John Lightfoot on Matthew 6:1

[Take heed, that ye do not your alms, &c.] It is questioned, whether Matthew writ alms, or righteousness. I answer;

I. That our Saviour certainly said righteousness...I make no doubt at all; but that that word could not be otherwise understood by the common people than of alms, there is as little doubt to be made. For although the word righteousness, according to the idiom of the Old Testament, signifies nothing else than righteousness; yet now, when our Saviour spoke those words, it signified nothing so much as alms.

II. Christ used also the same word righteousness in the three verses next following, and Matthew used the word alms: but by what right, I beseech you, should he call it righteousness, in the first verse, and alms in the following,--when Christ every where used one and the same word? Matthew might not change in Greek, where our Saviour had not changed in Syriac.

Therefore we must say, that the Lord Jesus used the word righteousness in these four first verses: but that, speaking in the dialect of common people, he was understood by the common people to speak of alms.

Now they called alms by the name of righteousness, in that the Fathers of the Traditions taught, and the common people believed, that alms conferred very much to justification. Hear the Jewish chair in this matter:

"For one farthing, given to a poor man in alms, a man is made partaker of the beatifical vision." Where it renders these words [Psa 17:15] 'I shall behold thy face in righteousness,' after this manner; 'I shall behold thy face because of alms.'

One saith, "This money goes for alms, that my sons may live, and that I may obtain the world to come."

"A man's table now expiates by alms, as heretofore the altar did by sacrifice."

"If you afford alms out of your purse, God will keep you from all damage and harm."

"Monobazes the king bestowed his goods liberally upon the poor, and had these words spoke to him by his kinsmen and friends, 'Your ancestors increased both their own riches and those that were left them by their fathers; but you waste both your own and those of your ancestors.' To whom he answered, 'My fathers laid up their wealth on earth; I lay up mine in heaven; as it is written, Truth shall flourish out of the earth, but righteousness shall look down from heaven. My fathers laid up treasure that bears no fruit; but I lay up such as bear fruit; as it is said, It shall be well with the just, for they shall be at the fruit of their works. My fathers treasured up where power was in their hands; but I where it is not; as it is said, Justice and judgment is the habitation of his throne. My fathers heaped up for others; I for myself; as it is said, And this shall be to thee for righteousness. They scraped together for this world; I for the world to come; as it is said, Righteousness shall deliver from death.'" These things are also recited in the Babylonian Talmud.

You see plainly in what sense he understands righteousness, namely, in the sense of alms: and that sense not so much framed in his own imagination, as in that of the whole nation, and which the royal catechumen had imbibed from the Pharisees his teachers.

Behold the justifying and saving virtue of alms from the very work done, according to the doctrine of the Pharisaical chair. And hence the opinion of this efficacy of alms so far prevailed with the deceived people, that they pointed out alms by no other name (confined within one single word) than righteousness. Perhaps those words of our Saviour are spoken in derision of this doctrine; "Yea, give those things which ye have in alms, and behold all things shall be clean to you," Luke 11:41. With good reason, indeed, exhorting them to give alms, but yet withal striking at the covetousness of the Pharisees, and confuting their vain opinion of being clean by the washing of their hands, from their own opinion of the efficacy of alms. As if he had said, "Ye assert that alms justifies and saves; and therefore ye call it by the name of righteousness: why, therefore, do ye affect cleanness by the washing of hands, and not rather by the performance of charity?" See the praises of alms, somewhat too high for it, in the Talmud.

"R. Jannai saw one giving money openly to a poor man; to whom he said, It is better you had not given at all, than so to have given."

[Otherwise ye have no reward.] He therefore seems the rather to speak of a reward, because they expected a reward for their alms-doing without all doubt; and that, as we said, for the mere work done.

"R. Lazar was the almoner of the synagogue. One day going into his house, he said, 'What news?' They answered, 'Some came hither, and ate and drank, and made prayers for thee.' 'Then,' saith he, 'there is no good reward.' Another time going into his house, he said, 'What news?' It was answered, 'Some others came, and ate and drank, and railed upon you.' 'Now,' saith he, 'there will be a good reward.'"