Mark 7:4 - Exposition

And when they come from the market ( ἀπὸ ἀγορᾶς ); literally, and from the market-place ; there is no verb in the principal manuscripts, although the Cambridge Codex has ὅταν ἔλθωσιν , and the old Latin gives redeuntes. In the market-place there would be every kind of men and things, clean and unclean, by contact with which they feared that they might be polluted; and so they considered that they had need to cleanse themselves from this impurity by a more careful and complete ablution. Another Greek word is used here, namely, βαπτίσωνται . In the former verse the word is νίψωνται , a more partial and superficial kind of washing than that implied in βαπτίζω . It should, however, be added that two of the great uncials, Vatican and Sinaitic, have ῥαντίσωνται , "sprinkle themselves," instead of βαπτίσωνται — an authority sufficient to justify the Revisers of 1881 in putting it into the margin. The washing of cups, and pots, and brasen vessels, and of tables . The words ( καὶ κλινῶν ) wrongly rendered, "and of tables"—because they could only mean "couches"—have not sufficient authority to be retained in the text. "Cups" ( ποτηρίων ) mean "drinking vessels." The "pot" ( ξεστὴς ) is a Roman word, sextarius , a small liquid measure, the sixth part of a congius , corresponding nearly to the English gallon, so that ξεστὴς would be rather more than a pint measure. Brasen v essels. These would probably be copper vessels, such as are still used in Syria for cooking purposes. These are particularly mentioned. Earthenware vessels would be broken. Which they have received to hold ( ἂ παρέλαβον κρατεῖν ); literally, which they received to hold : observe the aorist.