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Mat_23:23. Comp. Luk_11:39 ff.
In accordance with certain traditional enactments (Babyl. Joma, f. lxxxiii. 2), the Pharisees extended the legal prescriptions as to tithes (Lev_27:30; Num_18:21; Deu_12:6 f., Mat_24:22-27) so as to include even the most insignificant vegetable products, such as mint, anise, and cummin. See Lightfoot and Wetstein on this passage. Ewald, Alterth. p. 399.
τὰ βαρύτερα τοῦ νόμου ] the weightier things, i.e. the more important (graviora) elements of the law (comp. Act_25:7), not: the things more difficult of fulfilment (difficiliora, as Fritzsche), which interpretation is indeed grammatically admissible (1Jn_5:3), but must be rejected, because, according to the context (see Mat_23:24), Jesus was comparing the important with the less important, and most probably had in view the analogy of the praecepta gravia ( çîåøéí ) et levia ( ÷ìéí ) of the Jewish doctors (see Schoettgen, p. 183).
τὴν κρίσιν ] comp. Psa_33:5; not: righteousness (the usual interpretation), a sense in which the term is never used (comp. on Mat_12:18), but judgment, i.e. deciding for the right as against the wrong. Comp. Bengel and Paulus. The κρίσις is the practical manifestation of righteousness.
τὴν πίστιν ] faithfulness, Jer_5:1; Rom_3:3; Gal_5:22; and see on Phm_1:5. The opposite of this is ἀπιστία , perfidia (Wis_14:25, frequent in classical writers).
ταῦτα ] the βαρύτερα just mentioned, not the tithing of mint, etc. (Bengel).
ἔδει ] oportebat. See Kühner, II. 1, p. 176 f. Those were the duties which had been neglected.
μὴ ἀφιέναι ] scarcely so strong as the positive ποιῆσαι . Observe the contrasts: What you have neglected you ought to have done, and at the same time not have neglected what you are in the habit of doing,—the former being of paramount importance; the subordinate matter, viz. your painful attention to tithes, is not superseded by the higher duties, but only kept in its proper place.