It was clear that they could not be preeminent in political power. They had been conquered by the Assyrians, the Babylonians, the Persians, and Jerusalem had been left desolate. But the experiences of history had made that dream take a special direction. As every nation has, they had their dream of greatness. The history of the Jews was designed to make them a people of the Law. The Jews had a saying, "Moses received the Law and delivered it to Joshua and Joshua to the elders and the elders to the prophets and the prophets to the men of the Great Synagogue." AH Jewish religion is based first on the Ten Commandments and then on the Pentateuch, the Law. The Jews had a deep and lasting sense of the continuity of their religion and we can see best what the Pharisees and Scribes stood for by seeing where they came into the scheme of Jewish religion. Before we begin to study the chapter in detail, it will be well to see briefly what the Scribes and Pharisees stood for. It is seldom in literature that we find so unsparing and sustained an indictment as we find in this chapter when the wrath of Jesus is directed against the Scribes and Pharisees. That is why the anger of Jesus is so awe-inspiring a sight.
But when a person who is characteristically meek and lowly, gentle and loving, suddenly erupts into blazing wrath, even the most thoughtless person is shocked into taking thought. Nobody pays any attention to the anger of a bad-tempered man. If a man is characteristically and temperamentally an irritable, ill-tempered and irascible creature, notoriously given to uncontrolled outbursts of passionate anger, his anger is neither effective nor impressive.
SCRIBES AND PHARISEES ( Matthew 23:1-39 )
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