Lange Commentary - Mark 6:1 - 6:6

Online Resource Library

Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.com | Download

Lange Commentary - Mark 6:1 - 6:6


(Show All Books | Show All Chapters)

This Chapter Verse Commentaries:

7. The Lord’s Conflict with the envious Unbelief of His own City; His Triumpn over Human Prejudice; His Return to the Mountain-Villages. Mar_6:1-6

(Parallels: Mat_13:54-58; Luk_4:14-30.)

      1And he went out from thence, and came into his own country; and his disciples follow him. 2And when the sabbath day was come, he began to teach in the synagogue: and many hearing him were astonished, saying, From whence hath this man these things? and what wisdom is this which is given unto him, that even such mighty works are wrought by his hands? 3Is not this the carpenter, the son of Mary, the brother of James, and Joses, and of Juda, and Simon? and are not his sisters here with us? And they were offended at him. 4But Jesus said unto them, A prophet is not without honour, but in his own country, and among his own kin, and in his own house. 5And he could there do no mighty work, save that he laid his hands upon a few sick folk, and healed them. 6And he marvelled because of their unbelief. And he went round about the villages, teaching.

EXEGETICAL AND CRITICAL

See the parallels on Matthew and Luke.—As to Nazareth, consult Robinson, 3. 419; Winer, Reallex.; my Leben Jesu, ii. 550. Mark’s narrative is not only identical with Mat_13:54 seq. but also in its leading features with Luk_4:16, as is manifest from the recurrence of the question, “Is not this Joseph’s son?” and the saying, “A prophet,” etc. Notwithstanding, the points of time are so diverse, and have such an interval between them, that we must, following Matthew and Mark, assume a second and later appearance in Nazareth; one, however, which was only transitional and brief, inasmuch as the unbelief of the people of Nazareth remained the same. The special features of the narrative seem to belong mainly to the former of the two occasions. But how can a second visit of our Lord to Nazareth be conceivable, after he had been once rejected there? The first rejection had been no better than a tumult. This time He visits His own city in quietness, and for His own repose, after the decree to kill Him had gone forth from the Galilean Pharisees. But, experiencing the same utter lack of sympathy and regard on the part of His former fellow-citizens, He retreated back into the surrounding mountain-villages. It was the time (in the first year of His ministry) when He had accomplished the itineration of the mountains in the first Galilean journey, as also the second Galilean voyage over the sea to the farther bank; and when He was on the point of travelling over the towns of the valley of Southern Galilee, in the direction of Jerusalem. As He would confirm and corroborate this third and last Galilean preaching-journey by sending out the Twelve, a retreat into the mountains, and especially to a particular mountain, was fixed upon to precede. And He most probably took this occasion of visiting the district of Nazareth.

Mar_6:1. And He went out from thence.—Not merely, that is, “from the house of Jairus.” From this time forward, He ceased to have His abiding residence in Capernaum, although He still assembled His disciples around Him there on passing occasions. After the first conflict in Nazareth, He went down to Capernaum; He now designedly abandons again His permanent abode in Capernaum, without formally giving up His residence there.

Mar_6:2. He began to teach.—This does not mean His first entrance and its result; it rather refers to the interruption that soon followed.—That even such mighty works are wrought by His hands.—The ἵíá is characteristic. They regard the doctrine of Christ merely as a secret doctrine, which was intended to be the medium or instrument for the ultimate end of working miracles. And they enviously assume that this mysterious doctrine must have been entrusted to him by some one in a suspicious manner. Hence the emphasis laid upon the hands (laying on of hands, touching, etc.), as the method of performing the miracle. The working hands of the carpenter, they would say; as appears from what comes next.

