16:9-20 The Commission (An Appendix)

16:9-20 The Commission (An Appendix)

Mark

INTRODUCTION

Authorship. Large *narrative works rarely circulated anonymously, especially in the first generation when the recipients generally knew the authors. The titles of the Gospels, which unanimously attribute them to particular authors, circulated in diverse parts of the Roman world from an early period; their wide circulation without contradiction indicates that the tradition is early. Although “Mark” was a common name, early *church tradition attributes this Gospel to John Mark (Acts 15:37; Col 4:10; 1 Pet 5:13), who was said to have derived his information from Peter. Because there is no evidence against this attribution, many scholars support Mark as the most likely candidate for the author. A relative of Barnabas (Col 4:10), John Mark may have had stronger ties with the *Diaspora than with Judea even when living in Jerusalem (cf. Acts 4:36). Similarly, some believe that this Gospel’s writer was more familiar with Diaspora Judaism than with details of Galilean geography or Pharisaic customs.

Date, Setting and Purpose. The most common suggestions are that Mark wrote his Gospel to Roman Christians during the time of the great persecution in Rome, about A.D. 64 (for more discussion see 1 Peter), or that he wrote shortly before the conclusion of the Judean-Roman War (A.D. 66–70). The earlier of these dates helps explain the emphasis on suffering and may allow more easily for the most probable dating of Luke (who wrote after Mark), but certainty remains elusive.

Place of Writing. Various proposals for Mark’s provenance have been offered: Galilee, Alexandria and, most often, Rome. Mark’s audience probably lived outside Palestine and most of them were non-Jewish; Rome is the most likely of these proposals (favored by some early Christian traditions), though it is not certain. Internal evidence confirms that Mark himself comes from the eastern Mediterranean world.

Genre. See the introduction to the Gospels in this commentary.

Why Mark Wrote. Those who heard Mark read in the churches already knew many of the stories about Jesus, whom they worshiped as Lord. Mark connects these stories into a sort of biography of Jesus, perhaps following some of the plot movements familiar from Greek tragedy, except with a happy ending, like traditional Jewish stories that emphasized the faithfulness of God. Ancient biographies often made particular moral points through the example of their heroes, and Mark is no exception: he wants his fellow Christians to understand that Christ’s call involves both power and suffering in their conflict with *Satan’s forces.

Thus Mark wrote to a community that needed to be reminded that God heard prayers and would work through their witness and faith; they also needed to be reminded that this might cost them their lives in persecution. Finally, they could be reminded through the failure of the disciples in Mark that if they had not yet achieved the radical lifestyle their Lord’s words demanded, he would still work with them patiently to help them get to that level of commitment. Along with external evidence for Rome as the place of writing, such factors may support viewing Mark as addressing the suffering of Roman Christians under Nero starting in A.D. 64. Again, however, this hypothesis, like many reconstructions of Gospels’ “target audiences,” remains simply a best guess.

Mark’s Message. Mark is written in the most basic Koine Greek from the eastern Mediterranean world; I have tried to keep Mark’s more basic approach in mind by making this part of the commentary simpler than, say, comments on Luke-Acts or Hebrews. Some themes are especially prominent in Mark. One such theme is the so-called messianic secret (noticed as early as the church fathers): Jesus conceals his messianic identity, insofar as possible, from the public. This secrecy may be due to several factors. First, the Christ, or *Messiah, was the Davidic king and officially took this title only at his enthronement. Thus in Mark Jesus is finally “coronated” on the cross. Ancients typically despised unjustified boasting. Second—and this is probably more important—Jesus’ mission was completely different from any of the political views about messiahs circulating at the time; “messiahship” was thus an inadequate category for him until he could define it by the character of his mission. His mission could be understood only retrospectively, in the light of his death and *resurrection (9:9). One might further compare Jesus’ attempts to secure privacy when possible with some prominent *Old Testament prophets. Such prophets often worked clandestinely, not seeking their own glory but only to accomplish their mission (e.g., 1 Kings 11:29; 13:8-9; 21:18; 2 Kings 9:1-10); more of their time may have been spent in the humble lifestyle circles of their own *disciples whom they were training (1 Sam 19:20; 2 Kings 4:38; 6:1-3). Perhaps most important was a logistical issue: the larger the crowds grew (e.g., Mk 1:45; 2:2; 3:9-10, 20), the greater the demands on Jesus’ limited time, constrictions on his mobility and unwelcome attention of potentially hostile rulers.

A related theme in Mark is the failure of the disciples. In comic works, characters’ failings could provide comic relief; in tragic works, characters’ obtuseness could underline the tragedy of the outcome. Likely more relevant, ancient writings would sometimes play down the sensibility of secondary characters to make them foils for the main hero. In Mark, the disciples are obtuse with regard to Jesus’ and their own mission, both the charismatic part (miracle working—4:40; 9:18-19, 28-29) and, more significantly, the suffering part. This theme is so pervasive that the Gospel apparently ends on this note (16:7-8). The opening proclamation of the kingdom climaxes in Jesus’ crucifixion as king of the Jews, Mark concisely teasing his audience with the resurrection that lay beyond it. This pattern fits the hiddenness of Jesus’ Messiahship. Mark knows that the kingdom will come in its fullness but recognizes that in the present it is visible only to some (4:11-12, 30-32). Jesus focuses on the sick, the poor, the morally and socially marginalized, and others, rather than cultivating the favor of the powerful. Yet as Paul emphasizes, God’s power is revealed in the epitome of human weakness, in the cross (1 Cor 1:18-25).

Commentaries. Useful commentaries for cultural information include William L. Lane, The Gospel According to Mark, NICNT (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1974); Hugh Anderson, The Gospel of Mark, NCB (1976; repr., Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1981); Adela Yarbro Collins, Mark: A Commentary, Hermeneia (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2007); R. T. France, The Gospel of Mark (NIGTC; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2002). Among special studies, see particularly Martin Hengel, Studies in the Gospel of Mark, trans. John Bowden (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1985); Wendy J. Cotter, The Christ of the Miracle Stories: Portrait Through Encounter (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2010); for one literary treatment in historical context, see Rob Starner, Kingdom of Power, Power of Kingdom: The Opposing World Views of Mark and Chariton (Eugene, OR: Pickwick, 2011).

1:1-15

Introduction of the One Who Brings the Kingdom

Ancient writers often mentioned the main themes of their works in their introductions (in Mark, this runs from 1:1 to perhaps 1:15, give or take a few verses). The opening of the Gospel of Mark introduces Mark’s presentation of Jesus as the proclaimer and bringer of God’s *kingdom. In this passage Jesus, endowed with the *Spirit, enters into conflict with *Satan and defeats him; in the rest of the Gospel Jesus drives out *demons and heals the sick, is opposed by Satan’s religious and political agents, and ultimately overcomes Satan’s opposition by the *resurrection. This passage promises that Jesus endows his followers with this same Spirit for the same conflict they must face in proclaiming God’s kingdom.

1:1. The Greek term translated “*gospel” refers to the good news a herald would bring, and the Greek translation of Isaiah used the related verb to refer to the good news that God was restoring his people and bringing the reign, or kingdom, of God (Is 52:7; cf. 40:9; 41:27; 61:1). (Because Jewish readers often named books for their first word or words, some scholars suggest that “the good news of Jesus Christ” is the title of Mark’s Gospel; but these words are also simply a natural way to start off a book like this one.)

1:2-3. Jewish teachers often combined several texts or parts of texts, especially if they had a key word or words in common (here, “prepare the way”). Because they were so learned in the Scriptures, they did not have to say which texts they were quoting and often assumed the context without quoting it. Thus Mark cites both Isaiah (40:3) and Malachi (3:1) here, although he names only Isaiah. Isaiah refers to preparing the way for God, who is coming to restore his people; Malachi refers to God coming in judgment to set matters straight among his people. Mark applies these texts about God to Jesus (cf. also 1:7).

1:4-5. Like many other ancient peoples, Jewish people practiced ceremonial washings. Their only once-for-all ceremonial washing, however, was the immersion that non-Jews had to go through when they converted to Judaism. Non-Jews who were converting to Judaism would immerse themselves in water, probably under the supervision of a religious expert. John’s baptizing activity fits this model.

Jewish people also practiced “*repentance” when they did something wrong, asking God’s forgiveness and determining to change. (The *Old Testament prophets often used this Hebrew idea of “turning” from sin; it involves more than just a “change of mind,” which is the literal sense of the Greek term used here.) But the ultimate example of repenting, or turning from a wrong way of living to a right way of living, was when a non-Jew decided to obey the teachings of Israel’s God.

To tell Jewish people that they had to be baptized or repent the same way non-Jews did would have been offensive, because it challenged the prevalent Jewish belief about salvation. Most Jewish people thought that if they were born into a Jewish family and did not reject God’s *law, they would be saved; John told them instead that they had to come to God the same way that non-Jews did. A key point of John’s *baptism is that everyone has to come to God on the same terms.

The “wilderness” stretched about seventy-five miles north and south, but only about ten miles east and west, between the hill country of Judea and the Jordan Valley. Only one familiar with Palestine’s topography would speak of people going into the “wilderness” to be baptized in the Jordan. The Jordan River was the most natural venue for John to have the people immerse themselves, but this location may have also evoked Israel’s history of salvation (Josh 3–4). John’s coming in the “wilderness” could evoke Israel’s history too, especially because Isaiah 40:3 predicted the herald of a new exodus there, and many Jewish people expected the *Messiah to come as a new Moses there. Various Jewish groups withdrew into the wilderness to wait for a new exodus or to evade interference from authorities.

1:6. Some other poor people in John’s day dressed the way he did and ate locusts and honey (the *Dead Sea Scrolls even give directions concerning the eating of locusts). But what is most important here is that the Old Testament emphasizes that Elijah dressed this way and, like John, did not depend on society for his sustenance (cf. 1 Kings 17:4, 9). Elijah was expected to return before the end (Mal 3:1; 4:5-6; Sirach 48:10); cf. comment on Mark 1:2-3.

Many Jewish people believed that there had been no true prophets since Malachi and that prophets would not be restored till near the time of the end. But Mark wants us to understand that John is definitely a prophet, and indeed, the predictor forerunner for God (here, Jesus).

1:7. *Disciples often served their teachers in the same ways that slaves would serve their masters, except for the most menial chores like taking off their masters’ sandals. Even though earlier prophets were called “servants” of the LORD John feels unworthy even to be the coming one’s slave.

1:8. Some passages in the Old Testament speak of the Spirit being poured out like water; only God, however, could pour out God’s Spirit. These passages refer especially to the time of God’s kingdom, when he would cleanse his people and endow them with power to speak for him (Is 44:3; Ezek 36:25-27; 39:29; Joel 2:28-29; cf. Zech 12:10). Some Jewish traditions in Jesus’ day still stressed that the Spirit would cleanse and provide prophetic anointing in the end time.

1:9-10. The tearing of the heavens may also indicate that the kingdom is near (Is 64:1; 65:17). Opened heavens could also accompany heavenly revelations (see Ezek 1:1). Although ancient writers used the dove symbolically in many diverse ways (most often for Israel; rarely, the Spirit), it might here allude back to God’s promise of a new world (Gen 8:10-12).

1:11. Jewish teachers who believed that God no longer spoke through prophets believed that he now spoke to them by means of a voice from heaven (bath qol) although this was not considered as important as *prophecy. Here Mark shows that both a voice from heaven and John’s prophecy testify to Jesus.

In Jewish stories the voice from heaven occasionally quoted Scripture, and most scholars think that the voice here refers to two or three Scriptures: Psalm 2:7, applied to the royal Messiah, the *Son of God; Isaiah 42:1, about the suffering servant; and Genesis 22:2, about Abraham sacrificing his beloved son. The wording of Mark’s text is closest to Psalm 2:7 and Genesis 22:2.

1:12-13. Sources suggest that many believed that demons were especially attracted to places like pagan temples, bathhouses, graveyards and deserts. Readers would thus sense the suspense as Jesus battled with Satan on Satan’s own turf. Safety among beasts showed God’s protection (Ezek 34:25; Dan 6:22).

1:14-15. The summary of Jesus’ message may also be the summary of Mark’s Gospel, or good news (1:1): people should turn their lives over to God (on repentance, see comment on 1:4-5) if they believe the good news that God is getting ready to fulfill his promises to his people (see Is 52:6; comment on Mk 1:1).

The Jewish people recognized that God ruled the universe in one sense now, but they prayed daily for the day when his kingdom, or rule, would be established over all peoples of the earth. Because the Gospels affirm that Jesus must come twice, they recognize that the kingdom comes in two stages: God’s future rule is already established when Jesus dies as king (15:26), but over all the world when Jesus returns. John, however, was not yet in a position to make this distinction.

1:16-20

Downward Mobility and Jesus’ Call

Ancient writers often liked to illustrate their teachings with examples, and Mark is no exception. After telling how Jesus summoned people to turn their lives over to God, he reports a particular example illustrating how some followers of Jesus did so. The “Sea of Galilee” was a lake that only people from the region called a sea; Mark’s language here reflects early memories about Jesus.

Only a few people in Jewish Palestine were rich; most were relatively poor. Scholars often estimate that seventy to ninety percent of the empire consisted of rural peasants. Some people, however, like many fishermen, tended to fall between the rich and the poor (distinctions were less clearly drawn in Galilee than in much of the empire); Galilean fishermen were not peasants. James and John were clearly not poor—they had “hired workers” (v. 20), as only somewhat well-off people did (although some translations could suggest that they were rented slaves, the term probably simply means free hired workers). Peter and Andrew were probably in business with James and John (Lk 5:7-10); we know of other fishing partnerships at that time. This text suggests that none of these *disciples left their business behind because it was going badly; they left behind relatively well-paying jobs.

Even the departure of hired servants could be a hardship for a family business; departure of family members would be more difficult. Many Jewish teachers in Jesus’ day felt that the greatest commandment was to honor one’s parents. To abruptly leave behind one’s family and the family business was a great sacrifice that went against most of the culture’s values.

Disciples usually sought out their own teachers. Only the most radical teachers called their own disciples (e.g., 1 Kings 19:19). Because discipleship sometimes involved temporarily laying aside one’s livelihood and being apart from one’s wife and children for a time, the decision to choose a teacher would have normally been made only after much deliberation, especially when the teacher traveled from place to place instead of staying in one town to teach. Galilee was not so large as to require long journeys, however; they would be able to return to stay in their home towns periodically (see e.g., 2:1). Much instruction was also seasonal (especially for those needing to be home for planting and harvest), but it is not clear that this would have been the case with Jesus’ disciples.

1:21-28

Authority over Demons

For Jewish hearers the following succession of miracle stories might evoke the *Old Testament narratives about Elijah and Elisha in 1 Kings 17–19 and 2 Kings 1–8. The account of the fishermen demonstrates the claims Jesus’ authority makes on his followers’ lives, but the verses that follow it demonstrate his authority over evil spirits (cf. 1:12-13). The only recorded possible exorcist in the Old Testament was David (1 Sam 16:23), but *Josephus and the *Dead Sea Scrolls suggest that some other Jewish people in this era practiced exorcism. Although wandering *demons appear frequently in Jewish literature, the only demons that appear in the Gospels (except Satan—Mk 1:13) are in people they possess (or, as a second choice, in pigs—5:12). The place that Jesus encounters his first demon may shock Mark’s readers: it is in a religious setting.

1:21. Most *synagogues were community centers and places of prayer and study. When visiting teachers were present, local synagogue leaders (priests, *scribes, large donors, or other respected members of the community) would invite them to lecture, especially on the sabbath. Archaeologists have found the site of Capernaum’s synagogue, which was built from basalt blocks. Although later synagogues were more ornate, most people in this first-century Galilean synagogue probably sat on mats on the floor.

1:22. Synagogue services were conducted by priests or by what we would call “lay leaders,” but those most skilled in the Scriptures undoubtedly contributed their share when the Old Testament was to be expounded. Many local teachers were village scribes who also wrote down and interpreted legal documents for their village; some of them taught children the Bible. Most teachers would try to expound the *law (normally from their Scripture reading) by explaining the proper way to translate and apply it or by appealing to their traditions. More advanced teachers would also appeal to earlier traditions; this was especially true for those who belonged to the Pharisaic movement. Jesus’ teaching went beyond this kind of exposition.

1:23-24. Demons (also occasionally called “unclean spirits,” e.g., *Jubilees 10:1) were often associated with *magic, and magicians tried to subdue other spiritual forces by invoking their names. If the demon here is trying to subdue Jesus in this way (“I know who you are” was used to subdue spiritual powers in magical texts), as some scholars have suggested, this ploy does not work. Ancients often recognized that demons had access to supernatural knowledge; it is not surprising that these demons perceive Jesus’ true identity, which the people there still do not recognize. “Holy One” was normally a title of God, but “Holy One of God” here probably means something like “God’s right-hand agent”; in Jewish literature, demons recognized their inability to harm those who walked close to God.

1:25-27. Jesus’ action illustrates his authority (1:22, 27). Demons were apparently rebuked and subdued with orders like “Be silent” (the later *Testament of Solomon); rebukes in the *New Testament and other ancient literature never involved a formal statement like “I rebuke you.” Exiting demons usually caused a commotion to make clear that they were leaving, regardless of the person who was casting them out.

Although exorcists—people who tried to chase demons out of other people—also occasionally used phrases like “Come out of so-and-so!” they used the phrases as parts of elaborate magical incantations. They had two main methods of expelling demons: (1) revolting or scaring the demon out (e.g., by putting a smelly root up the possessed person’s nose in the hope that the demon would not be able to stand it); (2) using magical formulas or invoking the name of a higher spirit to get rid of the lower one. The people are thus amazed that Jesus can be effective by simply ordering the demons to leave. Jewish tradition praised teachers who could draw special insights from the law and sometimes attributed miracle-working powers to popular teachers; but Jesus seems to earn a category by himself (“new teaching”).

1:28. Galilee’s villages were close together, and close kin and trade connections among them would allow word to spread rapidly.

1:29-34

The Healer’s Popularity

1:29-31. A newly married couple often lived with the husband’s family (perhaps in a shack on the flat roof) until they made enough money to move out on their own. Many parents died while their children were young adults, so it is possible that Simon and Andrew took over their parents’ home. In any case, Simon’s father-in-law had probably passed away, and Simon and his wife had taken her widowed mother into their home. Caring for one’s extended family was more common in Mediterranean antiquity then than it is in the West today.

1:32-34. The sabbath ended Saturday at sundown. Mark mentions that it was “after sunset” to let us know that the sabbath is over, because it would have violated the sabbath for anyone to have carried someone on the sabbath. The whole town gathers “at the door” because most homes around Capernaum had only one room, and even a larger home could not have accommodated many people. The doorway may have opened to a courtyard shared with other homes, as often in Galilean towns, but this door may be to an outside street. The few teachers reputed to work miracles rapidly drew large crowds.

