Luke 11:37

Christ here says many of those things to a Pharisee and his guests, in a private conversation at table, which he afterwards said in a public discourse in the temple (Mt. 23); for what he said in public and private was of a piece. He would not say that in a corner which he durst not repeat and stand to in the great congregation; nor would he give those reproofs to any sort of sinners in general which he durst not apply to them in particular as he met with them; for he was, and is, the faithful Witness. Here is,

I. Christ's going to dine with a Pharisee that very civilly invited him to his house (Luk 11:37); As he spoke, even while he was speaking, a certain Pharisee interrupted him with a request to him to come and dine with him, to come forthwith, for it was dinner-time. We are willing to hope that the Pharisee was so well pleased with his discourse that he was willing to show him respect, and desirous to have more of his company, and therefore gave him this invitation and bade him truly welcome; and yet we have some cause to suspect that it was with an ill design, to break off his discourse to the people, and to have an opportunity of ensnaring him and getting something out of him which might serve for matter of accusation or reproach, Luk 11:53, Luk 11:54. We know not the mind of this Pharisee; but, whatever it was, Christ knew it: if he meant ill, he shall know Christ does not fear him; if well, he shall know Christ is willing to do him good: so he went in, and sat down to meat. Note, Christ's disciples must learn of him to be conversable, and not morose. Though we have need to be cautious what company we keep, yet we need not be rigid, nor must we therefore go out of the world.

II. The offence which the Pharisee took at Christ, as those of that sort had sometimes done at the disciples of Christ, for not washing before dinner, Luk 11:38. He wondered that a man of his sanctity, a prophet, a man of so much devotion, and such a strict conversation, should sit down to meat, and not first wash his hands, especially being newly come out of a mixed company, and there being in the Pharisee's dining-room, no doubt, all accommodations set ready for it, so that he need not fear being troublesome; and the Pharisee himself and all his guests, no doubt, washing, so that he could not be singular; what, and yet not wash? What harm had it been if he had washed? Was it not strictly commanded by the canons of their church? It was so, and therefore Christ would not do it, because he would witness against their assuming a power to impose that as a matter of religion which God commanded them not. The ceremonial law consisted in divers washings, but this was none of them, and therefore Christ would not practise it, no not in complaisance to the Pharisee who invited him, nor though he knew that offence would be taken at his omitting it.

III. The sharp reproof which Christ, upon this occasion, gave to the Pharisees, without begging pardon even of the Pharisee whose guest he now was; for we must not flatter our best friends in any evil thing.

1. He reproves them for placing religion so much in those instances of it which are only external, and fall under the eye of man, while those were not only postponed, but quite expunged, which respect the soul, and fall under the eye of God, Luk 11:39, Luk 11:40. Now observe here, (1.) The absurdity they were guilty of: "You Pharisees make clean the outside only, you wash your hands with water, but do not wash your hearts from wickedness; these are full of covetousness and malice, covetousness of men's goods, and malice against good men." Those can never be reckoned cleanly servants that wash only the outside of the cup out of which their master drinks, or the platter out of which he eats, and take no care to make clean the inside, the filth of which immediately affects the meat or drink. The frame or temper of the mind in every religious service is as the inside of the cup and platter; the impurity of this infects the services, and therefore to keep ourselves free from scandalous enormities, and yet to live under the dominion of spiritual wickedness, is as great an affront to God as it would be for a servant to give the cup into his master's hand, clean wiped from all the dust on the outside, but within full of cobwebs and spiders. Ravening and wickedness, that is, reigning worldliness and reigning spitefulness, which men think they can find some cloak and cover for, are the dangerous damning sins of many who have made the outside of the cup clean from the more gross, and scandalous, and inexcusable sins of whoredom and drunkenness. (2.) A particular instance of the absurdity of it: "Ye fools, did not he that made that which is without make that which is within also? Luk 11:40. Did not that God who in the law of Moses appointed divers ceremonial washings, with which you justify yourselves in these practices and impositions, appoint also that you should cleanse and purify your hearts? He who made laws for that which is without, did not he even in those laws further intend something within, and by other laws show how little he regarded the purifying of the flesh, and the putting away of the filth of that, if the heart be not made clean?" Or, it may have regard to God not only as a Lawgiver, but (which the words seem rather to import) as a Creator. Did not God, who made us these bodies (and they are fearfully and wonderfully made), make us these souls also, which are more fearfully and wonderfully made? Now, if he made both, he justly expects we should take care of both; and therefore not only wash the body, which he is the former of, and make the hands clean in honour of his work, but wash the spirit, which he is the Father of, and get the leprosy in the heart cleansed.

To this he subjoins a rule for making our creature-comforts clean to us (Luk 11:41): "Instead of washing your hands before you go to meat, give alms of such things as you have" (ta enonta - of such things as are set before you, and present with you); "let the poor have their share out of them, and then all things are clean to you, and you may use them comfortably." Here is a plain allusion to the law of Moses, by which it was provided that certain portions of the increase of their land should be given to the Levite, the stranger, the fatherless, and the widow; and, when that was done, what was reserved for their own use was clean to them, and they could in faith pray for a blessing upon it, Deu 26:12-15. Then we can with comfort enjoy the gifts of God's bounty ourselves when we send portions to them for whom nothing is prepared, Neh 8:10. Job ate not his morsel alone, but the fatherless ate thereof, and so it was clean to him (Job 31:17); clean, that is, permitted and allowed to be used, and then only can it be used comfortably. Note, What we have is not our own, unless God have his dues out of it; and it is by liberality to the poor that we clear up to ourselves our liberty to make use of our creature-comforts.

2. He reproves them for laying stress upon trifles, and neglecting the weighty matters of the law, Luk 11:42. (1.) Those laws which related only to the means of religion they were very exact in the observance of, as particularly those concerning the maintenance of the priests: Ye pay tithe of mint and rue, pay it in kind and to the full, and will not put off the priests with a modus decimandi or compound for it. By this they would gain reputation with the people as strict observers of the law, and would make an interest in the priests, in whose power it was many a time to do them a kindness; and no wonder if the priests and the Pharisees contrived how to strengthen one another's hands. Now Christ does not condemn them for being so exact in paying tithes (these things ought ye to have done), but to think that this would atone for the neglect of their greater duties; for, (2.) Those laws which relate to the essentials of religion they made nothing of: You pass over judgment and the love of God, you make no conscience of giving men their dues and God your hearts.

3. He reproves them for their pride and vanity, and affectations of precedency and praise of men (Luk 11:43): "Ye love the uppermost seats in the synagogues" (or consistories where the elders met for government); "if you have not those seats, you are ambitious of them; if you have, you are proud of them; and you love greetings in the markets, to be complimented by the people and to have their cap and knee." It is not sitting uppermost, or being greeted, that is reproved, but loving it.

4. He reproves them for their hypocrisy, and their colouring over the wickedness of their hearts and lives with specious pretences (Luk 11:44): "You are as graves overgrown with grass, which therefore appear not, and the men that walk over them are not aware of them, and so they contract the ceremonial pollution which by the law arose from the touch of a grave." These Pharisees were within full of abominations, as a grave of putrefaction; full of covetousness, envy, and malice; and yet they concealed it so artfully with a profession of devotion, that it did not appear, so that they who conversed with them, and followed their doctrine, were defiled with sin, infected with their corruptions and ill morals, and yet, they making a show of piety, suspected no danger by them. The contagion insinuated itself, and was insensibly caught, and those that caught it thought themselves never the worse.

IV. The testimony which he bore also against the lawyers or scribes, who made it their business to expound the law according to the tradition of the elders, as the Pharisees did to observe the law according to that tradition.

1. There was one of that profession who resented what he said against the Pharisees (Luk 11:45): "Master, thus saying thou reproachest us also, for we are scribes; and we are therefore hypocrites?" Note, It is a common thing for unhumbled sinners to call and count reproofs reproaches. It is the wisdom of those who desire to have their sin mortified to make a good use of reproaches that come from ill will, and to turn them into reproofs. If we can in this way hear of our faults, and amend them, it is well: but it is the folly of those who are wedded to their sins, and resolved not to part with them, to make an ill use of the faithful and friendly admonitions given them, which come from love, and to have their passions provoked by them as if they were intended for reproaches, and therefore fly in the face of their reprovers, and justify themselves in rejecting the reproof. Thus the prophet complained (Jer 6:10): The word of the Lord is to them a reproach; they have no delight in it. This lawyer espoused the Pharisee's cause, and so made himself partaker of his sins.

2. Our Lord Jesus thereupon took them to task (Luk 11:46): Woe unto you also, ye lawyers; and again (Luk 11:52): Woe unto you lawyers. They blessed themselves in the reputation they had among the people, who thought them happy men, because they studied the law, and were always conversant with that, and had the honour of instructing the people in the knowledge of that; but Christ denounced woes against them, for he sees not as man sees. This was just upon him for taking the Pharisee's part, and quarrelling with Christ because he reproved them. Note, Those who quarrel with the reproofs of others, and suspect them to be reproaches to them, do but get woes of their own by so doing.

(1.) The lawyers are reproved for making the services of religion more burdensome to others, but more easy to themselves, than God had made them (Luk 11:46): "You lade men with burdens grievous to be borne, by your traditions, which bind them out from many liberties God has allowed them, and bind them up to many slaveries which God never enjoined them, to show your authority, and to keep people in awe; but you yourselves touch them not with one of your fingers;" that is, [1.] "You will not burden yourselves with them, nor be yourselves bound by those restraints with which you hamper others." They would seem, by the hedges they pretended to make about the law, to be very strict for the observance of the law; but, if you could see their practices, you would find that they not only make nothing of those hedges themselves, but make nothing of the law itself neither: thus the confessors of the Romish church are said to do with their penitents. [2.] "You will not lighten them to those you have power over; you will not touch them, that is, either to repeal them or to dispense with them when you find them to be burdensome and grievous to the people." They would come in with both hands to dispense with a command of God, but not with a finger to mitigate the rigour of any of the traditions of the elders.

(2.) They are reproved for pretending a veneration for the memory of the prophets whom their fathers killed, when yet they hated and persecuted those in their own day who were sent to them on the same errand, to call them to repentance, and direct them to Christ, Luk 11:47-49. [1.] These hypocrites, among other pretences of piety, built the sepulchres of the prophets; that is, they erected monuments over their graves, in honour of them, probably with large inscriptions containing high encomiums of them. They were not so superstitious as to enshrine their relics, or to think their devotions the more acceptable to God for being offered at the tombs of the martyrs; they did not burn incense or pray to them, or plead their merits with God; they did not add that iniquity to their hypocrisy; but, as if they owned themselves the children of the prophets, their heirs and executors, they repaired and beautified the monuments sacred to their pious memory. [2.] Notwithstanding this, they had an inveterate enmity to those in their own day that came to them in the spirit and power of those prophets; and, though they had not yet had an opportunity of carrying it far, yet they would soon do it, for the Wisdom of God said, that is, Christ himself would so order it, and did now foretel it, that they would slay and persecute the prophets and apostles that should be sent them. The Wisdom of God would thus make trial of them, and discover their odious hypocrisy, by sending them prophets, to reprove them for their sins and warn them of the judgments of God. Those prophets should prove themselves apostles, or messengers sent from heaven, by signs, and wonders, and gifts of the Holy Ghost. Or, "I will send them prophets under the style and title of apostles, who yet shall produce as good an authority as any of the old prophets did; and these they shall not only contradict and oppose, but slay and persecute, and put to death." Christ foresaw this, and yet did not otherwise than as became the Wisdom of God in sending them, for he knew how to bring glory to himself in the issue, by the recompences reserved both for the persecutors and the persecuted in the future state. [3.] That therefore God will justly put another construction upon their building the tombs of the prophets than what they would be thought to intend, and it shall be interpreted their allowing the deeds of their fathers (Luk 11:45); for, since by their present actions it appeared that they had no true value for their prophets, the building of their sepulchres shall have this sense put upon it, that they resolved to keep them in their graves whom their fathers had hurried thither. Josiah, who had a real value for prophets, thought it enough not to disturb the grave of the man of God at Bethel: Let no man move his bones, Kg2 23:17, Kg2 23:18. If these lawyers will carry the matter further, and will build their sepulchres, it is such a piece of over-doing as gives cause to suspect an ill design in it, and that it is meant as a cover for some design against prophecy itself, like the kiss of a traitor, as he that blesseth his friend with a loud voice, rising early in the morning, it shall be counted a curse to him, Pro 27:14.

[4.] That they must expect no other than to be reckoned with, as the fillers up of the measure of persecution, Luk 11:50, Luk 11:51. They keep up the trade as it were in succession, and therefore are responsible for the debts of the company, even those it has been contracting all along from the blood of Abel, when the world began, to that of Zacharias, and so forward to the end of the Jewish state; it shall all be required of this generation, this last generation of the Jews, whose sin in persecuting Christ's apostles would exceed any of the sins of that kind that their fathers were guilty of, and so would bring wrath upon them to the uttermost, Th1 2:15, Th1 2:16. Their destruction by the Romans was so terrible that it might well be reckoned the completing of God's vengeance upon that persecuting nation.

(3.) They are reproved for opposing the gospel of Christ, and doing all they could to obstruct the progress and success of it, Luk 11:52. [1.] They had not, according to the duty of their place, faithfully expounded to the people those scriptures of the Old Testament which pointed at the Messiah, which if they had been led into the right understanding of by the lawyers, they would readily have embraced him and his doctrine: but, instead of that, they had perverted those texts, and had cast a mist before the eyes of the people, by their corrupt glosses upon them, and this is called taking away the key of knowledge; instead of using that key for the people, and helping them to use it aright, they hid it from them; this is called, in Matthew, shutting up the kingdom of heaven against men, Mat 23:13. Note, those who take away the key of knowledge shut up the kingdom of heaven. [2.] They themselves did not embrace the gospel of Christ, though by their acquaintance with the Old Testament they could not but know that the time was fulfilled, and the kingdom of God was at hand; they saw the prophecies accomplished in that kingdom which our Lord Jesus was about to set up, and yet would not themselves enter into it. Nay, [3.] Them that without any guidance or assistance of theirs were entering in they did all they could to hinder and discourage, by threatening to cast them out of the synagogue, and otherwise terrifying them. It is bad for people to be averse to revelation, but much worse to be adverse to it.

