Lange Commentary - Mark 7:1 - 7:23

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Lange Commentary - Mark 7:1 - 7:23


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This Chapter Verse Commentaries:

2. Contest with the Pharisees and Scribes from Jerusalem concerning Traditions respecting Eating. Mar_7:1-23.

(Parallel: Mat_15:1-20.)

      1Then came together unto him the Pharisees, and certain of the scribes, which came from Jerusalem. 2And when they saw some of his disciples eat bread with defiled [common ], that is to say, with unwashen hands, they found fault. 3For the Pharisees, and all the Jews, except they wash their hands oft, eat not, holding the tradition of the 4elders. And when they come from the market, except they wash, they eat not. And many other things there be, which they have received to hold, as the washing of cups, 5and pots, brasen vessels, and of tables. Then the Pharisees and scribes asked him, Why walk not thy disciples according to the tradition of the elders, but eat bread with unwashen hands? 6He answered and said unto them, Well hath Esaias prophesied of you hypocrites, as it is written, This people honoureth me with their lips, but their heart 7is far from me. Howbeit, in vain do they worship me, teaching for doctrines the commandments 8of men. For, laying aside the commandment of God, ye hold the tradition of men, as the washing of pots and cups: and many other such like things ye do. 9And he said unto them, Full well ye reject the commandment of God, that ye may keep your own tradition. 10For Moses said, Honour thy father and thy mother; and, Whoso curseth [revileth] father or mother, let him die the death: 11But ye say, If a man shall say to his father or mother, It is Corban, that is to say, a gift, by whatsoever thou 12mightest be profited by me; he shall he free. And ye suffer him no more to do aught for his father or his mother; 13Making the word of God of none effect through your tradition, which ye have delivered: and many such like things do ye. 14And when he had called all the people unto him, he said unto them [again], Hearken unto me every one of you, and understand: 15There is nothing from without a man, that entering into him, can defile him: but the things which come out of him, those are they that defile the 16, man. If any man have ears to hear, let him hear. 17And when he was entered into the house from the people, his disciples asked him concerning the parable. 18And he saith unto them, Are ye so without understanding also? Do ye not perceive, that whatsoever thing from without entereth into the man, it cannot defile him; 19Because it entereth not into his heart, but into the belly, and goeth out into the draught, purging all meats? 20And he said, That which cometh out of the man, that defileth the man. 21For from within, out of the heart of men, proceed evil thoughts, adulteries, fornications. murders, 22Thefts, covetousness, wickedness, deceit, lasciviousness, an evil eye, blasphemy, pride, foolishness: 23All these evil things come from within, and defile the man.

EXEGETICAL AND CRITICAL

Comp. the parallel place in Matthew. The occurrence before us took place in the summer of the year 782: in the midst of the year of persecutions. The combination of the Pharisees of Galilee and the Pharisees of Judea in their opposition to Jesus had already been concerted and entered upon. They had begun to institute against Him ecclesiastical proceedings in Galilee, and to watch His every step. The basis of the conspiracy consists of the preceding Galilean crisis, Mark 2, 3, and the confederacy against Jesus at the Feast of Purim in Jerusalem, 782 (John 5). The progress and the conclusion of the scheme appear in Mar_8:11. From the time of the Feast of Purim a common action and combination of the Sanhedrim in Jerusalem and the Galilean synagogue was inaugurated. The Sanhedrim were in constant connection and correspondence with the synagogues of the provinces, and even with those of foreign lands (see Act_9:2). Some, therefore, appointed by them, diligently visited the provinces; and watched especially those teachers whose doctrines declined from the principles of Pharisaism, at the head of which stood that of tradition (Ammon, Leben Jesu, ii. 264). There were two official transactions or interferences. And there were two retreats on the part of Jesus: the first time, as far as the borders of the Gentile territory; the second time, into the solitude of the mountain beyond the sea, and even to the borders of the other world (transfiguration);—and all for the preparation of the new Church. (See my Leben Jesu, ii. 2, 858.)—Between the narrative of the first feeding, the walking of Christ upon the sea, and our present narrative, there are many things to be interposed, which Mark has already communicated. Among these are the heretication of Jesus in the cornfield; the healing the man with a withered hand; the allegation of the Galilean Pharisees, that the works of Christ were done in the power of Beelzebub, etc. (See the Table of Contents, Leben Jesu, ii. 2, 14.)—Peculiar to Mark is the expression, óõíÜãïíôáé ðñὸò áὐôüí , in which we cannot fail to see reference to an official interference of the Sanhedrim with our Lord. Also the exact account of the religious washings of the Jews; the detailed characterization of the conflict between the Pharisaic traditions and the commandment of God, including the Corban; the striking and profound sentence concerning the purging all meats; and the perfect description of those evil things which proceed out of the heart. Also, in the following section, which may be glanced at here, the design of Christ to remain concealed in a house (belonging to a friend) on the borders of Phœnicia, during the time of His sojourn there; and the Lord’s return to the Sea of Galilee through the Sidonian territory and that of Decapolis. It is observable that Peter must have communicated the account of these remarkable travels, having faithfully preserved the individual details. On the other hand, this Evangelist omits the intercession of the disciples on behalf of the woman of Canaan, and the declaration of Christ that He was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.

