Mark 12: What the Passage Says

The Chapter in a Sentence

Jesus tells a parable about tenants who beat and kill the owner's servants and finally his son, and the leaders realize it is aimed at them. Groups of leaders then question him one at a time: the Pharisees and Herodians about paying taxes to Caesar, the Sadducees about marriage after the resurrection, and a scribe about the greatest commandment. Jesus answers each, then asks his own question about how the Christ can be both David's son and David's Lord, warns the crowd about the scribes, and points out a poor widow who gave two small coins.

Claim by Claim

1. 12:1
   • Jesus began to speak to them in parables.
   • A man planted a vineyard.
   • The man put a fence around the vineyard.
   • The man dug a pit for the winepress.
   • The man built a tower.
   • The man leased the vineyard to tenant farmers.
   • The man went away to another country.
2. 12:2
   • At the proper season the man sent a servant to the tenants.
   • The servant was sent to receive from the tenants some of the fruit of the vineyard.
3. 12:3
   • The tenants seized the servant.
   • The tenants beat the servant.
   • The tenants sent the servant away empty-handed.
4. 12:4
   • The man sent another servant to the tenants.
   • The tenants threw stones at that servant.
   • The tenants wounded that servant in the head.
   • The tenants sent that servant away having treated him shamefully.
5. 12:5
   • The man sent another servant.
   • The tenants killed that servant.
   • The man sent many others.
   • The tenants beat some of them.
   • The tenants killed some of them.
6. 12:6
   • The man still had one son.
   • The son was beloved to him.
   • The man sent his son to the tenants last of all.
   • The man said the tenants would respect his son.
7. 12:7
   • Those tenants said among themselves that this was the heir.
   • The tenants said to come and kill him.
   • The tenants said the inheritance would then be theirs.
8. 12:8
   • The tenants seized the son.
   • The tenants killed the son.
   • The tenants threw the son out of the vineyard.
9. 12:9
   • Jesus asked what the owner of the vineyard would do.
   • The owner will come.
   • The owner will destroy the tenants.
   • The owner will give the vineyard to others.
10. 12:10
    • Jesus asked whether they had not read this scripture.
    • The stone the builders rejected has become the head of the corner.
11. 12:11
    • This came from the Lord.
    • This is marvelous in our eyes.
12. 12:12
    • They sought to seize Jesus.
    • They feared the crowd.
    • They knew Jesus had spoken the parable against them.
    • They left Jesus and went away.
13. 12:13
    • They sent to Jesus certain of the Pharisees and of the Herodians.
    • The purpose was to trap Jesus in his words.
14. 12:14
    • They came and addressed Jesus as Teacher.
    • They said they knew he was truthful.
    • They said he cared for no man's opinion.
    • They said he did not regard the outward status of people.
    • They said he taught the way of God in truth.
    • They asked whether it was lawful to give tribute to Caesar or not.
15. 12:15
    • They asked whether they should give or not give.
    • Jesus knew their hypocrisy.
    • Jesus asked why they were testing him.
    • Jesus told them to bring him a denarius so he could see it.
16. 12:16
    • They brought a denarius.
    • Jesus asked whose image and inscription it bore.
    • They said it was Caesar's.
17. 12:17
    • Jesus told them to render to Caesar the things that are Caesar's.
    • Jesus told them to render to God the things that are God's.
    • They marveled at him.
18. 12:18
    • Sadducees came to Jesus.
    • The Sadducees say there is no resurrection.
    • The Sadducees questioned him.
19. 12:19
    • They addressed Jesus as Teacher.
    • They said Moses wrote for them that if a man's brother dies and leaves a wife behind and leaves no child, his brother should take the wife.
    • They said the brother should raise up offspring for his dead brother.
20. 12:20
    • There were seven brothers.
    • The first took a wife.
    • The first died and left no offspring.
21. 12:21
    • The second took her.
    • The second died leaving no offspring.
    • The third did likewise.
22. 12:22
    • The seven left no offspring.
    • Last of all the woman also died.
23. 12:23
    • They asked whose wife she would be in the resurrection, when they rise.
    • They said the seven had her as wife.
24. 12:24
    • Jesus answered them.
    • Jesus asked whether they were not in error for this reason.
    • Jesus said they did not know the scriptures.
    • Jesus said they did not know the power of God.
25. 12:25
    • When people rise from the dead they do not marry.
    • When people rise from the dead they are not given in marriage.
    • Those who rise are like the angels in the heavens.
26. 12:26
    • Concerning the dead, that they are raised, Jesus asked whether they had not read in the book of Moses.
    • The passage concerns the bush.
    • God spoke to Moses there.
    • God said he is the God of Abraham.
    • God said he is the God of Isaac.
    • God said he is the God of Jacob.
27. 12:27
    • God is not the God of the dead.
    • God is the God of the living.
    • Jesus said they were greatly in error.
28. 12:28
    • One of the scribes came up.
    • The scribe had heard them disputing together.
    • The scribe perceived that Jesus had answered them well.
    • The scribe asked which commandment is first of all.
29. 12:29
    • Jesus answered him.
    • Jesus said the first commandment of all is: Hear, O Israel.
    • The Lord our God is one Lord.
30. 12:30
    • You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart.
    • You shall love the Lord your God with all your soul.
    • You shall love the Lord your God with all your mind.
    • You shall love the Lord your God with all your strength.
    • Jesus said this is the first commandment.
31. 12:31
    • The second commandment is like it.
    • You shall love your neighbor as yourself.
    • There is no other commandment greater than these.
32. 12:32
    • The scribe said to Jesus that he had spoken well.
    • The scribe addressed him as Teacher.
    • The scribe said Jesus had told the truth that God is one.
    • The scribe said there is no other but him.
33. 12:33
    • To love God with all the heart, all the understanding, all the soul, and all the strength, and to love one's neighbor as oneself, is more than all whole burnt offerings and sacrifices.
34. 12:34
    • Jesus saw that the scribe answered with understanding.
    • Jesus told him he was not far from the kingdom of God.
    • After that no one dared to question him any further.
35. 12:35
    • Jesus was teaching in the temple.
    • Jesus asked how the scribes say that the Christ is the son of David.
36. 12:36
    • David himself spoke by the Holy Spirit.
    • David said the LORD said to his Lord to sit at his right hand.
    • David said this was until he makes his enemies a footstool under his feet.
37. 12:37
    • David himself calls him Lord.
    • Jesus asked how he is then David's son.
    • The large crowd heard Jesus gladly.
38. 12:38
    • Jesus said this in his teaching.
    • Jesus told them to beware of the scribes.
    • The scribes like to walk about in long robes.
    • The scribes like greetings in the marketplaces.
39. 12:39
    • The scribes like the chief seats in the synagogues.
    • The scribes like the places of honor at banquets.
40. 12:40
    • The scribes devour widows' houses.
    • The scribes make long prayers as a pretense.
    • These will receive greater condemnation.
41. 12:41
    • Jesus sat down opposite the treasury.
    • Jesus watched how the crowd put money into the treasury.
    • Many rich people put in much.
42. 12:42
    • One poor widow came.
    • She put in two small copper coins.
    • The two coins make a farthing.
43. 12:43
    • Jesus called his disciples to him.
    • Jesus said truly to them that this poor widow put in more than all those putting money into the treasury.
44. 12:44
    • All the others gave out of their abundance.
    • The widow gave out of her poverty.
    • The widow put in everything she had.
    • What she put in was her whole living.

