Then the Pharisees and the scribes asked Jesus, “Why do Your disciples not walk according to the tradition of the elders, but eat bread with unclean hands?”
This question outwardly seems devout, but in reality it carries an accusatory spirit within it. They are not asking in order to understand, but to test and to condemn. Attention should be given to the fact that they say, “according to the tradition of the ancestors,” and not “according to the command of God.” That is, they had made the rules they themselves had accepted the standard of true religious life. When a person begins to judge others not by the word of God, but by the measure of a tradition he has formed, it means he has dangerously strayed from true worship. This verse also shows that the disciples’ conduct in fact becomes an occasion for Christ’s teaching. The Pharisees came to judge, but the Lord turns their question into a means of revealing their hearts.