Charles Ellicott Commentary Matthew 15:6

"he shall not honor his father. And ye have made void the word of God because of your tradition." — Matthew 15:6 (ASV)

He shall be free — These words, often italicized in older translations to show they are not in the original Greek, are not needed to complete the sense if we follow the better manuscript reading. The statement should be understood as, “Whoever says to his father or his mother, ‘It is a gift, by whatever help you might have received from me,’ does not have to honor his father or his mother.” The “honor” that the commandment required was thus identified with the duty of support, which was its first and most natural expression.

By your tradition — As before, this means for the sake of your tradition. They had inverted the proper relationship between the two, making the tradition an end and not a means. Mark (Mark 7:9) gives what can only be described as a touch of grave and earnest irony, in the truest sense of the word: Full well ye reject the commandment of God, that ye may keep your own tradition.