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Jesus Denounces Scribes and Pharisees

Then Jesus said to the crowds and to his disciples, ²“The scribes and the Pharisees sit on Moses’ seat; ³therefore, do whatever they teach you and follow it; but do not do as they do, for they do not practice what they teach. ⁴They tie up heavy burdens, hard to bear, and lay them on the shoulders of others; but they themselves are unwilling to lift a finger to move them. ⁵They do all their deeds to be seen by others; for they make their phylacteries broad and their fringes long. ⁶They love to have the place of honor at banquets and the best seats in the synagogues, ⁷and to be greeted with respect in the marketplaces, and to have people call them rabbi. ⁸But you are not to be called rabbi, for you have one teacher, and you are all students. ⁹And call no one your father on earth, for you have one Father—the one in heaven. ¹⁰Nor are you to be called instructors, for you have one instructor, the Messiah. ¹¹The greatest among you will be your servant. ¹²All who exalt themselves will be humbled, and all who humble themselves will be exalted.

¹³ “But woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you lock people out of the kingdom of heaven. For you do not go in yourselves, and when others are going in, you stop them. ¹⁵Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you cross sea and land to make a single convert, and you make the new convert twice as much a child of hell as yourselves.

¹⁶ “Woe to you, blind guides, who say, ‘Whoever swears by the sanctuary is bound by nothing, but whoever swears by the gold of the sanctuary is bound by the oath.’ ¹⁷You blind fools! For which is greater, the gold or the sanctuary that has made the gold sacred? ¹⁸And you say, ‘Whoever swears by the altar is bound by nothing, but whoever swears by the gift that is on the altar is bound by the oath.’ ¹⁹How blind you are! For which is greater, the gift or the altar that makes the gift sacred? ²⁰So whoever swears by the altar, swears by it and by everything on it; ²¹and whoever swears by the sanctuary, swears by it and by the one who dwells in it; ²²and whoever swears by heaven, swears by the throne of God and by the one who is seated upon it.

²³ “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you tithe mint, dill, and cummin, and have neglected the weightier matters of the law: justice and mercy and faith. It is these you ought to have practiced without neglecting the others. ²⁴You blind guides! You strain out a gnat but swallow a camel!

²⁵ “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you clean the outside of the cup and of the plate, but inside they are full of greed and self-indulgence. ²⁶You blind Pharisee! First clean the inside of the cup, so that the outside also may become clean.

²⁷ “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you are like whitewashed tombs, which on the outside look beautiful, but inside they are full of the bones of the dead and of all kinds of filth. ²⁸So you also on the outside look righteous to others, but inside you are full of hypocrisy and lawlessness.

²⁹ “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you build the tombs of the prophets and decorate the graves of the righteous, ³⁰and you say, ‘If we had lived in the days of our ancestors, we would not have taken part with them in shedding the blood of the prophets.’ ³¹Thus you testify against yourselves that you are descendants of those who murdered the prophets. ³²Fill up, then, the measure of your ancestors. ³³You snakes, you brood of vipers! How can you escape being sentenced to hell? ³⁴Therefore I send you prophets, sages, and scribes, some of whom you will kill and crucify, and some you will flog in your synagogues and pursue from town to town, ³⁵so that upon you may come all the righteous blood shed on earth, from the blood of righteous Abel to the blood of Zechariah son of Barachiah, whom you murdered between the sanctuary and the altar. ³⁶Truly I tell you, all this will come upon this generation.

The Lament over Jerusalem

³⁷ “Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to it! How often have I desired to gather your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you were not willing! ³⁸See, your house is left to you, desolate. ³⁹For I tell you, you will not see me again until you say, ‘Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord.’ ”

New Revised Standard Version Bible, copyright 1989, Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Matthew 23:23. The former you ought to have done. This is intended to anticipate their calumny; for they might have put an unfavorable interpretation on his discourse, and charged him with setting no value on what the Law of God had enjoined. He therefore acknowledges that whatever God has enjoined ought to be performed, and that no part of it ought to be omitted, but maintains that zeal for the whole Law is no reason why we ought not to insist chiefly on the principal points. Hence he infers that they overturn the natural order who employ themselves in the smallest matters, when they ought rather to have begun with the principal points; for tithes were only a kind of appendage. Christ therefore affirms that he has no intention to lessen the authority even of the smallest commandments, though he recommends and demands due order in keeping the Law. It is therefore our duty to preserve entire the whole Law, which cannot be violated in any part without contempt for its Author; for He who has forbidden us to commit adultery, and to kill, and to steal, has likewise condemned all impure desire. Hence we conclude that all the commandments are so interwoven with each other, that we have no right to detach one of them from the rest. Wherefore it is also written,

Cursed is every one that performeth not all things that are written, (Deuteronomy 27:26; Galatians 3:10;)

by which words the righteousness of the whole Law, without exception, is enforced. But this reverence, as we have said, does not take away the distinction between the commandments, or the true design of the Law, to which those who truly observe it direct their mind, that they may not merely amuse themselves on the surface.

24. Blind guides. This is s proverbial saying, by which he beautifully describes the affected scrupulousness of hypocrites about trifling matters; for they utterly shrink from very small faults, as if a single transgression appeared to them more revolting than a hundred deaths, and yet they freely permit themselves and others to commit the most heinous crimes. They act as absurdly as if a man were to strain out a small crumb of bread, and to swallow a whole loaf.

