Luke Chapter 11 verse 52 Holy Bible
Woe unto you lawyers! for ye took away the key of knowledge: ye entered not in yourselves, and them that were entering in ye hindered.
read chapter 11 in ASV
A curse is on you, teachers of the law! for you have taken away the key of knowledge: you did not go in yourselves, and you got in the way of those who were going in.
read chapter 11 in BBE
Woe unto you, the doctors of the law, for ye have taken away the key of knowledge; yourselves have not entered in, and those who were entering in ye have hindered.
read chapter 11 in DARBY
Woe unto you, lawyers! for ye have taken away the key of knowledge: ye entered not in yourselves, and them that were entering in ye hindered.
read chapter 11 in KJV
read chapter 11 in WBT
Woe to you lawyers! For you took away the key of knowledge. You didn't enter in yourselves, and those who were entering in, you hindered."
read chapter 11 in WEB
`Wo to you, the lawyers, because ye took away the key of the knowledge; yourselves ye did not enter; and those coming in, ye did hinder.'
read chapter 11 in YLT
Pulpit Commentary
Pulpit CommentaryVerse 52. - Woe unto you, lawyers! for ye have taken away the key of knowledge: ye entered not in yourselves, and them that were entering in ye hindered. The Talmud gives us the clue to the Master's words of bitter reproach here. There were very many, in that restless age of inquiry, waiting for the consolation of Israel, who longed to enter into the real meaning of psalm and prophecy; but the scribe, the lawyer, and the doctor, with their strange and unreal interpretations, their wild and fantastic legends, their own often meaningless additions, effectually hindered all real study of the Divine oracles. The Talmud - in the form we now possess it - well represents the teaching of these schools so bitterly censured by the Lord.
Ellicott's Commentary
Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers(52) Woe unto you, lawyers!--The "woe" in this case is uttered against those who were, by their very calling, the professed interpreters of the Law. Its form rests on the fact that each scribe or "doctor of the law," in the full sense of the term, was symbolically admitted to his office by the delivery of a key. His work was to enter with that key into the treasure-chambers of the house of the interpreter, and to bring forth thence "things new and old" (Matthew 13:52). The sin of the "lawyers" of that time, the "divines" as we should call them, was that they claimed a monopoly of the power to interpret, and yet did not exercise the power. Wearisome minuteness, a dishonest and demoralising casuistry, fantastic legends, these took the place of a free and reverential study of the meaning of the sacred Books. Those who "were entering in," answer to the souls not far from the kingdom of God, waiting for the consolation of Israel, pressing as with eagerness to the spiritual meaning of Law and Prophet. Such, at one stage of his life, must have been the Evangelist himself. This, it will be noted, is the third occurrence of the word in St. Luke's Gospel. (See Notes on Luke 8:16; Luke 11:33.) It is obvious that the passage, as a whole, throws light on the promise of the "keys" of the kingdom made to Peter. (See Note on Matthew 16:19.)