Luke - 11:47



47 Woe to you! For you build the tombs of the prophets, and your fathers killed them.

Verse In-Depth

Explanation and meaning of Luke 11:47.

Differing Translations

Compare verses for better understanding.
Woe unto you! for ye build the sepulchres of the prophets, and your fathers killed them.
Woe to you who build the monuments of the prophets: and your fathers killed them.
Woe to you! for ye build the sepulchers of the prophets, and your fathers killed them.
Alas for you! for you repair the tombs of the Prophets, whom your forefathers killed.
A curse is on you! for you make resting-places for the bodies of the prophets, but your fathers put them to death.
Woe to you, who build the tombs of the prophets, while it is your fathers who killed them!
Alas for you! You build the monuments of the prophets whom your ancestors killed.

*Minor differences ignored. Grouped by changes, with first version listed as example.


Historical Commentaries

Scholarly Analysis and Interpretation.

Ye build the sepulchres - That is, ye rebuild and beautify them. See on Matthew 23:29 (note).

(15) Woe unto you! for ye build the sepulchres of the prophets, and your fathers killed them.
(15) Hypocrites honour those saints when they are dead whom they persecute most cruelly when they are alive.

Woe unto you,.... Meaning particularly the lawyers or Scribes, together with the Pharisees, and even the whole body of the people, who in general were of the cast and complexion here described:
for ye build the sepulchres of the prophets; See Gill on Matthew 23:29.
and your fathers killed them; the prophets; "or whom your fathers killed", as read the Syriac, Arabic, and Persic versions; the one put them to death, and the other erected stately monuments over them, or adorned them; and yet both had the same malignant spirit against the faithful servants and messengers of God; and which showed their great hypocrisy.

ye build, &c.--Out of pretended respect and honor, they repaired and beautified the sepulchres of the prophets, and with whining hypocrisy said, "If we had been in the days of our fathers, we should not have been partakers with them in the blood of the prophets," while all the time they "were witnesses to themselves that they were the children of them that killed the prophets" (Matthew 23:29-30); convicting themselves daily of as exact a resemblance in spirit and character to the very classes over whose deeds they pretended to mourn, as child to parent.

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