Charles Ellicott Commentary Matthew 15:12

"Then came the disciples, and said unto him, Knowest thou that the Pharisees were offended, when they heard this saying?" — Matthew 15:12 (ASV)

Then came his disciples — The sequence of events appears in Mark 7:17. The Pharisees drew back in holy horror at the boldness with which the new Teacher set himself not only above their traditions, but above laws they regarded as divine and therefore permanent. The multitude heard in silence a teaching so unlike that with which they had been familiar from their youth.

Even the disciples were half perplexed by the teaching itself and half afraid of what its immediate consequences might be. They came with their question: “Do you not know that the Pharisees were offended?” Had their Master calculated the consequences of attacking not just individual members or traditions of the party, but its fundamental principle—that which was, so to speak, its very raison d’être?