Matthew 23:24 - Ellicott's Commentary On The Whole Bible

Strain at a gnat. — Better, as in Tyndale’s and other earlier versions, strain out. It is sometimes said that the present rendering of the Authorised version is but the perpetuation of a printer’s blunder; but of this there is scarcely sufficient evidence, nor is it probable in itself. In the Greek both nouns have the emphasis of the article, “the gnat — the camel.” The scrupulous care described in the first clause of the proverbial saying was literally practised by devout Jews (as it is now by the Buddhists of Ceylon), in accordance with Leviticus 11:23; Leviticus 11:42. In the second clause, the camel appears, not only, as in Matthew 19:24, as the type of vastness, but as being among the unclean beasts of which the Israelites might not eat (Leviticus 11:4).