1:35-39

Prayer Alone

1:35-37. This crowdedness also leads to another problem: it would be nearly impossible to find a place to be alone in such ancient towns, with their narrow streets and sometimes ten or twenty people living in the common one-room houses; most town blocks consisted of four homes all facing a common courtyard. Galilee was also heavily populated, and villages were commonly close together. But one could find a place alone in the hills outside one’s village if one arose early enough. People got up for work as soon as the sun rose, so Jesus has to get up well before dawn to go out and find a solitary place for prayer.

1:38-39. The word used for the other “towns” suggests large agricultural towns still governed according to regular village structures; these were apparently places that had not yet heard of Jesus. He probably could have drawn the largest crowds in the synagogues on market days and sabbaths, and in late afternoons or early evenings when laborers had finished their day’s work.

1:40-45

Cleansing a Leper

Leprosy was an unattractive skin disease (or diseases) for which the Bible had prescribed quarantine from the rest of society (Lev 13:45-46). Some later Jewish teachers blamed the disease on the leper’s sin (often the sin of slander). Lepers were thus outcasts from the rest of society, the kind of people most healthy people preferred to ignore. People ordinarily avoided touching lepers, lest they contract impurity.

The leper approaches Jesus with humility, which was the proper *Old Testament way to approach God for prayer, although the fact that he even approaches Jesus also indicates a measure of holy boldness. Acknowledging that God had the right to refuse the prayer and that one depended on his mercy was not in any way a lack of faith (Gen 18:27, 30-32; 2 Sam 10:12; Dan 3:18).

The *law had prescribed particular sacrifices if someone’s leprosy were cured (Lev 14:1-32). By complying with these regulations, Jesus does nothing to violate the law or to offend the priests. (Later Jewish laws also insisted that the leper be checked by a local priest before going to the temple, but it is not clear whether these prescriptions were in effect in Jesus’ day.)

Teachers thought to perform miracles would normally have large followings, because many people were sick; the number of people suffering from various afflictions is attested by how many people flocked to hot springs in Galilee that were thought to relieve ailments. Jesus, who performs miracles without the common pagan use of magical incantations, acquires such a large following that for a period of time he cannot accommodate them inside a town (v. 45).

2:1-12

Healed and Forgiven

Just as Jesus violates his culture’s religious sensibilities by touching a leper (1:41) and claims more authority than a normal *rabbi would dare accept (cf. 1:17, 27), and just as Mark’s *narrative challenges cultural religion by beginning with a demoniac in a house of study and prayer (1:21-28), Jesus’ role in this passage challenges the theological categories of his culture’s religious establishment.

2:1-2. The capacity of the average Capernaum home may have allowed only about fifty persons standing close together (the longest span in excavated homes is eighteen feet). We thus should not think of literally the whole town inside or just outside the door.

2:3-4. Poorer people often had only mats for “beds”; thus the paralytics’ friends may have carried him on the bed on which he lay all the time. Some homes in Capernaum were private dwellings, but others were built around courtyards shared with neighbors. Houses often had an outside staircase, so they could reach the roof unimpeded. The roof of single-story homes was sturdy enough for walking on but was normally made of branches and rushes laid over the roof’s beams and covered with dried mud; thus one could dig through it, though it would make a mess and presumably leave the diggers liable to cover subsequent repairs.

2:5-7. Undeterred determination to get to Jesus counts here as “faith,” as similar determination counted in the *Old Testament (e.g., 2 Kings 4:27-28). In a positive way, teachers called *disciples, and older men could call younger men, “son” or “child.” Sins were to be *atoned for by offerings in the temple. Judaism taught that only God could forgive sins, but most Jews allowed that some of God’s representatives might speak on God’s behalf. The passive form, “are forgiven,” could be interpreted in this way (Jewish teachers often used the passive form to describe God’s activity); but Jesus was not a priest, no one had offered sacrifice, and the *scribes had heard no basis for the pronouncement of forgiveness, not even clear indication of *repentance.

The Old Testament penalty for blaspheming God’s name—reproaching rather than honoring it—was death (Lev 24:10-23). According to later rabbinic sources (known for restricting capital cases as much as possible), blasphemy involved pronouncing the divine name or inviting people to follow other gods. But the term was used much more broadly in popular parlance in this period, and these legal scholars may view Jesus as claiming a divine role and so dishonoring the divine name.

2:8. Because supernatural knowledge was especially attributed to prophets (e.g., 2 Kings 6:12), Jesus’ hearers would probably view him here as a prophet; “speaking in one’s heart” may be idiomatic (Deut 15:9; 18:21; 30:14). Most Jewish teachers believed that “prophets” in the Old Testament sense had ceased, but most of the people were happy to entertain new prophetic figures, many of whom they saw as harbingers of the end.

2:9-12. Some Jewish teachers accepted miracles as verification that a teacher was truly God’s representative; others did not regard miracles as sufficient proof if they disagreed with the teacher’s interpretation of Scripture.

Jewish teachers knew that only God could ultimately forgive (on the Day of Atonement in response to sacrifice); but they also recognized that healing ultimately came from God. Both were from God but could be announced through God’s agents acting according to his will. *Josephus shows us that some false prophets in Jesus’ era promised to work miracles but actually failed to work them; some of Jesus’ critics may have placed him in this category. His act in front of these witnesses, however, should have challenged them to rethink their case.

2:13-17

A Tax Gatherer Follows

As in 2:1-12, Jesus’ behavior here runs counter to standards of piety among his Jewish contemporaries.

2:13. Most prominent local teachers taught regular groups of *disciples and also performed other local services in their town. Translocal teachers who had large followings, however, could threaten the establishment as potential revolutionaries.

2:14. Because Levi was situated at an office in Capernaum, many suspect that he was a customs agent, charging import duties on wares brought through this town on important nearby trade routes. This is possible, but others’ disdain (2:16) might point toward him being a more general tax farmer working for Herod Antipas. In any case, even more than the fishermen, he has a secure and prosperous job, which he abandons to follow Jesus’ call.

Some taxes went directly to the Roman government, but tolls and customs taxes (usually levied at two to three percent, but multiplied for traders who passed through many territories) supported the cities where they were taken. Even if Levi is a locally valuable customs agent, however, this *narrative shows that many still regarded his activity as unwholesome; the municipal aristocracy supported Roman interests against those of the Jewish poor.

2:15. Many religious people despised *tax gatherers as collaborators with the Romans or agents of oppressive aristocracies who collaborated with Rome. Some commentators have argued that “sinners” may refer specifically to those who did not eat food in ritual purity, but the term probably refers to anyone who lived sinfully rather than religiously, as if they did not care what the religious community thought of them.

2:16. Table fellowship normally established a bond of friendship. Upright people would not want to appear to approve of those who may not have tithed on the food, much less with outright and publicly known sinners. To eat with such would seem to overlook their actions and embrace shame in the eyes of one’s peers. Teachers sometimes contrasted tax collectors with *Pharisees, models of piety. Here they presumably expect that Jesus, being a wise teacher, ought to share their religious convictions.

2:17. Jesus’ reply plays on a common image of the day (comparing physicians and teachers) to make his point.

2:18-22

The Right Time to Fast

Again (see 2:13-17) Jesus does not appear religious enough for the traditionalists; but he has a new kind of religious lifestyle in mind.

2:18. The *law required fasting only on the Day of Atonement, but Jewish tradition had added many other fasts. Pharisees were said to often fast twice a week, without water (at least in the dry season). Fasting was an important practice to join with prayer or penitence, so it would have been unusual for *disciples (prospective rabbis) to have avoided it altogether. A teacher was usually regarded as responsible for the behavior of his disciples.

2:19-20. Wedding feasts ideally involved seven days of festivity; one was not permitted to fast or engage in other acts of mourning or difficult labor during a wedding feast. Here Jesus makes an analogy about the similar inappropriateness of fasting in his own time. If Jesus compares himself with the bridegroom (one should not press comparisons into every detail in *parables), it may be significant that God is the bridegroom in some *Old Testament images (e.g., Hos 2:14-20).

2:21-22. Again the issue is the inappropriateness of fasting in the present circumstance. Jesus uses two ordinary facts to make his point. Older clothes had already shrunk somewhat from washing. Wine could be kept in either jars or wineskins; the latter would stretch. Old wineskins had already been stretched to capacity by fermenting wine within them; if they were then filled with unfermented wine, it would also expand, and the old wineskins, already stretched to the limit, would break.

2:23-27

The Right Use of the Sabbath

Jesus’ conflicts with the religious establishment in the preceding passages come to a head over details of sabbath observance (2:23-3:6). Their religious priorities differ; whereas the religious establishment may think that Jesus questions the Bible’s authority, he demands instead a different way to understand it and so apply it.

2:23-24. Many argue that few *Pharisees lived in Galilee and question whether they would be in a grainfield on the sabbath; on this view, it is possible that Mark applies the more specific term Pharisees to local religious teachers responding to reports about what Jesus’ *disciples had done. Others recognize that some Pharisees may have lived in Galilee, and suggest that some Pharisees had been investigating or traveling with Jesus, or that some had come even from Judea to investigate him. Others could also allow that this narrative occurred during one of the festival visits to Judea.

In any case, they would not be more than a “sabbath day’s journey” from wherever they were staying—that is, two thousand cubits (about 960 yards or 1120 meters; i.e., over half a mile or over a kilometer). Thus the disciples, who encounter Pharisees, are surely within walking distance of food in a village, if it had been properly prepared the preceding day. Teachers were held responsible for the behavior of their disciples, and many rabbis considered it proper to defend the honor of their disciples.

2:25. Whether or not his opponents agree with Jesus’ argument, he has cited biblical precedent for hunger overriding a standard biblical rule; therefore they could not have him disciplined by a local court for defying Torah. Because Jesus is defending his disciples, he mentions “those who were with” David. Even if David was actually alone (1 Sam 21:1), the point is that the priest accepted and acted on David’s word that there were others (21:2). Hunger was allowed to take priority over ritual law.

2:26. Abiathar was not yet *high priest when David was given the bread, but Mark employs the term in the standard manner of his day: “high priest” was applied to any member of the high priestly family with administrative power, which would have included Abiathar when David came to Ahimelech, Abiathar’s father.

2:27-28. Although Jesus claims the right to interpret sabbath rules as the authoritative *Son of Man (Dan 7:13-14), his opponents probably understand him to mean that because the sabbath was made for people (other Jewish teachers also mentioned this point), human beings had authority to do what they needed on the sabbath. (“Son of Man” was a standard *Aramaic term for “human being,” and his hearers may have assumed he meant this, whereas his authority suggests that he claimed to be the Son of Man of Daniel 7:13-14.)

3:1-6

Healing or Killing on the Sabbath

3:1. The muscles and nerves of a “dried” or “withered” hand were inactive; thus the hand, smaller than usual, did not function (see 1 Kings 13:4; cf. Testament of Simeon 2:12). No cure was known for this paralysis.

3:2. Although some *Pharisees allowed for medical treatment, especially if the medicine was prepared before the sabbath, some others believed that cures were permitted on the sabbath only to save a life. (Even the strictest observers of the sabbath allowed compromising the sabbath to save life or to fight in a defensive war.) Their rule against cures applied to physicians, however, not to healings performed by God, and Pharisees disputed among themselves whether prayer for the sick was permitted on the sabbath. Fundamental human animosity more than technical Pharisaic principles are at work here.

3:3-5. Jesus might mean that “killing” is permitted on the sabbath, as it was during the Maccabean warfare (second century B.C.); more likely he draws a legal analogy from the principle that one could violate the sabbath to save life but not to kill except in self-defense; by extension, one could do good but not harm (cf. 2 Kings 5:7).

3:6. Unintentional violations of the sabbath or issues of disagreement about what constituted work (matters that were debatable in Jewish courts) were normally treated lightly; capital punishment (Ex 31:14; 35:2) was thought appropriate only for those who willfully rejected the sabbath. Punishments actually inflicted rarely exceeded fines or public beatings in the *synagogues. The majority school of Pharisees in this period, the *Shammaites, prohibited prayer for the sick on the sabbath, but did not seek to kill the minority school of Pharisees, *Hillelites, for allowing such prayer (though conflicts occasionally did escalate). Again, like many human beings, Jesus’ opponents go far beyond their own traditions here. On the Herodians, see comment on 12:13.

3:7-12

Increasing Popularity

3:7-8. Idumea was south of Judea; east of the Jordan River was Perea, and Tyre and Sidon were to the northwest. Like Galilee, Idumea and Perea were religiously Jewish territories once dominated by *Gentiles; Tyre and Sidon were Gentile cities, although it seems most likely here that Jewish residents of those cities are intended (cf. 7:27).

3:9-12. Finally Jesus has to find another way to deal with the growing crowds (3:9). Any prophet supposed to perform signs drew large crowds in Jewish Palestine, and Jesus seems to have drawn larger crowds than most others. Other “signs prophets” sometimes tried miracles like making the walls of Jerusalem fall down or the Jordan part (they failed), but no prophets since Elijah and Elisha had been reported as doing as many miracles as Jesus.

3:13-19

Commissioning Twelve Representatives

3:13. Mountains were often considered places for communion with God (cf., e.g., the experiences of Moses and Elijah; Ex 3:1-2; 1 Kings 19:8, 11-18).

3:14-15. Israel consisted of twelve tribes, and if groups chose twelve leaders (as apparently those who wrote the *Dead Sea Scrolls did), they did so because they believed that their own group was the true, obedient remnant of Israel, perhaps a source of renewal for all Israel. “*Apostles” means commissioned representatives, the point here being that Jesus’ authority to proclaim the *kingdom and expel *demons continues through his agents who act on his behalf.

3:16-19. Luke (and possibly “Q,” a source he shares with Matthew) lists “Judas son of James” rather than Matthew’s and Mark’s “Thaddeus.” Ancient business documents show that people were commonly known by more than one name. (The differences in the lists do show that the lists were not copied from one another or standardized, and thus that the tradition of Jesus choosing twelve is older than the particular lists themselves.) Nicknames were common, appearing even on tomb inscriptions.

As one of the most popular male names in this era, “Simon” needed a distinguishing epithet. (Although a Greek name, Simon was popular among Jews as a close equivalent to Simeon.) “Cananaean” is *Aramaic for “zealot” (Lk 6:15); thus some translations simply read “Simon the Zealot” here. In this period, this term could just mean “zealous one,” but it might suggest that he had been involved in revolutionary activity (some revolutionaries soon after this time came to be known as “*Zealots”). “Boanerges” is apparently a Greek rendering of the Aramaic for “sons of thunder” (rgs for Aramaic r‘m). “Iscariot” may mean “man from Kerioth,” but this is unclear; yet most other proposals (e.g., a Greek transliteration of an Aramaic corruption of the Latin sicarius, “assassin,” but the title arose later; see comment on Acts 21:38) appear even weaker.

3:20-30

Jesus Raids Satan’s House

3:20-22. Exorcists often invoked a higher spirit to get rid of a lower one, so Jesus’ opponents accuse him of gaining his power for exorcism from sorcery—relying on *Satan himself. Insanity (3:21) was sometimes associated with *demon possession (3:22), though his family itself need not have made this connection. Because false teachers were sometimes thought to be inspired by demons and the official penalty for misleading God’s people this way was death (Deut 13:5; 18:20), Jesus’ family (probably the meaning here; see 3:31) may have felt they had reason to want to reach him before the legal experts did. (The legal experts could not enforce the death penalty, because Palestine was under Roman domination; in some places, mental incompetence could even shield one from prosecution. But the public charge alone would humiliate the family.) Teachers offended by reports of the events of 2:1–3:6 may now be taking the offensive.

3:23-27. Magical texts sometimes speak of “binding” demons by incantations (to manipulate them), but this is not the idea here (nor does Jesus ever say, “I bind you” to a demon). Rather, this is a *parable, and Jesus has conquered the strong man by resisting temptation (1:13) and/or expelling demons (1:25-26). (If Jesus alludes to Is 49:24-25, in that passage God freed his people from captivity to the strong man.)

3:28-30. “Blaspheming the Spirit” here means opposing Jesus’ *messiahship so firmly that one resorts to accusations of sorcery to get around the *Spirit’s signs confirming his identity. Different teachers debated whether some sins were eternally unforgivable; Jesus probably means that by rejecting even the Spirit’s testimony to Jesus’ identity and mission, expressed through exorcisms, Jesus’ accusers show themselves dangerously close to being incapable of *repentance.

3:31-34

Jesus’ Real Family

Thinking of one’s coreligionists as brothers and sisters was common; respecting older persons as mothers or fathers was also widespread. Some even felt that teacher-*disciple relations took precedence over family ties, but never to the extent that appears here. (In later rabbinic teaching, when a pagan converted to Judaism, he or she valued Judaism above previous family obligations; but Jewish people were not supposed to neglect genetic kin. Still, Jesus was not the only Jewish teacher to employ *hyperbole, or rhetorical exaggeration. He is not rejecting his earthly family altogether but stating his priorities. This may be the case especially if, as some suggest, they want to declare him mentally incompetent to rescue him from the dangers he is sure to face from religious authorities if he continues on his present path; cf. 3:21.)

4:1-20

The Parable of the Sower and Four Soils

4:1-2. The acoustic setting from the boat would have been ideal for Jesus’ voice to carry to the crowds. Some places in Palestine have natural acoustics. One cave near Capernaum allowed as many as seven thousand people to hear a person speaking in the center of the cove.

Rabbis commonly taught in *parables; although the subjects of many parables centered on royal courts, teachers explaining points to common folk probably often used more down-to-earth parables like the harvest stories Jesus uses here.

4:3-7. When seed was sown before the ground was plowed up (as it often was), it commonly befell one of the fates reported here. The “road” (NASB) is probably the footpath through the field (cf. NRSV: “path”).

4:8. Thirtyfold, sixtyfold and a hundredfold are tremendously good harvests from Galilean soil. The fertile Jordan Valley normally yielded between ten- and (less often) a hundredfold, so a hundredfold need not be a miraculous harvest (though it is an astonishing one; Gen 26:12); but for more of Palestine, the average yield was seven and a half to tenfold (meaning that seven and a half to ten seeds were harvested for every seed sown), and all the figures Jesus reports here are very good yields. The yield is worth the sown seed that was wasted (cf. Eccles 11:1-6).

4:9. “Ears to hear” reflects the motif in the *Old Testament prophets that many had ears but were deaf to God’s voice (e.g., Is 6:10; 43:8; 44:18; Ezek 12:2).

4:10-11. Jewish teachers typically used parables to illustrate and explain points, not to conceal them. But if one tells stories without stating the point they were meant to illustrate, as Jesus does here, only those who listen most astutely (4:9) and start with insiders’ knowledge could possibly figure out one’s point. They would function instead as sages’ riddles. The members of the *Qumran community believed that God gave secrets to the prophets that they encoded in the Bible, and that God revealed the interpretation of those biblical texts to their own teacher, who shared it only with them. Greek teachers like *Plato and sometimes Jewish teachers would leave certain points obscure to keep them from outsiders; only those who were serious enough to persevere would understand. God revealed mysteries to Daniel (Dan 2:18-19, 27-30, 47), including about God’s *kingdom (2:44).

