XII.

(1) In the mean time.--More literally, When the myriads of the multitude were gathered together. The words must be taken in immediate sequence with the close of the previous chapter. The dispute that had begun in the Pharisee's house, and had been carried on by the lawyers and scribes as they followed Jesus from it, attracted notice. As on the occasion of the "unwashed hands" (Matthew 15:10), He appeals from the scribes to the people, or rather to His own disciples, scattered among the people. The scene may be compared, in the vividness of its description, with the picture of the crowd at Capernaum (Mark 2:1-2).

Beware ye of the leaven of the Pharisees.--This again was obviously an expression that had become almost proverbial in our Lord's lips (Matthew 16:6). Here, however, the leaven is more definitely specified as "hypocrisy"--i.e., unreality, the simulation, conscious or unconscious, of a holiness which we do not possess. It does not follow that the Pharisees were deliberate impostors of the Tartuffe type. With them, as with other forms of religionism, it was doubtless true that the worst hypocrisy was that which did not know itself to be hypocritical. (See Note on Matthew 6:2.)

Verses 1-59. - The Lord, after leaving the Pharisee's house, speaks at great length to a numerous crowd waiting for him, addressing his words principally to his own disciples. The foregoing scene (ch. 11.), when the Master addressed his bitter reproaches to the learned and cultivated of the great Pharisee party, took place in a private house belonging to an apparently wealthy member of this, the dominant class. The name of the large village or provincial town where all this happened is unknown. The crowd who had been listening to the great Teacher before he accepted the Pharisee's invitation still lingered around the house. Many from the adjoining villages, hearing that Jesus was in this place and was publicly teaching, had arrived; so, when the Lord came out from the guest-chamber into the street or market-place, he found a vast crowd - literally, myriads of the multitude - waiting for him. The words descriptive of the crowd in ver. I indicate that a vast concourse was gathered together. His fame then was very great, though his popularity was on the wane. Verse 1. - Beware ye of the leaven of the Pharisees, which is hypocrisy. In dwelling on this and similar expressions used by our Lord in respect to the life and work of this famous section of the people who were generally so bitterly hostile to him and his teaching, we must not condemn their whole character with a condemnation more sweeping than the Master's. Utterly mistaken in their views of life and in their estimate of God, whom they professed to know, our Lord here scarcely charges them with dell-berate hypocrisy. These mistaken men dreamed that they possessed a holiness which was never theirs; unconscious hypocrites they doubtless were, without possibly even suspecting it themselves.

12:1-12 A firm belief of the doctrine of God's universal providence, and the extent of it, would satisfy us when in peril, and encourage us to trust God in the way of duty. Providence takes notice of the meanest creatures, even of the sparrows, and therefore of the smallest interests of the disciples of Christ. Those who confess Christ now, shall be owned by him in the great day, before the angels of God. To deter us from denying Christ, and deserting his truths and ways, we are here assured that those who deny Christ, though they may thus save life itself, and though they may gain a kingdom by it, will be great losers at last; for Christ will not know them, will not own them, nor show them favour. But let no trembling, penitent backslider doubt of obtaining forgiveness. This is far different from the determined enmity that is blasphemy against the Holy Ghost, which shall never be forgiven, because it will never be repented of.In the mean time,.... While Christ was discoursing with the Pharisees, and they were using him in the vilest manner, throwing out their invectives against him in order to draw off the people from him:

when there were gathered together an innumerable multitude of people. There were "myriads" of them, as in the original text, and a myriad is ten thousand; the meaning is, that there were several thousands of them:

insomuch that they trod one upon another; striving to get near to Christ, either to see his person, or to hear his discourses; and particularly, what he would say to the Pharisees, who had fallen upon him in so violent a manner:

he began to say unto his disciples first of all; he directed his discourse not to the Pharisees, nor to the multitude, but to his disciples in the first place; at least, chiefly to them; for whom he had a regard, who were his dear friends, and were to be the preachers of his Gospel every where; and therefore it was proper that they should be aware of the dissembling arts of the Scribes and Pharisees, and have their minds fortified against approaching dangers, persecutions, and death itself: the last phrase, "first of all", is omitted in the Vulgate Latin version; and by all the Oriental versions, it is joined to the next clause, and read thus, "especially", or

before all things, beware of the leaven of the Pharisees, which is hypocrisy; expressed both in their doctrines, and in their lives; which carried a great show of piety and holiness, but was in appearance only: very aptly is hypocrisy in doctrine and manners, compared to leaven; which at first is small and little, but gradually increases and spreads itself, and lies hid and covered, and is not easily discerned, nor its influence and effects observed; but in time, it infects and corrupts the whole of men's principles and practices, and puffs and swells them up with a vain opinion of themselves; and when our Lord bids his disciples beware of it, his meaning not only is, that they take heed that they were not infected with it themselves, but that they were not imposed upon by the specious pretences of these artful and designing men.