Cambridge Greek Testament Commentary

Luke 18:9

τοὺς πεποιθότας ἐφ' ἑαυτοῖς. See Luke 16:15; Philippians 3:4; 2 Corinthians 1:9. The Jewish words ‘Jashar,’ ‘the upright man,’ and ‘Tsaddik,’ ‘just,’ expressed their highest moral ideal; but they made their uprightness and justice consist so much in attention to the ceremonial minutiae of the Levitic Law, and rigid externalism so engrossed their thoughts, that they had lost sight of those loftier and truer ideals of charity which the Prophets had continually set before them. This fetish-worship of the letter, this scrupulosity about trifles, tended only to self-confidence and pride. It had long been denounced in Scripture. “There is a generation that are pure in their own eyes, and yet is not washed from their filthiness,” Proverbs 30:12; “which say, Stand by thyself, come not near to me; for I am holier than thou. These are a smoke in my nose, a fire that burneth all the day,” Isaiah 65:5. This is the sort of ‘faith’ which the Son of Man shall find on the earth,—men’s faith in themselves!

ἐξουθενοῦντας τοὺς λοιπούς. ‘The rest.’ The word ἐξουθενεῖν (a late Aeolic form, one of a group of words common to St Luke and St Paul) means ‘treat as nothing,’ ‘regard as mere cyphers,’ Romans 14:3; Romans 14:10. The Rabbis invented the most highflown designations for each other, such as ‘Light of Israel,’ ‘Uprooter of Mountains,’ ‘The Glory of the Law,’ ‘The Holy,’ &c.; but they described the vast mass of their fellow-countrymen as “accursed” for not knowing the law (John 7:49), and spoke of them as ‘empty cisterns,’ ‘people of the earth,’ &c. See on Luke 5:32; Luke 7:34, &c. This Pharisee regards with perfect self-complacency the assumed ruin and degradation of all the rest of mankind. In one sense the Parable represents the mutual relations of Jew and Gentile.

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Cambridge Greek Testament Commentary

Luke 18:9

Old Testament

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