Jesus has spoken directly to the crowds and the disciples. He warned the people about imitating the behavior of the scribes and Pharisees insofar as they sought praise and honor rather than obeyed God. The difference is in attitude and intention. Obedience is one thing, however, carrying out your orders while purposely parading in front of others, showing off how religious you are, and using that to lord it over others is a problem. The disciples have been continually warned not to behave the way that the world behaves; and we still hear that warning.
23: 13. But woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you lock people out of the kingdom of heaven. For you do not go in yourselves, and when others are going in you stop them. (14. Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you devour widows’ houses, and for the sake of appearance you make long prayers; therefore you will receive the greater condemnation.)
Remember first that the 3-year ministry of Jesus can be summarized as, “Repent, for the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand.” Thus, the issue of how one enters the Kingdom of Heaven is critical to Jesus (and to us).
Take note also that, in the previous passages, various leaders have been mentioned: the chief priests and elders, the Sadducees, and the Herodians, as well as the scribes and Pharisees. “It is significant that He singled them out, as opposed to the Sadducees, who were more liberal, and the Herodians, who were the politicians” (John F. Walvoord, Matthew: Thy Kingdom Come, [1974], page 172). What makes the conservative experts in compliance with the law more of a danger than liberals and politicians? Answer: They interfere with the eternal destiny of the soul.
The ‘woes’ could be seen as curses or expressions of sorrow. If curses, they condemn the scribes and Pharisees; if expressions of sorrow, they are warnings to repent. The scribes and Pharisees harm others and doom themselves, so all need to repent.
Keener and Walton say that both are possible, but seem to lean toward predictions of doom (Craig Keener and John Walton, NRSV Cultural Backgrounds Study Bible [2019], page 1672). Tasker says they represent ‘expressions of sorrow’ (R. V. G. Tasker, Matthew, [1961], pages 217-218).
Jesus said to the scribes and Pharisees, “You lock people out of the kingdom of heaven.” Now, compare that with what Jesus says to Peter, “I will give you the keys to the kingdom of heaven, and whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven” (Matthew 16: 19). Jesus then includes the disciples, “Truly I tell you, whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven” (Matthew 18: 18). It is a heavy responsibility to care for souls, and that responsibility is now being conferred instead on the fledgling church. Are we up to it?
The verse in parentheses, which is verse 14, does not appear in the earliest manuscripts and so most Biblical scholars agree that it is a later insert, brought over from Mark 12: 40. Also, its inclusion makes for 8 ‘woes’ when a list of ‘7’ is more likely.
23: 15. Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you cross sea and land to make a single convert, and you make the new convert twice as much a child of hell (Gehenna) as yourselves.
There are two thoughts about this charge. There is little evidence of a missionary effort by the Pharisees trying to convert Gentiles into Jews. On the other hand, Gentiles did come voluntarily to learn about Judaism, so they could be in view here. Alternatively, consider that there are different parties within Judaism, and in the Diaspora there are cases of Pharisees trying to convert Jews to their particular party line. It is not clear what Jesus has in mind here (Ben Witherington, Matthew, [2006], page 428).
But taking his words at face value, the issue is not how often proselytism happens, but rather how difficult the Pharisees make the process and what the results of their activities are. Insofar as this ‘woe’ is linked to the previous one, we can see that the Pharisees added to the law as written in the Old Testament and made such hairline distinctions that even a new convert who might be zealous could not keep up with all the requirements. They were ‘bound up’ by the red tape of the scribe and Pharisee interpretation of the law.
In that sense, the Pharisees bind hand and foot and then roll off the cliff, but only after they have arranged for others to do the same.
23: 16-22. “Woe to you, blind guides who say, ‘Whoever swears by the sanctuary is bound by nothing, but whoever swears by the gold of the sanctuary is bound by the oath.’ You blind fools! For which is greater, the gold or the sanctuary that has made the gold sacred? And you say, ‘Whoever swears by the altar is bound by nothing, but whoever swears by the gift that is on the altar is bound by the oath.’ How blind you are! For which is greater, the gift or the altar that makes the gift sacred? So whoever swears by the altar swears by it and by everything on it, and whoever swears by the sanctuary swears by it and by the one who dwells in it, and whoever swears by heaven swears by the throne of God and by the one who is seated upon it.
The third ‘woe’ is an example of such sophistry as deployed by the scribes and Pharisees. They take a simple law, such as swearing an oath which may be done by God’s name (Leviticus 6:3, 19:12; Deuteronomy 6:13, 10:20) and make it twice as difficult to follow. The scribes and Pharisees have dissected this law so that one may swear and not mean it. Sort of like crossing your fingers behind your back.
According to Jesus, the structure of their argument fails miserably. They assume that the worth of something, like gold, is determined by society. Yet, everything in the sanctuary was made by God and is made sacred by God. So, there is no hierarchy such that one item counts for ensuring an oath while another does not. This is true, I swear on my mother’s grave; cross my heart and hope to die.
BTW: Jesus said not to swear an oath at all but let every word out of your mouth be a clear ‘Yes’ or ‘No’.
23: 23-24. “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you tithe mint, dill, and cumin and have neglected the weightier matters of the law: justice and mercy and faith. It is these you ought to have practiced without neglecting the others. You blind guides! You strain out a gnat but swallow a camel!
What does the Law say? We should tithe, right? Yes, but the law on this issue actually lists the things that one should tithe. They are mainly the crops in one’s field and of the animals that one herds.
“All tithes, whether the seed from the ground or the fruit of the tree, are the LORD’s; they are holy to the LORD” (Leviticus 12: 17).
“...tithe of your grain, your wine, your oil, the firstlings of your herds and your flocks” (Deuteronomy 12: 17).
Nowhere does the Old Testament nitpick about tithing spices. This is another case of the scribes and Pharisees trying to expand laws. Earlier we saw how they expanded specific laws for priests to all Jews. Here we see the attempt to expand the list of things that need to be tithed to include small things not mentioned in the law. How would you tithe a tenth of your little Tone’s bottle of cumin?
Jesus calls this obsession with small details “straining out gnats.” Now there actually is a law that says if “anything that swarms upon the earth” falls dead into a vessel, then “all that is in it shall be unclean, and you shall break the vessel” (Leviticus 11: 29-31, 33-34); but the law does not mention gnats, just things like lizards and geckos.
It looks like Jesus is using a word play in Aramaic (the language he spoke) for the word for gnat is galma and the word for camel is gamla (Ben Witherington, Matthew, [2006], page 431). It also kind of works in Greek where the word for gnat is konopa and the word for camel is kamelon.
But let’s not get bogged down in the details. The point is the contrast. The scribes and Pharisees are OCD about these small things, to the exclusion of the big things, especially justice, mercy, and faith. I have said before that such things are the topic of all the prophets as well as the Law itself.
Some churches, indeed, some denominations are overly worried about the small things, so much that they become blind to the big things. How could a whole denomination ignore slavery, racism, and Jim Crow laws for so long? It has happened. How could churches ignore the homeless, the hungry, and the addicted? It happens. I once asked a pastor in a big city church that took up a whole block, “Who lives in this neighborhood around the church?” “I don’t know,” he said. With all the laws about the treatment of the stranger and the immigrant, how could some churches ignore them? I don’t know, but they do.
Questions for your church. Are you binding or loosening? Are you releasing captives and inviting them into the Kingdom of Heaven or shutting them out? Would your answer to John the Baptist be the same as Jesus’?
“Go and tell John what you hear and see: the blind receive their sight, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, the poor have good news brought to them. And blessed is anyone who takes no offense at me."