Lastly, In the close of the chapter we are told how spitefully and maliciously the scribes and Pharisees contrived to draw him into a snare, Luk 11:53, Luk 11:54. They could not bear those cutting reproofs which they must own to be just; but what he had said against them in particular would not bear an action, nor could they ground upon it any criminal accusation, and therefore, as if, because his reproofs were warm, they hoped to stir him up to some intemperate heat and passion, so as to put him off his guard, they began to urge him vehemently, to be very fierce upon him, and to provoke him to speak of many things, to propose dangerous questions to him, laying wait for something which might serve the design they had of making him either odious to the people, or obnoxious to the government, or both. Thus did they seek occasion against him, like David's enemies that did every day wrest his words, Psa 56:5. Evil men dig up mischief. Note, Faithful reprovers of sin must expect to have many enemies, and have need to set a watch before the door of their lips, because of their observers that watch for their halting. The prophet complains of those in his time who make a man an offender for a word, and lay a snare for him that reproveth in the gate, Isa 29:21. That we may bear trials of this kind with patience, and get through them with prudence, let us consider him who endured such contradiction of sinners against himself.

Matthew Henry's Commentary on the Whole Bible (1708–1710) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

Luk_11:37-39

A certain Pharisee besought Him to dine with him.

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The Pharisees reproved

I. THE INVITATION.

1. The prominence with which the Pharisees figure in our Lords life is noticeable.

(1) In view of their profession of preeminent piety.

(2) In view of their scrupulous conformity to all the outward forms of religion.

(3) In view of their bitter emnity against Jesus, and their craft and various forms of cunning used to ensnare Him.

(4) What a commentary on the powerlessness as well as hollowness of attention on the mere formalities of religion.

II. OUR LORDS ACCEPTANCE OF THE INVITATION.

1. Our Lord accepted the invitation with full knowledge of the insincerity with which it was offered.

(1) But He knew it would give Him the opportunity of giving utterance to truths which the occasion would naturally call forth.

(2) May we appreciate the value of opportunity.

2. Our Lord accepted the invitation with full knowledge of the painful consequence that would follow His honest utterances on the occasion. We must not shrink on account of consequences to speak the truth which God gives.

III. THE SURPRISE OF THE PHARISEE.

1. This surprise was natural from the Pharisees standpoint.

2. And this ceremonial washing had a high moral design.

(1) To remind constantly of the need of inward purity.

(2) But its spiritual significance was lost sight of in the mere rite itself.

3. Our Lords omission to wash before the meal was premeditated.

(1) That He did nothing that was not premeditated, shows this.

(2) The moral lessons He drew which the occasion furnished Him, prove this.

(3) In our Lords life the lower was ever sacrificed for the higher.

IV. THE PRACTICAL LESSONS WHICH OUR LORD DREW.

1. From the folly and wickedness of having a form of godliness while denying its power.

2. A lesson on true cleanliness.

V. THE FEARFUL JUDGMENTS PRONOUNCED ON RELIGIOUS FORMALISTS.

1. Upon the formalists who made great pretensions to piety--the Pharisees.

2. Upon the formalists who made great pretensions to Scriptural knowledge--scribes.

3. Upon the formalists who made great pretensions to exact analysis of the law--lawyers.

Lessons:

1. In social life our Lord gives an example of impartiality in His attention and interest: publicans, sinners, Pharisees--invitations from all alike He accepted.

2. In social life our Lord gives us an example of turning every incident to practical and spiritual account.

3. In social life our Lord gives us an example of inflexible righteousness, conjoined with loving sympathy. (D. C. Hughes, M. A.)

Pharisaical religion

I. THE SEVERAL SIGNS OR DEVELOPMENTS OF PHARISAICAL RELIGION.

1. The substitution of external for spiritual purity.

2. Attention to trifles may be compatible with neglect of great duties.

3. Honour is sought from men; the honour which comes from God only is despised.

4. Doctrines and practices may be taught by those who neither believe-their own doctrines nor observe their own precepts.

II. THE EVIL AND CONDEMNATION OF PHARISAIC RELIGION.

1. It is misleading to observers.

2. It is repugnant to God.

3. It is disastrous to the spiritual life of those who trust to it. Men begin by deceiving others, and end by deceiving themselves. (J. R.Thomson, M. A.)

Outward show and inward lack

It is unfortunately not difficult to find illustrations of outward show and inward lack. The beautiful ivy-covered wall which crumbles at a touch; the rosy apple worm-eaten at the core; the leafy fig-tree which yet bears no figs; the luxuriant growth which covers the morass; the poison-ivy, fair to look at but dangerous to the touch; the rustic seat, inviting to rest, from which the serpent springs up,--may serve as examples. In mediaeval writings, mention is often made of poisonous rings. Outwardly they looked like other rings, a narrow band of gold with a clear diamond set in it. But when the ring was placed on the hand a slight puncture was made from behind the gem, and a little poison injected into the finger, and so the death of the wearer was caused, What an emblem of the Pharisee! Every child knows what a sham is. Perhaps there is not one of them but has sometime received from a funny playfellow a pleasant-looking sweetmeat, which when taken into the mouth, nipped and burned the tongue. Or they may have taken up, in a friends house, what they thought was a book, and found it to be only a box imitation of one. It will be easy then to show them how the same thing appears in human things. The merchant who sells oleomargarine under the name of butter is, like his goods, a sham. The church-member who stands up staunchly for Sabbath observance and regular attendance at church, and yet during the week tells business lies and makes dishonest profits, is a sham. And the boy or girl who is known at Sunday-school as one of the best scholars, but at home is ill-natured and selfish and revengeful, is also a sham. Teach the children to be sincere. An inconsistent person is like a sum in addition, with the wrong answer at the bottom. Everybody can run up the column of figures and see how wrong the summing up is. Show how the scholars may make the sum of their life-arithmetic correct. Or the insincere person may be compared to the baskets of peaches sometimes sold at the doors--a few large, ripe peaches at the top, but, when these are lifted away, nothing but unripe or decaying fruit beneath. Who would wish his life to be like that? (Sunday School Times.)

Hypocrisy branded

Hypocrites resemble looking-glasses, which present the faces which are not in them. Oh, how desirous are men to put the fairest gloves upon the foulest hands; and the finest paint upon the rottenest posts! To counterfeit the coin of heaven, is to commit treason against the King of heaven. Who would spread a curious cloth upon a dusty table? If a mariner set sail in an unsound bottom, he may reasonably expect to lose his voyage. No wise virgin would carry a lamp without light. O professor, either get the latter or part with the former. None are so black in the eyes of the Deity as those who paint spiritual beauty for spirit … A false friend is worse than an open enemy. A painted harlot is less dangerous than a painted hypocrite. A treacherous Judas is more abhorred of God than a bloody Pilate. Christians! remember the sheeps clothing will soon be stripped from the wolfs back. The velvet plaster of profession shall not always conceal the offensive ulcer of corruption. Neither the ship of formality nor hypocrisy will carry one person to the harbour of felicity. The blazing lamps of foolish virgins may light them to the bridegrooms gate, but not into his chamber … Oh, what vanity it is to lop off the boughs, and leave the roots which can send forth more; or to empty the cistern, and leave the fountain running which can soon fill it again I Such may swim in the water as the visible church; but when the net is drawn to shore, they must be thrown away as bad fishes. Though the tares and the wheat may grow in the field together, yet they will not be housed in the granary together. (Archbishop Secker.)

Hypocrisy sometimes difficult to discover

Formality frequently takes its dwelling near the chambers of integrity, and so assumes its name; the soul not suspecting that hell should make so near an approach to heaven. A rotten post, though covered with gold, is more fit to be burned in the fire, than for the building of a fabric. Where there is a pure conscience, there will be a pure conversation. The dial of our faces does not infallibly show the time of day in our hearts; the humblest looks may enamel the former, while unbounded pride covers the latter. Unclean spirits may inhabit the chamber when they look not out at the window. A hypocrite may be both the fairest and the foulest creature in the world; he may be fairest outwardly in the eyes of man, and foulest inwardly in the sight of God. How commonly do such unclean swans cover their black flesh with their white feathers! Though such wear the mantle of Samuel, that should bear the name of Satan. (Archbishop Secker.)

Conventional notions of sin

If you ask the Pharisee of old what sin was--Well, he said, it is eating without washing your hands; it is drinkingwine without baying first of all strained out the gnats, for those insects are unclean, and if you should swallow any of them they will render you defiled. His repentance dealt with his having touched a Gentile, or having come on the windside of a Publican. Many in these days have the same notion, with a variation. We have read of a Spanish bandit, who, when he confessed before his father-confessor, complained that one sin hung with peculiar weight upon his soul that was of peculiar atrocity. He had stabbed a man on a Friday, and a few drops of the blood of the wound had fallen on his lips, by which he had broken the precepts of holy church, in having tasted animal food on a fast day. The murder did not seem to arouse in his conscience any feeling of remorse at all--not one atom--he would have done the same to-morrow; but an accidental violation of the canons of mother church excited all his fears. (C. H. Spurgeon.)

Neglecting the inside

In Queen Elizabeths time, the way in which they cleaned out the halt of a castle, the floor of which might be covered with remnants of food and all manner of abominations, was to strew another layer of rushes over the top of the filth, and then they thought themselves quite neat and respectable. And that is what a great many of you do, cover the filth well up with a sweet smelling layer of conventional proprieties and think yourselves clean, and the pinks of perfection. (A. Maclaren, D. D.)

Heathen notions of sin

A missionary in India writes about what the people there call sin. He says: Travelling across the country one day, I took shelter from the sun in a native hut. The man kindly spread a mat for me, and the shade of the thatched roof was very acceptable. Soon a large number of poor men, who had been working in the muddy road, came there to eat their mid-day meal of rice. A young man of a better class came a little afterwards. While the rice was cooking at the foot of a tree outside, I began to tell them about Jesus. But soon the young man interrupted me, saying, Sahib, I have not so much need of salvation as these men have, and he pointed to their mud-covered legs, and thought of his own white clothes so free from mire. But I said again that all are sinners. There is none that doeth good, no not one. At last he said, Ha! I made a mistake. We are all sinners. Another day a man said to me, Sahib, you are a great sinner; as he said so he looked at my dusty boots and trousers, and then at my forehead streaming with perspiration. He had noticed how I had spoken to the people as though they were my brothers, and he concluded that if I were not a great sinner I should never be so poor, or have to work so hard, or mix so freely with the natives. Hindus, you see, think that God gives riches to the good and poverty to the bad. Once a man among the crowd said to me when I was preaching, Yes, thats true; we may do anything to get salvation, even sin. This was a strange mixture of ideas, was it not? But it shows that they do not think of salvation as freedom from sin. We have to teach them this. They do not even know what sin is. How can they, if they know not the law of God? If you ask a large crowd of Hindus the question, What is sin? they will answer in a moment, Eating beef. They say there are two unpardonable sins--killing a Brahmin and killing a cow. Sometimes we are asked, most seriously, Did Jesus Christ eat meat? They think that if He did, He too was a sinner. From this it will appear how difficult it is to get natives to understand what sin is not. (The Gospel in all Lands.)

The Biblical Illustrator, edited by Joseph S. Exell (c. 1880s–1900s) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Luk 11:37. And as he spake, a Pharisee besought him to dine with him — Our Lord having proved the truth of his mission, against the malicious cavils of his enemies, in the manner above stated, when he had made an end of speaking, one of the Pharisees present invited him to dine with him. It is not said whether he gave him the invitation as a mark of respect for him, or with an insidious design. The severity with which Jesus reproved the superstition of the Pharisees, while he sat at meat with them, and the malice which they discovered, in urging him to say things offensive to the magistrate or to the people, make it probable that the latter rather was the case. Nevertheless, he accepted the invitation, and went along with the Pharisee, and sat down at table without washing, as, it seems, all the other guests had done. And when the Pharisee saw it, he marvelled, &c. — Expressed great surprise at our Lord’s showing such an open contempt of their traditions. And the Lord said, Now ye Pharisees — Probably many of them were present at the Pharisee’s house; make clean the outside of the cup, &c. — Ye are at great pains to keep every thing clean that touches your food, lest your bodies should be defiled in eating; but ye are at no pains to keep your minds clean from pollutions that are incomparably worse, — the pollutions of rapine, covetousness, and wickedness. Ye fools, did not he that made that which is without, &c. — Did not he, who made the body, make the soul also? Wherefore ye are grossly stupid and foolish, not to see, that, if God requires purity of body, because it is his own workmanship, he will much more insist on purity of mind, which is the nobler part of human nature. And therefore, instead of that scrupulousness with respect to meats and washings, which engrosses so much of your attention, you ought to apply yourselves to the duties of justice, mercy, and charity, as an evidence that your hearts are right with God, that you love him better than the world, and prefer the pleasing of him to amassing wealth, or attaining any temporal good. It is justly observed here, by Dr. Macknight, that “we are not to imagine alms-giving was particularly mentioned by Christ, in his exhortation to the Pharisees, because it is of greater value and necessity than the other virtues. He recommended it to that sect, because they were generally remarkable for their covetousness and extortion, vices which must be repented of, by making restitution to those who have been injured by them. And when these cannot be known or found, the compensation must be made to the poor, as having the next right; because what is given to them is lent to God; but the Pharisees were of an incorrigibly stubborn disposition, which no instruction, however mild or persuasive, could influence; wherefore our Lord, on this occasion, wisely treated them with a kind and wholesome severity, denouncing most dreadful woes against them for being so zealous in the ceremonial institutions of religion, while they utterly neglected the precepts of morality.” Wo unto you — That is, miserable are you. In the same manner is the phrase to be understood throughout the chapter; for ye tithe, &c. — Ye pay tithes of these things, and pass over judgment and the love of God — Ye show such care and exactness in performing ceremonial precepts, that ye do not neglect even the least of them; but the great duties of godliness and righteousness, of the love of God and all mankind, and the duties of truth, justice, mercy, and charity, flowing therefrom, ye utterly neglect, as things of no importance in comparison. Nevertheless, these ought ye to have done — The duties of piety and morality ought to have been the principal objects of your care, while, at the same time, the other should not have been left undone. See on Mat 23:23-26.

Joseph Benson's Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1811–1818) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

§ 46.—JESUS, DINING WITH A PHARISEE, UTTERS WOES ON SCRIBES, PHARISEES, AND LAWYERS, Luk_11:37-54.

We have here a part of the war waged by the hierarchy against Jesus in regard to ceremonial washing. Fully knowing the state of the controversy, a scribe, strenuous on that point, invites our Lord, personally, to a dinner, in a company like-minded with himself. Our Lord on his entrance accepts the issue, by omitting the much contested ablutions. The Pharisee is amazed, and our Lord, recognizing the drift of the company, unfolds the character and destiny of the hierarchy to their own view. The strain of indignant oratory contains some of the same strokes of rebuke which he addressed at still greater length, and with mightier exhibition of power, on a more public occasion at a later period. See Matthew 22.

