| happydolphin said: To help answer the question, I'll bring up another similar verse that makes it really clear that the pharisees were about the image rather than the essense (in this case holiness). In fact what they were striving for was righteousness, being not guilty (of sin), by washing their hands ceremoniously.
Six Woes 37When Jesus had finished speaking, a Pharisee invited him to eat with him; so he went in and reclined at the table. 38But the Pharisee, noticing that Jesus did not first wash before the meal, was surprised. 39Then the Lord said to him, “Now then, you Pharisees clean the outside of the cup and dish, but inside you are full of greed and wickedness. 40You foolish people! Did not the one who made the outside make the inside also? 41But give what is inside [the dish]j to the poor, and everything will be clean for you. 42“Woe to you Pharisees, because you give God a tenth of your mint, rue and all other kinds of garden herbs, but you neglect justice and the love of God. You should have practiced the latter without leaving the former undone. 43“Woe to you Pharisees, because you love the most important seats in the synagogues and greetings in the marketplaces. 44“Woe to you, because you are like unmarked graves, which men walk over without knowing it.” 45One of the experts in the law answered him, “Teacher, when you say these things, you insult us also.” 46Jesus replied, “And you experts in the law, woe to you, because you load people down with burdens they can hardly carry, and you yourselves will not lift one finger to help them. 47“Woe to you, because you build tombs for the prophets, and it was your forefathers who killed them. 48So you testify that you approve of what your forefathers did; they killed the prophets, and you build their tombs. 49Because of this, God in his wisdom said, ‘I will send them prophets and apostles, some of whom they will kill and others they will persecute.’ 50Therefore this generation will be held responsible for the blood of all the prophets that has been shed since the beginning of the world, 51from the blood of Abel to the blood of Zechariah, who was killed between the altar and the sanctuary. Yes, I tell you, this generation will be held responsible for it all.
52“Woe to you experts in the law, because you have taken away the key to knowledge. You yourselves have not entered, and you have hindered those who were entering.” 53When Jesus left there, the Pharisees and the teachers of the law began to oppose him fiercely and to besiege him with questions, 54waiting to catch him in something he might say. So if you look at the bolded, Jesus knowing the hearts (he can see the heart) judged the pharisees as being animated by the spirit that murdered the prophets before him. In essense what Jesus is saying is that the Pharisees were focusing on human tradition (the washing of hands by tradition, the giving of a tenth of their earnings) all the while also performing evil in their hearts (in other places it mentions they wanted to have Jesus killed). So they were being clean on the outside (in appearance), but inside they were full of violence and murder, in their hearts. And Jesus could see it. Behind the tradition there was probably a desire for cleanliness and avoiding unhealthy bacteria from being ingested, but it became religious in that if they did not obey the traditions, they felt like they were disobeing God. All the while, in psalms God says "I do not delight in sacrifice but in a contrite heart." In other words their priorities were out of place. |
Then there are parallels that can be drawn to today: both religious and political. Not to say every religious person is like the Pharisees, of course.
The BuShA owns all!
