SEV Biblia, Chapter 23:24
¡Guías ciegos, que coláis el mosquito, mas tragáis el camello!
Clarke's Bible Commentary - Matthew 23:24
Verse 24. Blind guides, which strain at a gnat, and swallow a camel.] This clause should be thus translated: Ye strain out the gnat, but ye swallow down the camel. In the common translation, Ye strain AT a gnat, conveys no sense. Indeed, it is likely to have been at first an error of the press, AT for OUT, which, on examination, I find escaped in the edition of 1611, and has been regularly continued since. There is now before me, "The Newe Testament, (both in Englyshe and in Laten,) of Mayster Erasmus translacion, imprynted by Wyllyam Powell, dwellynge in Flete strete: the yere of our Lorde M.CCCCC.XLVII. the fyrste yere of the kynges (Edwd. VI.) moste gracious reygne." in which the verse stands thus: "Ye blinde gides, which strayne out a gnat, and swalowe a cammel." It is the same also in Edmund Becke's Bible, printed in London 1549, and in several others.-Clensynge a gnatte. - MS. Eng. Bib. So Wickliff. Similar to this is the following Arabic proverb . He eats an elephant and is choked by a gnat.
John Gill's Bible Commentary
Ver. 24. Ye blind guides , etc.] As in ( Matthew 23:16) who strain at a gnat and swallow a camel : the Syriac and Persic versions read the words in the plural number, gnats and camels. The Jews had a law, which forbid them the eating of any creeping thing, ( Leviticus 11:41) and of this they were strictly observant, and would not be guilty of the breach of it for ever so much. “One that eats a flea, or a gnat; they say is rmwm , “an apostate”;” one that has changed his religion, and is no more to be reckoned as one of them. Hence they very carefully strained their liquors, lest they should transgress the above command, and incur the character of an apostate; and at least, the penalty of being beaten with forty stripes, save one; for, “whoever eats a whole fly, or a whole gnat, whether alive or dead, was to be beaten on account of a creeping flying thing f1298 .” Among the accusations Haman is said to bring against them to Ahasuerus, and the instances he gives of their laws being different from the king’s, this one f1299 ; that “if a fly falls into the cup of one of them, whtwçw wqrwz , “he strains it, and drinks it”; but if my lord the king should touch the cup of one of them, he would throw it to the ground, and would not drink of it.”
Maimonides says f1300 , “He that strains wine, or vinegar, or strong liquor, and eats “Jabchushin” (a sort of small flies found in wine cellars f1301 , on account of which they strained their wine), or gnats, or worms, which he hath strained off, is to be beaten on account of the creeping things of the water, or on account of the creeping flying things, and the creeping things of the water.”
Moreover, it is said f1302 , “a man might not pour his strong liquors through a strainer, by the light (of a candle or lamp), lest he should separate and leave in the top of the strainer (some creeping thing), and it should fail again into the cup, and he should transgress the law, in ( Leviticus 11:41).”
To this practice Christ alluded here; and so very strict and careful were they in this matter, that to strain at a gnat, and swallow a camel, became at length a proverb, to signify much solicitude about little things, and none about greater. These men would not, on any consideration, be guilty of such a crime, as not to pay the tithe of mint, anise, and cummin, and such like herbs and seeds; and yet made no conscience of doing justice, and showing mercy to men, or of exercising faith in God, or love to him. Just as many hypocrites, like them, make a great stir, and would appear very conscientious and scrupulous, about some little trifling things, and yet stick not, at other times, to commit the grossest enormities, and most scandalous sins in life.
Matthew Henry Commentary
Verses 13-33 - The scribes and Pharisees were enemies to the gospel of Christ, an therefore to the salvation of the souls of men. It is bad to keep awa from Christ ourselves, but worse also to keep others from him. Yet it is no new thing for the show and form of godliness to be made a cloa to the greatest enormities. But dissembled piety will be reckone double iniquity. They were very busy to turn souls to be of their party. Not for the glory of God and the good of souls, but that the might have the credit and advantage of making converts. Gain being their godliness, by a thousand devices they made religion give way to their worldly interests. They were very strict and precise in smalle matters of the law, but careless and loose in weightier matters. It is not the scrupling a little sin that Christ here reproves; if it be sin, though but a gnat, it must be strained out; but the doing that and then swallowing a camel, or, committing a greater sin. While the would seem to be godly, they were neither sober nor righteous. We ar really, what we are inwardly. Outward motives may keep the outsid clean, while the inside is filthy; but if the heart and spirit be mad new, there will be newness of life; here we must begin with ourselves The righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees was like the ornament of a grave, or dressing up a dead body, only for show. The deceitfulness of sinners' hearts appears in that they go down the streams of the sins of their own day, while they fancy that they shoul have opposed the sins of former days. We sometimes think, if we ha lived when Christ was upon earth, that we should not have despised an rejected him, as men then did; yet Christ in his Spirit, in his word in his ministers, is still no better treated. And it is just with God to give those up to their hearts' lusts, who obstinately persist i gratifying them. Christ gives men their true characters.
Greek Textus Receptus
οδηγοι 3595 N-VPM τυφλοι 5185 A-VPM οι 3588 T-NPM διυλιζοντες 1368 5723 V-PAP-NPM τον 3588 T-ASM κωνωπα 2971 N-ASM την 3588 T-ASF δε 1161 CONJ καμηλον 2574 N-ASM καταπινοντες 2666 5723 V-PAP-NPM
Vincent's NT Word Studies
24. Strain at (diulizontev). dia, thoroughly or through, and uJlizw, to filter or strain. Strain at is an old misprint perpetuated. Hence the Rev. correctly, as Tynd., strain out. Insects were ceremonially unclean (Lev. xi. 20, 23, 41, 42), so that the Jews strained their wine in order not to swallow any unclean animal. Moreover, there were certain insects which bred in wine. Aristotle uses the word gnat (kwnwpa) of a worm or larva found in the sediment of sour wine. "In a ride from Tangier to Tetuan I observed that a Moorish soldier who accompanied me, when he drank, always unfolded the end of his turban and placed it over the mouth of this bota, drinking through the mulin to strain out the gnats, whose larvae swarm in the water of that country" (cited by Trench, "On the Authorized Version").Swallow (katapinontev). The rendering is feeble. It is drink down (kata); gulp. Note that the camel was also unclean (Lev. xi. 4).
Robertson's NT Word Studies
23:24 {Strain out the gnat} (diulizontes ton k"n"pa). By filtering through (dia), not the "straining at" in swallowing so crudely suggested by the misprint in the A.V. {Swallow the camel} (ten de kamelon katapinontes). Gulping or drinking down the camel. An oriental hyperbole like that in #19:24. See also #5:29,30; 17:20; 21:21. Both insects and camels were ceremonially unclean (#Le 11:4,20,23,42). "He that kills a flea on the Sabbath is as guilty as if he killed a camel" (Jer. _Shabb._ 107).