37. Besought him—Doubtless in full concert with the set mentioned in Luk_11:53.

Sat down—In the Greek lay down or reclined, as was the custom of the ancients at their meals.

The narrative that follows suggests the following queries and answers: What were the grounds of opposition on the part of the Jews, and the reasons of their rejection of Jesus of Nazareth? We may answer: First, While Jesus accepted Moses, and made the Old Testament the basis of his system, he assailed and aimed to abolish, as false and corrupt, the pretended oral tradition, with its infinite mass of petty distinctions and ritual observances, in which the Jewish doctors so much delighted, and which, was the source of all their influence and power with the people. Second, Whereas they desired a Messiah of a political and warlike character, Jesus was a moral type, and only a Saviour from sin; and this was an unpardonable disappointment of all their hopes. Third, Even the ceremonial law of Moses, with all its sacrifices and passovers, and its great body of priesthood, Jesus proposed to abolish, as being all fulfilled and centered in HIMSELF; thus making the powerful and ruling class his unanimous enemies. Even the pride of the Jewish state, with its temple and favour with God, he proposed to abolish by bringing the hated Gentiles into the Church of God, and to reduce Israel to the level of the rest of the world. Thus it was that rabbies, priests, and rulers held him as a subverter, who aimed at the destruction of their interests and power.

What were the reasons that the common people heard him gladly? First, They had no power or position which they feared he would overthrow, so that they could hear him without previous prejudice or jealousy. Second, His miracles, through all their regions, aroused the whole mass of their community; and as they were entirely miracles of love, a gratitude and tenderness towards him arose in their hearts. His miracles of mercy prepared the way for his lessons of mercy. And as he descended to the lowly, and spoke in popular parables and beautiful analogies, drawn from nature, he won their hearts. Third, He spoke to the hearts of men; to their consciences; to their intuitive feelings; to their wants, and to their sorrows. He showed them their misery; and when he spoke of forgiving their sins, they were taught by his miracles to see that he had such power on earth.

Fourth, They could then believe that a being so powerful, and so good, and so wise, was the son of God, the Messiah who would establish the kingdom of God; of which they had no clear idea, but believed it would be, like him, powerful, good, and glorious. Why should they not hear him gladly and love him freely?

What methods did the ruling class take to ruin Jesus? First, They charged him with blasphemy in making claim to be the Son of God; with being thereby an impostor and deceiver. Second, They solved the problem of his miracles by attributing them to diabolical agency. Third, They endeavoured by questions to draw out not only his opposition to traditional maxims and rites, but his purpose to supersede the ritual of Moses, the Temple, and the Jewish pre-eminence as a favoured nation. Fourth, They endeavoured to embroil him with government as a disturber and pretender to royalty, and finally procured his death as an enemy to Caesar.

Daniel D. Whedon (gen. ed.), Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1874–1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

CRITICAL NOTES

Luk_11:37. Besought.—Simply, “asked” (R.V.). To dine.—Rather, “that He would breakfast with him.” The word used means a noon-day meal = our late breakfast or luncheon.

Luk_11:38. Washed.—The washing was a ceremonial act, and cleanliness was not the object of it. The ablutions, which had become most elaborate and frivolous, were not based even upon Levitical law, but upon Pharisaic tradition and the so-called Oral law.

Luk_11:39. Now.—I.e., “as things are.” Make clean, etc.—In Mat_23:25 a similar figure is used. There is, however, this difference: there the inside of the cup and platter are said to be full of extortion and wickedness—i.e., got by wrongful means and used profligately; here it is to the inward part—the spiritual condition of the men themselves—that reference is made.

Luk_11:40. “Did not He who made the body (that which is without) make the mind and soul also (that which is within)?” What folly to attend to the cleanness of the one and to ignore the foulness of the other!

Luk_11:41. Give alms of such things as ye have.—Rather, “give for alms those things which are within” (R.V.). Christ returns to speak of the literal contents of cup and platter: “Be not anxious about the outward part, but rather attend to its contents, and do but give alms therefrom, and the food and everything else shall be pure to you” (Bloomfield). A deed of unselfishness and goodwill would make a change in the whole inward condition.

Luk_11:42. Tithe mint, etc.—As commanded in Deu_14:22. No proportion was observed between greater and less commandments—those based on eternal principles and those of a local or temporary character. Judgment and the love of God.—Hebraism for justice and equity (cf. Mic_6:8).

Luk_11:43. The sin of pride is rebuked; the desire to be prominent and to secure reverent salutations from their brethren. The places in the synagogue nearest to the reading-desk, where the elders sat, were specially coveted.

Luk_11:44. Scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites!—Omit these words; omitted in R.V. Taken probably from the parallel passage in Mat_23:27. Graves.—Unsuspected pits of corruption. The figure in St. Matthew’s gospel is somewhat different—“whited sepulchres,” outwardly beautiful.

Luk_11:45. One of the lawyers.—This man felt that his official ecclesiastical position should shield him against such reproaches. As a class the lawyers, or scribes, were inclined to Pharisaism.

Luk_11:46. Burdens grievous.—The details of ceremonial obedience were multiplied and became an intolerable yoke (cf. Act_15:10); and some of those who laid stress upon them were guilty of the inconsistency of neglecting them themselves.

Luk_11:47. Build sepulchres.—I.e., ostentatiously separate themselves from the sins of their ancestors in rejecting the prophets, and yet are guilty of the same wickedness in rejecting John the Baptist and Christ.

Luk_11:48. Ye allow.—I.e., “consent to” (R.V.). In a sense, respect for the dead prophets was in itself an offence against the living. Instead of hearkening to the voice of living representatives of the Divine will, they set up against them the reputation and authority and teaching of those who had long passed away.

Luk_11:49. The wisdom of God.—This is a very peculiar phrase, and has excited considerable controversy. There is no passage in the Old Testament which corresponds verbally with this apparent quotation. There can be no doubt, however, that Christ alludes to 2Ch_24:20-22, and more especially to 2Ch_36:14-21 of the same book. It may be that since there is not formal quotation this peculiar phrase is used: the method of Divine procedure is described rather than the historical examples of it cited. “The wisdom of God” is probably equivalent to “the wise God.” God, in His wisdom, sees fit to follow such and such a course.

Luk_11:51. Abel.—The first martyr in the strife between holiness and unrighteousness whose history is found in the first historical book of the Old Testament. Zacharias.—2Ch_24:20-21 : the last historical book of the Old Testament.

Luk_11:52. The key of knowledge.—Cf. Mat_13:52; Mat_16:19. Knowledge, i.e., of God, of which the Scriptures were the key. “The scribes, by arrogating to themselves exclusive authority to interpret the Scriptures, while they did not interpret them truly, either for their own use, or for the good of those whom they instructed, kept the key of knowledge shut up and useless” (Speaker’s Commentary).

Luk_11:53. And as He said these things unto them.—Rather, “and when He was come out from thence” (R.V.). Began to urge Him.—Or, “to press upon Him” (R.V.). “They surrounded Him in a most threatening and irritating manner, in a scene of violence perhaps unique in the life of Jesus” (Farrar).

Luk_11:54. That they might accuse Him.—Omitted in R.V.; but evidently the words are a fair description of the motives of His adversaries, though not part of the text of the Gospel.

MAIN HOMILETICS OF THE PARAGRAPH.—Luk_11:37-54

Besetting Sins of Religious Leaders and Teachers.—The Pharisees aimed at setting before the people an example of holiness which it was their duty to imitate; the scribes assumed to themselves the task of instructing them in the law of God. The one showed them what they should do, the other taught them what they should believe. And then, as now, the position of those who were set apart, or who set themselves up as leaders and teachers, was attended with no little spiritual danger. They were apt to become arrogant and self-complacent, and to affect an outward austerity very much at variance with their inward condition of heart and character. All through His earthly ministry the kind of righteousness which Christ taught and exemplified was antagonistic to that of the Pharisees and scribes, and therefore we need not be surprised that on some occasions, as in the present, He came into direct collision with them.

I. The first fault with which He charged the Pharisees was hypocrisy (Luk_11:39-42).—They acted the part of righteous men, without being righteous at heart, and hence they laid stress upon all such practices as appealed to the outward eye, and were indifferent to the spiritual requirements of the law of God. Just as an actor assumes the dress of the character he wishes to portray, and adopts a tone of voice suitable to the part, and appropriate gestures, attitudes, and speeches, so did the Pharisees assume the outward guise of those who were intent upon honouring and serving God. They were zealous in practising all kinds of ceremonial purification, and in payment of tithes, and went, indeed, beyond the requirements of the law of Moses. Yet their fault did not consist in their extreme scrupulousness, but rather in neglect of moral and spiritual obligations. Beneath the pious exterior lay greed, and injustice, and hardness of heart, and self-indulgence. The sin they were guilty of is only too easily possible in Christian society—that of combining a sanctimonious profession of religion with a very lax moral practice.

II. The second fault with which Christ charged the Pharisees was that of vainglorious ambition (Luk_11:43).—They loved the praises of men, and sought to gain and wield power for the gratification of their own pride and vanity. Their motive was an evil one, and vitiated the influence for good which their profession of zeal for the honour of God might have exercised. For when the mask was taken away from their characters it became evident that they were seeking to promote their own self-advancement, and not the interests of true religion. The teaching of Christ, therefore, distinctly warns us that holiness does not consist merely in the performance of certain actions, but in the pure and righteous character of the motives that govern the life. His words on this occasion, too, describe the hurtful influence exercised by all spurious forms of religious life (Luk_11:44). Not only do they fail to promote righteousness, but they are like a poisonous contagion. The corruption is all the more deceptive because it is concealed, and it infects those who come into contact with it.

III. A characteristic fault of the scribes was their laying stress upon the letter of God’s Word rather than upon the spirit of it (Luk_11:45-46).—This is akin to the reproach addressed to the Pharisees, for literalism is closely allied to formalism. They rendered the Scriptures an oppressive burden’ by the minute rules which they deduced from them, and which they imposed upon all those whom they instructed. But for their own part they substituted knowledge for practice. Probably in all ages of the Church’s history those may be found who perpetuate this fault—who set up their own interpretations of Scripture and deductions from it as of co-ordinate authority with the Word of God. And those who are most peremptory in insisting upon acquiescence in their rigid interpretation of Scripture generally enjoy a freedom which they deny to others. Their work seems to be that of imposing burdens, and not of sharing burdens.

IV. Another characteristic fault of the scribes is their rancorous orthodoxy (Luk_11:47-51).—They are in antagonism to living piety, and persecute it. They set up over against those who are the present mouthpieces of God’s Spirit the authority of earlier teachers, whose opponents they would have been if they had lived in their times. And by their resistance to God’s messengers they approve themselves as children of those who in earlier ages killed the prophets. God leaves no generation of men without His witnesses, and those who resist them share the guilt of those who were persecutors in times long past, even though they may sincerely believe that they abhor their actions. Such orthodoxy, which manifests itself in the statement and defence of a creed which is more a matter of the intellect than an inspiring influence upon the life, is a positive hindrance to religion (Luk_11:52). It is like taking away the key of a door and hindering both ourselves and others from entering in.

SUGGESTIVE COMMENTS ON Luk_11:37-54

Luk_11:37-38. A Violation of Hospitality.—There can be little doubt that this Pharisee violated the laws of hospitality by inviting Jesus to his house for the purpose of watching Him, and of founding some accusation against Him. Others of the guests had the same hostility towards Him in their minds (Luk_11:45; Luk_11:53). This fact explains the severity of tone manifested by Jesus throughout the scene. Except for grave reasons, He would not have spoken as He did in the house of His entertainer. There are times when higher obligations than the rules of good society must be respected.

Luk_11:39-40. The Pharisees Rebuked.—The Pharisees are rebuked

(1) for being addicted to meaningless rites—for lustrations which had been instituted for the purpose of suggesting moral purity lost their significance when practised for their own sake;

(2) for attending merely to external appearances;

(3) for the folly of imagining that God was such an one as themselves, and would be satisfied with a mere pretence and show of righteousness; and

(4) for the covetousness and greed by which they had enriched themselves, and which made them indifferent to the claims of the poor and unfortunate.

Luk_11:41. “Give alms.”—There is no question here of the intrinsic merit of good works: Jesus is simply contrasting the positive value of a kindly deed with the worthlessness of mere outward observances.

“All things are clean unto you.”—Let them do one single loving, unselfish act—not for the sake of the action itself, nor for any merit inherent in it, but out of pure good-will towards others—and their whole inward condition would be different. Let those things, which had been the materials and instruments of sin and selfishness, become the instruments of love and kindness, and all things, both that which is without and that which is within, would be at once purified for them. In other words, as the cup and the platter, the outside of which they cleansed so scrupulously and sedulously, were defiled by the bad means by which their contents were procured, or the evil uses to which they were put, so they would be purified, not by any formal outward acts, but by that spirit of love which would dictate a right and charitable destination of their contents.—Speaker’s Commentary.

Luk_11:42. Two Marks of Hypocrisy.—

1. To be more exact in and zealous for the observance of ritual and the traditions of men, than in and for the observance of the moral law of God.

2. In matters of morality to be more exact and strict in and for little things, than for things more grave and weighty. There is no commandment of God that we are at liberty to despise: yet we should have more regard to greater than to lesser duties.

Judgment and the Love of God.—The reference is to Mic_6:6-8, where the prophet makes all acceptable religion to consist in “doing justly, loving mercy, and walking humbly with God.”

Not to Leave the Other Undone.—The moderation and wisdom of Jesus shine out in these words; He does not at all desire prematurely to break the legal mould in which Jewish righteousness was cast, provided that it was not maintained at the expense of the real contents of the law.—Godet.

The First and The Last.—By all means be most minutely conscientious. But then see to it that ye do not

(1) put the last first, and

(2) put off and put out the first altogether, contenting yourselves with the last and least. See to it, on the contrary, that

(1) ye put the first first, and that then

(2) ye do not put off and put out the last, but bring it in and yet keep it last.—Morison.

Luk_11:44. Whitewashed Tombs.—Jews had a custom of whitewashing sepulchral stones once a year. At the time when our Lord used this metaphor to characterise the scribes and Pharisees, the tombs about Jerusalem had been recently whitewashed, and so were beautified for a season. As He spoke in the open air, the white stones must have been conspicuous on every side. The object of this whitewashing was not to embellish, but to point out the gravestone to the passer-by, that he might not tread on it or touch it. Later casuists pronounced the man unclean who casually stepped on a grave or touched a tombstone. This explains the saying of our Lord in the text. It amounts to a charge against the Pharisees of concealing their true character from the people, and spreading contamination while no one suspected them of evil.—Fraser.

