Mat 3:7 Pharisees - A very numerous sect among the Jews, who, in their origin, were, very probably, a pure and holy people. It is likely that they got the name of Pharisees, i.e. Separatists, (from פרש pharash, to separate), from their separating themselves from the pollution of the Jewish national worship; and hence, the word in the Anglo-saxon version is, holy persons who stand apart, or by themselves: but, in process of time, like all religious sects and parties, they degenerated: they lost the spirit of their institution, they ceased to recur to first principles, and had only the form of godliness, when Jesus Christ preached in Judea; for he bore witness, that they did make the outside of the cup and platter clean - they observed the rules of their institution, but the spirit was gone.Sadducees - A sect who denied the existence of angels and spirits, consequently all Divine influence and inspiration, and also the resurrection of the dead. The Sadducees of that time were the Materialists and Deists of the Jewish nation. When the sect of the Pharisees arose cannot be distinctly ascertained; but it is supposed to have been some time after the Babylonish captivity. The sect of the Sadducees were the followers of one Sadok, a disciple of Antigonus Sochaeus, who flourished about three centuries before Christ. There was a third sect among the Jews, called the Essenes or Essenians, of whom I shall have occasion to speak on Mat_19:12.
Mat 3:7 The Pharisees and Sadducees (tōn Pharisaiōn kai Saddoukaiōn). These two rival parties do not often unite in common action, but do again in Mat_16:1. “Here a strong attraction, there a strong repulsion, made them for the moment forget their differences” (McNeile). John saw these rival ecclesiastics “coming for baptism” (erchomenous epi to baptisma). Alford speaks of “the Pharisees representing hypocritical superstition; the Sadducees carnal unbelief.”
Author