4:12. The point in the context of Isaiah 6:9-10, which Jesus quotes here, may be that God’s people had hardened their hearts so that they could not hear him; God thus chose to harden them further (what some have called “penal blindness”) by sending them his message anyway. They thus held some moral responsibility for their inability to hear. For ears without truly hearing, see comment on 4:9.

4:13-14. This most basic message is the foundation for the rest: Jesus’ message must be embraced with endurance and without distraction from the world to produce its intended effect. Others had also compared words to seeds. Agricultural images predominate in Jesus’ parables more than in the later *rabbis, presumably because Jesus’ largest audience probably consisted of Galilean farmers.

4:15. Judaism recognized *Satan’s role as the ultimate accuser and tempter; Jesus thus shows his *disciples the seriousness of forgetting his word. Other rabbis also taught that forgetting a teaching of Scripture was a serious offense, but they would have resented a teacher who claimed unique authority for his own message.

4:16-17. Judaism valued its heroes of the past who had refused to compromise God’s word, even in the face of death. Jesus’ description of apostasy when persecuted for the message of the kingdom thus might evoke the disciples’ discomfort and self-examination.

4:18-19. Jewish tradition valued seeking wisdom above earthly treasures (e.g., Prov 2:3-4; 3:13-14; 8:10, 19; 16:16; 20:15).

4:20. Well-trained disciples of rabbis were supposed to multiply disciples when they became teachers in their own right; part of the goal was to increase obedience to the *law. Concerning these yields, see comment on 4:8.

4:21-25

Accountability for the Word

Had another rabbi uttered the words of 4:21-25 in this context (contrast the setting in Mt 5:15), it would normally mean bringing forth treasures (special insights) concealed in Scripture. Thus Jesus claims to reveal God’s message; he calls his disciples to understand and build on his teaching.

4:21-23. Jesus is a master of the graphic illustrations in which Jewish teachers sought to excel: invisible light is pointless (cf. Sirach 41:14: concealed wisdom is as useless as invisible treasure), and God wants the light of his word to be received. The lamps were small clay lamps that had to be set on a stand to shed much light in a room; an external wick led into the oil they contained. A bushel basket placed over the lamp would conceal and probably extinguish it.

4:24-25. Some later rabbis claimed that those who heeded some of the *law would learn more of it. The conventional wisdom was that each person is accountable for what he or she does with what he or she had originally been given; Jesus applies this principle to his own teaching. Thus if the crowds did not obey what light they had received, they would never receive more. The language of “measuring” is the language of weighing food and other commodities at the market; Jewish texts sometimes use it for God’s measuring out just judgments in the final day.

4:26-32

A Microcosm of the Future Kingdom

It was commonly realized that God would someday establish his *kingdom, or rule, unchallenged over all the earth. Jesus and his small band of close followers may have seemed too obscure to contain the future glory of the kingdom, but the seed of the word would continue to spread from them until the final coming of the kingdom. Jesus’ teaching challenges prevailing views of how the kingdom would come.

4:26-29. Every farmer would have agreed that God’s providence, not the farmer’s power, made the grain grow. (Thus pagan and Jewish farmers alike sought divine help for their crops; pagan farmers relied heavily on sacrifices. Some see an allusion to Joel 3:13, but emphasizing hope rather than Joel’s final battle; more likely, harvesting with sickles was simply a familiar image.)

4:30-32. Scholars still dispute what plant is meant by the “mustard seed.” Nevertheless, by no conjecture is it the smallest of all seeds that Jesus’ listeners could have known (the orchid seed is smaller). The point is that it was proverbially small and yet yielded a large shrub. Around the Sea of Galilee, the plant that many scholars currently think Jesus meant can reach a height of ten feet and has sometimes reached fifteen feet, although its usual height is about four feet. Because it would grow anew in spring each year, birds could not nest in it when they built nests in early spring; but small birds could light on it, all that is necessary to fulfill the language here (language borrowed as an allusion to a larger tree in Dan 4:12, which refers to a different kingdom destined to be replaced by God’s). The *hyperbole Jesus applies to the best image of growth from tiny to large that he had available does not change the point, however; the kingdom might begin in obscurity, but it would culminate in glory.

4:33-34

Secret Teachings

Sometimes Jewish (and other ancient) teachers had some special esoteric teachings that they could confide only in their closest pupils, because they were not for public knowledge. People could not be ready to grasp the secret of the nature of Jesus’ *kingdom until the secret about the nature of his *messiahship had been revealed (see the introduction to Mark in this commentary). Parables were normally sermon illustrations, but illustrations without the sermon would normally remain obscure.

4:35-41

Lord of Creation

Rousing a sleeping prophet to secure his prayers may have reminded the *disciples or first hearers of Jonah 1:5-6, but Jesus appears quite different from Jonah here. Some ancient pagan stories told of powerful individuals able to subdue even the forces of nature, but these were nearly always gods or, rarely, heroes of the quite distant and unverifiable past. Many Jewish people believed that angels controlled the forces of nature, such as winds and sea; yet such angels did have one to whom they must answer. In Jewish tradition, the one who ruled the winds and sea was God himself (Ps 107:29; cf. Jon 1:15). The disciples’ surprise at Jesus’ power is thus easy to understand.

Storms often rose suddenly on the lake called the Sea of Galilee; these fishermen had usually stayed closer to Capernaum and are unprepared for a squall this far from shore. Presumably the one place least inundated in a small fishing boat during a storm would be on the elevated stern. Commentators suggest that one could use the wooden or leather-covered helmsman’s seat, or a pillow kept under that seat, as a cushion for one’s head. Jesus’ sleep during the storm may indicate the tranquillity of faith (Ps 4:8; cf. 2 Kings 6:16-17, 32; Prov 19:23); in some Greek stories, the genuineness of philosophers’ faith in their own teachings on tranquility was tested in storms.

5:1-20

Overpowering a Legion of Demons

Jesus could bind the strong man no one else could bind (cf. 3:27; 5:3-4).

5:1. Matthew’s “Gadara” (Mt 8:28), nearly eight miles from the lake, is more precise than Mark’s “Gerasa,” a prominent city over thirty miles southeast from the lake by a straight line and a longer journey by road. (Some, however, think that Mark intended Gergesa, modern El Koursi, adjoining the lake, as suggested even in some manuscripts and early Christian tradition.) But the mention of either Gadara or Gerasa would identify the general region for people who did not live there: that is, the area of the Decapolis, a predominantly non-Jewish area. Matthew apparently identifies the vicinity by reference to a nearer city, and Mark, writing for readers farther from this area, prefers a better known city as an identifier even though it is farther away.

5:2. Jewish people considered tombs unclean and a popular haunt for *demons. People in many ancient cultures brought offerings for the dead, which might also appeal to these spirits (demons were associated with pagan religion; see comment on 1 Cor 10:20). The time is night (4:35), when evil spirits were thought to exercise the greatest power. Mark thus sets the stage for ancient readers to feel the suspense of the ensuing conflict.

5:3-5. Some pagan worship had involved cutting oneself with stones (1 Kings 18:28), and anthropologists report both self-mortification and supernatural strength in conjunction with some cases indigenously defined as spirit possession in various cultures today.

5:6-8. In ancient *magic, practitioners often invoked higher spirits to drive out lower spirits, and the demons here appeal to the only one higher than Jesus to keep Jesus from driving them out: “I adjure you by God” (not “Swear to God”—ESV). This language invokes a curse on Jesus if he does not comply. (Phrases like “I adjure you” and “I know you”—Mk 1:24—appear in ancient magical exorcism texts as self-protective invocations to bind the spiritual opponent.) The attempt at magical self-protection proves powerless against Jesus. Not only Jews but also *Gentiles sometimes called Israel’s God “the Most High.”

5:9. Identification of spirits’ names or the names by which those spirits could be subdued was standard in ancient exorcism texts (see ancient magical texts and the *Testament of Solomon); but this case, where many demons are present, is the only recorded example of Jesus seeking a name, and here he does not seem to use it in the exorcism.

A legion (perhaps meant here hyperbolically) included five thousand four hundred to six thousand troops. This man is therefore hosting a large number of demons; they probably outnumber the pigs (5:13).

5:10. Ancients were familiar with demons pleading for mercy or other concessions when they were about to be defeated (e.g., *1 Enoch 12–14; Testament of Solomon 2:6). Perhaps they wish to stay in the area only because of the tombs, but in ancient lore spirits were often associated with particular local areas.

5:11-12. Although Jews lived in the Decapolis, most of its residents were Gentiles. Only Gentiles (or very nonobservant Jews) raised pigs, and Jewish readers would think of pigs as among the most unclean animals and perhaps thus as obvious hosts of unclean spirits. Ancient (and some modern) exorcists found that demons often asked for concessions if the pressure for them to evacuate their host was becoming too great for them to stay.

5:13. In some Jewish traditions demons could die, so some ancient readers may have assumed that the demons had been destroyed (or at least disabled) with their hosts. (Some traditions also portrayed at least some demons as fearing water—Testament of Solomon 5:11-12; but in other traditions, certain demons lived in water.) In other early traditions, demons were sometimes imprisoned in bodies of water. In any case, their activity here shows their continued destructiveness. Demons depend on their hosts in the Gospel accounts much more than in most other sources from the period.

5:14-17. The opposition to Jesus arises from both economic interests—the loss of a large herd of swine—and some Greek conceptions of dangerous wonderworking magicians, whom the people would fear.

5:18. In ancient stories, those recovering from madness might be unaware of their prior state (e.g., Leucippe in *Achilles Tatius, or Heracles in an ancient drama), but this was not always the case (Dan 4:34-37).

5:19-20. The Decapolis was a loose confederation of ten *Hellenistic cities (predominantly Gentile, though many Jews lived there), with ties also to the Nabatean Arabs. Perhaps because his *messiahship would be misunderstood, Jesus kept it a secret in predominantly Jewish areas. In the predominantly non-Jewish Decapolis, however, where people would perceive him as a magician, he urges his new *disciple to spread word about what God had done, thereby correcting the people’s misunderstanding (cf. 2 Maccabees 3:36).

5:21-43

Healing a Girl and an Outcast Woman

This passage includes two cases of reversing uncleanness: a woman with a continual flow of blood and a corpse (see Lev 15:19-33; Num 19:11-22). Even after the flow stopped, the first woman would be counted unclean for seven days (Lev 15:28); the dead girl was even more unclean, so that one who touched her contracted impurity for a week (Num 19:11).

5:21-24. The precise duties of “rulers of the *synagogue” probably varied somewhat from one place in the empire to another; sometimes the title designates simply benefactors, perhaps to honor them, but elsewhere they were the chief officials in synagogues (perhaps not unrelated to their social influence); virtually always they were prominent members of their communities. Jairus’s daughter had been a minor until that year and on account of both her age and her gender had little social status apart from her family. One would fall at the feet of someone of much greater status (like a king) or prostrate oneself before God; for this prominent man to humble himself in this way before Jesus was thus to recognize Jesus’ power in a serious way.

5:25. This woman’s sickness was reckoned as if she had a menstrual period all month long; it made her continually unclean under the *law (Lev 15:25-28)—a social and religious problem on top of the physical one. Sometimes this condition starts after puberty; if that was true in her case, given a common ancient life expectancy of about forty years and the “twelve years” that she had been ill, she may have spent even half or all her adult life with this trouble. Since she could not bear children in this state, and Jewish men often divorced women who were incapable of bearing (cf., e.g., Pseudo-Philo, Biblical Antiquities 42:1), this woman probably had never married or (if the sickness began after marriage) had been divorced and remained single. In a society where single, celibate women could not easily earn much income, the illness affected virtually every area of her life.

5:26. Although some remedies were genuinely empirically based, many practices of both Jewish and Gentile physicians in biblical times were no more than superstitious remedies, which not surprisingly often proved ineffective (cf. 2 Chron 16:12; Tobit 2:10; *Qumran Genesis Apocryphon 20:19-20). Although many physicians in the Greek world were slaves, Palestinian Jewish sources suggest that physicians in Palestine had ample incomes. Some Palestinian Jews were skeptical of physicians’ value.

5:27-29. If this woman touched anyone or anyone’s clothes, she rendered that person ceremonially unclean for the rest of the day (cf. Lev 15:26-27). Some uncleanness was unavoidable, but it was inconvenient to fulfill the required bath, and men avoided uncleanness when they could. Because she rendered unclean anyone she touched, she should not have even been in this heavy crowd. Later Jewish tradition made this danger even more serious than Leviticus had (e.g., Mishnah Toharot 5:8), so many teachers avoided touching women (other than their wives) altogether, lest they become accidentally contaminated. Thus she could not touch or be touched, was probably now divorced or had never married, and was marginal to Jewish society.

5:30-34. Jewish people believed that only teachers closest to God had supernatural knowledge. Jesus uses his supernatural knowledge to identify with the woman who had touched him—even though in the eyes of the public this would mean that he had contracted ritual uncleanness. (By law, she was still counted as unclean for seven days after her flow of blood stopped; Lev 15:28.) Given the frequent failure of the male *disciples’ faith (8:17-21; 9:19), Mark’s record of this woman’s faith (cf. 7:29; 12:44; 15:40-41) is all the more striking, especially for readers whose culture considered women less stable and emotionally weaker than men.

5:35-39. Childhood deaths were common (in Egypt, which was poorer, perhaps half the children born did not survive into adulthood). Tradition expected at least two or three professional mourners (two flutists and a mourning woman) to facilitate grief at the funeral of even the poorest person; more mourners would assemble at the death of a member of a prominent family like this one. Because bodies decomposed rapidly in Palestine, mourners had to be assembled immediately upon someone’s death (presumably especially when it had been expected), and in this case they had gathered before word even reached Jairus that his daughter had died. Messengers were normally dispatched immediately to bring a parent or spouse the sad news.

5:40-43. In that culture, at the age of twelve the girl was a virgin probably soon to be married (with very rare exceptions, women were not able to continue in education as they do today). Young girls usually looked forward eagerly to their wedding day as the most joyous event in their life, and to die unmarried—especially just short of it—was lamented as a particularly great tragedy. Jewish interpreters sometimes linked texts by a common word; that this girl had lived the same number of years as the woman with the flow of blood had been ill (5:25) provides a useful literary connection. Whereas contact with the bleeding woman would render Jesus unclean for a day in the eyes of others (Lev 15:19-33), touching a corpse led to seven days of uncleanness (Num 19:11-22, esp. 19:11). Jesus spoke to her in *Aramaic, perhaps her first language, although Greek was widely spoken in Palestine. (On the use of Aramaic in healings, see comment on 7:34-35.)

6:1-6

Jesus’ Rejection in His Hometown

The *Old Testament often reiterates the principle of the prophet without honor: Jeremiah, Moses, Joseph and so forth; subsequent Jewish tradition emphasized this concept even more. That Jesus is “unable” to do works because of their unbelief (6:5) presumes a limitation not of his power but of his mission: to heal without morally directed faith would be to act like the pagan magicians of antiquity.

In 6:3, Jesus is called a “carpenter.” In A.D. 6, early in Jesus’ childhood, Sepphoris, then Galilee’s capital and most prominent city, had been destroyed by the Romans, and rebuilding had begun immediately. Thus carpenters (mostly working in wood), like stone masons, were no doubt in demand in Nazareth, a village four miles from the ruins of Sepphoris. Joseph, Jesus’ father, probably taught his son his own trade, as was common for fathers to do. After Sepphoris had been rebuilt, they probably did most carpentry work from their home, as most Galilean carpenters did. The observation that Jesus is a carpenter is meant to identify him, not to suggest the unlikelihood of a carpenter being a teacher, for we also have traditions about other carpenters who became famous teachers (e.g., *Shammai).

“Brothers” and “sisters” are the usual terms for siblings; a different term for more general “kinfolk” (e.g., Rom 16:11) is not used with regard to Jesus’ siblings. The majority of scholars today, Catholic as well as Protestant, recognize that this text probably refers to children born to Mary after Jesus. Large families were common, with children often spread over a wide age range.

Jesus’ “inability” to do miracles in Nazareth (6:5) indicates a limitation not of his power but of his mission. In Scripture, God can act sovereignly, but the goal is relationship, not merely impressing people.

6:7-13

Traveling Representatives of Jesus

6:7. On the “twelve,” see comment on 3:14-15. It was customary to send heralds, or messengers, by twos, in both Greek and Jewish culture. In Judaism, such pairing also provided validation for their testimony (Deut 17:6; 19:15). Authority could be delegated.

6:8-9. They are to travel light, like some other groups: (1) some urban Greek philosophers, called *Cynics (although none were Jewish, and their presence is barely attested in Palestine); (2) perhaps more relevantly, peasants, who often had only one cloak (though they did not travel much); (3) most relevantly, some prophets, like Elijah and (probably Jesus’ most immediate model) John the Baptist. They are to be totally committed to their mission, not tied down with worldly concerns. The “bag” may have been used for begging (like the Cynics’ bags), or likelier just carrying supplies; Jesus forbids it here.

6:10. Antiquity in general and Judaism in particular highly valued hospitality. The mission here is apparently a short-term one; in normal circumstances, hospitality (which included taking a person in) usually lasted at most a few weeks. Like some of the early *synagogues, early *churches found it most practical to meet in homes (with no overhead cost) and to use them as a base of operation in reaching the rest of the community.

6:11. When entering the holy land or the temple, some scrupulous Jewish people would shake off the defiling dust of less clean soil; here the *disciples must treat apostate Jewish cities as if they are unclean *Gentile territory (cf. Mt 10:14-15).

6:12-13. Oil was sometimes used medicinally, and in the *Old Testament it was often associated with divine commissioning. Such associations could make it a useful symbol in prayer for healing (Jas 5:14).

6:14-29

The Politician Murders the Prophet

6:14-16. Herod Antipas, son of Herod the Great and Malthace, a *Samaritan (Josephus, Jewish War 1.562), was technically tetrarch (with Matthew and Luke), not “king”; Mark may use the latter term loosely or possibly even ironically: it was precisely Herod’s appeal for the title “king” under Herodias’s influence that ended his tetrarchy and led to his banishment in A.D. 39 (cf. Josephus, Jewish Antiquities 18.250-255).

Reincarnation is not in view in this passage. Some Greeks (and Jews influenced by them) did believe in reincarnation; but John’s return is said instead to be a “rising from the dead” (as a few persons had been raised through *Old Testament prophets); Elijah had never died, and many Jewish people anticipated his *eschatological return (Mal 4:5).

