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Mat 16:6. Ὁρᾶτε, take heed) It is necessary to be careful of the purity of doctrine.-ζύμης, leaven) The language is metaphorical, and therefore enigmatical; and by it our Lord tries the progress of the disciples, who had already been long His hearers. The metaphor, however, alludes to the thoughts with which the mind of the disciples was then overflowing; q. d., “Do not care about the want of earthly bread, but about the perilous aliments which the hypocrites offer to your souls.” It is probable that the disciples had forgotten the loaves, because the controversy raised by the Pharisees and Sadducees (Mat 16:1) had put them into a state of anxiety and temptation. The Pharisees and Sadducees were elsewhere strongly opposed to each other, but yet on this occasion they conspire together against Jesus (see Mat 16:1); therefore He included both of them under the one title of hypocrites (Mat 16:3), and guards His disciples at once against both in this passage. And their hypocrisy itself was this leaven (Luk 12:1), induced by which, they did not acknowledge the very sufficient signs of the present time, but, on the contrary, demanded the signs of another time; whence the plural καιρῶν, times, is used in Mat 16:3.[718] The believer both believes and speaks; he who separates either of these from the other is an unbeliever, is a hypocrite; see Gnomon on ch. Mat 24:51. Neither therefore is he free from hypocrisy who has little faith; see Mat 16:8. The disciples are most opportunely admonished to beware of this leaven, as they did not yet understand it from the present signs; see Mat 16:11.[719]
[718] Nay more, every error of all sects is the one leaven, which the old man cherishes.-V. g.
[719] There is also in this a suitableness of words [His mode of address], inasmuch as the disciples, who had been present, and themselves taken a part in the proceedings, on the occasion of the divine miracles which had been twice performed in the case of bread a short time before, were feeling the need of bread, now that a sudden want of it had arisen. For that reason, they might have the more deeply been mindful of spiritual bread, and have seen clearly the need of sound doctrine.-V. g.