Jesus pictures religious leaders carefully tithing mint, dill, and cumin. The examples are deliberately small: common herbs become the setting for painstaking attention to religious obligation.
He does not contrast obedience with disobedience, but lesser matters with the 'weightier matters of the law.'
The Torah required tithes from agricultural produce for the support of Israel's religious and communal life. Jewish interpreters had to apply those commands to actual crops and household produce. Extending careful calculation even to small herbs vividly represents scrupulous observance.
Jesus' rebuke is important in its wording: justice, mercy, and faithfulness should have been practiced 'without leaving the others undone.' The problem is not care about tithing itself but a distorted scale of moral priorities.
The historical practice makes the image almost visual: someone can measure out tiny portions of seasoning while overlooking obligations that bear far greater moral weight.
Jesus therefore rejects a spirituality in which precision about minor requirements substitutes for justice, mercy, and faithfulness. Detailed obedience is not condemned; it must remain subordinate to the purposes at the heart of God's law.