Mar_7:2. And when they saw.—Probably on the appearance of the disciples in Jerusalem at the Passover, which He did not attend in the year 782. The spiritual impulse of freedom which actuated the disciples might at that time have led them into the commission of certain acts of thoughtlessness.—With common, that is to say, with unwashen hands.—So Mark explains for Roman readers. We must particularly define the idea of unwashen hands by that of unwashen in the sense of a religious ceremony prescribed by tradition; and the idea of common by that of ecclesiastically profane, unclean, and defiling. Those who persisted in this uncleanness, which had for its result excommunication, must at last draw down upon themselves the decisive ban.

Mar_7:3. With the fist; oft. [Margin of Eng. Ver. diligently.] Ðõãìῇ .—Among the many explanatory translations which have missed the meaning of the difficult expression are these: Vulgate, crebro; Gothic, ufta (oft); Syriac, diligenter. See in De Wette and Meyer the various exegetical methods adopted. “Probably it was part of the rite, that the washing hand was shut; because it might have been thought that the open hand engaged in washing might make the other unclean, or be made unclean by it, after having itself been washed” (Leben Jesu, 2:2, 858). The expression might mean a vigorous and thorough washing.

Mar_7:4. And from the market.—Codex D. has the addition, ἐὰí ἔëèùóéí , when they come; which Meyer, De Wette, and others regard as a sound interpretation. According to this view the progression would be this: 1. Before every meal the washing of hands; 2. but, after the return from market, where there was so much danger of coming into contact with unclean men, the bath was used as a washing of the whole body; hence ἐὰí ìὴ âáðô . But that which follows—the âáðôéóìïὶ ðïôçñßùí —requires still another degree in the progression, and proves that âáðôéóìüò must be understood in a wider sense. Therefore we interpret it, with Paulus, Kuinoel, and Olshausen, of that which came from the market. De Wette, on the contrary, observes that this was everywhere customary. But it was not customary as a religious ceremony of washing, or as a kind of baptism, like that of the pots and cups, or the Romish baptism of bells. And, moreover, the same held good of the washing of hands; for the washing of hands before eating was generally customary amongst the Persians, Greeks, and Romans. Thus, in our view, there was a triple washing at meals: 1. That of the persons; 2. that of the victuals; 3. that of the vessels.—Cups and pots.—Made of wood, in contrast with those of brass, which follow; or, it may be, considered as earthen. [“Pots,” îåóôῶí , perhaps from îÝù , to polish; or else from the Latin sextus or sextarius, denoting the sixth part of a larger measure.—Ed.] Meyer says, indeed, “Earthen vessels, when they were Levitically unclean, were broken to pieces, according to Lev_15:12.” But the case supposed there was that of positive desecrations; and it is not to be supposed that the Jews, after or before every meal, broke all the earthen vessels which they used. [Tables (in the margin beds), i.e., couches, anything on which men recline, whether for sleep, or, according to the later use of the ancients, to partake of food,—which accounts for the word used in the text of our Bible. That these couches were immersed in every instance of ceremonial washing, can be thought probable, or even possible, only by those who are under the necessity of holding that this Greek word not only means to dip or plunge, originally, but, unlike every other word transferred to a religious use, is always used in that exclusive and invariable sense, without modification or exception; to those who have no purpose to attain by such a paradox, the place before us will afford, if not conclusive evidence, at least a strong presumption, that beds (to say no more) might be baptized without immersion. Alexander, in loco.—Ed.]