Words Worth Explaining

Every language note in this chapter, gathered. These explain what a word meant, never what it means for the reader.

12:1

The opening details, planting, hedge, winepress, tower, are lifted almost word for word from a song in Isaiah 5 in which the vineyard stands for Israel. First hearers would have recognized the borrowing at once, which is why verse 12 says the authorities knew the story was aimed at them. "Winefat" is the old word for a wine vat: a trough or pit cut in rock where grapes were trodden, with a lower basin to catch the juice. "Husbandmen" means tenant farmers, not hired hands. Estates owned by absentee landlords and worked by tenants who paid rent as a share of the crop were ordinary in this region.

12:2

"At the season" means at vintage time, when rent came due. A new vineyard takes several years to bear, so the arrival of the first collector marks the first real harvest.

12:3

The King James "sent him away empty" means empty-handed, with none of the owner's share.

12:4

"Shamefully handled" means treated with insult, not just roughly. In this culture public humiliation was itself an injury, a deliberate insult aimed at the man who sent the servant.

12:5

In a story like this the repetition is the point. Each servant sent and refused raises what the owner risks by sending anyone else at all.

12:6

"Wellbeloved" translates a single Greek word that can mean beloved or only, and carries both here. "Reverence" in 1611 English meant show respect to, not worship.

