Matthew 6:16

Matthew 6:16. When ye fast. Fasting as an aid to prayer and meditation, and a wholesome discipline, is a religious duty, and has a place in Christian practice. More is meant than temperance in meat and drink. Stated fasts are likely to become formal; public fasts are almost sure to become Pharisaical, but there are circumstances in the life of every Christian which make days of private abstinence appropriate. The wrong, hypocritical way of fasting is first mentioned.

Of a sour countenance, not sorrowful, but sullen, morose, as is explained further by what follows.

For they disfigure their faces. They left their beards and faces uncleaned, attired themselves negligently, with a purpose in view, viz., that they may appear unto men to fast, or, that they may appear unto men, fasting. They did really fast, but they wished men to see them as they fasted. There is a play upon the words in the Greek: They make their faces unappearable (‘disfigure'), that they may appear unto men fasting. They obtain their wish, have received their reward, the hire for which they do such things.