Mark 7:1-13 The tradition of men. The Pharisees and scribes try another frontal attack on Jesus. They are focused on the disciples eating with unwashed hands. The oral torah that had been handed down from teacher to teacher forbade eating with unclean hands. The tragedy is that as teachers studied the true Torah, they came up with interpretations and these soon became torah that was taught. Before we are too hard on the Pharisees and scribes, we need to look in the mirror. Many Christian teachings are based on the teachings of teachers and not on the scriptures. When these teachings are put forth, instead of refuting the teachings, we look at the scriptures, pull them out of context and force the scripture to say what we want it to say. There are several teachings that just will not stand up to the scrutiny of scripture. Which ones? Just for a few, pre and post rapture, Sunday as the Sabbath, we are no longer under the law, and several others. The point is, if we are going to return to Torah, we need to be careful to return to Torah. Otherwise, we may turn to the religious teachings of man. Stern stated:
“Mark’s explanation of n’tilat-yadayim, ritual handwashing, in these verses corresponds to the details set forth in Mishna tractate Yadayim. In the marketplace one may touch ceremonially impure things; the impurity is removed by rinsing up to the wrist. Orthodox Jews today observe n’tilat-yadayim before meals. The rationale for it has nothing to do with hygiene but is based on the idea that “a man’s home is his Temple,” with the dining table his altar, the food his sacrifice and himself the cohen (priest). Since the Tanakh requires cohanim to be ceremonially pure before offering sacrifices on the Temple altar, the Oral Torah requires the same before eating a meal.”[1]
It is interesting that they picked the specific instance of washing hands after going to the market. The Talmud is loaded with arguments back and forth on washing before meals. There are so many disagreements on this that it makes it comical to read. I wonder if they had a discussion regarding which type of washing to confront Yeshua with. Note also that they had to observe the apostles to see that they had certainly come from the market and that they had not washed their hands since then. The accusation took a lot of homework and groundwork to formulate. They invested a lot of time into the question.
Hand washing or failure to do so, directly violated the oral laws or traditions that were passed down from the ages. These oral edicts were not inspired by God and were probably good to a certain extent because the washing of hands, cups, pitchers and pots probably helped to fend off germs. At the time, they didn’t know what germs were, so the increased health probably seemed to be a blessing from God for following the traditions.
Two interesting things regarding the washing, the word used for washing the hands refers to dipping the hands or cupping a hand full of water. The Greek word baptizo is used for washing the pots, from which we get the word baptism (Mark 7:4).
Jesus rebukes the Pharisees by quoting Isaiah (Isa 29:13; Mark 7:6-7). Jesus being a righteous God, is irritated with man for adding to His word, and adding burdens to His people. Remember, when reading a quote from the Old Testament, the writer expects you to be familiar with the context of the passage. When Mark quoted Yeshua in this one verse, it is expected that you apply the entire section of scripture to understanding what Yeshua said. In this instance, He was quoting from a messianic passage (Isa 29:13-24). Yeshua expounds upon the last phrase of Isaiah’s prophecy saying that by rote learning or oral traditions, they neglect God’s instructions (Mark 7:4).
Mark 7:9-13 Remember, context continues from the previous verses. Yeshua brings charge against the Pharisees and scribes for introducing oral torah that is contrary to the written Torah. Oral and written instructions not found in the Bible are vital for the wellbeing of a society. It would be impossible to run a society on just the Bible alone. Therefore, Yeshua is not criticizing the leaders for clarifying the Torah. He is criticizing them for nullifying the teachings of God by offering a variant interpretation.
Today we have a social system in place that provides for the elderly. There are various forms of monies available to take care of older people including retirement income, supplemental income, and social security income. Very few people retire well off though. In biblical days, retirement did not exist. When a person became older, the children stepped in to help them. This passage is focused upon physical and most likely financial help (Mark 7:11-12). The financial focus comes from the Greek word that was transliterated, not translated as “Corban”.
Yeshua quotes one of the Ten Commandments, “Honor your father and your mother” (Ex 20:12; Deut 5:16). This commandment comes with a promise, if you honor your father and your mother, then your days will be prolonged. Honor in this case seems to be pointing to respecting a person. That is the idea we get from English. The Greek word carries an entirely different meaning. Let’s look to Kittle:
- Greek and Hellenistic Literature.
