The Gospel of Mark 7:1-30 - A Matter of Cleanliness and a Gentile Woman’s Faith
After feeding five thousand men and walking on water, Jesus has drawn even more attention to Himself. The Scribes and the Pharisees decide to confront Him and shame Him, perhaps to lesson His growing fame and notoriety. They challenge Him on an issue they consider important, eating with unwashed hands. Yet Jesus rejects their traditions and instead insists that it is not what you eat that defiles you, but the sin inside of you. It is sin, not food that makes you unclean. Jesus travels to the region of Tire and Sidon where a Gentile woman approaches Him and begs Him to cast a demon out of her daughter. What follows is perhaps the most shocking statement that Jesus has made yet, He calls the woman a dog (we will see the reason for this). Yet she responds with faith and humility. Seeing this Jesus grants her request and casts the demon out of the girl.
Discussion:
“Now when the Pharisees gathered to him, with some of the scribes who had come from Jerusalem, they saw that some of his disciples ate with hands that were defiled, that is, unwashed. (For the Pharisees and all the Jews do not eat unless they wash their hands properly, holding to the tradition of the elders, and when they come from the marketplace, they do not eat unless they wash. And there are many other traditions that they observe, such as the washing of cups and pots and copper vessels and dining couches.)”
Mark 7:1–4 (ESV)
An honor and shame conflict
The passage opens up with a story about the Pharisees and Scribes teaming up together to come meet with Jesus. From the story we can see that this was an honor and shame attack, a battle meant to dimmish the honor of Jesus and increase the honor of the elite. A modern day example of this would be a politician coming to attack another politician in order to gain votes. The Pharisees start their challenge out softly as we will see, yet Jesus responds by increasing the argument. This is because, as the Gospels have pointed out, He knew what was in the hearts of men. He knew they were coming to attack Him, and so, even though they started out softly, He knew their goal and went immediately on the defense. Jesus was not going to allow them to shame Him, for to do so would hinder the mission of God that He was on.
All the Jews
Mark uses the phrase “all the Jews”, which seems shocking at first. For not all Jews held this view, as this view on purity was a Pharisaic view. Indeed, the Saducees seemed to have even rejected it, since they only held to the Torah and not to the tradition of the elders. As William L. Lane explains, the phrase is used as a kind of “catch all” which was also used by other writers. The term here though should be understood to refer to the Pharisees and those who held to the views of Pharisees. Commoners, especially those in Galilee, often called “sinners”, would probably not have had this view (Lane 1974, 245). What was the reason for the conflict that the Pharisees used? It was the issue of hand washing.
Hand washing
The Torah does not instruct Jews to wash their hands before eating. However, the Pharisees had taken the commands for the Levites and Priests and had commanded that they also be followed by the common people (Lane 1974, 245-246). This is one of the reasons that they often referred to the commoners as sinners, not because they were so sinful, but because they didn’t keep the Pharisee’s traditions.
Tradition of the Elders
So what is the tradition of the elders? Robert H. Stein explains that this is a reference to the oral law, what would later be recorded in the Mishnah (200 AD) and Gemara, the combination of which is called the Talmud (400-500 AD) (Stein 2008, 339). The Pharisees saw the oral law as something that had equal weight with the Torah (Edwards 2002, 208). We can see this has carried over into Orthodox culture today, where the Talmud is often studied more than the Torah. The Pharisees, the forerunners of the Rabbis, were proponents of what they called the “tradition of the elders”, which we would today call the “oral law.” Having such a high view of this law, they used the violation of it as a course of attack. The Disciples, and we will see that this also includes Jesus Himself, were guilty of breaking the oral law. Seeing this “guilt” they confronted Jesus.
“And the Pharisees and the scribes asked him, “Why do your disciples not walk according to the tradition of the elders, but eat with defiled hands?”
Mark 7:5 (ESV)
Why do your Disciples
What may be surprising to some is that the dispute here implies that it was not just the Disciples who were eating with unwashed hands, it was also Jesus (Marcus 2008, 443; Strauss 2014, 300). I cannot remember what book I first read about the idea of “what goes without being said” in honor and shame cultures. However, I will do my best to explain it. First, we must remember that the entire point of shame was to bring someone back into “order,” back to a safe place within the culture. The Pharisees, although they came to shame Jesus, clearly wanted to bring Him into order. I believe they wanted to bring Him into their ranks at first. So instead of challenging Jesus directly on why He was eating with unwashed hands, they challenged Him on why His Disciples were doing so. This would be less shameful but would still get the point across. By doing this, if He had “repented” and joined ranks with them they would be seen to not only gain honor, but also gain sway over a very influential man (as they saw it).
