Healing of a Paralytic (2:1–12)

They made an opening in the roof above Jesus (2:4). Houses in Capernaum did not have large windows. Walls were built without true foundations and were made of rough basalt without mortar. The courses were leveled with small pebbles and soil. Such buildings could support little more than a thatch roof. The sloping flat roof consisted of wooden cross beams (usually made from trees, Isa. 9:10) overlaid with a matting of reeds, palm branches, and dried mud (see Ps. 129:6). The roof could be reached from open courtyards by a flight of stone steps or by a ladder. One could then dig into the earthen roof without causing irreparable damage. This explains why the men could dig through the roof without evoking howls of protest from the owner. The roof had to be replenished and rolled every fall before the onset of the winter rains.

WATTLE AND MUD ROOF

Reconstruction of the roof of a typical rural home.

The mat the paralyzed man was lying on (2:4). Mark uses a colloquial word for a poor man’s mat (see John 5:8). The pallet was probably a “cheap mattress, like a bag filled with straw.”53 When the bystanders glorify God in response to this miracle, it confirms that Jesus is not guilty of blasphemy.

GALILEE

Capernaum was located on the north shore of the Sea of Galilee.

Son, your sins are forgiven (2:5). Readers might find it surprising that Jesus first announces that the man’s sins are forgiven rather than healing him. The men bring him to Jesus for healing, not absolution. Moderns tend to dissociate sin and our relationship to God from our physical well-being. In Jesus’ world, people took for granted a connection between sickness and sins (see John 5:14; 9:2). Healing appears in conjunction with forgiveness in 2 Chronicles 7:14 and Psalm 103:3. Most assumed that reconciliation with God must occur before healing could come. In the Prayer of Nabonidus, found at Qumran, the king of Babylon says, “I was smitten [by a malignant inflammation] for seven years, and banished far [from men, until I prayed to the God Most High] and an exorcist forgave my sins. He was a Je[w] from [the exiles].”54 In the Talmud, we find a tradition that “a sick man does not recover from his sickness until all his sins are forgiven him, as it is written, ‘Who forgiveth all thine iniquities, who healeth all thy diseases” (Ps. 103:3).’ ”55 In another place, the rabbis appealed to Psalm 103:3–4 to explain why the prayer for forgiveness precedes the prayer for healing: “Redemption and healing come after forgiveness.”56

A Jewish audience would surmise that the paralysis was a consequence of some sin.57 To forgive the sin removes the consequences of the sin—the paralysis. The man’s healing is therefore the result of the forgiveness of sins. The miracle shows that the coming of God’s reign brings both forgiveness and healing.58

He’s blaspheming! Who can forgive sins but God alone? (2:7). Jesus assumes the authority to remit sins as if he were God, even though he uses the divine passive, “Your sins are forgiven.”59 The teachers of the law conclude that Jesus blasphemously usurps God’s prerogatives and affronts God’s majesty, since only a priest could legitimately pronounce the forgiveness of sins on the basis of repentance, restitution, and sacrifice (Lev. 4; 5; 16; 17:11). Their hostile response unveils three things: (1) They admit that Jesus does something that they are unable to do—forgive sins. Their judgment confirms the crowd’s earlier acclamation that Jesus teaches with new authority. (2) Blasphemy is a serious charge that emerges again during Jesus’ trial (Mark 14:64). The text from Leviticus 24:16, that whoever “blasphemes the Name … must be put to death,” cannot be far from their minds. The rejection of Jesus’ authority to announce the forgiveness of sins will ultimately lead to his suffering and death for the forgiveness of sins. (3) Jesus knows hidden thoughts even as God does.60 In Joseph and Asenath 23:8 and 26:6, prophets are said to perceive all things in their spirits (see Luke 7:39).

Which is easier: to say to the paralytic, “Your sins are forgiven,” or to say, “Get up, and take your mat and walk?” (2:9). The alarm of these teachers of the law is legitimate, and Jesus takes it seriously. At this stage of his ministry, Jesus is willing to give doubting teachers proof. He parries their indictment with a riddle that confirms his claim to divine authority. Moses offered a criterion to verify whether someone is a true or a false prophet who presumes to utter in God’s name what the Lord has not uttered: “If what a prophet proclaims in the name of the LORD does not take place or come true, that is a message the LORD has not spoken. That prophet has spoken presumptuously. Do not be afraid of him” (Deut. 18:22).