6:17-19. Herod’s affair with his sister-in-law, whom he had by this time married, was widely known. Indeed, because Herodias insisted that Antipas divorce his first wife before marrying her, the first wife fled to her father, king of the Nabatean Arabs, who later went to war with Antipas and defeated him. John’s denunciation of the affair as unlawful (besides being adultery, it violated biblical incest prohibitions; see Lev 18:16; 20:21) was an attack against Herod’s adultery, but Herod could have perceived it as a political threat, given the political ramifications that later led to a major military defeat. (*Josephus claims that many viewed Herod’s humiliation in the war as divine judgment for his executing John the Baptist; Josephus, Jewish Antiquities 18.116-119.)

Some scholars suggest that Herod’s half-brother Herod Philip may be called by the secondary name Philip here to avoid confusing him with the main Herod in the story, Herod Antipas.

6:20. Despite Antipas’s grounds for animosity toward John (6:17-19), it is not incredible that he would enjoy hearing him (cf. Ezek 33:31-33; Lk 23:8). Many well-to-do Greeks, fancying themselves *patrons of intellectual pursuits, supported philosophers more for respectable cultural and entertainment purposes than for ethical edification. Influenced by upper-class Greek ideals, Herod undoubtedly considered himself as open-minded culturally as he was brutal politically.

6:21. Celebrating birthdays was at this time a Greek and Roman but not a Jewish custom, although the Jewish aristocracy had imbibed plenty of Greek culture by this period. Herod held tight, centralized control over Galilee, and the officials he invites probably include local village and regional leaders loyal to his government; in all Galilee, only Tiberias and probably Sepphoris were cities organized after the Greek model.

6:22. Other ancient sources testify that the Herodian court was given to the sorts of astonishing excesses described here. Whereas Vashti refused to appear naked before Xerxes’s guests, Herodias’ daughter Salome offers Herod’s guests a lewd dance. Some scholars suggest that Herodias’s daughter Salome is at this point no longer a young girl and is already married to the tetrarch Philip. Other historical data about her, however, suggest that she may be no older than twelve or fourteen (which was a common age for virgins to marry in Jewish Palestine); it is possible that she is even slightly younger. On any reading, Herod’s vulgarity is perverse; after taking his brother’s wife (cf. Lev 20:21), he lusts after his wife’s daughter (cf. Lev 20:14).

6:23. This is the sort of oath one might make while drunk, but it is especially reminiscent of the Persian king stirred by Queen Esther’s beauty (Esther 5:3, 6; 7:2), though the depravity of this girl’s request ironically contrasts with Esther’s virtuous request. But Herod’s oath is not backed up with genuine authority; as a Roman vassal he has no authority to give away any of his “kingdom.” Salome will need to think of a more practical request.

6:24. The girl has to go “out” to ask her mother. Excavations at Herod’s fortress Machaerus suggest two dining halls, one for women and one for men. Herodias has thus presumably not been present to watch Herod’s reaction to the dance. Josephus characterizes Herodias the same way Mark does: a jealous, ambitious schemer (she and Antipas ultimately did themselves in; see comment on 6:14-16).

6:25. Beheading by the sword was the method of executing Roman citizens and other individuals of status; lower-class individuals were usually executed by crucifixion or other means, unless the matter were urgent. Salome’s asking for John’s head on a platter suggests that she wants it served up as part of the dinner menu—a ghastly touch of ridicule. It was the sort of grisly touch that ancient writers often associated with horrible abuses of power (e.g., of Nero).

6:26-28. Although an oath like Herod’s was not legally binding, breaking an oath before dinner guests would have been embarrassing in a culture that highly valued honor; it is known that even the emperor would not lightly do it. Ancient sources report various rulers or governors who had people visibly executed during dinner to please those to whom they were attracted; all those who report these actions view them as despicable. Unlike Judean Jewish leaders who needed *Pilate’s approval to enact legal executions, Herod Antipas was acting ruler in his own domain.

6:29. If a man had sons, the eldest son was normally responsible for his father’s burial; here John’s *disciples must fulfill this role for him. Those who sought the body of a person who had been executed could risk being identified with the crime, especially if they were not family members; while Antipas had executed John only reluctantly, these courageous disciples may not know that. (Contrast the absence of Jesus’ apparently less courageous male disciples in 15:42-47!)

6:30-44

A Shepherd Feeds His Sheep

The true ruler’s gracious meal in this passage contrasts starkly with Herod’s wicked banquet in the previous passage.

6:30-34. “*Apostles” were Jesus’ commissioned agents, representatives authorized with his authority. Jesus’ care for the sheep (6:34) is modeled on God’s care for his people in Ezekiel 34:5, 15; this care is likewise expressed by providing sound teaching (cf. Ezek 34:4; Jer 23; Num 27:17). The traditional leaders were not giving them what they needed, including truth (cf. Ezek 34:1-10; Jer 23).

6:35-38. Fish (particularly around the lake) and especially bread were central components of the Palestinian diet; meat was probably rarely available for most people except at feasts, when large numbers of animals were sacrificed. Food was always sold in village markets, and the Galilean countryside was full of villages (6:36); but Jesus had withdrawn his followers some distance from the nearest villages (6:32). Even the largest villages would have under three thousand inhabitants; despite Galilee’s agricultural self-sufficiency, feeding this crowd in the villages would thus have been difficult. But it would have taken more than two hundred days of an average person’s wages (around seven months of hard labor) to feed the great multitude that had assembled. Compare the analogous instruction, astonished question from a *disciple, and following miracle in 2 Kings 4:42-44.

6:39. That the grass is green indicates that it is spring, around Passover (cf. Jn 6:4), and might explain the better conditions for sitting.

6:40. The purpose is to facilitate the distribution of food, but some scholars suggest that some people in the crowd may have thought that Jesus was organizing them as ranks for a messianic army (cf. Jn 6:15). (The *Old Testament and *Dead Sea Scrolls show such organization into ranks for armies. Mark records this organizing, however, simply to emphasize the great numbers fed.)

6:41. People sometimes looked up to heaven when they prayed. It was customary to begin a meal by giving thanks for the bread and then dividing it.

6:42-44. The multiplication of food is reminiscent of the miracle of God supplying manna for Israel in the wilderness (of hopes for a new Moses), and especially of Elisha multiplying food (2 Kings 4:42-44, where some was also left over). Ancient ethics frowned on wasting leftovers, although aristocrats often flaunted such waste. The term for “baskets” here was often used for wicker food baskets but could also mean the large baskets in which Roman soldiers carried their supplies.

6:45-52

Walking on Water

6:45-48. The language of “passing by” may refer to how God’s glory “passed by” in the *Old Testament (Ex 33:19; Job 9:11), which also (in one of the same contexts) described God as “treading” upon the waves (Job 9:8); see also comment on 6:50-52. God parted waters for others, but in the Old Testament only God himself is said to walk on them (cf. Ps 77:19).

6:49. Although not all Jewish teachers sanctioned a belief in ghosts, it existed on the popular level and ultimately contradicted the more common Jewish (and *New Testament) teaching that the righteous and wicked dead are separated at death in view of the coming *resurrection. Some Hellenized Jews accepted a common Greek notion of souls persisting in the air; many people also thought that the souls of those who died at sea, hence were unburied, hovered around the site of their death.

6:50-52. “It is I” (NIV, NASB, KJV, etc.) is literally “I am.” Although the former is the primary meaning here, in this context it is possible that Jesus (or Mark) also intends to allude to a particular nuance of the latter meaning: “I am” may refer back to the God of the Old Testament (Ex 3:14; Is 41:4; 43:10; see comment on Mk 6:45-48).

6:53-56

Crowds Seek Healing

Carrying the sick on their mats or touching Jesus’ cloak imitated earlier expressions of faith (see comment on 2:3-5; 5:27-29). Evidence from ancient pagan healing shrines suggests that once someone was healed in a particular way or at a particular place, others often tried to get healing by the same method. The marketplaces (6:56) constituted the largest open area of a town or village, where larger crowds could gather. In contrast to Greek cities, market areas in Galilean towns were not always located in the center of the town.

7:1-23

True and False Religion

Controversy over Jesus’ treatment of uncleanness (1:40-45; 5:21-43) and other religious issues (e.g., 2:1–3:35) climaxes in a confrontation over the failure of Jesus’ *disciples to wash their hands.

7:1. Most *Pharisees and the most elite *scribes were centered in Jerusalem. Some commentators have suggested that they came to evaluate Jesus’ teaching, to see if he were a false teacher leading people astray (see Deut 13:13-14), or to evaluate the teaching more generally. Perhaps these represent a small number of Pharisees who did live in Galilee. Plenty of scribes already lived in Galilee.

7:2-3. The Pharisees were scrupulous about washing their hands as part of ritual purity, though this rule was not found in the *Old Testament and may have originally derived from Greek influence. Mark gives his *Gentile readers only a cursory summary of a much more complex custom (which some scholars think was limited to particular days), although his readers may have been familiar with related Jewish purity practices in their own parts of the world (*Diaspora Jews were known for washing their hands).

7:4. Washing the hands removed partial ceremonial impurity picked up in the marketplace; hands were apparently immersed up to the wrist or purified by having water poured over them from a pure vessel. The Pharisees also had rules about immersing vessels to remove impurity.

7:5. People held teachers responsible for the behavior of their disciples. The Pharisees were known for observing the traditions of their predecessors; unwilling to innovate more than necessary, they grounded everything they could in tradition. Thus they want to know where Jesus, as a popular teacher, stands on issues on which their tradition commented (such as washing hands), so they can evaluate his teaching accordingly.

7:6-8. Jesus quotes a *prophecy of Isaiah decreed against the Israel of Isaiah’s day (Is 29:13), which had been religious in form but not close to God in heart (Is 1:10-20). The very thing the Pharisees prized as spiritual—traditions derived from many pious and wise teachers who had tried to interpret and apply God’s *law—Jesus claims is undercutting the plain message of God.

7:9-13. Many Jewish teachers regarded the commandment to honor father and mother as the most important in the law. Jewish interpreters included in this commandment providing for one’s parents when they were old. At the same time, tradition allowed that various items could be sacrificed or dedicated to the use of God’s temple. (“Corban” appears on sacrificial vessels and means “consecrated to God”; in popular usage, it could also mean “forbidden to so-and-so.”) One school of Jewish teachers in Jesus’ day declared that a vow that something was consecrated and forbidden to others applied even to family members, even if those to whom it was forbidden included them only accidentally.

Some apparently religious people had been using this practice to withhold what should have otherwise gone to the support of their parents—against the otherwise firm Pharisaic belief that one should support one’s parents. Jesus attacks here not the Pharisees’ religious theory but these Pharisees’ inconsistency with that theory in practice: their love for the law had led them (like some modern Christians) to such attention to its legal details that it created loopholes for them to violate the spirit of the law.

7:14-15. Other teachers are occasionally reported to have uttered sayings similar to Jesus’ statement here, but only rarely and in private, perhaps to avoid anyone disobeying the literal rules of the law. If Jesus’ words are taken literally, they declare the whole clean/unclean distinction emphasized in the law as of only symbolic value. Because this distinction constituted one of the main barriers between Jews and Gentiles (see Rom 14), Jesus’ statement opens the way for cultural unity in table fellowship.

7:16-19. Jesus says that food does not affect what a person really is; writing in a day of conflict between the customs of Jewish and Gentile Christians, Mark applies this point to the kosher laws of Leviticus 11: pigs, dogs, bats, owls and so on are now “clean,” or acceptable to eat. Mark’s understanding of Jesus’ teaching would not have been popular among most Jewish people. Liberal Alexandrian Jews who no longer believed in literal observance of the food laws (Lev 11; Deut 14) were particularly despised by their more conservative colleagues in Egypt and certainly found few allies in Palestine.

7:20-23. Other Jewish teachers would have agreed that the vices listed by Jesus were evil and that they came from the heart. (Vice lists were also a common teaching technique of ancient moralists.) But teachers would not have agreed with Jesus that most of themselves were more concerned about legal details than ethics, even though as experts in the law they necessarily had reason to spend more time focusing on legal issues than on God’s work of transforming the heart.

7:24-30

A Gentile Woman’s Faith

If “unclean” foods such as pigs and dogs were no longer unclean (7:16-19), neither were Gentiles. Although Jesus wins all his controversies with the religious authorities in Mark, he allows himself to be persuaded by a Gentile woman’s desperate retort. This story would encourage Mark’s Gentile readers, who were being persecuted for a faith that many others simply regarded as a Jewish heresy.

7:24-26. Jewish people did not expect much faith from pagans. Like Sidon, Tyre belonged to ancient Phoenicia, and the most prominent woman from Phoenicia in the *Old Testament was the wicked Jezebel. But another Phoenician woman who petitioned Elijah in the same generation received God’s favor for her son (1 Kings 17:17-24). “Syrophoenicia” distinguishes this region from Libophoenicia, the region of north Africa settled by Phoenicians as Carthage. Greek culture had long influenced Syria, and after Alexander’s conquests many Greeks had settled there; the citizen class of the Phoenician republics Tyre and Sidon considered itself Greek and was thoroughly Hellenized. Thus she is both Syrophoenician and Greek.

7:27-28. Members of the Greek ruling class of Syrophoenicia exploited the labors of Syrians and some Jewish settlers in the surrounding countryside; the woman belongs to a group that in a sense has been taking other children’s bread. Jewish people did not regularly call non-Jews “dogs,” as some commentators have argued. Rather, Jesus is making his point by way of illustration, as teachers in his day often did. Worthless food would be cast to the dogs (cf. Ex 22:31). Applied to either gender, “dog” was one of the gravest and most common insults in antiquity, although here it functions more as an analogy. In Jewish Palestine, dogs were regarded as scavengers, but in well-to-do households influenced by Greek custom (more familiar to the Syrophoenician woman), dogs were sometimes pets. Jesus is making an illustration: the children must be fed before the pets, and the Jewish people therefore had first claim (e.g., Ex 4:22). The statement would still sound offensive, but the woman surmounts the obstacle. Sometimes obstacles were provided to give opportunity for exercising faith.

He is saying that he will not heal like pagan magicians; he wants her to demonstrate faith, specifically faith in the supremacy of the true God. (Her reply takes up his illustration: she concedes the salvation-historical priority of the Jewish people, the children, but protests that even the dogs get to eat crumbs. In so arguing, she indicates her faith that only the smallest fraction of his power is necessary to heal her daughter.)

7:29-30. In the Old Testament, faith was often expressed in bold zeal, holy chutzpah, by women of faith (2 Kings 4:14-28), prophets (Ex 33:12–34:9; 1 Kings 18:36-37; 2 Kings 2:2, 4, 6, 9) and other heroes (Gen 32:26-30). These examples all combine humble respect for God or his prophet with boldly urgent entreaty, and God answers these prayers. Because most of Jesus’ ministry was to Israel and Mark’s audience included Gentiles, this Gentile’s deliverance by faith would encourage them that they were not excluded.

7:31-37

A Deaf-Mute Healed

7:31. The Decapolis, literally “ten cities” (see 5:1-20), was (like Tyre and Sidon) predominantly inhabited by non-Jews, though many Jews also lived there.

7:32-33. Deaf and mute persons were protected under Jewish *law but classed with other groups (women, slaves, imbeciles, minors) not educated enough to keep the law. Crowds gathered to see magicians do their tricks, and this crowd would have preferred to have seen Jesus heal a man in front of them, but he does not do so. On the spittle see 8:22-23. Magicians employed gestures, but Jesus, who does not regularly employ them, has a different reason here. Jewish people knew that deaf people could use signs to communicate, so here Jesus may be acting out “healing,” “speech” and (7:34) “from God,” to encourage the man’s faith in what he is about to do. Mark’s term for “mute” occurs in the *Septuagint only at Isaiah 35:6, referring to the blessings inaugurated in the messianic era.

7:34-37. Some scholars point out that magicians often spoke unintelligible phrases during healings. Here, however, Jesus speaks *Aramaic, which would have been known to most people, Jewish or *Gentile, from Syria-Palestine (cf. also Mk 14:36). It was probably particularly common in the villages and rural areas.

8:1-13

Feeding the Four Thousand

See 6:30-44 for more background on this passage. Jesus was not limited to doing a miracle only once; he could repeat them whenever necessary (8:19-21; cf. 2 Kings 2:19-22; 4:1-7, 38-41, 42-44; 7:16).

8:1-4. Galilee was full of towns and villages, so Jesus purposely withdraws his *disciples some distance away, presumably to secure privacy for instructing his disciples. Villages could not provide sufficient food for such a crowd (see comment on 6:36), but in view of Jesus’ earlier miracle in 6:41-42 the disciples’ question of 8:4 displays obtuseness.

8:5-7. Bread and fish were basic staples; it was customary to give thanks before a meal. The standard blessing later preserved is: “Blessed are You, O Lord our God, King of the Universe, who has brought forth bread from the earth.”

8:8-10. The term for basket here (different from the one in chap. 6) refers to a reed basket often used for carrying fish, presumably available. This feeding miracle, like the earlier one, is reminiscent of Elisha (including leftover food; 2 Kings 4:42-44).

8:11-13. A sign “from heaven” could refer to any sign from God (cf. 8:12; Jewish people sometimes used “heaven” as a circumlocution for “God”) or could request that Jesus perform a heavenly sign (e.g., fire falling). But it also might refer to predicting a sign in heaven (cf. 13:24-25). Most ancient peoples, including most Jewish people by this time, believed that signs in the heavens could portend events about to take place; unusual signs could portend the death of a ruler, the fall of a city and so forth. Deuteronomy 18:10 forbade divination, which would include astrological prognostication, but many Jewish people in this period accepted astrology.

In view of Mark 8:1-10, the reader recognizes how foolish Jesus’ opponents are. Ancient *narratives sometimes cited the conspicuous denseness of opponents to highlight the protagonist’s virtue.

8:14-21

Disciples Still Blind

Mark’s Christian readers are confronted with a point less comfortable than the one in 8:11-13: not only Jesus’ opponents but even his *disciples are dense.

8:14. One loaf would not feed all those in the boat. If they are headed for the less populated east side of the lake, it would be difficult to find bread; it would be simple, however, in Bethsaida (8:22). Their concern is heightened because bringing provisions had been their responsibility; teachers often delegated such matters to some of their disciples.

8:15. Yeast is used to represent various things in the Bible (unleavened bread in Ex 12:15-17 represents haste; in Mt 13:33, the *kingdom; in 1 Cor 5:6-7, someone’s sin); the point here seems to be that it is something that spreads (as in Mt 13 and 1 Cor 5). Both Pharisaic piety and Herod as an agent of political power are corrupting influences.

8:16-18. The disciples are still spiritually half-blind, which is a moral fault in Mark 4:12 (and in the *Old Testament: e.g., Is 29:9-10; 42:19-20; 44:18; Ezek 12:2).

8:19-21. The disciples should have seen enough bread miracles not to worry about earthly bread and to catch Jesus’ plain point. Instead, they are acting more like the Israelites in the wilderness, who never learned faith despite manna from heaven.

