Dispute Over Purity Issues (7:1–23)

The Pharisees and all the Jews do not eat unless they give their hands a ceremonial washing (7:3). The Pharisees protest publicly that Jesus’ disciples eat with defiled (lit., “common”) hands. “Common” is the opposite of “holy, devoted to God.” Mark explains further that “unclean hands” refer to “unwashed” hands (7:2) and inserts an explanation about Jewish ritual washings for Gentile readers unfamiliar with these customs (7:3–4). The disagreement over washing hands has nothing to do with hygiene but is a matter of purity, the fitness to offer sacrifice or to take part in a meal.

Purity

The Pharisees’ attention to purity derived from God’s command for Israel to be a holy people and from the many biblical directives about holiness.A-20 Purity is important because impurity drives God’s presence from the midst of the people and will result in their expulsion from the land (Lev. 18:24–30). Impurity belongs to the realm of death and demons and cuts a person off from God. It clings to a person and can be transferred to other persons, vessels, clothes, and houses by touching, lying, or sitting.A-21 Serious impurity occurring anywhere among the people pollutes the sanctuary where God dwells (15:31). Impurity is not a sin; it comes naturally in the course of life, but it prevents one from approaching what is holy. What the Pharisees considered sinful was choosing not to avail oneself of the opportunity to be cleansed of the impurity.

The Pharisees clarified purity rules that label persons, objects, and places as pure or polluted and susceptible to impurity. Something becomes “impure” or “dirty” when “it is the wrong thing appearing in the wrong place at the wrong time.”A-22 Interest in purity, therefore, stems from a universal human aversion to dirt, disease, and death and to the desire to keep everything in its proper place. Washing was the normal means of removing most impurity.

The Pharisees sought to promote obedience to God’s law among the people and took for granted that true obedience would conform to their particular interpretation of the law. With their purity maps charting what was clean or unclean, permissible or forbidden, the Pharisees strove to impose their vision of what God required on all Israel. Maintaining purity was a key item in their agenda, and they applied to everyone many purity laws meant only for priests serving in the temple. The legislation in Exodus 30:18–21 (see 40:12, 31), for example, required priests engaged in the tabernacle service to wash their hands. Nowhere does the Bible stipulate that others must wash their hands for ritual purity.

To understand the Pharisees’ concerns, we might apply a variation of the aphorism that a man’s home is his castle. The Pharisees believed that a man’s home is his temple, and he must apply the purity concerns that in the Scripture only pertained to priests.A-23 Holiness is not given to priests alone but to priests, Levites, and all Israel.A-24 Every Israelite must be prepared to come into God’s presence.

The Old Testament law does not require ordinary meals to be eaten in a state of purity.162 Only priests eating sacrificial offerings (Lev. 22:3–9) and laypersons eating their portion of their fellowship offerings (7:20–21) must eat in a state of purity. The Pharisees have broadened the law to include all Jews eating anything at any time.

The Bible also prescribes immersion to cleanse impurity, but the Pharisees innovated with their tradition to meet the needs of the urban Jew in a Hellenistic age. They reduced the biblical requirement of bathing the whole body and laundering clothes to the simple act of washing hands.163 By contrast, Josephus describes the Essenes as so scrupulous that they would not eat without first immersing their entire bodies in cold water.164

Holding to the tradition of the elders (7:3). “The tradition of the elders” was unscriptural law based on interpretations that tried to fill the gaps and silences in the regulations found in Scripture. Because they based their decisions on the logical analysis of the explicit and implicit data in Scripture, the Pharisees regarded them as rooted in Scripture and equal in authority.

The Purposes of the Tradition of the Elders

The development of “the tradition of the elders” (Mark 7:3) sought to achieve three goals. First, it made the basic requirement that Israel be holy to the Lord something attainable for every Jew in everyday life. The Pharisees never thought that they were voiding the commands of God—only making them applicable. Their tradition sought to provide clear-cut instructions on every aspect of daily life so that Jews could live in accord with God’s law.