Jesus’ statement does not mean that one thing is easier than the other but that the two are interconnected. If the paralytic leaves on his own power, it will reveal that his sins have been forgiven, resulting in his complete healing.

The Call of Levi the Tax Collector and Eating with Sinners (2:13–17)

He saw Levi son of Alphaeus sitting at the tax collector’s booth (2:14). Since Levi is stationed in Galilee, he is most likely in the employ of Herod Antipas, a client king of Rome. The custom house is located near the border with Gaulanitus, under Herod Philip’s rule, to collect tolls, tariffs, imposts, and customs on those goods entering and leaving the district or being transported through it. Levi also may have collected taxes from the fishing industry.

Toll collectors were renowned for dishonesty and extortion. Most pious Jews disdained them as desiring money more than honor or righteousness. They had sold out to a hostile culture. This would be particularly true for someone named Levi, assuming it was a typical name for Levites. In the Testament of Levi 13:1–2, Levi commands that his descendants learn to read and write so that they may read and understand the law. Levi’s literacy may have opened up a quite different career path as an agent of an impious tetrarch.

Ironically, the rabbis sanctioned lying to a tax collector—except if one uses an oath, according to the School of Shammai, and even if one uses an oath, according to the School of Hillel.61 Toll collectors were also detested throughout the Greco-Roman world. Plutarch wrote, “We are annoyed and displeased with customs-officials, not when they pick up those articles which we are importing openly, but when in the search for concealed goods they pry into baggage and merchandise which are another’s property. And yet the law allows them to do this and they would lose by not doing so.”62 We should note, however, that Josephus cites John, the tax collector of Caesarea, as one of the leading Jews in the city, who took great risks in defending the sanctity of a synagogue.63

SILVER COIN

This coin depicts Tiberius, the Roman emperor during the ministry of Jesus (A.D. 14–37).

Many tax collectors and “sinners” were eating with him and his disciples (2:15). A celebratory meal was customary after conversion.64

One normally ate with one’s relatives or with equals who would reciprocate. Jesus ate with toll collectors and sinners, that is, notorious sinners who had no intention of trying to conform to the demands of the law and became religious outcasts. By doing so, he made concrete God’s offer of acceptance and forgiveness. Meals characterize Jesus’ ministry and have a distinctive character. (1) They are spontaneous affairs not tied to the cycle of holy times (e.g., Passover), nor are they an expression of a strictly regimented communal pattern (e.g., Qumran). (2) They represent the joyous celebration of God’s saving reign bursting into the lives of people. (3) By being open to all, Jesus shows no fear that he will be tainted by the impurity or iniquity of sinners. On the contrary, he will infect them with the grace of God.

Sharing a table with others was a sign of friendship and goodwill. In not being choosy about his eating companions, Jesus ignores purity boundaries and provokes the Pharisees’ ire.65 He torpedoes the whole system of ranking and classifying people where the devout are to be extolled and sinners shunned. Jesus accepts into his fellowship social outcasts and sinners forgiven by grace.

When the teachers of the law who were Pharisees saw him eating (2:16). “The teachers of the law who were Pharisees” reads literally “the scribes of the Pharisees.” As laymen, most Pharisees were not learned scholars. The “scribes of the Pharisees” were those in the movement who had more formal study and had become expert guides in the law. These teachers laid out clear guidelines and boundaries for what was acceptable and unacceptable to God in all spheres of life.

Feasting was usually in the open, and people were attracted by the noise of conversation and the smell of food. The pious Pharisees, who so exalted the sacredness of meals, fume over Jesus’ public behavior. He violates instructions laid down throughout Scripture not to associate with evildoers.66 A later rabbinic tradition attributes to the wise this extreme saying, “Let not a man associate with sinners even to bring them near to the Torah.”67

It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick (2:17). The proverbial wisdom about physicians can be found in Hellenistic circles, where it notes the duty and habit of physicians to be with the diseased. Jesus uses the proverb to emphasize “the need of the sick to have a physician.”68 Jesus embodies God’s mercy and purpose to take away the diseases, infirmities, and sins of the people.

The Question of Fasting (2:18–22)

How is it that John’s disciples and the disciples of the Pharisees are fasting, but yours are not? (2:18). The Day of Atonement was the only time when God’s law prescribed that the people were to deny themselves food.69 The more ascetic disciples of John and the conscientious Pharisees fasted more often (see Luke 18:12). Observers, noting that Jesus’ disciples do not fast, ask why.

