Luke 11:37-44

1 st. To the Pharisees: Luke 11:37-44.

Vers. 37 and 38. The Occasion.

This Pharisee had probably been one of the hearers of the previous discourse; perhaps one of the authors of the accusation raised against Jesus. He had invited Jesus along with a certain number of his own colleagues (Luke 11:45; Luke 11:53), with the most malevolent intention. Thus is explained the tone of Jesus (Luke 11:39 et seq.), which some commentators have pronounced impolite (!). The reading of some Fathers and Vss., “He began to doubt (or to murmur, as διακρίνεσθαι sometimes means in the LXX.), and to say,” is evidently a paraphrase. ῎Αριστον, the morning meal, as δεῖπνον, the principal meal of the day. The meaning of the expression εἰσελθὼν ἀνέπεσεν is this: He seated Himself without ceremony, as He was when He entered. The Pharisees laid great stress on the rite of purification before meals (Mark 7:2-4; Matthew 15:1-3); and the Rabbins put the act of eating with unwashed hands in the same category as the sin of impurity. From the surprise of His host, Jesus takes occasion to stigmatize the false devotion of the Pharisees; He does not mince matters; for after what has just passed (Luke 11:15), war is openly declared. He denounces: 1 st. The hypocrisy of the Pharisees (Luke 11:39-42); 2 d. Their vainglorious spirit (Luke 11:43); 3 d. The evil influence which their false devotion exercises over the whole people (Luke 11:44).

Vers. 39-42. Their Hypocrisy. “ And the Lord said unto him, Now do ye Pharisees make clean the outside of the cup and the platter; but your inward part is full of ravening and wickedness. 40. Ye fools, did not He that made that which is without, make that which is within also? 41. Rather give alms of such things as are within; and, behold, all things are clean unto you. 42. But woe unto you, Pharisees! for ye tithe mint and rue, and all manner of herbs, and pass over judgment and the love of God: these ought ye to have done, and not to leave the other undone. ”

God had appointed for His people certain washings, that they might cultivate the sense of moral purity in His presence. And this is what the Pharisees have brought the rite to; multiplying its applications at their pleasure, they think themselves excused thereby from the duty of heart purification. Was it possible to go more directly in opposition to the divine intention: to destroy the practice of the duty by their practices, the end by the means? Meyer and Bleek translate νῦν, now, in the sense of time: “Things have now come to such a pass with you...” It is more natural to give it the logical sense which it often has: “Well now! There you are, you Pharisees! I take you in the act.” If, in the second member of the verse, the term τὸ ἔσωθεν, the inward part, was not supplemented by ὑμῶν, your inward part, the most natural sense of the first member would be this: “Ye make clean the outside of the vessels in which ye serve up the repast to your guests.” Bleek maintains this meaning for the first proposition, notwithstanding the ὑμῶν in the second, by joining this pron. to the two substantives ἁρπαγῆς and πονηρίας : “But the inside [of the cups and platters] is full [of the products] of your ravenings and your wickedness.” But, 1. This connection of ὑμῶν is forced; 2. Luke 11:40 does not admit of this sense, for we must understand by Him who made both that which is without and that which is within, the potter who made the plates, the goldsmith who fashioned the cups, which is absurd. As in Luke 11:40 the ὁ ποιήσας, He that made, is very evidently the Creator, the inward part, Luke 11:40 and Luke 11:39, can only be that of man, the heart. We must therefore allow an ellipsis in Luke 11:39, such as frequently occurs in comparisons, and by which, for the sake of conciseness, one of the two terms is suppressed in each member of the comparison: “Like a host who should set before his guests plates and cups perfectly cleansed outside, [but full of filth inside], 39a, ye think to please God by presenting to Him [your bodies purified by lustrations, but at the same time] your inward part full of ravening and wickedness, 39b.” The inward part denotes the whole moral side of human life. ῾Αρπαγή, ravening avarice carried out in act; πονηρία, wickedness the inner corruption which is the source of it. Jesus ascends from sin in act to its first principle.

The apostrophe, ye fools, Luke 11:40, is then easily understood, as well as the argument on which it rests. God, who made the body, made the soul also; the purification of the one cannot therefore, in His eyes, be a substitute for the other. A well-cleansed body will not render a polluted soul acceptable to Him, any more than a brightly polished platter will render distasteful meat agreeable to a guest; for God is a spirit. This principle lays pharisaism in the dust. Some commentators have given this verse another meaning, which Luther seems to adopt: “The man who has made (pure) the outside, has not thereby made (pure) the inside.” But this meaning of ποιεῖν is inadmissible, and the οὐχ heading the proposition proves that it is interrogative.

