Even though the text says the Pharisees, it does not mean all of them. “Some Pharisees” would be better. For comments on Pharisees, see 3.7.

Saw it: in Greek there is no expressed object of the verb saw; New Jerusalem Bible and Revised Standard Version supply it, while Good News Translation and New English Bible have “this.” Most languages will probably require an object. In some languages it will be even necessary to say “saw them doing this” or “saw the disciples picking and eating the grain.”

Customarily the owner of a grainfield allowed a path to run through his field, and it was expected that persons traveling through the field would pull and eat grain that grew along the pathway. However, persons were not allowed to go off into the field and pick grain to take away with them. Evidently the disciples were simply doing what was customary; they were picking and eating grain as they walked through the field. Had they done this on any other day of the week, there would have been no controversy. But the Pharisaic interpretation did not allow for such actions to be done on the Sabbath. The exact positions where the Pharisees, Jesus, and his disciples were standing is not clear. However, it is fairly logical to conclude that the Pharisees were watching Jesus and his disciples walk through the grainfield, and when they had come out of the grainfield, the Pharisees were standing there, waiting to accuse them.

They said to him: Jesus is not mentioned by name in the Greek text, but in a number of languages it is better to use the personal noun here rather than a pronoun. The choice should be determined by the demands of the receptor language.

Look (so also Good News Translation, New Jerusalem Bible, New English Bible) renders a Greek particle that was first used in 1.20. Here its function is to draw attention to what Jesus’ disciples were doing. Look may not be natural in some languages, but there will surely be some word or phrase with an equivalent function: “Take note of this” or “Are you seeing this?”

Your disciples … on the sabbath: New Jerusalem Bible renders “your disciples are doing something that is forbidden on the sabbath”; New English Bible is similar. In the context what is not lawful means “what our Jewish religious law forbids.” No such prohibition is found in the Old Testament, but the Pharisees pressed the laws that governed the Sabbath to include this regulation. And the Pharisees gave the same authority to the laws which were derived from the Old Testament as the authority they gave to the Old Testament itself. What is not lawful may be “what the Law forbids,” “what our Law says is not allowed,” or “something we Jews are not allowed to do.” There will be languages where, to get the full accusing tone of the Pharisees’ statement, two sentences will be used, as in “Our Law says people should not pick grain on the day of rest. But look, your disciples are doing that.”

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 .