Commentaries:
Adam Clarke
That ye do not your alms - , perform not your acts of righteousness - such as alms-giving, fasting, and prayer, mentioned immediately after. Instead of , righteousness, or acts of righteousness, the reading in the text, that which has been commonly received is , alms. But the first reading has been inserted in several editions, and is supported by the Codd. Vatican and Bezae, some others, and several versions, all the Itala except one, and the Vulgate. The Latin fathers have justitiam , a word of the same meaning. Mr. Gregory has amply proved, tsidekeh , righteousness, was a common word for alms among the Jews. Works, 4th. p. 58, 1671. R. D. Kimchi says that tsidekeh , Isaiah 59:14, means alms-giving; and the phrase natan tsidekah , is used by the Jews to signify the giving of alms. The following passages from Dr. Lightfoot show that it was thus commonly used among the Jewish writers: -
"It is questioned," says he, "whether Matthew wrote , alms, or , righteousness. I answer: -
"I. That, our Savior certainly said tsidekah , righteousness, (or, in Syriac zidkatha ), I make no doubt at all; but, that that word could not be otherwise understood by the common people than of alms, there is as little doubt to be made. For although the word tsidekah , according to the idiom of the Old Testament, signifies nothing else than righteousness; yet now, when our Savior spoke these words, it signified nothing so much as alms.
"II. Christ used also the same word zidkatha , righteousness, in time three verses next following, and Matthew used the word , alms; but by what right, I beseech you, should he call it , righteousness, in the first verse, and , alms, in the following; when Christ every where used one and the same word? Matthew might not change in Greek, where our Savior had not changed in Syriac: therefore we must say that the Lord Jesus used the word tsidekeh or zidkatha , in these four first verses; but that, speaking in the dialect of common people, he was understood by the common people to speak of alms. Now they called alms by the name of righteousness, for the fathers of the traditions taught, and the common people believed, that alms contributed very much to justification. Hear the Jewish chair in this matter -
\ri720 For one farthing given to a poor man in alms, a man is made partaker of the beatific vision: where it renders these words, Psalms 17:15, I shall behold thy face in righteousness, after this manner, I shall behold thy face, Because Of Alms. Bava. Bathra.
\ri720 \cf1 "This money goeth for alms, that my sons may live, and that I may obtain the world to come. Bab. Rosh. Hashshanah.
"A man' s table now expiates by alms, as heretofore the altar did by sacrifice. Beracoth.
"If you afford alms out of your purse, God will keep you from all damage and harm. Hieros. Peah.
"Monobazes the king bestowed his goods liberally upon the poor, and had these words spoken to him by his kinsmen and friends -
\ri720 ' Your ancestors increased both their own riches, and those that were left them by their fathers; but you waste both your own and those of your ancestors.'
To whom he answered -
\ri720 ' My fathers laid up their wealth on earth: I lay up mine in heaven. As it is written, Truth shall flourish out of the earth, but Righteousness shall look down from heaven. My fathers laid up treasures that bear no fruit; but I lay up such as bear fruit. As it is said, It shall be well with the just, for they shall eat the fruit of their own works. My fathers treasured up, when power was in their hands; but I where it is not.
\ri720 \cf1 As it is said, Justice and judgment is the habitation of his throne. My fathers heaped up for others; I for myself. As it is said, And this shall be to thee for righteousness. They scraped together for this world. I for the world to come. As it is said, Righteousness shall deliver from death.' Ibid.
These things are also recited in the Babylonian Talmud.
\ri720 "You see plainly in what sense he understands righteousness, namely, in the sense of alms: and that sense not so much framed in his own imagination, as in that of the whole nation, and which the royal catachumen had imbibed from the Pharisees his teachers.
\ri720 \cf1 "Behold the justifying and saving virtue of alms, from the very work done according to the doctrine of the Pharisaical chair! And hence, the opinion of this efficacy of alms so far prevailed with the deceived people, that they pointed out alms by no other name (confined within one single word) than tsidekah , righteousness. Perhaps those words of our Savior are spoken in derision of this doctrine. Yea, give those things which ye have in alms, and behold all things shall be clean to you, Luke 11:41. With good reason indeed exhorting them to give alms; but yet withal striking at the covetousness of the Pharisees, and confuting their vain opinion of being clean by the washing of their hands, from their own opinion of the efficacy of alms. As if he had said, "Ye assert that alms justifies and saves, and therefore ye call it by the name of righteousness; why therefore do ye affect cleanliness by the washing of hands; and not rather by the performance of charity?" Lightfoot' s Works, vol. ii. p. 153.
Before men - Our Lord does not forbid public alms-giving, fasting, and prayer, but simply censures those vain and hypocritical persons who do these things publicly that they may be seen of men, and receive from them the reputation of saints, etc.
Other Adam Clarke entries containing Matthew 6:1:
Isaiah 59:14
Romans 1:17
2 Corinthians 9:9
2 Corinthians 9:10
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