What defiles a person: tradition, the heart and the crumbs under the table

Mark is an anonymous Gospel. Early tradition, from Papias as reported by Eusebius, says that Mark, the interpreter of Peter, wrote it. Most scholars date it to the 60s AD and think it was written first of the four, though some hold that Matthew came first. It was probably written for Gentile Christians, by tradition at Rome. The evidence is in this chapter. Mark stops in 7:3-4 to explain Jewish washing customs that a Jewish reader would not need, and he translates the Aramaic word ephphatha (7:34). Mark's purpose is to present Jesus as the Son of God whose authority reaches Jew and Gentile alike.

Chapter 7 is set in Galilee, about AD 29, after the feeding of the five thousand and the walking on the sea. The Pharisees were a lay movement committed to keeping the law of Moses with great care, and many of them had extended the purity rules that applied to priests in the temple to the everyday life of ordinary people. These extra rules were called the tradition of the elders. Jewish teachers later collected such traditions in the Mishnah, around AD 200, so the material in Mark comes from an earlier, spoken stage. Mark's phrase 'all the Jews' (7:3) is a generalisation, since not every Jew washed in this way. Jesus' argument is within Judaism and follows the pattern of the prophets, who criticised those who honoured God with the lips but not the heart.

The second half of the chapter leaves Galilee. Jesus goes north to the region of Tyre, a Gentile area, and then through Sidon to the Decapolis, east of the lake. Matthew (15:1-39) has most of the same material but omits the healing of the deaf man and Mark's comment about foods. Luke leaves out the whole section from Mark 6:45 to 8:26. The dispute over foods matters because the early church later argued about the same question (Acts 10-11; 15; Galatians 2).

Mark 7 combines controversy, teaching and two miracles. The controversy (7:1-13) is an argument from Scripture. The teaching (7:14-23) is a parable given in public and explained in private. The two miracles (7:24-37) take place in Gentile territory. Reading them in order, the chapter moves from the question of what makes a person clean to a story about a Gentile woman and a deaf man who are cleansed and healed. The link is deliberate. If what defiles comes from within and not from food or association, the barrier between Jew and Gentile no longer stands as it did.

Three principles help.

• First, read Jesus' criticism as the prophets' criticism, not as a rejection of Jewish practice in general. He does not say that washing is wrong. He says that the tradition has been allowed to cancel a commandment.
• Second, notice that Mark gives an editorial comment in 7:19, 'Thus all foods are clean'. Some translations render it as Mark's remark that Jesus declared all foods clean.
• Third, verse 16 is missing from the best manuscripts and is left out of this translation, which is why the numbering skips from 15 to 17.

The encounter with the woman is among the most debated stories in the Gospels. Readers have taken Jesus' answer as a test of her faith, as a proverb that states Israel's priority, as a real hesitation overcome by her reply, or as a form of teaching for the disciples to hear. The class holds that the story is about the order of salvation, to the Jew first and then to the Gentile, and about faith that does not give up.

Verses 1–5

Pharisees and scribes who had come from Jerusalem gather around Jesus and see some disciples eating with 'defiled' hands, that is, unwashed. The word translated 'defiled' (koinos) means common, in the sense of not set apart for holy use. Mark explains that the Pharisees and many Jews hold to the tradition of the elders: they wash before eating, wash after the market, and wash cups, pitchers and kettles. The question is why the disciples do not 'walk' according to it. To walk is a Jewish idiom for the way of life.

Verses 6–13

Jesus calls them hypocrites, in the sense of actors, and quotes Isaiah 29:13: 'These people honor Me with their lips, but their hearts are far from Me. They worship Me in vain; they teach as doctrine the precepts of men.' Mark's wording follows the Greek Old Testament. Then he shows an example. God said, through Moses, to honour father and mother (Exodus 20:12) and that anyone who curses them must die (Exodus 21:17). But the tradition says that if a man declares his property 'Corban', a gift devoted to God, he is no longer permitted to help his parents with it. Corban is the Hebrew word qorban, an offering. A vow could set property apart so that it could not be used for others, even though the owner kept it. The tradition thus overrode the commandment. Jesus' verdict is that they 'nullify the word of God' by what they hand down.