Eat with defiled hands
Here we find another term that we may not be aware of its original meaning, at least I was not. I looked through my commentaries and was unable to find much on it, so I dug a little deeper. The term for “defiled” is the Greek word koinos; which is often translated as common, unclean, defiled, or profaned. The BDAG explains that it means to be ceremonially impure (Arndt, et al. 2000, 552). To provide some context, it is the same Greek word used in these verses:
“But Peter said, “By no means, Lord; for I have never eaten anything that is common or unclean.”
Acts 10:14 (ESV)
“I know and am persuaded in the Lord Jesus that nothing is unclean in itself, but it is unclean for anyone who thinks it unclean.”
Romans 14:14 (ESV)
“And he said to them, “You yourselves know how unlawful it is for a Jew to associate with or to visit anyone of another nation, but God has shown me that I should not call any person common or unclean.”
Acts 10:28 (ESV)
The Old Testament and Wisdom of Solomon use this word mostly as “common” in Greek. I did not have time to do an exhaustive search or study on the word, but the point is that the word connotes uncleanness because it is common or ordinary. The Pharisees believed that the Levitical purity laws applied to everyone (Lane 1974, 245-246). Their statement then is not that the Disciples were breaking the Torah, but that they were eating as a commoner would, what the Pharisees would call “a sinner” and breaking the oral law (the tradition of the elders) (Lane 1974, 245). Jesus saw this confrontation for what it was and responded by escalating the situation.
“And he said to them, “Well did Isaiah prophesy of you hypocrites, as it is written, “ ‘This people honors me with their lips, but their heart is far from me; in vain do they worship me, teaching as doctrines the commandments of men.’ You leave the commandment of God and hold to the tradition of men. And he said to them, “You have a fine way of rejecting the commandment of God in order to establish your tradition! For Moses said, ‘Honor your father and your mother’; and, ‘Whoever reviles father or mother must surely die.’ But you say, ‘If a man tells his father or his mother, “Whatever you would have gained from me is Corban” ’ (that is, given to God)— then you no longer permit him to do anything for his father or mother, thus making void the word of God by your tradition that you have handed down. And many such things you do.”
Mark 7:6–13 (ESV)
Rejecting the commandments for tradition
As James R. Edwards explains, Jesus is being sarcastic here, saying “You have a fine way of setting aside the commands of God in order to observe your own traditions” (Edwards 2002, 209). Jesus is using Isaiah 29:13 to point out that it has been their pursuit of the traditions of the elders, over and above the word of God, that has led them down this path. It has ended in their heart being far from God, because they prioritize the words of men over the words of God (Edwards 2002, 209). The end result is not worship that is appreciated by God, but vain worship. In this heart posture God says their hearts are far from Him. Even though they appear righteous and holy, they are unclean and wicked. They seem close to God, but they are far from Him.
Make void the commandments
Here Jesus changes from the tradition of the fathers to the tradition of the Pharisees (Guelich 1989, 368). It is the tradition of the Pharisees which Jesus finds in contrast to the words of Moses, which is Scripture. Jesus points out that they are nullifying the Torah, ironically an accusation that they seem to have made against Him (Matthew 5:17, see also the times Jesus healed on the Sabbath (Mark 1:21–31, 3:1–6, Luke 13:10–17, 14:1–6 , John 5:1-18, 9:1–16), and the Disciples eating of the grain fields and taking a trip on the Sabbath (Mark 2:23-28). The Pharisees, even in their strictness, have failed to uphold the Torah because they have placed such a heavy emphasis on the oral law.
Jesus does not stop here though, for He goes after the very heart of the matter; what really makes you unclean.
“And he called the people to him again and said to them, “Hear me, all of you, and understand: There is nothing outside a person that by going into him can defile him, but the things that come out of a person are what defile him.” And when he had entered the house and left the people, his disciples asked him about the parable. And he said to them, “Then are you also without understanding? Do you not see that whatever goes into a person from outside cannot defile him, since it enters not his heart but his stomach, and is expelled?” (Thus he declared all foods clean.) And he said, “What comes out of a person is what defiles him. For from within, out of the heart of man, come evil thoughts, sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery, coveting, wickedness, deceit, sensuality, envy, slander, pride, foolishness. All these evil things come from within, and they defile a person.”
