<p>23:18&nbsp;<em>And, Whoever shall swear by the altar, it is nothing</em>- Their desire to define everything led them to downplay the significance of the altar because they were so concerned with the value of the sacrifice placed upon it. And yet Ex. 29:37 pronounced the altar to also be holy. Their penchant for definition led them to ignore the clearest statements in the Law they claimed to read, study and love to obey. Having spoken three times in the same section about &ldquo;the altar&rdquo; and &ldquo;the temple&rdquo;, it cannot be incidental that the Lord goes on to say that they had effectively slain Zacharias &ldquo;between the temple and the altar&rdquo; (:35). He is demonstrating that despite their hypersensitive interpretation of these things, they had committed sacrilege in those very places.</p><p><em>But whoever shall swear by the gift that is upon it, he is bound by his oath</em>- Again we have an insight into how the Pharisees thought. Gifts to the temple were all important to them, because those gifts were effectively their income.&nbsp;</p>