Ver. 1. Then came to Jesus] Then, when the men of Gennesaret favoured and observed him. Satan stomacheth the prosperity of God’s kingdom in any place, and stirreth up his to oppose it. Esau began with Jacob in the womb, that no time might be lost. As soon as ever the Church’s child was born the devil sought to drown him, Revelation 12:15 Scribes and Pharisees] Learned and lewd; these are Christ’s greatest enemies, hypocrites especially, those night birds that cannot bear the light of true religion, but, as bats, beat against it. Which were of Jerusalem] That faithful city was now become a harlot, her silver was degenerated into dross, her wine mixed with water, Isaiah 1:22. The sweetest wine turns into the sourest vinegar, the whitest ivory burned, into the blackest coal. So about the year 1414, Theodoricus Urias, in Germany, an Augustine friar, complained, not without cause, Ecclesiam Romanam ex aurea factam argenteam, ex argentea ferream, ex ferrea terream, superesse ut in stercus abiret. Machiavel observed that there was nowhere less piety than in those that dwelt nearest to Rome. Machiavel. Disput. de rep. lib. 1, cap. 12.
Ver. 2. Transgress the tradition of the elders] They cried up aloud traditions and the authority of antiquity. Similem hodie dicam Papistae nobis scribunt. For as the philosophers fled and hid themselves in the heretics, as one saith, so did the Scribes and Pharisees in the Popish doctors. Non tam ovum ovo simile; one egg or apple is not so like another as Pharisees and Papists. The Pharisees deemed it as great a sin to eat with unwashen hands as to commit fornication. Similiarly, the Papists count it worse to deface an idol than to kill a man, to eat flesh or eggs on a fasting day than to commit incest, and for a priest to have one wife than ten harlots. Παραδοσις, say some, is the number of the Beast, 666. Pareus in loc.
Ver. 3. He answered and said unto them] He shapes them an answer by way of recrimination (αντδγκλημα); which is a singular means of conviction to the adversary, but hard to be done by us without some mixture of bitterness, such as was that in David to Michal, 2 Samuel 6:21. Transgress the commandment of God by your tradition] God’s commands should be kept as the apple of the eye, Proverbs 7:2. They are broken by omissions, commissions, and failings in the manner; like as a man may miss the mark by shooting short, or beyond, or wide. These Pharisees, as those Athenians of old (whereas they had most excellent laws, but most lawless natures), chose rather to live by their lusts than by their laws. They had many traditions and unwritten verities, pretended to be invented and prescribed them by their elders, that by the observation thereof they might be the better enabled to keep God’s commandments. These traditions they styled Mashlamnathoth, completions or perfections; because thereby they conceited that the written law was made more complete and perfect. And say not the Papists as much of their traditions? Buxtorf. Tiber. Athenienses cum haberent aequissima iura, sed iniquisima ingenia, moribus suis quam legibus, uti malunt. Valer. Max.
Ver. 4. For God commanded, saying] This is called the first commandment with promise, viz. the first affirmative commandment, or the first in the second table; or the first of all the ten with promise. For that in the second commandment is rather a declaration of God’s justice and mercy, and that to the observers of the whole law; but here is a particular promise made to them that keep this particular commandment. Honour thy father and mother] Among other good offices, nourish and cherish them, as Joseph did Jacob and his family, Chepi tappam, as a man nourisheth his little ones, lovingly and tenderly, Genesis 47:12; be unto them as Obed was to Naomi, “a restorer of her life, and a nourisher of her old age,” Ruth 4:15. This the apostle commends to us, as a thing not only good before men, but acceptable before God, 1 Timothy 5:4. This the stork and the mouse teach us, by their singular love to their aged sires, Plin. x. 23. Cornelius was the staff of his father’s age, and thereby merited the honourable name of Scipio among the Romans. Epaminondas rejoiced in nothing more than that he had lived to cheer up the hearts of his aged parents by the reports of his victories. Our parents are our household gods, said Hierocles. Aeneas is surnamed Pius, for his love to his father, whom he bore upon his back out of the fire of Troy. And Aristotle tells how that when from the hill Aetna there ran down a torrent of fire that consumed all the houses thereabouts, in the midst of those fearful flames God’s special care of the godly shined most brightly. For the river of fire parted itself, and made a kind of lane for those who ventured to rescue their aged parents, and pluck them out of the jaws of death. He that curseth father or mother] That giveth them an ill word (κακολογων), or but an ill look; for vultu saepe laeditur pietas. “The eye that mocketh at his father, and despiseth to obey his mother, the ravens of the valley shall pick it out, and the young eagles shall eat it.” Now they are cursed with a witness, whom the Holy Ghost thus curseth in such emphatic manner, in such exquisite terms. Ephesians 6:2. εντολη properly signifieth an affirmative commandment. See Dr Gouge on Dom. Duties. Οι γονεις ημων Θεοι εφεστιοι. πλησιον γαρ αυτων γενομενος πυρος ποταμος εξεσχιθη. Arist. de Mundo, cap. 6. Proverbs 30:17. Effossos oculos voret atro gutture corvus. Catul.