Mar_7:9. Full well, êáëῶò .—Ironically, as among ourselves.—Your own tradition, ἵíá .

Very strong and deep. At the bottom of all rigorous enforcement of traditional observances there is an unconscious or half-conscious repugnance to submit perfectly to the law of God. Bengel: Vere accusantur, hanc suam esse intentionem. “Not only unconsciously, but with the fullest purpose, the Rabbis exalted their precepts above the law of Moses.” In the Talmud we read: “The words of the scribes are more noble than the words of the law; for the words of the law are both hard and easy, but the words of the scribes are all easy (to be understood).”—“He who deals with Scripture, it is said in the Bava Mezia, does a thing indifferent; he who reads the Mishna has a reward; but he who devotes himself to the Gemara is most meritorious of all.” Sepp, Leben Jesu, ii. p. 345.

Mar_7:11. Corban.—Comp. on Mat_14:5; as also, for the ellipsis in Mar_7:11, Luther’s marginal note: “Corban means an offering, and it was as much as to say, Dear father, I would willingly give it to thee, but it is Corban: I count it better to give it to God than to thee, and it will help thee better.”

Mar_7:14. He said again.—The significant ðÜëéí —the reading we adopt—throws light upon the whole preceding occurrence; and, together with the óõíÜãïíôáé at the beginning, gives it the appearance of a judicial process of the synagogue.

Mar_7:17. His disciples asked Him.—Comp. Matthew, where Peter is marked out as the questioner; and observe here, as elsewhere, his modest suppression of himself in the Gospel which sprang from himself. And here, again, there is emphatic prominence given to the disciples’ want of developed spiritual vigor and insight of faith, and their slow advancement in knowledge.

Mar_7:19. Purging all meats.—Meyer: êáèáñßæïí might be connected with the ἐêðïñåýåôáé as an appositional expression. The apposition, however, would not be connected with the ἐêðïñåýåôáé , but with its subject, that is, meat; and that could not be tolerated. Êáèáñßæïí is rather the substantival definition of ἀöåäñþí , as being a general means of purification for all the external impurities of meats: the better supported reading êáèáñßæùí , on the other hand, expressed the same thought adjectivally.—The ἀöåäñþí makes all meats clean, not because it simply takes away all impurities, but because the uncleanness or impurity of the object consists in its being out of its place, and therefore defiling something else. It is therefore a place of filth for all the house; a place of cleansing, on the contrary, for the great household of nature. Not without irony does Christ make prominent this ideal significance of the external means of cleansing for meats, addressing as He did the men of traditions, who strove to ensure a prophylactic external purity to their food.

Mar_7:21. Evil thoughts.—In relation to the distribution here, we must notice the change between the plural and the singular forms; or, 1. predominant actions, and 2. dispositions. The acts in the plural are arranged under three categories: a. lust; b. hatred; c. covetousness. They then combine into wickednesses ( ðïíçñßáé ), by which the forms of evil dispositions are then introduced: deceit and lasciviousness indicate, in two contrasts, the concealed and the open wickedness of self-gratification; whilst the evil eye and blasphemy indicate concealed and open enmity (blasphemy against God and man). Pride or self-exaltation, and foolishness ( ðְáָìָä ), are the internal and the external side of the one ungodly and wicked nature. “The evil eye” is notorious in the East; here it is the description of an envious look.

DOCTRINAL AND ETHICAL

1. See the parallel passage in Matthew.

2. The Jews have fallen through their Sabbath or Rest-day traditions into eternal unrest, through their law of purification into moral defilement, through their many baptisms into an abiding lack of baptism, through their service of the letter into Talmudist fables, through their separation into dispersion all over the world, through their millenarian Messiahship into enmity to Christ, through their trifling with the blessing into the power of the curse. The irony of the Spirit, that He punishes extremes by extremes.

3. The prophecy of Isaiah (Isa_29:13) pronounces a condemnation, always in force, upon all dead and fanatical zeal, and upon all mere ceremonial worship and work.

