Mat 23:25-28 | Barnes | STEP | Verse 25. The cup and the platter . The drinking cup, and the dish containing food. The Pharisees were diligent in observing all the washings and oblations required by their traditions. Full of extortion and excess . The outside appeared well. The inside was filled with the fruit of extortion, oppression, and wickedness. The meaning is, that though they took much pains to appear well, yet they obtained a living by extortion and crime. Their cups, neat as they appeared outward, were filled not with the fruits of honest industry, but were extorted from the poor by wicked arts. Instead of excess , many manuscripts and editions of the Greek Testament read wickedness . (l) "for ye make"

Matthew 23:25-28

Verse 25. The cup and the platter. The drinking cup, and the dish containing food. The Pharisees were diligent in observing all the washings and oblations required by their traditions.

Full of extortion and excess. The outside appeared well. The inside was filled with the fruit of extortion, oppression, and wickedness. The meaning is, that though they took much pains to appear well, yet they obtained a living by extortion and crime. Their cups, neat as they appeared outward, were filled not with the fruits of honest industry, but were extorted from the poor by wicked arts. Instead of excess, many manuscripts and editions of the Greek Testament read wickedness.

(l) "for ye make" Mk 7:4 Verse 26. Cleanse first, etc. Let them be filled with the fruits of honest industry, and then the outside and the inside will be really clean. By this allusion to the cup and platter, he taught them that it was necessary to cleanse the heart first, that the external conduct might be really pure and holy. Verse 27. Like unto whited sepulchres. For the construction of sepulchres, Mt 8:28. Those tombs were annually white- washed, to prevent the people from accidentally coming in contact with them as they went up to Jerusalem, The law considered those persons unclean who had touched anything belonging to the dead, Nu 19:16. Sepulchres were therefore often whitewashed, that they might be distinctly seen. Thus "whited," they appeared beautiful; but within they contained the bones and corrupting bodies of the dead. So the Pharisees. Their outward conduct appeared well; but their hearts were full of hypocrisy, envy, pride, lust, and malice--fitly represented by the corruption within a whited tomb.

(m) "whited sepulchres" Lk 11:44, Acts 23:3