Verses 14–23

Jesus calls the crowd to listen and says, 'Nothing that enters a man from the outside can defile him; but the things that come out of a man, these are what defile him.' Inside the house the disciples ask him about the 'parable'. He says that food enters the stomach, not the heart, and is eliminated. Then Mark adds, 'Thus all foods are clean.' The language of Leviticus 11 is overturned in principle. Jesus then lists what comes from within, from the heart: evil thoughts, sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery, greed, wickedness, deceit, debauchery, envy, slander, arrogance and foolishness. The list begins with thoughts and ends with folly, and in between are acts against others. The problem is the heart.

Verses 24–30

Jesus goes to the region of Tyre and enters a house, wanting to be unnoticed, but he cannot be hidden. A woman whose small daughter has an unclean spirit falls at his feet. She is Greek, of Syrophoenician birth. He says, 'First let the children have their fill. For it is not right to take the children's bread and toss it to the dogs.' The Greek word for dogs is a diminutive, which suggests the small dogs kept as household pets. The saying states Israel's priority, with 'first' implying that others will follow. She answers, 'Yes, Lord, even the dogs under the table eat the children's crumbs.' Jesus replies, 'Because of this answer, you may go. The demon has left your daughter.' She goes home and finds the child on the bed. The healing is done at a distance.

Verses 31–37

Jesus returns through Sidon to the Decapolis. People bring a man who is deaf and can hardly speak. Jesus takes him aside, puts his fingers in his ears, spits and touches his tongue, looks up to heaven, sighs deeply and says 'Ephphatha!', Aramaic for 'Be opened!' His ears open, his tongue is released and he speaks plainly. Jesus orders silence, but the more he orders it, the more they proclaim it. The people say, 'He has done all things well! He makes even the deaf hear and the mute speak!'

Mark 7 teaches that God's word has authority over human tradition. Moses had forbidden adding to or taking from the commandments (Deuteronomy 4:2), and the prophets repeatedly warned against outward religion without the heart (Isaiah 1:11-17; 29:13; Micah 6:6-8). The chapter also teaches that sin begins in the heart. Genesis 6:5 and 8:21, Jeremiah 17:9 and Psalm 51:10 all hold that the human problem is internal. The remedy is also internal: a new heart (Ezekiel 36:25-27).

The teaching about food shows a turning point in the history of salvation. The food laws marked Israel off from the nations. If Jesus makes all foods clean, the wall begins to come down. The New Testament shows that this took time to be understood. Peter's vision in Acts 10, the council in Acts 15, Paul's argument in Galatians 2 and Romans 14 all deal with it. Paul's statement in Ephesians 2:14 that Christ has broken down the dividing wall belongs to the same story.

The woman's story shows the priority of Israel and the opening of the promise to the nations. Paul speaks in the same terms of the gospel as 'to the Jew first and also to the Greek' (Romans 1:16). The Old Testament prepared for this: Genesis 12:3 promised blessing to all families of the earth, and Isaiah 56:3-8 spoke of foreigners joining the Lord's people.

Mark 7 shows fulfillment and echo together. Jesus quotes Isaiah 29:13 and says the prophet 'prophesied correctly' about his questioners, treating the prophet's words as spoken of the leaders of his day. The deaf man's healing echoes Isaiah 35:5-6. The rare Greek word for a person 'hardly able to speak' (7:32) appears in the Greek of Isaiah 35:6, and the crowd's cry in 7:37 matches Isaiah 35:5-6, a text Jesus himself points to as fulfilled in his ministry in Matthew 11:5. The healings are signs that the promised age has begun.

Jesus speaks with authority over God's own food laws, and Mark notes the result plainly: all foods are clean. Only the lawgiver can speak about the law in this way. The crowd's words, 'He has done all things well', may faintly echo Genesis 1:31, where God saw all that he had made and it was very good. That echo is possible but not certain.

In the woman's story, 'children first' anticipates the pattern Paul names, 'to the Jew first and also to the Greek' (Romans 1:16). The bread that the children receive is Jesus' own ministry, and the crumbs that reach the Gentile woman are enough to cast out a demon. Jesus is the Messiah of Israel, and through him the nations are blessed.