Mark 7:14–23 (ESV)
Nothing outside can defile
This statement would have been utterly shocking to the Jews who were listening to Him speak. This would be much like a US congressman standing up at the capital to do a speech and saying “laws don’t really matter.” People standing around would be confused and wonder if they had heard the person correctly. So too, such a statement, that nothing on the outside can defile you would have been surprising and contrary to everything in their culture. R. T. France argues that the phrase cannot only be about “what goes in”, for clean and unclean was a very large topic (France 2002, 289-290). As He says,
“Far more prominent were the very detailed regulations of Lv. 11 specifying which animals could and could not be eaten by the people of God, spelled out in terms of ‘clean’ and ‘unclean’ foods, and the prohibition of eating blood first declared in Gn. 9:4 and developed in Lv. 17. It was such laws, firmly rooted in the Torah, that would more naturally come to a Jewish mind on hearing Jesus’ words.”
However, Robert H. Stein argues counter saying that this would not have been understood as referring to food, but would instead understood by defined by the clause “eating with unwashed hands” (Stein 2008, 344). He further states that,
“Mark 7:15 is not an isolated legal ruling uttered by Jesus. In the original context it was probably understood as meaning, “There is nothing outside a person that enters into him via defiled hands that defiles him.” The implication from this saying that the OT food regulations were being done away with by Jesus due to the arrival of the kingdom of God is far from self-evident. For Jesus’s hearers, it appeared that he was rejecting the Pharisaic traditions concerning defilement and saying, “A person is not so much defiled by what enters him from outside as by what comes from within” (Marcus 2000: 453).”
Either way, we must focus on the large point that Jesus is making; humanity cannot be cleansed by external elements because they are defiled within by sin. To focus on the external while the internal remains defiled will only lead to hypocrisy. William L. Lane argues on the side of Stein that Jesus statement wasn’t directly about food (Lane 1974, 254).
“Here, however, Jesus’ expression is general and enigmatic. It did not abrogate the Mosaic laws on purification or erase the distinctions between clean and unclean and declare them invalid. It rather attacked the delusion that sinful men can attain to true purity before God through the scrupulous observance of cultic purity which is powerless to cleanse the defilement of the heart. It is this latter emphasis which is stressed in the exposition to the disciples in verses 17–19a.”
Seeing this, we must look at the next statement. For it seems that Mark added a phrase to help clarify the point, “thus He declared all foods clean.”
He declared all foods clean
This seems to be a comment from Mark, not Jesus (Collins and Attridge 2007, 356; Strauss 2014, 304), about the result of Jesus’ statement. My statement does not fully treat the issue, and in my opinion the verse cannot be fully exegeted without reference to other verses which we cannot cover here. I feel that I would not do an adequate job covering this statement unless I also covered other verses (such as Acts 15, Galatians 2:11–17, Romans 14:14, and most importantly Matthew 5:17–20). Because of this I will not say more here, leaving the issue to be more fully worked later.
After this Jesus left the area and moved to a Gentile region, Tyre and Sidon.
“And from there he arose and went away to the region of Tyre and Sidon. And he entered a house and did not want anyone to know, yet he could not be hidden.”
Mark 7:24 (ESV)
Tyre and Sidon
These cities were both Gentile cities, spoken of often in the prophets. They were described by Josephus as the “bitterest enemies” of the Jews (Guelich 1989, 384). This will be important to remember as we progress into this story. While in this area a Gentile woman came to Jesus to ask for help.
“But immediately a woman whose little daughter had an unclean spirit heard of him and came and fell down at his feet. Now the woman was a Gentile, a Syrophoenician by birth. And she begged him to cast the demon out of her daughter.”
Mark 7:25–26 (ESV)
Greek Syrophoenician
This woman was a Greek Syrophoenician, a Gentile (Guelich 1989, 385) woman from southern Syria (Collins and Attridge 2007, 366). Thus, this woman was not a Jew, and probably not even a proselyte, she was a pagan. Yet her need brought her to the feet of Jesus where she came to ask for help for her daughter. Her gods could not heal the girl, so she had come to Jesus. Jesus, hearing this woman’s request, responded with perhaps the most puzzling responses of Jesus to anyone, He called her a dog!
“And he said to her, “Let the children be fed first, for it is not right to take the children’s bread and throw it to the dogs.”
