Mark 7

Then the Pharisees, along with some of the religious teachers who had come from Jerusalem, gathered around Jesus.

1Then came together unto him the Pharisees, and certain of the scribes, which came from Jerusalem.

NoteThe Pharisees were a strict religious movement known for careful keeping of the law of Moses along with a large body of additional oral rules. The "scribes" were professional experts in that law, which is why the rendering calls them religious teachers. That these particular ones had come from Jerusalem gives them the weight of the capital and its temple.

2They saw that some of his disciples were eating food with hands that were "defiled," meaning hands that had not been washed in the ceremonial way. So they complained about it.

2And when they saw some of his disciples eat bread with defiled, that is to say, with unwashen, hands, they found fault.

Note"Eat bread" in the King James usually just means eat a meal. The washing at issue is not hygiene but a ritual rinse: "defiled" means ceremonially unfit to approach holy things, not dirty.

3The Pharisees, and the Jews in general, follow the tradition handed down from earlier teachers, and they will not eat until they have washed their hands in the required way.

3For the Pharisees, and all the Jews, except they wash their hands oft, eat not, holding the tradition of the elders.

Note"Wash their hands oft" translates a Greek phrase that literally reads "with the fist," whose exact sense is unknown and was already puzzling to ancient readers. Suggested meanings include up to the wrist, up to the elbow, or with a cupped handful of water. The "tradition of the elders" was the body of unwritten rules handed down alongside the written law of Moses.

4And when they come home from the marketplace, they will not eat until they have washed. They also keep many other handed-down customs, such as washing cups, pitchers, copper pots, and dining couches.

4And 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, and pots, brasen vessels, and of tables.

NoteA marketplace meant contact with crowds, goods, and people who did not keep the purity rules, so a rinse on getting home was a precaution. "Brasen vessels" are copper or bronze pots. "Tables" translates a word for the couches people reclined on while eating, not tables in the modern sense.

5So the Pharisees and the religious teachers asked Jesus, "Why do your disciples not live by the tradition handed down from the earlier teachers? They eat their food with unwashed hands."

5Then the Pharisees and scribes asked him, Why walk not thy disciples according to the tradition of the elders, but eat bread with unwashen hands?

NoteTo "walk according to" a rule is a Hebrew and Greek idiom for ordering your whole way of life by it.

6He answered them, "Isaiah was right when he prophesied about you pretenders. As it is written: 'These people honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far away from me.

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 is far from me.

Note"Esaias" is the Greek form of the name Isaiah; the quotation is Isaiah 29:13. The Greek word behind "hypocrites" originally meant an actor speaking lines from behind a mask.

7Their worship of me is empty, because the lessons they teach are only rules made up by human beings.'

7Howbeit in vain do they worship me, teaching for doctrines the commandments of men.

Note"Howbeit" means however. "Doctrines" here simply means teachings, and "the commandments of men" means rules of merely human origin as opposed to God's.

8You have pushed aside God's command in order to hold on to the tradition of human beings."

8For 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.

9He also said to them, "You have a fine way of setting aside God's command so that you can keep your own tradition.

9And he said unto them, Full well ye reject the commandment of God, that ye may keep your own tradition.

Note"Full well ye reject" is sarcasm: you are very good at setting God's command aside.

10Moses said, 'Honor your father and your mother,' and, 'Anyone who curses his father or mother must be put to death.'

10For Moses said, Honour thy father and thy mother; and, Whoso curseth father or mother, let him die the death:

NoteThe two quotations are Exodus 20:12 and Exodus 21:17. "Let him die the death" reproduces a Hebrew construction that doubles the verb for emphasis; it means he must certainly be put to death.

11But you say that a man may tell his father or mother, 'Whatever help you might have gotten from me is Corban' (that means: it is a gift given over to God).

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 mightest be profited by me; he shall be free.

NoteCorban is a Hebrew and Aramaic word for something formally dedicated to God, which Mark stops to explain because his Greek-speaking readers would not know it. Declaring property Corban put it out of reach for ordinary purposes. The dispute is over treating such a vow as binding even when honoring it leaves a man's parents unsupported.

12After that, you no longer let him do anything at all for his father or his mother.

12And ye suffer him no more to do ought for his father or his mother;

Note"Suffer" here means allow or permit, and "ought" (aught) means anything at all.

13So you cancel the word of God by the tradition you have passed down. And you do many other things like that."

13Making the word of God of none effect through your tradition, which ye have delivered: and many such like things do ye.

