Matthew 15:11

imple direct appeal to the moral sense of mankind; one of those emancipating words which sweep away the cobwebs of artificial systems; better than elaborate argument. It is called a parable in Matthew 15:15, but it is not a parable in the strict sense here whatever it may be in Mk. (vide notes there). Parables are used to illustrate the ethical by the natural. This saying is itself ethical: τὸ ἐκπορευόμενον ἐκ τοῦ στόματος refers to words as expressing thoughts and desires (Matthew 15:19). οὐ τὸ εἰσερ. εἰς τὸ στόμα : refers to food of all sorts; clean God taken with unclean hands, and food in itself unclean. The drift of the saying therefore is: ceremonial uncleanness, however caused, a small matter, moral uncleanness the one thing to be dreaded. This goes beyond the tradition of the elders, and virtually abrogates the Levitical distinctions between clean and unclean. A sentiment worthy of Jesus and suitable to an occasion when He was compelled to emphasise the supreme importance of the ethical in the law the ethical emphatically the law of God (τὴν ἐντολὴν τοῦ θεοῦ, Matthew 15:3).