Matthew 23:37
Matthew 23:37 - LSB
37 “Jerusalem, Jerusalem, who kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to her! How often I wanted to gather your children together, the way a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, and you did not want it.
ESV has it “and you were unwilling”
Summary
This passage says that it was the leaders of the Jews who did not let the people listen to the teachings of Jesus.
Detailed Exegesis
What we need to understand in this passage is where the assumptions come from. The Arminians assume that “Jerusalem” represents individual Jews who are, therefore, capable of resisting the work and will of Christ. But why this assumption? Upon what can we say that “Jerusalem” means “individual Jews”? This passage comes at the end of what is likely the strongest denunciations of the scribes and Pharisees in all of the Gospels. If we stay consistent to this context then we must come to the conclusion that Jesus is condemning these Jewish leaders, and it is to them that He refers here.
Why the leaders? Because it is to the leaders that God sent prophets. It was the Jewish leaders who killed the prophets and those sent to them. Jesus speaks of “your children,” differentiating those to whom He is speaking from those that the Lord desired to gather together.
Jesus speaks to the leaders about their children that they, the leaders, would not allow Him to “gather.” Jesus was not seeking to gather the leaders, but their children. The “children” of the leaders would be Jews who were hindered by the Jewish leaders from hearing Christ. The “you would not” then is referring to the same men indicated by the context: the Jewish leaders who “were unwilling” to allow those under their authority to hear the proclamation of Christ. This verse, then, is speaking to the same issues raised earlier in Matthew 23:13:
Matthew 23:13 - LSB
13 “But woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites, because you shut off the kingdom of heaven from people; for you do not enter in yourselves, nor do you allow those who are entering to go in.