“For they bind heavy burdens and grievous to be borne, and lay them on men’s shoulders; but they themselves will not move them with one of their fingers.”
They tie up heavy burdens, hard to bear, and lay them on people's shoulders, but they themselves are not willing to move them with their finger. The heavy burdens of Pharisaic legal elaboration — the oral tradition that added hundreds of interpretive regulations to the Torah's commandments — are placed on others while the Pharisees exempt themselves through their own legal expertise. The contrast with Jesus' yoke (Matthew 11:30: my yoke is easy and my burden is light) is the contrast between the rabbi who carries the burden alongside the disciple and the teacher who loads the burden and walks away.
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