Matthew 15:1-20

The Washing of Hands and the Traditions of the Elders (Mark 7:1 *). Mt. is again briefer than Mk. He omits the parenthetical explanation Mark 7:3 f. and the technical term Corban, turns the statement of Mark 7:9 into a question (Matthew 15:3), and puts the quotation from Isaiah as a climax after the Corban passage. He also substitutes God (Matthew 15:4) for Moses (Mark 7:10) to heighten the antithesis with But you say (Matthew 15:5), and mouth (Matthew 15:11; Matthew 15:17 f.) for man (Mark 7:15; Mark 7:18; Mark 7:20), thus removing the ambiguity which was the ground of the subsequent explanation, and making the explanation tautologous. He abbreviates the list of evils (Matthew 15:19), and omits the difficult phrase making all meats clean (Mark 7:19). On the other hand he inserts Matthew 15:12, perhaps from Q (cf. Luke 6:39).

In addition to what is said on the Corban question in the notes on Mark 7, attention may be drawn to a suggestion by J. H. A. Hart in Jewish Quarterly Review, July 1907. He takes Mark 7:9 literally, not satirically: ye do well to leave the commandment, etc. Jesus commends the Pharisees for insisting that, when a man has made a vow to God, he should pay it though his parents suffer. As for setting aside the command, He Himself did it, as in the Sermon on the Mount, and as the prophets and psalmists had set aside the whole system of sacrifices. Here the fifth commandment is set aside by Corban. A man could lay his conflict of duties before the scribes; some would take one view, some the other. Jesus allies Himself here with the stricter school. It was hard on the parents, and none knew this better than Jesus did. But He had vowed His life, and we remember His words about forsaking father and mother. There is evidence of tense emotion in the broken construction of Mark 7:11.

Matthew 15:13. The plants are the Pharisees. Jesus announces their ruin and that of their system and their followers. Cf. Matthew 3:10, Luke 13:6; John 15:1.