Expositor's Bible Commentary Commentary Luke 11:47

"Woe unto you! for ye build the tombs of the prophets, and your fathers killed them." — Luke 11:47 (ASV)

Some lavish tombs were built for royalty and others before and during the time of Christ. It was all very well for the experts in the law to build new tombs for prophets long since martyred by the experts’ ancestors. Yet this very act ironically symbolized approval of their ancestors’ crimes against God’s messengers. They may even have been seeking to atone for the sins of their ancestors by the elaborate tombs.