Matthew 23:37
O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, who kills the prophets and stones those sent to her, how often I have longed to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, but you were unwilling!
O Jerusalem, Jerusalem
The repetition of "Jerusalem" emphasizes the deep emotional lament of Jesus. In the Greek, the repetition signifies a profound expression of sorrow and longing. Jerusalem, the city of peace, is ironically the center of spiritual rebellion. Historically, Jerusalem was the heart of Jewish worship and the location of the Temple, symbolizing God's presence among His people. Yet, it also became a place of resistance against God's messengers.

who kills the prophets
This phrase highlights the tragic history of Jerusalem's rejection of God's messengers. The Greek word for "kills" (ἀποκτείνουσα, apokteinousa) indicates a continuous action, suggesting a pattern of behavior. Prophets were sent by God to guide and correct His people, yet they were often met with hostility. This reflects a broader biblical theme of humanity's resistance to divine truth.

and stones those sent to her
Stoning was a method of execution in ancient Israel, often used for those deemed to have committed blasphemy or false prophecy. The phrase underscores the violent rejection of God's emissaries. The Greek word for "stones" (λιθοβολοῦσα, lithobolousa) again suggests an ongoing action, reinforcing the persistent nature of this rejection. This historical context reveals the severity of Jerusalem's spiritual blindness.

how often I have longed
The Greek word for "longed" (ἠθέλησα, ēthelēsa) conveys a deep, earnest desire. This reflects Jesus' compassionate heart and His persistent efforts to reach out to His people. It underscores the divine patience and love that seeks reconciliation despite repeated rejections.

to gather your children together
The imagery of gathering is reminiscent of a shepherd gathering sheep or a mother hen gathering her chicks. The Greek word "gather" (ἐπισυναγαγεῖν, episynagagein) suggests an intentional and protective action. This metaphor illustrates Jesus' desire to provide care, protection, and unity for the people of Jerusalem, akin to God's covenantal love for Israel throughout the Old Testament.

as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings
This simile draws from the natural world to convey a message of protection and nurturing. The hen's wings symbolize safety and refuge, echoing Old Testament imagery such as in Psalm 91:4, where God is described as covering His people with His feathers. This reflects the tender, maternal aspect of God's love and Jesus' desire to shield Jerusalem from impending judgment.

but you were unwilling!
The phrase "you were unwilling" (οὐκ ἠθελήσατε, ouk ēthelēsate) highlights the tragic reality of human free will in rejecting divine grace. Despite Jesus' earnest desire to save and protect, the people of Jerusalem chose to resist. This underscores a central biblical theme: God's offer of salvation requires human acceptance. The historical context of Jerusalem's repeated rejection of prophets culminates in the ultimate rejection of Jesus, leading to the city's eventual destruction in A.D. 70. This serves as a sobering reminder of the consequences of rejecting God's overtures of love and mercy.

Persons / Places / Events
1. Jerusalem
The city is central to Jewish identity and worship, often representing the heart of the Jewish nation. It is a place of both spiritual significance and historical conflict.

2. Prophets
Messengers sent by God to deliver His word to the people. Historically, many prophets faced rejection and persecution from those they were sent to.

3. Jesus
The speaker of this verse, expressing His lament over Jerusalem's rejection of His message and His desire to protect and nurture its people.

4. Chicks and Hen Imagery
A metaphor used by Jesus to illustrate His protective and nurturing desire for the people of Jerusalem, drawing from the natural behavior of a hen with her chicks.

5. Rejection
The event of Jerusalem's historical pattern of rejecting God's messengers, culminating in the rejection of Jesus Himself.
Teaching Points
God's Persistent Love
Despite repeated rejection, God's love and desire to protect His people remain steadfast. This calls us to reflect on God's patience and mercy in our own lives.

The Consequences of Rejection
Ignoring God's call can lead to spiritual desolation. We must be attentive and responsive to God's voice in our lives.

The Heart of Jesus
Jesus' lament reveals His deep compassion and sorrow for those who turn away from Him. We are called to share in His compassion for the lost.