Mar_6:3. Is not this the carpenter?—According to the custom of the Jewish people, even the Rabbis learned some handicraft. We have the example of the Apostle Paul: see Lightfoot, Schöttgen. But Justin Martyr (contr. Tryph.) has the tradition, that Jesus made ploughs and the like. “Whether with an ideal allusion, so that they became in His hands symbols, as Lange (Leben Jesu, ii. p. 154) thinks, may very properly be left to fancy.” Meyer. That Jesus regarded with a symbolizing mind and interpretation the toil of the fisherman, the fall of the sparrow from the housetop, the play of the children in the market-place—all this is not matter of mere fancy. But there is a kind of fancy, which men call inductive proof. It is represented, further, as a mere airy and baseless notion, to suppose that the brethren of Jesus would hardly have suffered Him to work much, because they saw in Him the glory of Israel. And yet it is not an airy and baseless notion, that His brethren early sought to deliver Him from the machinations of His enemies. What really deserves to be called fancy in the theological domain, is that aggregation of myth and anecdote which the scholastic learning of the present day so much abounds in.

No dogmatic importance can be attached (with Bauer and others) to the omission of “the carpenter’s son,” which Matthew has; since the expression, “the carpenter,” is only a stronger declaration of the same thing. But the former expression would not occur to the people of Nazareth, since they spoke from recent observation or past remembrances. In this way, the position of Jesus was referred back to, or identified with, Joseph’s. And it is obvious to suppose that Joseph had long before (between the twelfth year and the thirtieth of the Lord’s life) gone off the scene. As ôÝêôùí has primarily a general meaning, and signifies any artisan, some, following Justin, have thought it signified here a maker of carriages, etc.; while others have interpreted into “smith.” But smith in the New Testament is ä ÷áëêåýò , and ôÝêôùí is specifically a faber lignarius. Whether workmanship in wood was distributed into various kinds of handiwork, is a question not settled.—The brother of James.—As to the brethren of the Lord, comp. on Matthew. The apocryphal tradition adds to the four brethren, two sisters of our Lord: Esther and Tamar or Martha. Romanist expositors have, without reason, or for reasons well known, made these the sisters of His mother. These sisters seem to have been married in Nazareth; and therefore did not accompany the migration of Mary’s family to Capernaum.

Mar_6:4. Among his own kin.—Naturally, the immediate dependants and followers of Jesus stood related in manifold ways to the people of Nazareth. Christ does not say that His own house remained unbelieving, in the common sense of the term. But that there were restrictions of faith to be overcome even in this circle, springing from too great familiarity, is proved not only by the history of the Lord’s brethren, but also by that of His mother.

DOCTRINAL AND ETHICAL

1. See on Matthew.—This narrative exhibits to us the narrow, petty, bigoted, envious unbelief, which was unable to apprehend and understand the Divinely great in its human nearness and familiarity; and this makes the section a most striking example of unbelief, as it confronts and embarrasses the Lord. It is the unconscious self-condemnation and self-contempt of the spirit which, alienated from God, and sunk into the lowest level, cannot appreciate the prophet that has arisen in its own city. In our Lord’s experience of this kind of unbelief,—to which a prophet is nowhere less esteemed than in his own country, and among his own kin,—we have fore-written for us a long chapter of the history of the world and of the Church. The history of Monophysitism, on the one hand, and of Nestorianism and Rationalism, on the other, may be referred to this principle. The prejudice of the base nature, that out of Nazareth, in the immediate neighborhood, from our own home, and finally out of humanity itself, nothing good can come, led to all those systems in succession which, on the one hand, dehumanize the God-man, and, on the other, undeify Him. But when we say that Christ celebrated His triumph over this unbelief of envious prejudice and of human self-depreciation, we do not thereby assert that He removed that unbelief in anything like a magical manner. He triumphed over it rather by leaving it alone, by going on His way, and by performing His miracles in the neighborhood around. He drew round the pestilent prejudice a circle of divine manifestations, like a besieger. The honor paid to the Divine, which from all sides reacts upon this centre of prejudice, and leads back the homeborn, with acclamation and celebrity on all hands, to his home again—that is His final triumph over Nazareth, over Judaism, over humanity.