- Meanings. In general timḗ means “worth,” “evaluation,” “honor,” then “price.” Specific meanings are “appraisal,” “assessment,” “honor,” “dignity,” “honorarium,” “honors.” Similarly timáō means “to value,” “to honor,” passive “to be deemed worthy of honor.” Religiously the honoring of the gods is worship. The Greeks also believe that certain people are honored by the gods, e.g., with wealth, power, etc. timaí may be used for offerings, feasts, etc. that honor the gods, or for donations to them. Financially the terms are used for fixing value, appraising, and taxing.
- The Concept of Honor. timḗ has at first a strong material orientation to possessions, strength, or social influence. Later, moral conduct plays a bigger part. The fact that timḗ can also mean “price” upholds the material connection, but timḗ as honor increasingly becomes inner worth as distinct from outward esteem. For Aristotle there is no honor without virtue; only on the basis of virtue should outward honor be shown. No honor is enough for perfect virtue, and the person of inner worth is finally above outward honor. In Stoicism inner honor is what counts. The sage, enjoying inward freedom, can live without external honor and can thus be relaxed in relation to it.
- Hellenistic Judaism.
- The LXX.
- Hebrew has no exact equivalent for the group but does require the honoring of parents (Ex. 20:12) and of the moral commandments (Gen. 38:23). The LXX uses timḗ for 12 Hebrew terms. A first sense is honor, e.g., the honor that must be brought to God, the honor that God gives us, the honor that comes through doing good, the honor that must be shown others. We then find the meaning “price” with such nuances as “payment,” “compensation,” “evaluation.” Other senses are “valuables” and “tax.” Finally the term denotes royal dignity or honorable conduct.
- timáō renders six Hebrew terms in such senses as “to honor” (God, kings, parents, the elderly, the poor, loyal slaves, doctors, or the temple), “to appraise,” and “to honor with money,” i.e., “to reward.”[2]
Kittle went on to expound more upon the word. The Hebrew word found in Exodus 20:12 and Deuteronomy 5:16 for honor is very similar. It carries the idea of making a heavy decision, or heavy commitment. It is also linked to financial support or with wealth. The idea behind the word is that the object of honor is to be a heavy responsibility on the one honoring.[3] This goes beyond the flippant society that we have today because it involves commitment. Today people think they have honored their father or mother when they send a card on Mother or Father’s Day. Let’s get back to the passage now.
Yeshua adds a rebuke to His remarks on honoring the father and mother. If a person does not honor his father or mother, it is cursing them (Ex 21:17; Lev 20:9). And once again, it is not what you think. Cursing or “speaking evil” includes calling your mother or father names and even making derogatory remarks about them but much more. The idea behind the Hebrew word for cursing is to take lightly, declare cursed or accursed, consider to be insignificant or of little account. In short, it is to consider a person to be inferior or lacking in some way that qualifies them for pity or to disregard them as unimportant.
“But you say…” Mark 7:11-13: The idea behind saying that help is “corban” means that the help is now a gift to God. The implication of the word is that the finances have been donated to the temple. This means that the support that was supposed to go to the parents has been reallocated to go to the temple. It falls back on Yeshua’s earlier statement. The parents are not considered to be important enough to be helped financially or physically. They are inferior to the temple. God’s greater good outweighs the responsibility to take care of the parents. In this way the teachers created a loophole to pad their pockets instead of observing monies going to parents.
I see this same thing take place in churches today. Christian teachers will declare that the “law” or basically “torah” is no longer in effect. Then they pass the basket and ask for a tithe, which is a command in Torah… I have heard many variants of this same message. One church I visited passed the basket four times in the same service for different purposes. Before we condemn the religious leaders of that day, we need to look at our own practices and call them into question.
Mark 7:14-23 Food versus cleanliness. Jesus clearly attacks the traditions of men regarding foods. He tells them that their focus is entirely wrong. I am commenting on the passage, not going verse by verse, reading the passage for context is up to you.
Mark 7:19 To start with, let’s get the pink elephant out of the room. The Greek manuscripts did not have parenthesis. These were added by well meaning biblical translators who thought they needed to emphasize the meaning of the passage. This has effectively changed the meaning of the passage. Many have sprang off of this passage and declared that there are now no dietary rules in Torah that apply to people. In my opinion, they are incorrect. Here is the reason why.
“Thus he declared” is not found in the original language! If you were to translate the phrase in parenthesis literally it would bde “entire food clean”. The key Greek word is “katharidzo” which means to make clean or to purify. Now let’s put it to the simple test of context. Yeshua was saying that food goes into the stomach and is eliminated, food because of the digestion process has been made clean.
