Chapter Seven

1–23. Concerning the clean and unclean. – 24–30. The Syrophoenician woman. – 31–37. Healing of a deaf man with a speech impediment.

Mark 7:1. Now when the Pharisees and some of the scribes who had come from Jerusalem gathered around Him, Mark 7:2. they noticed that some of His disciples were eating with defiled hands, that is, unwashed hands, they found fault with them. The discussion with the Pharisees and scribes concerning the observance of the traditions of the elders, the conversation with the crowd about the Pharisees, and the discussion with the disciples which Christ conducted are explained in the Gospel of Matthew (see comments to Matt 15:1-20). Yet the evangelist Mark makes some additions to what Matthew says. Similarly, there are changes in the order of the Lord’s sayings. Finally, one cannot fail to note that in the evangelist Mark the question of the clean and unclean is placed on broader ground than in Matthew: whereas Matthew ultimately reduces the discussion to the question of eating with unwashed hands, in the evangelist Mark the question of washing hands serves only as an illustration for explaining the fundamental question of the clean and unclean (cf. Matt 15:20 and Mark 7:23).

Mark 7:3. For the Pharisees, and all the Judeans, do not eat unless they thoroughly wash their hands, thus observing the tradition of the elders; Mark 7:4. and when they come from the marketplace, they do not eat unless they wash themselves. And there are also many other traditions that they observe: the washing of cups, pots, and bronze kettles and couches. The evangelist Mark, mindful of his readers – Christians from among the gentiles – gives a detailed account of the washing customs which the Judeans observed when eating. Having been to the marketplace and touching various kinds of items sold there, a Judean could have touched something defiled.

Mark 7:5. So the Pharisees and the scribes asked Him: Why do Your disciples not live according to the tradition of the elders, but eat with defiled hands? Mark 7:6. He said to them: Isaiah prophesied rightly about you hypocrites, as it is written, “These people honor Me with their lips, but their hearts are far from Me; Mark 7:7. in vain do they worship Me, teaching human precepts as doctrines. Mark 7:8. You abandon the commandment of God and hold to human tradition. Mark 7:9. And He said to them: You have a fine way of rejecting the commandment of God in order to keep your tradition! Mark 7:10. For Moses said: “Honor your father and your mother”; and, “Whoever speaks evil of father or mother must surely die. Mark 7:11. But you say: If anyone tells father or mother, “Anything of mine that you might have been helped by is Corban” (that is, an offering to God) – Mark 7:12. then you no longer permit doing anything for a father or mother, Mark 7:13. thus making void the word of God by your tradition that you have handed down. And you do many things like this. Mark 7:14. Then He called the crowd again and said to them: Listen to Me, all of you, and understand: Mark 7:15. there is nothing outside a person that by going in can defile, but the things that come out are what defile. Mark 7:16. If anyone has ears to hear, let him hear. Mark 7:17. When He had left the crowd and entered the house, His disciples asked Him about the parable. Mark 7:18. He said to them: Then do you also fail to understand? Do you not see that whatever goes into a person from outside cannot defile, Mark 7:19. since it enters, not the heart but the stomach, and goes out into the sewer, thus declaring all foods clean? Mark 7:20. And He said: It is what comes out of a person that defiles. Mark 7:21. For it is from within, from the human heart, that evil intentions come: fornication, theft, murder, Mark 7:22. thefts, covetousness, wickedness, deceit, licentiousness, an envious eye, blasphemy, pride, foolishness — Mark 7:23. All these evil things come from within, and they defile a person. “And goes out into the sewer, thus declaring all foods clean” (v. 19). The Russian translation leaves the thought unclear. It is better therefore to understand the final words “thus declaring...” as an appositive to the words of v. 18: “He said to them.” The evangelist wants to say that Christ spoke the words contained in vv. 18-19: “declaring (by implication, making) all foods clean for consumption,” that is, thereby removing the distinction in the value of foods (cf. Rom 14:14 and following). Directly, Christ spoke no word against the sacred to the Israelites ordinances of the Mosaic law, but it is clear that after His Ascension Christians could no longer in principle consider themselves bound to observe the Mosaic food laws, and the evangelist Mark cites the saying of Christ as the basis for the new, Christian, understanding of the significance of food.