2. And He could there.—This does not express inability in itself; but, as Theophylact rightly observed, it indicates the absence of the ethical conditions on which the miracles of Jesus depended. His miraculous power was not magical; but an ethical influence which required and presupposed faith. It is true that Christ also creates faith; but then that presupposes the felt need of faith. It is true that He excites that feeling also; but then that presupposes susceptibility, and the capacity of reception. And if this likewise is awakened by Him, it further presupposes sincerity, and a certain devotion which could not become hardened through evil motives into the always evil act of the heart of unbelief. The Evangelist further shows us that Jesus wrought miracles, even in this circle, according to the slender measure of faith there was; for he adds the observation, that He laid His hands upon a few sick folk, and healed them. Thus, he distinguishes from these lower miraculous works, the great manifestations of His wonder-working power; these latter could have and should have no demonstration under such circumstances. The condition on which the miraculous power of Christ was suspended was the reflection and copy of the conditions upon which the divine omnipotence, in love wisdom and righteousness, deals with the freedom of the world of spirits.

3. And He marvelled.—Fritzsche: “ ἐèáýìáæïí (they wondered at Him, on account of their unbelief), following only two cursive MSS.: manifest error of copyist.” Meyer: Stress has with great propriety been laid upon the contrast between the wondering of our Lord at the faith of the Gentile centurion, and His wondering at the unbelief of His own countrymen, who had so long been witnesses of His divine life. Jesus does not marvel at other human things generally; but He does marvel, on the one hand, at faith, when it overcomes in its grandeur all human traditional hindrances, and, on the other, at unbelief, when it can, in the face of multitudes of divine manifestations, and under the daily view of the opened heavens, harden itself into the pitiful acceptance of dead traditional prejudices. The former wondering might, humanly speaking, elevate and strengthen Himself; the latter, on the other hand, grieve and restrain His divine Spirit. He hastens away from the sphere of such spiritual evils, that He may in the distance unloose those spiritual breezes that shall dissipate them all. The Accusative ( äéὰ ôὴí ), “on account of their unbelief,” makes His astonishment all the more emphatic. It was hard for Him to reconcile Himself to this seemingly unconquerable dulness and limitation.

4. The history of Nazareth has been repeated on a large scale in the history of Israel. Israel, as a whole, also made the nearness of Jesus, His external “not being afar off,” an occasion of unbelief and fall. This temptation, resulting from the constant beholding of the Holy One with common eyes, was pointed to in Deu_30:14, according to Paul’s interpretation of it in Rom_10:8. It is the temptation which besets the intimates and fellow-citizens of chosen spirits and great geniuses; which besets theologians in the daily study and service of the truths of revelation, ministers in their commerce with the ordinances of grace, and all the lesser officers of the house of God in their habitual contact with the externals of divine things. It is the temptation also of ancient towns and churches, which have enjoyed exalted privileges, and indeed of the whole Church itself. “When the Son of man cometh, shall He find faith on the earth?”

HOMILETICAL AND PRACTICAL

See on the parallel passages of Matthew and Luke.—Jesus was renounced by His own city, both at the beginning and at the end of His Galilean labors: or, the stiffneckedness of prejudice, which is bound to the lower and earthly sense by a thousand bonds (envy, cowardice, indolence, self-delusion, dissipation, slavish sympathies and antipathies, etc.).—How far was Jesus actually of Nazareth, how far not?—No man is altogether of the place where he was born or brought up: 1. He is so in his derivation, but not in his individuality; 2. he is so in his outward lot, but not in his personal endowments; 3. he is so in his external training, but not in his internal education; 4. he is so in his human relationship and acquaintance, but not in his highest relations; 5. he is so in the petty events of life, but not in his greater fortunes; 6. he is so in his immediate calling, not in his highest vocation and destiny.—Christ an alien, and yet at home, in His own city; both in an infinite measure: every man the same in his own degree.—The error of the men of Nazareth concerning the coming of Christ: 1. They forgot that He was of Bethlehem; 2. they did not know that He was from heaven.—The double origin and the double home of Christ: 1. An original contrast in Him; 2. an analogous contrast in every man’s life below.—How Christ victoriously contends with the unbelief of prejudice among His own countrymen: 1. Prejudice everywhere opposes Him; and that, a. in an impure and gross apprehension of His dignity, as of a magical secret doctrine and art; b. in the reckoning up of all His earthly relationships, in order to urge them to the disparagement of His heavenly dignity; c. in a slavish community of envious and low judgment upon His life. 2. How the Lord lays hold of and overcomes this prejudice: a. He refers it all to a universal fact, which they might afterwards reflect upon (a prophet is not without honor, etc.); b. He does not forget, but heals, the few who needed and were susceptible of help among His scorners; c. He gathers up His influences, and withdraws; d. and He causes the light of His presence to shine brightly throughout the whole district around.—How the Lord surrounds the places which exhibit a corrupted prejudice against Him with the fiery circles of His divine deeds, in order to subdue them.—The Lord’s not being able in Nazareth, an expression of the divine freedom as over against the abuse of human freedom.—The Lord’s impotence a testimony to His perfect power and ability: 1. Of the divine power of His love (patience); 2. of the divine skill of His love (wisdom).—The sacred conditionality and free self-limiting power of Christ.—The omnipotence of God is not lessened, but glorified as spiritual power, by the fact that it conditions itself in love, wisdom, and righteousness.—To the man who had lost himself, and become to himself an object of contempt, the Lord brings back again his life.—Christ is both far off and nigh at hand, in order to overcome the stolid, careless minds of those who are bent on this world.—Christ’s retirement among the villages; or, the loftiness of the Gospel in its humility.—Christ’s own city, the old and the new: 1. Poor Nazareth, which rejects Him; 2. the great city of God in heaven and upon earth, in ten thousand places, which glorifies Him.—Nazareth a symbol of multitudes of streets and places rendered desolate by spiritual guilt.—How the Lord’s love with holy tenderness encircles His poor land and people.

