THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO MATTHEW - Chapter 27 - Verse 25

Verse 25. His blood be on us, etc. That is, let the guilt of putting him to death, if there be any, be on us and our children. We will be answerable for it, and will consent to bear the punishment for it. It is remarked by writers, that among the Athenians, if any one accused another of a capital crime, he devoted himself and children to the same punishment, if the accused was afterwards found innocent. So in all countries the conduct of the parent involves also the children in the consequences of his conduct, The Jews had no right to call down this vengeance on their children, but in the righteous judgment of God it has come upon them. In less than forty years their city and temple were overthrown and destroyed. More than a million of people perished in the siege. Thousands died by famine; thousands by disease; thousands by the sword; and their blood ran down the streets like water, so that, Josephus says, it extinguished things that were burning in the city, Thousands were crucified— suffering the same punishment that they had inflicted on the Messiah. So great was the number of those who were crucified, that, Josephus says, they were obliged to cease from it, "room being wanting for the crosses, and crosses for the men." To this day, also, the curse has remained. They have been a nation scattered and peeled; persecuted almost everywhere, and a hissing and a by-word among men. No single nation probably has suffered so much; and yet they have been preserved. All classes of men; all the governments of the earth, have conspired to overwhelm them with calamity, and yet they still live as monuments of the justice of God, and as proofs, going down from age to age, that the Christian religion is true— standing demonstrations of the crime of their fathers in putting the Messiah to death, and in calling down vengeance on their heads.