The Role of Prophets
God's messengers often face opposition. We should support and heed those who faithfully proclaim God's truth today.

Personal Reflection
Consider areas in our lives where we may be resisting God's call and seek to align our hearts with His will.
Bible Study Questions
1. How does the imagery of a hen gathering her chicks help us understand Jesus' heart for Jerusalem and for us today?

2. In what ways can we be more receptive to God's messengers in our lives, and what might be the consequences of ignoring them?

3. How does Jesus' lament over Jerusalem challenge us to respond to His call in our own lives?

4. What parallels can we draw between the historical rejection of prophets in the Old Testament and the rejection of Jesus in the New Testament?

5. How can we cultivate a heart of compassion like Jesus for those who are spiritually lost or resistant to the Gospel?
Connections to Other Scriptures
Luke 13:34
This parallel passage echoes Jesus' lament over Jerusalem, emphasizing His desire to gather and protect the people.

Isaiah 53:3
This prophecy speaks of the Messiah being despised and rejected, which connects to the rejection Jesus experiences in Jerusalem.

Psalm 91:4
This verse uses similar imagery of God covering His people with His feathers, highlighting the protective nature of God.

2 Chronicles 36:15-16
This passage recounts the history of Israel's rejection of God's prophets, providing a historical backdrop to Jesus' lament.

John 1:11
This verse speaks of Jesus coming to His own, and His own not receiving Him, directly relating to the rejection mentioned in Matthew 23:37.
Lost Opportunities Become JudgmentsR. Tuck Matthew 23:37
The Lament Over JerusalemW.F. Adeney Matthew 23:37
Judgment and MercyJ.A. Macdonald Matthew 23:29-39
Christ the Refuge for the DestituteG. Everard, M. A.Matthew 23:37-39
Christ's Pity for the SinnerB. F. Palmer, D. DMatthew 23:37-39
Christ's Protection RejectedPresident Davies.Matthew 23:37-39
Compassion of Jesus Towards the GuiltyB. Beddome, M. A.Matthew 23:37-39
God's Continual CallsJ. Vaughan, M. A.Matthew 23:37-39
God's Gracious Dealings with SinnersJ. Burns, LL. D.Matthew 23:37-39
Judgment in TearsDr. J. HarrisMatthew 23:37-39
O JerusalemJ. Dixon, D. D.Matthew 23:37-39
Of God's Free Grace and Man's Free WillW. Perkins.Matthew 23:37-39
Privilege and DutyJ. J. Sargent., President Davies.Matthew 23:37-39
Relationship Between the Lord and His PeopleH. W. Beecher.Matthew 23:37-39
The Invitation RefusedJ. Vaughan, M. A.Matthew 23:37-39
Why the Divine Invitation is RefusedJ. Vaughan, M. A.Matthew 23:37-39
Willingness to SaveW. Cadman, M. A.Matthew 23:37-39
People
Abel, Barachias, Berechiah, Hen, Jesus, Zachariah, Zacharias, Zechariah
Places
Jerusalem
Topics
Bird, Brood, Chickens, Chicks, Death, Desired, Gather, Gathered, Gathereth, Gathers, Hen, Jerusalem, Kill, Killest, Killeth, Killing, Kills, Longed, Murderest, Myself, O, Often, Ones, Prophets, Putting, Stone, Stones, Stonest, Stoneth, Stoning, Takes, Unwilling, Wanted, Willing, Wings
Dictionary of Bible Themes
Matthew 23:37

     1175   God, will of
     1215   God, feminine descriptions
     2048   Christ, love of
     4366   stones
     4612   birds
     4690   wings
     5013   heart, divine
     5490   refuge
     5564   suffering, of Christ
     5698   guardian
     5707   male and female
     5721   mothers, a symbol
     5781   affection
     5946   sensitivity
     5966   tenderness
     6231   rejection of God
     6689   mercy, of Christ
     7775   prophets, lives
     8239   earnestness
     8301   love, and enemies

