Matthew 15:6

15:6 cancel: Because of a greater commitment to their traditions, the Pharisees in effect rendered God’s law nonbinding, turning their piety into sinful disregard for the word of God.

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

Mat 15:6. Καὶ, and thus) διὰ, on account of) The heart which is occupied with traditions, has no room for the commandments of God.

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

Mat 15:6 . ἠκυρώσατε , ye invalidated, by making such a rule, the aorist pointing to the time when the rule was made. Or it may be a gnomic aorist: so ye are wont to, etc. The verb ἀκυρόω belongs to later Greek, though Elsner calls the phrase “bene Graeca”. διὰ … ὑμῶν : an account of your tradition, again to mark it as their idol, and as theirs alone, God having no part in it, though the Rabbis taught that it was given orally by God to Moses.

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

You made it of no power and authority as much as lay in you: for otherwise the commandments of God stand fast in the Church of God, in despite of the world and Satan.

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

And honour not his father or his mother, he shall be free--that is, It is true, father--mother--that by giving to thee this, which I now present, thou mightest be profited by me; but I have gifted it to pious uses, and therefore, at whatever cost to thee, I am not now at liberty to alienate any portion of it. "And," it is added in Mark (Mar 7:12), "ye suffer him no more to do aught for his father or his mother." To dedicate property to God is indeed lawful and laudable, but not at the expense of filial duty.

Thus have ye made the commandment of God of none effect--cancelled or nullified it "by your tradition."

Jamieson, Fausset & Brown — Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

(6) He shall be free.—The words, as the italics show, are not in the Greek, and if we follow the better reading, are not wanted to complete the sense. “Whosoever shall say to his father or his mother, It is a gift, by whatsoever thou mightest be profited by me, he shall not honour (i.e., shall not support) his father or his mother.” The “honour” which the commandment enjoined was identified with the duty which was its first and most natural expression.

By your tradition.—As before, for the sake of. They had inverted the right relation of the two, and made the tradition an end, and not a means. St. Mark (Mar_7:9) gives what we cannot describe otherwise than as a touch of grave and earnest irony, in the truest and best sense of that word, “Full well ye reject the commandment of God, that ye may keep your own traditions.”

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

6. he shall be free] These words do not occur in the original, either here or in the parallel passage in Mark. It is as if the indignation of Jesus did not allow him to utter the words of acquittal. The silence is more eloquent than the utterance.

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.

6 And honour not his father or his mother, he shall be free. Thus have ye made the commandment of God of none effect by your tradition.

Ver. 6. And honour not his father and his mother] Supple, insons erit. Our Saviour contents himself to relate the first words only of the tradition, as lawyers use to do the first words of the statute or canon they quote or argue upon.

Thus have you made the commandment of none effect] {a} Ye have sought to shoulder God out of his throne, to divest and spoil him of his rule and authority, to ungod him, as it were, by making his commandment void and invalid. And do not Papists as much as all this, while they teach that a monk may not leave his cloister to relieve his father, but must rather see and suffer him to die for hunger in the streets. Lyra hath these very words, Filius per professionem factam in religione, excusatur a subveniendo parentibus. This Lyra was a famous English Jew, but an arrant Papist, as for the most part all were then, for he flourished A.D. 1320.

{a} ηκυρωσατε, of α and κυρος, rule, authority.

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 he shall not honour; that is, assist his father or his mother. It is doubtful whether these may not be the words of the Pharisees; but they rather seem the words of our Saviour Christ, especially seeing that in St. Mark, Christ himself adds: And, farther, you suffer him not to do any thing for his father or mother, making void the word of God by your tradition. (Witham)

George Leo Haydock (1774–1849), Haydock's Catholic Family Bible and Commentary, 1859 edition — public domain. Excludes Psalms (Douay-Rheims chapter numbering differs from Protestant) and Deuterocanonical books (Catholic canon only).

6. He shall be free — These words, let it be observed, are printed in italics. This means that they are not in the original Greek, but are inserted by the English translators on their own authority, in order to make sense. But it may be doubted whether they are properly inserted here. The whole sentence preceding this phrase may be thus rendered: “Whosoever shall say… It is a gift, etc., he may not honour his father or his mother.”

It is plain our Lord here holds that the fifth commandment requires of the child the duty, when needed, of providing a necessary support for the parent in his age. So the Jewish writer Philo says: “What the children have belongs to the parents.” So Solomon had declared before our Saviour.

Pro_28:24 : “Whoso robbeth or withdraweth from father or mother, is the companion of the destroyer.” When we think how liable the Jewish child might be in a fit of anger to utter this corban or vow to starve his parent, it can be realized how likely the custom was to destroy the dutiful conduct of children to the parent. And yet these men thought it a terrible offence to God to eat without washing the hands! This reminds one of the strictness with which Romish priests compel their followers to eat no meat on Friday, but indulge them with comparative ease in thefts, falsehoods, or intemperance. Indeed, the Romish trust in tradition, derived from the fathers of the dark and ignorant ages, in depreciation of the Scriptures, is precisely the same crime over again that was committed by the Jewish doctors of our Lord’s day.

