Continuing with my series on the “woes” of Matthew 23. Full disclosure. I hated teaching a lot of this. This information is maddening and confusing and nitpicky, but it represents a real debate and struggle in the first century and even to modern times–the idea that human hands were automatically so unclean that they would make food and drink defiled if not ritually washed. It isn’t Biblical and Yeshua firmly stands against it in a number of passages. But what should the Pharisees and their scribes be focusing on instead? Their hearts! Yeshua felt as though it needed to be addressed and so we’re going to talk about it, the debate over the insides and outsides and handles of “utensils” covered in Mishnah tractates Kelim and Berakhot between Hillel and Shammai as well as begin to cover the top of ritual purity, which we will discuss in greater detail in the next teaching.
Transcript below, not really edited to any sort of professional standard, but you’ll survive.
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Woes Part 6: Cups, dishes, and fake names
25 “Woe to you, Torah scholars and Pharisees, hypocrites! You clean the outside of the cup and dish, but inside they are full of greed and uncontrolled desire. 26 O blind Pharisee! First clean the inside of the cup and dish, so that the outside may become clean as well.
We’ve been pretty tough on the Pharisees as a whole for the last seven weeks, but this week the House of Hillel, the liberal faction of Phariseeism in the first centuries BCE and CE is going to get to take a bit of a breather until next week when they get compared to white-washed tombs—or maybe this week if I have enough time to cover both the fifth and sixth woes of Matthew 23. We’ll just see.
Hi, I’m Tyler Dawn Rosenquist and welcome to Character in Context, where we explore the historical context of Scripture and talk about how it bears on our own behavior and witness as image-bearers. You can find my teachings on my websites theancientbridge.com and contextforkids.com as well as on my youtube channels, accessible from my websites. You can also access past broadcasts on my podcast channel characterincontext.podbean.com and my context books for adults and families are available through amazon.com.
So this is part six of our series on the seven woes of Matthew 23 and the seventh if you include the teaching I squeezed in there about the Pharisees and Scribes and who they were and were not. A lot of misinformation and assumptions floating around out there and we’re trying to get a little more light on the issues. For this week, I am going to be referencing Jacob Neusner’s article “First Cleanse the Inside: The Halakhic Background of a Controversy-saying” and thank goodness for that article because I have been pulling my hair out reading Mishnah Tractate Kelim, the largest Tractate in the entire Mishnah, which of course is the legal ruling “half” of the Talmud and was compiled around 200 CE. All that I said about Tractate Shevuot, concerning oaths, a couple of weeks back, being the worst. I was wrong. This is far more nitpicky and maddening and even with the excellent commentary by Pinchas Kehati, I was really struggling. Neusner came along and saved my hide with his article, and pointed me in the direction of a better source in Tractate Berakhot, which deals with blessings—which may not immediately seem to be applicable, but I promise it will make sense later.
Some interesting tidbits here—all of the woes have been addressed to a plural “you” except for one part of this one. Let me reread it and show you:
25 “Woe to you, Torah scholars and Pharisees, hypocrites! You clean the outside of the cup and dish, but inside they are full of greed and uncontrolled desire. 26 O blind Pharisee! First clean the inside of the cup and dish, so that the outside may become clean as well.
Okay, that second bit “Oh blind Pharisee!” That is singular, and it is the only singular we will see in the entire thing. So, we have two options here, either this rebuke doesn’t apply to everyone equally here, or Yeshua/Jesus is making this a personal challenge and I can argue both and so I will argue both just to show you what is going on in the text here.
It’s rather like saying “You guys are all hypocrites” and then pointing to one guy and calling him out or perhaps calling out a subgroup.