Matthew 23:13-39

     2318   Christ, as prophet

Matthew 23:30-37

     5040   murder

Matthew 23:34-37

     8795   persecution, nature of

Matthew 23:37-38

     2015   Christ, compassion

Matthew 23:37-39

     5541   society, negative
     7241   Jerusalem, significance

Library
The Morality of the Gospel.
Is stating the morality of the Gospel as an argument of its truth, I am willing to admit two points; first, that the teaching of morality was not the primary design of the mission; secondly, that morality, neither in the Gospel, nor in any other book, can be a subject, properly speaking, of discovery. If I were to describe in a very few words the scope of Christianity as a revelation, [49] I should say that it was to influence the conduct of human life, by establishing the proof of a future state
William Paley—Evidences of Christianity

Jesus' Last Public Discourse. Denunciation of Scribes and Pharisees.
(in the Court of the Temple. Tuesday, April 4, a.d. 30.) ^A Matt. XXIII. 1-39; ^B Mark XII. 38-40; ^C Luke XX. 45-47. ^a 1 Then spake Jesus ^b 38 And in his teaching ^c in the hearing of all the people he said unto ^a the multitudes, and to his disciples [he spoke in the most public manner], 2 saying, ^c 46 Beware of the scribes, ^a The scribes and the Pharisees sit on Moses' seat: 3 all things whatsoever they bid you, these do and observe: but do not ye after their works: for they say, and do not.
J. W. McGarvey—The Four-Fold Gospel

Christianity Misunderstood by Believers.
Meaning of Christian Doctrine, Understood by a Minority, has Become Completely Incomprehensible for the Majority of Men-- Reason of this to be Found in Misinterpretation of Christianity and Mistaken Conviction of Believers and Unbelievers Alike that they Understand it--The Meaning of Christianity Obscured for Believers by the Church--The First Appearance of Christ's Teaching--Its Essence and Difference from Heathen Religions-- Christianity not Fully Comprehended at the Beginning, Became More and
Leo Tolstoy—The Kingdom of God is within you

First Attempts on Jerusalem.
Jesus, almost every year, went to Jerusalem for the feast of the passover. The details of these journeys are little known, for the synoptics do not speak of them,[1] and the notes of the fourth Gospel are very confused on this point.[2] It was, it appears, in the year 31, and certainly after the death of John, that the most important of the visits of Jesus to Jerusalem took place. Many of the disciples followed him. Although Jesus attached from that time little value to the pilgrimage, he conformed
Ernest Renan—The Life of Jesus

For which Cause Our Lord Himself Also with his Own Mouth Saith...
4. For which cause our Lord Himself also with His own mouth saith, "Cleanse what are within, and what are without will be clean." [1813] And, also, in another place, when He was refuting the foolish speeches of the Jews, in that they spake evil against His disciples, eating with unwashen hands; "Not what entereth into the mouth," said He, "defileth the man: but what cometh forth out of the mouth, that defileth the man." [1814] Which sentence, if the whole of it be taken of the mouth of the body,
St. Augustine—On Continence

Relation of the Pharisees to the Sadducees and Essenes, and to the Gospel of Christ
On taking a retrospective view of Pharisaism, as we have described it, there is a saying of our Lord which at first sight seems almost unaccountable. Yet it is clear and emphatic. "All therefore whatsoever they bid you observe, that observe and do" (Matt 23:3). But if the early disciples were not to break at once and for ever with the Jewish community, such a direction was absolutely needful. For, though the Pharisees were only "an order," Pharisaism, like modern Ultramontanism, had not only become
Alfred Edersheim—Sketches of Jewish Social Life

Among the People, and with the Pharisees
It would have been difficult to proceed far either in Galilee or in Judaea without coming into contact with an altogether peculiar and striking individuality, differing from all around, and which would at once arrest attention. This was the Pharisee. Courted or feared, shunned or flattered, reverently looked up to or laughed at, he was equally a power everywhere, both ecclesiastically and politically, as belonging to the most influential, the most zealous, and the most closely-connected religions
Alfred Edersheim—Sketches of Jewish Social Life

