“Why beholdest thou the mote that is in thy brother’s eye, but perceivest not the beam that is in thine own eye? Either how canst thou say to thy brother, Brother, let me pull out the mote that is in thine eye, when thou thyself beholdest not the beam that is in thine own eye? Thou hypocrite, cast out first the beam out of thine own eye, and then shalt thou see clearly to pull out the mote that is in thy brother’s eye”— Luke 61:41, 42.
THE Mote and the Beam. The two words used in this passage stand out in vivid contrast. The word translated “mote” signified originally a bit of dry twig or straw, such as the wind often carries into the human eye, thus causing blurred vision and tears until it is ejected again. The word for “beam” really means a stick of timber, but was used colloquially in the Greek speech of our Lord’s days on earth as a synonym for a splinter, which, though small in itself, seems a veritable beam because of the pain it causes. In one of the papyrus notes found in Egypt some years back, a youth writes to his mother telling of the suffering he had endured because a beam had been driven into his thumb underneath the nail. This makes clear our Lord’s meaning. No one is fit to rebuke another when there is something in his own life that is as much worse than that which he thinks he detects in the other, as a beam, or splinter, is greater than a mote, or speck of straw.
“Let us pause ere we would speak
Words we know would grieve the weak,
Flashing fiery mental pain.
Grievous words oft long remain.
Balm of love. Ah, welcome guest!
O’er a sickroom breathing rest;
Giving cheer in deed and thought,
Blest by heaven, by God inwrought.
Lord of love, draw near and bless,
Then shall we true love possess;
May no jarring note cause strife,
Flood with harmony home life.”
―Ellen Dean.