Biblion Bible Commentary
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What Comes Out of the Mouth
Matthew 15:10-20
10 He summoned the multitude, and said to them, “Hear, and understand. · WEB
Defilement is relocated from the plate to the heart — and when told the Pharisees are offended, he says to leave them alone.
He summoned the multitude, and said to them, "Hear, and understand. That which enters into the mouth doesn't defile the man; but that which proceeds out of the mouth, this defiles the man" Matthew 15:10–11.
The crowd is called over deliberately. The delegation asked a private question and the answer is given in public, because the thing being corrected had been taught to everybody.
The saying and its explanation are given in the earlier account Mark 7:1–23. Its subject is set by the argument it answers: the question on the table was hand washing, a rule of the elders, and the ruling is about what genuinely makes a person unclean. "Out of the heart come evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, sexual sins, thefts, false testimony, and blasphemies" Matthew 15:19 — a list that runs through the second table of the commandments in order, and every item on it is something a person does rather than something that happens to them.
"These are the things which defile the man; but to eat with unwashed hands doesn't defile the man" Matthew 15:20. Matthew closes the paragraph by returning to the original complaint, which keeps the ruling anchored to what was actually asked.
Between the saying and its explanation this Gospel adds an exchange the other does not carry.
"Do you know that the Pharisees were offended when they heard this saying?" Matthew 15:12. The disciples are managing his reputation, and the anxiety is recognizable — important people have taken offense, and something should probably be done.
"Every plant which my heavenly Father didn't plant will be uprooted" Matthew 15:13. The answer is a planting image, three chapters after a discourse full of them, and the criterion is the same as the one just applied to the tradition: origin. What God did not plant does not need to be pulled up by anxious disciples. It will not last.
"Leave them alone. They are blind guides of the blind. If the blind guide the blind, both will fall into a pit" Matthew 15:14.
Leave them alone is the instruction, and it is the same restraint the weeds parable required — no pulling, no campaign Matthew 13:29. What follows it is not a dismissal but a diagnosis, and it is worse than the offense the disciples were worried about. A blind man is not blamed for the pit. A blind man who has appointed himself a guide has taken others down with him, and the pit is the destination of both.
Peter answered him, "Explain the parable to us" Matthew 15:15 — and "Do you also still not understand?" Matthew 15:16 is the reply. The men on the inside of the parables discourse are still asking for the explanation, which the book records without softening.
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