Luke 11:48
So you are witnesses consenting to the deeds of your fathers: They killed the prophets, and you build their tombs.
BSB
Parallel translations (2) ▾
ASV
So ye are witnesses and consent unto the works of your fathers: for they killed them, and ye build their tombs.
KJV
Truly ye bear witness that ye allow the deeds of your fathers: for they indeed killed them, and ye build their sepulchres.
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Commentary
1 voiceVoices on this verse
loading…Hebraic traditional view
The dinner-table woes: cups, herbs, and proportion
The setting is a Pharisee's dinner table, and the host “marvelled that he had not first washed before dinner”: netilat yadayim, the ritual hand-pouring before bread (explained in this site's Mark 7 note). Jesus answers with the tradition's own vocabulary of vessels: “Now do ye Pharisees make clean the outside of the cup and the platter.” The purity law genuinely distinguished a vessel's outside from its inside; the Mishnah's tractate on vessels opens a chapter with exactly that: “All vessels have different laws for their outer and inner sides” (Kelim 25:1). Jesus turns the technical distinction into a mirror: the inside of the person is the part that counts.
Luke's tithing woe is sharper than Matthew's, and knowing the law shows why: “ye tithe mint and rue and all manner of herbs.” The Mishnah exempts rue from tithes (Sheviit 9:1 lists it first among the exempt plants). The Pharisees of the woe are tithing beyond what even their own tradition required, while “judgment and the love of God” go passed over. As in Matthew 23:23, Jesus affirms the scruple (“these ought ye to have done”) and indicts the inversion of weight.
Sources: Mishnah Kelim 25:1 (a vessel's outside and inside) · Mishnah Sheviit 9:1 (rue exempt from tithes)
Original language & word study
18 tagged words| Original | Transliteration | Meaning | Word study |
|---|---|---|---|
| ἄρα | ara | So | G686 → |
| μάρτυρές | martures | witnesses | G3144 → |
| ἐστε | este | you are | G1510 → |
| καὶ | kai | and | G2532 → |
| συνευδοκεῖτε | suneudokeite | you consent | G4909 → |
| τοῖς | tois | to the | G3588 → |
| ἔργοις | ergois | works | G2041 → |
| τῶν | tōn | of the | G3588 → |
| πατέρων | paterōn | fathers | G3962 → |
| ὑμῶν· | humōn | of you; | G4771 → |
| ὅτι | hoti | For | G3754 → |
| αὐτοὶ | autoi | they themselves | G846 → |
| μὲν | men | indeed | G3303 → |
| ἀπέκτειναν | apekteinan | killed | G615 → |
| αὐτούς, | autous | them, | G846 → |
| ὑμεῖς | humeis | you yourselves | G4771 → |
| δὲ | de | however | G1161 → |
| οἰκοδομεῖτε | oikodomeite | build | G3618 → |
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