Matthew 23:2

Saying, The scribes and the Pharisees sit in Moses' seat:

EXPOSITORY (ENGLISH BIBLE)

Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers

(2) The scribes and the Pharisees sit in Moses’ seat.—The words were probably spoken of their collective action as represented in the Sanhedrin, rather than of their individual work as interpreters of the Law. As such, they claimed to be the authoritative exponents of the Law, and our Lord recognises (unless we suppose a latent protest in His words, like that which is veiled in the “full well ye reject” of Mark 7:9) their official claim to reverence.

Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary

23:1-12 The scribes and Pharisees explained the law of Moses, and enforced obedience to it. They are charged with hypocrisy in religion. We can only judge according to outward appearance; but God searches the heart. They made phylacteries. These were scrolls of paper or parchment, wherein were written four paragraphs of the law, to be worn on their foreheads and left arms, Ex 13:2-10; 13:11-16; De 6:4-9; 11:13-21. They made these phylacteries broad, that they might be thought more zealous for the law than others. God appointed the Jews to make fringes upon their garments, Nu 15:38, to remind them of their being a peculiar people; but the Pharisees made them larger than common, as if they were thereby more religious than others. Pride was the darling, reigning sin of the Pharisees, the sin that most easily beset them, and which our Lord Jesus takes all occasions to speak against. For him that is taught in the word to give respect to him that teaches, is commendable; but for him that teaches, to demand it, to be puffed up with it, is sinful. How much is all this against the spirit of Christianity! The consistent disciple of Christ is pained by being put into chief places. But who that looks around on the visible church, would think this was the spirit required? It is plain that some measure of this antichristian spirit prevails in every religious society, and in every one of our hearts.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

Scribes and Pharisees - See the notes at Matthew 3:7.

Moses' seat - Moses was the great legislator of the Jews. By him the Law was given. The office of explaining that Law among the Jews devolved on the scribes and Pharisees. In the synagogues they sat while expounding the Law, and rose when they read it. By "sitting in the seat of Moses" we are to understand authority to teach the Law; or, as he taught the nation by giving the Law, so they taught it by explaining it.

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary

2. Saying, The scribes and the Pharisees sit—The Jewish teachers stood to read, but sat to expound the Scriptures, as will be seen by comparing Lu 4:16 with Lu 4:20.

in Moses' seat—that is, as interpreters of the law given by Moses.

Matthew Poole's Commentary

See Poole on "Matthew 23:3".

Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible

Saying, the Scribes and Pharisees,.... The Persic version adds, the priests: but Christ does not here speak of the sanhedrim, or grand council of the nation, and of their legislative power; but of those that were the teachers of the people, and the interpreters of the law; and of those, who, though they corrupted the word with their glosses and traditions, yet retained some truth, and at least came nearer truth, than the Sadducees; who therefore are omitted, and only Scribes and Pharisees mentioned, who gave the literal and traditional sense of the Scriptures; of whom he says, they

sit in Moses's seat: not that they were his successors in his office as a legislator and mediator; though the Persic version reads it, "sit in the place and chair of Moses"; but they read his law, and explained it to the people: this post and place, as yet, they kept in the office they were, and were to continue; and the people were to regard them so far as they spoke consistent with the law, until it had its full accomplishment in Christ. The allusion is not to the chairs in which the sanhedrim sat in trying and determining causes, but to those in which the doctors sat when they expounded the law; for though they stood up when they read the law, or the prophets, they sat down when they preached out of them: this custom of the synagogue was observed by our Lord; see Luke 4:16.

Geneva Study Bible

{1} Saying, The scribes and the Pharisees {a} sit in Moses' seat:

(1) We ought to listen to whatever we are truly taught from the word of God, even by wicked teachers, but in a way so that we abstain from their evil behaviour.

(a) Because God appointed the order, the Lord would therefore have his word to be heard even from the mouth of hypocrites and hirelings.

EXEGETICAL (ORIGINAL LANGUAGES)

Meyer's NT Commentary

Matthew 23:2. The phrase: “to sit in Moses’ seat” (in the seat which Moses had occupied as lawgiver), is borrowed not from Exodus 18:13, but refers to the later practice of having chairs for teachers (comp. Acts 22:3), and is intended as a figurative mode of describing the functions of one who “acts as a public teacher of the Mosaic law,” in discharging which functions the teacher may be regarded as the representative and successor of Moses. Accordingly, in Rabbinical writers, one who succeeds a Rabbi as the representative of his school is described as יוֹשֵׁב עַל־כִסְאוֹ. See Vitringa, Synag. p. 165 f.

ἐκάθισαν] have seated themselves, have assumed to themselves the duties of this office. In the whole of this phraseology one cannot fail to detect an allusion to the pretensions and self-seeking character of the Pharisees. Comp. 2 Thessalonians 2:4.

Expositor's Greek Testament

Matthew 23:2. ἐπὶ τ. Μ. καθέδρας, on the seat of Moses, short for, on the seat of a teacher whose function it was to interpret the Mosaic Law. The Jews spoke of the teacher’s seat as we speak of a professor’s chair.—ἐκάθισαν, in effect, a gnomic aorist = solent sedere (Fritzsche), not a case of the aorist used as a perfect = have taken and now occupy, etc. (Erasmus). Burton (Syntax) sees in this and other aorists in N. T. a tendency towards use of aorist for perfect not yet realised: “rhetorical figure on the way to become grammatical idiom, but not yet become such,” § 55.—οἱ φαρ. Wendt (L. J., i., 186) thinks this an addition by the evangelist, the statement strictly applying only to the scribes.

Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

2. sit in Moses’ seat] i. e. succeed him as teachers. For sitting as the posture of a teacher cp. ch. Matthew 5:1.

Bengel's Gnomen

Matthew 23:2. Ἐκάθισαν, κ.τ.λ., sit, etc.) Representing Moses, reading and interpreting his law, and even urging more than he enjoined.—οἱ Γραμματεῖς καὶ οἱ Φαρισαῖοι, the Scribes and the Pharisees) The sins which are here enumerated, did not belong all equally to both of these classes; but they had many in common, and participated in many; see Luke 11:45.[983]

[983] 2 And of those sins of the Scribes and Pharisees specified in the discourses of Christ, which are described more fully by Matthew, Mark and Luke, have selected those sins which would most clearly show to the untutored populace why they should beware of the Scribes—viz., their haughtiness, their avarice, and their hypocrisy.—Harm., p. 472.

Pulpit Commentary

Verses 2-12. - The moral character of the scribes and Pharisees, and warning to Christ's disciples. Verse 2. - The scribes and the Pharisees sit in Moses' seat. In the seat of the great judge and lawgiver. This is stated as an undoubted fact (ἐκάθισαν), with no idea of blame attached. Literally, sat on the seat of Moses from time immemorial. These (meaning not individuals, but the collective body) are the authorized expounders and teachers of the Law; their position is assured; they are not to be displaced. The scribes were the party chiefly denoted; they were of the Pharisaical sect; hence the addition, "and the Pharisees," by which is intimated, not that these latter, qua Pharisees, had any teaching office, but that the former shared their religious opinions. The Sadducees seem to have had no popular influence, and were never recognized as leaders. The Levitical priests never appear in the Gospels as teachers or expositors of the Mosaic system; this function of theirs had devolved upon scribes and lawyers. Matthew 23:2

Vincent's Word Studies

Moses' seat (καθέδρας)

Or chair, as Wyc., in allusion to the practice of teachers sitting.