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MATTHEW 23:4 — KING JAMES VERSION 0
Matt 23:3Matt 23:5
“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.

Church Fathers on Matthew 23:4

When the Lord had overthrown the Priests by His answer, and shewn their condition to be irremediable, forasmuch as clergy, when they do wickedly, cannot be amended, but laymen who have gone wrong are easily set right, He turns His discourse to His Apostles and the people. For that is an unprofitable word which silences one, without conveying improvement to another.

Pseudo-Chrysostom · 5th century

The disciples of Christ are better than the common herd; and you may find in the Church such as with more ardent affection come to the word of God; these are Christ’s disciples, the rest are only His people. And sometimes He speaks to His disciples alone, sometimes to the multitudes and His disciples together, as here.

Origen · 3rd century

But that none should say, For this cause am I slack to practise, because my instructor is evil, He removes every such plea, saying, 'All therefore whatsoever they say unto you, that observe and do,' for they speak not their own, but God’s, which things He taught through Moses in the Law. And look with how great honour He speaks of Moses, shewing again what harmony there is with the Old Testament.

Chrysostom · 4th century · Hom. lxxii
Read all 11 entries in the readerCatena Aurea · St. Thomas Aquinas, tr. J. H. Newman · public domain
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