Matthew 23:25

The outside of the cup. Jesus here refers, not to the habits of the Pharisees regarding literal household utensils, in the use of which the Jews exercised scrupulous care, but to the Pharisees themselves. With literal cups the Pharisees would take as great care of the inside as they did of the outside. The difficulty was that they failed to apply the same principle to their lives. They lived to be “seen of men” (see on v. 5), seemingly completely oblivious of the fact that God could see their hearts and knew full well the hypocritical motives that prompted their outwardly scrupulous piety. Compare Mark 7:18-23.

Platter. Gr. paropsis, a dish on which dainties were served.

Extortion and excess. The words thus translated indicate “rapine” and “robbery” on the one hand, and “intemperance” and “lack of self-control” on the other. Christ here illustrates how the scribes and Pharisees failed in the “weightier matters of the law” (v. 23).