Note"Of none effect" means cancelled, made void. "Delivered" means handed on; it is the ordinary word for passing a tradition down from one generation to the next.

14Then Jesus called the crowd over to him again and said, "Every one of you, listen to me and understand this:

14And when he had called all the people unto him, he said unto them, Hearken unto me every one of you, and understand:

Note"Hearken" means listen.

15Nothing that goes into a person from the outside can make that person unclean. It is the things that come out of a person that make him unclean.

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 man.

Note"Defile" belongs to the vocabulary of ritual purity: to make someone unfit to approach what is holy until the impurity is dealt with. In itself the word says nothing about dirt or about moral guilt.

16If anyone has ears to hear with, let him listen."

16If any man have ears to hear, let him hear.

ManuscriptsMost modern translations leave this verse out. It is in the Greek text the King James translators worked from, but not in the older manuscripts found since, so scholars generally take it as a copyist’s addition rather than part of the original.

NoteThis verse is missing from the oldest and most reliable Greek manuscripts of Mark and is generally thought to have been copied in by a later scribe from Mark 4:9 or 4:23. That is why many modern translations skip from verse 15 to verse 17.

17When he had left the crowd and gone into the house, his disciples asked him about this comparison he had used.

17And when he was entered into the house from the people, his disciples asked him concerning the parable.

Note"Parable" translates a word covering riddles, proverbs, and comparisons of every kind, not only the story parables. The disciples are asking about a saying they found cryptic.

18He said to them, "Are you as slow to understand as the rest? Don't you see that nothing entering a person from the outside can make him unclean?

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;

Note"Perceive" here means understand, and "without understanding" translates a word for being slow or dull of mind rather than ignorant of facts.

19It does not go into his heart. It goes into his stomach and then passes out of the body." By saying this, Jesus declared all foods clean.

19Because it entereth not into his heart, but into the belly, and goeth out into the draught, purging all meats?

Note"The draught" is the latrine or sewer. "Purging all meats" renders a genuinely difficult bit of Greek: the phrase "cleansing all foods" can hang either on the digestive process just described or on Jesus himself, as the narrator's own comment. The rendering follows the second reading, which most modern translations adopt. "Meats" in 1611 English means food of any kind, not flesh.

20He went on, "It is what comes out of a person that makes that person unclean.

20And he said, That which cometh out of the man, that defileth the man.

21From the inside, out of people's hearts, come evil thoughts, sexual sin of every kind, stealing, murder,

21For from within, out of the heart of men, proceed evil thoughts, adulteries, fornications, murders,

Note"Fornications" translates a broad Greek word covering sexual activity outside marriage of every sort. Several of these nouns are plural in the Greek, meaning individual acts of the kind rather than the vice in the abstract.

22adultery, greed, doing harm, lying and cheating, shameless behavior, envy, insults against God and others, self-importance, and foolishness.

22Thefts, covetousness, wickedness, deceit, lasciviousness, an evil eye, blasphemy, pride, foolishness:

Note"Covetousness" is grasping greed for more. "Lasciviousness" means unrestrained, shameless indecency. "An evil eye" was a stock idiom of the time for envy or a grudging, stingy spirit. "Blasphemy" in Greek covers abusive speech against God and slander against other people alike. "Pride" here is the arrogance of a man puffed up over others.

23All these evil things come from inside, and they are what make a person unclean."

23All these evil things come from within, and defile the man.

24Jesus left that place and went to the area around Tyre and Sidon. He went into a house and did not want anyone to know he was there, but he could not stay hidden.

24And from thence he arose, and went into the borders of Tyre and Sidon, and entered into an house, and would have no man know it: but he could not be hid.

NoteTyre and Sidon were Phoenician port cities up the Mediterranean coast, outside Jewish territory and populated mainly by non-Jews. Many early manuscripts read only "Tyre" here. "Borders" means the surrounding territory or region rather than a boundary line, and "coasts" in verse 31 has the same sense.

25A woman whose little daughter had an unclean spirit in her heard that he was there. She came and fell down at his feet.

25For a certain woman, whose young daughter had an unclean spirit, heard of him, and came and fell at his feet:

Note"Unclean spirit" is Mark's usual term for what verse 26 calls a demon. "Unclean" is again the vocabulary of ritual impurity.

26The woman was Greek, born in the region of Syrian Phoenicia. She begged Jesus to drive the demon out of her daughter.

26The woman was a Greek, a Syrophenician by nation; and she besought him that he would cast forth the devil out of her daughter.

