Parable of the Pharisee and the Publican (Lk. only). In Luke 18:9 we should perhaps translate concerning those who trusted, etc. The parable, not necessarily spoken on the same occasion as the preceding one, also deals with Prayer, though with its spirit rather than its subject. When ye pray, think not so much of the sins of others as of your own. The Pharisee draws a rigid line between himself (and his class) and the rest of men; they are outside the pale. His prayer is the prototype of that of Burns's Holy Willie. Fasting, though only enjoined by the Law for the Day of Atonement, was regularly practised by many Jews; cf. Matthew 6:16 *. In the matter of tithes also they went beyond the farm crops suggested in Numbers 18:21: cf. Matthew 23:23.
Luke 18:13. smote is really kept on smiting.
Luke 18:14. justified: not made righteous but deemed righteous; cf. Sanday and Headlam, Romans, p. 30f. There is no Pauline dogma here, only a statement that in what was a sort of unconscious lawsuit God decides in favour of the tax-gatherer and his prayer. shall be humbled, exalted: i.e. in the Judgment. The parable is one of the most characteristic pieces of Jesus-' teaching; it is a commentary on the Beatitudes about the poor in spirit, the meek, and them that hunger for righteousness.
Lk. has now come to the end of his great insertion, and once more follows Mk. as his chief source.