Blind guides translates the same expression used in verse 16.

Straining out a gnat describes the custom of the strictest sect of Pharisees who strained everything they drank for fear of swallowing an insect that was considered unclean. Gnat represents the traditional rendering; Good News Translation has “fly,” and “midge” (a small gnat-like fly) is the choice of New English Bible and Barclay. The word may also mean “mosquito” (Phillips), and there is even the possibility that it may refer to a certain worm which was sometimes found in wine. Die Bibel im heutigen Deutsch effectively renders “smallest gnat.” Straining out a gnat sometimes requires restructuring for the sense to be clear, as in “you strain what you drink through a cloth so you won’t swallow even a gnat (or, small fly).”

Swallowing a camel intentionally introduces an exaggerated figure of speech in order to demonstrate the absolute inconsistency of the Pharisaic application of the Law. Jesus may have intended a play on words, since in the Aramaic translation the word gnat is similar to the word “camel.” Moreover, according to Leviticus 11.4, the camel is an unclean animal which Jews were not allowed to eat. Die Bibel im heutigen Deutsch translates this phrase as “but you swallow a camel without seeing it.” It is possible to introduce a simile: “You take care to strain the smallest insect out of your drink, but you are like people who swallow a camel without even knowing it.” Or the imagery may be dropped completely if it is believed that the readers will not grasp its significance: “you exert yourselves to obey all the insignificant details of the Law, but you neglect the most important part of the Law, without even knowing it.”

Obviously it will not be too serious a problem if readers are not very familiar with camel, which is not used literally here. What translators in such languages may do if they do want to keep the image is say “a huge animal called ‘camel.’ ”

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 .