Second, the tradition of the elders sought to forestall the dominant pagan culture from making inroads into Jewish life (see Lev. 20:1–7). The Letter of Aristeas exults in the law that “surrounds us with unbroken palisades and iron walls, to prevent our mixing with any of the other peoples in any matter being thus kept pure in body and soul, preserved from false beliefs, and worshiping the only God omnipotent over all creation” (139). The tradition of the elders helped raise the wall even higher. It encouraged the devout to make conscious efforts to set themselves apart from the unwashed hordes destined for destruction. Actions such as immersion and washing hands were tangible, positive gestures that displayed who God’s elect were and who would be vindicated at the end of the age. Purity laws were elevated “because they plainly distinguished Israel from non-Israel and defined Israel as physical and dependent on history and genealogy not on a universal, spiritual idea.”A-25

The outward signs of obedience in Jesus’ day, circumcision, keeping the Sabbath, observing food laws and washing hands, became the badges that marked out the elect as those who were “in.” The feelings about this issue could be strong. As one rabbi from a later period expressed it, “Whoever eats bread without previously washing the hands is as though he had intercourse with a harlot.”A-26 Another rabbi was placed under the ban for casting doubt on the tradition of the elders concerning the cleansing of hands.A-27

Third, the tradition of the elders assumes that God created order and that human affairs prosper only when things are divinely ordered—even when they may seem only to be minor issues. Eleazar’s speech to Antiochus Epiphanes explaining his refusal to eat anything unclean, even when he has been brutally tortured and threatened with death, movingly captures this conviction (4 Macc. 5:16–21):

We, O Antiochus, who have been persuaded to govern our lives by the divine law, think that there is no compulsion more powerful than our obedience to the law. Therefore we consider that we should not transgress it in any respect. Even if, as you suppose, our law were not truly divine and we had wrongly held it to be divine, not even so would it be right for us to invalidate our reputation for piety. Therefore do not suppose that it would be a petty sin if we were to eat defiling food; to transgress the law in matters either small or great is of equal seriousness, for in either case the law is equally despised.

The tradition tried to be as precise as possible—hence its reputation for hairsplitting. The rules preserved in the Mishnah about washing hands, for example, specified the quantity of water required, the position of the hands, and the type of vessel to be used. Hands were suspected of being generally unclean because they were fidgety and likely to touch something unclean,A-28 and the rabbis vigorously debated the degree of uncleanness that hands incurred.A-29 Such regulations may seem inconsequential to us, but they gave a mundane act holy significance and allowed individuals to show devotion to God in deliberate, tangible ways. They also led some to become so painstaking in their obedience to these rules that they neglected the weightier matters of the law (see Matt. 23:23–25). In the case Jesus presents, such fastidiousness overrides obedience to God’s law.

In the first century, washing hands had become a widespread custom and a sign of piety and fidelity to God. The Letter of Aristeas, describing the translation of the Pentateuch into Greek and written no later than the first century B.C., cites the practice: “Following the customs of all the Jews, they washed their hands in the sea in the course of their prayers to God, and then proceeded to the reading and explication of each point.”165 Later rabbinic tradition, which contains the legacy of Pharisaism, insisted that washing hands did have an explicit biblical basis. “When he washes his hands, he should say, ‘Blessed is He who has sanctified us with his commandments and commanded us concerning the washing of hands.’ ”166 The Pharisees and their spiritual heirs also asserted that God had delivered their tradition to Moses.167

When they come from the marketplace they do not eat unless they wash (7:4). Presumably, the elders fear some contamination from contact even with fellow Jews who are nonobservant. According to Josephus, the sectarians at Qumran were far more extreme and regarded it necessary to bathe even after touching a junior member as if he were an alien.168

They observe many other traditions, such as the washing of cups, pitchers and kettles (7:4). The concern for the purity of cooking pots and bowls is found in Zechariah 14:20–21:

On that day HOLY TO THE LORD will be inscribed on the bells of the horses, and the cooking pots in the LORD’s house will be like the sacred bowls in front of the altar. Every pot in Jerusalem and Judah will be holy to the LORD Almighty, and all who come to sacrifice will take some of the pots and cook in them.

