Mark 7:10-13

Jesus cited an example of how his critics used human traditions to set aside divine imperatives. They professed to honor Moses through whom God commanded the Israelites to honor their parents and threatened disobedience with death (Exodus 20:12; Exodus 21:17). Honoring parents manifests itself in financial support and practical care if necessary. Mark interpreted the word "corban," a gift devoted to God, for his Gentile readers. This word is Greek, but it transliterates a Hebrew word that the Jews used when they dedicated something to God. Jewish tradition permitted people to declare something they owned as dedicated to God. [Note: See ibid., p. 369, for an example.] This did not mean that they had to give it to the priests or even give up the use of it themselves. However it freed them from giving it to someone else, even a needy parent.

"History reveals that the Jewish religious leaders came to honor their traditions far above the Word of God. Rabbi Eleazer said, ’He who expounds the Scriptures in opposition to the tradition has no share in the world to come.’ The Mishna, a collection of Jewish traditions in the Talmud, records, ’It is a greater offense to teach anything contrary to the voice of the Rabbis than to contradict Scripture itself.’ But before we criticize our Jewish friends, perhaps we should examine what influence ’the church fathers’ are having in our own Christian churches. We also may be guilty of replacing God’s truth with man’s traditions." [Note: Wiersbe, 1:134.]

Jesus claimed the authority to reorder social relationships. He said a son’s responsibility to provide for his parents superseded the legal option of corban. [Note: Edwards, p. 224.]

Note that Jesus equated what Moses said (Mark 7:10) with the Word of God (Mark 7:13). He also attributed Mosaic authorship to the Torah, something many liberal modern critics of the Bible deny. Jesus’ enemies failed to recognize the difference between inspired and uninspired instruction. The "you" in Mark 7:11 is in the emphatic first position in the Greek text indicating a strong contrast between God’s view and the critics’. They had not only rejected God’s Word (Mark 7:9), but they had even invalidated it, that is, robbed it of its authority (Mark 7:12). Mark added Jesus’ words that this was only one example of how these Pharisees and scribes had voided the authority of what God had revealed by their traditions (Mark 7:13).