Because the passage is interrupted by the section heading, and because Jesus now addresses the scribes and Pharisees (he was previously addressing the crowds and his disciples), many translators find it necessary to begin the verse with “Jesus went on to say” or “Jesus then said to the teachers of the Law and the Pharisees.” But since he does address them directly, this addition is not always essential.

Woe: see comment at 11.21.

Scribes and Pharisees now become the persons to whom Jesus speaks, and this represents a shift from the audience indicated in verse 1 (“to the crowds and to his disciples”).

Hypocrites: see comment at 6.2. This is sometimes rendered by a separate sentence: “You are hypocrites!” Good News Translation is good in English: “You hypocrites!”

Jesus does not say because to relate what follows to hypocrites but rather to relate what follows to the woe to you. In other words, the relating is not “You are hypocrites because you lock the door” but is instead “Woe to you because you lock the door.”

You shut the kingdom … against men is employed by Luke as the climax in Jesus’ judgment against the scribes (11.52). But here it functions as the first in the series of seven woes directed against the scribes and the Pharisees. The figure of “shutting” probably means that these men hold in their hands the “key” (that is, Scripture and its interpretation) by which may be opened the door of the Kingdom. But instead of using Scripture as a means of opening the door for people, they use it as a means of “shutting” or “locking” the door and thereby keeping people out. The figure of locking the Kingdom of heaven in people’s faces (see Good News Translation) is translated “You block the entrance to God’s new world” by Die Bibel im heutigen Deutsch and “You hinder people from becoming members of God’s community” by INCL. Translators should use the same expression for kingdom of heaven here as they have throughout the Gospel. See 3.2.

The hypocrisy of the Pharisees is to be condemned because of its two terrible effects: (1) you neither enter yourselves, (2) nor allow those who would enter to go in. It may be appropriate to introduce a new sentence at this place: “As a result, you yourselves do not enter into God’s Kingdom, and you keep others from entering, even though they want to” or “… you block the way for yourselves and for all others who want to enter.”

Quoted with permission from Newman, Barclay M. and Stine, Philip C. A Handbook on the Gospel of Matthew. (UBS Handbook Series). New York: UBS, 1988. For this and other handbooks for translators see here .