The Pulpit Commentary on Matthew 7:5

The Pulpit Commentary · Joseph S. Exell and contributors · Public domain

Parallel passage: Luke 6:42. Thou hypocrite (Matthew 6:2, note). The thought here is of the personation of a part (a man free from impediment in his vision)which does not belong to you. First cast out the beam out of thine own eye, In Luke 6:3 the order of the words lays the emphasis on "thine;" here, on the eye.

It is in thine eye, of all places, that the beam now is. And then shalt thou see clearly to cast out the mote out of thy brother's eye. Surely a promise as well as a statement. See clearly ( διαβλέψεις, δια- discriminatingly); as in the right text of Mark 8:25, itself after the recovery of full power of sight.

See clearly. Not the mote (Mark 8:3), but to cast out the mote. The verse seems to imply that if the spirit of censoriousness be absent, it will be possible for us to remove "motes" from the eyes of our brothers.

Thus the passage as a whole does not say that we never ought to try to remove such "motes," but that this is monstrous and almost impossible so long as we ourselves have a fault of so much magnitude as censoriousness.

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