Matthew 5:21

21. Ye The apostles primarily, the people inferentially. Have heard Not ye have read in the law, but ye have heard from the elders. Our Saviour is not setting himself up as an opponent, though a superior, of Moses. He is only disburdening Moses of the load of long-standing misinterpretations, and bringing out the law in its own purity. By them of old time By the founders of Rabbinical traditions, which the scribes and Pharisees are now inculcating, and by which they cannot enter into the kingdom of heaven. Thou shalt not kill The words Thou shalt not kill, are the words of Moses; and at first sight it might appear that our Lord was reproving Moses as being too lax. But this is a very mistaken view. Our Lord does not here so much quote the commandment in the decalogue, as the bald and verbal repetition of it by the rabbies of old, who recited its letter devoid of the spirit. (See note on Matthew 5:31-32.) They confined the criminality to the external act, without tracing the act to the temper in the heart, and so condemning the evil in its root. Shall be in danger of the judgment To the proper legal verdict and sentence in the case.