Luke 11:48

11:48 They killed the prophets: See 1 Kgs 19:10, 14; Neh 9:26; Jer 2:30; 26:20-24. Luke portrays Jesus as “The Suffering Prophet” Luke 4:22-24.

Tyndale Open Study Notes — © Tyndale Open Resources, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

Luk 11:48. Καὶ, and) Ye bear witness that ye have them for your fathers, and approve of (‘allow’) their deeds. They did not think this: and yet it was true, and it is justly ascribed to them.

Bengel's Gnomon of the New Testament — English translation (T&T Clark, Edinburgh, 1860) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Luk 11:48 points the moral. ἄρα : perhaps with Schleiermacher we should write ἆρα , taking what follows as a question. οἰκοδομεῖτε , ye build , absolutely (without object, vide note 3 above). Tomb-building in honour of dead prophets and killing of living prophets have one root: stupid superstitious reverence for the established order.

The Expositor's Greek Testament, edited by W. Robertson Nicoll (1897–1910) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

When you persecute God’s servants, like mad men, even as your fathers did, though you color it with a pretence of godliness, yet notwithstanding, in that you beautify the sepulchers of the Prophets, what do you else, but glory in your fathers’ cruelty, and set up monuments (as it were) in glory and triumph of it?

Geneva Bible (1599) marginal notes — public domain. Text via Bolls.life.

Verse 48. Truly ye bear witness] Ye acknowledge that those of old who killed the prophets were your fathers, and ye are about to show, by your conduct towards me and my apostles, that ye are not degenerated, that ye are as capable of murdering a prophet now, as they were of old.

Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

(48) Truly ye bear witness that ye allow.—The better MSS. give, Truly are ye witnesses, and ye allow. The word “allow” has, as always in the English Bible, the meaning of “approving of,” “consenting to,” “having pleasure in.” The last phrase is the rendering of the same Greek word in Rom_1:32, and would express the meaning here. The derivation of “allow” from the French allouer and the Latin adlaudare, shows this to be the true sense. On the rest of the verse, see Note on Mat_23:31.

A Bible Commentary for English Readers, edited by Charles John Ellicott (1878–1897) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

48. bear witness...allow] We find the same two words used of St Paul in Act_7:58; Act_8:1. Allow means ‘approve after trial,’ and is derived from allaudare. “The Lord alloweth the righteous,” Psa_11:6 (Prayer-Book Version).

The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

That the blood of all the prophets,.... The same with "all the righteous blood", or the blood of all the righteous men, in Mat 23:35,

which was shed from the foundation of the world: for there were prophets from the beginning, which prophesied of Christ, Luk 1:70 and whose blood was shed very early; for Abel, the son of the first man, and who was the first whose blood was shed, was not only a righteous man, but a prophet; for by the sacrifice which he offered up, he gave a prophetical hint of the sacrifice of Christ, in that he spoke beforehand of it, as being dead he yet speaks: and now the Lord was about to send apostolical prophets, whom the Jews would slay, and he would suffer them to slay, that so the blood of all the former ones,

may be required of this generation; and they be punished for it: just as in Babylon will be found, when God makes inquisition for blood, as he sooner or later always does, the blood of the prophets and saints, and of all that are slain upon earth, ever since Rome papal has been in power, Rev 18:24.

John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

48 Truly ye bear witness that ye allow the deeds of your fathers: for they indeed killed them, and ye build their sepulchres.

Ver. 48. And ye build their sepulchres] And so ye set up the trophies of your fathers’ cruelty.

John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Build, &c. See the notes Matthew xxiii. 29. (Witham)

George Leo Haydock (1774–1849), Haydock's Catholic Family Bible and Commentary, 1859 edition — public domain. Excludes Psalms (Douay-Rheims chapter numbering differs from Protestant) and Deuterocanonical books (Catholic canon only).

Whom they killed, ye build their sepulchres - Just like them pretending great reverence for the ancient prophets, while ye destroy those whom God sends to yourselves. Ye therefore bear witness by this deep hypocrisy that ye are of the very same spirit with them.