8:22-26

Blindness Half-Cured

In view of 8:17-21, scholars often view Jesus’ use of two stages in healing as a sort of acted *parable, meant to illustrate a point while healing the man.

8:22-23. Some sources suggest that spittle was sometimes associated with healing; it was also often considered disgusting and may have tested the blind man’s desire to be healed.

8:24-25. This is the only two-stage healing in the Gospels, and miracle stories in antiquity usually stress the suddenness of the miracle; emphasis on healing by degrees was quite rare. Many therefore believe that Jesus provided here an acted parable: unlike Jesus’ opponents, the *disciples have begun to see but remain blind (8:16-18) until he touches them again at his *resurrection (9:9). The *Old Testament prophets sometimes acted out parables to get people’s attention and communicate their point (e.g., Is 20:2-6; Jer 19:1-15; Ezek 4:1–5:17; 12:1-11).

8:26. Prophets usually presented healed persons to their families (1 Kings 17:23; 2 Kings 4:36), but Jesus’ private action here emphasizes the messianic secret (see the introduction to Mark in this commentary). Had the man returned to the town, everyone would have known of the miracle.

8:27-30

The Disciples Half-See

This narrative may illustrate how the *disciples remain half-blind regarding the nature of Jesus’ identity.

8:27. Caesarea Philippi was a pagan city known especially for its grotto dedicated to the worship of Pan, a Greek bucolic god. (Jesus thus chose to raise the question of his own identity in a largely *Gentile area.) “Villages of Caesarea Philippi” accurately depicts the area; throughout the *Hellenistic world, surrounding villages normally had a close relationship with the city in whose territory they were located.

8:28. Because some Palestinian Jews (particularly among the educated elite) believed that prophets in the *Old Testament sense had ceased, ranking Jesus among the prophets could have seemed radical—but it was not radical enough to grasp his true identity.

8:29-30. The “*Messiah,” or “Christ,” is literally the “anointed one”—not just any anointed one but the anointed king, descended from David, who would restore sovereignty to Israel (Is 9:6-7; 11:1-10; Ps 2). There were many different views of the Messiah (or messiahs) in Jesus’ time, but they all revolved around an earthly deliverance and earthly *kingdom. Peter is right to call Jesus “Messiah,” but what Peter means by the term and what Jesus means by it diverge widely at this point (see 8:31-32). Jesus may wish to avoid arousing the authorities’ hostility prematurely; on the messianic secret (8:30) see the introduction to Mark.

8:31–9:1

Jesus Explains His Messianic Mission

8:31. People throughout Greco-Roman antiquity commonly believed that someone about to die could make predictions about the future, and many believed that holy men could forecast their own death. This background may be less relevant here, however. In addition to knowing *Old Testament examples of prophets’ martyrdom (emphasized by his contemporaries) and texts such as Isaiah 52:13–53:12, Jesus knew the character of the temple authorities and what he planned to do in the temple (11:15-18). His actions virtually provoked his death.

8:32. Disciples were expected to respect their teachers and certainly never to reprove them. The *New Testament writers interpreted some Old Testament texts as referring to the *Messiah’s suffering, but most Jewish people in the first century did not recognize these texts as referring to the Messiah, who was to reign as king. Most Jewish people believed in the resurrection of all the righteous dead at the end of the age, and the inauguration of a *kingdom under God’s appointed ruler afterward. Jesus’ explanation of his mission in 8:31 thus seems to Peter to contradict his confession of Jesus’ messiahship in 8:29.

8:33. “*Satan” originally meant “adversary” and in a few sources could even be used in the plural (though the plural is extremely rare); but in early Christian and most early Jewish writings it refers specifically to the devil. One could be said to act like someone else, however (e.g., John “in the spirit and power of Elijah”—Lk 1:17), and Jesus apparently uses *hyperbole to make the point: Peter is just like Satan in preferring the worldly to the divine (cf. Mt 4:8-10). Calling Peter by the name of the ultimate tempter and accuser underlines the seriousness of his failure as a disciple at this point.

The proper position of a disciple is “behind” his master, “following” him; “get behind me” may call Peter (who reproved Jesus; see comment on 8:32) back to his rightful position of subservience. In Greek circles as well a person could be reproached for thinking in human rather than divine terms.

8:34-37. To “come after” Jesus is to be his disciple (see comment on 8:33). Although some used “crucifixion” figuratively for great suffering, Jesus’ means of death in this Gospel indicates a more demanding understanding. The cross was an instrument of violent and painful execution. To “take the cross” was to carry the horizontal beam of the cross out to the site of execution, generally past spectators, often a jeering mob. In rhetorically strong terms, Jesus describes what all true disciples must be ready for: if they follow him, they must be ready to face literal scorn and death, for they must follow to the cross. Because life is worth more than the world itself, giving one’s life in this world to gain it in the world to come is a wise transaction (cf. *2 Baruch 17:2-3; 51:15-16); there was nothing else one could give in exchange for it (Ps 49:7, 15). Ironically, Jesus’ executioners later draft a bystander to fill the role of carrying the cross that none of his disciples are willing to undertake (Mk 15:21).

8:38. The coming “*Son of Man” here alludes to Daniel 7:13-14. Many others in Jesus’ day believed that a period of great suffering and sin would precede the kingdom; but Peter and his colleagues prefer the easier view that it would not, or at least that their side would triumph supernaturally at no cost to themselves.

9:1. This verse points to the future glory mentioned in the preceding verses by way of an anticipatory revelation of that glory they are to experience in 9:2-13. Because the future *Messiah had already come, the glory of his future kingdom was also already present.

9:2-13

Glory on the Mountain

Ancient texts as diverse as Greek myth and Jewish *apocalypses speak of various radiant supernatural figures (deities, angels, etc.) and transformations, but by far the most obvious shared background for all those familiar with the *Old Testament (as Mark’s hearers were) was Moses. God had revealed his glory to Moses on Mount Sinai, so that Moses had come down from the mountain reflecting God’s glory (Ex 32–34). In Mark 9:2-13, the glory of Jesus, who is greater than Moses and Elijah, is revealed on the mountain; he is thus the ultimate spokesperson for God (Deut 18:18-19).

9:2. Mount Sinai was where God revealed his glory. Jesus waits “six days” to ascend a mountain to make the same point (Ex 24:16). That Jesus takes three companions may allude to Exodus 24:1, 9, although this possible allusion is less clear (seventy elders were also present in that account). (The *Qumran scrolls might speak of twelve leaders, with three being most prominent, though three is a small enough number to allow coincidence here.) Transformation or transfiguration appears in both Greek myth and Jewish apocalyptic literature, but the most obvious background of Jesus’ transformation here must be Moses’ glorification on Mount Sinai.

9:3. Jewish literature often described angels and other heavenly beings as being clothed in white. Cleaning clothes (cf. NIV “bleach”) was normally a housewife’s task, but this text refers to the widespread ancient profession of cloth refiners, who could be men or women. They had facilities that homes lacked and prepared fabrics for cloth, by means that included combing, cleaning and thickening them before spinning. These refiners often treated the fabric with urine (a practice for which fullers were consequently notorious) and clay, brushing it with brushes or thistles. They bleached white fabrics with chemicals, and often brightened and softened them by stretching them on a frame over burning sulfur. They also cleaned existing clothing, and could often remove stains from white garments.

9:4. Jewish people understood Scripture as denying that Elijah had ever died; Moses was buried by God himself, and some (unbiblical) Jewish traditions even claimed that Moses was still alive (cf. comment on Rev 11:6). These two figures were both expected to return in some sense before the end (Deut 18; Mal 4).

9:5-6. Israelites annually built tabernacles, or booths, commemorating the time when God’s presence was with them in the wilderness, so Peter would know how to build one.

9:7. The cloud probably recalls the cloud of God’s presence, for example, on Mount Sinai (Ex 24:15-16). The heavenly voice repeats the basic message of Mark 1:11 but may add another biblical allusion. “Hear him” may refer to Deuteronomy 18:15, where the Israelites are warned to heed the “prophet like Moses,” the new Moses who would come.

9:8. One may compare Elijah and Moses’ vanishing with a Jewish belief assumed especially by the later *rabbis that Elijah could come and go at will, like an angel. In any case, angels were thought able to appear and disappear.

9:9-10. Given their cultural presuppositions, it was difficult for the *disciples to understand what had happened; they assumed that all the righteous dead would be resurrected simultaneously at the end of the age (cf. Dan 12:2).

9:11. The Jewish people expected Elijah to come at the time of the end (Mal 4:5), to prepare the Lord’s way (Mal 3:1; Sirach 48:1-10), though they held different views on his exact function.

9:12. Elijah would come “to restore all things,” that is, to reconcile families (Mal 4:6; although later rabbis interpreted this restoration as straightening out Israel’s genealogies, people understood the text more broadly in this period; Sirach 48:10).

9:13. Most Jewish people were expecting the real Elijah (whom the disciples saw speaking with Jesus), but by applying the promise of Elijah to John, Jesus interprets it much more figuratively than most of his contemporaries would have.

9:14-32

Insufficient Faith for Exorcism

9:14-15. Like Moses, Jesus must deal with the failure of those he left in charge once he comes down from the mountain (Ex 24:14; 32:1-8, 21-25, 35). Most *scribes did not claim the power to work miracles, in contrast to Jesus’ disciples (6:12-13). Teachers of the *law presumably knew the Hebrew Bible on a more sophisticated level than the disciples did, so if the disciples could not demonstrate God’s power in other ways, they risked their credibility. Foaming at the mouth also appears in an analogous ancient example.

9:16-18. The possessed person’s lack of control over his own motor responses is paralleled by examples of spirit possession in many cultures through history and is attested in anthropological studies of spirit possession today. Some writers have noted parallels between the form of demonized activity depicted here and epileptic behavior, but epilepsy has a neurological basis (epilepsy and demonic possession are distinguished in Mt 4:24). The parallels could indicate that the spirit interfered with the same centers in the brain where seizures could also be induced by other means. Brain research shows that neurological parallels to possession trances on some level occur even in REM sleep, sleepwalking, and a variety of other states; the brain is neurologically susceptible to altered states of consciousness, not all of which directly require the activity of alien spirits. Some of these states may, however, facilitate spiritual experiences (positive or negative); likewise, it would not be surprising that spirits invading some aspects of the personality could overload the human nervous system.

9:19. Mature disciples were supposed to be able to carry on in their teacher’s absence; sometimes a teacher would delegate lectures to his advanced pupils. The matter at hand requires a different sort of preparation than lectures did (9:29), but Jesus had already prepared them (6:7-13).

9:20-22. Demoniacs were often self-destructive (cf. 5:5), which again characterizes a number of cases of spirit possession attested in diverse cultures. See also comment on 9:16-18.

9:23-27. Exorcists usually tried to subdue *demons by incantations (often invoking higher spirits), by using smelly roots or the like. Jesus here uses only his command, showing his great authority.

9:28-30. Jewish teachers often explained more mature subjects (too risky for the public to hear) to their disciples in private. In a culture dominated by honor and shame, rebukes and admissions of failure were also better carried out in private. The few reports of miracle-working sages do not suggest that such sages usually expected their disciples to be able to emulate their power (though Elisha carried on Elijah’s work), certainly not on the same level. Nevertheless, teachers often prepared their advanced students to become teachers themselves. Few rabbis were seen as miracle workers, and few who were expected their disciples to be able to emulate their power (though Elisha carried on Elijah’s work), certainly not on the same level, and certainly not in the rabbi’s name (v. 39). Exorcists’ methods normally focused on their own power or, more precisely, their ability to manipulate other powers; Jesus here emphasizes prayer instead (9:29).

9:31. The context of Daniel 7:13-14, which speaks of God entrusting his *kingdom to one like a *Son of Man, declares that suffering at the hands of the evil world ruler precedes exaltation (7:18-27).

9:32. Suffering was not part of the contemporary expectation for the *Messiah; to understand Jesus’ message, the people need a paradigm shift in their categories and values (cf. 8:29-33). Disciples always strove to be respectful toward their rabbis. They would regard their fellow disciples as their peer group and thus might not include the rabbi in a dispute among themselves; confronting him would also cost them honor (cf. 8:32-33).

9:33-37

The Greatest Is the Child

9:33-34. Competition for honor was important in many ancient societies. Those with capital could advance economically, but most people in ancient society lacked sufficient capital for advancement and were thus locked into roles determined by birth. Even those who improved economically could not break into the aristocracy. In other circles, rank was assigned by noble birth, by age, by being the academically most advanced pupils in a school, or by advancement in the law; thus, for example, the *Qumran sect annually reevaluated each member’s rank, which determined their seating and speaking order. Most groups seated people according to social rank. By whatever means it was determined, rank was a critical issue in ancient life (cf. comment on 1 Cor 14:27). Many Jewish people hoped for a new status in the world to come, based not on noble birth but on faithfulness to God’s covenant.

9:35. In antiquity, as today, heroes or benevolent people with power were preeminent. Rabbis stressed humility but expected their disciples to serve them.

9:36. Much more than today, in antiquity children were especially powerless in society and dependent on parents.

9:37. In Jewish custom, a person’s agent, similar to a modern business representative, could act on behalf of the person who sent him. To the extent that he accurately represented the one who sent him, the agent was supported by the sender’s full authority; the principle was applied in the *Old Testament to God’s messengers, his prophets (1 Sam 8:7). How one treated the poor could also show one’s treatment of the Lord (Prov 19:17).

9:38-41

Turning Away a True Believer

Here the *disciples, who shortly before could not cast out a *demon by using Jesus’ name, criticize one of the “little ones” who did act in his name (cf. 9:37) by casting out demons (cf. Num 11:28). The format of this discussion resembles ancient *narratives in which a famous teacher refutes the contentions of the less informed.

9:38. Like individuals, different schools and sects often competed against each other. Sectarian attitudes were common in Judaism, as the *Dead Sea Scrolls testify. (Some Jewish groups would break away from others over such issues as the correct day for Passover.) Their zeal is misplaced (cf. Num 11:28; the reader may also recall other disciples’ recent failure to expel a demon, 9:28).

9:39. Merely recognizing Jesus’ name is one thing, but having the faith to do a miracle in that name indicates that this man was not just a typical exorcist trying to use a more powerful name to accomplish miracles, as exorcists often did (Acts 19:13-16; cf. Josephus, Jewish Antiquities 8.47). This exorcist probably seeks instead to act as Jesus’ agent (cf. comment on Acts 3:6).

9:40. “He who is not against you is for you” may have been a proverb (cf. several sources, including *Cicero, a first-century B.C. Roman author); Jesus adapts it to make his point.

9:41. Jesus had spoken of welcoming his disciples (Mk 6:8-11); here Jesus refers to those who are so poor that they have only water to give when a disciple comes to them. Such people are very poor even by ancient standards (1 Kings 17:12). This action reflects faith and hospitality one would normally show to teachers one respects (1 Kings 17:12-16; cf. Lk 11:5-6) but not to those one thought to be false (2 Jn 10). Some ancients even told stories of people judged because they did not give even water or other available provisions to strangers, some of whom turned out to be divine or divine agents. Jewish teachers often spoke of receiving one’s “reward” when God judged the world.

9:42-50

The Penalty for Turning a Believer Away

9:42. “Stumble” was often used metaphorically to refer to sinning or falling away from the true faith. Millstones were extremely heavy; one would certainly drown with a millstone tied around one’s neck. Further, this term refers to the heavier kind of millstone turned by a donkey, rather than the lighter kind a woman would use. Jewish people regarded drowning as the awful sort that pagans might execute; thus the image is all the more dreadful. Death without burial (including death at sea) was regarded as the worst kind of death; pagans even believed that the spirit of the deceased hovered eternally over the waters where the person had died (see comment on Acts 27:20).

9:43-47. The imagery here may be corporal punishment (cutting off appendages, e.g., Ex 21:24-25) versus a form of divine capital punishment. Some Jewish thinkers believed that one would be resurrected in exactly the form in which one had died (e.g., with limbs missing, as in the case of many martyrs) before being made whole (cf. *2 Baruch 50).

9:48. Here the imagery is from Isaiah 66:24. Although one could read Isaiah as applying only to the eternal destruction of corpses (cf. Sirach 10:11; 19:3), the imagery had nevertheless apparently already begun to be applied to eternal torment (Judith 16:17).

9:49. Salt was used on sacrifices (Lev 2:13; Ezek 43:24; cf. *Jubilees 21:11), so the image might relate to the burning of 9:48 (though salt is positive in 9:50). Or cf. perhaps Deut 29:23.

9:50. Here Jesus apparently changes salt to a positive metaphor, perhaps meaning “peace.” That real salt (as opposed to the impure salt mixtures from some inland sea deposits then known) by definition does not lose its saltiness only reinforces the strength of the image (see comment on Mt 5:13). Being “at peace with one another” contrasts with the divisiveness related in 9:33-38.

10:1-12

Divorce Forbidden

Because 10:1-12 addresses the treatment of spouses, 10:13-16 deals with the treatment of children, and 10:17-31 relates to one’s true household in the *kingdom, some scholars have compared 10:1-31 to the ancient literary form “household code,” except that this passage is in *narrative form. If this comparison is at all relevant, it is interesting that Mark’s point runs counter to the values of those codes in his culture, which stressed the absolute submission of wives, children and slaves (see comment on Eph 5:21-33).

10:1. Most teachers who taught in public did so in specific localities. Only figures popular with the masses drew such crowds as Jesus did wherever they went, and these popular teachers would naturally arouse the envy of many local professional scholars and the discomfort of the authorities.

10:2. Matthew’s wording (Mt 19:3; see comment there) is closer to the exact wording *Pharisees would normally have used at that time; the issue was the grounds for divorce, not whether divorce was ever valid. Because Moses had assumed the practice of divorce (Deut 24:1), Jewish interpreters debated only the grounds for divorce; to ask whether Jesus thinks divorce is permissible at all is to ask whether he knows or agrees with Moses’ *law.

10:3-5. Rabbis distinguished between what Scripture commanded and what it allowed as a concession; by asking what Moses “commanded” Jesus invites them to recognize that Moses explicitly only “permitted,” not “commanded,” divorce, on any grounds.

10:6-9. Taking for granted the unity of the law, Jewish interpreters commonly appealed to one clear text of Scripture to counter or explain another’s use of a text that they felt unclear. Some interpreters, like the scribes who wrote the *Dead Sea Scrolls, appealed to the creation *narrative to show God’s original plan for marriage. These interpreters used Genesis 1–2 to argue against polygamy; Jesus uses it to argue against divorce. (Reflecting Greek custom against polygamy, the *Septuagint had substituted “two” for the original Hebrew “they” in Gen 2:24.)

10:10. After a teacher offered an unsatisfying public response, *disciples could seek more detailed explanations from their teachers privately.

