Mark 23: A Commentary On Matthew 23

A Commentary on Matthew 23:23

Matthew 23:23 verse is: “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you tithe mint, dill, and cummin, 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”.

From the previous chapters of Matthew 23 or even with Mark, Jesus did not really show His anger to the people. Yes, He was sometimes frustrated with His disciples for not having faith or that He is sometimes disappointed with how religious practices are being done but he just expresses it in a subtle manner. Unlike here in Matthew 23:23 where if you just read the verses you’ll feel the outbursts and depth of His anger to the Pharisees seeing as the first statement alone – “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites!” ended with an exclamation point. Somehow, one can’t help but realize that Jesus is truly serious by now because He never really gets angry. If a man who is characteristically and temperamentally an irritable and ill-tempered person, then his anger may no longer seem effective as you’re used to his temperament. Nobody really pays any attention to the anger of a man who is angry all the time, right? But when a person who is characteristically meek and lowly, gentle and loving, suddenly erupts into a

These same men who act like they were religious enough because of tithing and yet are guilty of injustice. Barclay (1975) also stated in his book that these Pharisees have forgotten mercy by having a hard, arrogant and cruel demeanor. They could take oaths and pledges and promises with the deliberate intention of evading them, forgetting fidelity. In short many of them have been obsessing on matters that does not have much value and