Bible Strands

Matthew 23:30

And you say, ‘If we had lived in the days of our fathers, we would not have been partners with them in shedding the blood of the prophets.’

Berean Standard Bible

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Study note

Setting — Jesus speaks to the scribes and Pharisees in Jerusalem during his final public discourse, immediately following his condemnation of their tomb-building practices. He confronts their defensive claim regarding their hypothetical stance toward historical prophetic violence.

The words — The Greek λέγετε (legete) means "you say," and ἤμεθα (ēmetha) translates to "we were." These verbs anchor the Pharisees' conditional self-justification about their imagined past conduct.

The thread — The claim of moral distance from ancestral violence recalls Jeremiah 2:30, where God notes His people accepted no discipline, and parallels Matthew 23:34, where Jesus predicts his own messengers will face the same fate. Matthew 21:35 further establishes this recurring pattern of religious leaders seizing and killing those sent to them.

Why it lands — The text records the Pharisees asserting they would not have joined their fathers in killing the prophets. It requires readers to examine whether present claims of historical innocence actually obscure ongoing participation in the same patterns of rejection.

Drafted by a language model from the text, its original words and its cross-references, then checked against them. It can still be wrong: open the verse in the app to report it.

The Greek words

καὶkaiandλέγετε·legeteyou say;εἰeiIfἤμεθαēmethawe wereἐνeninταῖςtaistheἡμέραιςhēmeraisdaysτῶνtōnof theπατέρωνpaterōnfathersἡμῶν,hēmōnof us,οὐκouknotἂνanthen wouldἤμεθαēmethawe were ourselves beingαὐτῶνautōnwith themκοινωνοὶkoinōnoipartakersἐνeninτῷtōtheαἵματιaimatibloodτῶνtōnof theπροφητῶν,prophētōnprophets,

King James Version

And say, If we had been in the days of our fathers, we would not have been partakers with them in the blood of the prophets.

Cross-references