John Gills Exposition of the Bible Commentary - Matthew 12:8
For the Son of man is Lord even of the sabbath day. By "the Son of man" is meant, not any man, as some have thought; for no mere man is lord of any law, moral or ritual, natural or positive; or has a power of disposing of it, and dispensing with it at pleasure; but Christ himself; which is the constant sense of this phrase in the New Testament, and is a character of the Messiah in the old, Daniel 7:13 who, as he was the institutor of the sabbath among the Jews, that being a ritual, and of... read more
John Gills Exposition of the Bible Commentary - Matthew 12:7
But if ye had known what this meaneth , The passage of Scripture in Hosea 6:6 I will have mercy, and not sacrifice ; of the sense of which, see Gill on Matthew 9:13 . ye would not have condemned the guiltless . Our Lord taxes the Pharisees both with ignorance of the Scriptures, in which they pretended to be very knowing, and took upon them to be the interpreters of; and with inhumanity, for condemning innocent persons, the apostles, for rubbing a few ears of corn, for the... read more