Mark 7:17

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

EXPOSITORY (ENGLISH BIBLE)

Benson Commentary

Mark 7:17-23. When he was entered into the house — And was apart from the people; his disciples asked him — Namely, Peter, in the name of the rest, (Matthew 15:15,) concerning the parable — So they term the declaration which our Lord had just uttered, because it appeared to them to be mysterious and needing explanation, which, that it should, seems very strange. And he saith, Are ye so without understanding — So dull of apprehension, so ignorant of the nature of true holiness? see note on Matthew 15:15-20, where most of the particulars contained in this paragraph are explained. From within proceed evil thoughts, &c. — The things here mentioned as coming from the heart, and defiling the man, are all either sins committed against the second table of the law, as they are reckoned up by St. Paul, Romans 13:9; or the dispositions which incline men to them. Covetousness — Gr. πλεονεξιαι, covetousness, or irregular and inordinate desires; wickedness, Πονηριαι, ill-nature, cruelty, inhumanity, and all malevolent affections; an evil eye — An envious, grudging disposition; pride — υπερηφανια, that pride which makes us contemn and overlook others, as unworthy of our regard, and highly to resent the least affront, or seeming injury; foolishness — αφροσυνη, foolish, ungovernable passion; the word stands directly opposed to σωφροσυνη, or sobriety of thought and discourse; and therefore particularly signifies all kinds of wild imaginations and extravagant passions. “It is remarkable, that three of the crimes here mentioned, as pollutions of the mind, namely, murder, false witness, and blasphemy, were, on this very occasion, committed by the persons who charged our Lord with impiety because he neglected such ceremonial precepts of religion as were of human invention. For, while they reigned the highest reverence for the divine law, they were making void its most essential precepts. At the very time that they condemned the disciples for so small an offence as eating with unwashed hands, contrary only to the traditions of the elders, the scribes and Pharisees were murdering Jesus by their calumnies and false witnessings, notwithstanding it was the only study of his life to do them all the good possible!” All these evil things come from within — The Lord Jesus “represents these evil things as proceeding out of the mouth, (Matthew 15:18,) not so much by way of contrast to meats, which enter by the mouth into a man, as because some of them are committed with the faculty of speech, such as false witness and blasphemy; and others of them are helped forward by its assistance, namely, adultery, deceit, &c. — Thus our Lord defended his disciples by a beautiful chain of reasoning, wherein he has shown the true nature of actions, and loaded with perpetual infamy the Jewish teachers and their brood, who in every age and country may be known by features exactly resembling their parents, the main strokes of which are, that by their frivolous superstitions they weaken, and sometimes destroy, the eternal and immutable rules of righteousness.” — Macknight.

Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary

7:14-23 Our wicked thoughts and affections, words and actions, defile us, and these only. As a corrupt fountain sends forth corrupt streams, so does a corrupt heart send forth corrupt reasonings, corrupt appetites and passions, and all the wicked words and actions that come from them. A spiritual understanding of the law of God, and a sense of the evil of sin, will cause a man to seek for the grace of the Holy Spirit, to keep down the evil thoughts and affections that work within.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

The parable - The "obscure" and difficult remarks which he had made in Mark 7:15. The word "parable," here, means "obscure" and "difficult saying." They could not understand it. They had probably imbibed many of the popular notions of the Pharisees, and they could not understand why a man was not defiled by external things. It was, moreover, a doctrine of the law that men were ceremonially polluted by contact with dead bodies, etc., and they could not understand how it could be otherwise.

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary

CHAPTER 7

Mr 7:1-23. Discourse on Ceremonial Pollution. ( = Mt 15:1-20).

See on [1450]Mt 15:1-20.

Matthew Poole's Commentary

That is, concerning this saying of his, which appeared to them dark, for a parable sometimes in Scripture signifieth no more, Psalm 49:4; yet one would think that our Saviour’s saying was plain enough. But custom is a great tyrant. The prejudice they had received from their superstitious teachers blinded them, and locked up their souls from receiving true and spiritual instructions. We see the same thing every day. What a heinous thing do the blind papists think it is to eat flesh in Lent, or on one of their fish days! Never considering by what law of God any men are restrained in such things. Our Saviour in the next words checks their blindness (see Mark 7:18-23).

Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible

And when he was entered into the house,.... Very probably at Capernaum, and it may be the house of Simon and Andrew, where he used to be when there:

from the people; being separated from them, having dismissed and left them, when he and his disciples were by themselves alone:

his disciples asked him concerning the parable; that saying of his to the people, which was somewhat dark and intricate to them; that nothing without a man going into him defiled him, but what comes out of him: this was asked by Peter, in the name of the rest; See Gill on Matthew 15:15.

Geneva Study Bible

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

EXEGETICAL (ORIGINAL LANGUAGES)

Meyer's NT Commentary

Mark 7:17-23. See on Matthew 15:12-20; the conversation, which is recorded in this latter Mark 7:12-14, is by him inserted from the Logia here as in an appropriate place.

εἰς οἶκον] peculiar to Mark in this place: into a house. Jesus is still in the land of Gennesareth (Mark 6:53), where He is wandering about.

ἐπηρώτων κ.τ.λ.] According to Matthew 15:15, Peter was the spokesman, the non-mention of whose name in the passage before us is alleged by Hilgenfeld to betoken the Petrinism of Mark, who prefers to divert the reproach upon all the disciples in general; but it in truth betokens the older representation of the scene.

