Luke 11:48

48 As a result you are witnesses, and you approve of the deeds of your fathers, because they killed them and you build [their tombs]!

Luke 11:48 Meaning and Commentary

Luke 11:48

Truly ye bear witness, that ye allow the deeds of your
fathers
Or "ye bear witness, and ye allow"; that is, they both witnessed that their fathers killed the prophets, and they consented to what they did, and approved of their actions:

for they indeed killed them;
it must be owned, and not their sons:

and ye build their sepulchres;
which was a bearing and keeping up a testimony against them, and a continuing a remembrance of their crimes; and which looked as though they approved of them, or otherwise they should have been content to have the prophets lie buried in silence, and not erected stately monuments over them, which seemed to be raised more for the honour of those that put them to death, than of the prophets themselves. Or, whereas they did this under specious pretences of disliking their fathers' sins, which yet secretly they loved, and were of the same wicked disposition against the ministers of the word, and which they would quickly show; this discovered their hypocrisy, and confirmed the character Christ had before given of them; for it follows,

Luke 11:48 In-Context

46 So he said, "Woe to you also, legal experts, because you load people [with] burdens hard to bear, and [you] yourselves do not touch the burdens with one of your fingers!
47 Woe to you, because you build the tombs of the prophets, and your fathers killed them!
48 As a result you are witnesses, and you approve of the deeds of your fathers, because they killed them and you build [their tombs]!
49 For this [reason] also the wisdom of God said, 'I will send to them prophets and apostles, and [some] of them they will kill and persecute,'
50 so that the blood of all the prophets that has been shed from the foundation of the world may be required of this generation,

Footnotes 1

  • [a]. A large number of later manuscripts add the words "their tombs" here, with variations of wording; although the words are not likely to be original, it is necessary to supply them in keeping with English style
Scripture quotations marked (LEB) are from the Lexham English Bible. Copyright 2012 Logos Bible Software. Lexham is a registered trademark of Logos Bible Software.