4. Zeal for traditional observances in its abiding conflict with the eternal commandments of God and laws of humanity. The conflict between false ecclesiasticism and morality. The contradiction of fanaticism has for its foundation an evil bias towards externalizing the inner life. The worm of superstition is unbelief; the worm of fanaticism is religious death or atheism; the worm of hypocritical outside religion is impiety. For the conflict between human fanatical ecclesiasticism and the divine fundamental commandments of morality, see the history of By-zantism and Romanism.

5. Tradition and human ordinances identical. Tradition needs continual reform through the law of God; and human ordinances, through the living development of this law.

6. Contrast between external and internal fellowship; i.e., between being excommunicated, and being out of the Church.

HOMILETICAL AND PRACTICAL

See on Matthew.—Christ in judgment upon human tradition.—Christ the Deliverer of His disciples: 1. The Originator, 2. the Defender, 3. the Guardian, 4. the Director and Consummator, of their freedom.—Christ and Christianity a hundred times exposed to spiritual censure: 1. The censure of school-learning (theology); 2. of the tradition of the elders (clerical office); 3. of the synagogue (popular assembly).—Christ and tradition: 1. He is the foundation or kernel of all true internal tradition; 2. therefore He unites in one and renews all external tradition; 3. and He is the Judge of all externalized and impious tradition.—The conflict between the law and human ordinances, or between ecclesiasticism and morality. It Isaiah , 1. an unnatural conflict, for true ecclesiasticism and true morality can never come into collision. 2. It is a light conflict, when false morality contends with true ecclesiasticism. 3. It is a critical conflict, when false ecclesiasticism fights against true morality. 4. There is a frightful doom upon both, when false ecclesiasticism and false morality struggle with each other.—The old conflict between fanaticism and humanity Ecclesiastical systems which bury piety (household relations, filial obligations, etc.) condemn themselves.—The indivisible unity of faith and love, of piety and duty.—The fearful perversion of the conflict between divine revelation and human sin into a contradiction between the divine and the human nature.—The triumph of human ordinance is always upon the ruins of the law of faith.—To enjoy with thankfulness, is the sanctification of enjoyment, 1Ti_4:4.—In the place of the washing of hands before meat, has come in the folding of hands. Therefore we must mind the reality of the symbol, even in this latter case.—Isaiah, Christ, and the Reformation, agreeing in their judgment upon what is true and what is false worship of God.—The right process of a true reformation: 1. It distinguishes between spirit and flesh, between the internal and the external. 2. It fights against the false intermixtures of the two, in which the spirit is made subservient to the flesh, and the internal to the external. 3. It seeks to connect the two aright, so that the spirit may make the flesh its own and glorify it. 4. It therefore contends also against a false and unnatural separation between the two.—The purity and the purifying power of the great divine economy of nature.—Christianity has consecrated even natural infirmity; or, a beam of the glorification which shines upon the dark natural ways of men.—The decisive objection against human ordinances, that they vainly attempt to effect symbolically a purity which actual life better provides for: 1. Holy water, God’s Streams; 2. arbitrary penances, divine burdens; 3. ecclesiastical purgatory fires, God’s salting fires.—The evil things which proceed from the heart and defile the man. See Critical Notes on Mar_7:21.

Starke:—Majus:—As Christ and His disciples were not without their slanderers, so the devout are never without their accusers and rebukers, 1Pe_2:12.—Nova Bibl. Tub.:—From Jerusalem hypocrisy went forth into all the land.—Hedinger:—What is the dross to the pure gold? what the inventions of men to the truth of God? what superstition to faith?—Quesnel:—As man may dishonor God by overmuch caring for beauty and external purity, Isa_3:16, so God is honored by the neglect of these things, when that neglect springs from humiliation of self and true mortification, Jon_3:6-10.—We must wash the heart after having been defiled by the world; that is, we must test ourselves and cleanse ourselves of sin, Job_1:5.—Majus:—With hypocrites, regard to man and human ordinances has more weight than the commandments of God.—The hypocrisy of hypocrites must be revealed.—Cramer:—The enemies of the truth must be confounded by the word of God.—Canstein:—The true worship of God is the union of the heart with Him.—Men commonly do willingly and cheerfully all things that do not set them about changing their own hearts.—Self-love, or the selfish mind, is so mad, that it prefers expending its care upon pots and cups rather than upon itself.—Many external ceremonies and human ordinances are not good in the Church of God; for, those who are bent upon rigidly observing them easily come to forget, or postpone to them, the true commandments of God.—Quesnel:—The openly impious do not dishonor the truth of the divine law so much by their evil life, as those do who give themselves out to be lovers of the law of God, and yet falsely interpret it.—After God, our parents are most important; and them their children should honor as the channel of the first gifts of God—nature, life, nourishment, and education.—Bibl. Wirt.:—Christian children should learn well the fourth and fifth commandments.—Quesnel:—Man may disguise his godlessness under the fairest show of piety, but God sees it nevertheless; and, as He condemns it now, He will hereafter make it manifest to all the world.—Majus:—Vows against the honor of God are sinful, and must not be paid.—Bibl. Wirt.:—He who departs from God’s word in one point, and in that point prefers the ordinances of men, may become so thoroughly entangled as not again to escape, Tit_1:15.—In the New Testament, the making distinctions of meats is classed among the works of the devil, 1Ti_4:1-3.—Canstein:—All depends upon the state of the heart: as that is, we are.—As the heart is the source of all evil, we should carefully watch its issues, Jer_17:9.

