Matthew 7:4

4 Or how sayest thou to thy brother, Brother, suffer I shall do out a mote from thine eye [Brother, suffer that I cast out a mote from thine eye], and lo! a beam is in thine own eye?

Matthew 7:4 Meaning and Commentary

Matthew 7:4

Or how wilt thou say to thy brother?
&c.] This is not so much an interrogation, as an expression of admiration, at the front and impudence of such censorious remarkers, and rigid observators; who not content to point at the faults of others, take upon them to reprove them in a very magisterial way: and it is as if Christ had said, with what face canst thou say to thy friend or neighbour,

let me pull out the mote out of thine eye?
give me leave to rebuke thee sharply for thy sin, as it deserves,

and behold a beam is in thine own eye;
thou art guilty of a far greater iniquity: astonishing impudence! Art thou so blind, as not to see and observe thy viler wickedness? Or which, if conscious of, how canst thou prevail upon thyself to take upon thee to reprove and censure others? Dost thou think thy brother cannot see thy beam? And may he not justly retort thine iniquities upon thee, which exceed his? and then what success canst thou promise thyself? Such persons are very unfit to be reprovers of others.

Matthew 7:4 In-Context

2 for in what doom ye deem, ye shall be deemed, and in what measure ye mete, it shall be meted again to you.

3 But what seest thou a little mote in the eye of thy brother, and seest not a beam in thine own eye?

4 Or how sayest thou to thy brother, Brother, suffer I shall do out a mote from thine eye [Brother, suffer that I cast out a mote from thine eye], and lo! a beam is in thine own eye?

5 Hypocrite, first do out the beam of thine eye/do thou out first the beam of thine own eye, and then thou shalt see to do out the mote of the eye of thy brother. [+Hypocrite, cast out first the beam of thine eye, and then thou shalt see to cast out the fescue of the eye of thy brother.]

6 Do not ye give holy thing to hounds [Do not ye give holy things to hounds], neither cast ye your margarites before swine, lest peradventure they defoul them with their feet, and the hounds be turned, and tear you all to pieces.