Luk_11:45. “Reproachest us also.”—In what a grievous state is that conscience which, hearing the Word of God, thinks it a reproach against itself; and, in the account of the punishment of the wicked, perceives its own condemnation!—Bede.

Luk_11:46-52. Besetting Sins of Theologians.—The besetting sins of theologians:

1. Harshness and insincerity (Luk_11:46).

2. A rancorous and persecuting spirit (Luk_11:47-51).

3. Arrogance and exclusiveness (Luk_11:52).

Luk_11:46. Knowledge Substituted for Practice.—Very rigid principles combined with very lax conduct. Undue attention to the intellectual side of religion is generally found accompanied by this moral deficiency.

“Touch with one of your fingers.”—This is opposed to taking up the burden upon the shoulders.

Luk_11:47-48. “Ye build the sepulchres.”—Ye build their tombs and adorn their monuments, but ye do not imitate their example; ye disobey their precepts, and slight their warnings, and rebel against their God. who has sent to you His Son, to whom all the prophets bear witness. And thus ye show yourselves the children of those who killed the prophets, and are even worse than your fathers, because ye add hypocrisy to impiety.

Resisting the Prophets.—Ask in Moses’ time, Who are the good people? They will be Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob; but not Moses—he should be stoned. Ask in Samuel’s time, Who are the good people? They will be Moses and Joshua; but not Samuel. Ask in the times of Christ, and they will be all the former prophets, with Samuel; but not Christ and His apostles.—Stier.

Luk_11:51. Abel … Zacharias.—The murder of Abel was the first in the strife between unrighteousness and holiness, and as these Jews represent, in their conduct, both in former times and now, the murderer of the first, they must bear the vengeance of the whole in God’s day of wrath. Our Lord mentions the murder of Zacharias, not as being the last, even before His own day, but because it was connected specially with the cry of the dying man: “The Lord look upon it, and require it” (2Ch_24:22).—Alford.

“This generation.”—A great and rapid river, which should, for thirty or forty years together, have its current violently stopped—what a mass of water would it collect in so long a space; and if it should then be let loose, with what fury would it overrun and bear down all before it?—J. Taylor.

Accumulated Guilt.—It belongs to the fearful earnestness of the Divine retributive righteousness that when a generation concurs in heart with the wickedness of an earlier generation, it receives, in the final retribution of the accumulated guilt, as well the punishment for its own as also for the former sins which it had inwardly made its own.—Van Oosterzee.

Luk_11:52. “Key of knowledge.”—Jesus represents knowledge of God and of salvation under the figure of a sanctuary: it was the duty of the scribes to lead the people into it, but they had locked the door and kept possession of the key. This key is the Word of God, the interpretation of which the scribes planned exclusively for themselves.—Godet.

Keeping the Key.—The scribes, by arrogating to themselves exclusive authority to interpret the Scriptures, while they did not interpret them truly, either for their own use, or for the good of those whom they instructed, kept the key of knowledge shut up and useless.

The Preacher's Complete Homiletical Commentary (gen. ed. Joseph S. Exell; Funk & Wagnalls, c. 1892) — public domain (pre-1929). A full-Bible homiletical/sermon-outline anthology covering 65 of 66 books (2 John is absent from the source module). Text from a community e-Sword module.

3. Two Manner of Enemies (Luk_11:37-54)

37And as he spake, a certain Pharisee besought him to dine [breakfast, ἀριστήσῃ] with him: and he went in, and sat down to meat [reclined]. 38And when the Pharisee saw it, he marvelled that he had not first washed before dinner. 39And the Lord said unto him, Now do ye Pharisees make clean the outside of the cup and the platter; but 40your inward part is full of ravening [rapacity] and wickedness. Ye fools, did not he, 41that made that which is without, make that which is within also? But rather [om., rather] give alms of such things as ye have [the contents, τὰ ἐνόντα]; and, behold, all things are clean unto you. 42But woe unto you, Pharisees! for ye tithe mint and rue and all manner of herbs, and pass over judgment and the love of God: these ought ye to have done, and not to leave the other undone. 43Woe unto you, Pharisees! for ye love the uppermost seats in the synagogues, and10 greetings in the markets. 44Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites [om., scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! V. O.11]! for ye are as graves which appear not, and the men that walk over [men in walking over] them are not aware of them. 45Then answered one of the lawyers [or, men learned in the law], and said unto him, Master [Teacher], thus saying thou reproachest [art reviling] us also. 46And he said, Woe unto you also, ye lawyers! for ye lade men with burdens grievous to be borne, and ye yourselves touch not the burdens with one of your fingers. 47Woe unto you! for ye build the sepulchres of the prophets, and your 48fathers killed them. Truly [So then] ye bear witness that ye allow [are witnesses and consent to] the deeds of your fathers: for they indeed killed them, and [but] ye build12 their sepulchres. 49Therefore also said the wisdom of God, I will send them prophets and apostles, and some of them they shall slay and persecute: 50That the blood of all the prophets, which was shed from the foundation of the world, may be required of this generation; 51From the blood of Abel unto the blood of Zacharias, which perished between the altar and the temple [lit., the house]: verily [yea] I say unto you, It shall be required of this generation. 52Woe unto you, lawyers! for ye have taken away the key of knowledge: ye entered not in yourselves, and them that were entering in ye hindered. 53And as he said these things unto them [And when he had gone out from thence13], the scribes and the Pharisees began to urge him vehemently [to be intensely embittered against him], and to provoke him to speak of many [various, πλειόνων things: 54Laying wait for him, and seeking [om., and seeking14] to catch something out of his mouth, that they might accuse him.

EXEGETICAL AND CRITICAL

Luk_11:37. ’Εν δὲ τῷ λαλ.—That the Pharisee’s invitation came to Jesus while He was uttering what immediately precedes, Luke does not tell us, but only that it was given while the Saviour was engaged in speaking. It is therefore not impossible that this event belongs to a later period of the Saviour’s sojourn and activity in Galilee, when the hostility against Him had risen to a still higher pitch. On the other hand, the invitation of the Pharisee just at the moment becomes doubly intelligible if we compare Mar_3:20. Perhaps this breakfast was offered the Saviour by a Pharisee dwelling in the neighborhood, who might fear that Jesus through the press of the people could not reach the dwelling of his host.

Breakfast, ἀριστήσῃ.—We are here not to understand the chief meal, but a lighter prandium, which was taken earlier and required less time. That the disposition of the entertainer towards the Saviour was not on that account by any means a friendly one, sufficiently appears from the connection.

Luk_11:38.—Had not first washed.—Respecting the washings and purifications of the Pharisees before a meal, see the detailed statements of Lightfoot on Mat_15:2; Sepp, L. J. ii. p. 343.—We have no ground for supposing that the Saviour did not commonly wash Himself before a meal. Now, perhaps, He omitted it because He had just accepted the invitation, or because He was wearied by the day’s work which He had hitherto accomplished.

Luk_11:39. And the Lord said unto Him.—Against the charge that the Saviour in the here-following conversation at table in some measure lost out of mind the requirement of courtesy towards His host, we have simply to bring to mind that “such a divine rudeness is everywhere in place” (Ebrard). If we consider that the host by his surprise had at the very beginning violated the duty of hospitality and benevolence; that they had scarcely even sat down when this injurious remark was made to the Saviour; that the Saviour had respect not merely to the matter but especially to the principle and the intention of the charge, we cannot then be in the least surprised that He emphatically vindicates Himself, and combats the hypocrisy of those who had censured Him. Every-day decorum gives place here to an infinitely higher duty. We must, however, doubtless assume that the Pharisee had expressed his astonishment in some way or other, since the Saviour would otherwise have taken a different occasion for uttering such a Philippic.

Now do ye Pharisees.—It is known how remarkable an agreement there is between this rebuke of the Saviour’s and that which Matthew, Luke 23, has given much more in detail. The question which of the two Evangelists has communicated this rebuke in the most exact connection has been alternately answered in favor of Matthew and Luke. See, e.g. the view in Meyer on Mat_23:1. It is, however, to be remarked, 1, that the first reproach which, according to Luke, the Saviour addresses to the Pharisees, Luk_11:39-40, bears internal traces of having been uttered at a meal, and that also the coming forward of the scribe, Luk_11:45-46, by which a new rebuke is called forth, has internal probability. On the ground of this it appears not to admit of doubt that the Saviour really directed against a Pharisee in Galilee, on occasion of a breakfast, several similar rebukes to those which we find in Matthew, Luke 23, directed in yet greater number against the scribes and Pharisees at Jerusalem. 2. On the other side, however, the denunciatory discourse in Matthew affords so many proofs of an internal connection and a living totality, that the originality and exactness of its redaction cannot possibly be denied. It Isaiah , 3, undoubtedly possible that the Saviour, as occasion offered, repeated several rebukes against the Pharisees in Galilee and those of like mind in Judæa, but less probable that a whole series of rebukes, with citation of the same passage of Scripture and the same denunciation at the end, was twice delivered. It is more simple, therefore, 4, to assume that Luke is indeed right in representing the Saviour during a meal as uttering a discourse of rebuke against the Pharisees and scribes, but that in this he has taken the liberty of inserting at the same time per anticipationem several similar expressions, which, as appears from Matthew, the Saviour actually uttered only in the last days of His life, which Luke, however, on account of their similar character, communicates here, while in consequence of this he does not recur to the last denunciatory discourse. As to the whole matter, the opinion that “the Evangelists have taken up elements of earlier discourses of Jesus in later ones and the reverse” (Lange) can only be rejected in principle by those whose harmonistics are controlled by a somewhat mechanical theory of inspiration.

Νῦν, κ.τ.λ.—Not an antithesis merely of now in opposition to an understood πάλαι (Meyer); for we have not a single proof that the Saviour considers the former generation of Pharisees as better than the present, but rather in the sense of eo jam perventum est, which, perhaps, in view of the character of holy irony borne by the whole discourse, is best translated by “full well,” equivalent to “this is the way, they are on the right way to,” &c.

Luk_11:39. But your inward part.—Not a contraction for “the inside of your cup,” to which Mat_23:25 appears to point, but the interior of the persons in contrast with the exterior of the cup. In Matthew the opposition between outer and inner side of the enjoyment of life appears more prominent. In the form given by Luke the outwardly purified cup is opposed to the inwardly corrupted heart of the drinker.

Luk_11:40. Ye fools.—Since God has created the inside as well as the outside, one as much as the other must be held holy; and it is not only evil but foolish to wish to separate, even in thought—to say nothing of act—that which in the nature of things is absolutely inseparable.

Luk_11:41. But rather give alms.—It appears to us entirely against the spirit and intent of this discourse of the Lord, to wish to find here an actual precept how alone they could bring about genuine purity. In this case certainly there would have had to follow in the future as the motive πάντα καθαρὰὑμῖν ἔσεται; and what now stands: καθ. ὑμ. ἐστιν appears to be meant to indicate to us how soon anything in their eyes was purified,—so soon, that is, as only they had lavished τὰ ἐνόντα for an ostentatious almsgiving. The Saviour said date not datis, since they already actually did it, but He will urge them in the Imperative only to continue this. We thus come spontaneously to the ironical interpretation (Erasmus, Kuinoel, a. o.) in this way: “What more would be yet necessary than to designate, set apart, the contents for alms; for thereby the whole inward impurity has at once disappeared.” That there is also a holy irony appears from Pro_1:26, and elsewhere. All attempts to find here a definite moral commandment which is meant in earnest, appear to us forced in the extreme, nor may we forget that the Saviour ends with: πάντα καθαρὰ ὑμῖν ἐστιν, that is, e vestro (perverso) judicio. Had He here wished to speak of actual objective purity, this addition would have been entirely superfluous. [This is a very doubtful interpretation. There seems no sufficient reason for doubting that our Lord means to commend practical benevolence as better than any scrupulosity about ceremonial purity. “Instead of any excessive anxiety,” He says, “about having the outside of your vessels duly purified, it would be better to give their contents to the poor. Such a spirit of beneficence will render any merely ceremonial defects of small account.”—C. C. S.]

Luk_11:42. Ye tithe.—Moses had aforetime required that they should bring the tenth of all their possessions, as an offering to the sanctuary. Num_18:21; Deu_14:23. The perverseness of the Pharisees consisted in this, that they applied the command to the most insignificant trifles, e.g. mint and rue, and on the other hand neglected inviolable requirements of the Divine law. They forgot judgment respecting themselves first of all, in the sense, that is, in which the Saviour had required it, Joh_7:24; and at the same time the love of God, considered as the genitive of object, and according to Matthew, moreover, faithfulness, τὴν πίστιν (Luk_11:23). Thus did they violate the noblest duties towards God, their neighbor, and themselves.

These ought ye to have done.—It is an admirable proof of the heavenly composure and impartiality of our Lord, that instead of abrogating the fulfilment of the minor duties, or declaring it unimportant, He on the other hand permits and commands it, but then also insists with the best right that the higher duties should at least be fulfilled not less conscientiously than the rest. Comp. Mat_23:23.

Luk_11:43. The uppermost seats … greetings.—Comp. Mat_23:6-7, and see Lange, ad loc.

Luk_11:44. Graves which appear not.—In a somewhat different form the same rebuke is expressed in Mat_23:27. There the Saviour condemns especially the ornamenting and decking out of a thing that was inwardly abominable; here the consequence of it is brought forward; the whitewashed grave as such is scarcely to be recognized any longer, and one can therefore go over it without knowing it; so may one come in contact with the Pharisees, without at once receiving an impression of their inward moral corruption. [I should here suppose that in the two passages two different classes of graves are referred to. Here the humbler grave of the common people, which in time might sink into the earth and be walked over without notice, thereby defiling the passers-by; and in the passage in Matthew, on the other hand, the more pompous sepulchres of the rich, whose magnificent decorations were so poorly in agreement with the corruption which they concealed within. The application of the two images is not essentially different.—C. C. S.].

Luk_11:45. One of the lawyers.—There is no ground for thinking that this νομικός belonged himself to the sect of the Sadducees (Paulus). On the other hand, it seems that we must assume that the learned caste of the νομικοί maintained a somewhat aristocratic position with reference to the great mass of the Pharisees, and that this man wished to remind our Lord: “If thou speakest thus, thou wilt not only raise against thee the plebs, but also the men of science; not only, so to speak, the laici, but also the clerici.” He wishes to conjure down the tempest of denunciation, and to overawe the Saviour; with what poor success will immediately appear.

Luk_11:46. Woe unto you also, ye lawyers.—Comp. Mat_23:4. “Gradus: digito uno attingere, digitis tangere, digito movere, manu tollere, humero imponere. Hoc cogebant populum, illud ipsi refugiebant.” Bengel.

