Then the Pharisees and Scribes asked him
Not the disciples, but Christ himself; for their chief view was
to find fault, and quarrel with him:
why walk not thy disciples according to the tradition of
the elders,
but eat with unwashen hands?
or "with common", that is, defiled "hands", as in ( Mark 7:2 ) . So the words
are read in Beza's most ancient copy, and in one of Stephens's
copies, and in the Vulgate Latin version. The word "common" is
used for that which is unclean or unholy, ( Acts 10:14 Acts 10:28 ) ( Romans 14:14
) ( Hebrews
10:29 ) , and so signifies unwashen hands, as we read, and
render it: besides, "common hands" may have some respect to the
hands of the common people, the vulgar and illiterate, who showed
no regard to this tradition, but ate their common food without
washing their hands. Instead of "the tradition of the elders",
the Ethiopic version reads, "the constitution of the Scribes and
Pharisees"; and which are sometimes by the Jews called,
(Myrpwo yrbd) , "the
words", or "sayings of the Scribes" F15, and are preferred by
them to the written law; and the same are commonly called
(twkylh) , "ways", in
which a man is to walk, and according to which he is to steer his
course of life; and to which reference is here had in the word,
"walk", used by the Pharisees; who suggest, that these decisions,
constitutions, and traditions of the elders, were the rule,
according to which men ought to order their manner of life and
conversation; blaming the disciples, that they did not conform to
them, and particularly in the case of eating bread, which they
did without washing their hands, which was strictly enjoined
among these canons; and they wanted to know the sense of Christ
upon it. Though they might have known from the Scriptures,
particularly from ( Ezekiel
20:18 Ezekiel
20:19 ) that it was their duty, as well as the disciples of
Christ, to walk, not in the, statutes of their fathers, nor
observe their judgments, the laws and ordinances instituted by
them; but to walk in the statutes of the Lord, and to keep his
judgments, and do them: not the traditions of men, but the word
of God, should be the rule of walk and conversation; and as many
as walk according to this rule, peace will be upon them; but
those that walk according to the commandments of men, justly
deserve the character given of such by the prophet Isaiah, whose
words our Lord produces in the following verses.
F15 T. Hieros. Beracot, fol. 3. 2.