Charles Ellicott Commentary Matthew 23:15

"Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye compass sea and land to make one proselyte; and when he is become so, ye make him twofold more a son of hell than yourselves." — Matthew 23:15 (ASV)

To make one proselyte — The zeal of the earlier Pharisees revealed itself in a form of propagandism that reminds us more of the spread of Islam than of Christianity. John Hyrcanus, the last of the Maccabean priest-rulers, had offered the Idumeans the choice of death, exile, or circumcision (Jos. Ant. xiii. 9, § 3).

When the Roman government made such measures impossible, they resorted to every art of persuasion and exulted when they succeeded in enrolling a Gentile convert as a member of their party. But the proselytes made this way were too often a scandal and a byword for reproach. There was no genuine conversion, and those most active in this work were, for the most part, blind leaders of the blind. The vices of the Jew were grafted onto the vices of the Gentile, and the ties of duty and natural affection were ruthlessly torn apart.

The popular Jewish sentiment toward these converts was much like the common Christian feeling of that era toward a converted Jew. Proselytes came to be regarded as the leprosy of Israel, hindering the coming of the Messiah. It became a proverb that no one should trust a proselyte, even to the twenty-fourth generation. Our Lord was, therefore, at least partly expressing the judgment of the more devout Jews when He taught that a proselyte made this way was twofold more the child of hell—that is, of Gehenna—than his teachers.