The meaning of the parallel passage in Matthew 23:25-26 is somewhat different: “The contents of the cup and platter must be purified by filling them only with goods lawfully acquired; in this way, the outside, should it even be indifferently cleansed, will yet be sufficiently pure.” It is at bottom the same thought, but sufficiently modified in form, to prove that the change cannot be explained by the use of one and the same written source, but must arise from oral tradition.

To the rebuke administered there succeeds the counsel, Luke 11:41. We have translated πλήν by rather. The literal sense, excepting, is thus explained: “All those absurdities swept away, here is what alone remains. ” At first sight, this saying appears to correspond with the idea expressed in Matthew's text, rather than with the previous saying in Luke. For the expression τὰ ἔνοντα, that which is within, cannot in this verse refer to the inward part of man, but denotes undoubtedly the contents of the cups and platters. But it is precisely because τὰ ἔνοντα, that which is within, is not at all synonymous with ἔσωθεν, the inward part, in the preceding context, that Luke has employed a different expression. Τὰ ἔνοντα, the contents of the cups and platters, denotes what remains in those vessels at the close of the feast. The meaning is: “Do you wish, then, that those meats and those wines should not be defiled, and should not defile you? Do not think that it is enough for you carefully to wash your hands before eating; there is a surer means: let some poor man partake of them. It is the spirit of love, O ye Pharisees, and not material lustrations, which will purify your banquets.” Καὶ ἰδού, and behold; the result will be produced as if by magic. Is it not selfishness which is the real pollution in the eyes of God? The δότε, give, is opposed to ἁρπαγή, ravening, Luke 11:39.

This saying by no means includes the idea of the merit of works. Could Jesus fall into pharisaism at the very moment when He was laying it in the dust? Love, which gives value to the gift, excludes by its very nature that seeking of merit which is the essence of pharisaism.

The ἀλλά, but, Luke 11:42, sets the conduct of the Pharisees in opposition to that which has been described Luke 11:41, in order to condemn them by a new contrast; still, however, it is the antithesis between observances and moral obedience. Every Israelite was required to pay the tithe of his income (Leviticus 27:30; Num 18:21). The Pharisees had extended this command to the smallest productions in their gardens, such as mint, rue, and herbs, of which the law had said nothing. Matthew mentions other plants, anise and cummin (Luke 23:23). Could it be conceived that the one writer could have made so frivolous a change on the text of the other, or on a common document?

In opposition to those pitiful returns, which are their own invention, Jesus sets the fundamental obligations imposed by the law, which they neglect without scruple. Κρίσις, judgment; here the discernment of what is just, the good sense of the heart, including justice and equity (Sirach 33:34). Matthew adds ἔλεος and πίστις, mercy and faith, and omits the love of God, which Luke gives. The two virtues indicated by the latter correspond to the two parts of the summary of the law.

The moderation and wisdom of Jesus are conspicuous in the last words of the verse; He will in no wise break the old legal mould, provided it is not kept at the expense of its contents.

Ver. 43. Vainglory. “ Woe unto you, Pharisees! for ye love the uppermost seats in the synagogues, and greetings in the markets. ”

The uppermost seats in the synagogues were reserved for the doctors. This rebuke is found more fully developed, Luke 20:45-47.

Ver. 44. Contagious Influence. “ Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye are as graves which appear not, and the men that walk over them are not aware of them. ”

Jesus by this figure describes the moral fact which He elsewhere designates as the leaven of the Pharisees. According to Numbers 19:16, to touch a grave rendered a man unclean for eight days, as did the touch of a dead body. Nothing more easy, then, than for one to defile himself by touching with his foot a grave on a level with the ground, without even suspecting its existence. Such is contact with the Pharisees; men think they have to do with saints: they yield themselves up to their influence, and become infected with their spirit of pride and hypocrisy, against which they were not put on their guard. In Matthew (Matthew 23:27), the same figure receives a somewhat different application. A man looks with complacency at a sepulchre well built and whitened, and admires it. But when, on reflection, he says: Within there is nothing save rottenness, what a different impression does he experience! Such is the feeling which results from observing the Pharisees.

That the two texts should be borrowed from the same document, or taken the one from the other, is quite as inconceivable as it is easy to understand how oral tradition should have given to the same figure those two different applications.