One of the important things about reading the Mishnah, the legal rulings of the Supreme Court of Israel, and the Gemara, the legal arguments, is that we see that even in Mishnaic times, almost 200 years after this incident, they are still debating these issues. Judaism is still evolving and changing and debating about things like ritual purity, long after the destruction of the Temple and the decline of the priesthood in importance. They haven’t nailed everything down yet and it will remain much this way until the time of Maimonides in the twelfth century, whose rulings on much of these issues are considered definitive. At this time, however, in the debates of the second century especially, we see a lot of disagreement and because of this, we know that Judaism was far from monolithic—Judaism after 20 CE evolved a lot from what we see being practiced by the Scribes, Pharisees, Sadducees, etc. This is to be expected when a religion undergoes a catastrophe and losing the Temple was a catastrophe the likes of which we just can’t imagine.
But, going back to the rebuke, and I hope you got to hear my teaching on polemic in the ancient world—this sort of diatribe against the hypocrisy and such of rival factions was common in the entire Greco-Roman world. Greeks did it, Romans did it, and the Jews did it too—it was a part of the cultural fabric. The Essenes were probably the most prolific at it. Competition to be the only authoritative voice was common in the ancient world and is still common today, and undermining one’s opponent by calling out their hypocrisy has always been effective. Yeshua was in His last days here and He was addressing the Judeans and not His regular Galilean followers. The Pharisees and their Scribes/Torah Scholars/Teachers (as well as all the Judean elites) were using their influence to keep the Judeans and Jerusalemites from listening to their Messiah. They called themselves guides to the blind but they were blind to the answer to all their prayers—the coming of the Messiah. We’ll talk more about that in two or three weeks. What should the Messiah do when the leaders of the people are leading the people in the wrong direction? He has to show the people that these guys are not the authority—He is. And that’s what He was doing here—not criticizing them over honest disagreements or because He had a huge ego or low self-esteem or whatever—He was battling for the salvation of His people. So was John the Baptist. They had a unique calling and empowerment to do this—this wasn’t about their flesh—like it generally is when we engage in this sort of thing. We enjoy being insulting, while they were fighting for people’s lives. It is so important to understand their calling and motivation.
The whole deal about the washing of the cups was about what the bible calls “cleanliness” but is better termed “ritual purity.” This wasn’t about having a dirty cup and washing it with soap. This was about ritual purity, about taking steps to become nearer to God through ablutions aka washing. The Pharisees were really concerned with three things—ritual purity, Sabbath observance, and tithing. I am not saying that they only cared about these things, but all the extra-biblical sources where they are talked about really stress these three things as their overriding concerns for reforming Jewish society. Remember, the Pharisees wanted to be the authorities within Judaism—they were really no different than any other religious faction, wanting to be the mainstream and not on the fringe, wanting to determine the way of proper observance for everyone. But there were only about 6000 of them altogether, and they did not have the authority of the later medieval rabbis. They were still just a faction within Judaism.
So, what’s ritual purity all about? Glad you asked. As I said before, it had nothing to do with actually being clean but with being in a ritually pure state that allowed one to approach God respectfully in person. Among new people to studying the Torah, there is a common misconception about what is and is not considered clean. For example, unclean animals are only unclean after they are dead. They are unclean for food, as they were never meant to be eaten. It has nothing to do with how well you sanitize the meat or with your farming practices—unclean is just another word for unacceptable, but nothing is completely unacceptable. Yeshua and David both rode on unclean animals and remained undefiled. Donkeys and mules were unclean, but not for riding. Leviticus 11 designated pigs as unclean for eating, but not to exterminate them as a species. Pigs serve a great purpose, as do all bottom feeders in the ocean, like lobsters, catfish, and shrimp—they are nature’s garbage disposals and the more they are farmed out of the oceans and lakes, the dirtier the water gets. God created this beautiful balance where some fish are for eating and some are for cleaning. But touching a pig, or a dog or a cat does not make one ritually unclean—unless they are dead. So there are no scriptural prohibitions on having pets.
Let’s look at the most common source of uncleanness—sex. In Genesis 1 we are commanded to be fruitful and multiply and in Leviticus, we are plainly told that any emission of semen from a man makes him and his wife unclean. Obviously being unclean is not a sin—it’s commanded! Also, a woman’s monthly cycle renders her unclean—a natural biological function and so obviously not a sin. All of the different forms of uncleanness, except for a very few, were easily remedied by immersing in a mikvah, a ritual bath, and waiting until evening. At that point, a person was clean again. Clean for what? Leviticus 15 tells us that being clean is required to come near the holy things of God that are found within His Tabernacle/Temple. There are many scholarly theories about why this is required—does it represent a separation from death and an embracing of life? How about wholeness versus sickness? We don’t entirely know and it really doesn’t matter. God’s rules rule.