Starke:—Majus:—The unreasonableness and wickedness of our countrymen should never restrain us in the performance of our duty, or cause us to forget any of our obligations to them.—Nov. Bibl. Tub.:—Birth, lineage, and descent are far from making a man a Christian; they often rather, on account of prejudices, are the greatest hindrances to Christianity.—Quesnel:—Wicked men often admire and magnify gifted preachers; but they are never without some excuse or other for not obeying their instructions.—It is common enough for those who would defeat the force of a sermon, to exalt themselves above the preacher.—When we entertain ourselves with a thousand strange matters that have no connection with spiritual profit, the power of the divine word is lost.—Canstein:—He who built heaven and earth became, in His humbled condition upon earth, a carpenter.—Christ honored and sanctified all honorable human employments and handiwork.—Quesnel:—Christ’s humiliation has been to many a stone of stumbling and an occasion of falling; while it was most essentially necessary to our external exaltation.—Hedinger:—What is there that can grieve the Christian teacher beyond contempt and evil fruits?—Christ’s example is a most mighty consolation.—Nova Bibl. Tub.:—Thou complainest that God saves thee not, and dost not reflect that thou thyself hast bound His hands.—Quesnel:—The unbelief of a whole people does not hinder the mercy of God from extending to the small number of the righteous who are found amongst them.—Braune:—Faith, which in its nature is receptive love, alone makes us partakers of the grace of God, which is imparting love.

Schleiermacher:—We find this (that a prophet is without honor in his own country) true among men, even as we sometimes find the contrary of it true. When any one is distinguished beyond others in any particular, his fellow-townsmen take pride in him, their vanity being flattered. Yet the contrary is not arbitrary, but usually dependent on the earlier or later period, and various spiritual or worldly influences. (The prophets killed, and the sepulchres of the prophets garnished.)—Much impressive truth is lost upon men, because they do not so much regard the matter as the source from which it comes.—Christ has as much cause to marvel at the unbelief of the present time, as He had to marvel in His own time.—Gossner, on Mar_6:4 :—A warning to all preachers who do not like to leave their own home, kin, and country.—Nothing more outrages God’s goodness than unbelief or rejection of it.

Footnotes:

Mar_6:1.—Tischendorf, ἔñ÷åôáé , after B., C., L., Ä .

Mar_6:2.—Codd. C.*, D., K., ἵíá ãßíùíôáé ; B., L., ãéíüåíáé , which Tischendorf adopts.

Mar_6:3.—Codd. B., D., L., Versions, Lachmann, Tischendorf, read ’ Éùóῆôïò ; the reading ’ ÉùóÞö occurs in some cursive MSS.