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

And honour not his father or his mother, he shall be free. The last clause is not in the Greek; it is supplied by our translators, as it was in Coverdale"s version, to complete the apodosis. There are various methods of translating the passage. Retaining kai at the beginning of the sentence, some make these words the continuation of the gloss, "Whosoever shall say," etc., the apodosis being found in the sentence following. Others conceive an aposiopesis after "be profited by me," as if Christ refrained from pronouncing the hypocritical and indeed blasphemous words which completed the gloss. In this case the apodosis follows in ver. 6, kai , then such a one will not honour (timha ei , not timhsh), etc. The words are best taken as put into the Pharisees" mouth in the sense, "The man under those circumstances shall not honour," etc.; he is free from the obligation of helping his parents. The form of the sentence (ou mh with the future verb) is prohibitory rather than predictive, and implies, "he is forbidden to honour." Christ thus sharply emphasizes the contradiction between God"s Law and man"s perversion thereof. St. Mark has, "Ye no longer suffer him to do aught for his father." Thus; kai in the apodosis, removing the full stop before it in the Authorized Version. This is our Lord"s own saying. Made...of none effect. Evacuated its real force and spirit. By; owing to, for the sake of, as St. Mark says, "that ye may keep your tradition." Our translators often mistake the meaning of the preposition dia with the accusative, which never signifies "by means of.

The evil influence of man-made rules.

"Thus have ye made the commandment of God of none effect by your tradition." Sincerely enough, and with a view to helping the people to apply the revealed principles of truth and duty, the national teachers had begun to supply commentaries on, and applications of, the Holy Scriptures. These became ever more and more elaborate; controversies were excited by them, and an authority was claimed for the minute, man-made rule rather than for the comprehensive and searching principle. One part of our Lord"s mission was to liberate men from the painful and worryful pressure of these man-made rules, and recover for man the genuine unalloyed moral force on moral beings of God"s commands. It was sometimes necessary for him to be severe in dealing with the claims made on behalf of traditions. We can but little conceive how religion was affected, in our Lord"s time, by a mere ritual that was so comprehensive, so minute, and yet so ridiculous, that it must have made men hate the very name of religion.

I MAN-MADE RELIGIOUS RULES ARE ATTRACTIVE TO MEN. It may be said, to all men. It can with confidence be said, to some men. There are, in every age and society, persons who prefer to have their religion done for them; who cannot, and will not, bear the burden of personal responsibility. They ask to have their conduct arranged by rules. And there have always been those who were willing to meet their requests, and to claim authority for so doing. It is a seemingly easy way in which to get through the difficult business of religion, if only it could be made satisfactory; but that it can never be. In all ages, and today, the man-made rules are sure to "make the Word of God of none effect." They are sure to push God out of those direct and personal relations which he bears to each one.

II MAN-MADE RELIGIOUS RULES ARE RUINOUS FOR MEN. If they could keep them as mere helps and guides, all would be well. But that is just what man has never been able to do. Man-made rules are always pushing out of their place, and into a place which does not properly belong to them. The following points may be worked out and illustrated.

1. Man-made rules shift the basis of authority in religion from God to man, from the true authority to an altogether false one.

2. Man-made rules exaggerate the place of self in religion. For the authority of man is only the authority of idealized self.

3. Man-made rules substitute a religion of hand (conduct) for the religion of the heart. R.T.

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

6. Ye have void the word of God by your tradition. Modern Pharisaism does the same. Church tradition leads to dogmas that set aside God's commands. The corruption of the simplicity of early Christianity is due to following human tradition.

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.

6. τὸν λόγον for τὴν ἐντολὴν of textus receptus; τὸν νόμον the reading of Tischendorf has the authority of א and C and some cursives, and would explain τὴν ἐντολήν. τὸν λόγον may have been introduced from Mark.

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.

6. And you made void the word of God because of your tradition.] Mk. has: “Making void the word of God by your tradition which you delivered; and many such similar things you do.” For Mt.’s omission of the redundant ᾗ παρεδώκατε, see on 8:16. For ἀκυροῦν, which occurs here and in Gal 3:17, the lexx. cite Dion. H. 2. 72. Add Ditt. Syll. 329. 30.1

(M)

6. τὸν λόγον] אc a B D a b ff1 2 S1 S2; τὸν νόμον, א* et c b C; τὴν ἐντολήν, E F al.

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

Have made of none effect [ηκυρωσατε] . Rev., made void; aj, not, kurov, authority. Ye have deprived it of its authority.

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