And the priests who were continually serving in the Tabernacle/Temple had some restrictions on their lives and on their actions. They could marry whoever they wanted, for one, but more important to our teaching is that they could not approach the altar of God without first ritually washing their hands and feet. No, there was no soap involved, just handwashing. Remember, this wasn’t about sanitation as we would recognize it, but about spiritual purity. They washed their hands to show honor to God.
Now, sometimes people get the wrong impression that we cannot approach God in prayer unless we are ritually clean, but that isn’t the case at all—we just can’t approach His earthly throne, which was the Tabernacle/Temple. This is simplistic but think of the difference between receiving a phone call from the Queen of England and going to Buckingham Palace to see her. You could do the first laying in bed with mussed-up hair and dirty feet, but you had better not visit the palace that way because it would be supremely disrespectful. In order to draw near physically, you need to be at your best, the elevated form of yourself.
Now the Pharisees looked at those priestly requirements for purity while on duty (by this time priests only served two weeks a year, plus feasts, since the time of David) and came up with this idea that the home can also be sort of a Temple, with the dinner table as an altar, and the food upon it a shared communion between man and God–and so taking on the priestly mandate to wash hands before eating was a natural extension of that. As a priest with unwashed hands would defile the sacrifice, especially the blood which made the sacrifice holy, the Pharisees believed/taught that unwashed hands could defile food. Now, this is absolutely not Scriptural. This is a man-made doctrine derived from a legitimate commandment concerning the priests and only when they were within the Azarah, the holy precincts. This is a tradition of the elders. And you need to know that there was nothing inherently wrong or evil about doing this. It was a way of life. There was no sin involved—but if they were arguing that unwashed hands made food that was otherwise clean defiled, then we see in Mark 7 that Yeshua blatantly challenged that idea. Food, of course, is defined by Leviticus 11, what is and is not suitable for eating, what is and is not considered to be food. So to His entirely Jewish audience, when Yeshua talks about food, He is only talking about things that Jews would consider to be food. When they hear the word food, pork and shellfish don’t even come to mind, or rabbit or catfish or whatever. The Pharisees were claiming that ritually unwashed hands could take something that was clean, and defile it. Scripturally, there is no direct evidence for this being true at all and Yeshua didn’t accept it as a ruling. But we will make that into a larger teaching some other time.
Up to this point, this has all been pretty easy to understand—unless of course, I explained it badly. We’re getting to the point now where this is going to be confusing no matter what I do, so don’t think you are stupid if your head starts spinning. I read it to my husband on our monthly drive to Costco this weekend and he was giving me the stink eye before it was all over, and he’s really brilliant. I will try and make it all clear at the end.
Berakot 8.2
Bet Shammai says: they wash their hands and then they pour the cup [of wine]. Bet Hillel says: they pour the cup [of wine] and then they wash their hands.
(Read from Kehati commentary, which I don’t have reproduced here)
So, this all boils down to Hillel believing that the outside of the cup can be unclean regardless of whether or not the inside is clean and so the most important surface to clean is the inside, and Shammai saying that the outer surface is what is most important—that it could be clean even if the inside was not.
Yeshua kinda sided with Hillel by turning all this into a picture of who we really are—are we only cleaned up on the outside for show, or are we really filthy on the inside? Really, this is just an extension of everything that has gone before—long tassels, wide tefillin, wanting honors and authority, making showy oaths that meant nothing, painstakingly tithing even the slightest things while not truly caring for the needy. This is the “clean” outside of the cup. This is hypocrisy. They should have worn their tassels, and their tefillin, tithed generously, let their yes be yes and no be no, and received the honor and authority that come from being righteous and honorable from the inside out.
