Luke 18:11

stood and prayed thus with himself Standing was the ordinary Jewish attitude of prayer (1 Kings 8:22; Mark 11:25), but the word statheis (which is not used of the Tax-gatherer) seems to imply that he stood by himself to avoid the contaminating contact of the -people of the earth," and posed himself in a conspicuous attitude (Matthew 6:5), as well as -prayed with himself" as the words are perhaps rightly rendered. He was "a separatistin spirit as in name," Trench. (Pharisee from Pharash-to separate.")

God, I thank thee Rather, O God. His prayer is no prayer at all; not even a thanksgiving, only a boast. See the strong denunciation of such insolent self-sufficiency in Revelation 3:17-18.

as other men Rather, as the rest of mankind.

extortioners, unjust, adulterers Could he, in any real sense, have made out even this claim to be free from glaring crimes? His class at any rate are charged by Christ with being "full of extortion" (Matthew 23:25); and they were unjust, seeing that they -omitted judgment" (Matthew 23:23). They are not indeed charged by Jesus with adultery either in the metaphorical or literal sense, but they are spoken of as being prominent members of an adulterous generation, and on several occasions our Lord sternly rebuked their shameful laxity in the matter of divorce (Matthew 19:3-9). And not only does Josephus charge them with this crime also, but their Talmud, with perfect self-complacency, shews how the flagrant immorality of even their most eminent Rabbis found a way to shelter itself, with barefaced and cynical casuistry, under legal forms. See John 8:1-11, and Lightfoot, Hor. Hebr.ad loc.; Life of Christ, 11. 152. It appears from the tract Sotahin the Mishnah, that the ordeal of the -water of jealousy" had been abolished by Jochanan Ben Zakkai, the greatest Rabbi of this age, because the crime had grown so common.

or even as this publican He thus makes the Publican a foil to his own virtues. "This," says St Augustine, "is no longer to exult, but to insult."