Mark 7:18

And he saith unto them, Are ye so without understanding also? Do ye not perceive, that whatsoever thing from without entereth into the man, it cannot defile him;

EXPOSITORY (ENGLISH BIBLE)

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

Cannot defile him - Cannot render his "soul" polluted; cannot make him a "sinner" so as to need this purifying as a "religious" observance.

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

Ver. 18-23. Christ checks his disciples for understanding things no better. Ignorance is more excusable in those who are strangers to God and Christ than in those that have relation to him. In our Saviour’s enumeration of those things which come out of the heart, several things are reckoned up which are the overt actions of the tongue, eye, hands; but our Saviour saith all these flow from the heart, for the actions of the outward man are but the imperate actions of the will, and things past the imaginations and understanding, before they come at the will, to be chosen or rejected. Here are but some sins reckoned instead of many, for it is true of all our evil actions, that they are first hatched in the heart, and are first entertained in our thoughts, in our understandings, then chosen by our wills, and then the bodily members are commanded by the soul to the execution of them. Mark reckoneth more than Matthew, but in both the enumerations are imperfect, and some sins are named instead of all. Nothing but sin defileth the man. Sin hath its first rise in the heart, and floweth from thence.

See Poole on "Matthew 15:18", and following verses to Matthew 15:20.

Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible

And he saith unto them,.... With some warmth of spirit and resentment, at their stupidity:

are ye so without understanding also? As well as others, and to such a degree; and "yet", as Matthew expresses it, Matthew 15:16, so wretchedly stupid, and so long, and as much, as others:

do ye not perceive? common sense will tell you,

that whatsoever thing from, without entereth into the man, it cannot defile him; See Gill on Matthew 15:16.

Geneva Study Bible

And he saith unto them, Are ye so without understanding also? Do ye not perceive, that whatsoever thing from without entereth into the man, it cannot defile him;

EXEGETICAL (ORIGINAL LANGUAGES)

Expositor's Greek Testament

Mark 7:18. Here, as in Mark 6:52, Mk. takes pains to make prominent the stupidity and consequent need of instruction of the Twelve.—οὕτω καὶ ὑ., etc.: are ye, too, so unintelligent as not to understand what I have said: that that which goeth into the man from without cannot defile?

Bengel's Gnomen

Mark 7:18. Ἔξωθεν, from without) This is added for the sake of explanation.

Pulpit Commentary

Verses 18, 19. - Our Lord had already, in his sermon on the mount, taught his disciples fully wherein purity or impurity of heart consists, and he might, therefore, with good reason, ask them how it was that they, even they who had been so favored by being constantly with him, had forgotten or misunderstood him. Our Lord's illustration is physically accurate. The portion carried off is that which by its removal purifies what remains. The part which is available for nourishment is, in its passage through the system, converted into chyle, the matter from which the blood is formed. What is not available for nourishment passes away into the ἀφεδρών, or draught, Purging all meats. The most approved reading here is undoubtedly the masculine (καθαρἰζων), and not the neuter (καθαρίζον). This change of reading compels a somewhat different construction. Accepting, therefore, the masculine as the true reading, the only possible rendering is that which makes this last clause a comment by the evangelist upon our Lord's previous words, in which he indicates to the reader that our Lord intended by this illustration to show that no food, of whatever kind, when received with thanksgiving, can make a man unclean. The clause must, therefore, be connected with the preceding words, by the introduction of the words, in italics, "This he said, making all meats clean." The passage, thus rendered, becomes a very significant exposition of what has gone before. It is well worthy of notice that this explanation is to be found in St. Chrysostom (Homily on St. Matthew 15.): Ὁ δὲ Μάρκος φησὶν ὅτι καθαρίζων τὰ βρώματα ταῦτα ἔλεγεν: "But Mark affirms that he said these things, making the meats clean." It may be added that this explanation agrees finely with the words in Acts 10:15, "What God hath cleansed, that call not thou common." Mark 7:18

Vincent's Word Studies

So

So unintelligent as not to understand what I uttered to the crowd.