This text has to do with the temple’s becoming a fit place to worship God in the coming new age. The Pharisees extended the concern to all vessels everywhere. One of the largest tractates in the Mishnah, Kelim (“Vessels”), has to do with vessels of all kinds and with their susceptibility to uncleanness.

“Why don’t your disciples live according to the tradition of the elders?” (7:5). In Jesus’ day, people viewed a teacher as entirely responsible for the conduct of his disciples.169 By publicly belittling Jesus’ disciples for blatantly failing to observe basic Jewish tradition, his challengers seek to make him lose face. Someone so popular threatens to reduce their sphere of influence when he disregards sacred boundaries carefully erected by their rules and calls into question their role as interpreters. Consequently, they seek ways to smudge his reputation before the crowds. Jesus will not answer insincere questions but instead regains command of the situation with a blistering counterattack.

Isaiah was right when he prophesied about you hypocrites (7:6). Hypocrisy is a perceived discrepancy between one’s alleged principles and one’s behavior. Because the Pharisees so insistently championed strict obedience to the law, they left themselves open to the charge. Hypocrisy can take two forms. A hypocrite may be a play actor who deliberately feigns piety to cloak an inner godlessness; this kind of hypocrite seeks to deceive others. A hypocrite may also be self-deceived; this form of hypocrisy is the more insidious because nothing is easier to prove to oneself than one’s own sincerity. Jesus’ response shows how those who accuse his disciples of transgressing the tradition of the elders sanction far worse transgressions of the law by means of their traditions.

Whatever help you might otherwise have received from me is “Corban” (that is, a gift devoted to God) (7:11). God commands children to honor their parents, and in Jewish tradition that entailed giving them physical necessities.170

Our rabbis taught: What is ‘reverence’ [for parents] and what is honor? Reverence [refers to one who] does not sit in his parent’s place and does not stand in his [parent’s] place, he does not contradict his [parent’s] opinions, and does not judge [his parent’s disputes]. ‘Honor’ [refers to one who] feeds [his father or mother] and gives him (or her) drink; he clothes him (or her) and covers him (or her), and helps him (or her) to enter and exit.171

REFLECTIONS

Christians should be mindful that they also have oral traditions that direct their behavior and dictate their beliefs. These are necessary for preserving the Christian heritage, drawing boundaries to set them apart from an unbelieving world, and mapping out how they can be expected to live. But these traditions can become snares that will trip up believers if they regard them as sacred and inviolable or apply them to repulse those whom God wishes to embrace. Christians, too, must guard against accentuating minutiae and making such things paramount while ignoring the weightier commands of God’s law.

Jesus gives an extreme example of a son who spitefully or selfishly vows that his property is an offering dedicated to the temple. “Corban” refers to something that is taboo as an offering to God. The property becomes “most sacred” even before it is brought to the temple and bars the one who makes the vow or others who are specified in the vow from gaining profit from it (based on the exegesis of Lev. 6:18; Deut. 26:14). In this case, the son prevents his parents from having any benefit from the property. The term “Corban” also applies to the dedicatory formula used in a vow to set aside property for God.172 As a legal device, it only expresses an intention to give property to God and is not the actual disposal of it. The person could keep the property in his possession but say to his parents that he cannot offer them any help because he has dedicated it to God.

The Pharisees regarded breaking this vow to use the property in any way to help the parents as a grave sin. One example from the Mishnah shows how intricate legal fictions developed around such vows:

If a man was forbidden by a vow to have any benefit from his fellow, and he had naught to eat, his fellow may give [the food] to another as a gift, and the first is permitted to use it. It once happened that a man at Beth Horon, whose father was forbidden by a vow to have any benefit from him, was giving his son in marriage, and he said to his fellow, “The courtyard and the banquet are given to thee as a gift, but they are thine only that my father may come and eat with us at the banquet.” His fellow said, “If they are mine, they are dedicated to Heaven.” The other answered, “I did not give thee what is mine that thou shouldst dedicate it to Heaven.” His fellow said, “Thou didst give me what is thine only that thou and thy father might eat and drink and be reconciled one with the other, and that the sin should rest on his head!” When the case came before the Sages, they said: Any gift which, if a man would dedicate it, is not accounted dedicated, is not a [valid] gift.173

In Jesus’ example, the command to honor parents (Ex. 20:12; Deut. 5:16) and the command to honor vows (Deut. 23:21–23) clash head-on. From his point of view, the command from the Decalogue to honor parents soars above the command to honor vows. The Pharisees’ tradition, however, turns the law on its head by insisting that the sanctity of the vow supersedes the parents’ right to support. Jesus assumes that such a vow is automatically invalid because it violates God’s command to honor parents.