Now, let’s remember context once again. Have you heard of “kosher” food? The term “kosher” is relatively new, it was coined for the American food industry in the early 1900’s. The thing that makes “kosher food” kosher is because it has been inspected by a rabbi and the food processing company has followed kosher rules. If you are Jewish, eating non-kosher food is risking eating unclean food.
The concept of “kosher” goes all the way back to Old Testament times. Food in mentioned in the Babylonian Talmud 4,578 times, the majority of these have to do with dietary instructions. The Jerusalem Talmud records 3,114 hits on food, again most have to do with dietary instructions. Food was a major focus for the Rabbi’s. Context shows that the teachers manipulated the people in order to draw monies that should have been going to their parents in order to pad the coffers of the temple. The same situation may have been taking place here. We really do not know if the Rabbi’s were inspecting food, that may be a purely American invention. What we do know is that the Rabbi’s had intricate rules set up which expounded upon food usage in the Oral Torah, which has now been written down in one form as the Talmud. They sought to make rules so that the people would not defile themselves with unclean food.
Yeshua, for example, was not declaring pork clean. The Jewish people did not even consider pork to be food. It was an abomination, unsafe for human consumption. He was declaring that if they ate food, it was purified by the stomach. Food is defined by the Jewish mindset as anything that complies with the dietary instructions. The Rabbi’s made incredible rules that burdened the people with many laws that effectively questioned the cleanliness of clean food. Clean food easily became unclean because of the stringent rules that were placed upon it. What is clean and unclean food is clearly outlined by the Levitical instructions. Anything that falls outside of these instructions is not considered to be food by Jewish standards…
Peter was one of the disciples who was with Yeshua during this discussion. If Yeshua were to have declared all foods to be clean, then the stand that Peter later makes is senseless (Acts 10:1-16). Peter refused to eat food that was not clean. Also remember, Mark is thought to be writing Peter’s account. Later, Peter recalls the vision from Acts and embellishes the interpretation. The vision had nothing to do with food! It had to do with unclean Gentiles (Acts 10:28-29; Acts 11:1-18). If Yeshua had declared all food “clean” then through His earthly ministry, it would have been consistent for Him to eat unclean food. By the way, that would have made Him a Torah breaker, which would have been sin. No, rather, Yeshua taught something different or Peter would not have taken such a strong stand in Acts. Peter absolutely refused to follow the instructions of God! That’s pretty strong, Peter learned his lesson with his denial of the Messiah.
God designed the stomach to eliminate food. Through the catharsis of digestion, food is made clean and pure for the use of the body. Food is for the body. It has no effect on the spirituality of man. What makes a man spiritually unclean is what comes out of man. On that same note, if you choose to eat or make the practice of following a “clean” diet that is consistent with the instructions of scripture, then you will certainly be healthier. The reason is that God’s diet avoids parasitic foods and potentially dangerous foods.
Most today, choose not to eat clean. This is unwittingly failing to follow the instructions of Torah and opening the door to the natural consequences of eating unclean food. It is a cultural error that has occurred since most believers are not even aware of dietary instructions. This falls back on our teachers and religious leaders. Each person who is aware of the dietary instructions makes a choice to follow them or not to follow them. Judgment on this belongs to God, not to me or anyone else. It falls down to personal choice. My view is simple. If I eat to the best of my ability according to the dietary instructions, then I will experience greater health. Torah is designed for liberty, not bondage. I have found that a healthier life is found by living according to a biblical diet. Back to the passage.
Mark 7:19-23 An interesting note, the words which are translated evil thoughts, could be translated better, “an evil balancing of accounts”, meaning that we take in information and reasoning it out with an evil purpose in mind. This is referring to what the Scribes and Pharisees were doing with God’s instructions (Torah). He equates this evil reasoning with fornications, or sexual immorality, “thefts, murders, adulteries, deeds of coveting and wickedness, as well as deceit”. could also be translated treachery, slyness or trickery. “Sensuality, envy slander, pride and foolishness”. The potential for word studies are great here, that is for you to follow up with. The point of the matter was that the eating of foods and the following of traditions were not what defiled man, what defiled man was the wickedness which came from his own heart. Jeremiah 17:9, “The heart is more deceitful than all else and is desperately sick; who can understand it?” This was not new to the Scribes and Pharisees, they just chose to ignore the concept.
Mark 7:24-30 The Greek woman in this passage brings each of us great hope. Let’s focus on the statement that she had for a moment. She was bringing to Yeshua a request to have her daughter delivered from a demon. The reply to His statement reveals that this woman understood either the general facts of life, or had a very good understanding of the instructions found in the Old Testament. She quotes the concept found in Psalms where God sustains all people and every living thing (Psalm 145:14-16). The idea is also found in the last chapter of Jonah. God reprimands Jonah for his attitude toward the people. Also noted is God’s concern for the animals in the land (Jonah 4:11).
