b. The danger of being undiscerning (7:6)
6 Though used later to exclude unbaptized persons from the Eucharist (Didache 9.5), that is not the purpose of this saying. Nor is it connected with the previous verses by dealing now with persons who, though properly confronted about their “specks,” refuse to deal with them, as in Matthew 18:12-20 (so Schlatter). Rather, it warns against the converse danger. Disciples exhorted to love their enemies (Matthew 5:43-47) and not to judge (Matthew 7:1) might fail to consider the subtleties of the argument and become undiscerning simpletons. This verse guards against such a possibility.
The “pigs” are not only unclean animals but wild and vicious, capable of savage action against a person. “Dogs” must not be thought of as household pets: in the Scriptures they are normally wild, associated with what is unclean, despised (e.g.,
1 Samuel 17:43, 24:14; 1 Kings 14:11, 21:19; 2 Kings 8:13; Job 30:1; Proverbs 26:11; Ecclesiastes 9:4; Isaiah 66:3; Matt 15:27; Philippians 3:2; Revelation 22:15). The two animals serve together as a picture of what is vicious, unclean, and abominable (cf. 2 Peter 2:22). The four lines of Matthew 7:6 are an ABBA chiasmus (Turner, Syntax, pp. 346–47). The pigs trample the pearls under foot (perhaps out of animal disappointment that they are not morsels of food), and the dogs are so disgusted with “what is sacred” that they turn on the giver.
The problem lies in to hagion (“what is sacred”). How is this parallel to “pearls,” and what reality is envisaged to make the story “work”?
1. Some suggest to hagion refers to “holy food” offered in connection with the temple services (cf.
Exodus 22:31; Leviticus 22:14; Jeremiah 11:15; Haggai 2:12). But this is a strange way to refer to it, and it is not obvious why the dogs would spurn it.
2. Another suggestion is that to hagion is a mistranslation of the Aramaic qeḏaša (Heb. nezem, “ring”), referring to Proverbs 11:22 (cf. Black, Aramaic Approach, pp. 200ff.). But appeals to mistranslation should not be the first line of approach; and here the parallelism of pearls and pigs, pearls obviously being mistaken for food, is destroyed.
3. P.G. Maxwell-Stuart (“`Do not give what is holy to the dogs.’ [Matthew 7:6],” ExpT 90 [1978–79]: 341) offers a textual emendation.
4. However, it seems wiser to recognize that, as in Matthew 6:22-23, the interpretation of the metaphor is already hinted at in the metaphor itself. “What is sacred” in Matthew is the gospel of the kingdom; so the aphorism forbids proclaiming the gospel to certain persons designated as dogs and pigs. Instead of trampling the gospel under foot, everything must be “sold” in pursuit of it (Matthew 13:45-46).
Verse 6 is not a directive against evangelizing the Gentiles, especially in a book full of various supports for this, not least Matthew 28:18-20 (Matthew 10:5, properly understood, is no exception). “Dogs” and “pigs” cannot refer to all Gentiles but, as Calvin rightly perceived, only to persons of any race who have given clear evidences of rejecting the gospel with vicious scorn and hardened contempt. The disciples are later given a similar lesson (
Matthew 10:14, 15:14), and the postresurrection Christians learned it well (cf.
Acts 13:44–51, 18:5–6, 28:17–28; Titus 3:10–11). So when taken together Matthew 7:1-5 and Matthew 7:6 become something of a Gospel analogue to the proverb “Do not rebuke a mocker or he will hate you; rebuke a wise man and he will love you” (Proverbs 9:8)
~Carson, D. A. (1984), The Expositor’s Bible Commentary