Luk_11:47. Ye build the sepulchres.—Comp. Mat_23:29-31.—Not the building of the sepulchres in and of itself, but the connection which they thereby proved themselves to have with the prophet-murdering race of old, is condemned by our Lord. Fathers and children together did only one work,—the former killed the messengers of God, the latter buried them; the former incurred, the latter perpetuated, the damnable guilt of blood; and while they apparently honored the prophets, they had towards God, who had sent them, the same enmity at heart as the murderers of the prophets. For other views, see Lange, ad loc.

Luk_11:48. But ye build.—It is of course understood that it is still the graves of the prophets which are meant. If they had been of a better sort than their fathers, they would have erected no monuments of a damnable deed, which ought rather to be buried in the dust of oblivion. Now, however, when they spoke with so much ado of their fathers, they with their μνημεῖα apparently honored the prophets, but in effect their murderers, and—themselves.

Luk_11:49. Therefore also said the wisdom of God.—“Therefore, that is, because you have part of the guilt and are ripe for the punishment of your fathers; the wisdom of God has also said,” &c. The Lord appears hereby to mean that through Him the wisdom of God speaks personally to the children of men. The view that the Saviour here cites an ancient declaration of God, lost to us (Paulus, Von Hengel), is inadmissible, as “contrary to the analogy of all other citations of Jesus, as well as to the evangelical tradition itself, which attributed these words, with Mat_23:34, to Jesus.” Meyer. Perhaps we have here to understand a former declaration of the Saviour Himself, and to compare Mat_11:19. As the Son of the Father, who spoke what He had formerly seen and heard with the Father, the Saviour could with the best right name Himself ἡ σοφία τοῦ Θεοῦ, and perhaps it is the recollection of similar declarations which has given John occasion to designate Him decidedly as the λόγος τοῦ Θεοῦ. That here only a ὕστερον πρότερον of form occurs (Neander, Twesten, Meyer), has no proof. It was certainly not unworthy of the Saviour to cite His own formerly-uttered word as that of the Incarnate Wisdom of God, and if He did this we cannot then assume that He understood by the prophets and apostles any one else than those of the New Covenant now soon to appear in His place, and by whose rejection the measure of wickedness should be fulfilled, and the murder of the prophets reach its culmination. The colors in which here the fate of His witnesses is depicted are probably all taken from their subsequent life. Even crucifixion is in Matthew not mentioned without ground, if the familiar tradition contains truth that Peter suffered the martyr’s death in this form, not, it is true, at the hands of the Jews, but yet after he had been condemned by the Jews and delivered to the heathen world. Persecute, ἐκδιώξ, so that it was no longer granted to them to remain quiet in the land. Comp., e.g., Act_13:50.

Luk_11:50. The blood of all the prophets—See Lange on the parallel in Matthew. The view of Hug, Sepp, and others, that the Saviour here predicted the murder of Zacharias, the son of Baruch, shortly before the destruction of the temple (comp. Josephus, De Bell. Jud. iv 5, 4,) belongs already to the history of exegesis. We too cannot see anything else in it than that the Saviour has in mind 2Ch_24:21, and in this way brings together the murder of the prophets from the first to the last book of the Old Testament canon. He mentions therefore the ancient, as yet unatoned-for blood-guiltiness, which soon, augmented by new, will reach its fearful culmination. As respects finally the well-known difficulty that Zacharias was not the son of Barachias, but of Jehoiada, we prefer on the whole the view (Ebrard, pp. 5, 6,) that Zacharias according to the Old Testament also was a grandson of Jehoiada, and that the Saviour here correctly states Barachias, who is not mentioned in the Old Testament, as his father. Respecting this whole passage the Essay of Müller deserves to be compared, Stud. u. Krit., 1841, 3.

Luk_11:51. Yea, I say unto you.—It belongs to the fearful earnestness of the Divine retributive righteousness, that when a generation concurs in heart with the wickedness of an earlier generation, it receives, in the final retribution of the accumulated guilt, as well the punishment for its own, as also for the former sins which it had inwardly made its own.

Luk_11:52. Woe unto you, lawyers!—Comp. Mat_23:14. Here is said definitely to the νομικοί what had there been said to the scribes and Pharisees in general. The position of this saying in Luke, after the fearful denunciation of the previous verse, breaks more or less the climax of the discourse, and may perhaps with other things serve as a proof that he on this occasion has inserted single sayings which were actually not uttered till afterwards. By the key of knowledge we can, as to the rest, understand nothing else than the way of the knowledge of Divine truth which had been revealed and manifested in Christ. By their hierarchical influence upon the people they barred them from access thereto, and by their disposition towards the Saviour, they closed the access to it against themselves.

Luk_11:53. And when He had gone out from thence.—See the note on the text. It may be plainly noticed that either anger or conscience made immediate answer impossible to the host and the scribes. In silence therefore did they permit the Saviour to depart from the prandium, but remained together in order to consult what attempts were now further to be made. They soon seek Him again, in order to interrogate Him about all manner of things (ἀποστοματίζειν), apparently trifling sophistical questions which Luke does not even account worthy the honor of mention. In case of necessity they are even ready to suffer even new castigations, by the answer which the Saviour certainly is not to be supposed to have forborne giving them, if only they could at last succeed in drawing something from Him which should in some way give them the right of denouncing Him either before the secular or before the spiritual authorities.

DOCTRINAL AND ETHICAL

1. The holy anger of the Saviour at the breakfast of the Pharisee (Mar_3:5, comp. Eph_4:26), far from being below His dignity, or standing at all in conflict with His character, is on the other hand a striking revelation of His heavenly greatness. It is well known that He towards all that had deeply fallen was affectionate and forbearing, and only towards hypocrites was inexorably severe. The cause of this lies in His character as King of truth, with which no sin stands in so direct opposition as hypocrisy, because it vaunts itself of the guise of a virtue, of the essence of which it is entirely destitute. [So far have we, in our mawkish theories of universal good-nature, sunk below the understanding of this divine severity of our Lord against unworthy teachers of religion, that I have actually seen the declaration attributed to a leading religious journal, that “no man who respects religion will speak ill of a clergyman.” Such an impudent identifying of religion with its teachers is hardly credible. How does it consist with the tremendous rebukes of our passage, directed against clergymen?—C. C. S.]

2. Pharisaism, far from being a merely accidental form of the Judaism of that time, is on the other hand the natural revelation of the sinful condition of the heart when men will not give up the hope of becoming righteous before God by their virtue and merits. They are proud of that which they imagine themselves to possess, and continually inclined to assume the guise of that which they well know they do not possess. The enmity of the flesh towards the immutable declarations and contents of the law (Rom_8:7), they seek to conceal behind respect for outward forms, and in each case they make a compromise with themselves, in order to conceal the transgression of the great commandment by exact fulfilment of the less. But this whole web of self-deceit is penetrated by the sun-like glance of the King of truth, and whoever, like the scribe, Luk_11:45, takes part with the cause of unrighteousness, receives his righteous proportion of the sharp chastisement.

3. When the Saviour combats the temptations of the Pharisaical hierarchy, it is by no means His intention entirely to forbid all distinctions of offices of honor in His kingdom. The same one who wills not that one of His people should be called Rabbi, has placed some as apostles, &c. Eph_4:11. But this He censures, that the office is desired for the title’s sake, instead of the title for the office’s sake; that men take honor one of another instead of seeking the honor which is of God alone, Joh_5:44. How sadly is the Catholic Church, following the Pharisees, gone astray both as to the letter and the spirit of this word of the Lord!

4. Men judge the heart according to the deed; the Saviour judges the deed according to the heart. Therefore He adduces the building of the sepulchres of the prophets, that in and of itself might be permitted and laudable, as a new ground of accusation, inasmuch as He discovers the same temper of mind in the buriers of the dead, as had once dwelt in the murderers. What they undertake against earlier and later messengers of God, is to Him so far from being surprising and unexpected that He, as the personal Wisdom of God, has already seen it beforehand and predicted it, and yet He has not permitted Himself to be held back by this mournful prospect an instant from His uninterrupted labor of love.

5. That the judgment of the Lord, severe as it was, was not at all too hard, appears at once from this fact alone, that the Pharisees have not the most distant thought of humbling themselves under the rod of this word, but only forge new attacks, and therefore fall out of one sin into another and yet worse sin.

6. There is one wisdom which shuts up the kingdom of God from one’s self and others, and another which shows and helps to find the entrance. The former is revealed in the Pharisees and scribes, the latter in the Saviour. The appellation σοφία τοῦ Θεοῦ is one of those points of contact which occur in so manifold ways between the Synoptical and the Johannean Christology. Comp. also Pro_8:23. An Ebionitic or Socinianistic Christ could not possibly have spoken in such a way.

7. Inasmuch as the Saviour takes the two examples of unrighteously-shed blood from the first and last book of the Old Testament canon, He gives testimony for the Scriptures of the Old Testament as being a whole.

HOMILETICAL AND PRACTICAL

The Saviour’s pleasure at table embittered by the malice of man. Pro_17:1. The free Humanity of the Saviour in contrast with the restrictions of a dry Legalism.—The severity of love.—Outward purifying without inward purity.—The mournful opposition between seeming and being, in the religious sphere: 1. The seeming an anxious copy of the being; 2. the being, the mournful contrast of the seeming.—The compromise between conscientiousness and the lust of sin.—Beneficence not seldom a cloak for the exercise of gross sins.—Faithfulness in much and little. There are men who are, 1. Neither the one nor the other; 2. who are conscientious in little and not in much; 3. conscientious in much and on the contrary neglectful in little; 4. who unite both qualities.—The Saviour Himself a noble type of faithfulness as well in the highest as in the lowest duty in His calling.—The striving after vain honor a genuinely Pharisaic vice.—How little do men often conjecture how it is with our hearts!—The principle of solidarity.—Whoever perpetuates the mention of damnable deeds which might better fall into forget-fulness, renders thereby a testimony against himself.—No rejection of the word of God which had not been already predicted.—The blood-stream in Israel’s history, the length, the breadth, the depth, the height.—The wisdom of God over against the folly of man. Luk_11:49. Comp. Luk_11:40.—The blood-guiltiness of Israel: 1. An ancient guilt; 2. an accumulated guilt; 3. a righteously visited guilt.—This whole discourse a proof of the truth of the prophetical word: The Lord is patient, yet of great might, Nah_1:3.—Hostility against the truth even where it is clearly recognized.

Veritas odium parit, Act_9:5 b.

Starke:—Osiander:—It is not a sin to eat and converse with people of another religion, if only we do nothing that is contrary to our profession.—Majus:—We should give offence to no one, but if he will without it take offence, he does it on his own responsibility.—Often do men make side-work the main work and the reverse.—Bibl. Wirt.:—To please men, one must not conceal the truth, but, when time and place require, confess it, without regard to private gain or loss.—Quesnel:—Sometimes to address the sinner severely is very necessary in order that he be roused and brought to the knowledge of sin.—Brentius:—Without faith it is impossible to please God, let one give as many alms as he will.—Hypocrisy and avarice, where they coexist, are almost incurable.—Everything in its due order and measure.—Quesnel: To be first or chief is not pride, but to strive after it is a sign of haughtiness.—The discovery of hypocrisy a hard work.—Canstein:—The evil conscience accuses itself when sin and vices are only rebuked in general terms.—It is the greatest hypocrisy to wish to honor departed teachers with monuments, but persecute living ones, Act_7:52.—Anton:—Evangelical preachers are appointed for this that they suffer tribulation—why do we wonder at that?—The Lord regards and inquires after His servants’ blood, Psa_9:12.—Canstein:—From one sin into another, from hypocrisy to murder of prophets.—Hedinger:—It is one thing to think we understand the Scriptures, another thing to be certain of it.—Though children of the world are otherwise at variance, yet they join together when Christ’s truth is to be opposed.—The longer, the worse, they mislead and are misled. Isa_26:10.

Heubner:—If there is a heavenly nobility, this has another character than the earthly.—How dangerous the position of the teacher of religion is!—The easy conscience is none.—The human heart may be a temple and a grave, the best and the worst may conceal itself therein.—There is for every man a measure of sin, he cannot stand half-way, comp. Rev_22:11.—There is a degree of corruption when man cannot escape destruction, but we can never determine that in the concrete.—Rieger:—A sermon upon the imputation of others’ sins in his Herzens-Postille, p. 91. Comp. Plutarchus, De sera numinis vindicta, ed. Reichii, viii. p. 213–217.—Saurin:—Les grands et les petits devoirs dans la Religion, Sermon sur Math. Luk_23:23 (parallel to Luk_11:42), tom. 10.—A Sermon by Arndt upon Jesus’ denunciation of woe in the temple, Matthew 23, in his sermons on the Life of Jesus, iv., deserves also to be compared here.

Footnotes:

[10][Luk_11:43.—Τοὺς ἀσπασμοὺς. Those to which they were accustomed, from the reverence of the people.—C. C. S.]

[11]Luk_11:44.—The Rec. has here γραμματεῖς καὶ φαρισαῖοι, ὑποκριταί; in all probability taken from the similar passage in Matthew. [Om., Tischendorf, Tregelles, Meyer, Bleek, Alford with B., C., L., Cod. Sin.—C. C. S.]

[12]Luk_11:48.—The following words of the Rec.: αὐτῶν τὰ μνημεῖα, are wanting in B., L., [Cod. Sin.,] Copt., Cantabrig., and other authorities, and are therefore bracketed by Lachmann, and rejected by Griesbach, Tischendorf, [Meyer, Tregelles, Alford. But Bleek vindicates their genuineness and necessity.—C. C. S.] It is supposed with reason that they contain an interpolated supplement, as οἰκοδομεῖτε can stand very well alone.

[13]Luk_11:53.—The reading κἀκεῖθεν ἐξελθόντος αὐτοῦ, approved by Tischendorf, [Meyer, Tregelles,] on the authority of B., C., L., [Cod. Sin.,] has internal probability. The Recepta varies, and it is much easier to assume that this complot took place after the Saviour’s departure than in His presence.

[14]Luk_11:54.—The additional words of the Recepta, ζητοῦντες ἵνα κατηγορήσωσιν αὐτοῦ, are in all probability spurious. See Meyer, ad locum. [The text, as Van Oosterzee accepts it, is Tischendorf’s. Supported by B., L., Cod. Sin.—C. C. S.]

