Meaning of "His blood be upon us and our children"?

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RosslynV

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Is this to signify that Jesus’ crucifixion should be blamed on the Jews?
 
Umm… Jesus’s death on the cross was the ultimate sacrifice for forgiveness of our sins and to reconcile us with God. We are all responsible - past, present and future.
 
When a ewe loses a lamb, and a different lamb loses its mother, the blood of the dead lamb is put on the live lamb so that it smells like the lamb who died.

The ewe will think of this new lamb as her own by its scent, and will adopt it, treating it as her own.

We are adopted into God’s family by blood of Jesus, the last sacrifice in atonement for humanity’s sins. His bloid “covers” us, and makes us participants in the New Covenant.

In the OT, God instructed the Israelites to paint their lintels with lamb’s blood to avoid the Angel of Death from visiting their homes; this prefigured Christ’s blood to cover our souls.

We don’t need blood on our doorposts as Christ conquered death. We need Christ’s blood to “cover” our souls because our bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit. Our bodies are just shelters for our souls, like the houses sheltered the Istaelites.

The Israelites were spared physical death by using lamb’s blood as they were commanded. We are now all spared spiritual death by accepting the Blood of the Lamb poured out for us.
 
Miserissima said:
When a ewe loses a lamb, and a different lamb loses its mother, the blood of the dead lamb is put on the live lamb so that it smells like the lamb who died.

The ewe will think of this new lamb as her own by its scent, and will adopt it, treating it as her own.

We are adopted into God’s family by blood of Jesus, the last sacrifice in atonement for humanity’s sins. His bloid “covers” us, and makes us participants in the New Covenant.

In the OT, God instructed the Israelites to paint their lintels with lamb’s blood to avoid the Angel of Death from visiting their homes; this prefigured Christ’s blood to cover our souls.

We don’t need blood on our doorposts as Christ conquered death. We need Christ’s blood to “cover” our souls because our bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit. Our bodies are just shelters for our souls, like the houses sheltered the Istaelites.

The Israelites were spared physical death by using lamb’s blood as they were commanded. We are now all spared spiritual death by accepting the Blood of the Lamb poured out for us.
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+1
 
RosslynV said:
Is this to signify that Jesus’ crucifixion should be blamed on the Jews?
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The Jews were using this expression to mean that they are accepting the responsibility of the decision-making; this is after Pilate had said that he would “wash his hands of it”, meaning he would take no further responsibility than the scourging he ordered. This expression can be seen as a form of oath as in Joshua 2:17-19 or as a penalty for a sinful action as in 1 Kgs. 2:32,33. Given the context that the Jews were proclaiming it, to be responsible for the action after Pilate “washed his hands”, they were assuming the responsibility for the decision (oath). Of course, it later brought judgement on the Holy City meant that His Blood was indeed on their hands as consequence, but not at this point in the text.
 
If I understand this right…that was coming from those Jews who wanted Jesus crucified…and yet the first followers of Christ, His disciples, the first Church…was Jewish.

We have to go back to the Presentation of Our Lord in the temple on the 40th day of His birth, when Mary was told a sword would pierce her soul, that Jesus would be the cause of the rise and fall of many in Israel.

And then St. Paul says the Jews turning to Christ will come in the later days, that the Lord hardened their hearts so all the Gentiles could come in… before them…

Check out www.hebrewcatholic.org

These are Hebrew Catholics, Jewish Catholics.
 
sousley said:
The Jews were using this expressioun to mean that they are accepting the responsibility of the decision-making; this is after Pilate had said that he would “wash his hands of it”, meaning he would take no further responsibility than the scourging he ordered. This expression can be seen as a form of oath as in Joshua 2:17-19 or as a penalty for a sinful action as in 1 Kgs. 2:32,33. Given the context that the Jews were proclaiming it, to be responsible for the action after Pilate “washed his hands”, they were assuming the responsibility for the decision (oath). Of course, it later brought judgement on the Holy City meant that His Blood was indeed on their hands as consequence, but not at this point in the text.
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With all that is accomplished with Christ’s blood having been shed, is it not ironic that the Jews asked “His blood be upon us and our children?”

After all, we the inheritors of their legacy, but not just the death of Christ (since he bore our sins) but also the Resurrection.
 
Miserissima said:
With all that is accomplished with Christ’s blood having been shed, is it not ironic that the Jews asked “His blood be upon us and our children?”

After all, we the inheritors of their legacy, but not just the death of Christ (since he bore our sins) but also the Resurrection.
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I think it was rash. Jesus warned His followers at the sermon on the mount of this very thing when He said:

But I say to you not to swear at all, neither by heaven, for it is the throne of God: Nor by the earth, for it is his footstool: nor by Jerusalem, for it is the city of the great king: Neither shalt thou swear by thy head, because thou canst not make one hair white or black. But let your speech be yea, yea: no, no: and that which is over and above these, is of evil. (Mt 5:34-37).

The Jews didn’t just swear to the judgement of their own accord, but they further invoked a Divine judgement onto their actions, and so Divine judgement was meted out against them.