Schleiermacher:—This was the sense in which the Lord Himself said that His yoke was easy and His burden light; for He contrasted Himself, and the fellowship which He would found upon His own name, with the yoke and the manifold external burdens which the elders were never weary of imposing upon the Jews.—Those who rest wholly on external things have always the same vain labor as the Pharisees; and this has its ground in a lack of confidence. It springs from the fact that man can never have so much firm assurance concerning that which is not the truth as he can concerning that which is the truth; and this unrest manifests itself in looking anxiously at the letter, and in seeking after external uniformity. The greater the number, the greater their hope of internal confidence: of that which is strictly internal they have nothing.—This also He would say, that whosoever contributes to confirm such notions in the minds of men, and make their notions of God’s service purely external, leads them thereby away from the true worship of God in spirit and in truth, and seeks to give their ideas of God such a direction and such a form, that they no longer represent to themselves that God who will be worshipped in spirit and in truth, but an imaginary Being, such as the Gentiles frame in their imaginations.—The same feeling which leads to the honor of father and mother leads to the honor of our Father in heaven.—Gossner:—Manifestly, wicked human ordinances do not injure the divine doctrine so much as specious and seemingly holy superstitious inventions and false interpretations, which are received with confidence by the weak devout, and held fast with stubborn pertinacity.

Footnotes:

Mar_7:2.—The addition ἐìÝìøáíôï (after ἄñôïõò ) has slight support; and the êáôÝãíùóáí (after ἄñôïõò ) of Cod. D. is equally weak. The former arose from undervaluing the emphatic óõíÜãïíôáé , which itself suggests an act of the synagogue. Hence we cannot, with Tischendorf, take Mar_7:3-4 as a parenthesis, and Mar_7:5 as the conclusion.

Mar_7:5.—The ἔðåéôá is a continuation of the former misunderstanding: Codd. B., D., L., Lachmann, Tischendorf, Meyer, &c., read êáß .—The êïéíáῖò , instead of ἀíßðôïéò , is sanctioned by B., D., Versions.

Mar_7:8.— Âáðôéóìïὺò to ðïéåῖôå is wanting in B., L., Ä ., &c. It is bracketed by Lachmann, struck out by Tischendorf. Meyer defends it.

Mar_7:12.—The êáß is omitted by Lachmann and Meyer, after B., D. It disturbs the connection of thought.

Mar_7:14.—The reading ðÜëéí , recommended by Griesbach and adopted by Lachmann, Tischendorf, and Meyor, following B., D., L., Ä ., is important. It shows, that is, that the previous incident must be regarded as an examination by the synagogue, in which Chri st was separated from the people.

Mar_7:15.— Ôὰ ἐê ôïῦ ἀíèñþðïõ ἐêðïñåõüìåíá , according to B., D., L., Ä ., Lachmann, Tischendorf.

Mar_7:16.—This verse is wanting in B., L. Omitted by Tischendorf, it is retained by Lachmann and Meyer. An interpolation here is not probable. The connection requires this point.

Mar_7:19 .—A., B., E., F., G., Ä ., Chrysostom, Lachmann, Meyer, read êáèáñßæùí , not êáèáñßæïí ; D. reads êáèáñßæåé .