MATTHEW 15:13 — KING JAMES VERSION 0
“But he answered and said, Every plant, which my heavenly Father hath not planted, shall be rooted up.”
He answered: every plant that my heavenly Father has not planted will be rooted up. The plant metaphor for the Pharisees' tradition: every teaching (plant) that does not have the Father as its source will be uprooted. The agricultural imagery mirrors the parable of the weeds (Matthew 13:24–30): the plants that are not the Father's planting will be removed at the harvest.
Church Fathers on Matthew 15:13
In one of the Lord’s discourses the whole superstition of Jewish observances had been cut down. They placed their whole religion in using or abstaining from certain meats.
When the Pharisees heard the things that went before, they made no reply to them, because He had so mightily overthrown them, not only refuting their arguments, but detecting their fraud, but they, not the multitudes, were offended at them.
What He intends then by a plant not planted of His Father, is that tradition of men under cover of which the Law had been transgressed, this He instructs them must be rooted up.
Read all 10 entries in the readerCatena Aurea · St. Thomas Aquinas, tr. J. H. Newman · public domain
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