[Footnote 1: The Pharisees excluded men from the kingdom of God by their fastidious casuistry, which rendered entrance into it too difficult, and discouraged the unlearned.]
[Footnote 2: Contact with the tombs rendered any one impure. Great care was, therefore, taken to mark their extent on the ground. Talm. of Bab., Baba Bathra, 58 a; Baba Metsia, 45 b. Jesus here reproached the Pharisees for having invented a number of small precepts which might be violated unwittingly, and which only served to multiply infringements of the law.]
"Ye fools, and blind! for ye pay tithe of mint and anise and cummin, and have omitted the weightier matters of the law, judgment, mercy, and faith: these ought ye to have done, and not to leave the other undone. Ye blind guides, which strain at a gnat, and swallow a camel. Woe unto you!
"Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye make clean the outside of the cup and of the platter;[1] but within they are full of extortion and excess. Thou blind Pharisee,[2] cleanse first that which is within the cup and platter, that the outside of them may be clean also.[3]
[Footnote 1: The purification of vessels was subjected, amongst the
Pharisees, to the most complicated laws (Mark vii. 4.)]
[Footnote 2: This epithet, often repeated (Matt. xxiii. 16, 17, 19, 24, 26), perhaps contains an allusion to the custom which certain Pharisees had of walking with closed eyes in affectation of sanctity.]
[Footnote 3: Luke (xi. 37, and following) supposes, not without reason, that this verse was uttered during a repast, in answer to the vain scruples of the Pharisees.]
"Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites; for ye are like unto whited sepulchres,[1] which indeed appear beautiful outward, but are within full of dead men's bones, and of all uncleanness. Even so ye also outwardly appear righteous unto men, but within ye are full of hypocrisy and iniquity.
[Footnote 1: The tombs being impure, it was customary to whiten them with lime, to warn persons not to approach them. See p. 315, note 3, and Mishnah, Maasar hensi, v. 1; Talm. of Jerus., Shekalim, i. 1; Maasar sheni, v. 1; Moëd katon, i. 2; Sota, ix. 1; Talm. of Bab., Moëd katon, 5 a. Perhaps there is an allusion to the "dyed Pharisees" in this comparison which Jesus uses.]
"Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! because ye build the tombs of the prophets, and garnish the sepulchres of the righteous, and say, 'If we had been in the days of our fathers, we would not have been partakers with them in the blood of the prophets.' Wherefore, ye be witnesses unto yourselves, that ye are the children of them which killed the prophets. Fill ye up then the measure of your fathers. 'Therefore, also,' said the Wisdom of God,[1] 'I will send unto you prophets, and wise men, and scribes; and some of them ye shall kill and crucify; and some of them shall ye scourge in your synagogues, and persecute them from city to city. That upon you may come all the righteous blood shed upon the earth, from the blood of righteous Abel unto the blood of Zacharias, son of Barachias,[2] whom ye slew between the temple and the altar.' Verily, I say unto you, all these things shall come upon this generation."[3]