Mark 2: What the Passage Says

The Chapter in a Sentence

In Capernaum, four men lower a paralyzed man through a roof to reach Jesus, and Jesus forgives his sins, which sets some scribes thinking to themselves that he is speaking against God, before he tells the man to get up and walk. Jesus then calls Levi the tax collector, eats with tax collectors and sinners, and answers questions about why his disciples do not fast. The chapter closes with a dispute over his disciples picking grain on the Sabbath, and Jesus saying that the Sabbath was made for man and that the Son of Man is Lord of the Sabbath.

Claim by Claim

1. 2:1
   • Jesus entered Capernaum again after some days.
   • It was reported that he was at home / in the house.
2. 2:2
   • Many people gathered together.
   • There was no more room, not even around the doorway.
   • Jesus spoke the word to them.
3. 2:3
   • People came to Jesus bringing a paralyzed man.
   • The paralyzed man was carried by four men.
4. 2:4
   • They could not get near Jesus because of the crowd.
   • They uncovered the roof where Jesus was.
   • They dug an opening through it.
   • They lowered the mat on which the paralyzed man lay.
5. 2:5
   • Jesus saw their faith.
   • Jesus called the paralyzed man 'Son'.
   • Jesus said to the paralyzed man that his sins are forgiven.
6. 2:6
   • Some of the scribes were sitting there.
   • Those scribes were reasoning in their hearts.
7. 2:7
   • The scribes asked why this man speaks in this way.
   • The scribes said he speaks blasphemy.
   • The scribes asked who can forgive sins except God alone.
8. 2:8
   • Jesus immediately perceived in his spirit that they were reasoning this way within themselves.
   • Jesus asked them why they reasoned these things in their hearts.
9. 2:9
   • Jesus asked which is easier: to say to the paralyzed man 'your sins are forgiven', or to say 'get up, take up your mat, and walk'.
10. 2:10
    • Jesus said this so that they might know that the Son of man has authority on earth to forgive sins.
    • Jesus spoke to the paralyzed man.
11. 2:11
    • Jesus told the man, 'I say to you, get up.'
    • Jesus told the man to take up his mat.
    • Jesus told the man to go to his house.
12. 2:12
    • The man got up.
    • The man immediately took up the mat.
    • The man went out in front of them all.
    • They were all amazed.
    • They glorified God.
    • They said they had never seen anything like this.
13. 2:13
    • Jesus went out again beside the sea.
    • The whole crowd came to him.
    • Jesus taught them.
14. 2:14
    • As Jesus passed along, he saw Levi the son of Alphaeus.
    • Levi was sitting at the tax booth.
    • Jesus said to Levi, 'Follow me.'
    • Levi got up and followed Jesus.
15. 2:15
    • Jesus was reclining at table in the house.
    • Many tax collectors and sinners were reclining at table with Jesus and his disciples.
    • There were many of them.
    • They were following Jesus.
16. 2:16
    • The scribes and Pharisees saw Jesus eating with tax collectors and sinners.
    • They said to Jesus' disciples, asking why he eats and drinks with tax collectors and sinners.
17. 2:17
    • Jesus heard it.
    • Jesus said that those who are healthy have no need of a physician.
    • Jesus said that those who are sick need a physician.
    • Jesus said he did not come to call the righteous.
    • Jesus said he came to call sinners to repentance.
18. 2:18
    • The disciples of John and the Pharisees were fasting.
    • People came and asked Jesus why the disciples of John and the disciples of the Pharisees fast.
    • They asked why Jesus' disciples do not fast.
19. 2:19
    • Jesus asked whether the companions of the bridegroom can fast while the bridegroom is with them.
    • Jesus said that as long as they have the bridegroom with them, they cannot fast.
20. 2:20
    • Jesus said days will come when the bridegroom will be taken away from them.
    • Jesus said that then they will fast in those days.
21. 2:21
    • No one sews a patch of unshrunk cloth on an old garment.
    • Otherwise the new patch pulls away from the old garment.
    • Otherwise the tear becomes worse.
22. 2:22
    • No one puts new wine into old wineskins.
    • Otherwise the wine bursts the wineskins.
    • Otherwise the wine is destroyed.
    • Otherwise the wineskins are ruined.
    • New wine is to be put into new wineskins.
23. 2:23
    • Jesus was passing through the grainfields on the sabbath.
    • His disciples began to pluck the heads of grain as they went.
24. 2:24
    • The Pharisees said to Jesus, 'Look.'
    • The Pharisees asked why his disciples do on the sabbath what is not lawful.
25. 2:25
    • Jesus asked them whether they had never read what David did.
    • Jesus said David was in need and hungry.
    • Jesus said those with David were also hungry.
26. 2:26
    • Jesus said David entered the house of God.
    • Jesus said this happened in the days of Abiathar the high priest.
    • Jesus said David ate the bread of the presence.
    • Jesus said that bread is not lawful to eat except for the priests.
    • Jesus said David also gave some to those who were with him.
27. 2:27
    • Jesus said to them that the sabbath was made for man.
    • Jesus said man was not made for the sabbath.
28. 2:28
    • Jesus said that therefore the Son of man is Lord also of the sabbath.

Words Worth Explaining

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

2:1

Capernaum was a fishing town on the north shore of the Sea of Galilee, and Mark treats it as Jesus' base. The King James "in the house" and the rendering "at home" translate a Greek phrase that can mean either; the house is probably Simon Peter's, where Jesus stayed in Mark 1:29.

2:2

"Preached" in 1611 English carried the sense of a herald making a public announcement. The King James "the word" means the message being announced, not a single spoken word.