Lange's Commentary on the Holy Scriptures (Critical, Doctrinal, and Homiletical), ed. John Peter Lange, English translation edited by Philip Schaff (1864–1880) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

BAPTIZO NOT ALWAYS A TOTAL SUBMERSION, BUT A PURIFICATION

Luk 11:37-42. “But while He was speaking, a Pharisee asked Him that He may dine with him; having come in, lie sat down at the table; and the Pharisee seeing, was astonished because He was not first baptized before dinner.” It is a well-established fact that the Pharisees, pursuant to the tradition of the elders, were accustomed to wash their hands before eating, lest they had contracted pollution by contact with Gentiles, unclean animals, or some other impurity. Here, where the English says “wash,” the word is ebaptisthe, the passive voice and aorist tense of baptizo, the word constantly used in the New Testament for Christian baptism. The case here is clear and decisive that it only means for Jesus to wash His hands, the very idea of submerging His whole body under water being utterly out of the question. But you say His hands were immersed. That might be so, or it may have been done by affusion. But that is not the point of investigation. It is not said that His hands were baptized, but that Jesus Himself was baptized. Hence it follows, as an irresistible sequence, that when His hands were washed, his entire person was baptized. We simply give this as an honest exegete, expecting to meet you all at the judgment- bar; and not that I want to keep any of you out of the river. On the contrary, I exhort you to follow your convictions and satisfy your conscience. (1Pe 3:21)

“And the Lord said to Him, Now, you Pharisees purify the outside of the cup and the plate, but the inside of you is full of extortion and wickedness. Ye fools, did not He who made the outside also make the inside? Therefore give alms of your possessions, and, behold, all things are pure to you.”

Where E.V. says “make clean,” the word is catharizo, which is here our Savior’s definition of baptizo. So you need not ransack the world to find out the meaning of baptize. It has no meaning in the Bible but to purify, catharizo being the word constantly used in the Bible to signify a purification. Then our Savior assures these Pharisees that if they will give alms, “all things will be pure to them,” showing up the fact that the love of God in the heart is really the baptism which he requires, superseding and climaxing all ceremonies.

William B. Godbey, Commentary on the New Testament (1896–1900) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

11:37 one of the Pharisees invited him home for a meal: See study note on 7:36.

Tyndale Open Study Notes — © Tyndale Open Resources, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

Luk 11:37. Εἰσελθὼν δὲ ἀνέπεσεν, having entered in, He lay [sat] down to meat) forthwith, without having washed (Luk 11:38) before sitting down to table. Perhaps He was wearied [with the crowds, Luk 11:29].

Bengel's Gnomon of the New Testament — English translation (T&T Clark, Edinburgh, 1860) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Luk_11:37. Ἐν δὲ τῷ λαλῆσαι] that is to say, what had preceded at Luk_11:29 ff.

ἀριστήσῃ] refers no more than ἄριστον at Mat_22:4 to the principal meal, but to the breakfast (in opposition to Kuinoel, de Wette, and others). See Luk_14:12.

Ἤιδει μὲν τὴν τῶν Φαρισαίων σκαιότητα ὁ κύριος, ἀλλʼ ὅμως συνεστιᾶται αὐτοῖς διʼ αὐτὸ τοῦτο, ὅτι πονηροὶ ἦσαν καὶ διορθώσεως ἔχρηζον, Theophylact.

In the following discourse itself, Luke, under the guidance of the source he is using, gives a much more limited selection from the Logia, abbreviating and generalizing much of the contents.

Luk_11:37-54. See on Mat_23:1.

Meyer — Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the New Testament — English translation by Peter Christie, edited by Frederick Crombie (T&T Clark, 1880) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Luk 11:37-54 . In the house of a Pharisee; criticism of the religion of Pharisees and scribes (Mat 23 ). This section contains a selection of the hard sayings of Jesus on the “righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees,” given with much greater fulness in Mt.’s great antipharisaic discourse, the severity of the attack being further mitigated by the words being thrown into the form of table talk. This is the second time Jesus appears as a guest in a Pharisee’s house in this gospel, speaking His mind with all due freedom but without breach of the courtesies of life. The effect and probable aim of these representations is to show that if it ultimately came to an open rupture between Jesus and the Pharisees it was their fault, not His.

Luk 11:37 . ἐν τῷ λαλῆσαι , while He was speaking, as if it had been ἐ . τ . λαλεῖν . ἐν goes most naturally with the present infinitive, but Lk., who uses ἐν with infinitive much more frequently than any other N.T. writer, has ἐν with the aorist nine times. Vide Burton (M. and T., § 109), who remarks in reference to such cases: “The preposition does not seem necessarily to denote exact coincidence (of time), but in no case expresses antecedence. In 1Co 11:21 and Heb 3:12 the action of the infinitive cannot be antecedent to that of the principal verb.” ἀριστήσῃ : the meal was breakfast rather than dinner.

The Expositor's Greek Testament, edited by W. Robertson Nicoll (1897–1910) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

1 st. To the Pharisees: Luk 11:37-44.

Vers. 37 and 38. The Occasion.

This Pharisee had probably been one of the hearers of the previous discourse; perhaps one of the authors of the accusation raised against Jesus. He had invited Jesus along with a certain number of his own colleagues (Luk 11:45; Luk 11:53), with the most malevolent intention. Thus is explained the tone of Jesus (Luk 11:39 et seq.), which some commentators have pronounced impolite (!). The reading of some Fathers and Vss., “He began to doubt (or to murmur, as διακρίνεσθαι sometimes means in the LXX.), and to say,” is evidently a paraphrase.— ῎Αριστον, the morning meal, as δεῖπνον, the principal meal of the day. The meaning of the expression εἰσελθὼν ἀνέπεσεν is this: He seated Himself without ceremony, as He was when He entered. The Pharisees laid great stress on the rite of purification before meals (Mar 7:2-4; Mat 15:1-3); and the Rabbins put the act of eating with unwashed hands in the same category as the sin of impurity. From the surprise of His host, Jesus takes occasion to stigmatize the false devotion of the Pharisees; He does not mince matters; for after what has just passed (Luk 11:15), war is openly declared. He denounces: 1 st. The hypocrisy of the Pharisees (Luk 11:39-42); 2 d. Their vainglorious spirit (Luk 11:43); 3 d. The evil influence which their false devotion exercises over the whole people (Luk 11:44).

Vers. 39-42. Their Hypocrisy.—“And the Lord said unto him, Now do ye Pharisees make clean the outside of the cup and the platter; but your inward part is full of ravening and wickedness. 40. Ye fools, did not He that made that which is without, make that which is within also? 41. Rather give alms of such things as are within; and, behold, all things are clean unto you. 42. But woe unto you, Pharisees! for ye tithe mint and rue, and all manner of herbs, and pass over judgment and the love of God: these ought ye to have done, and not to leave the other undone.”

God had appointed for His people certain washings, that they might cultivate the sense of moral purity in His presence. And this is what the Pharisees have brought the rite to; multiplying its applications at their pleasure, they think themselves excused thereby from the duty of heart purification. Was it possible to go more directly in opposition to the divine intention: to destroy the practice of the duty by their practices, the end by the means? Meyer and Bleek translate νῦν, now, in the sense of time: “Things have now come to such a pass with you...” It is more natural to give it the logical sense which it often has: “Well now! There you are, you Pharisees! I take you in the act.” If, in the second member of the verse, the term τὸ ἔσωθεν, the inward part, was not supplemented by ὑμῶν, your inward part, the most natural sense of the first member would be this: “Ye make clean the outside of the vessels in which ye serve up the repast to your guests.” Bleek maintains this meaning for the first proposition, notwithstanding the ὑμῶν in the second, by joining this pron. to the two substantives ἁρπαγῆς and πονηρίας: “But the inside [of the cups and platters] is full [of the products] of your ravenings and your wickedness.” But, 1. This connection of ὑμῶν is forced; 2. Luk 11:40 does not admit of this sense, for we must understand by Him who made both that which is without and that which is within, the potter who made the plates, the goldsmith who fashioned the cups, which is absurd. As in Luk 11:40 the ὁ ποιήσας, He that made, is very evidently the Creator, the inward part, Luk 11:40 and Luk 11:39, can only be that of man, the heart. We must therefore allow an ellipsis in Luk 11:39, such as frequently occurs in comparisons, and by which, for the sake of conciseness, one of the two terms is suppressed in each member of the comparison: “Like a host who should set before his guests plates and cups perfectly cleansed outside, [but full of filth inside], 39a, ye think to please God by presenting to Him [your bodies purified by lustrations, but at the same time] your inward part full of ravening and wickedness, 39b.” The inward part denotes the whole moral side of human life. ῾Αρπαγή, ravening—avarice carried out in act; πονηρία, wickedness—the inner corruption which is the source of it. Jesus ascends from sin in act to its first principle.

The apostrophe, ye fools, Luk 11:40, is then easily understood, as well as the argument on which it rests. God, who made the body, made the soul also; the purification of the one cannot therefore, in His eyes, be a substitute for the other. A well-cleansed body will not render a polluted soul acceptable to Him, any more than a brightly polished platter will render distasteful meat agreeable to a guest; for God is a spirit. This principle lays pharisaism in the dust. Some commentators have given this verse another meaning, which Luther seems to adopt: “The man who has made (pure) the outside, has not thereby made (pure) the inside.” But this meaning of ποιεῖν is inadmissible, and the οὐχ heading the proposition proves that it is interrogative.

The meaning of the parallel passage in Mat 23:25-26 is somewhat different: “The contents of the cup and platter must be purified by filling them only with goods lawfully acquired; in this way, the outside, should it even be indifferently cleansed, will yet be sufficiently pure.” It is at bottom the same thought, but sufficiently modified in form, to prove that the change cannot be explained by the use of one and the same written source, but must arise from oral tradition.

To the rebuke administered there succeeds the counsel, Luk 11:41. We have translated πλήν by rather. The literal sense, excepting, is thus explained: “All those absurdities swept away, here is what alone remains.” At first sight, this saying appears to correspond with the idea expressed in Matthew’s text, rather than with the previous saying in Luke. For the expression τὰ ἔνοντα, that which is within, cannot in this verse refer to the inward part of man, but denotes undoubtedly the contents of the cups and platters. But it is precisely because τὰ ἔνοντα, that which is within, is not at all synonymous with ἔσωθεν, the inward part, in the preceding context, that Luke has employed a different expression. Τὰ ἔνοντα, the contents of the cups and platters, denotes what remains in those vessels at the close of the feast. The meaning is: “Do you wish, then, that those meats and those wines should not be defiled, and should not defile you? Do not think that it is enough for you carefully to wash your hands before eating; there is a surer means: let some poor man partake of them. It is the spirit of love, O ye Pharisees, and not material lustrations, which will purify your banquets.” Καὶ ἰδού, and behold; the result will be produced as if by magic. Is it not selfishness which is the real pollution in the eyes of God? The δότε, give, is opposed to ἁρπαγή, ravening, Luk 11:39.

This saying by no means includes the idea of the merit of works. Could Jesus fall into pharisaism at the very moment when He was laying it in the dust? Love, which gives value to the gift, excludes by its very nature that seeking of merit which is the essence of pharisaism.

The ἀλλά, but, Luk 11:42, sets the conduct of the Pharisees in opposition to that which has been described Luk 11:41, in order to condemn them by a new contrast; still, however, it is the antithesis between observances and moral obedience. Every Israelite was required to pay the tithe of his income (Lev 27:30; Num 18:21). The Pharisees had extended this command to the smallest productions in their gardens, such as mint, rue, and herbs, of which the law had said nothing. Matthew mentions other plants, anise and cummin (Luk 23:23). Could it be conceived that the one writer could have made so frivolous a change on the text of the other, or on a common document?

In opposition to those pitiful returns, which are their own invention, Jesus sets the fundamental obligations imposed by the law, which they neglect without scruple. Κρίσις, judgment; here the discernment of what is just, the good sense of the heart, including justice and equity (Sirach 33:34). Matthew adds ἔλεος and πίστις, mercy and faith, and omits the love of God, which Luke gives. The two virtues indicated by the latter correspond to the two parts of the summary of the law.

The moderation and wisdom of Jesus are conspicuous in the last words of the verse; He will in no wise break the old legal mould, provided it is not kept at the expense of its contents.

Ver. 43. Vainglory.—“Woe unto you, Pharisees! for ye love the uppermost seats in the synagogues, and greetings in the markets.”

The uppermost seats in the synagogues were reserved for the doctors. This rebuke is found more fully developed, Luk 20:45-47.

Ver. 44. Contagious Influence.—“Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye are as graves which appear not, and the men that walk over them are not aware of them.”

Jesus by this figure describes the moral fact which He elsewhere designates as the leaven of the Pharisees. According to Num 19:16, to touch a grave rendered a man unclean for eight days, as did the touch of a dead body. Nothing more easy, then, than for one to defile himself by touching with his foot a grave on a level with the ground, without even suspecting its existence. Such is contact with the Pharisees; men think they have to do with saints: they yield themselves up to their influence, and become infected with their spirit of pride and hypocrisy, against which they were not put on their guard. In Matthew (Mat 23:27), the same figure receives a somewhat different application. A man looks with complacency at a sepulchre well built and whitened, and admires it. But when, on reflection, he says: Within there is nothing save rottenness, what a different impression does he experience! Such is the feeling which results from observing the Pharisees.

That the two texts should be borrowed from the same document, or taken the one from the other, is quite as inconceivable as it is easy to understand how oral tradition should have given to the same figure those two different applications.

8. The Dinner at a Pharisee’s House: Luk 11:37 to Luk 12:12.

Agreeably to the connection established by Luke himself (Luk 12:1), we join the two pieces Luk 11:37-54 and Luk 12:1-12 in one whole. Here, so far as Galilee is concerned, we have the culminating point of the struggle between Jesus and the pharisaic party. This period finds its counterpart in Judea, in the scenes related John 8-10. The background of the conflict which now ensues, is still the odious accusation refuted in the previous passage. The actual situation assigned to the repast is, according to Holtzmann, merely a fiction, the idea of which had been suggested to Luke by the figures of Luk 11:39-40. Is it not more natural to suppose that the images of Luk 11:39-40 were suggested to Jesus by the actual situation, which was that of a repast? It is true, a great many of the sayings which compose this discourse are found placed by Matthew in a different connection; they form part of the great discourse in which Jesus denounced the divine malediction on the scribes and Pharisees in the temple a few days before His death (Matthew 23). But first it is to be remarked, that Holtzmann gives as little credit to the place which those sayings occupy in the composition of Matthew, as to the “scenery” of Luke. Then we have already found too many examples of the process of aggregation used in the first Gospel, to have our confidence shaken thereby in the narrative of Luke. We shall inquire, therefore, with impartiality, as we proceed, which of the two situations is that which best suits the words of Jesus.

