◄ Matthew 23:14 ►
Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye devour widows' houses, and for a pretence make long prayer: therefore ye shall receive the greater damnation.
Study Bible
Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, you hypocrites!

Jesus pronounced divine judgment upon leaders whose public devotion concealed unbelief and pride. They honored God with religious activity while resisting the Messiah standing before them, fulfilling Isaiah’s condemnation of people who draw near with their lips while their hearts remain far from God (Isaiah 29:13).

Mat 15:7-9 You hypocrites! Isaiah prophesied correctly about you:…
Mrk 7:6-7 Jesus answered them, “Isaiah prophesied correctly…”…
Luk 12:1 In the meantime, a crowd of many thousands had gathered,…

You shut the kingdom of heaven in men’s faces.

Rather than preparing Israel to receive the King, they obscured God’s mercy through human traditions, self-righteous standards, and rejection of Jesus. Those entrusted with teaching the Scriptures should have led the people to recognize Him.

Luk 11:52 Woe to you experts in the law! For you have taken away…
Rev 3:7 To the angel of the church in Philadelphia write:…
Mat 21:43 Therefore I tell you that the kingdom of God……

You yourselves do not enter,

Religious privilege, knowledge of the Law, and outward respectability could not bring them into God’s kingdom. Entrance requires repentance, faith, and humble submission to God’s righteousness rather than confidence in personal merit.

Luk 13:24-27 “Make every effort to enter through the narrow door.”…
Jhn 5:40 yet you refuse to come to Me to have life.
Heb 3:18-19 And to whom did He swear they would never enter His rest?…

nor will you let in those who wish to enter.

Their influence hindered those responding to Jesus by discrediting Him and burdening consciences with requirements God had not imposed. God holds spiritual leaders accountable when they mislead His people, while Christ opens the way to the Father for all who come to Him in faith.

Luk 18:16-17 But Jesus called the children to Him and said,…
Mrk 10:14 But when Jesus saw this, He was indignant and told them…
1Th 2:15-16 who killed both the Lord Jesus and their own prophets…

Persons / Places / Events
1. Scribes
Jewish scholars and teachers of the Law, responsible for copying and interpreting the Scriptures. They held significant religious authority and were often associated with the Pharisees.

2. Pharisees
A religious and political group in Judaism known for strict adherence to the Law and traditions. They were influential in the synagogues and often clashed with Jesus over interpretations of the Law.

3. Widows
Vulnerable members of society in ancient Israel, often without financial support. The Law commanded care and protection for widows, making their exploitation particularly egregious.

4. Jerusalem
The central city of Jewish worship and the location of the Temple. It was a focal point for Jesus' ministry and the setting for many of His confrontations with religious leaders.

5. Condemnation
A divine judgment pronounced by Jesus, indicating severe disapproval and the consequences of the scribes' and Pharisees' actions.
Teaching Points
Hypocrisy in Religious Practice
Jesus condemns the scribes and Pharisees for their outward show of piety while exploiting the vulnerable. True faith is demonstrated through genuine love and justice, not mere appearances.

Responsibility to the Vulnerable
The exploitation of widows highlights a failure to uphold God's command to care for the needy. Believers are called to protect and support those who are vulnerable in society.

The Danger of Pride and Pretense
Lengthy prayers for show reveal a heart focused on self-glorification rather than God. Believers must guard against pride and ensure their worship is sincere and God-centered.

Greater Accountability for Leaders
Religious leaders are held to a higher standard due to their influence. Those in positions of authority must lead with integrity and humility, aware of the greater judgment they face.
Bible Study Questions
1. How does the behavior of the scribes and Pharisees in Matthew 23:14 contrast with the biblical call to care for widows and orphans?

2. In what ways can modern believers fall into the trap of hypocrisy in their religious practices, and how can they guard against it?

3. How does the theme of justice for the vulnerable in Matthew 23:14 connect with other biblical teachings on social justice?

4. What are some practical ways that Christians today can support and protect the vulnerable in their communities?

5. How can religious leaders today ensure they are leading with integrity and avoiding the pitfalls of pride and pretense?
Connections to Other Scriptures
Mark 12:40 and Luke 20:47
These parallel passages also address the exploitation of widows by religious leaders, emphasizing the theme of hypocrisy and judgment.

Isaiah 10:1-2
This Old Testament passage condemns those who make unjust laws and deprive the poor of their rights, highlighting God's concern for justice and care for the vulnerable.

James 1:27
This verse defines pure religion as caring for orphans and widows, contrasting the behavior of the scribes and Pharisees with true religious practice.
Sermons
Pharisees and SadduceesMarcus Dods Matthew 23:2-33
Folly of HypocrisyColton.Matthew 23:13-15
In the Description of the Scribes and Pharisees in This Chapter We have a Full-Length Portrait of the HypocriteA. Barnes, D. D.Matthew 23:13-15
The Credit of the ChurchJ.A. Macdonald Matthew 23:13-15
The Sins of the Scribes and PhariseesW. Wilson.Matthew 23:13-15
The WoesJ. P. Lange, D. D.Matthew 23:13-15
People
Abel, Barachias, Berechiah, Hen, Jesus, Zachariah, Zacharias, Zechariah
Places
Jerusalem
Topics
Abundant, Allow, Condemnation, Damnation, Devour, Eat, Enter, Entering, Greater, Heaven, Houses, Hypocrites, Judgment, Kingdom, Pharisees, Prayer, Prayers, Pretence, Pretense, Receive, Scribes, Shut, Widows, Wo, Woe, Yourselves
Dictionary of Bible Themes
Matthew 23:1-32

     8767   hypocrisy

Matthew 23:1-33

     5381   law, letter and spirit
     8749   false teachers

Matthew 23:1-36

     5379   law, Christ's attitude
     7552   Pharisees, attitudes to Christ

Matthew 23:2-33

     7464   teachers of the law

Matthew 23:4-15

     7734   leaders, spiritual

Matthew 23:13-15

     5345   influence
     8774   legalism

Matthew 23:13-33

     9250   woe

Matthew 23:13-39

     2318   Christ, as prophet

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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