Mark 7:27 (ESV)
Dogs
This statement has bothered me for a long time. I had known that Jews often referred to Gentiles as dogs. Yet His statement seemed so far from His character, that I thought I must be missing something. And I was right! There is a historical detail that helps explain the context of Jesus words and gives them a very clear meaning, as Joel Marcus explains,
“As Theissen (Gospels, 72–80) points out, there was bad blood between the Tyrians and the Galileans, partly because much of the agricultural produce of Jewish Galilee ended up in Gentile Tyre, the main urban area near Galilee, while the Jewish peasants often went hungry. When Jesus speaks, therefore, about the unfairness of taking bread out of the mouths of the (Jewish) children and giving it to the (Gentile) dogs, his statement may partly reflect the socioeconomic tension between the two communities.”
Wow! The food produced in Galilee was often taken to her region to feed them, while the Jewish children went hungry! This puts the entire story into perspective. Jesus is in essence saying,
“how often our food is taken from our children and given to you. While you are satisfied our children go hungry. Now you come here asking for the Bread from Heaven that has come to satisfy the hungry? Why should you be given such bread when you have taken so much.”
Yet the woman is not offended, she is humble. She does not respond with superiority, but with humility. Hearing Him call her a dog, she accepts it and begs for just the crumbs.
“But she answered him, “Yes, Lord; yet even the dogs under the table eat the children’s crumbs.” And he said to her, “For this statement you may go your way; the demon has left your daughter.” And she went home and found the child lying in bed and the demon gone.”
Mark 7:28–30 (ESV)
There is a very important point here that I had missed before; She considered the “crumbs” of the Bread of Life, Jesus, to be enough to heal her daughter! Jesus is powerful enough that even the crumbs of His power can cast out a demon. This is a great faith in Him (Guelich 1989, 388) and hearing this Jesus responds that because of her statement it will be done for her.
Summary
The Scribes and Pharisees teamed up to come and confront Jesus in order to shame Him. Seeing that His Disciples, and by implication He Himself, were eating with unwashed hands they confront Him. Why do you allow your Disciples to eat with unwashed hands? Jesus responds to their challenge and escalates, explaining that they placed the traditions of men at a higher level than God’s commandments. Because of this their hearts are not with God and their worship is vain. He then explains that it isn’t what goes into you that defiles you, but what is on the inside, sin. This shows that when sin is on the inside, no amount of clean eating or washing of the hands can make you clean. He leaves there and is approached by a Gentile woman who begs Him to cast a demon out of her daughter. Jesus responds by saying that it wasn’t proper to take the food from children and give it to the dogs. She hears this and replies that she is willing to accept even the crumbs. Jesus sees her faith and casts the demon out of her daughter.
Life Application
All too often in life it is easy to focus on the external, not because it is the right thing to do but because it is the easier thing to do. Which is easier, to not commit adultery or to not lust after another person. How about to eat clean or to remain clean of sin? Internal purity takes much more effort and the power of the Holy Spirit.
Not only this, but external purity can be seen and praised by men, whereas internal purity is often only seen by God. It is natural to want to look good to others, and we can find that we sometimes seek external purity, not because it is right, but because it is seen. An example of this would be fighting with your spouse on the drive to church, but then once at church pretending that all is well and you have no issues.
All this to say, we must seek first to be purified on the inside! Being clean, washing your hands, eating the right things, these are all good. But they should not be the focus of our life. Instead we should focus on spiritual and eternal purity; the cleansing from and removal of sin. We must not look to our own actions to cleanse us, but instead we must look to the power of God to cleanse us!
Questions to Consider
Do we focus more on external or internal purity?
Do we seek to be seen by people as good, or do we seek first to be seen by God as righteous.
Connections
Matthew 15:1–28
Outline
The Scribes and Pharisees confront Jesus because some of His Disciples eat with unwashed hands.
Jesus responds to their challenge that they leave the commandments of God for men’s traditions. Their hearts are not near to God and so their worship is vain.
Nothing outside can defile you, but sin is what defiles you.
Jesus casts a demon out of a Gentile.
References-
William L. Lane, The Gospel of Mark, The New International Commentary on the New Testament (Grand Rapids, MI: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1974), 245.
ibid, 245–246.
Robert H. Stein, Mark, Baker Exegetical Commentary on the New Testament (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2008), 339.
James R. Edwards, The Gospel according to Mark, The Pillar New Testament Commentary (Grand Rapids, MI; Leicester, England: Eerdmans; Apollos, 2002), 208.
“Why don’t your disciples. Gk Dia ti ou … hoi mathētai sou. It seems strange to some, such as Bultmann (18), that Jesus is questioned not about his own failure to wash his hands but about the disciples’ omission to do so, when he would presumably fail the same test of ritual hygiene. (If he was rigorous about handwashing, he probably would have imposed the same regimen on his disciples, or at least would not have defended them when their failure to wash was challenged.)”
