Lk 11:42-46
[Jesus said,] 42“Woe to you Pharisees! You pay tithes of mint and of rue and of every garden herb, but you pay no attention to judgment and to love for God. These you should have done, without overlooking the others. 43Woe to you Pharisees! You love the seat of honor in synagogues and greetings in marketplaces. 44Woe to you! You are like unseen graves over which people unknowingly walk.”
45Then one of the scholars of the law said to him in reply, “Teacher, by saying this you are insulting us too.” 46And he said, “Woe also to you scholars of the law! You impose on people burdens hard to carry, but you yourselves do not lift one finger to touch them.
UNSEEN GRAVES: The marks of death are seen in Israel as outside the “sphere” of God and therefore are considered unclean. Contact with the corpse requires purification that takes seven days: “Whoever touches the dead body of anyone will be unclean for seven days” (Nm 19:11). To touch human bones or the graves in which they are buried results in ceremonial uncleanness, and so tombs are whitewashed as a warning to keep away. Some people would be buried on the ground, and if the graves are left unattended, they render unclean those who accidentally step over them.
In his condemnation of the Pharisees, Jesus compares them with unseen graves over which people unknowingly walk. The Pharisees take pride in being scrupulous in their observance of the Law—like paying tithes (10%) not just on what the Law requires but also on the most insignificant herbs. But they transgress the Law in its essential points of judgment and love of God. They present themselves to be irreproachable, but interiorly they are far from the true spirit of God’s Law. They are motivated by social recognition rather than by the love of God. Their hypocrisy renders them “unclean” before God and contaminates those affected by it, like unseen graves filled with scattered bones.