10:11. No one else in antiquity spoke of divorce in such strong terms. (Because most Jewish teachers allowed polygamy, they would not have seen marrying a second wife as adultery, even if they had agreed that the man was still married to the first wife. But Jesus eliminates the double standard; a man consorting with two women is as adulterous as a woman consorting with two men.)

Ancients allowed remarriage after valid divorces; this saying thus regards divorces as invalid in God’s sight (hence subsequent unions as adulterous). That Matthew (Mt 5:32; 19:9) and Paul (1 Cor 7:15) state exceptions may suggest their recognition that the saying functions as *hyperbole, or as a general principle allowing exceptions (like many proverbs or other sayings of Jewish sages), reinforcing the literal point of 10:9. That he does not actually teach the ontological indissolubility of marriage—i.e., that a divorced person remains genuinely married even once divorced—is clear from the exhortation in 10:9 (cf. Jn 4:18). Hyperbole was a common teaching technique, but it was always meant to underline a point—here, that Jesus’ followers must uphold their marriage covenants to the fullest extent in their power (as in 10:9). Jesus’ point is to advocate fidelity to one’s spouse, not to break up existing polygamous or remarried unions.

10:12. Unlike Roman law, Pharisaic interpretation of biblical law did not permit a woman to divorce her husband (although under extreme circumstances she could request that the court force him to divorce her). The only Jewish women known to have flouted this law were aristocrats like Herodias (6:17), who paid more attention to Greek custom than to Palestinian Jewish custom. Mark, who writes for readers living where wives could divorce their husbands, may be bringing out the implications of Jesus’ teaching for them too. (Like modern preachers, ancient writers were expected to paraphrase sayings when needed to bring out their meanings.)

10:13-16

Images of the Kingdom

10:13. Children were loved but were socially powerless; the high childhood mortality rate meant that they were physically powerless as well, many dying before attaining maturity. (In the poorest places, like Egypt, perhaps as many as half of those born died by the age of twelve. Poorer *Gentile families often discarded babies if they thought they could not support them.) Eager to get on with the business of setting up the *kingdom, the disciples have little time for people who do not wield political power—compare the disciples’ response, and Jesus’ rebuke, with 2 Kings 4:27.

10:14-15. Some thought that the kingdom would be achieved by force of arms; others, by radical moral reform; and many, simply in God’s time. But although Jewish people (unlike Greeks) respected humility, no one expected the kingdom to come by becoming powerless like children. The totally powerless might learn to simply depend on a heavenly Father.

10:16. In Genesis some of the patriarchs conferred blessings by the laying on of hands (Gen 48:14), and their prayers were answered.

10:17-31

A Rich Man and the Kingdom

10:17. A pious man customarily sought out his own teacher; a man of wealth could normally find the best or most popular teacher for himself. For a man of wealth to bow before a teacher indicated tremendous respect. Ancient sources show that at least some disciples asked their teachers questions like the one this rich man asks Jesus. To “inherit *eternal life” meant to share in the life of the coming world, the life of the *kingdom of God.

10:18-19. Without denying that he himself is good, Jesus reminds the man of the standard Jewish conception of God’s goodness (others could be good, but no one compared with God); he then lists select commandments from the *Old Testament (five from the Ten Commandments) dealing with human relations (rather than directly with God) that people could test (not, for instance, a prohibition against a sin of the heart, coveting).

10:20. If only God is good, the man will have to admit he has broken some commandment; but the commandments Jesus had listed were kept by most well-raised, educated Jewish people.

10:21-22. Judaism stressed charity heavily, but ordinary Jewish teachers did not require a prospective disciple to divest himself entirely of funds. Several teachers, especially some radical Greek teachers, made such demands on rich students to see if they would value true teaching above their wealth; a few rich persons would give up their goods, but most disappointed such teachers. Jewish *Essenes relinquished property when they joined their movement; some Old Testament prophets also made radical sacrifices to follow God’s call (see, e.g., 1 Kings 19:19-21).

10:23-24. Jesus turns the social order upside down. The well-to-do were often hailed for their generosity (though they had more to give); being less educated in the *law, the poor were sometimes seen as less pious (although poverty itself was certainly not seen as a sign of impiety, especially by the poor themselves). Others saw the “poor” as more pious, the oppressed who depended on God.

10:25. This image reflects a Jewish figure of speech for doing something impossible (Babylonian Jews spoke of an elephant going through a needle’s eye, but camels were the largest animal in Palestine). The saying, a *hyperbole, refers to a literal needle. (Those who think Jesus refers here merely to a gate in Jerusalem called the “eye of a needle” are mistaken; the alleged “needle’s eye” gate was built in medieval times.) A wealthy person could relinquish wealth only by God’s *grace (10:26-27).

10:26-30. Fishermen and *tax gatherers had some economic independence; these disciples had abandoned their economic position to follow him. Their reward would be found in believers sharing possessions as a family in this world (cf. 6:10; Mt 10:42; Acts 2:44-45) and receiving the life of the *kingdom in the world to come.

10:31. Most Jewish people understood that the day of judgment would turn things upside down (cf., e.g., Is 2:11-12, 17); those who appear great in this world will be nothing in the next, and those who were nothing in this world will be great in the next. Jewish people applied this principle especially to the exaltation of Israel over the other nations, the oppressed righteous over their wicked oppressors, but Jesus applies it also to individual rank and status.

10:32-34

Third Passion Prediction

10:32. Despite their expectation of the coming *kingdom, the *disciples recognize the danger of going to Jerusalem and confronting the *high priestly aristocracy there (perhaps based on experience with others, such as *Pharisees who debated with Jesus, or from earlier festivals). Perhaps they are aware of Jewish traditions about a terrible war preceding the final establishing of the *Messiah’s kingdom—a war in which, according to some marginalized groups, the Jerusalem aristocracy would prove as evil as the Romans (cf. the Dead Sea Scrolls). Or perhaps they fear primarily the Roman garrison in Jerusalem.

10:33-34. Jesus warns against both the Jewish aristocracy and the Romans, who will execute him in the manner customary for revolutionaries. On the suffering *Son of Man, see comment on 9:31. Many Jews condemned the corruption of the priestly aristocracy of this era.

10:35-45

The Greatest Is the Servant

10:35-37. James and John want the status of viceroys in an earthly *kingdom; this desire again reflects a popular conception of the *Messiah and God’s kingdom that Jesus has repeatedly repudiated (see comment on 8:31-38).

10:38. Jesus elsewhere refers to the cross as his cup (14:23-24, 36), which may allude to the cup of judgment that appears often in the *Old Testament (Ps 60:3; 75:8; Is 51:17-23; Jer 25:15-29; 49:12; Lam 4:21; Zech 12:2). His *baptism in some way also prefigures his death (see comment on 1:11; cf. Lk 12:50; Ps 69:2, 14-15).

10:39-40. The positions on either side of a king’s throne (especially the right side) were the most prestigious in a kingdom. (Jesus might, however, be alluding instead to those crucified on his right and his left; 15:27.) James was later the first of the twelve martyred (Acts 12:2), but according to *church tradition John lived into the nineties.

10:41-42. Competition for status was rife in Mediterranean antiquity. Jewish people knew well the *Gentile model of authority: many ancient near Eastern kings had long claimed to be gods and ruled tyrannically; Greek rulers had adopted the same posture through much of the eastern Mediterranean. The Roman emperor and his provincial agents (who often showed little concern for Jewish sensitivities) would have been viewed in much the same light: brutal and tyrannical. Jesus’ reminding the disciples that seeking power was a Gentile (i.e., pagan) practice was tantamount to telling them they should not be doing it; Jewish teachers used Gentile practices as negative examples.

10:43-44. It was radical for Jesus to define greatness in terms of servanthood; despite Jewish rules requiring that slaves be well treated, Jewish free persons, like their Gentile counterparts, considered slaves socially inferior. Although both slaves and free persons varied in rank, slaveholders treated their slaves as inferior in rank to themselves.

10:45. By calling himself a “servant” and defining his mission as “giving his life a ransom for the many,” Jesus probably identifies himself with the suffering servant of Isaiah 53:10-12 (despite contemporary debate surrounding this claim). Although the servant’s mission had been given to Israel as a whole (Is 41:8; 43:10; 44:2, 21; 49:3), Israel through disobedience could not fulfill it (42:19), so that the one who would fulfill it had to restore Israel as well as bring light to the Gentiles (49:5-7; 52:13–53:12). Because hardly anyone else had yet applied this passage to the *Messiah, Jesus is trying to redefine their expectation about his messianic mission. On the “many,” see comment on Romans 5:15. Some also compare traditional Jewish language for the deaths of martyrs assuaging God’s wrath against Israel (see “*atonement” in glossary).

10:46-52

Stopping for a Blind Beggar

The *disciples want to get on with the business of setting up the *kingdom (10:37; 11:9-10), not understanding that stopping for a blind beggar is the sort of thing Jesus’ kingdom is all about (cf. 10:13-14).

10:46. The blind, the severely disabled and others who could not engage in the traditional occupations of the day could support themselves only by begging, normally on a busy roadside. Judaism considered it righteous to help them. Jericho was a prosperous town with a good climate, and Timaeus’s son no doubt received adequate support there. “Bartimaeus” means “son of Timaeus” (bar is *Aramaic for “son”); Mark clarifies that this was literally true in his case (not simply a name or title as in some bar names in 15:7; Acts 1:23; 4:36; 13:6; 15:22).

10:47-48. Except for what they had learned from listening to others recite, blind people in that time were largely illiterate in the *law (Braille had not been invented yet, so they could not read, although like vast numbers of other illiterate Jews they could hear the Torah read). Although they were protected under the law of Moses, they were largely socially and economically powerless, and Jesus’ followers view this blind man’s loud pleas as an intrusion, the way they had viewed the children (10:13). The disciples may have viewed Jesus’ final journey to Jerusalem as a royal procession, and it was foolhardy and impudent to interrupt a royal procession.

10:49-52. Perhaps by “stopping” and standing still, Jesus allows the blind man to come to where Jesus’ voice had last sounded. The “cloak” (10:50) is an outer garment, used as a coat in cold weather and as bedding at night, and possibly might have been spread before him for use in his daytime begging if he had no pouch. On the narrative level, the act of casting it aside may signify his forsaking dependence on anything else and trusting only in Jesus.

11:1-11

Jesus Enters Jerusalem

Although later Jewish teachers understood “the king coming on a donkey” (Zech 9:9) messianically, it is not clear that the whole crowd understands Jesus’ claim to *messiahship here (he would not be the only person to ride a donkey). Had members of the Roman garrison been present outside the gates and recognized the implications of Jesus’ claim, they would have arrested him.

11:1-2. Heralds or messengers were typically sent two by two (6:7; cf. 14:13). That Jesus chooses a colt over a grown donkey might reinforce Mark’s portrayal of his humility (cf. also the final line of Zech 9:9). Also custom frequently preferred animals for divine use not yet used by people (Num 19:2; Deut 21:3; 1 Sam 6:7). In second-century Egypt, donkeys ranged in price from 50 to 350 drachmas—roughly between two and ten months’ complete wages for a worker. Obviously borrowing an animal for the occasion was more economical than seeking to buy one!

11:3. Residents of the area around Jerusalem had to be particularly hospitable with their property around Passover season, when Jewish pilgrims from the whole ancient world came for the feast. The response to the potential question could have meant, “Lend these to Jesus, the teacher” (*Aramaic rab can be translated as “master” or “lord”), or “Lend these to the service of God.” A king (or even Roman soldiers) could “impress” an animal for use (see comment on Mt 5:41).

11:4-6. In many cities, the doors of homes faced a courtyard shared by neighbors; in a small village, the doorway may have just faced a dirt road through the town. People would normally ride the adult, not the colt never before ridden, so the *disciples’ purpose in untying the colt may not have been immediately obvious even had they owned it themselves.

11:7. A king “coming on a donkey” evokes Zech 9:9 (construed messianically by some later *rabbis), though it is not clear that the crowds recognize the allusion. The Romans would have arrested someone they suspected as a claiming to be a ruler, but no one would expect a genuine messianic claimant to enter Jerusalem peacefully and unarmed, since certain death would await such a person.

11:8. The spreading of garments represents what could be construed as royal homage (2 Kings 9:13). Branches were also waved in homage to rulers (cf. 1 Maccabees 13:51; 2 Maccabees 10:7). Jericho was 17 miles (about 27 km) uphill to Jerusalem, and possibly some larger branches were carried from there, though local ones (still smaller in the spring) might be easier for the colt to walk on. (Carrying branches was also part of the worship at the feast depicted in Ps 118:27.)

Pilgrims to the feast were typically welcomed by crowds already there, so it is unlikely that the whole crowd recognized the significance of Jesus’ entry. Nevertheless, Jesus was well-known especially among the Galileans who had come to the festival. In view of the crowd’s acclamation in 11:10, the image that may have come most readily to the minds of Mark’s ancient hearers is probably that of a royal entrance procession.

11:9. “Hosanna” means “O save!” and both this and the next line of verse 9 come from Psalm 118:25-26. Psalms 113–118, called the Hallel, were regularly sung at Passover season, so these words were fresh in everyone’s minds (cf. also comment on 12:10-11). Hopes for the restoration of the Davidic kingdom also ran high at this time of year; Rome thus had extra troops on hand at this season to control any unrest.

11:10. The coming of the *kingdom when David or his descendants would again reign (e.g., Is 9:7; 11:1; Jer 23:5-6) is here associated with the hope of one coming in the Lord’s name. (David is their “father” in the sense of “deliverer,” not their ancestor: cf. Is 9:6; 2 Kings 13:14.) Passover commemorated God’s deliverance of Israel from slavery in Egypt; consequently, Jewish hopes for a future deliverance from their current problems ran high during this season, and the Roman governor had some extra troops in Jerusalem ready in case riot control became necessary. By treating Jesus as the object of any of these hopes, the crowds are beginning to see in this teacher a possible messianic figure who could, on many views, lead them against the Romans.

11:11. The ancient workday began at sunrise; the “evening” offering in the temple was what we call afternoon (about 3 p.m.); people normally wanted to be near home by dark. “Late” may mean not “dark” but rather that the daily activity in the temple had begun to subside. Although eating the Passover in Jerusalem, as was expected, Jesus lodged in Bethany (11:11-12), about three kilometers east of Jerusalem on the southeastern slopes of the Mount of Olives.

11:12-25

The Temple and the Tree: Judgment Coming

Jesus’ prophetic act against the temple is enclosed by the story of his cursing the fig tree, also an acted *parable of judgment. Fig trees were one of the most common kinds of trees in Palestine.

11:12-14. At this time of year, edible figs were still about six weeks away, but the bland fruit had recently appeared on the tree in late March; they would become ripe by late May. These were the early figs that preceded the main crop of late figs, which were ripe for harvest from mid-August into October. If only leaves appeared, without the early figs, that tree would bear no figs that year—whether early or late. Because everyone would know that it was “not yet the season for [real] figs,” Jesus seems to be making a point about trees that only pretend to have good fruit (cf. Jer 24). In some Jewish stories, exceptionally holy men could curse others or objects and so destroy them; Jesus exerts genuine authority to curse only here, as an acted parable to his disciples.

11:15. Jewish people from other parts of the empire or even from different towns in Galilee would have local currencies that needed to be converted to some standard for use in the temple. Further, one was not to bring sacrifices from long distances but to convert their resources into money first (Deut 14:24-27) and buy the sacrifices in Jerusalem (cf. Ezra 7:17). The temple providing offerings (like pigeons here; Lev 1:14; 5:7; 12:8) locally was a service helpful for pilgrims. Moneychangers and sellers of doves were thus necessary and in some sense biblical. The issue is not whether there should have been moneychangers; it is whether it was valid to turn much of the outer court into a place emphasizing commerce to the detriment of worship. With hundreds of thousands of pilgrims at Passover, the merchants’ strip in the temple must have been quite large, consuming much attention. The Sadducean priests who ran the temple establishment would see actions challenging the peace of the temple as also direct challenges to their own honor; such challenges were usually met with arrest and its consequences.

11:16. Later rabbinic teaching also complained against defiling the temple courts by carrying unnecessary items through them (although it is not clear that anyone would have enforced this principle in the first century). But no one protested as strongly as Jesus does, and no one seems to have questioned the necessity of commercial activity in the outer court at a feast.

11:17. Jesus cites two texts as the basis for his challenge. The first is Isaiah 56:7. In context, Is 56:7 shows that God-fearing *Gentiles will be welcome in the restored temple (always God’s purpose for the temple; cf. 1 Kings 8:41-43), and in the *Old Testament the only separation in the temple was between priests and people. But in Jesus’ day the temple was also segregated by ethnicity and gender for purity reasons, with Jewish women on a lower level outside the Court of Israel and non-Jews in the outermost court. Jesus shows his concern for the worship of the Gentiles and protests ethnic segregation in a divine institution.

The second text he cites is from Jeremiah 7:11, where Jeremiah condemns the idea that the temple is a safe haven for Judah in its sin; although those who have exploited the poor think that the temple will protect them, God will destroy his temple (Jer 7:3-15). Robbers’ “dens” were the sort of places where robbers kept their loot. Some also point out that in A.D. 66 rebel brigands or “robbers” (for whom *Josephus uses the same term as Mark) took possession of the temple and slaughtered the priests, further inviting God’s impending wrath (see comment on 13:14).

11:18. The priestly aristocracy undoubtedly saw in Jesus’ attack on the temple establishment a threat to their own economic and social interests (see comment on 11:15). The priestly aristocracy maintained their power and prestige by maintaining peace for the Romans, and the foundation of their priestly power was the temple. Most other Jewish groups (excluded from power), including Pharisees, Essenes and reports in Josephus, portrayed the priestly aristocracy as abusive and corrupt.

11:19. Many pilgrims lodged in the surrounding villages and countryside. Jerusalem was too crowded at Passover season to accommodate all the pilgrims during this period, though as many pilgrims as possible would seek to eat the Passover meal itself within or near the city’s walls.

11:20-24. Some Jewish texts speak of “removing mountains” as an infinitely long or virtually impossible task, accomplished only by the most pious (later rabbis applied it to mastering studies that appeared humanly impossible to master). Thus Jesus is saying that nothing will be too hard for the person who trusts God (cf. Gen 18:14). The image of God’s *Spirit bringing down a mountain before a faithful servant also appears in Zechariah 4:6-9; before God’s servant, God would bring down all obstacles opposing the tasks God designates. The promise of one’s commands coming to pass probably presupposes God’s leading or authorization (cf., e.g., 2 Kings 2:21-22; 4:3-7, 41-44; Lam 3:37; Acts 3:6, 16).

11:25. Standing (often with uplifted hands) was the normal posture for prayer; though kneeling occurred, it was much rarer.

11:27-33

By Whose Authority?

11:27-28. As guardians of the temple and the status quo with the Romans, the chief priests would see Jesus’ act as a direct challenge to their authority. Were Jesus not so popular, they might have already arrested him.

