Mattityahu 12:7

7 But if you’d had daas what this means, CHESED CHAFATZTI VLO ZEVACH (I desire mercy and not sacrifice HOSHEA 6:6), you would not have condemned the innocent.

Mattityahu 12:7 Meaning and Commentary

Matthew 12:7

But if ye had known what this meaneth,
&c,] The passage of Scripture in ( 6:6 )

I will have mercy, and not sacrifice;
of the sense of which, (See Gill on Matthew 9:13)

ye would not have condemned the guiltless.
Our Lord taxes the Pharisees both with ignorance of the Scriptures, in which they pretended to be very knowing, and took upon them to be the interpreters of; and with inhumanity, for condemning innocent persons, the apostles, for rubbing a few ears of corn, for the refreshment of nature; which they would never have done, had they understood the word, and will of God; who prefers acts of humanity, compassion, and mercy, to the observance of rites and ceremonies; or had they the common affections of human nature, and those bowels of compassion which one man ought to show to another.

Mattityahu 12:7 In-Context

5 Or have you not read in the Torah that on Shabbos the kohanim in the Beis Hamikdash commit Chillul HaYom HaShabbos (desecration of the Sabbath Day) and yet are blameless? [BAMIDBAR 28:9-10]

6 But I say to you that something greater than the Beis Hamikdash is here.

7 But if you’d had daas what this means, CHESED CHAFATZTI VLO ZEVACH (I desire mercy and not sacrifice HOSHEA 6:6), you would not have condemned the innocent.

8 For the Ben HaAdam (Moshiach) is Adon HaShabbos.

9 And having gone from there, he went into their shul.