This piece contains: 1 st. The rebukes addressed to the Pharisees (Luk 11:37-44); 2 d. Those addressed to the scribes (Luk 11:45-54); 3 d. The encouragements given to the disciples in face of the animosity to which they are exposed on the part of those enraged adversaries (Luk 12:1-12).

Frédéric Louis Godet — Commentaries on Luke, John, Romans, and 1 Corinthians — English translation (T&T Clark, Edinburgh, 1870s–1890s) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

The service of God consisteth not in outward cleanliness, and devised rites or ceremonies, but in the spiritual righteousness of the heart, and charity.

Geneva Bible (1599) marginal notes — public domain. Text via Bolls.life.

Verse 37. To dine] οπως αριστηση. The word αριστειν dignifies the first eating of the day. The Jews made but two meals in the day; their αριστον may be called their breakfast or their dinner, because it was both, and was but a slight meal. Their chief meal was their δειπνον or supper, after the heat of the day was over; and the same was the principal meal among the Greeks and Romans. Josephus, in his Life, says, sect. 54, that the legal hour of the αριστον, on the Sabbath, was the sixth hour, or at twelve o'clock at noon, as we call it. What the hour was on the other days of the week, he does not say; but probably it was much the same. Bishop PEARCE.

Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

(37) A certain Pharisee besought him to dine with him.—On the act, and the feeling which it implied, see Note on Luk_7:36. The word translated “dine” implies a morning or noon-tide meal, as distinct from the supper of the evening.

A Bible Commentary for English Readers, edited by Charles John Ellicott (1878–1897) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

37-54. The Invitation of the Pharisee and the open Rupture.

37. besought] Rather, asked.

to dine with him] The meal was not dinner (deipnon), but an earlier, lighter, and more informal meal (ariston).

he went in, and sat down to meat] The words imply that immediately He entered He sat down to table. The meal was merely some slight refreshment in the middle of the day, and probably our Lord was both suffering from hunger after His long hours of teaching, and was also anxious to save time.

The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

And the Lord said unto him,.... Jesus, as the Syriac and Persic versions read; the Lord Jesus, as the Ethiopic.

Now do ye Pharisees make clean the outside of the cup, and the platter; being very tenacious of the traditions of the elders, concerning the washing of cups and pots, which had been of late years brought in among them, and therefore the word "now" is used; See Gill on Mat 23:25 and See Gill on Mar 7:4,

but your inward part is full of ravening and wickedness: meaning either their souls, which were full of all manner of sin, the cleansing and purity of which they had no concern about, whilst they were very strict and curious in washing their bodies, their cups and platters; or rather the vessels which were filled with meat and drink got by extortion, rapine, and oppression; see Mat 23:25.

John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

37 And as he spake, a certain Pharisee besought him to dine with him: and he went in, and sat down to meat.

Ver. 37. Sat down to meat] And yet, at their own tables, he sets the Pharisees forth in their colours, and entertaineth them with as many menaces as they do him with messes of meat.

John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

And as he spake - While he was addressing the people, and particularly while he was reproving that generation and declaring its crimes.

A certain Pharisee - The Pharisees had been particularly referred to in the discourse of the Saviour recorded in the previous verses. This one, perhaps, having felt particularly the force of the remarks of Jesus, and being desirous of being alone with him, invited him to go home with him. There is little doubt that this was for the purpose of drawing him away from the people; that he did it with a malignant intention, perhaps with a design to confute Jesus in private, or to reprove him for thus condemning the whole nation as he did. He might have seen that those who attacked Jesus “publicly” were commonly unsuccessful, and he desired. probably, to encounter him more privately.

Besought him - Asked him.

To dine with him - The Jews, as well as the Greeks and Romans, had but two principal meals. The first was a slight repast, and was taken about ten or eleven o’clock of our time, and consisted chiefly of fruit, milk, cheese, etc. The second meal was partaken of about three o’clock P. M., and was their principal meal. The “first” is the one here intended.

He went in - Though he knew the evil design of the Pharisee, yet he did not decline the invitation. He knew that it might afford him an opportunity to do good. These two things are to be observed in regard to our Saviour’s conduct in such matters:

That he did not decline an invitation to dine with a man simply because he was a Pharisee, or because he was a wicked man. Hence, he was charged with being gluttonous, and a friend of publicans and sinners, Mat 11:19. He seized upon all occasions to do good. He never shrank from declaring the truth, and making such occasions the means of spreading the gospel. If Christians and Christian ministers would follow the example of the Saviour always, they would avoid all scandal, and might do even in such places a vast amount of good.

Sat down - Reclined at the table. See the notes at Mat 23:6.

Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible (1834–1885) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

This is the second time we meet with our Saviour at a Pharisee’s house. He saith of himself, that he came eating and drinking, that is, allowing himself a free, though innocent, converse with all sorts of people, that he might gain some. The Pharisees were, as to the generality of them, the most bitter, stubborn, and implacable enemies Christ had, yet he refused not to go and sit at meat with a Pharisee.

Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

Vers. 37-54. In the Pharisees house. The Lord"s stern denunciation of the Pharisee teaching and life. The day was not far advanced, and the Master was probably weary and faint after the long and exciting discussion just related; taking advantage, probably, of this evident weariness, some of the Pharisee emissaries from the capital, to whose presence we have before alluded, suggested to one of their friends, who had a residence in the town where the events just related had taken place, that he should invite the Master to come in and rest awhile and partake of a repast. They wished, no doubt, to get him away from the fast increasing crowd, and, when alone with him, they hoped to entangle him in a fresh discussion, and entrap him into some statement which they would be enabled subsequently to make use of, when they formally accused him of heretical, blasphemous teaching. There is no doubt that at this period of his ministry a deep-laid plot had been formed to compass in some way or other the death of this Teacher, whose words and acts were beginning so deeply to compromise their position and influence in the nation.

Vers. 37-42. Piety out of perspective.

We have seen pictures in which no regard whatever has been paid to the laws of perspective, and in which, as the consequence, the mountain has appeared as small as the men, the men as large as the mountain. These have been objects of amusement, but not of admiration. Unfortunately, there was nothing either amusing or admirable in these practical pictures of piety which the Pharisees were drawing, wholly out of perspective, in the time of our Lord. In them were

I OBJECTS OF GROSS EXAGGERATION. Our Lord pointed out the exaggerated importance which they attached to the outward, to the bodily, to the minute. They made everything of religious observances and customs. To wash the hands after coming from market, before eating bread, was to them quite a serious obligation, which they would on no account neglect; to tithe the small herbs that grew in their garden was to them a sacred duty, which they took pains to observe; to make the outside of their culinary vessels clean was a rule by no means to be forgotten; to carry no smallest stick on the sabbath day was a very sacred law, etc. These things, and such things as these, were made the staple of their religion; their piety was composed of small observances, of conformity to prescriptions and proscriptions which only touched the Outside and not the inner sanctuary, which only affected the body and not the soul; they made everything of that which was only of very slight importance; they exaggerated the minute until these became misleading and practically false.

II OTHER OBJECTS FATALLY OVERLOOKED OR SLIGHTED. These were:

1. Inward purity. What did it matter if some cups were not quite clean? Something certainly, but very little comparatively; it was a matter of infinitesimal consequence. But it mattered much that their "inward part," their soul, was "full of ravening and wickedness." If they were themselves corrupt, no ceremonial cleanness would avail them. It is of infinite consequence to any man that he should be "all glorious within;" that there should be truth and purity "in the inward parts," in the deep recesses of the soul. It is the pure in heart alone that can see God and that can enter his kingdom.

2. Charity; a kind heart showing itself in a generous hand. Whoso has this disposition to pity, to heal, to help; whoso spends himself in endeavors to do good, to lighten the burdens of the afflicted, to brighten the path that lies in shadow; this man is one to whom "all things are clean." He who is earnestly concerned to mitigate the sorrow of some bleeding heart, or to extricate some fallen spirit from the cruel toils of vice, or to lead some weary wanderer from the desert of doubt into the bright and happy home of faith and love, he is not the man to be "greatly moved" because he carries a speck of dust upon his hands, or because a utensil has not been washed the proper number of times in a day.

3. Rectitude. The Pharisees passed over "judgment;" but they should have given to this a front place. To recognize the righteous claims of men on our regard, on our considerateness, on our fidelity, on our truthfulness, is not this a very large part of any piety that is of God, commended by him and commending us to him?

4. The love of God. This also the Pharisees slighted. But it was of the very first importance. Their Law laid stress upon it. (Deu_6:4, Deu_6:5) It is the heritage and glory of manhood (see homily on Luk_10:27). To make little of this was so to misrepresent as to lead into ruinous error. Purity, charity, rectitude, the love of God, these are the precious things which make man great, worthy, dear to God his Father. C.

Vers. 37-54. Pharisaism and legalism rebuked.

Our Lord, who was eminently social in his habits, accepts an invitation to dine with one of the Pharisees, and meets many Pharisees and lawyers there as guests. Such scenes were, to his pure and philanthropic mind, important opportunities, and as such he entered upon them. In this case he breaks ground at once by deliberately neglecting the usual preliminary ablutions. This was through no slovenliness in his personal habits, we may be sure; for if cleanliness is next to godliness, we may be pretty certain Jesus practiced it. But as it is quite possible for men to put cleanliness in place of godliness, to be scrupulous about outward cleansing and careless about the heart, it was necessary that Jesus should expose the Pharisees" error and danger in this particular. Accordingly, we find him at this dinner-table exposing with great power first, Pharisaic hypocrisy, and, secondly, legalized impositions. Let us look at these in their order.

I CHRIST"S EXPOSITION OF PHARISAIC HYPOCRISY. (Vers. 37-44) Pharisaism was a supreme regard for appearances. Long garments, phylacteries, multiplied ablutions, long prayers in public places, ostentatious tithing of little things, combined to make up Pharisaism, a reputation based upon externals. One who looked upon the heart, like our Lord, could easily see that all this outward decorum was quite compatible with wickedness of heart. And so he told his host deliberately, Now do ye Pharisees make clean the outside of the cup and the platter; but your inward part is full of ravening "extortion," Revised Version and wickedness." The cure is suggested when he leads him to think of God as alike the Author and Observer of what is without and within. "Ye fools "foolish ones," Revised Version, did not he that made that which is without "the outside," Revised Version make that which is within "the inside also? But rather give alms of such things as ye have "Howbeit give for alms those things which are within," Revised Version; and, behold, all things are clean unto you." In this way he tries to lead his Pharisaic host to spirituality of life, to the expenditure of sympathy, of love, of brotherly kindness upon others, instead of indulging in outward acts behind which there was no real heart, but only a desire for personal reputation. Following up this line, he charges them with tithing potherbs, "the mint, anise, and cummin," while the weightier matters, "judgment and the love of God," matters that were within and spiritual, were left undone. Their preference for appearances, for the uppermost seats in the synagogues, for greetings in the markets, and all that goes to form a reputation, showed that they had not weighed aright the matters of the heart. No wonder that he concludes by comparing them to graves Revised Version that appear not, over which men unwittingly tread. Whited sepulchres they were, beautiful outwardly, but within were dead men"s bones and all uncleanness. It was a manly and terrible indictment for our Lord to make against them. And in doing so he exposed the principle of hypocrisy. It rests on appearances, on superficial judgments, on a forgetfulness that God searcheth the heart. It can be got rid of only by our getting down to first principles, and remembering that God "searcheth the hearts and trieth the reins of the children of men, even to give to every one according to his ways, and according to the fruit of his doings". (Jer_17:9, Jer_17:10)

II CHRIST"S EXPOSURE OF LEGALIZED IMPOSITIONS. (Vers. 45-54) A lawyer in the company, seeing his Pharisaic friends so severely handled by Christ, complains that his special department was involved also in the reproach. This leads our Lord to handle the lawyers more severely still. Their position was one of monopoly of the Late. To sustain their profession they had to make a great mystery of the meaning of the Law. Though it was largely plain enough for a runner to read and understand, it would have swept away all their privileges and profits to have left such an impression on the common people. Hence they took the Law into their own especial keeping, and interpreted it for the people as they pleased. The result of this was the imposition of heavy burdens upon the ignorant people. This has been the temptation of legal experts always; they increase the burdens of the common people burdens which they leave the people to carry alone. Not only so, but the lawyers were manufacturing reputations out of the shortcomings of their fathers. Their fathers had murdered the prophets; the sons were now busy building their sepulchres, and so far pretending to dissent from their fathers" murderous spirit. But our Lord shows that this policy is a simple hypocrisy, for, in seeking the life of Jesus, they were demonstrating that the old spirit was still within them. It is easier to serve on a building committee than to entertain kindly feelings towards the Savior. All this hypocrisy, however, will receive judgment in due season. Upon the generation that murdered Christ will descend the judgment which the murderous spirit of so many generations deserved. Our Lord in this way brings out how we may, by our conduct in the present, become involved in the responsibilities of the past. We cannot isolate ourselves from the past; we are not only heirs of all the ages, but share the responsibilities of all the ages by reason of our attitude towards them. History is thus brought into the field of responsibility, and we are either for or against the good in the olden time. It would be well for us to treat history inn sympathetic fashion, and have our hearts in proper training as we review the past. We may sin by hating an old martyr"s memory just as really as by despising his counterpart to-day. Our Lord concludes by denouncing the dog-in-the-manger policy of the lawyers, pretending to knowledge, while at once they had lost the key and kept others effectually from finding it. No wonder that, when our Lord came out from the banquet, he found himself violently beset on every side by those he had so exposed, in hope that some such statement would form the basis of his accusation. But they found themselves baffled by his limitless knowledge of human nature. Instead of contending with him, it will be better for us all to submit to his superior judgment and gracious pleasure. R.M.E.

The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Woes upon the Pharisees and. Lawyers.

The Pharisee’s offense:

v. 37. And as He spake, a certain Pharisee besought Him to dine with him; and He went in and. sat down to meat.

v. 38. And when the Pharisee saw it, he marveled that He had not first washed before dinner.

v. 39. And the Lord said unto him, Now do ye Pharisees make clean the outside of the cup and the platter; but your inward part is full of ravening and wickedness.

v. 40. Ye fools, did not He that made that which is without make that which is within also?

v. 41. But rather give alms of such things as ye have; and, behold, all things are clean unto you.

