Matthew 23:24

Ye blind guides, which strain at a gnat, and swallow a camel. YE BLIND GUIDES, WHICH STRAIN AT A GNAT. The proper rendering-as in the older English translations, and perhaps our own as it came from the translators' hands-evidently is, 'strain out.' It was the custom, says Trench, of the stricter Jews to strain their wine, vinegar, and other potables through linen or gauze, lest unawares they should drink down some little unclean insect therein, and thus transgress (; ; -just as the Buddhists do now in Ceylon and Hindustan-and to this custom of theirs our Lord here refers. AND SWALLOW A CAMEL - the largest animal the Jews knew, as the "gnat" was the smallest: both were by the la...

24._Blind guides. _This is s proverbial saying, by which he beautifully describes the affected scrupulousness of hypocrites about trifling matters; for they utterly shrink from very small faults, as if a single transgression appeared to them more revolting than a hundred deaths, and yet they freely permit themselves and others to commit the most heinous crimes. They act as absurdly as if a man were to _strain out _a small crumb of bread, and to swallow a whole loaf. _Straining out _(101) _a gnat, and swallowing a camel. _We know that _a gnat _is a very small animal, and that _a camel _is a huge beast. Nothing therefore could be more ridiculous than to _strain out _the wine or the water, so as not to hurt the jaws by swallowing _a gnat, _and yet carelessly to gulp down a _camel. _(102) But it is evident that hypocrites amuse thems

13-33 The scribes and Pharisees were enemies to the gospel of Christ, and therefore to the salvation of the souls of men. It is bad to keep away from Christ ourselves, but worse also to keep others from him. Yet it is no new thing for the show and form of godliness to be made a cloak to the greatest enormities. But dissembled piety will be reckoned double iniquity. They were very busy to turn souls to be of their party. Not for the glory of God and the good of souls, but that they might have the credit and advantage of making converts. Gain being their godliness, by a thousand devices they made religion give way to their worldly interests. They were very strict and precise in smaller matters of the law, but careless and loose in weightier matters. It is not the scrupling a little sin that Christ here reproves; if it be a sin, though but a gnat, it must be strained out; but the doing tha...

Verse Matthew 23:24. _BLIND GUIDES, WHICH STRAIN AT A GNAT, AND SWALLOW A_ _CAMEL._] This clause should be thus translated: Ye strain out the gnat, but ye swallow down the camel. In the common translation, _Ye strain_ AT _a gnat_, conveys no sense. Indeed, it is likely to have been at first an error of the press, AT for OUT, which, on examination, I find escaped in the edition of 1611, and has been regularly continued since. There is now before me, "_The Newe_ _Testament, (both in Englyshe and in Laten,) of Mayster Erasmus_ _translacion, imprynted by Wyllyam Powell, dwellynge in Flete_ _strete: the yere of our Lorde M.CCCCC.XLVII. the fyrste yere of_ _the kynges (Edwd. VI.) moste gracious reygne_." in which the verse stands thus: "_Ye blinde gides, which strayne out a gnat, and_ _swalowe a cammel_." It is the same als...

WHICH STRAIN AT A GNAT ... - This is a proverb. There is, however, a mistranslation or misprint here, which makes the verse unmeaning. “To strain” at a “gnat” conveys no sense. It should have been to strain out a gnat; and so it is printed in some of the earlier versions, and so it was undoubtedly rendered by the translators. The common reading is a “misprint,” and should be corrected. The Greek means to “strain” out by a cloth or sieve. A GNAT - The gnat has its origin in the water; not in great rivers, but in pools and marshes In the stagnant waters they appear in the form of small “grubs” or “larvae.” These larvae retain their form about three weeks, after which they turn to chrysalids, and after three or four days they pass to the form of gnats. They are then distinguished by their well-known sharp sting. It is probable that the Saviour here refers to the insect as it exists in its “...

EXPOSITION MATTHEW 23:1 _Denunciation of the scribes and Pharisees, and lamentation over Jerusalem which followed their guidance to her own destruction. _(Peculiar to St. Matthew.) MATTHEW 23:1 THEN SPAKE JESUS. Some small portion of this discourse, the close of our Lord's public teaching, is found in Mark 12:38 and Luke 20:45-42 (comp. also Luke 11:1., Luke 11:13.). It is here addres

YE BLIND GUIDES,.... As in Matthew 23:16 WHO STRAIN AT A GNAT AND SWALLOW A CAMEL: the Syriac and Persic versions read the words in the plural number, gnats and camels. The Jews had a law, which forbid them the eating of any creeping thing, Leviticus 11:41 and of this they were strictly observant, and would not be guilty of the breach of it for ever so much. "One that eats a flea, or a gnat; they say p is מומר, "an apostate";'' one that has changed his religion, and is no more to be reckoned as one of them. Hence they very carefully strained their liquors, lest they should transgress the above command, and incur the character of an apostate; and at least, the penalty of being beaten with forty stripes, save one; for, "whoever eat

11. THE WOES OF THE KING AND HIS LAMENTATION OVER JERUSALEM. CHAPTER 23 _ 1. The Hypocrisy of the Pharisees.(Matthew 23:1 .) 2. The Woes of the King upon Them.(Matthew 23:13 .) 3. The Lamentation over Jerusalem. (Matthew 23:37 .)_ For the last time we have seen the Pharisees in the presence of the Lord in the previous chapter. What an important part these ecclesiastical leaders of the professing people of God play in this Gospel. They rejected Him; hated Him without a cause, and after they found they could not ensnare Him they resorted to that which Satan had put into their wicked hearts “that they might kill Him.” That which the Lord had foretold in His parable of the vineyard is now soo

SEVEN WOES. Seven is a sacred number and often used in Mt., as in OT (_cf._ especially Isaiah 5) and _Rev._ The first three treat of Pharisaic teaching, the last three of Pharisaic character, the fourth is transitional. i.-iii. The Scribes refused to accept the preaching of Jesus, and deterred others from accepting it (Matthew 23:13; _cf._ Luke 11:52). While they are thus eager to prevent Jews from becoming Christians, they are keen to make converts either from the Gentiles to Judaism, or, more probably, from Jews to Pharisaism, and such converts become excessively Pharisaical (Matthew 23:15); they make casuistical and perverse distinctions with regard to oaths which subvert men's notions of truthfulness and

SCRIBES AND PHARISEES (Matthew 23:1-39) If a man is characteristically and temperamentally an irritable, ill-tempered and irascible creature, notoriously given to uncontrolled outbursts of passionate anger, his anger is neither effective nor impressive. Nobody pays any attention to the anger of a bad-tempered man. But when a person who is characteristically meek and lowly, gentle and loving, suddenly erupts into blazing wrath, even the most thoughtless person is shocked into taking thought. That is why the anger of Jesus is so awe-inspiring a sight. It is seldom in literature that we find so unsparing and sustained an indictment as we find in this chapter when the wrath of Jesus is directed against the Scribes and Pharisees. Before we begin to study the chapter in detail, it will be well to see briefly what the Scribes and Pharisees stood for. The Jews had a deep and las