I think that her belief or trust in Yeshua goes a lot deeper than that though. Mark sets it up well. The word that Yeshua was in the area went out even though He was trying to escape notice. This woman found out and sought out Yeshua. She asked Him to cast the demon out of her daughter. There is a particular nuance that is easily missed. She did not bring the daughter with her! She knew that Yeshua had power over demons. She also knew that He did not need to be present to cast out a demon. This woman understood the spiritual better than most. She understood that she was dealing with a spiritual realm and not with a sickness. When she went to Jesus, she was not seeking a healer. She was petitioning God. She understood that He had came to the children of Israel. Her appeal to Him was as a servant asking for a simple crumb from the bread of the children. The Hebrews missed the simple truth that she was placing her faith in. They missed that Jesus was God in the flesh. They missed that Yeshua was the YHVH in the flesh of man. This woman did not miss it and appealed to the mercy of God. He granted her request.
Mark 7:31-37 Read this passage carefully. Who’s faith was involved in bringing this man to the place where he could be healed? He had a speech impediment and was deaf. He was not lame. The faith demonstrated in this situation was by those who loved the man. They put out the effort to get him to the healer. We have no indication that this man had any faith at all.
When I originally commented on this in previous years, I thought that the touching of the ears and spitting on the tongue was sign language that helped the deaf man understand what was going on. Several commentaries hold this position. I do not believe that is what happened here.
Yeshua did two things here that are important for understanding faith healing. First, He may have performed medical procedures. We do not know the effect of putting his fingers in the ears or spitting and touching the tongue with saliva. This is an unknown and could fall under either sign language or under the aspect of a medical procedure.
Secondly, He touched the man. Yeshua set the example for us and teaches us through this passage how to pray for and deliver people from different physical problems. These problems were probably not sicknesses, but rather physical conditions. Deafness is an organic problem that medicine cannot reverse. The same for the tongue impediment. The word from the Greek for impediment is “bond”. It specifically speaks of a ligament that was attached to the tongue. Today this condition is corrected with a minor surgery when a child is born, it is called a frenulotomy. Yeshua healed the man without surgery and restored his ability to speak without any therapy. The second amazing thing about this healing is that once his deafness was removed, and the tongue was released, he spoke clearly. Hearing is important to speech since we are repeating sounds that we have heard. It could be though that the man went deaf later in life.
Third, an observation: Over the last two years, I have had the opportunity to take part in a Medical/healing mission to the Philippines. One reason that I became involved originally was to understand how spiritual healing takes place. I also wanted to know if the healings were just hype. I quickly discovered that if I prayed for people, often they were healed. If I laid hands on the area that was broken or sick, it almost always was healed. I placed my hands on deaf ears, blind eyes, arthritic knees, large tumors, and other maladies. I watched God heal them completely. There is something about physical touch and spiritual healing that works together. During my learning curve, I was afraid to touch some people. It is frightening to touch someone who has a highly contagious disease or really bad flu. Others with me did touch these people and pray for them. Healing took place. Just a thought…
Contrast between the healings: Yeshua asked the people to keep quiet and not tell anyone. Notice again that He told the people, not the man to be quiet (Mark 7:36). The people brought the man to be healed. They did not keep quiet and boldly spoke out about the healing. Then we have the woman who asked for her daughter to be delivered from the demon. She fades into the story and fades out of the story in complete silence. She recognized that she had appealed to God and was answered. The people built up Jesus as a great man who does all things well. They do not credit God with the healing… Since Yeshua is God, He accepted the statement. It is sad though that the correlation was not made by the Hebrew people at the time when we have evidence that the Greek people understood that God had become flesh.
[1] David H. Stern, Jewish New Testament Commentary : A Companion Volume to the Jewish New Testament, electronic ed. (Clarksville: Jewish New Testament Publications, 1996), Mk 7:2.
LXX Septuagint
[2] Gerhard Kittel, Gerhard Friedrich, and Geoffrey William Bromiley, Theological Dictionary of the New Testament (Grand Rapids, MI: W.B. Eerdmans, 1985), 1181.
[3] James Swanson, Dictionary of Biblical Languages with Semantic Domains : Hebrew (Old Testament) (Oak Harbor: Logos Research Systems, Inc., 1997).