See Mat 23:1-39. While Jesus was still speaking to the people, a Pharisee that may have been desirous of becoming more closely acquainted with Him invited Jesus to take a meal with him, the earlier one of the day. The Lord accepted, went into the house with His host, but purposely omitted the customary washing and sat down at once at the table in the usual recumbent position. The Pharisee was greatly surprised that He had not washed before the meal. Note: Literally, we read that He had not baptized Himself; another bit of evidence that the word "baptize" in the New Testament is not confined to the act of complete immersion. The wonder of the Pharisee may have found its expression in disapproving words as well as in disgusted glances. But Jesus was now ready to teach a lesson, brought on by the circumstances. He said: Ye Pharisees clean the outside of the cup and the platter, but the inside of you is full of robbery and wickedness, thus explaining His figure at once. What was inside the cup and the platter was dishonest, stolen goods. Thus Jesus rebuked the Pharisees because they stressed outside purity, the semblance of great holiness, while their heart was full of every evil thing. This showed their foolishness; for God made both the outside and the inside, and He puts the emphasis upon the right condition of the heart. If they therefore now would give what they had, especially what they had obtained by unjust means, the things which were within the dishes, as alms, then they would straighten out matters again, then everything would be clean. In this way they would show the proper disposition of heart toward Christ and God. It is the peculiarity of all self-righteous hypocrites that they pay much attention to customs and ceremonies, but think lightly of gross sins which pollute heart and mind.

Paul E. Kretzmann, Popular Commentary of the Bible (1921–1924) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Observe here, 1. The free conversation of our blessed Saviour, how readily he complies with the Pharisees’ invitation to dine with him. I do not find that, when Christ was invited to any table, that ever he refused to go; if a Pharisee, if a publican invited him, he constantly went, not so much for the pleasure of eating, as for the opportunity of conversing and doing good. Christ feasts us when we feed him: he says of himself, that he came eating and drinking, that is, allowing himself a free, though innocent, conversation with all sorts of persons, that he might gain some.

Observe, 2. The exception which the Pharisee takes at our Saviour’s not washing his hands before dinner. This they made (but without any warrant for it) a religious act; abounding in external washings, but neglecting the inward purgation of their hearts and consciences from sin and uncleanness. Thus Pharisaical hypocrisy puts God off with outward cleansing instead of inward purity; regarding more the outward cleanness of the hand, than the inward purity of the heart.

Observe, 3. Our blessed Saviour does not condemn any external decency and cleanliness in conversation, but his design is to show the vanity of outward purity without inward sanctity, and to convince them of the necessity of cleansing the heart, in order to the purifying and reforming the life. The Pharisee washed his hands clean, but left his soul full of uncleanness; not considering that he that made the soul as well as the body, requires that both should be kept pure, all the impiety of men’s lives proceeding from the impurity of their hearts and natures.

William Burkitt's Expository Notes on the New Testament (1700–1703) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

J. W. McGarvey's The Fourfold Gospel [LI. Dining with a Pharisee].

LI. DINING WITH A PHARISEE, JESUS DENOUNCES THAT SECT. cLUKE XI. 37-54.

c37 Now as he spake, a Pharisee asketh him to dine with him: and he went in, and sat down to meat. [The repast to which Jesus was invited was a morning meal, usually eaten between ten and eleven o'clock. The principal meal of the day was eaten in the evening. Jesus dined with all classes, with publicans and Pharisees, with friends and enemies.] 38 And when the Pharisee saw it, he marvelled that he had not first bathed himself before dinner. [The Pharisee marveled at this because the tradition of the elders required them to wash their hands before eating, and, if they had been in a crowd where their bodies might have been touched by some unclean person, they washed their whole bodies. It was a custom which ministered to pride and self-righteousness.] 39 The Lord said to him [Our Lord's speech is unsparingly denunciatory. To some it seems strange that Jesus spoke thus in a house where he was an invited guest. But our Lord never suspended the solemn work of reproof out of mere compliment. He was governed by higher laws than those of conventional politeness], Now ye the Pharisees cleanse the outside of the cup and the platter; but your inward part is full of extortion and wickedness. 40 Ye foolish ones, did not he that made the outside make the inside also? [Since God made both the inner and the outer, a true reverence for him requires that both parts be alike kept clean.] 41 But give for alms those things which are within; and behold, all things are clean unto you. [That is, give your inner life, your love, mercy, compassion, etc., to the blessing of mankind, and then your inner purity will make you proof [312] against outward defilement-- Mat_15:11, Tit_1:15, Rom_14:4.] 42 But woe unto you, Pharisees! for ye tithe mint and rue and every herb, and pass over justice and the love of God: but these ought ye to have done, and not to leave the other undone. [The Pharisees in paying the tenth part, or tithe, to God, were so exact that they offered the tenth part of the seed even of the spearmint, rue and other small garden herbs, and many contended that the very stalks of these plants should also be tithed. Jesus commends this care about little things, but nevertheless rebukes the Pharisees because they were as careless about big things, such as justice, and the love of God, as they were careful about herb seed. Rue was a small shrub about two feet high, and is said to have been used to flavor wine, and for medicinal purposes.] 43 Woe unto you, Pharisees! for ye love the chief seats in the synagogues, and the salutations in the marketplaces. [They were vainglorious, loving the honors and attentions given by men ( Joh_5:44). They loved on week days to be saluted in the marketplace, and on the Sabbath to sit in the semi-circular row of seats which were back of the lectern, or desk of the reader, and which faced the congregation.] 44 Woe unto you! for ye are as the tombs which appear not, and the men that walk over i them know it not. [According to the Mosaic law, any one who touched a grave was rendered unclean ( Num_19:16). That they might not touch graves and be made unclean without knowing it, the Jews white-washed their graves and tombs once a year. But Jesus likens a Pharisee to graves which defiled men unawares. Their hypocrisy concealed their true nature, so that men were injured and corrupted by their influence without being aware of it. Jesus pronounces three woes upon the Pharisees for three sins, viz.: 1. Hypocrisy, shown in pretending to be be very careful when they were really extremely careless; 2. Vainglory; 3. Corruption of the public morals.] 45 And one of the lawyers answering saith unto him, Teacher, in saying this thou reproachest us also. [Lightfoot supposes that a [313] scribe was one who copied the law of Moses, while a lawyer expounded the oral law or traditions of the elders. But it is more likely that the terms were used interchangeably. They leaned to the Pharisee party, and hence this one felt the rebuke which Jesus addressed to that party. The scribe intimated that Jesus had spoken hastily, and his speech is a suggestion to Jesus to correct or modify his unguarded words. But Jesus made no mistakes and spoke no hasty words.] 46 And he said, Woe unto you lawyers also! for ye load men with burdens grievous to be borne, and ye yourselves touch not the burdens with one of your fingers. [We have seen in the traditions with regard to the Sabbath how these Jewish lawyers multiplied the burdens which Moses had placed upon the people. They were careful to lay these burdens upon others, but equally careful not to bear them themselves--no, not even to keep the law of Moses itself-- Mat_23:2, Mat_23:3.] 47 Woe unto you! for ye build the tombs of the prophets, and your fathers killed them. 48 So ye are witnesses and consent unto the works of your fathers: for they killed them, and ye build i their tombs. [Tombs were usually dug in the rock in the sides of hills or cliffs. To build them therefore was to decorate or ornament the entrance. Though their act in building the sepulchres was a seeming honor to the prophets, God did not accept it as such. A prophet is only truly honored when his message is received and obeyed. The lawyers were not in fellowship with the prophets, but with those who murdered the prophets: hence the Saviour pictures the whole transaction from the killing of the prophets to the building of their sepulchres as one act in which all concurred, and all of which were guilty. Abbott gives the words a figurative meaning, thus: your fathers slew the prophets by violence, and you bury them by false teaching.] 49 Therefore also said the wisdom of God, I will send unto them prophets and apostles; and i some of them they shall kill and persecute; 50 that the blood of all the prophets, which was shed from the foundation of the world, may be required of this [314] generation [The phrase "wisdom of God" has been very puzzling, for the words spoken by Jesus are not found in any Old Testament book. Among the explanations the best is that which represents Jesus as quoting the trend or tenor of several prophecies such as 2Ch_24:19-22, 2Ch_36:14-16, Pro_1:20-33. It may, however, be possible that Jesus is here publishing a new decree or conclusion of God, for the words specifically concerned the present generation. If so, Jesus assents to the decree of the Father by calling it "the wisdom of God," and the language is kindred to that at Mat_11:25, Mat_11:26]; 51 From the blood of Abel unto the blood of Zachariah, who perished between the altar and the sanctuary: yea, I say unto you, it shall be required of this generation. [Abel is accounted a prophet because his form of sacrifice prefigured that of Christ. His murder is described at Gen_4:1-8, the first historical book of the Bible, while that of Zachariah is described at 2Ch_24:20-22, in the last historical book of the Old Testament. From the record of one, therefore, to the record of the other embraces the entire catalogue of the Old Testament martyrs. Tradition assigns one of the four great sepulchral monuments at the foot of Olivet to Zachariah. That generation sanctioned all the sins of the past and went beyond them to the crucifixion of the Son of God. The best comment on this passage is the parable at Luk_20:9-16. God made that generation the focus of the world's light and privilege, but the men of that time made it the focus of the world's wickedness and punishment. The punishment began about thirty-seven years later in the war with Rome, which lasted five years and culminated in the destruction of Jerusalem.] 52 Woe unto you lawyers! for ye took away the key of knowledge: ye entered not in yourselves, and them that were entering in ye hindered. [A true knowledge of the Scriptures was a key which opened the door to the glories of Christ and his kingdom. This the lawyer had given away by teaching not the contents of the book, but the rubbish and trifles of tradition. They did not open the door for themselves, and by their [315] pretentious interference they confused others in their efforts to open it.] 53 And when he was come out from thence, the scribes and the Pharisees began to press upon i him vehemently, and to provoke him to speak of many things; 54; laying wait for him, to catch something out of his mouth. [They plied him with many questions, hoping that they could irritate him into making a hot or hasty answer. For methods used to entrap Jesus see Mat_22:15-17, Mat_22:23-28, Mat_22:34-36, Mat_22:46]

[FFG 312-316]

J. W. McGarvey (with Philip Y. Pendleton), Commentaries on the New Testament (The Fourfold Gospel, 1914; Acts; and the epistles) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

37, 38. A certain Pharisee besought him. Jesus did not refuse invitations of Pharisees, or of publicans and sinners.

Marvelled that he had not first washed. Dipped his hands. The tradition of the elders required those who came in from without to immerse their hands before eating. See Matt. 15:2 and Mark 7:2–5, for notes.

B. W. Johnson's The People's New Testament with Notes (1889–1891) — public domain. Electronic text from the Christian Classics Ethereal Library (CCEL) ThML edition.

General Information:

Jesus is invited to eat at a Pharisee's house.

When he had finished speaking

The author uses these words to mark the beginning of a new event. (See: Introduction of a New Event)

at his house

This refers to the Pharisee's house.

reclined

It was the custom for a relaxed meal such as this dinner for men to eat while lying down comfortably around the table. You might want to translate using the word your language uses for the way people's bodies are when they eat. AT: "sat down at the table" (See: Assumed Knowledge and Implicit Information)

wash

The Pharisees had a rule that people must wash their hands in order to be ceremonially clean before God. AT: "wash his hands" or "wash his hands in order to be ritually clean" (See: Assumed Knowledge and Implicit Information)

translationWords

Pharisee

Jesus

unfoldingWord translationNotes — © Distant Shores Media and the Door43 World Missions Community, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Source: git.door43.org/Door43/en_tn.

37–54. THE INVITATION OF THE PHARISEE AND THE OPEN RUPTURE

37. ἐρωτᾷ. ‘Asked’ (A. V[244] “besought”).

[244] A. V. Authorised Version.

ὅπως ἀριστήσῃ παρ’ αὐτῷ. The meal was not dinner (δεῖπνον), but an earlier, lighter, and more informal meal (ἄριστον).

εἰσελθὼν δὲ ἀνέπεσεν. The words imply that immediately He entered He sat down to table. The meal was merely some slight refreshment in the middle of the day, and probably our Lord was both suffering from hunger after His long hours of teaching, and was also anxious to save time.

Cambridge Greek Testament for Schools and Colleges (Cambridge University Press, 1896; 21 vols, various authors incl. Carr, Maclear, Plummer, Farrar, Lumby, Moule, M. R. James, Simcox) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

37-54.] Discourse against the Pharisees. There can be no antecedent improbability in the supposition that our Lord spoke on various occasions, and with various incidental references, the component parts of that great anti-pharisaic discourse contained in Mat_23. That was spoken in the temple, during the last week of His ministry; it formed the solemn close of His public teaching,—and at the end of it He departed out of the temple to return no more. I do not think it possible to suppose any part of that discourse in Matthew to be related otherwise than in its true place; all probability is against such an idea,—and so is the character of the reports of discourses in that Gospel, in general so strictly coherent and exact. There is then but one supposition left, unless we suppose Luke to have put together at random a number of fragments, and to have inserted them here, creating an occasion for them (for it amounts to this), which is equally inconceivable. And that is, that our Lord spoke at this meal, the occasion being the wonder of the Pharisee at His not washing before sitting down to meat, parts of that discourse, with which He afterwards solemnly closed His public ministry. See throughout, notes on Mat_23.

37.] ἀριστήσῃ, the morning meal.

εἰσελθ. δὲ ἀνέπεσεν, i.e. without any delay; as soon as He had entered, He sat down.

Henry Alford, The Greek Testament (1849–1861) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

37-54. § The Invitation from a Pharisee. Christ’s Denunciation of Pharisaic Formalism and Hypocrisy. A similar condemnation of the Pharisees is placed by Mt. somewhat later, and is given with great fulness (23.). If these sayings were uttered only once, we have not much material for determining which arrangement is more in accordance with fact. See on ver. 54.

37. Ἐν δὲ τωσͅ λαλησσαι. “Now after He had spoken” (aor.), rather than “As He spake” (AV. RV.). See on 3:21. There is nothing to show that the invitation was the result of what Christ had just been saying. Indeed, there may have been a considerable interval between vv. 36 and 37. Syr-Sin. omits.

ὅπως ἀριστήσῃ. Here, as in Joh 21:12, Joh 21:15, the early meal of breakfast or lunch is meant rather than dinner or supper: comp. 14:12; Mat 22:4. At this time the first meal of all was called ἀκράτισμα. Becker, Charicles, vi. excurs. 1., Eng. tr. p. 240.

International Critical Commentary — older volumes (1896–1929), various authors — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Besought [ερωτα] . Too strong. Better, as Rev., asketh. The present tense.

Dine [αριστηση] . See on dinner, Mt 22:4. The morning meal, immediately after the return from morning prayers in the synagogue.

Washed [εβαπτισθη] . See on Mr 7:4.

Marvin R. Vincent, Word Studies in the New Testament (1887–1900) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.