Matthew 23 Footnotes

23:2-3 This saying seems to contradict the strong polemic against the Pharisees in Matthew, and especially 16:12, but it must be understood in context. Verses 4-36 qualify the otherwise strong endorsement of the teaching of the scribes and Pharisees. Jesus was thus either being ironic in vv. 2-3, saying, in essence, “They presume to sit in Moses’s seat, so you had better do what they say!” Or he was endorsing the objectives of their teaching but denigrating the application (“They are attempting to safeguard the purity of Israel and its faithfulness to the covenant, so listen to them; just do not follow their practice”).

23:35 Lk 11:51 identifies the prophet who died in the temple simply as Zechariah, and there is no problem identifying him as the priest Zechariah ben Jehoiada of 2Ch 24:20-22, since 2 Chronicles is the last book of the Hebrew Bible and it records Zechariah crying out for vengeance (Gn 4:10; 2Ch 24:22). But Mt 23:35 says the murdered prophet was the son of Berechiah, which seems to identify him with the author of the book of Zechariah (Zch 1:1). Most understand the reference in Matthew to be a blending of the two Zechariahs that occurred in Jewish tradition. It is possible, however, that Zechariah the priest had a father named Berechiah and that Jehoiada was the name of his grandfather, since Jehoiada died at the age of 130, shortly before the murder of Zechariah (2Ch 24:15). Others suggest that the minor Prophet Zechariah is intended and that he was murdered as described, though there is no evidence for this claim.