John Calvin Commentary Matthew 15:19

"For out of the heart come forth evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, false witness, railings:" — Matthew 15:19 (ASV)

For out of the heart proceed wicked thoughts; hence we infer that the word mouth, as I have mentioned, was used by Christ in a former verse alluding to the context; for now he makes no mention of the mouth, but merely says that out of the heart of man proceeds all that is sinful and corrupts by its pollution.

Mark differs from Matthew in this respect, in that he gives a larger catalogue of sins, such as lusts, or irregular desires. The Greek word (πλεονεξίαι) is rendered by some as covetousness; but I have preferred to understand it in a general sense. Next come fraud and intemperance, and those that immediately follow.

Although the mode of expression is figurative, it is enough to understand Christ’s meaning to be that all sins proceed from the wicked and corrupt affections of the heart. To say that an evil eye proceeds from the heart is not strictly accurate, but it involves nothing absurd or ambiguous; for it means that an unholy heart pollutes the eyes by making them the ministers, or organs, of wicked desires.

And yet Christ does not speak as if everything evil in man were confined to open sins. Rather, to show more clearly that the heart of man is the abode of all evils,⁴¹¹ he says that the proofs and results appear in the sins themselves.

⁴¹¹ “Que le coeur de l’homme est le siege et la source de tous maux;” — “that the heart of man is the seat and the source of all evils.”;” — “that the heart of man is the seat and the source of all evils.”