Matthew 15:19 - Coke's Commentary on the Holy Bible

Evil thoughts— Διαλογισμοι πονηροι, evil reasonings: So I choose to render it, says Dr. Doddridge, as better suiting both the original and the occasion, and as containing a more universal and important truth; for those thoughts only defile the heart, which it willingly admits, and does as it were hold a parley and converse with; and I fear there are multitudes in the present age like these Pharisees, who are contracting immense guilt by those corrupt and sophistical reasonings, on the subtilty of which they may highly value themselves and each other. See Mark 7:21-22. Dr. Heylin renders it ill designs; and instead of blasphemies, he reads calumnies. The original wordincludesallreviling,backbiting,and evil-speaking. It is remarkable, that three of the crimes here mentioned as pollutions of the mind, namely, murder, false-witness, and blasphemy, were on this very occasion committed by the persons who charged our Lord with impiety, because he neglected such ceremonial precepts of religion as were of human invention: for while they feigned the highest reverence for the divine law, they were making void its most essential precepts. At the very time that they condemned the disciples for so small an offence as eating with unwashen hands, contrary only to the tradition of the elders, the Scribes and Pharisees were murdering Jesus by their calumnies and false-witnessings, notwithstanding it was the whole study of his life to do them all the good possible.