The General Service to a Prophet.
At the Vespers, for O Lord, I have cried, the Stichera, Tone 4. Similar to: Called from above... Thou that hast in the purity of thy mind received the reflex of the God-emitted light and wast the herald of the divine words and seer and divine prophet, thou appearedst as the God-moved mouth of the Spirit, conveying that which was shewn by Him unto thee, O all-honoured (mentioned by name), and declaring unto all the peoples the salvation that was being granted and the Kingdom of Christ; do entreat
Anonymous—The General Menaion

Of the Power of Making Laws. The Cruelty of the Pope and his Adherents, in this Respect, in Tyrannically Oppressing and Destroying Souls.
1. The power of the Church in enacting laws. This made a source of human traditions. Impiety of these traditions. 2. Many of the Papistical traditions not only difficult, but impossible to be observed. 3. That the question may be more conveniently explained, nature of conscience must be defined. 4. Definition of conscience explained. Examples in illustration of the definition. 5. Paul's doctrine of submission to magistrates for conscience sake, gives no countenance to the Popish doctrine of the obligation
John Calvin—The Institutes of the Christian Religion

Hints to Teachers and Questions for Pupils
Teacher's Apparatus.--English theology has no juster cause for pride than the books it has produced on the Life of Paul. Perhaps there is no other subject in which it has so outdistanced all rivals. Conybeare and Howson's Life and Epistles of St. Paul will probably always keep the foremost place; in many respects it is nearly perfect; and a teacher who has mastered it will be sufficiently equipped for his work and require no other help. The works of Lewin and Farrar are written on the same lines;
James Stalker et al—The Life of St. Paul

On Attending the Church Service
"The sin of the young men was very great." 1 Sam. 2:17. 1. The corruption, not only of the heathen world, but likewise of them that were called Christians, has been matter of sorrow and lamentation to pious men, almost from the time of the apostles. And hence, as early as the second century, within a hundred years of St. John's removal from the earth, men who were afraid of being partakers of other men's sins, thought it their duty to separate from them. Hence, in every age many have retired from
John Wesley—Sermons on Several Occasions

Machinations of the Enemies of Jesus.
Jesus passed the autumn and a part of the winter at Jerusalem. This season is there rather cold. The portico of Solomon, with its covered aisles, was the place where he habitually walked.[1] This portico consisted of two galleries, formed by three rows of columns, and covered by a ceiling of carved wood.[2] It commanded the valley of Kedron, which was doubtless less covered with debris than it is at the present time. The depth of the ravine could not be measured, from the height of the portico; and
Ernest Renan—The Life of Jesus

The Early Ministry in Judea
113. We owe to the fourth gospel our knowledge of the fact that Jesus began his general ministry in Jerusalem. The silence of the other records concerning this beginning cannot discredit the testimony of John. For these other records themselves indicate in various ways that Jesus had repeatedly sought to win Jerusalem before his final visit at the end of his life (compare Luke xiii. 34; Matt. xxiii. 37). Moreover, the fourth gospel is confirmed by the probability, rising almost to necessity, that
Rush Rhees—The Life of Jesus of Nazareth

The Crossing of the Jordan
THE CROSSING OF THE JORDAN Just how did you feel at the time you were sanctified? I have heard some tell of how the holy fire of the Spirit seemed to go all through them. Others have told of a deeper, more complete peace. Some have shouted for joy. Others have wept for joy. And I am wondering how one ought to feel. Can you tell me? And how can I know that I am consecrated? Every teacher of entire sanctification that I ever heard says that the consecration must be complete; but how am I to know when
Robert Lee Berry—Adventures in the Land of Canaan

Subjects of Study. Home Education in Israel; Female Education. Elementary Schools, Schoolmasters, and School Arrangements.
If a faithful picture of society in ancient Greece or Rome were to be presented to view, it is not easy to believe that even they who now most oppose the Bible could wish their aims success. For this, at any rate, may be asserted, without fear of gainsaying, that no other religion than that of the Bible has proved competent to control an advanced, or even an advancing, state of civilisation. Every other bound has been successively passed and submerged by the rising tide; how deep only the student
Alfred Edersheim—Sketches of Jewish Social Life