Yes, the outside of the cup should absolutely be clean—but it is only going through the motions if the inside is filthy. And we all start out with filthy insides, right? This walk with God, the transformation that comes through the Cross, is all about changing us on the inside and the outside and not just on the inside. You want amazing rule-keepers? Join any crazy cult. Or become a Muslim, or a Buddhist, or a Hindu and watch them keep rules better than we do! Almost anyone, no matter how depraved, can be moved to keep external laws.
Mark 7 The Pharisees and some of the teachers of the law who had come from Jerusalem gathered around Jesus 2 and saw some of his disciples eating food with hands that were defiled, that is, unwashed. 3 (The Pharisees and all the Jews do not eat unless they give their hands a ceremonial washing, holding to the tradition of the elders. 4 When they come from the marketplace they do not eat unless they wash. And they observe many other traditions, such as the washing of cups, pitchers and kettles.)
5 So the Pharisees and teachers of the law asked Jesus, “Why don’t your disciples live according to the tradition of the elders instead of eating their food with defiled hands?”
6 He replied, “Isaiah was right when he prophesied about you hypocrites; as it is written:
“‘These people honor me with their lips,
but their hearts are far from me.
7 They worship me in vain;
their teachings are merely human rules.’
8 You have let go of the commands of God and are holding on to human traditions.”
9 And he continued, “You have a fine way of setting aside the commands of God in order to observe your own traditions! 10 For Moses said, ‘Honor your father and mother,’ and, ‘Anyone who curses their father or mother is to be put to death.’ 11 But you say that if anyone declares that what might have been used to help their father or mother is Corban (that is, devoted to God)— 12 then you no longer let them do anything for their father or mother. 13 Thus you nullify the word of God by your tradition that you have handed down. And you do many things like that.”
14 Again Jesus called the crowd to him and said, “Listen to me, everyone, and understand this. 15 Nothing outside a person can defile them by going into them. Rather, it is what comes out of a person that defiles them.” [16]
17 After he had left the crowd and entered the house, his disciples asked him about this parable. 18 “Are you so dull?” he asked. “Don’t you see that nothing that enters a person from the outside can defile them?19 For it doesn’t go into their heart but into their stomach, and then out of the body.” (In saying this, Jesus declared all foods clean.)
20 He went on: “What comes out of a person is what defiles them. 21 For it is from within, out of a person’s heart, that evil thoughts come—sexual immorality, theft, murder, 22 adultery, greed, malice, deceit, lewdness, envy, slander, arrogance and folly. 23 All these evils come from inside and defile a person.”
Luke 11 37 When Jesus had finished speaking, a Pharisee invited him to eat with him; so he went in and reclined at the table. 38 But the Pharisee was surprised when he noticed that Jesus did not first wash before the meal.
39 Then the Lord said to him, “Now then, you Pharisees clean the outside of the cup and dish, but inside you are full of greed and wickedness.40 You foolish people! Did not the one who made the outside make the inside also? 41 But now as for what is inside you—be generous to the poor, and everything will be clean for you.
Now, I want you to notice that He never says they can’t wash their hands or their vessels. He is pointing them to the weightier matter, just to be clear. All this washing was okay, although He categorically denies the Pharisaic belief that one could render clean foods impure by touching them with unwashed hands. But He doesn’t tell them that all the washing is a sin, He only puts it in perspective and according to Luke, He does not ritually wash His own hands before eating bread. Clean food is clean, period.
Now, before we get too hard on the Pharisees, a modern-day equivalent of focusing on the outside of the cup and the wearing of long tassels and extra-wide tefillin (which we talked about a few weeks ago) is in the adopting of Hebrew names on social media, and a whole slew of other things that people do when they are feeling like they need to reinvent themselves in order to really be keeping Torah (which we can’t do anyway). Now, before you get angry, please hear me out. Salvation isn’t genetic, but by allegiance to God on His terms. Sometimes people lose sight of that and it’s the reason why I wrote my book King, Kingdom, Citizen: His Reign and our Identity—because back in 2015 there were a lot of people really struggling with the idea that non-Jewish believers in Yeshua were somehow perpetually second-class citizens.
