Let them alone (so also Barclay) is translated “Leave them alone” by New Jerusalem Bible and New English Bible. The problem with these renderings is that they may imply the meaning “Don’t bother with them” or “Don’t disturb them.” The true meaning is “Don’t be concerned about them” or “Don’t worry about them” (Good News Translation); it may also be stated without the use of a negative: “Forget about them.”

It is imperative to make clear that them refers to the Pharisees, not to the plants! The problem may be resolved if a comparison is used in verse 13, such as “The Pharisees are like plants”; otherwise Let them alone may be translated “Don’t worry about those Pharisees!”

Blind guides is followed in some Greek manuscripts by the qualifying phrase “of the blind” (see footnotes in New English Bible and New International Version). In the UBS Greek New Testament the phrase is found in brackets, indicating its uncertainty in the text. Some languages will require that blind guides be expressed in the form “blind people who guide” with the object stated, as in “blind people who try to guide others.”

On the basis of if a blind man leads a blind man, one may then translate blind guides as either “blind people who guide other blind people” or “blind leaders of the blind” (Good News Translation).

In this context leads should not be translated by a word that means simply “goes in front of.” It obviously refers to directing someone such as a blind person so that he knows where to go.

Commentators note that “leader of the blind” was a title enjoyed by Jewish teachers (see Rom 2.19). Jesus’ accusation is that the Pharisees cannot lay claim to this title, because they themselves are blind and in need of someone to lead them. Bibel im heutigen Deutsch, 1st edition translates in dynamic fashion: “They would lead the blind, and they themselves are blind.”

Pit (also New Jerusalem Bible) translates the same noun used in 12.11; it also is used in Luke 6.39, though nowhere else in the New Testament. The word basically means any sort of deep hole, and so may also be rendered “ditch” (New English Bible “the ditch”). Barclay has “a hole in the road.”

Quoted with permission from Newman, Barclay M. and Stine, Philip C. A Handbook on the Gospel of Matthew. (UBS Handbook Series). New York: UBS, 1988. For this and other handbooks for translators see here .