Cambridge Bible for Schools and
Colleges
11.
stood and prayed thus with himself
]
Standing was the ordinary Jewish attitude of prayer (
1 Kings 8:22
; Mark 11:25
), but the word
statheis
(which is not used of the Tax- gatherer) seems to imply that he stood by himself to avoid the contaminating contact of the people of the earth and posed himself in a conspicuous attitude (Matthew 6:5
), as well as prayed with himself as the words are perhaps rightly rendered. He was a
separatist
in spirit as in name Trench. (Pharisee from
Pharash
‘to separate.’)
God, I thank thee
] Rather, O God. His prayer is no prayer at all not even a thanksgiving,
only a boast. Seethe strong denunciation of such insolent self-sufficiency in
Revelation
3:17-18
as other men
] Rather, as the rest of
mankind.
extortioners
,
unjust
,
adulterers
] Could he, in any real sense, have made out even this claim to be free from glaring crimes His class at any rate are charged by Christ with being full of extortion (Matthew 23:25
); and they were unjust, seeing that they omitted judgment’
(
Matthew 23:23
). They are not indeed charged by Jesus with adultery either in the metaphorical or literal sense, but they are spoken of as being prominent members of an adulterous generation, and on several occasions our Lord sternly rebuked their shameful laxity in the matter of divorce
(
Matthew 19:3-9
). And not only does Josephus charge them with this crime also, but their
Talmud, with perfect self-complacency, shews how the flagrant immorality of even their most eminent Rabbis found away to shelter itself,
with barefaced and cynical casuistry, under legal forms. See John 8:1-11
, and Lightfoot,
Hor. Hebr.
ad loci Life of Christ
, 11. 152. It appears from the tract
Sotah
in the Mishnah,
that the ordeal of the water of jealousy had been abolished by Jochanan Ben Zakkai, the greatest Rabbi of this age, because the crime had grown so common.
or even as this publican
] He thus makes the
Publican a foil to his own virtues. This says
St Augustine, is no longer to
exult
, but to
insult
.”
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