I see so many people falling into the trap of believing/thinking that they need to be “more Jewish” in order to become more acceptable to God. Well, God’s commandments aren’t Jewish, they are God-ish. They teach us how to love Him and one another–but there is no commandment that says He loves people who adopt Hebrew names more than those with non-Hebrew names. Case in point, one of the teachers of the Gospel called out in the Book of Acts is an Alexandrian Jew named Apollos. It doesn’t require a whole lot of education to be aware that he was carried the name of the false god Apollo (whose name would have ended in the masculine “s” in antiquity just as “a” at the ending was feminine except in Hebrew/Aramaic). So why wasn’t he compelled to change his name? Why didn’t Priscilla and Aquilla mention it? Where was the outrage?
Our names show where we come from, oftentimes, and not who we have decided to ally ourselves with.
We don’t know why on earth he was given that name. Were his parents nonobservant and thoroughly Hellenized? It did happen, despite Alexandria being so Jewish that they even built their own Temple, with permission from Jerusalem. But, in any event, he wasn’t responsible for his name, just whom he chose to follow and preach about. He chose to preach about our Savior Yeshua/Jesus–without changing his name.
The Bible says not a word against this. Being a Jew, didn’t he want to sound more Jewish? Didn’t he want more street cred? More respect? Evidently, it wasn’t an issue. He preached and lived with his given name intact.
It is our actions that show who we are and who we follow, and not our names. And I get concerned when people want to change their names in order to sound more Jewish and especially when they are not Jews. What is their reason for doing it? I am not saying that all reasons are illegitimate, but I have seen people who want to completely play pretend, completely repudiate their heritage and everything wonderful about their life and take on an alternate persona. But God called us where we are, with our given names, in the city or country where we are, as part of a certain culture. He didn’t call us to suddenly pretend like we are Jews with Hebrew names as though our own names aren’t valid, or somehow inherently pagan and unacceptable. That we can retain much of who we were, and go forward different in the ways that matter–those concerning sin and love–that is what marks us out as His.
Anyone can change their name, say they are from Jerusalem, call themselves a Hebrew or Israelite and it means nothing. The transformation from within is the mark of a believer and a member of God’s Kingdom. The externals are all too easily a sham, as Yeshua/Jesus goes to great lengths to point out in the woes of Matthew Chapter 23.
Names are nothing. External keeping of commandments is good. Internal transformation and internal keeping of the commandments that manifests itself in radical love is the real deal.
^^That right there works for everyone and is completely independent of your genetics. It is just as hard and just as easy for Jews as it is for Gentiles. Sure, if you grow up keeping the commandments externally, that part is easier, but the insides are hard for everyone. That has to be our focus. God isn’t going to be asking for a DNA test–I think He is going to be looking at us and asking how well we tried and managed to conform to His image as represented perfectly by the Messiah, based on how we started out and how far we were able to come.
I don’t care what your name is. I don’t care what genetic markers you carry. I care about how you have or haven’t surrendered yourself to God in order to become more loving, joyful, peaceful, patient, kind, good, faithful, gentle, self-controlled, meek and humble. Taking on new names may distract people who are focused on appearances, but they won’t distract God, who is no respecter of persons. And there are too many people who are calling themselves Hebrews and acting insufferably and reflecting badly on the Jews, who then have to bear the stigma caused by the behavior of someone who isn’t even part of their community. That scares me, on behalf of the Jews who are already hated and who are suffering under increased attacks worldwide.
Acts 10:34 Then Peter opened his mouth and said, “I truly understand that God is not one to show favoritism, 35 but in every nation the one who fears Him and does what is right is acceptable to Him.”
Stop behaving and believing that you can only be more acceptable to God by becoming something that you are not. Be who you are but do it according to Kingdom principles. Apollos was a witness that even someone named after a Greco-Roman god could parade around, in rebellion against his own name, in order to recognize another God. How shameful that was to Apollo the god?–and what a victory it was to the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob–and the Messiah.
