandment of the king.” That Zacharias was, however, the son of Jehoiada; and the only “Zechariah the son of Barachias” in the Old Testament, is the minor prophet whose writings occupy the last place but one among the prophetic books of the Old Testament. Of his death we know nothing, and it is not probable, had he been slain in the manner here described, that it would have passed unrecorded. The death of the son of Jehoiada, on the other hand, is not only recorded, as above in 2 Chronicles 24, but had become the subject of popular legends. The blood of the prophet, it was said in the Talmud, would not dry up. It was still bubbling up when Nebuzaradan, the Chaldean commander ( Jeremiah 39:9 ) took the Temple. No sacrifices availed to stay it, not even the blood of thousands of slaughtered priests. Wild as the story is, it shows, as does the so-called tomb of Zacharias, the impression which that death had made on the minds of men, and explains why it was chosen by our Lord as a representative example. The substitution of Barachias for Jehoiada may be accounted for as the mistake of a transcriber, led by the association of the two names, like that of Jeremy for Zechariah in Matthew 27:9 (where see Note).

In the Sinaitic MS. the words “son of Barachiah” are omitted, but this betrays the hand of a corrector cutting the knot of the difficulty. The assumptions (1) that Jehoiada may have borne Barachiah as a second name, (2) or that he may have had a son of that name, and been really the grandfather of the martyr, are obviously hypotheses invented for the occasion, without a shadow of evidence. Singularly enough, Josephus ( Wars, iv. 5, § 4) recounts the murder of a “Zecharias, the son of Baruch,” i.e., Barachiah, as perpetrated in the Temple by the Zealots just before the destruction of Jerusalem. It is possible that this also may not have been without its weight in so linking the two names together in men’s minds as to mislead the memory as to the parentage of the older prophet. The list of conjectures is not complete unless we add that one of the Apocryphal Gospels ( The Protevangelion of James, chap. 16) records the death of Zacharias, the father of the Baptist, as slain by Herod in the Temple, and near the altar, and that some have supposed that he was the son of Barachias referred to. Between the temple and the altar—i.e., between the sanctuary (the word is the same as in Matthew 26:61; John 2:19)—the Holy of Holies—and the altar of burnt offerings that stood outside it.

Matthew 23:35 . Ἔλθῃ , may come ) This is repeated in Matthew 23:36 , sc. ἥξει , shall come . Cf. Luke 11:50 , etc.— πᾶν , all ) especially that of the Messiah Himself. Cf. Luke 13:33 .— αἷμα , blood ) This word occurs thrice in this one verse with great force.— ἐκχυνόμενον , which is being shed ) The present tense is used to show that the blood-shedding was not yet concluded.— ἐπὶ τῆς γῆς , on the whole earth ) Cf. Genesis 4:11 .— Ζαχαρίου υἱοῦ Βαραχίου , Zacharias the son of Barachias ) whose prophecy and death are mentioned in 2 Chronicles 24:20-22 .[1016] The Jews say a great deal about him. See Lightfoot.[1017]— τοῦ Ναοῦ , the Temple ) Jesus spake these words in the Temple: in the Temple especial vengeance was to be executed hereafter. [1016] And who, as Michaelis, in der Einl., etc., T. ii., p. m. 1078,1079, shows at large, is called in the Gospel of the Nazarenes . according to Jerome’s statement, not the Son of Barachias (as it is found in our Greek copies), but the Son of Jehoiada . Indeed it would not be amiss to compare this with what S. R. D. Crusius, Hypomn., p. i. p. 301, suggests, viz., that Jehoiada [= the knowledge of the Lord ] received the surname from the Blessed Jehovah , because that he had preserved the house of David, by having stealthily saved Joash from being murdered, and by having subsequently placed him on his father’s throne, after having slain Athaliah, owing to which meritorious deed he was ever after commonly called by this honourable title.—E

. B. [1017] To understand these words of a certain Zacharias , the Song of Solomon of Baruch , a person of proved excellence, who was killed in the midst of the temple (as Josephus records) a short while before its destruction , as Kornmann and others think, we are not bound to the end that the glory of Christ’s Omniscience may be maintained inviolate: for, in fact, this prophecy concerning vengeance impending over that generation , as well as many other prophecies, was proved by its fulfilment. Luke, in the passage in question, is speaking only of Prophets : but the Zacharias of Josephus was not a prophet. Indeed Christ had many reasons for making mention of the former Zacharias above others. It is such personages in this passage (as in Ezekiel 14:14 ) that are especially referred to and quoted, who have their names recorded in Scripture : and that ancient Zacharias, as in the similar instance of Abel, was accounted by the Jews without dispute as a Saint and Prophet; nay, indeed the guilt incurred in his case was not altogether obliterated from the memory of the Jews.— Harm. , p. 472.

Matthew 23:35 . Ὃπως ἔλθῃ , κ . τ . λ .] Teleology of the divine decree: in order that all the righteous (innocent) blood ( Jonah 1:14 ; Joel 3:19 ; Psalm 94:21 ; 1Ma 1:37 ) may come upon you, i.e . the punishment for shedding it. Comp. Matthew 27:25 . The scribes and Pharisees are regarded as the representatives of the people, and for whom, as their leaders, they are held responsible . αἷμα ] “ter hoc dicitur uno hoc versu, magna vi,” Bengel. And it is δίκαιον , because it contains the life (see on Acts 15:20 ). Comp. Delitzsch, Psych , p. 242. ἐκχυνόμενον ] present , conceived of as a thing going on in the present, Kühner, II. 1, p. 116. A vivid picture, in which we seem to see the blood still actually flowing. On the later form ἐκχύνω for ἐκχέω , see Lobeck, ad Phryn . p. 726. ἐπὶ τῆς γῆς ] according to the canonical narrative (see below). Ζαχαρίου υἱοῦ Βαραχίου ] refers to 2 Chronicles 24:20 , where Zechariah, son of Jehoiada, is said to have been stoned to death by order of King Joash, ἐν αὐλῇ οἴκου κυρίου . Comp. Joseph. Antt. ix. 8. 3. The detail contained in μεταξὺ , κ . τ . λ ., renders the narrative more precise, and serves to emphasize the atrocious character of a deed perpetrated, as this was, on so sacred a spot.

Since, according to the arrangement of the books in the Hebrew Canon, Genesis stood at the beginning and 2 Chronicles at the end, and since the series here indicated opens with the case of Abel ( Genesis 4:10 ; Hebrews 11:4 ), so this ( 2 Chronicles 24:20 ) is regarded as the last instance of the murder of a prophet, although, chronologically, that of Urijah ( Jeremiah 26:23 ) belongs to a more recent date. The Rabbinical writers likewise point to the murder of this Zacharias as one of a peculiarly deplorable nature; see Targum Lamentations 2:20 ; Lightfoot on our passage. And how admirably appropriate to the scope of this passage are the words of the dying Zechariah: יֵרֶא יְהֹוָה וְיִדְרשׁ , 2 Chronicles 24:22 ; comp. with Genesis 4:10 ! If this latter is the Zacharias referred to in the text, then, inasmuch as the assumption that his father had two names (scholion in Matthaei, Chrysostom, Luther, Beza, Grotius, Elsner, Kanne, bibl. Unters. II. p. 198 ff.) is no less arbitrary than the supposition that υἱοῦ Βαραχ . is a gloss (Wassenbergh, Kuinoel), there must, in any case, be some mistake in the quoting of the father’s name (de Wette, Bleek, Baumgarten-Crusius).