While emphasizing what we believe to be holiness in the details, we can miss more critical issues of holiness; some older churches, for example, condemned wearing earrings yet did so in a spirit of self-righteousness or anger—hardly reflecting the "gentle and quiet spirit" (1 Pet 3:4 NASB) they wished to promote. Having remarked on the religious leaders' inconsistency in ritual matters (vv. 16-22), Jesus now turns to their inconsistency in other respects, beginning with tithing. Ancient Israel had been an agrarian society, and Israelites brought one-tenth of their produce into storehouses to provide for all the (landless) Levites and priests, and once every third year for a major festival, paying the way of the poor who otherwise could not participate (Lev 27:30; Num 18:21-32; Deut 14:22-29; Neh 13:10-12). (Modern ministers who use Mal 3:8-10 to warn nontithers they are "robbing God" ought to beware: to be consistent we must use these tithes for what the Bible commands—the support of ministers and those in need. Yet Jesus' more radical standard is that everything we are and have belongs to God and the work of his kingdom—Lk 12:33; 14:33.)

Pharisees were particularly known for their scrupulousness in tithing (as in ARN 41A; Borg 1987:89). Building their fence around the law, these religious people were careful about tithing even substances whose status as foodstuffs was disputed, so that it was not clear whether the Old Testament agrarian tithe applied to them (compare Jeremias 1969:254). Jesus accepts that the leaders should have kept these biblical laws but insists that they have missed the forest for the trees (compare 7:3-5); their neglect of the law's basic requirements (Deut 10:12-13; Mic 6:8) is inexcusable.

Like Jesus, most Jewish teachers recognized some commandments as more important, literally "weightier," than others (compare Johnston 1982:207). Although he, like his contemporaries, regarded no commandment as light (see comment on 5:19; compare Jas 2:10-11; m. 'Abot 4:2), Jesus himself taught much about "weightier" matters, even in this context (Mt 23:5, 17, 19). Today as well, many of us separate from or condemn other Christians on the basis of our interpretations of isolated passages while neglecting broader principles (like charity or the equal standing of all believers in Christ).

Jesus illustrates the inconsistency in verse 24 with a witty illustration about Pharisees who were more scrupulous than Pharisaic legal rulings required. If a fly fell into one's drink, Pharisees taught that it must be strained out before it died, lest it contaminate the drink (compare Lev 11:34); but they decided that any organism smaller than a lentil (such as a gnat) was exempt (E. Sanders 1990:32). Since most of us today would not want a gnat dying in our drink either, we may have sympathy with a Pharisee who for a different reason—passion for purity—went beyond the letter of the law to remove it (see E. Sanders 1990:38). Nevertheless, these Pharisees were so inconsistent, Jesus said, that they concerned themselves with purity issues as trifling as a gnat but did not mind swallowing a camel whole. In ancient writings gnats are cited as the prototypically smallest of creatures (Ach. Tat. 2.21.4-5; 2.22); camels, which were explicitly unclean under biblical law (Lev 11:4), were the largest animal in Palestine (see comment on 19:24).

Although Jesus speaks metaphorically about the inside of a cup (that is, the human heart) in Matthew 23:25-26, he may allude to a matter of some debate among his contemporaries. The Shammaite school of Pharisees were less concerned whether one cleansed the inner or outer part first. In contrast, the Hillelite Pharisees thought that the outside of a cup was typically unclean anyway and thus, like Jesus, insisted on cleansing the inner part first (Neusner 1976:492-94; m. Berakot 8:2). On the surface Jesus' statement challenges Shammaite practice (though for the effect of the metaphor); but he actually addresses the purity of our hearts, a point he reinforces in his next illustration.

Although dead creatures in a beverage produced impurity (23:24), corpse uncleanness (v. 27) was more severe, extending seven days (Num 19:11-14; Jos. Ant. 18.38; m. Kelim 1:4). If so much as one's shadow touched a corpse or a tomb, one contracted impurity (E. Sanders 1990:34, 232). Although Jesus may have originally alluded to the springtime practice of using whitewash to warn passersby and Passover pilgrims to avoid unclean tombs lest they become impure and hence barred from the feast (m. Mo`ed Qatan 1:2; Ma`a'ser Seni 5:1; Seqalim 1:1), as in Luke 11:44, Matthew focuses on an incidental effect of the marking. For him whitewash is a beautifying agent to cover a tomb's corruption (borrowing the image from Ezek 13:10-12). The leaders' outward appearance (compare Mt 23:5, 28) merely provided a veneer for the impurity, hence lawlessness (literally; NIV wickedness), of their hearts. To those who prided themselves on obedience to Torah, the charge of lawlessness would be deeply offensive and shaming.