Note"A Greek" here means a non-Jew: Greek-speaking in culture and pagan in religion, not necessarily a native of Greece. "Syrophenician" places her more exactly as a Phoenician from the stretch of that coast attached to the Roman province of Syria, distinguishing her from the Phoenicians of North Africa.

27But Jesus said to her, "First let the children eat all they want. It is not right to take the children's bread and throw it to the dogs."

27But Jesus said unto her, Let the children first be filled: for it is not meet to take the children’s bread, and to cast it unto the dogs.

Note"It is not meet" means it is not fitting or proper. The Greek word for "dogs" here is a diminutive, the small dog kept around the house rather than the scavenging street dog, and the woman's reply turns on exactly that: house dogs are under the table at mealtimes.

28She answered him, "Yes, Lord, but even the dogs under the table eat the crumbs the children drop."

28And she answered and said unto him, Yes, Lord: yet the dogs under the table eat of the children’s crumbs.

Note"Lord" translates a word whose range runs from "sir" as ordinary polite address up to a title of high authority; which weight it carries on her lips is left open.

29Then he said to her, "Because you said that, you may go home. The demon has left your daughter."

29And he said unto her, For this saying go thy way; the devil is gone out of thy daughter.

Note"For this saying" means because of this reply, that is, because of what she has just said. "Go thy way" is simply "you may go."

30When she got home, she found her daughter lying on the bed, and the demon was gone.

30And when she was come to her house, she found the devil gone out, and her daughter laid upon the bed.

31Jesus then left the region of Tyre and Sidon and came to the Sea of Galilee, going through the middle of the Decapolis, a region of ten cities.

31And again, departing from the coasts of Tyre and Sidon, he came unto the sea of Galilee, through the midst of the coasts of Decapolis.

NoteThe Decapolis, literally "Ten Cities," was a group of Greek-style cities lying mostly east and southeast of the Sea of Galilee, largely non-Jewish in population. The route described is roundabout: north from Tyre to Sidon, then inland and south, a long detour through Gentile territory.

32Some people brought him a man who was deaf and could barely speak, and they begged Jesus to lay his hand on him.

32And they bring unto him one that was deaf, and had an impediment in his speech; and they beseech him to put his hand upon him.

Note"Impediment in his speech" translates a rare Greek word found nowhere else in the New Testament; it can mean either speaking with difficulty or not speaking at all. Laying a hand on a sick person was the familiar gesture of a healer or of someone giving a blessing.

33Jesus took the man away from the crowd, off by themselves. He put his fingers in the man's ears, then spit and touched the man's tongue.

33And he took him aside from the multitude, and put his fingers into his ears, and he spit, and touched his tongue;

NoteSaliva was widely credited with healing power in the ancient Mediterranean world and appears that way in Greek and Roman medical writers as well as in Jewish sources. The gestures here are the recognized ones a healer would use, and they are also the only way to tell a man who cannot hear what is about to happen.

34He looked up to the sky, sighed, and said to him, "Ephphatha!" which means, "Be opened!"

34And looking up to heaven, he sighed, and saith unto him, Ephphatha, that is, Be opened.

Note"Ephphatha" is Aramaic, the everyday spoken language of Jesus and his hearers. Mark keeps a handful of such words in their original form and then translates them for his Greek-speaking readers. "Sighed" translates a word for a deep groan drawn up from within.

35Right away the man's ears were opened, his tongue was set free, and he began to speak clearly.

35And straightway his ears were opened, and the string of his tongue was loosed, and he spake plain.

Note"The string of his tongue" renders a Greek phrase about the bond or fetter that held the tongue; the picture is of something tied being untied. "Spake plain" means spoke clearly, not spoke simply or bluntly.

36Jesus ordered them not to tell anyone. But the more he ordered them, the more widely they spread the news.

36And he charged them that they should tell no man: but the more he charged them, so much the more a great deal they published it;

Note"Charged" means gave strict orders. "Published" in 1611 English means spread abroad by word of mouth and has nothing to do with printing.

37People were astonished beyond words. They said, "He has done everything well. He even makes deaf people hear and people who cannot speak talk."

37And were beyond measure astonished, saying, He hath done all things well: he maketh both the deaf to hear, and the dumb to speak.

Note"Beyond measure astonished" renders an emphatic Greek expression, roughly "overwhelmingly amazed." "Dumb" in the King James means unable to speak and carries no suggestion of stupidity. The crowd's words closely echo the Greek wording of Isaiah 35:5-6, where the deaf hear and the tongue of the speechless sings.