Matthew 7:6

Give not that which is holy unto the dogs, neither cast ye your pearls before swine, lest they trample them under their feet, and turn again and rend you. GIVE NOT THAT WHICH IS HOLY UNTO THE DOGS - savage or snarling haters of truth and righteousness. NEITHER CAST YE YOUR PEARLS BEFORE SWINE - the impure or coarse who are incapable of appreciating the priceless jewels of Christianity. In the East dogs are wilder and more gregarious, and, feeding on carrion and garbage, are coarser and fiercer than the same animals in the West. Dogs and swine, besides being ceremonially unclean, were peculiarly repulsive to the Jews, and indeed to the ancients generally. LEAST THEY TRAMPLE THEM UNDER THEIR FEET-AS SWINE DO-AND TURN AGAIN AND REND YOU - as dogs do. Religion is brought into contempt, and its professors insulted when it is forced upon those who cannot value it and will not h...

6._Give not that which is holy _It is unnecessary to repeat oftener, that Matthew gives us here detached sentences, which ought not to be viewed as a continued discourse. The present instruction is not at all connected with what came immediately before, but is entirely separate from it. Christ reminds the Apostles, and, through them, all the teachers of the Gospel, to reserve the treasure of heavenly wisdom for the children of God alone, and not to expose it to unworthy and profane despisers of his word. But here a question arises: for he afterwards commanded to _preach the Gospel to every creature, _(Mark 16:15;) and Paul says, that the preaching of it is _a deadly savor to wicked men, _(2 Corinthians 2:16;) and nothing is more certain than that it is every day held out to unbelievers, by the command of God

1-6 We must judge ourselves, and judge of our own acts, but not make our word a law to everybody. We must not judge rashly, nor pass judgment upon our brother without any ground. We must not make the worst of people. Here is a just reproof to those who quarrel with their brethren for small faults, while they allow themselves in greater ones. Some sins are as motes, while others are as beams; some as a gnat, others as a camel. Not that there is any sin little; if it be a mote, or splinter, it is in the eye; if a gnat, it is in the throat; both are painful and dangerous, and we cannot be easy or well till they are got out. That which charity teaches us to call but a splinter in our brother's eye, true repentance and godly sorrow will teach us to call a beam in our own. It is as strange that a man can be in a sinful, miserable condition, and not be aware of it, as that a man should have a...

Verse Matthew 7:6. _GIVE NOT THAT WHICH IS HOLY_] το αγιον, _the holy or_ _sacred thing_; i.e. any thing, especially, of the _sacrificial_ kind, which had been consecrated to God. The members of this sentence should be transposed thus: - _Give not that which is holy unto the dogs_, _Lest they turn again and rend you_: _Neither cast ye your pearls before swine_, _Lest they trample them under their feet_. The propriety of this transposition is self-evident. There are many such transpositions as these, both in _sacred_ and _profane_ writers. The following is very remarkable: - "I am black b

GIVE NOT THAT WHICH IS HOLY ... - By some the word “holy” has been supposed to mean “flesh offered in sacrifice,” made holy, or separated to a sacred use; but it probably means here “anything connected with religion” - admonition, precept, or doctrine. Pearls are precious stones found in shell-fish, chiefly in India, in the waters that surround Ceylon. They are used to denote anything especially precious, Revelation 17:4; Revelation 18:12; Matthew 13:45. In this place they are used to denote the doctrines of the gospel. “Dogs” signify people who spurn, oppose, and abuse that doctrine; people of special sourness and malignity of temper, who meet it like growling and quarrelsom

EXPOSITION MATTHEW 7:1 (2) As anxiety about the things of this life hinders us Godwards (Matthew 6:19), so does censoriousness manwards (Matthew 7:1), our Lord thus tacitly opposing two typically Jewish faults. Censoriousness—the personal danger of having it (Matthew 7:1, Matthew 7:2), its seriousness as a sign of ignorance and as a hindrance to spiritual vision (Matthew 7:3), even though there must be a r

GIVE NOT THAT WHICH IS HOLY TO THE DOGS,.... Dogs were unclean creatures by the law; the price of one might not be brought into the house of the Lord, for a vow, Deuteronomy 23:18 yea, these creatures were not admitted into several temples of the Heathens h. Things profane and unclean, as flesh torn by beasts, were ordered to be given to them, Exodus 22:31 but nothing that was holy was to be given them, as holy flesh, or the holy oblations, or anything that was consecrated to holy uses; to which is the allusion here. It is a common maxim i with the Jews, "Myblkl Nlykahl Myvdqh ta Nydwp Nyav, "that they do not redeem holy things, to give to the dogs to eat".'' Here the phrase is used in a metaphorical sense; and is generally understood of not delivering or communicating the

Matthew 7:1. _Judge not, that ye be not judged. For with what judgment ye judge, ye shall be judged: and with what measure ye mete, it shall be measured to you again._ Use your judgment, of course: the verse implies that you will judge in a right sense. But do not indulge the criticizing faculty upon others in censorious manner, or as if you were set in authority, and had a right to dispense judgment among your fellows. If you impute motives, and pretend to read hearts, others will do the same towards you. A hard and censorious behaviour is sure to provoke reprisals. Those around you will pick up the peck measure you have been using, and measure your corn with it. You do not object to men forming a fair opinion of your character, neither are you forbidden to do the same towards them, but as you would object to their sitting in judgment upon you, do not sit in judgment upon them. Thi

CHAPTER 7 _ 1. The Judgment of Righteousness.(Matthew 7:1 .) 2. Warning against False Prophets.(Matthew 7:15 .) 3. Warning against False Professors. (Matthew 7:21 .)_ The chapter which follows contains the last words of the great discourse of our Lord. The contents of this chapter are very instructive and form a most fitting end of the declaration of the King. The first few verses contain a warning against judging. We have in the beginning of the chapter something which is altogether different from the last section of the sixth chapter. There we saw the heir of the Kingdom in the midst of the world, how he is to trust in and depend on the Father and seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, h

MATTHEW 7:6. DOGS AND SWINE. Lk. omits, as a reflection on Gentile readers. To the Jew, Gentiles were dogs, and careless Jews perhaps swine. The saying looks like a modification of the command not to judge; the disciple must exercise some discrimination (? in teaching). THAT WHICH IS HOLY is a strange parallel to PEARLS; it may be a mistaken rendering of the Aramaic word for ear-rings. _Didaché,_ ix., quotes the saying in forbidding the admission of the unbaptized to the Eucharist. Note the inverted parallelism; it is the swine that trample, the dogs that turn and bite....