Nothing outside a man can make him “unclean” by going into him. Rather, it is what comes out of a man that makes him “unclean” (7:15). Jesus not only disputes the legitimacy of the Pharisees’ tradition, he rejects the entire basis of Jewish food laws by proclaiming that contact with supposedly impure things or persons does not defile a person. He illustrates his point with an indelicate reminder of what happens to food when it is consumed. It passes through the digestive tract and winds up in the latrine. He concludes from that process that God only cares about defilement that touches the heart (7:21, 23). The heart is the core of motivation, deliberation, and intention. Food does not enter the heart, and what does not enter the heart cannot make a person unclean. How one handles food is therefore morally irrelevant. Nothing from outside pollutes a person.

Jesus reiterates for emphasis that what comes out of a man is what makes him “unclean” (7:20) and then lists vices that flow from the heart. These cannot be cleansed by a fistful of water in cupped hands. God requires that we scour our hearts. If the only thing that matters to God is what comes from a person’s heart, then this opens the door for the recognition that God will accept all persons who cleanse their hearts and exhibit faith. Clean/unclean laws establish boundaries, and the Pharisees set themselves up as the border guards. Jesus breaks down the boundaries and claims that true uncleanness has to do with moral impurity, not ritual impurity.

ANCIENT LATRINE

A Roman-era public facility at Beth Shean.

(In saying this, Jesus declared all foods “clean”) (7:19). The parenthesis in the NIV text interprets this statement as a narrator’s aside drawing the conclusion that Jesus declares all foods clean. The phrase, “In saying this, Jesus declared,” is not in the Greek text. Literally, it reads, “cleansing all foods.” The nominative participle, “cleansing” would modify the verb “he says” in 7:18.

A variant reading, however, has an accusative singular participle that would modify the noun “latrine” immediately preceding it. If this is the original reading, the statement affirms that the food has become clean in the process of elimination. This reading surprisingly fits the rabbinic laws of clean and unclean. According to the Mishnah, excrement is not ritually impure.174 Rabbi Jose is said to ask: “Is excrement impure? Is it not for purposes of cleanliness?”175 Even the excrement of a person suffering an unclean emission is not impure.176 By contrast, the much stricter Qumran sectarians, under the influence of Deuteronomy 23:12–14 and Ezekiel 4:12–15, considered it to be impure.177 This startling judgment may be the key to Jesus’ argument. Jesus may not declare all foods clean—although that is a legitimate inference—but with droll humor may be exposing the illogic of the Pharisee’s arguments. If food defiles a person, as the Pharisees claim, why do they not regard it as unclean when it winds up in the latrine? Defilement must come from some other source than food. The logic derives from the Pharisees’ own rules regarding clean and unclean and sets up his concluding words on the real source of defilement: what comes from the heart.

The Syrophoenican Woman (7:24–30)

Jesus left that place and went to the vicinity of Tyre (7:24). After the controversy of 7:1–23, Jesus withdraws and seeks to remain incognito. In the Old Testament, Tyre was a godless city, and Josephus identifies the people from Tyre “as our bitterest enemies.”178 People from Tyre and Sidon, however, have already flocked to Jesus, which explains how his fame has preceded him (3:8).

The woman was a Greek, born in Syrian Phoenicia (7:26). The Romans distinguished between Lybiophoenicians and Syrophoenicians; this note would seem to reflect a Roman orientation.179 She is a pagan who comes from a Greek-speaking, more affluent class.

GALILEE AND PHOENICIA

Tyre was located on the coast northwest of Galilee.