John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the Whole Bible (1754–1765) — public domain. Text via the GEBible commentary corpus.

48. After οἰκοδομεῖτε, AC add αὐτῶν τὰ μνημεῖα, which words are omitted by אBDL Ti[236]

[236] Ti. Tischendorf.

48. μάρτυρές ἐστε … συνευδοκεῖτε. We find the same two words used of St Paul in Act 7:58; Act 8:1. ‘Allow’ means ‘approve after trial,’ and is derived from allaudare. “The Lord alloweth the righteous,” Psa 11:6 (Prayer-Book Version).

Cambridge Greek Testament for Schools and Colleges (Cambridge University Press, 1896; 21 vols, various authors incl. Carr, Maclear, Plummer, Farrar, Lumby, Moule, M. R. James, Simcox) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

48.] See on Matt. vv. 34-36.

We have here a remarkable variation of expression in ver. 49, ἡ σοφία τοῦ θεοῦ εἶπεν here = ἐγώ Matt. Various explanations have been given of this. The difficulty is not the variation just noticed, so much as that no such passage exists in the O.T. But I have little doubt that the true explanation is this:—the whole saying is a reference to 2Ch 24:18-22, and so marked a one, that I am surprised no Commentators but Olshausen and Stier should have observed it, and they not thoroughly. That passage opens with remarks of the sacred historian on the delinquency of Judah and Jerusalem after the death of Jehoiada the priest: then ver. 19, ‘He sent prophets to them, to bring them again to the Lord; and they testified against them: but they would not give ear. And the Spirit of God came upon Zechariah the son of Jehoiada the priest, which stood above the people, and said unto them.… And they conspired against him, and stoned him with stones at the commandment of the king in the court of the house of the Lord.… And when he died, he said, The Lord look upon it, and require it.’ The words in our text are not indeed a citation, but an amplification of ver. 19 there—a paraphrase of them, giving the true sense of what the wisdom of God intended by them;—enlarging the mere historical notice which laid hold of God’s purpose only by one thread let down to the earth, into the divine revelation of the whole purpose of God as the counsel of His will in heaven. In Matt. the Lord Jesus Himself, as became the solemnity of that final and awful close of His testimony to His own who received Him not, stands forth as the doer of this work, the sender of the Prophets and Apostles. (On ‘son of Barachias’ see on Matt. ver. 35.)

Perhaps the strangest solution of the difficulty above noticed is that of Meyer (second ed.), who supposes the words to have been inserted here from Matthew, and introduced as a quotation by ἡ σοφ. τ. θ. εἶπεν, which Luke puts into the mouth of Jesus Himself, lasst hier Jesum selbst reden.

Bleek attributes the fact of our Lord having made this event the terminus historicus of their murders of the prophets to the position of the books of Chronicles at the end of the Hebrew Canon: and uses it as a proof that they then held the same place as now.

Henry Alford, The Greek Testament (1849–1861) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

48. μάρτυρές ἐστε καὶ συνευδοκεῖτε. “Ye are witness and consent to” or, “Ye bear witness that ye approve.”1 Mt. has μαρτυρεῖτε only (23:31), which some texts introduce here (A C D). Comp. Saul, who was συνευδοκῶν to the murder of Stephen (Act 8:1). The ἄρα as first word is not classical: comp. Act 9:18.

τῶν πατέρων ὑμῶν. “Your fathers, morally as well as actually; for you carry on and complete their evil deeds.” Externally the Pharisees seemed to honour the Prophets. Really they were dis-honouring them as much as those did who slew them; for they neglected the duties which the Prophets enjoined, and ignored their testimony to Christ.

International Critical Commentary — older volumes (1896–1929), various authors — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Ye bear witness that ye allow [μαρτυρες εστε και συνευδοκειτε] . Rev., more correctly, ye are witnesses and consent. The compound verb means "give your full approval." Ye think [δοκειτε] ; favorably [ευ] ; along with them [συν] .

Marvin R. Vincent, Word Studies in the New Testament (1887–1900) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.