Mark 7:18. οὕτω] siccine, accordingly, since you must ask this question. Comp. on 1 Corinthians 6:5.

καὶ ὑμεῖς] like persons, who have not the benefit of my guidance (οἱ ἔξω, Mark 4:11).

Mark 7:19.[106] οὐκ εἰσπορ. αὐτοῦ τ. καρδ.] it enters not into his heart.

The word ἀφεδρών does not occur among the Greeks, but ἌΦΟΔΟς.

The reading ΚΑΘΑΡΊΖΟΝ (see the critical remarks) would have to be explained: which (i.e. which ἐκπορεύεσθαι εἰς τὸν ἀφεδρῶνα) makes pure the whole of the food (that is eaten), inasmuch, namely, as thereby every impurity passes away from it (by means of the excrements). Thus καθαρίζον would be an appositional addition, which contains the judgment upon the ΕἸς ΤῸΝ ἈΦΕΔΡῶΝΑ ἘΚΠΟΡΕΎΕΤΑΙ. See Kühner, II. p. 146; Winer, p. 549 [E. T. 778]; Fritzsche in loc. But the latter arbitrarily changes καθαρίζον into the meaning: “puros esse declarat,” in so far, namely, as all food, clean and unclean, would come digested into the ἀφεδρών. With the reading ΚΑΘΑΡΊΖΩΝ we must explain: which (the draught) makes pure the whole of the food, inasmuch as it is the place destined for the purpose of receiving the impurities therefrom (the excretions). Thus καθαρίζων refers to ΤῸΝ ἈΦΕΔΡῶΝΑ, and is put not in the accusative, but in the nominative, as though ΚΑῚ Ὁ ἈΦΕΔΡῺΝ ΔΈΧΕΤΑΙ or something similar had been said previously, so that the ἈΦΕΔΡΏΝ appears as the logical subject. Comp. the similar application of the anacoluthic nominative participle among the Greeks (Richter, de anacol. I. p. 7; Bernhardy, p. 53; Krüger, § 56. 9. 4), according to which it is not necessary, as with Buttmann, neut. Gr. p. 68 [E. T. 78], to assume the abbreviation of a relative clause. Comp. also Stallb. ad Plat. Phaed. p. 81 A. Moreover, the connection of the course of the matter presented from ὅτι onward requires that ΚΑῚ ΕἸς Τ. ἈΦΕΔΡῶΝΑ ἘΚΠΟΡ. should still be dependent on ὍΤΙ (in opposition to Fritzsche).

Mark 7:21 f. ΔΙΑΛΟΓΙΣΜΟῚ ΟἹ ΚΑΚΟΊ] is specialized by all that follows, which therefore is to be taken as the thoughts actually presenting themselves, as the prava consilia realized.

The following catalogue betrays later enrichment when compared with that of Matthew, and there is not manifest any principium dividendi beyond the fact that (with the exception of ἀσέλγεια, excess, especially unchaste excess; see on Romans 13:13; Galatians 5:19) matters approximately homogeneous are placed together.

πονηρίαι] malignities, ill-wills, Romans 1:29; Ephesians 4:31; Colossians 3:8.

ὀφθαλμὸς πονηρ.] an envious eye, as at Matthew 20:15.

ἈΦΡΟΣΎΝΗ] unreason, morally irrational conduct, Wis 12:23. Foolishness of moral practice. Comp. on Ephesians 5:17; Beck, Seelenl. p. 63 (its opposite is σωφροσύνη), not merely in loquendo, to which, moreover, ὑπερηφανία (arrogance) is arbitrarily limited (in opposition to Luther’s gloss; Fritzsche also, and de Wette, and many others).

Mark 7:23. As of all good, so also of all evil, the heart is the inmost lifeseat. See Delitzsch, Psych, p. 250.

[106] The contents of ver. 19, very appropriate as they are for popular argument in the way of naive sensuous representation, are unfairly criticised by Baur, krit. Unters. p. 554, and Markusev. p. 55, as awkward and unsuitable; and in this view Köstlin, p. 326, agrees with him.

Expositor's Greek Testament

Mark 7:17-23. Conversation with the disciples.—εἰς οἶκον ἀπὸ τοῦ ὄχλου = alone, apart from the crowd, at home, wherever the home, Proverbs tem., might be. Whatever was said or done in public became habitually a subject of conversation between Jesus and the Twelve, and therefore of course this remarkable saying.

Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

17. his disciples] From St Matthew we learn that the questioner was St Peter (Matthew 15:15). As in the walking on the water, so here, he modestly suppresses himself in the Gospel which was written under his eye.

the parable] They regarded the words uttered in the hearing of the mixed multitude, and which deeply offended the Pharisees (Matthew 15:12), as a parable, or “dark saying.” See note above, Mark 4:2.

Pulpit Commentary

Verse 17. - Our Lord, having proclaimed this great principle to the multitude in the presence of their teachers, the scribes and Pharisees, returned into the house (the true reading is here εἰς οϊκον, without the article). It means, of course, the house where he was lodging. And then his disciples asked of him the parable. St. Matthew (Matthew 15:15) says that the question was put to him by St. Peter speaking in the name of the other disciples - another instance of the reserve main-rained in this Gospel with reference to this apostle. Mark 7:17

Vincent's Word Studies

The disciples

Matthew says Peter. There is no discrepancy. Peter spoke for the band.