Mark 7:24. From there He set out and went away to the region of Tyre and Sidon. He entered a house and did not want anyone to know He was there. Yet He could not escape notice, Mark 7:25. for a woman whose little daughter had an unclean spirit immediately heard about Him, and she came and fell down at His feet. Mark 7:26. Now the woman was a Gentile, of Syrophoenician origin. She begged Him to cast the demon out of her daughter. Mark 7:27. But Jesus said to her: Let the children be fed first, for it is not fair to take the children’s food and throw it to the dogs. Mark 7:28. But she answered Him: Yes, Lord; even the dogs under the table eat the children’s crumbs. Mark 7:29. Then He said to her: For saying this, you may go – the demon has left your daughter. Mark 7:30. She went home, found the child lying on the bed, and the demon had left her. Concerning the miracle of healing the daughter of the Syrophoenician woman, see Matt 15:21-28. The evangelist Mark adds that Christ, being in the region of a purely pagan country, did not wish to preach here and remained in the house of someone known to Him, a Judean (v. 24). The idea that Christ wished to hide here from the hatred of His enemies (Bp. Michael) is not expressed in this passage. The Syrophoenician woman the evangelist Mark more precisely defines as a pagan Greek woman, which denotes her religion, and at the same time as Syrophoenician, which indicates her nationality (v. 26). By adding “the daughter lay on the bed” (v. 30), the evangelist gives us to understand that the daughter of the Syrophoenician woman was fully recovered, and was no longer troubled by the demonic seizures during which she would leap from the bed to the floor.

Mark 7:31. Then Jesus returned from the region of Tyre, went down to the Sea of Galilee, in the region of the Decapolis. The evangelist Mark alone speaks of the healing of a deaf mute. The Lord leaves the region of Tyre and Sidon and goes, probably by a military road which ran through Lebanon, Leontes to Caesarea Philippi, and from there through Bethsaida Julias to the Sea of Galilee, where He remained for some time in the region of the Decapolis on the eastern shore.

Mark 7:32. They brought to Him a deaf man who had a speech impediment and begged Him to lay His hand on him. If the Gergesenes – also inhabitants of the Decapolis – begged Christ to depart from them (Mark 5:17), on the other hand, the inhabitants of this region themselves brought the deaf mute to Him and asked Him to heal him of his disease.

Mark 7:33. Jesus, taking him aside in private, away from the crowd, He put His fingers into his ears, and he spat and touched his tongue. The petitioners supposed that Christ would heal the sick man in the usual way by laying His hands on him. But the Lord used a different method of healing. Wishing to concentrate the attention of the sick man on Himself, to awaken in the sick man some faith in His power, He first separated him from the crowd, so to speak, brought him closer to Himself. Then He performed actions which were to make the sick man understand that Christ was in a sense a Physician. Thus He placed His fingers in the ears of the sick man, as though widening them; then He spat on His fingers, as physicians sometimes did in ancient times (Tacitus, “History,” IV, 81), and touched them to the tongue of the sick man, showing thereby to both his hearing and his speech His intention to heal the sick man.

Mark 7:34. and looking up to heaven, He sighed and said to him, “Ephphatha,” that is, “Be opened. Looking up to heaven and sighing, Christ thereby made it clear to the sick man that the healing of his condition required the help of God, dwelling in heaven. As though receiving an affirmative answer to His silent prayer to His Heavenly Father, Christ immediately commanded the hearing and the speech of the sick man to come into action.

Mark 7:35. Immediately his ears were opened, his tongue was released, and he spoke plainly. Christ’s command was immediately carried out. He began to speak (ἐλάλει – imperfect). This expression indicates that the action of healing proved not temporary but permanent: from that time on the sick man spoke clearly or correctly (ὀρθῶς).

Mark 7:36. And He commanded them not to tell anyone. But the more He forbade them, the more they proclaimed it. The Lord forbids them to speak about the miracle He had performed, so as not to give occasion to the inhabitants of the Decapolis to seek Him out constantly precisely as a wonder-worker. They should have believed in Him—of course, in time—as the Messiah, and understood His teaching, rather than seeking from Him only help in various afflictions and illnesses.

Mark 7:37. And they were exceedingly astonished, and were saying, “He has done all things well: He makes even the deaf to hear, and the mute to speak. “He does all things well.” The crowd of people apparently regarded Christ as such a wonder-worker who was capable of restoring to man the primitive bliss of paradise (Gen 1:31).