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Passage Research

Matthew 23 — Sermon Preparation

Jesus pronounces seven woes against the scribes and Pharisees for their hypocrisy and laments over Jerusalem. Below is a research summary for Matthew 23, drawn from openly licensed scholarly databases — original-language morphology, classic sermons from the church fathers through the Puritans, and ancient geography data.

39
verses
655 / 204
Greek words / lemmas
41
classic sermon excerpts
8
preachers & commentators

Matthew 23 in the Greek

Distinctive vocabulary of this chapter, based on original-language morphology.

GreekTransliterationStrong'sCountKJV renderings
ὀμνύωomnýōG366010swear
γραμματεύςgrammateúsG11228scribe, town-clerk
ΦαρισαῖοςPharisaîosG53308Pharisee
ὑποκριτήςhypokritḗsG52736hypocrite
ναόςnaósG34855shrine, temple
τυφλόςtyphlósG51855blind
θυσιαστήριονthysiastḗrionG23794altar

How preachers through history handled this text

41 public-domain excerpts on Matthew 23, from the church fathers to the Puritans.

Aquinas25Matthew Henry4J. C. Ryle3Spurgeon3Calvin2Chrysostom2Alexander MacLaren1+1 more

“The scribes and Pharisees were enemies to the gospel of Christ, and therefore to the salvation of the souls of men. It is bad to keep away from Christ ourselves, but worse also to keep others from him. Yet it is no new thing for the show and form of godliness to be made a cloak to the greatest enormities. But dissembled piety will be reckoned double iniquity. They were very busy to turn souls to be of their party. Not for the glory of God and the good of souls, but that they might have the credit and advantage of making converts. …”

— Matthew Henry, Commentary on the Whole Bible (Concise), on Matthew 23:13–33 (Public Domain)

Places in the text

Based on ancient-geography data

  • Jerusalem— Matt 23:37

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