‘This people honors me with their lips,
but their heart 1 is far from me.
1 tn The term “heart” is a collective singular in the Greek text.
2 tn The imperfect ἐδίδασκεν (edidasken) is here taken ingressively.
3 sn A quotation from Isa 56:7.
4 tn Or “a hideout” (see L&N 1.57).
5 sn A quotation from Jer 7:11. The meaning of Jesus’ statement about making the temple courts a den of robbers probably operates here at two levels. Not only were the religious leaders robbing the people financially, but because of this they had also robbed them spiritually by stealing from them the opportunity to come to know God genuinely. It is possible that these merchants had recently been moved to this location for convenience.
3 tn Grk “his brother”; but this would be redundant in English with the same phrase “his brother” at the end of the verse, so most modern translations render this phrase “the man” (so NIV, NRSV).
4 tn The use of ἵνα (Jina) with imperatival force is unusual (BDF §470.1).
5 tn Grk “raise up seed” (an idiom for fathering children).
6 sn A quotation from Deut 25:5. This practice is called levirate marriage (see also Ruth 4:1-12; Mishnah, m. Yevamot; Josephus, Ant. 4.8.23 [4.254-256]). The levirate law is described in Deut 25:5-10. The brother of a man who died without a son had an obligation to marry his brother’s widow. This served several purposes: It provided for the widow in a society where a widow with no children to care for her would be reduced to begging, and it preserved the name of the deceased, who would be regarded as the legal father of the first son produced from that marriage.