They tie up heavy, burdensome loads and lay them on men’s shoulders, but they themselves are not willing to lift a finger to move them.
4. For they bind heavy and intolerable burdens. He does not charge the scribes with oppressing and tyrannizing over souls by harsh and unjust laws; for, though they had introduced many superfluous ceremonies — as is evident from other passages — yet Christ does not at present refer to that vice, because his design is, to compare right doctrine with a wicked and dissolute life.
For they bind heavy burdens,.... Meaning not the rites and ceremonies of the law of Moses, circumcision, and other rituals, which obliged to the keeping of the whole law, which was a yoke men were not able to bear; but the traditions of the elders, which the Scribes and Pharisees were very tenacious of, and very severely enjoined the observance of, and are called their "heavy" things (o).
Verse 4. They bind heavy burdens, etc. This phrase is derived from the custom of loading animals. The load or burden is bound up, and then laid on the beast. So the Pharisees appoint weighty burdens, or grievous and heavy precepts, and insist that the people should obey them, though they lent no assistance.