12:7

Under some property customs of the time, tenants could argue that land left without an heir was theirs to claim by possession. The killers may be reasoning that the son's arrival means the owner has died and the estate is up for grabs.

12:8

Throwing the body out of the vineyard means leaving it unburied. In this culture burial was owed even to an enemy, so refusing it was a deliberate final insult stacked on top of the killing.

12:9

"The lord of the vineyard" means its owner. "Lord" in the King James often means simply master or proprietor.

12:10

Jesus quotes Psalm 118:22, sung by pilgrims arriving at the temple. "The head of the corner" translates a phrase that could mean the foundation stone set at a building's corner to align two walls, or the capstone at the top of an arch or gate. Either way it is the stone that holds the structure together, and the point is the reversal: the piece the masons discarded turns out to be the one the building depends on.

12:11

Still part of the quotation from Psalm 118, verse 23. "Marvellous in our eyes" means astonishing to look at.

12:12

"They" are the chief priests, scribes and elders who challenged Jesus at the end of chapter 11. The fear is practical: arresting a popular teacher in a city packed with Passover pilgrims risked a riot.

12:13

The Pharisees were strict interpreters of the law of Moses, influential with ordinary people and generally cool toward Roman rule. The Herodians were supporters of the family of Herod, whose power depended entirely on Roman favor. The two groups had little in common, and their appearing together signals a coordinated setup rather than a genuine question.

12:14

"Master" here means teacher, the ordinary address for a rabbi, not owner. "Carest for no man" does not mean he is indifferent to people; the Greek says he is not concerned about anyone's opinion, that is, he cannot be leaned on. "Thou regardest not the person of men" is an old idiom, literally you do not look at the face, meaning you show no partiality and are not impressed by rank. The "tribute" is the head tax Rome levied on every adult in Judea, payable in Roman coin. It was hated as the badge of occupation and had already sparked armed revolt. A yes answer would discredit Jesus with the crowd; a no answer could be reported to the governor as sedition.

12:15

"Tempt" in 1611 English meant put to the test, with no suggestion of luring into sin. The "penny" is a denarius, a small silver coin that was roughly a day's wage for a laborer, and it was the coin in which the tax had to be paid.

12:16

"Superscription" means the inscription stamped around the coin's rim. The denarius of this period carried the head of the emperor Tiberius and a legend naming him son of the deified Augustus. Graven images and claims of divinity both offended strict Jewish sensibility, so the fact that the questioners can produce such a coin on demand, in the temple precincts, is part of Jesus' answer.

12:17

"Render" means pay back or give what is owed, not simply hand over. The verb implies returning something to the one it already belongs to.

12:18

The Sadducees were the wealthy priestly party centered on the temple. They held that only the five books of Moses carried full authority, and since those books say nothing explicit about the dead rising, they rejected the idea. That is why Jesus answers them in verse 26 from Exodus rather than from the prophets.

12:19

This is the law of Deuteronomy 25:5 to 6, often called levirate marriage, from the Latin for brother in law. If a man died childless, his brother was to marry the widow, and the first son of that union counted legally as the dead man's son. The point was to keep the dead man's name alive and hold his share of family land within the family, and to leave the widow with a household and a son to support her.

12:20

"Took a wife" is the ordinary idiom for married. "Left no seed" means left no offspring.

12:23

The question assumes that resurrection life would simply continue present legal arrangements, so that seven valid marriages would produce an impossible tangle. The Sadducees intend it as a reduction to absurdity rather than a real inquiry.

12:24

"The Scriptures" means the holy writings of the Jewish people, the books Christians now call the Old Testament.

12:25

"Marry" and "are given in marriage" are the two sides of one custom: men took wives, and women were given by their fathers or guardians. Naming both verbs is a way of covering everyone, not describing two different fates.

12:26

Before chapter and verse numbers existed, a passage was cited by its subject, so "in the bush" means in the section about the burning bush, Exodus 3. The quoted words are Exodus 3:6, spoken long after Abraham, Isaac and Jacob had died, and the argument turns on the present tense: God says I am, not I was.

12:28

The scribes were the professional experts in the written law, who copied, taught and applied it. Rabbis of the period counted hundreds of separate commands in the law of Moses and debated which were weighty and which light. "The first commandment" means first in importance, not first in order on the page.

