Matthew 23:4 - Coke's Commentary on the Holy Bible

For they bind heavy burdens— It is well known that the Pharisees gloried in the exactness with which they obeyed the ceremonial part of the law. Nay, they carried matters so high, that, not content with the commandments which God had enjoined, they took upon them to prescribe a variety of traditionary precepts of their own invention. Therefore, if it was this kind of duties that our Lord meant, when he said they bind heavy burdens, &c. their zeal must have shewn itself chiefly in public: or, by the grievous burdens which the Pharisees bound up, may be understood the ceremonial precepts of the law; which are called grievous, not because they were reckoned so by the Pharisees. This interpretation agrees well with the character given of the precepts in question. They were delivered from Moses' seat, that is to say, were taken out of the book of Moses; and the disciples were to observe and do them, which our Lord would by no means have ordained, had he been speaking of the traditionary precepts of the elders. Besides, in this light the character given of the Scribes and Pharisees is palpably just, namely, that they bound up heavy burdens, &c. For while they themselves neglected both the moral and ceremonial precepts of the divine law, as often as they coulddo it with secrecy, they wreathed the ceremonial precepts of it fast about the necks of the people, and would not give them the smallest respite from its most burdensome ceremonies on any occasion whatsoever. The words of our Lord allude to the practice of those who load and drive beasts of burden: they first make, or bind up their loads, then lay them on their backs, and, in driving them through bad roads, support the loads, and keep them steady by taking hold of them. Our Lord's meaning, therefore, was, "They will neither bear these loads themselves, nor will they give the people the least respite from them, even in cases where it is due." See Macknight.