Matthew 15:1,2 - Coke's Commentary on the Holy Bible

Then came to Jesus, &c.— The law of Moses required external cleanness as a part of religion: not however for its own sake, but to signify with what carefulness God's servants should purify their minds from moral pollutions: accordinglytheir duties are prescribed by Moses with such moderation, as was fitted to promote the end of them; but in process of time they came to be multiplied prodigiously: for the ancient doctors, to secure the observation of those precepts which were really of divine institution, added many commandments of their own,as fences to the former; and the people, to shew their zeal, obeyed them. For example, because the law, Leviticus 15:11 saith, Whomsoever he toucheth that hath an issue, and hath not rinsed his hands in water, he shall wash his clothes, and bathe himself in water, and be unclean until the evening; the people were ordered to wash their hands immediately on their return from the places of public concourse, and before they sat down to meat, lest, bytouching some unclean person in the crowd, they might have defiled themselves. The Pharisees were very zealous in these trifles, and from this source came that endless variety of purifications not prescribed by the law, but ordained by the elders; such as the washing of cups and pots, brazen vessels, and tables, Mark 7:4 not because they were dirty, but from a principle of religion, or rather of superstition. These ordinances, though they were of human invention, came at length to be looked upon as essential in religion; nay, were exalted to such a pitch, that, in comparison of them, the law of God was suffered to lie neglected and forgotten; insomuch that in some of the Jewish writings we find these blasphemous maxims: "The words of the Scribes are more lovely than the words of the law; the words of the ancients are more weighty than those of the prophets." See Beausobre and Lenfant, and Wetstein