If thou bring thy gift to the altar. — Literally, If thou shouldst be offering. Our Lord was speaking to Jews as such, and paints, therefore, as it were, a scene in the Jewish Temple. The worshipper is about to offer a “gift” (the most generic term seems intentionally used to represent any kind of offering), and stands at the altar with the priest waiting to do his work. That is the right time for recollection and self-scrutiny. The worshipper is to ask himself, not whether he has a ground of complaint against any one, but whether any one has cause of complaint against him. This, and not the other, is the right question at such a moment — has he injured his neighbour by act, or spoken bitter words of him?
Related Commentaries of Matthew 5:23
Matthew 5:23
23 Therefore if thou bring thy gift to the altar, and there rememberest that thy brother hath ought against thee;