Charles Ellicott Commentary Matthew 15:2

"Why do thy disciples transgress the tradition of the elders? for they wash not their hands when they eat bread." — Matthew 15:2 (ASV)

They wash not their hands when they eat bread. Mark, writing for Gentiles, explains the nature of the tradition more fully (Mark 7:3–4). What the Pharisees insisted on was not cleanliness as such, but the avoidance of ceremonial pollution. They did not shrink from dirt, but from defilement.

If they had been in the market, they might have come in contact with a heathen or a publican. If they ate or drank from a metal or earthenware cup, the last lip that touched it might have been that of a heathen, and therefore that too needed purification. The pride which led them to stand aloof from the rest of mankind showed itself in this, as in all their other traditions.

They could afford to tolerate such indifference from peasants and fishermen, as these belonged to the crowd they scorned as the brute “people of the earth.” What shocked them was to see the disciples of One who claimed to be a Prophet or a Rabbi indulging in that indifference. According to their traditions, the act they complained about stood on the same level as sexual impurity and exposed those who were guilty of it to excommunication by the Sanhedrin, or great Council.