Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

Mark 12:38

Admonition to beware of the Scribes

38. And he said The terrible denunciations of the moral and religious shortcomings of the leaders of the nation, which now fall from our Lord's lips, are given far more fully by St Matthew, Matthew 23:1-39. It was only the Jewish Christians, for whom that Evangelist wrote, who could at once, and at that time, understand and enter into the terrible declension of Pharisaic Judaism. To the Gentile Christians of Rome, for whom St Mark wrote, "the great woe-speech" would be to a certain extent unintelligible. Hence the picture of the Scribes is here shortly given in their three principal features; (1) ambition, (2) avarice, and (3) hypocritical external piety.

in long clothing "Þat wolen wandre in stoolis," Wyclif. Stoolisfrom Latin stola= a robe. They came out to pray in long sweeping robes, wearing phylacteries of extra size, and exaggerated tassels, hung at the corners of their talliths. Many such were doubtless to be seen at Jerusalem at this very time, who had come up to celebrate the Feast of the Passover. See note on p. 64.

love salutations The sounding title of "Rabbi," "Rabbi."

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Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

Mark 12:38

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