FALSE Anise Aside Behoved Cumin Cummin Curse Dealing Dill Faith Faithful Faithfulness Former Hypocrites Important Judgement Judgment Justice Kindness Latter Law Leave Matters Mercy Mint Neglect Neglected Neglecting Omitted Ones Ought Pay Pharisees Plants Practiced Provisions Requirements Righteousness Scribes Sorts Spices Sweet-smelling Teachers Tenth Tithe Tithes Undone Weightier Wo Woe Yet
23:23 {7} Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye pay tithe of mint and anise and cummin, and have omitted the weightier [matters] of the law, judgment, mercy, and {t} faith: these ought ye to have done, and not to leave the other undone.
(7) Hypocrites take special care in small matters, and neglect the things which matter the very most.
(t) Faithfulness in the keeping of promises.
23:23 Ye pay tithe of mint and anise and cummin. Insignificant garden herbs. The Jews were bidden to pay tithes of the fruits of the field and of trees (Le 27:30). The Pharisees were scrupulous in paying tithes of garden herbs that were almost valueless, but neglected much more important duties.
23:23 Judgment - That is, justice: Faith - The word here means fidelity.
23:13-33 The scribes and Pharisees were enemies to the gospel of Christ, and therefore to the salvation of the souls of men. It is bad to keep away from Christ ourselves, but worse also to keep others from him. Yet it is no new thing for the show and form of godliness to be made a cloak to the greatest enormities. But dissembled piety will be reckoned double iniquity. They were very busy to turn souls to be of their party. Not for the glory of God and the good of souls, but that they might have the credit and advantage of making converts. Gain being their godliness, by a thousand devices they made religion give way to their worldly interests. They were very strict and precise in smaller matters of the law, but careless and loose in weightier matters. It is not the scrupling a little sin that Christ here reproves; if it be a sin, though but a gnat, it must be strained out; but the doing that, and then swallowing a camel, or, committing a greater sin. While they would seem to be godly, they were neither sober nor righteous. We are really, what we are inwardly. Outward motives may keep the outside clean, while the inside is filthy; but if the heart and spirit be made new, there will be newness of life; here we must begin with ourselves. The righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees was like the ornaments of a grave, or dressing up a dead body, only for show. The deceitfulness of sinners' hearts appears in that they go down the streams of the sins of their own day, while they fancy that they should have opposed the sins of former days. We sometimes think, if we had lived when Christ was upon earth, that we should not have despised and rejected him, as men then did; yet Christ in his Spirit, in his word, in his ministers, is still no better treated. And it is just with God to give those up to their hearts' lusts, who obstinately persist in gratifying them. Christ gives men their true characters.
Alas Cumin Cummin Dealing Dill Faith Faithful Hypocrites Judgement Judgment Justice Law Matters Mercy Mint Neglected Others Ought Pay Pharisees Requirements Scribes Tithe Undone Weightier Woe
Alas Cumin Cummin Dealing Dill Faith Faithful Hypocrites Judgement Judgment Justice Law Matters Mercy Mint Neglected Others Ought Pay Pharisees Requirements Scribes Tithe Undone Weightier Woe
