7:2 And when they saw some of his disciples {a} eat bread with {b} defiled, that is to say, with unwashen, hands, they found fault.

(a) Literally, eat bread: an idiom which the Hebrews use, understanding bread to represent every type of food.

(b) For the Pharisees would not eat their food with unwashed hands, because they thought that their hands were defiled with the common handling of things; Mt 15:11,12.

7:2 Eat bread with defiled... hands. Not dirty, but unwashed. The tradition of the elders (Mt 15:2 Mr 7:3,5) required them to always wash before eating lest they might have touched something ceremonially unclean.

7:1-13 One great design of Christ's coming was, to set aside the ceremonial law; and to make way for this, he rejects the ceremonies men added to the law of God's making. Those clean hands and that pure heart which Christ bestows on his disciples, and requires of them, are very different from the outward and superstitious forms of Pharisees of every age. Jesus reproves them for rejecting the commandment of God. It is clear that it is the duty of children, if their parents are poor, to relieve them as far as they are able; and if children deserve to die that curse their parents, much more those that starve them. But if a man conformed to the traditions of the Pharisees, they found a device to free him from the claim of this duty.



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