Do you then fill up the measure of your fathers. He at length concludes that they are not, in this respect, degenerate from their fathers; as if he had said, "It is not now that your nation begins to treat with cruelty the prophets of God; for this is the ancient discipline, this is the custom handed down from the fathers, and, in short, this way of acting is almost natural to you." And yet he does not bid them do what they are doing, to put to death holy teachers, but states figuratively that they have a hereditary right to rise against the servants of God, and that they must be permitted to oppose religion, because in this way they fill up what is wanting in the crimes of their fathers, and finish the web which they had begun. By these words he not only pronounces themselves to be desperate, and incapable of being brought to a sound mind, but warns simple people that there is no reason to wonder, if the prophets of God are ill-treated by the children of murderers.

Fill ye up, then - This is a prediction of what they were about to do. He would have them act out their true spirit, and show what they were, and evince to all that they had the spirit of their fathers, Compare the notes at John 13:27. This was done be putting him to death, and persecuting the apostles.
The measure - The full amount, so as to make it complete. By your slaying me, fill up what is lacking of the iniquity of your fathers until the measure is full; until the national iniquity is complete; until as much has been committed as God can possibly bear, and then shall come upon you all this blood, and you shall be destroyed, Matthew 23:34-35.

Fill ye up then - Notwithstanding the profession you make, ye will fill up the measure of your fathers - will continue to walk in their way, accomplish the fullness of every evil purpose by murdering me; and then, when the measure of your iniquity is full, vengeance shall come upon you to the uttermost, as it did on your rebellious ancestors. The 31st verse should be read in a parenthesis, and then the 32d will appear to be, what it is, an inference from the 30th.
Ye will fill up, or fill ye up - πληρωσατε· but it is manifest that the imperative is put here for the future, a thing quite consistent with the Hebrew idiom, and frequent in the Scriptures. So John 2:19, Destroy this temple, etc., i.e. Ye will destroy or pull down this temple, and I will rebuild it in three days - Ye will crucify me, and I will rise again the third day. Two good MSS. have the word in the future tense: and my old MS. Bible has it in the present - Ge (ye) fulfillen the mesure of youre (your) fadris.

(u) Fill ye up then the measure of your fathers.
(u) A proverb used by the Jews, which has this meaning: You go on also, and follow your ancestors, that at length your wickedness may come to its fulness.

Fill ye up then the measure of your fathers. Of their sins; for there were bounds and limits set how far they should proceed, and no further; as yet they had not got to the end of their iniquity: their fathers had gone great lengths in sin, but their iniquity was not yet full, as is said of the Amorites, Genesis 15:16 these their sons were to fill it up. They had shed the blood of many of the prophets; and indeed there were none of them but they had persecuted and abused, in one shape or another: some they entreated shamefully, others they beat: some they stoned, and others they put to death with the sword, or otherwise; and now their children were about to fill the measure brimful, by crucifying the Son of God, which they were at this time meditating and contriving; and by persecuting and slaying his apostles, and so would bring upon them the vengeance of God. The Jews well enough understood these words, which were spoken to them in an ironical way, and expressing what they were about, and what they would hereafter do, and what would be the issue and consequence of it: they have a saying (o), that "the holy blessed God does not take vengeance on a man,
, "until his measure is filled up"; according to Job 20:22.
Which the Chaldee paraphrase renders,
"when his measure is filled up, then shall he take vengeance on him;
and that this is Christ's sense, appears from what follows,
(o) T. Bab. Sota, fol. 9. 1.

Fill ye up the measure of your fathers. The language of prophecy as well as irony and invective; as if he had said: Fill the measure of the guilt of your fathers to the brim. Crucify the Holy One and thus fill up the cup of iniquity.

Fill ye up - A word of permission, not of command: as if he had said, I contend with you no longer: I leave you to yourselves: you have conquered: now ye may follow the devices of your own hearts. The measure of your fathers - Wickedness: ye may now be as wicked as they.