Luke 11:45,46

Luke 11:45-46. Literalism. “ Then answered one of the lawyers, and said unto him, Master, thus saying thou reproachest us also. 46. And 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. ”

There seems to be no essential difference between the terms νομικός, νομοδιδάσκαλος, and γραμματεύς. See Luke 11:53; and comp. Luke 11:52 with Matthew 23:13. Yet there must be a shade of difference at least between the words; according to the etymology, νομικός denotes the expert, the casuist, who discusses doubtful cases, the Mosaic jurist, as Meyer says; νομοδιδάσκαλος, the doctor, the professor who gives public or private courses of Mosaic law; γραμματεύς would include in general all those who are occupied with the Scriptures, either in the way of theoretical teaching or practical application.

Our Lord answers the scribe, as He had answered the Pharisee, in three sentences of condemnation. The first rebuke is the counterpart of that which He had addressed in the first place to the latter, to wit, literalism; this is the twin brother of formalism. The paid scribes were infinitely less respectable than the generality of the Pharisees. As to those minute prescriptions which they discovered daily in the law, and which they recommended to the zeal of devotees, they had small regard for them in their own practice. They seemed to imagine that, so far as they were concerned, the knowing dispensed with the doing. Such is the procedure characterized by Jesus in Luke 11:46. Constantly drawing the heaviest burdens from the law, they bind them on the shoulders of the simple. But as to themselves, they make not the slightest effort to lift them.