12:29

These words are Deuteronomy 6:4, known from its first Hebrew word as the Shema, meaning "hear", and recited by observant Jews morning and evening. The Hebrew of the last clause is famously compact and can be read either as "the LORD our God, the LORD is one" or as "the LORD is our God, the LORD alone", a statement of God's oneness or a statement of exclusive loyalty. The Greek here keeps the ambiguity rather than settling it.

12:30

From Deuteronomy 6:5, which in Hebrew names three things, heart, soul and strength. The Greek version adds mind, and Mark's wording lists four. These are not separate compartments of a person but overlapping words for the whole self, piled up for emphasis. In Hebrew usage the heart is the seat of thought and will as much as feeling.

12:31

Quoted from Leviticus 19:18. In its original setting "neighbour" meant a fellow member of the covenant community, and how far the term reached was actively debated in Jesus' day. Pairing this verse with the Shema as a matched summary of the law is the striking move here, since they come from different books.

12:33

A "whole burnt offering" was a sacrifice burned entirely on the altar, with no portion eaten by priest or worshiper, the most costly kind. Other "sacrifices" were partly burned and partly eaten. The scribe is repeating a line the prophets had made familiar, that obedience and love outweigh ritual, and he says it while standing in the temple where those offerings were made daily.

12:34

"Discreetly" in 1611 English meant with discernment or good judgment, not cautiously or quietly. "Durst" is the old past tense of dare.

12:35

"Christ" is the Greek for the Hebrew title Messiah, meaning anointed one, and refers to the promised king from David's line. "Son of David" means descendant of David, not literal child. The puzzle Jesus raises depends on the fact that a descendant ranked below his ancestor, so calling him "Lord" reverses the expected order.

12:36

Quoted from Psalm 110:1. In the Hebrew the two words printed as "LORD" and "Lord" are different: the first is the divine name, which English Bibles mark with small capitals, and the second is a title meaning my master, used of a king. So the line reads God said to my king. Sitting at a monarch's right hand was the place of highest delegated authority, and making enemies a footstool comes from the ancient royal image of a victor resting his feet on the necks of the defeated.

12:37

"Whence is he then his son" means in what sense, then, is he David's son. "The common people heard him gladly" translates a phrase meaning the large crowd listened to him with pleasure; it describes size and enthusiasm rather than social class.

12:38

"In his doctrine" simply means in his teaching. The "long clothing" is a long robe, probably the full length linen garment that marked a man out as a scholar and made manual work impossible. "Salutations in the marketplaces" means being publicly greeted by title in the busiest place in town, the recognition of rank in front of an audience.

12:39

The "chief seats" in a synagogue were the bench at the front, facing the congregation with the scripture chest behind, where the occupants were on view throughout. "The uppermost rooms at feasts" does not mean rooms; it means the top places at table. Diners reclined on couches arranged in a fixed order of honor, so where you were put announced your standing to everyone present.

12:40

"Devour widows' houses" is a vivid phrase whose exact target is disputed. It may mean taking over estates that widows had entrusted to them as legal guardians, or accepting a widow's household support in return for patronage and prayers, or foreclosing on property pledged as debt. A widow without a male relative had no independent legal standing and depended on such men. "For a pretence" means as a show, to keep up appearances. "Damnation" in 1611 English meant condemnation or an adverse verdict generally, and carried no necessary reference to hell.

12:41

The "treasury" stood in the Court of the Women, the part of the temple open to both men and women. Ancient descriptions say it consisted of thirteen chests with trumpet shaped metal mouths, each labeled for a particular purpose. Coins dropped in made a noise, so a large gift in bronze could be heard as well as seen.

12:42

The "mite" is a lepton, the smallest coin in circulation, worth about one hundred twenty eighth of a day's wage for a laborer. The "farthing" is the Roman quadrans. Mark is converting the local Greek coin into Roman money for readers who would not know the lepton, one of several signs that he wrote with a Roman audience in mind. Two lepta was the least a person could give and still give two coins; she could have kept one back.

12:43

"Verily I say unto you" renders a solemn formula Jesus uses to mark what follows as weighty. The word behind "verily" is amen, ordinarily said at the end of someone else's prayer; placing it at the front of his own statement is unusual.

12:44

"Of their abundance" means out of their surplus, what they had left over. "Of her want" means out of her lack, her need. "All her living" translates a word meaning livelihood, the money she had to live on, not merely spare change.