“Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you clean the outside of the cup and the plate, but inside they are full of greed and self-indulgence.
25. For you cleanse the outer part. Our Lord follows out the same statement, and employs a figure for reproaching the scribes with being eagerly bent on this single object of making a brilliant appearance before men. For by the outer part of the dish he metaphorically expresses the outward appearance; as if he had said, “You give yourselves no concern about any cleanness but...
Thou blind Pharisee,.... Well might Christ call such an one a blind Pharisee, who was so scrupulously careful to cleanse his cup and platter; and yet made no conscience of filling them with what was gotten in an unjust way, and so defiled himself and them: cleanse first that which is within the cup and platter, that the outside of them may be clean also...
Verse 25. The cup and the platter. The drinking cup, and the dish containing food. The Pharisees were diligent in observing all the washings and oblations required by their traditions. Full of extortion and excess. The outside appeared well. The inside was filled with the fruit of extortion, oppression, and wickedness.