11:29. Counterquestions were common, and here one allows Jesus the opportunity to remain coy about the messianic secret (see introduction to Mark). An agent acted on the delegated authority of the sender.

11:30. Here Jesus argues that his authority and John’s derive from the same source, from “heaven” (one familiar Jewish way of saying “God”). This argument follows the Jewish legal principle that a commissioned messenger acts on the full authority of the one who sent him. If John’s authority were merely human (cf. Deut 18:20; Jer 23:16), they should have taken a firmer stand against him (Deut 13:1-11); if it was divine, God would hold them to account for not having listened (Deut 18:18-19; 2 Chron 20:20).

11:31-32. The chief priests were politicians—less popular than the politically powerless *Pharisees—who had to balance the interests of both their people and the Roman authorities. Holding most local political power, they had great incentive to prevent unrest. Thus they had to keep popular opinion in mind when making decisions that might incur the displeasure of the people (11:32).

11:33. Public admission of ignorance on an important matter would count against their honor, but offered less trouble than outrightly condemning John. Counterquestion (11:29) was a legitimate means of debate; their withdrawal from the rules of debate *rhetorically frees Jesus from the responsibility to continue in dialogue with them.

12:1-12

The Greedy Tenant Farmers

On “*parables,” see the glossary. Jesus still addresses those who fancy themselves rulers of Israel, reminding them that they are merely custodians appointed by God (like the shepherds of Jer 23 and Ezek 34) over his vineyard.

Much of the rural Roman Empire, including parts of Galilee, was controlled by wealthy landowners, whose land was worked by tenant farmers. Landowners had great status in society, whereas tenant farmers had little except, perhaps, among their own peers.

12:1. Here Jesus describes a normal way to prepare a vineyard, but he clearly alludes to Isaiah 5:1-2, where Israel is the vineyard. Some Jewish interpreters by the time of Jesus saw Isaiah 5 as a prediction of the temple’s destruction in 586 B.C.; if such an allusion was in the mind of any of Jesus’ hearers, it would communicate his warning all the more forcefully.

Vineyards, unlike grain fields, often had walls to protect their fruits from animals and people. According to the most likely reconstructions, the “wall” was a rugged stone hedge, and the vat was a pit into which juice would run when workers trod down newly picked grapes. The top of the “watchtower” was a sentry post against intruders, but the building itself, sometimes a crude hut, may have also housed workers during harvest season.

12:2. Payments were normally rendered at harvest time, often one-quarter to as much as one-half the produce. (Landowners technically could be said to own all the produce until tenants paid their rent.)

12:3-5. Ancients appreciated the ideal of benevolent landowners, but also knew that landowners always had power, socially and legally, to enforce their will on the tenants; a few reportedly even had hired assassins to deal with troublesome tenants. They could displace the tenants if they chose. Here the tenants act as if they are the ones with power, and they exploit it mercilessly, without thought for consequences. Their behavior fits the Jewish tradition that Israel martyred many of the prophets God sent.

12:6. In the light of 1:11 and 9:7, the “beloved son” clearly represents Jesus and probably alludes to Genesis 22:2, where similar Hebrew words were used by Jewish readers to emphasize the pathos involved in Abraham’s willingness to give up his precious son Isaac. No ancient landowner, no matter how benevolent, would have gone to such ends to satisfy tenants who had already killed messengers; ancient hearers would view him as naive, but recognizing in his behavior God’s continued mercy to Israel would also lead to affirming that God would be right to judge his people.

12:7-8. “Come, let us kill him” probably echoes Joseph’s brothers in Gen 37:20. The tenants presume too much about the inheritance; although they could have seized it under certain legal conditions, the owner could also stipulate—and after their misdeeds certainly would—that someone else inherit the vineyard; or representatives of the emperor could have seized it. The story paints the tenants as more wicked and stupid than one would expect any real tenants to be; but it is transparent that the tenants represent the religious leaders who serve themselves rather than God (Mk 12:12).

12:9. Ancient hearers would wonder why the landowner had not come and thrown out the tenants earlier, after 12:3-5.

12:10-12. This text is from Psalm 118:22-23, part of the Hallel, like 118:25-26 cited in 11:9-10. The Hallel was particularly fresh on people’s minds for the Passover. If the larger context is in view, the building referred to is presumably the temple (Ps 118:18-21, 25-27); as the cornerstone of a new temple, Jesus is a threat to the builders of the old one.

12:13-17

Caesar and God

Rabbis dealt with questions concerning legal, moral and exegetical issues as well as mocking questions posed by opponents (e.g., *Sadducees, *Gentiles, apostates and schismatics). Parallels to these basic categories of questions appear in 12:13-37, where Jesus’ answers prove him a proficient *rabbi.

12:13. *Pharisees tended to be nationalistic, whereas Herodians were clients of Herod, the Roman vassal; they worked together only in extraordinary situations. Pharisees would be concerned about Jewish legal requirements to have witnesses for a charge but would be ready to investigate charges concerning Jesus’ disloyalty to the *law. That they would try to test his teaching here is not surprising. The Herodians, who hoped for a restoration of Herodian rule in Judea (which *Pilate currently governed), were naturally disturbed by messianic figures who challenged their idea of Herodian rule and might cause Rome to tighten its direct control over the land.

12:14-15. Knowing that much of the populace resents Roman taxation and that many may look to Jesus for deliverance, they know that Jesus cannot accept taxes without alienating his constituency. If Jesus denounces Roman taxes (as they probably hope), accepting no king but God, the view characterized by those later called *Zealots, he can be arrested as a threat to public order and handed over to Rome for execution on the charge of sedition and treason. A disastrous tax revolt two decades earlier had shown where nationalistic fervor could lead.

12:16-17. Jewish Palestine circulated copper coins that omitted the image of the deified emperor, which was offensive to Jewish tastes. (Although King Agrippa later used both the image of the emperor and his own, Herod Antipas, current ruler in Galilee, avoided any images on his coins, and so did local Judean coinage.) But Jesus’ opponents have a silver denarius—which bore the emperor’s image—available when he requests one. They are therefore hardly in a position to challenge his lack of nationalistic zeal. As for rendering to God what is God’s, some commentators believe that Jesus appeals to what is made in God’s image: humans should give themselves to God (Gen 1:26-27).

12:18-27

Sadducees and the Resurrection

12:18. One of the basic points of contention between Pharisees and *Sadducees was that the latter did not accept the future *resurrection of the bodies of the dead.

12:19. The Sadducees’ question to Jesus concerns the custom called levirate marriage (Deut 25:5-6), which was meant to protect widows economically. In various forms, both ancient Middle Eastern cultures and many traditional societies today employ levirate marriage. It helps widows in societies where women cannot earn adequate wages.

12:20-23. The Sadducees take this story line from the Jewish book of Tobit, where seven successive husbands of pious Sarah die (though they were not brothers).

12:24-27. Jesus’ response resembles standard Pharisaic responses. When Pharisees debated this issue with Sadducees, they argued for the resurrection from the *law of Moses, and typically read a text for all they could get out of it. Standard Jewish interpretive technique would have read Exodus 3:6 as present tense, “I am the God of the patriarchs”—implying that the patriarchs still lived (cf. similarly 4 Maccabees 7:18-19; 16:25; Philo, Abraham 50–55). Phrases such as “in the passage about the bush” were standard, because the Bible had not yet been divided into chapters and verses.

12:28-34

The Love Commandments

12:28. A common issue of discussion among ancient rabbis was the question of which commandments were heavier (i.e., more important) and which were lighter (cf. comment on Mt 5:19).

12:29-34. Following Jewish interpretive technique, Jesus links the two commandments (Deut 6:5; Lev 19:18) by a common key expression, “You shall love.” Some others also linked these passages (e.g., *Philo) and also summarized the *law in terms of devotion to God and to others. Some other teachers ranked these among the greatest commandments that summarized the law (e.g., Rabbi *Akiba in the early second century viewed Lev 19:18 as the greatest commandment; cf. Sifra Qedoshim pq. 4.200.3.7). This was especially true of “Love the Lord your God,” which followed directly on and applied the basic confession of Judaism, “Hear, O Israel, the Lord . . . is one” (Deut 6:4). Many Jewish teachers affirmed that the best motive for serving God was love. That many of Jesus’ hearers would recognize the plausibility of his reply makes it all the more difficult to dispute with him on the matter.

12:35-37

David’s Lord

When Jewish teachers challenged their hearers to resolve apparent discrepancies in Scripture, they assumed that both texts were true (in this case, Jesus knows that he is both David’s son, as in 10:47-48, and David’s Lord) and were asking how to harmonize them.

12:35. By definition, the Christ, or anointed one, was the royal descendant of David (Is 9:7; 11:1; Ps 2; 89; 132). But this view of *messiahship could lend itself to a primarily revolutionary view of the *kingdom (see 11:10) and was thus inadequate by itself.

12:36-37. Jesus’ opponents apparently have no answer, because extant sources do not suggest that Jewish interpreters applied Psalm 110:1 to the Messiah. Yet who else might the psalmist’s second “lord” be, since Jewish tradition (reflected in the psalm’s superscription) viewed David himself as the author? The one who would reign in God’s kingdom was David’s “lord,” not merely his descendant; he would thus be greater than the resurrected David. Writing in Greek, Mark might want his hearers to connect this verse (Ps 110:1) with a verse he has cited in the preceding section, because Jewish interpreters often linked verses with a key word—there was only one Lord: God (12:29). If so, Mark offers another claim for Jesus’ deity here (cf. 1:3).

12:38-44

The Pious Poor and Their Religious Oppressors

12:38. Like their Greek counterparts, some Jewish teachers wore a special identifying garb; this seems to have been a long, white linen robe, similar to those of priests and temple officials. Teachers were normally greeted with titles of honor; marketplaces, which were full of people, would provide many opportunities for these teachers to receive such recognition. Custom demanded greeting social superiors before the superior could greet the required greeter.

12:39. Synagogues were not all of the same shape or size, but in many later *synagogues, teachers could take a seat in full view of most of the rest of the assembly (like ministers in most churches today). In some, many people probably sat on the floor, with persons of greater status on benches around the wall and sometimes other benches, and the best seats on the raised platform where this existed. What is significant is their status in a status-conscious society; synagogues were the most important assembly places for the community. At banquets, those seated nearest the host were in positions of honor; ancient literature is full of complaints from those snubbed by being given socially inferior seats.

12:40. Widows had little means of support, were socially powerless and honorless in a society emphasizing status and honor, and were to be protected under Jewish *law. In legal cases they normally needed advocates to speak on their behalf.

Jesus could mean that these teachers exploit widows’ resources by abusing the letter of the law in legal decisions rather than showing special mercy to the poor, or by favoring more powerful relatives, or by seeking extensive contributions (or insisting on tithes, which Pharisees could set at twenty to thirty percent, on top of the heavy land taxes levied by the government). Whatever their specific crime, the charge of “devouring widows’ houses” portrays them as no better than the *tax gatherers.

They may have lingered long in their individual or public prayers in the synagogues (apparently covering up the lack of private relationship with God); it is not the longevity of prayers but the motive of this longevity that Jesus criticizes here. Like the *Old Testament prophets, Jesus denounces both social injustice and religious hypocrisy (e.g., Amos 2:7; 8:5-6), and he stands on behalf of the economically powerless (Is 1:17).

12:41-44. Jerusalem’s massive temple had a large treasury, reportedly adjacent to the Court of Women. A later tradition claims that thirteen receptacles for such gifts stood in the Court of Women, accessible to Israelite women as well as to men. Already probably the most massive temple in the Roman empire, supported by an annual temple tax on all adult male Jews (including in the *Diaspora), the temple sported ostentatious wealth (such as a massive golden vine). Its officials would probably waste this widow’s money; but this powerless woman, ignorant of that likelihood, acts in good faith in her devotion to God and is the greatest giver in God’s sight. Even if all else failed, the widow would not starve, given provisions for the poor in Jewish synagogues (cf. comment on Acts 6:1-4). The widow’s “mite,” or lepton, represented the lightest and least valuable coin of the period.

13:1-4

Setting of Jesus’ End-Time Discourse

Mark may have risked serious trouble with the Roman authorities for writing this chapter, if he wrote publicly in his own name; Jewish underground tracts about the time of the end usually included Israel’s exaltation, and Rome distrusted any threat to its power. Prophecies favoring Rome’s greatness were welcome, but not those implying its demise. But this chapter before Jesus’ arrest climaxes Jesus’ warnings to his *disciples in Mark: true followers must be ready to follow to the cross and share his sufferings.

13:1. Greek texts sometimes portray Greek philosophical teachers conversing with their disciples while strolling about; this may have been a common teaching technique at least in particular schools (e.g., that of *Aristotle).

The temple complex consisted of many buildings and was perhaps the largest, most magnificent structure in the ancient world; it was twice the size of Solomon’s temple. (Probably only anti-Jewish prejudice kept it from being ranked among the seven wonders of the ancient world, for it was larger than the Ephesian temple of Artemis, which was so ranked.) Construction had begun under Herod the Great before Jesus’ birth and was still continuing at this time. Jewish people all over the world contributed to the temple, and so much was received that officials kept adding on to a golden vine that was part of its ostentatious glory. It was sacred to Herod’s enemies as well as to his allies.

13:2. Many or most Jews considered the temple invincible, but forty years after Jesus spoke these words, in A.D. 70, the Romans destroyed the temple. The wording here is only slightly *hyperbolic: some stones in the retaining wall remained in place, but the temple proper was obliterated. As exemplified in the *Dead Sea Scrolls, some other groups also expected God to judge the temple authorities; but no one before A.D. 66 was as accurate concerning the timing as Jesus was (13:30).

13:3-4. Although Greek teachers often instructed their pupils while walking (13:1-2), they also often instructed them while sitting in front of a temple (a common form of public building in antiquity). The disciples’ question to Jesus about the sign of the temple’s destruction sets the scene for Jesus’ answer in the rest of the chapter, in which he apparently describes both the imminent end of the Jerusalemites’ world and the ultimate end of the age. In biblical prophets (e.g., Joel), nearer judgments sometimes prefigured more distant ones.

13:5-8

Not Yet the End

13:5-6. False messiahs often drew significant Jewish followings in Palestine, including known figures over the next few decades (see comments on Acts 5:36; 21:38) and as late as Bar Kochba, whom Rabbi *Akiba hailed as the *Messiah around A.D. 130. Within the decades immediately following Jesus some sought to emulate Moses or Joshua, perhaps viewing themselves as messianic.

13:7-8. Ancient Jewish *prophecy teachers usually listed events like these (often along with some that Jesus does not list, such as mutant infants) among the signs of the end; the end was often portrayed as preceded by great sufferings or a final war, and was sometimes compared with birth pangs. Jesus says that instead these sorts of events characterize all of life until the end; history until the final time is only the beginning of birth pangs.

13:9-13

Sufferings to Expect Before the End

13:9. Before A.D. 70, local courts, or councils deciding cases, were probably run by local elders or priests; in later times *rabbis would staff them. Synagogues were the local places of public assembly and thus provided the natural place for hearings and public discipline. Sometimes discipline was administered in the form of flogging, with thirty-nine lashes (cf. 2 Cor 11:24). Under rules dating back to at least the second century rules, this meant thirteen harsh strokes on the breast and twenty-six on the back; the smiter was to strike as hard as possible. These words would have particularly pained Jewish Christians, because they signified rejection among many of their own people.

13:10. In context, this preaching will be carried out before officials of all nations (“kings”—v. 9—could refer just to Rome’s vassal princes, but “all nations” suggests that Parthian and other rulers from the East are also in view). Distant kingdoms already then known included Parthia, India and China to the east; Scythia, Germany and Britain to the north; and Subsahara Africa to the south. The context connects this universal proclamation with universal persecution.

13:11. Jewish people thought of the *Holy Spirit especially as the Spirit of *prophecy who had anointed the prophets to speak God’s message, and biblical prophets suggest this Spirit’s abundance in the end-time.

13:12. See Micah 7:5-7 (more explicit in Mt 10:35-36).

13:13. Enduring to the end might mean survival (cf. *4 Ezra 6:25), but more likely means avoiding apostasy, which was often associated with end-time sufferings.

13:14-23

The Prerequisite for the End

About a decade after Jesus uttered these words, his *disciples had good reason to remember them. When the Roman emperor Caligula declared himself divine and tried to set up his image in the Jerusalem temple (A.D. 39), Jesus’ sayings about the impending abomination that would cause desolation must have been circulated with renewed vigor. Paul evoked these sayings a decade later (2 Thess 2:1-12) and to Mark when he wrote his Gospel (perhaps A.D. 64). The abomination that would bring about desolation was finally fulfilled in A.D. 66–70 (cf. earlier cases in e.g., Ps 74:3-7).

13:14. *Josephus, who lived through the war of 66–70, thought the “abomination of desolation” (the reference is to Dan 9:27; cf. 11:31; 12:11) happened in A.D. 66, when *Zealots shed the blood of priests in the temple. Others date the abomination of desolation three and one-half years later, in 70. The Jerusalemites had considered it a sacrilege for the Roman standards, which bore the image of the worshiped emperor, to enter Jerusalem (Josephus, Jewish Antiquities 18.59; cf. 1QpHab 6.4). But in the year 70, when the temple was destroyed, the Romans erected these standards over the eastern gate of the temple and sacrificed to them, as they proclaimed Titus, their general, the supreme leader (Josephus, Jewish War 6.316). Both views may be true: if the phrase means “abomination that causes desolation,” then the abomination of A.D. 66 may have led to the desolation of A.D. 70.

The mountains were full of caves and represented the safest place to flee. Earlier David eluded Saul there; the second-century B.C. Jewish revolutionaries, the *Maccabees, practiced guerrilla warfare from the mountains; later, Jewish refugees hid there in the war of A.D. 132–135. Later Christian sources report that the Jerusalem Christians, warned by prophecies before Jerusalem’s fall, fled to a place called Pella in the Decapolis, far to the north.

13:15. Housetops were flat and could be used for prayer, drying vegetables, chatting with neighbors and so forth. Because one approached them by an outdoor staircase or ladder and not from indoors, one who fled in haste would descend without entering the house to retrieve any possessions. Even if there is an element of *hyperbole, it graphically underlines the point of urgency.

13:16. Workers would wear their outer coats in the cool of the early morning but leave them on the edge of the field as the day grew warmer. Because poor people depended on these cloaks for warmth at night, loss of the cloak represented a serious difficulty (Ex 22:26-27). This exhortation again indicates haste; preserving life takes priority over even the most crucial possesions.

13:17. The difficulties of bearing or nursing a child under these circumstances are obvious in any culture, especially to mothers. Mothers often nursed their babies for the first two years of life before weaning them (most Judeans would not have had wet nurses). The text could also indicate grief over the loss of the children (cf. *2 Baruch 10:13-15), physically unprepared for the hardships.

