These are the things which defile a man— Thus our Lord defended his disciples by a beautiful chain of reasoning, wherein he has shewn the true nature of actions, and loaded with perpetual infamy those Jewish teachers and all their posterity who should imitate them; the main strokes of whose characters are, that by their frivolous superstitions they weaken and sometimes destroy the eternal and immutable rules of righteousness. It may be proper just to observe, that St. Matthew represents these evil things as proceeding out of the mouth, Matthew 15:18 not so much by way of contrast to meats which enter by the mouth into the man, as because some of them are committed with the faculty of speech, such as false-witness and blasphemy; and others of them are helped forwards by its assistance; as adultery, deceit, &c.
Related Commentaries of Matthew 15:20
Matthew 15:20
20 These are the things which defile a man: but to eat with unwashen hands defileth not a man.