Matthew Poole and continuators on Isaiah 65:5

5 Which say, Stand by thy self, come not near to me, for I am holier than thou : These are a smoak in my nose , a fire that burneth all the day.

Though they were so exceedingly guilty, yet they pretended to a singular Sanctity, so as they would not suffer others to come near, or touch them. The Samaritans are usually charged with this uncharitableness, and the use of this form of Words, but as some do more excuse the Samaritans than the other Jews as to this rigour, so it may be questioned whether they were not at this time carried into Captivity: and certain it is, that amongst the Jews there was such a generation from whom the Pharisees in our Saviours time were derived, and this was the reason of their not eating, exc[illegible: 1+ letters]pt they washed, when they came from the Market, Mark 7. 4. lest peradventure they should there have touched some Heathen, or some person who was legally unclean.

Thus they esteemed themselves holier than others, though all their holiness lay in these rituals, and those too such as God never commanded. And indeed those who most exceed in such ritual Holiness (lying meerly in a separation from others, by the usage of some unwritten traditions) come most short in moral and true Holiness: For of these God saith, These are a smoak in my nostrils, a fire that burneth all the day; that is, a continual provocation to me: as smoak is an offence to our Noses, Prov. 10. 26. which seemeth to be the sense rather than what some make, who make it a threaming of Gods wrath smoaking against them, which is sufficiently expressed in the following verses.

Marginal references: Or, [illegible: 1 word].