Joel Marcus, Mark 1–8: A New Translation with Introduction and Commentary, vol. 27, Anchor Yale Bible (New Haven; London: Yale University Press, 2008), 443.
Mark L. Strauss, Mark, ed. Clinton E. Arnold, Zondervan Exegetical Commentary on the New Testament (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2014), 300.
“ⓑ specifically, of that which is ceremonially impure: Rv 21:27. χεῖρες (ceremon.) impure Mk 7:2, 5 (MSmith, Tannaitic Parall. to the Gosp. ’51, 31f); οὐδὲν κ. διʼ ἑαυτοῦ nothing is unclean of itself Ro 14:14a; cp. bc of this same vs. οὐδέποτε ἔφαγον πᾶν κ. καὶ ἀκάθαρτον I have never eaten anything common or unclean (1 Macc 1:62) Ac 10:14; cp. vs. 28; 11:8 (CHouse, Andrews University Seminary Studies 21, ’83, 143–53); GJs 6:1 (s. deStrycker). Hb 10:29, s. 2a.—Dg 5:7b (see κοίτη 1b).—B. 1365. DELG. M-M. EDNT. TW. Sv.”
William Arndt et al., A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament and Other Early Christian Literature (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2000), 552.
William L. Lane, The Gospel of Mark, The New International Commentary on the New Testament (Grand Rapids, MI: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1974), 245–246.
ibid, 245.
James R. Edwards, The Gospel according to Mark, The Pillar New Testament Commentary (Grand Rapids, MI; Leicester, England: Eerdmans; Apollos, 2002), 209.
Ibid
Robert A. Guelich, Mark 1–8:26, vol. 34A, Word Biblical Commentary (Dallas: Word, Incorporated, 1989), 368.
R. T. France, The Gospel of Mark: A Commentary on the Greek Text, New International Greek Testament Commentary (Grand Rapids, MI; Carlisle: W.B. Eerdmans; Paternoster Press, 2002), 289–290.
“From 7:18–19 it is clear that the “nothing” (οὐδέν, ouden; 7:15) that enters into a person refers to food. We should not see any unified meaning in the term “man” (ἄνθρωπος, anthrōpos) in 7:7, 8, 11, and 15 because the term is used very differently in the various statements (contra Marcus 2000: 454). The question has been raised as to why the church struggled so greatly over the issue of what one could or could not eat (Acts 10:14–15; 15:28–29; Rom. 14:14, 20; Gal. 2:11–14; Col. 2:20–22), if Jesus had indeed said 7:15. We must note, however, that the comment in 7:19c is a Markan interpretive comment explaining an implication of Jesus’s teaching in these verses. It is not a comment made by Jesus himself. Mark 7:15 is not an isolated legal ruling uttered by Jesus. In the original context it was probably understood as meaning, “There is nothing outside a person that enters into him via defiled hands that defiles him.” The implication from this saying that the OT food regulations were being done away with by Jesus due to the arrival of the kingdom of God is far from self-evident. For Jesus’s hearers, it appeared that he was rejecting the Pharisaic traditions concerning defilement and saying, “A person is not so much defiled by what enters him from outside as by what comes from within” (Marcus 2000: 453).”
Robert H. Stein, Mark, Baker Exegetical Commentary on the New Testament (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2008), 344.
William L. Lane, The Gospel of Mark, The New International Commentary on the New Testament (Grand Rapids, MI: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1974), 254.
Adela Yarbro Collins and Harold W. Attridge, Mark: A Commentary on the Gospel of Mark, Hermeneia—a Critical and Historical Commentary on the Bible (Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press, 2007), 356.
Mark L. Strauss, Mark, ed. Clinton E. Arnold, Zondervan Exegetical Commentary on the New Testament (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2014), 304.
Robert A. Guelich, Mark 1–8:26, vol. 34A, Word Biblical Commentary (Dallas: Word, Incorporated, 1989), 384.
ibid, 385.
Adela Yarbro Collins and Harold W. Attridge, Mark: A Commentary on the Gospel of Mark, Hermeneia—a Critical and Historical Commentary on the Bible (Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press, 2007), 366.
Joel Marcus, Mark 1–8: A New Translation with Introduction and Commentary, vol. 27, Anchor Yale Bible (New Haven; London: Yale University Press, 2008), 462.
Robert A. Guelich, Mark 1–8:26, vol. 34A, Word Biblical Commentary (Dallas: Word, Incorporated, 1989), 388.