Certainly, the shedding of Jesus’s Blood was for the benefit of mankind that gave us an opportunity to share in the inheritance of the saints. I couldn’t agree more about the ineffable grace that it affords us. I think that the problem is that throughout the centuries, some have used this event to foster an anti-semitic attitude, which is unacceptable for a Christian, and not a trap for us to fall into. God already judged those that asked Him to do so for their actions. It is not for us to treat Jews today without respect to their human dignity. [at least that’s my take-away, and I do reserve the right to be wrong:)]
 
sousley said:
I think it was rash. Jesus warned His followers at the sermon on the mount of this very thing when He said:

But I say to you not to swear at all, neither by heaven, for it is the throne of God: Nor by the earth, for it is his footstool: nor by Jerusalem, for it is the city of the great king: Neither shalt thou swear by thy head, because thou canst not make one hair white or black. But let your speech be yea, yea: no, no: and that which is over and above these, is of evil. (Mt 5:34-37).

The Jews didn’t just swear to the judgement of their own accord, but they further invoked a Divine judgement onto their actions, and so Divine judgement was meted out against them.

Certainly, the shedding of Jesus’s Blood was for the benefit of mankind that gave us an opportunity to share in the inheritance of the saints. I couldn’t agree more about the ineffable grace that it affords us. I think that the problem is that throughout the centuries, some have used this event to foster an anti-semitic attitude, which is unacceptable for a Christian, and not a trap for us to fall into. God already judged those that asked Him to do so for their actions. It is not for us to treat Jews today without respect to their human dignity. [at least that’s my take-away, and I do reserve the right to be wrong:)]
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Got it! 👍 i hadn’t about antisemitism, just that the Jews asked for the blood to be upon them, and unwittingly they were asking to share in the offer of universal redemption, not particular punishment.
 
Just to add, God does not hold their children responsible–everyone is only responsible for their own sin:
St. John Chrysostom:
What then did they? When they saw the judge washing his hands, and saying, I am innocent, they cried out His blood be on us, and on our children. Matthew 27:25 Then at length when they had given sentence against themselves, he yielded that all should be done.

See here too their great madness. For passion and wicked desire are like this. They suffer not men to see anything of what is right. For be it that you curse yourselves; why do you draw down the curse upon your children also?

Nevertheless, the lover of man, though they acted with so much madness, both against themselves, and against their children, so far from confirming their sentence upon their children, confirmed it not even on them, but from the one and from the other received those that repented, and counts them worthy of good things beyond number. For indeed even Paul was of them, and the thousands that believed in Jerusalem; for, you see it is said, brother, how many thousands of Jews there are which believe. And if some continued in their sin, to themselves let them impute their punishment.
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home.newadvent.org/fathers/200186.htm
 
Thank you for your responses. I love reading them all.

God created Adam from the clay. He blew live giving breath into his nostrils. Where did the blood come from…

Just thinking…
 
The expression “His blood be upon us” is an idiom for taking responsibility for a death (Lev 20:9; Deut 19:10; Josh 2:19; 2 Sam 1:16; Ezek 18:13; 33:4–6). The wicked and corrupt Jewish leaders are taking responsibility for the death of Jesus.

The death of Jesus is not to be blamed on the Jewish people. It was that evil generation (Matt 12:38; 44) and the Jewish leaders of the first century who were responsible for his death, not all Jews.

Most of the first converts to Christianity were Jews. Jesus came to begin the restoration of all Israel (all 12 tribes). He symbolised this when he gathered the 12 apostles around himself, and when he told them that they would be the judges / rulers of the 12 tribes of Israel (Matt 19:28)

There is an open invitation for Jews to accept the Gospel and enter the new covenant as St. Paul says:

“Now I am speaking to you Gentiles. Inasmuch then as I am an apostle to the Gentiles, I magnify my ministry 14in order to make my fellow Jews jealous, and thus save some of them. 15For if their rejection means the reconciliation of the world, what will their acceptance mean but life from the dead?” (Rom 9:13-15)

As for the second part of the phrase “and on our children.” This may point to terrible punishment that came upon the next generation in the judgment that soon fell on Jerusalem which in took place in 70 A.D. Dr Edward Sri and Curtis Mitch make this point in the Catholic Commentary on Sacred Scripture:

“Their reference to Christ’s blood being upon them and their children underscores their seriousness in this. For Matthew’s Gospel, that the second generation is included in this statement may also point to the crowd’s “absorbing the terrible consequences”8 of the judgment that will soon fall on Jerusalem, which in Matthew is expected to take place within a generation (24:34).”

E. Sri & C. Mitch: The Gospel of Matthew (pp. 354–355).
 
RosslynV said:
Is this to signify that Jesus’ crucifixion should be blamed on the Jews?
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I look at it as God speaking thru people even when they have no clue that God is speaking thru them.

Aren’t we taught that it is what Jesus accomplished by His work on the cross in the shedding of His Blood that “covered” sins?

So as I said, it is God telling the Jewish People, YOU ARE COVERED.

God speaks thru many people that do not have a clue that God is speaking thru them.
 
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