Luke Chapter 18 verse 12 Holy Bible

Pulpit Commentary

Pulpit CommentaryVerse 12 - I fast twice in the week. There was no such precept in the Law of Moses. There only a single fast-day in the year was enjoined, the Day of Atonement (Leviticus 16:29). By the time of Zechariah the prophet (Zechariah 8:19) the one fast-day had grown into four. But this fasting twice every week was a burthensome observance imposed in the later oral Law. Thursday and Monday were the appointed fasting-days, because tradition related how, on those days, Moses ascended and descended from Sinai. Compare the Talmud (treatise 'Bava Khama,' fol. 82. 1). I give tithes of all that I possess. Here, again, the Mosaic ordinance only enjoined tithes of corn, wine, oil, and cattle. The later rabbinic schools directed that everything should be tithed, down to the mint and anise and cummin. And so this poor deluded Pharisee dreamed he had earned his eternal salvation, forgetting that the tithes he so prided himself on paying were merely tithes of goods of which he was steward for a little time, tithes, too, given back to their real Owner - God. Could this be counted a claim upon God? He boasted, too, that he was no extortioner: did he forget how often he had coveted? He was no adulterer: what of those wicked thoughts which so often found a home in his heart? He rejoiced that he was not like the publican and others of that same class: did he think of the sore temptations to which these and the like were exposed, and from which he was free? He gloried in his miserable tithes and offerings: did he remember how really mean and selfish he was? did he think of his luxury and abundance, and of the want and misery of thousands round him? did his poor pitiful generosity constitute a claim to salvation? All this and more is shrined in the exquisite story of Jesus, who shows men that salvation - if it be given to men at all - must be given entirely as a free gift of God.

Ellicott's Commentary

Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers(12) I fast twice in the week.--From the negative side of his self-analysis the Pharisee passes to the positive. The Stoic Emperor is a little less systematic, or rather groups his thanksgiving after a different plan, and, it must be owned, with a higher ethical standard. On the fasts of the Pharisees on the third and fifth days of the week, see Note on Matthew 6:16.I give tithes of all that I possess.--Better, of all that I acquire, as in Matthew 10:9; Acts 1:18. Tithe was a tax on produce, not on property. The boast of the Pharisee is, that he paid the lesser tithes, as well as the greater--of mint, anise, and cummin (Matthew 23:23), as well as of corn and wine and oil. There is something obviously intended to be significant in the man's selection of the good deeds on which he plumes himself. He does not think, as Job did in his boasting mood, that he had been "a father to the poor," and had "made the widow's heart to sing for joy" (Job 29:13; Job 29:16), nor look back, as Nehemiah looked, upon good deeds done for his country (Nehemiah 13:14; Nehemiah 13:22; Nehemiah 13:31) in the work of reformation. For him fasting and tithes have come to supersede the "weightier matters of the Law" (Matthew 23:23). . . .