Fasting was associated with three things: (1) sorrow for a deceased person; (2) penitential mourning to mollify the wrath of God and to avert calamity; and (3) petition to God.70 According to the Psalms of Solomon 3:6–8, the righteous one avoids repeated sins, “searches his house to remove unintentional sins,” and “atones for (sins of) ignorance by fasting and humbling his soul, and the Lord will cleanse every devout person and his house.” Fasting could also be related to a fear of demons, who were thought to gain power over someone through eating.

How can the guests of the bridegroom fast while he is with them (2:19). Jesus explains his unwillingness to fast with a wedding analogy. Weddings were marked by music, laughter, feasting, and merrymaking. Anyone fasting at a wedding called attention to oneself and would be a grievous affront to the host. Jesus’ rejection of fasting here is related to the joy, celebration, and hope that the presence of God’s kingdom should excite. The Old Testament uses the image of the bridegroom for God, but clearly the image applies here to Jesus, who will be taken from them—the first allusion to his death in this Gospel.71

A patch … wineskins (2:21–22). The images of patching cloth and wineskins draw on everyday wisdom. The new stronger fabric of a patch will tear away from the old, weaker fabric when the garment is washed. Old wineskins already stretched to their limits will burst their seams when the new wine continues to ferment and emit gas. Combining new with old will result in torn garments, spilled wine, and ruined wineskins. The point is that the old—the old forms of Judaism—is incompatible with the new, not because the old is outmoded, but because the new packs such power that the old cannot contain it.

WINE SKIN

A goat skin on display at Qatrin in Golan.

Plucking Grain on the Sabbath (2:23–28)

They began to pick some heads of grain (2:23). Fields were not fenced but marked out by stones, so that taking shortcuts through planted fields was not unusual. The disciples may have followed a path already struck by others and plucked grain as they went, rubbing it together before eating. Deuteronomy 23:25 permits gathering grain in another’s field, but the Pharisees accuse the disciples of violating the Sabbath by harvesting, that is, extracting the edible content from something that had not previously been set aside for Sabbath consumption.72 The disciples may also have violated the prohibition of moving beyond fixed boundaries on the Sabbath (see Ex. 16:29).

The Pharisees’ accusation derives from their interpretation of the law. They would prefer that the disciples fast rather than eat, but one was also not supposed to fast on the Sabbath.73

WHEAT

A wheat field.

A close-up of grains of wheat.

In the days of Abiathar the high priest (2:26). Abiathar was Ahimilech’s son, who had escaped the massacre by Doeg the Edomite. According to 1 Samuel 21:1–6, Ahimilech, not Abiathar, was the one who gave the bread of the Presence to David. Abiathar, however, was the high priest particularly associated with David, and this reference may be an example of eponymous dating for this period—during the Abiathar era (compare Luke 3:2).

The consecrated bread, which is lawful only for priests to eat (2:26). The loaves of presentation (Lev. 24:7–9) are set out before the Lord as an offering but belong to Aaron and his sons, who are to eat them in a holy place. The illustration from David is pertinent because he was not just any hungry man but God’s anointed. His personal authority and the urgency of the situation made his violation of the law excusable. Jesus’ argument assumes that if the regulations regarding the bread of the Presence could be set aside for David when he lied that the king had charged him with a mission (1 Sam. 21:2), how much more can holy regulations be set aside for one whom Mark has identified as the Messiah, the Son of God? His mission to proclaim the kingdom of God is not a falsehood and carries with it far greater urgency.

The Sabbath was made for man (2:27). Scholars have argued that rabbis would judge an appeal to 1 Samuel 21 to be invalid for establishing a legal precept regarding Sabbath observance. Historical passages could only be used to illustrate or corroborate a legal argument. This criticism, however, may help us see more clearly Jesus’ purposes. He is not interested in convincing the hair-splitting legal experts but converting the more common-sense oriented masses. He also does not want to set up more rules to decide what can or cannot be done on the Sabbath but wants to penetrate through the rules to unfold God’s will for the Sabbath. God did not create the Sabbath for humans to obey but for human well-being. One can never interpret the law correctly unless one refers back to God’s intention behind the law. God intended the Sabbath as a gracious gift to release human beings from the necessity of endless toil. Jesus emphasizes that David “had need” and “was hungry” and that human need has priority over regulations. The incident reveals that something new has broken in, and Jesus rules over the rules. Disciples need not concern themselves about appearing to be irreligious when they are carrying out the greater task of doing God’s will. There will be plenty of other Sabbaths to keep holy.