First let the children eat all they want (7:27). Israel identified itself as the children of God.180 A rabbinic tradition expands on Deuteronomy 14:1: “Beloved are Israel, for they were called children of God; still greater was the love in that it was made known to them that they were called children of God, as it is written: Ye are the children of the Lord your God.”181 Jesus’ response assumes that Israel has priority in the blessings of the gospel.

TYRE

Roman remains in the ancient city of Tyre.

For it is not right to take the children’s bread and toss it to their dogs (7:27). For Israel, “dogs” evoked an image of repulsive scavengers; they will eat anything and never seem satisfied. The word became a term of ultimate scorn and was applied to Gentiles, all of whom were considered to be inherently unclean: “He that separates from the foreskin [Gentile] is as one who separates himself from a grave.”182 Another rabbinic tradition explains that “as the sacred food was intended for men, but not for the dogs, the Torah was intended to be given to the Chosen People, but not to the Gentiles.”183 Asenath, after her conversion, took her royal dinner of food that had been sacrificed to idols and threw it out the window, saying, “By no means must my dogs eat from my dinner and from the sacrifice of the idols, but let the strange dogs eat those.”184

Does Jesus share this Jewish prejudice against Gentiles? There is no indication in the text that Jesus is struggling with the scope of his mission, and this woman helps him to clarify it by opening his eyes to a wider mandate. He has already received people from Tyre and Sidon (3:8).

Jesus may be reacting to a member of the oppressive upper class.185 Economically, Tyre took bread away from Galilee. This region was well stocked with food produced in the Galilean hinterland while Galileans went hungry (see Acts 12:20).186 Galileans perceived Tyre as a bloated bully and had long despised it for amassing wealth at the expense of the poor.187 The probing of this woman’s faith occurs in the historical context of the animosity between Jews and heathens and Galilean resentment over Tyre’s socioeconomic domination.

But even the dogs under the table eat the children’s crumbs (7:28). This clever woman understands that he is talking about the priority of Israel over Gentiles and that the time for Gentiles has not yet come. But her desperation and faith keep her from taking no for an answer. She comes like a dog begging for a scrap and displays extraordinary faith. She will not be put off by his initial rejection and pleads for help, knowing that she has no merit and nothing to commend her.

A Deaf Tongue-tied Man Regains His Hearing (7:31–37)

Then Jesus left the vicinity of Tyre and went through Sidon, down to the Sea of Galilee and into the region of the Decapolis (7:31). Returning from the district of Tyre by way of Sidon to the Sea of Galilee through the district of the Decapolis is a circuitous route. Sidon is twenty-five miles north of Tyre. This indirect route may hint that Jesus was evading the long arm of Herod Antipas. Mark places Jesus in a culturally pagan region.

After he took him aside, away from the crowd, Jesus put his fingers into the man’s ears. Then he spit and touched the man’s tongue (7:33). Healing in the ancient world was a hands-on activity. Healers were expected to do some purposeful action to restore health. Such physical gestures would be particularly important for one who could not hear the spoken words of healing. Putting his fingers in the man’s ears was symbolic of opening them and spitting and touching his tongue was symbolic of loosening his tongue. Saliva was also believed to have healing properties.

He looked up to heaven and with a deep sigh said to him, “Ephphatha!” (which means, “Be opened!”) (7:34). Jesus’ healing words in Aramaic are translated to make clear that he is not using some magical incantation. A parallel story about the newly enthroned emperor Vespasian is instructive:

Vespasian as yet lacked prestige and a certain divinity, so to speak, since he was an unexpected and still new-made emperor; but these were also given to him. A man of the people who was blind, and another who was lame, came to him together as he sat on his tribunal, begging for the help for their disorders which Serapis had promised in a dream; for the god declared that Vespasian would restore the eyes, if he would spit upon them, and give strength to the leg, if he would deign to touch it with his heel.

Though he had hardly any faith that this could possibly succeed, and therefore shrank even from making the attempt, he was at last prevailed upon by his friends and tried both things in public before a large crowd; and with success.188

The story reflects the belief that the saliva of a revered person has healing power. In contrast with Vespasian, Jesus does not perform miracles with any hesitancy about his ability or to win prestige.