Letter Xliv Concerning the Maccabees but to whom Written is Unknown.
Concerning the Maccabees But to Whom Written is Unknown. [69] He relies to the question why the Church has decreed a festival to the Maccabees alone of all the righteous under the ancient law. 1. Fulk, Abbot of Epernay, had already written to ask me the same question as your charity has addressed to your humble servant by Brother Hescelin. I have put off replying to him, being desirous to find, if possible, some statement in the Fathers about this which was asked, which I might send to him, rather
Saint Bernard of Clairvaux—Some Letters of Saint Bernard, Abbot of Clairvaux

Number and Order of the Separate Books.
The number of the books was variously estimated. Josephus gives twenty-two, which was the usual number among Christian writers in the second, third, and fourth centuries, having been derived perhaps from the letters of the Hebrew alphabet. Origen, Jerome, and others have it. It continued longest among the teachers of the Greek Church, and is even in Nicephorus's stichometry.(83) The enumeration in question has Ruth with Judges, and Lamentations with Jeremiah. In Epiphanius(84) the number twenty-seven
Samuel Davidson—The Canon of the Bible

Elucidations.
I. (Who first propounded these heresies, p. 11.) Hippolytus seems to me to have felt the perils to the pure Gospel of many admissions made by Clement and other Alexandrian doctors as to the merits of some of the philosophers of the Gentiles. Very gently, but with prescient genius, he adopts this plan of tracing the origin and all the force of heresies to "philosophy falsely so called." The existence of this "cloud of locusts" is (1) evidence of the antagonism of Satan; (2) of the prophetic spirit
Hippolytus.—The Refutation of All Heresies

"The Carnal Mind is Enmity against God for it is not Subject to the Law of God, Neither Indeed Can Be. So Then they that Are
Rom. viii. s 7, 8.--"The carnal mind is enmity against God for it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be. So then they that are in the flesh cannot please God." It is not the least of man's evils, that he knows not how evil he is, therefore the Searcher of the heart of man gives the most perfect account of it, Jer. xvii. 12. "The heart is deceitful above all things," as well as "desperately wicked," two things superlative and excessive in it, bordering upon an infiniteness, such
Hugh Binning—The Works of the Rev. Hugh Binning

We are not Binding Heavy Burdens and Laying them Upon Your Shoulders...
37. We are not binding heavy burdens and laying them upon your shoulders, while we with a finger will not touch them. Seek out, and acknowledge the labor of our occupations, and in some of us the infirmities of our bodies also, and in the Churches which we serve, that custom now grown up, that they do not suffer us to have time ourselves for those works to which we exhort you. For though we might say, "Who goeth a warfare any time at his own charges? Who planteth a vineyard, and eateth not of the
St. Augustine—Of the Work of Monks.

Repentance and Impenitence.
In the discussion of this subject I shall show,-- I. What repentance is not. 1. The Bible everywhere represents repentance as a virtue, and as constituting a change of moral character; consequently, it cannot be a phenomenon of the intelligence: that is, it cannot consist in conviction of sin, nor in any intellectual apprehension of our guilt or ill-desert. All the states or phenomena of the intelligence are purely passive states of mind, and of course moral character, strictly speaking, cannot be
Charles Grandison Finney—Systematic Theology

Second Sunday after Trinity Exhortation to Brotherly Love.
Text: 1 John 3, 13-18. 13 Marvel not, brethren, if the world hateth you. 14 We know that we have passed out of death into life, because we love the brethren. He that loveth not abideth in death. 15 Whosoever hateth his brother is a murderer: and ye know that no murderer hath eternal life abiding in him. 16 Hereby know we love, because he laid down his life for us: and we ought to lay down our lives for the brethren. 17 But whoso hath the world's goods, and beholdeth his brother in need, and shutteth
Martin Luther—Epistle Sermons, Vol. III

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