2:3

"Sick of the palsy" is the King James term for paralysis. Palsy was the ordinary English word for paralysis and loss of muscle control.

2:4

Roofs in this region were flat: beams laid across the walls, covered with branches and packed clay, and reached by an outside stair. Such a roof could be dug open and patched afterward. The King James "for the press" means "because of the crowd"; press was a common word for a throng. The "bed" is a light sleeping mat that one person could carry rolled up.

2:5

"Thy sins be forgiven thee" is not a wish in 1611 English but a flat statement: your sins are forgiven. The older "be" could serve where modern English says "are."

2:6

Scribes were the professional experts in the written law of Moses, trained to copy it, teach it and give rulings from it. The King James "reasoning in their hearts" reflects a Hebrew way of speaking in which the heart is the seat of thought and decision, not only of feeling.

2:7

Blasphemy meant speech that insulted God or claimed for a person something that belonged to God alone. Under the law of Moses it carried the death penalty (Leviticus 24:16), so the word in their mouths is a legal accusation, not just an expression of distaste.

2:8

In the Bible the heart is the inner self where a person thinks, weighs options and decides, not just where feelings happen. "Reasoning in their hearts" means working the argument through silently, without saying it out loud.

2:10

"Son of man" is a phrase Jesus uses of himself throughout the Gospels. In Hebrew and Aramaic it can mean simply "a human being," and it is also the phrase used in Daniel 7:13 of a figure who is given authority by God; the wording keeps both senses available and translators do not resolve it. The King James "power" here means authority, the right to act, not physical force. Note also that the sentence breaks off: Mark interrupts "But that ye may know..." with narration, and it is never finished as a sentence.

2:12

"We never saw it on this fashion" is 1611 English for "we have never seen anything like this." Fashion then meant manner or kind.

2:13

The "sea" is the Sea of Galilee, a freshwater lake about thirteen miles long. "Resorted unto him" in the King James simply means "came to him," with none of the modern suggestion of a last resort.

2:14

The King James "receipt of custom" is a tax booth: a post where duties were collected on goods moving along the road or across the lake. Capernaum lay near a border, so the collector there worked for Herod Antipas. Such positions were farmed out; the holder paid for the right to collect and lived on whatever he took above his quota, which is why the job carried a reputation for extortion. Matthew's Gospel gives this same man the name Matthew.

2:15

"Publicans" is the King James word for tax collectors. They were widely despised both as men working for a foreign-backed regime and as men assumed to overcharge. "Sinners" here functions almost as a social label for people whose trade or way of life placed them outside the strict observance the Pharisees kept. "Sat at meat" means reclined at a meal: at a formal dinner people lay on one side around a low table rather than sitting on chairs. "In his house" is ambiguous in the Greek and could mean Levi's house or Jesus' own.

2:16

The Pharisees were a lay movement committed to precise observance of the law of Moses, including detailed rules about food and ritual purity. Sharing a table was a public sign of acceptance, so who ate with whom carried real weight. The King James "scribes and Pharisees" renders a phrase better read as "the scribes of the Pharisees," meaning legal experts belonging to that party.

2:17

"Whole" in 1611 English means healthy or in sound health, not complete. "The righteous" means those reckoned to be keeping the law. "Repentance" translates a Greek word for a change of mind that turns a person in a new direction, rather than an emotion of regret.

2:18

Fasting meant going without food for a set period as a religious practice. The law of Moses required only one fast day a year, the Day of Atonement; beyond that, devout groups fasted voluntarily, and some Pharisees kept two fast days a week.

2:19

"Children of the bridechamber" is a Hebrew-style phrase for the bridegroom's wedding party, the friends who attended him through the celebration. A wedding ran roughly a week, and those taking part were released from fasting obligations for its duration.

2:20

"Taken away" translates a verb suggesting removal by force rather than simply leaving.

2:21

"New cloth" here means cloth that has not yet been shrunk. Sewn as a patch onto a worn garment, it shrinks at the first washing and pulls away, leaving a bigger hole than before. The King James "rent" is a noun meaning a tear.

2:22

The King James "bottles" means wineskins: containers made from whole animal hides sewn shut, the ordinary way of storing and carrying wine. Wine that is still fermenting gives off gas and stretches its container. A fresh skin can stretch; one already stretched and gone brittle with age splits open.

2:23

"Corn" in the King James means grain of any kind, normally wheat or barley. The American sense of maize did not exist in English in 1611. The Sabbath was the seventh day of the week, from Friday sunset to Saturday sunset, on which the law of Moses forbade work. The law expressly permitted a passerby to pluck grain by hand from another person's field (Deuteronomy 23:25), so the complaint that follows is not about theft.

2:24

The objection is that plucking and rubbing out grain counted as harvesting and threshing, two of the kinds of work that teachers of the law listed as forbidden on the Sabbath.

2:25

"An hungred" is 1611 English for "hungry." The incident Jesus cites is told in 1 Samuel 21:1-6.

2:26

"Shewbread" (pronounced showbread) is the King James word for the twelve loaves set out each week on a table in the sanctuary before God and replaced every Sabbath; the loaves taken away were then eaten by the priests (Leviticus 24:5-9). The "house of God" here is the sanctuary at Nob, long before the temple in Jerusalem was built. One detail has puzzled readers since antiquity: 1 Samuel names the priest as Ahimelech, Abiathar's father, and Abiathar became high priest only later. The Greek phrase can also be read more loosely as "in the time of" or even "in the passage about" Abiathar, and some early manuscripts of Mark leave the phrase out altogether.

2:27

"Man" in the King James here means humankind, people in general, not males specifically.

2:28

"Lord" means someone who is in charge.