Straining out ¹⁰¹¹⁰¹ In rendering the words, οἱ διυλιζοντες τὸυ κύνωπα, Campbell resorts to a circumlocution, who strain your liquor, to avoid swallowing a gnat; and he adds the following note:— E.T. Who strain at a gnat. I do not understand the import of this expression. Some have thought that it has sprung originally from a mere typographical error of some printer, who has made it strain at, instead of strain out.” — The conjecture mentioned by Campbell is strongly confirmed by the earlier English versions. “Blinde leders; clensenge a gnat, but swolowynge a camel.” — (Wyclif, 1380.) “Ye blinde gydes, which strayne out a gnat, and swalowe a cammyll.” — (Tyndale, 1534.) “Ye blynde gydes, which strayne out a gnat, and swalowe a camell.” — (Cranmer, 1539.) “Ye blynde gydes, which strayne out a gnate, and swalow a cammel.” — (Geneva, 1557.) “Blinde guides, that strain a gnat, and swallow a camel.” — (Rheims, 1582.) The coincidence of those versions in supporting the true reading is very remarkable, and the substitution of at for out is more likely to have been the effect of accident than of design. — Ed. a gnat, and swallowing a camel. We know that a gnat is a very small animal, and that a camel is a huge beast. Nothing therefore could be more ridiculous than to strain out the wine or the water, so as not to hurt the jaws by swallowing a gnat, and yet carelessly to gulp down a camel. ¹⁰²¹⁰² “Et cependant ne faire point de difficulté d’engloutir un chameau tout entier;” — “and yet make no difficulty about swallowing a whole camel.” But it is evident that hypocrites amuse themselves with such distinctions; for while they pass by judgment, mercy, and faith, and even tear in pieces the whole Law, they are excessively rigid and severe in matters that are of no great importance; and while in this way they pretend to kiss the feet of God, they proudly spit in his face.

25. For you cleanse the outer part. Our Lord follows out the same statement, and employs a figure for reproaching the scribes with being eagerly bent on this single object of making a brilliant appearance before men. For by the outer part of the dish he metaphorically expresses the outward appearance; as if he had said, “You give yourselves no concern about any cleanness but what appears outwardly, which is quite as if one were carefully to wash off the filth of the dish without, but to leave it filthy within.” That the expression is metaphorical is evident from the second clause, in which the uncleanness within is condemned, because within they are full of intemperance and extortion. He therefore reproves their hypocrisy, in not endeavoring to regulate their life, except before the eyes of men, in order to procure for themselves an empty reputation for holiness. Thus he recalls them to the pure and sincere desire of a holy life. Cleanse first, he says, that which is within; for it would be ridiculous to feast your eyes with outward splendor, and yet to drink out of a cup full of dregs, or in other respects filthy. ¹⁰³¹⁰³ “Plene de lie et de bourbe, ou autrement orde et sale;”—full of dregs and of mud, or otherwise nasty and filthy.”

27 You are like whitened sepulchers. This is a different metaphor, but the meaning is the same; for he compares them to sepulchers, which the men of the world ambitiously construct with great beauty and splendor. As a painting or engraving on sepulchers draws the eyes of men upon them, while inwardly they contain stinking carcasses; so Christ says that hypocrites deceive by their outward appearance, because they are full of deceit and iniquity. The words of Luke are somewhat different, that they deceive the eyes of men, like sepulchers, which frequently are not perceived by those who walk over them; but it amounts to the same meaning, that, under the garb of pretended holiness, there lurks hidden filth which they cherish in their hearts, like a marble sepulcher; for it wears the aspect of what is beautiful and lovely, but covers a stinking carcass, so as not to be offensive to those who pass by. Hence we infer what I have formerly said, that Christ, with a view to the advantage of the simple and ignorant, tore off the deceitful mask which the scribes held wrapped around them in empty hypocrisy; for this warning was advantageous to simple persons, that they might quickly withdraw from the jaws of wolves. Yet this passage contains a general doctrine, that the children of God ought to desire to be pure rather than to appear so.

¹⁰¹ In rendering the words, οἱ διυλιζοντες τὸυ κύνωπα, Campbell resorts to a circumlocution, who strain your liquor, to avoid swallowing a gnat; and he adds the following note:— E.T. Who strain at a gnat. I do not understand the import of this expression. Some have thought that it has sprung originally from a mere typographical error of some printer, who has made it strain at, instead of strain out.” — The conjecture mentioned by Campbell is strongly confirmed by the earlier English versions. “Blinde leders; clensenge a gnat, but swolowynge a camel.” — (Wyclif, 1380.) “Ye blinde gydes, which strayne out a gnat, and swalowe a cammyll.” — (Tyndale, 1534.) “Ye blynde gydes, which strayne out a gnat, and swalowe a camell.” — (Cranmer, 1539.) “Ye blynde gydes, which strayne out a gnate, and swalow a cammel.” — (Geneva, 1557.) “Blinde guides, that strain a gnat, and swallow a camel.” — (Rheims, 1582.) The coincidence of those versions in supporting the true reading is very remarkable, and the substitution of at for out is more likely to have been the effect of accident than of design. — Ed.

¹⁰² “Et cependant ne faire point de difficulté d’engloutir un chameau tout entier;” — “and yet make no difficulty about swallowing a whole camel.”

¹⁰³ “Plene de lie et de bourbe, ou autrement orde et sale;”—full of dregs and of mud, or otherwise nasty and filthy.”