13:18. Winter brought colder nights, rains and (in the mountains) sometimes even snow; it also sometimes filled the dry Judean creek beds without warning with rainwater from the hills, making them difficult to cross. The melting of mountain snow in spring also could provide problematic flooding. Thus Josephus wrote of a group of Jewish fugitives (during the Judean War, but not from Jerusalem) who were delayed by the recently flooded Jordan in the spring of 68. As a consequence thousands were slaughtered by Roman soldiers (Jewish War 4.433-35).

13:19. Daniel 11 ends with Antiochus Epiphanes in the second century B.C., and the final distress to which no other tribulation could be compared (spoken of in Dan 12:1) seems to occur at that time, to be followed by the *resurrection of the dead (Dan 12:2). But sometimes events in Israel’s history (like the full promise to Abraham or the conquest of Canaan) were deferred until conditions were right (often Israel’s obedience); moreover, Daniel 9:24-27 sounds as if it better fits a date in the first century A.D. than in the time of Antiochus.

Jesus’ addition of “never shall be” (Joel 2:2) to Daniel’s “such as never occurred” suggests that other tribulations could follow in history after the designated tribulation of A.D. 66–70.

13:20. “The days” refers presumably to Daniel’s days of tribulation (Dan 12:11-12); given the severity of sufferings, the full period would have been too long to permit survivors.

13:21-22. False prophets and false messiahs had gained Jewish followings all through this period and usually challenged the authority of Rome, generally leading to the death of their followers. Josephus reports that some such prophets continued claiming that God would deliver Jerusalem up to their slaughter by the Romans at the fall of Jerusalem. After the temple’s demise, hopes for the *Messiah’s coming were presumably even more intense.

13:23. Knowing about events beforehand could give one the assurance that God did know and remain in control (e.g., Is 41:26; 48:5).

13:24-27

The End of This World

13:24-25. Here Jesus uses the language many of his contemporaries would have applied to the end or transformation of the present order that would lead to God’s eternal *kingdom (Is 13:10; 34:4; cf. 24:23; Ezek 32:7-8). Sometimes this graphic, cataclysmic language was used for historical events (the *Sibylline Oracles use it for an earthquake; cf. Ps 18:7-16; Jer 4:20-28), but usually ancient literature reserves it for the end or transformation of the present world order and the establishing of God’s eternal kingdom.

On this reading, the end Jesus predicted could have been deferred, as perhaps in Daniel; the temple was destroyed just as Jesus predicted, but he did not then return. *Old Testament prophecies sometimes blended together events according to the kind of event rather than the time they would occur. Jesus’ point need not be the immediacy of the end after that period, though it might perhaps indicate its imminence, that is, its potential nearness at all times thereafter (see comment on 13:19).

13:26. Jewish texts sometimes speak of God’s *eschatological coming with angels (as in Zech 14:5). Jesus thus depicts the *Son of Man in terms that Jewish literature usually reserved for God. The text especially alludes, however, to Daniel 7:13-14, where “one like a son of man” (i.e., like a human being) receives the kingdom from God. This Son of Man functions as a representative on behalf of Israel, who in the same context suffers and also receives the right to rule the world (7:25-27).

13:27. One of the most prominent features of Jewish future expectation was the regathering of the dispersed tribes of Israel (as in the prophets, e.g., Is 11:12; 43:5; 49:5; 56:8). (Mark probably applies the image to the dispersion of believers in Jesus here; cf. 2 Thess 2:1).

13:28-31

The End Is Imminent

13:28-29. The signs Jesus lists show that the end is imminent, just as a fig tree’s leaves show what season it is: because fig trees lack smaller branches they appear barren in winter, but they bloom in late March and are ideal for shade in the summer. Some apply this image to Jesus’ acted-out *parable with a fig tree, implying the imminent destruction of the temple (see comment on 11:12-25).

13:30. The length of generations varied but was often represented in the *Old Testament by forty years (in the Dead Sea Scrolls, forty years represents the suffering of the final generation). Jesus speaks these words near A.D. 30; the temple would be destroyed in A.D. 70.

13:31. Others also noted that it was easier for heaven and earth to pass than for God to forget his covenant or his words (e.g., promises in Jer 31:35-37; warnings in Zech 1:5-6). Here Jesus speaks of his own words in the same manner.

13:32-37

The Time of the End Is Unknown

13:32. Jewish teachers were divided as to whether God had fixed the future time or whether Israel’s *repentance could hasten it; most relevantly here, they were divided as to whether they could predict the time (offering a vast range of divergent predictions) or whether God alone knew it.

13:33-34. Other Jewish teachers also told parables of kings or householders going away and returning to find spouse or servants faithful or unfaithful. First-century readers heard enough stories about such events (including in the Bible—Prov 7:19-20) to relate to the image well. Slaves held many different roles, but in a household with enough slaves for specialization the doorkeeper’s role was a prominent one, because he held the master’s keys, kept out unwanted visitors and checked other slaves leaving the premises. But with the relative prestige of the doorkeeper’s position (some were even married to freedwomen) came great responsibility as well.

13:35. The times of night that Jesus mentions represent the Roman division of the night into four watches (when enough were available, guards might take shifts on these watches). Jesus’ only guarantee is that he will come at night while the servant is posted on guard duty. In most of the ancient Mediterranean a rooster’s final crowing could function like a modern alarm clock, signalling the advent of dawn; but in this context it might refer to the “watch” by that name, the quarter of the night after midnight (see comment on 14:30, 72).

Because the roads were infested with robbers, one would not expect the master to travel at night when it was unnecessary. Thus a slave could be caught off guard if the master returned at night.

13:36-37. Falling asleep at one’s guard post would lead to punishment.

14:1-11

Anointed for Burial

14:1. In this period, the adjacent festivals of Passover and Unleavened Bread were often viewed together (Josephus, Jewish Antiquities 14.21; 17.213; 18.29; 20.106; Jewish War 2.10). Jewish literature (from *Essenes, *Josephus and later *rabbis) reports that many aristocratic priests bullied those who opposed them. Thus they would certainly not tolerate someone who challenged their temple cult (cf. 11:15-17) or who threatened impending judgment on its unwatchful servants.

14:2. Jerusalem was crowded during the feast, with perhaps five times its usual population. Riots were known to occur; Josephus (who often inflated figures) reported that at one Passover several decades after the events of this verse, thirty thousand persons were crushed or trampled during a stampede in the temple. For this reason, extra Roman troops were garrisoned in Jerusalem during the feast, and the Roman governor came from Caesarea to be on hand in case of trouble. The danger of arresting Jesus at the feast (i.e., during the festal time, in public) reflects an important concern for the temple leadership.

14:3. Bethany was one of those villages near Jerusalem where Passover pilgrims could spend the night with hosts. One “sat” at normal meals; one “reclined” on couches (if they could afford them) at special meals like feasts or banquets. If Simon had been a “leper” (nicknames usually had some basis but were not always meant literally; e.g., a tall family was nicknamed the “Goliaths”), he was certainly not one by this point, if present; no one would have joined him for dinner if he had been. Jesus may have healed him.

14:4-5. It was customary to provide olive oil to anoint the heads of important guests, but this woman’s action is extreme. Whatever her economic status, this perfume (an oil from a root probably imported from India or South Arabia) was worth a year of a common laborer’s wages; her family had probably kept it as a status symbol. (“Myrrh” was technically a resin from a shrub-like balsam in north Somaliland and south Arabia, but Mark uses the term more generically and specifies it as spikenard, a pleasant-smelling oil from the root of the nard plant native to mountains in north India.) Many people preferred semitransparent alabaster bottles for expensive ointments; sealing it in such a container would preserve its fragrance, but once the bottle was broken, one would need to use up the perfume immediately. Her anointing of Jesus represents a major sacrifice and indicates the depth of her love, but given the great numbers of landless or tenant-farming peasants, some people present think the worth of the perfume could have been put to better use.

14:6-7. Jesus’ reply probably contains an allusion to Deuteronomy 15:11, which in context urges generosity to the poor, who will always be in the land. He does not play down giving to the poor; rather he plays up what follows.

14:8. In Jewish tradition kings (including, by definition, the *Messiah, or “anointed one”), priests and others had to be anointed for service; one anointed even honored guests. But Jesus here stresses a different kind of anointing, which the woman undoubtedly had not intended: anointing a body for burial. Long-necked flasks appear in many first-century tombs near Jerusalem, suggesting that others lavished such expensive ointments on their deceased loved ones. This woman’s act of love was the only anointing Jesus would receive (16:1).

14:9. This commemoration does not mean that every individual would know about her; similar *hyperbole appears for writers or heroes whose memories would be preserved in epics by or about them.

14:10-11. Betrayal by a *disciple would shame the teacher, and would be seen as an especially heinous violation of trust. Judas could easily find contacts for the chief priests, although they would not have been accessible to him had his mission been less in line with their plans. His mercenary motives would have appeared as vile to ancient readers as they do to us, and they contrast with the behavior of the unnamed woman of 14:1-9.

14:12-26

The New Passover and the Betrayer

14:12. By this period the Feast of Unleavened Bread, which immediately followed Passover, had been extended in popular parlance to include the Passover itself. Representatives from each family would have the priests slaughter a lamb for them in the temple, then return with it to feed the whole family that night.

14:13. Many commentators point out that water jars (as opposed to wineskins) were nearly always carried by women (often the matron of the home); a man carrying one would therefore be noticeable. Well-to-do households (as probably here), which could afford servants, had them carry the water. Running water was a great luxury, and in many cities, servants were sent to the public fountains to bring rainwater.

14:14-16. Unless the house was unusually large (some were), the upper room would provide an intimate environment for just a few disciples (say, the Twelve; not many more). Nevertheless, anyone with a two-story house, the second story containing a “large” upper room, would be considered well-to-do. This family presumably resided in the area of Jerusalem known as the Upper City, near the temple, rather than the poorer Lower City, downwind of Jerusalem’s sewage. Because the Passover had to be eaten within Jerusalem’s walls, most homes would be crowded with guests; but the accommodations for Jesus’ last meal with his disciples would be quite adequate.

14:17. The Passover was to be eaten at night. April’s sundown in Jerusalem came by 6 p.m., so the meal could have started then. Table fellowship was intimate at the feast; one or two families normally shared the meal, but here Jesus and his closest disciples make up the family unit.

14:18-20. Dipping bowls were particularly used at Passover; the dish here is probably Passover’s dish of bitter herbs. That someone “dipping in the bowl” with a person would betray that person would have horrified ancient readers, who saw hospitality and the sharing of table fellowship as an intimate, covenantal bond (cf. Ps 41:9, cited in Jn 13:18). (In one extreme example in a Greek epic, two warriors on opposing sides of a battle, learning that one’s father had hosted the other’s for dinner, decided to avoid fighting each other.) Some scholars have also suggested that someone dipping “with” Jesus could mean that the person was denying Jesus’ superior rank, because some Jewish groups required the leader to act (hence to dip) first (see the *Dead Sea Scrolls; cf. Sirach 31:18), and many ancient banquets seated people by rank. This interpretation would be likeliest if Judas reclined near Jesus, on the same couch (cf. Jn 13:26).

14:21. Most of Judaism acknowledged both God’s sovereignty and human responsibility. “Better that the person never have been born” was a frequent lament or pronouncement of judgment. Various biblical (Job 3:3-26; Jer 20:14-18), early Jewish and Greek lamentations spoke of never having been born alive being preferable to selected worse fates.

14:22. The head of the household customarily gave thanks for the bread and wine before any meal, but special blessings were said over bread and wine at the Passover meal (though probably not in quite the same form as became standard later). Jewish people broke rather than cut their bread. We should not understand “This is my body” literally (in *Aramaic the phrasing would be ambiguous: “is” or “represents” would not be distinguished), just as we do not take literally the standard Jewish interpretation spoken over the Passover bread: “This is the bread of affliction our ancestors ate when they came from Egypt.” No one assumed that the bread they were eating was 1300 years old, or had been digested by the ancestors; rather, they reenacted those events and felt that they participated in them.

14:23. Four cups of red wine came to be used in the Passover meal; if this custom was practiced as early as Jesus’ day, this cup may be the fourth, which followed the blessing of the bread. (Other scholars have suggested that the third cup is in view. By the end of the first century the four cups seem to have been both Jewish and Greco-Roman practice at feasts.) Each person did not have an individual cup; they customarily passed around one cup.

14:24. Covenants were ratified by the blood of sacrifice, and Jesus’ mention of the “blood of the covenant” evokes Exodus 24:8. God had redeemed his people from Egypt by the blood of the Passover lamb; “on behalf of the many” probably alludes to Isaiah 53 (see comment on 10:45). Passover ritual interpreted the cup but did not interpret it as blood, because Jewish *law and custom were revolted by the idea of drinking any creature’s blood—especially human blood.

14:25. Vows of abstinence were common in Palestinian Judaism: “I will not eat any such and such until this happens,” or “I vow that I will not use this until that happens.” Jesus apparently vows not to drink wine again until the *kingdom comes, and he perhaps abstains from the fourth cup. Jewish tradition commonly portrayed the time of the kingdom as a banquet (developing the image from Is 25:6), when the Bible had promised an unending supply of wine (Amos 9:13). Jewish blessings over the wine called it “the fruit of the vine.”

14:26. After the meal and lengthy discussion about the Passover, it was customary to sing psalms from the Hallel, which consisted of Psalms 113–118. (Music was common fare at many ancient banquets.) Walking from a home in the Upper City to the Mount of Olives presumably took fifteen minutes or longer.

14:27-31

Other Betrayers Predicted

14:27. Here Jesus cites Zechariah 13:7, which is not clearly messianic; Jesus may refer to the principle it reports: a flock is scattered without the shepherd to guide them. (The Dead Sea Scrolls do, however, apply this text to the future time.)

14:28. Jewish people in this period were not expecting a *resurrection of a given person distinct from the resurrection of the whole nation. Further, they certainly would not have expected a migration to Galilee to follow it: God’s people would gather in Jerusalem in the time of the end (cf. Joel 2:32). These expectations may be why the *disciples appear to ignore this part of Jesus’ statement.

14:29-31. Ancient sources typically regarded the rooster as a reliable reporter of the advent of dawn (e.g., the second-century A.D. Roman writer *Apuleius in Metamorphoses 2.26; *3 Maccabees 5:23; Babylonian Talmud Berakot 60b), but commentators report that in Palestine nocturnal crowings are familiar to the night watchmen beginning at 12:30 a.m.; the second was about 1:30 a.m. Roosters crow periodically through the night. People sound asleep at those times may have been more familiar with the crowing at dawn because they were readier to awaken then. In either case the point is that the denial is imminent.

14:32-42

Watchmen Asleep

14:32-34. Jesus and his *disciples may have arrived at Gethsemane by 10 or 11 p.m. (which was late in that culture). It was customary to stay awake late on Passover night and to speak of God’s redemption. The disciples should have been able to stay awake to keep watch; they had probably stayed up late on nearly every other Passover of their lives.

14:35-36. “Abba” is the *Aramaic word for “Papa,” a term of great intimacy and affectionate respect. It was typically the first word a child would utter, but adults could use it for their fathers as well, and students sometimes used it of their teachers. Perhaps because it implied such intimacy, Jewish people never used it of God (though they did call him a heavenly father) except in a very rare *parable by a charismatic teacher (as reported in later sources). On the cup of judgment, see comment on 10:38; for a prayer for God to protect one’s life cf., e.g., Psalm 116:3-4, 13-15.

14:37. People often stayed awake late on Passover to discuss God’s redemption, but on this particular Passover the disciples slept! Teachers and leaders often reproved those who slept at inappropriate times; most dangerous, however, were sentries who failed to keep watch (cf. also servants in 13:34-36).

14:38. “Temptation” here is “testing”; given the common Jewish religious uses of the word (as in a common Jewish evening prayer), Jesus is probably saying: “lest you fall prey to the testing you are about to face.” The contrast between “spirit” and “body” is not meant in the later *Gnostic or Neo-Platonic sense (in which the soul is good and the body is evil); rather that though one may mean well on impulse (14:31; cf. the use of “spirit” in many cases in Proverbs, e.g., 16:32; 25:28), the body is susceptible to exhaustion.

14:39-42. Jesus’ use of “sinners” (v. 41) to refer to the men dispatched by representatives of the Sanhedrin is strong language, especially in view of the way most people would use the word (2:16).

14:43-52

The Betrayal

14:43. Because they had been sent by prominent men of Jerusalem, the band that comes to arrest Jesus probably belongs to the temple guard. This guard is known to have possessed the weapons mentioned here (swords and clubs); clubs were said to have characterized the corrupt priestly aristocracy in charge of the temple, as well as being useful in controlling rioters. Based on some second-century sources, some argue that clubs were not supposed to be carried on holy days, including the Passover festival.

These men come prepared for armed resistance from one they suppose is a messianic revolutionary—because they had interpreted Jesus’ act in the temple in terms of the cultural categories of their day, rather than in terms of the rest of his teaching (14:48).

14:44-46. A light kiss on the lips was a sign of special affection among family members and close friends. Teachers could kiss disciples as a special sign of favor or approval, and disciples could kiss teachers to show honor and affection for them. Thus Judas’s kiss is a special act of hypocrisy (cf. Prov 27:6).

Initially the band would not expect the disciples to know the specific object of their approach. Although there may have been light from a new moon, this band believed they needed Judas to lead them in person to the appropriate spot; had they searched for Jesus only on the basis of general directions, their search would have become evident and given Jesus time to escape. The kiss is necessary because darkness made it harder to recognize Jesus; under normal conditions the guards could have recognized him (he had been teaching in the temple).

14:47. Being well-to-do, *high priests had ample servants. Although the object of the expedition was only to arrest Jesus, had the sword struck again many of the disciples would likely have been killed in the ensuing conflict. In antiquity authorities sometimes settled for executing a movement’s leader if they thought this action sufficient to destroy the movement, but any resistance would be met with force.

14:48-49. Subversives (e.g., the later assassins who slew Jewish aristocrats under cover of the crowds in the temple) did their acts secretly or so as to avoid capture; by contrast, Jesus’ alleged subversion had been public and unconcealed. An arrest in the temple would have been politically disadvantageous and possibly aroused a riot (see comment on 14:1-2).

14:50. In antiquity, the loyalty of one’s followers normally brought one honor; their abandonment brought one shame.

14:51-52. At night, one might have expected the disciple to have an outer garment as well as the linen cloth, and he is probably already chilly (cf. 14:54). (Although one could sleep naked inside one’s home in Palestine in April, Jerusalem’s higher elevation makes 14:54 a likely indication that it was a cool night; Passover pilgrims who camped outdoors had coverings.) Others in antiquity left behind cloaks when fleeing. Except for some Jews overwhelmed by Greek culture and considered apostates, Jewish people generally abhorred nakedness. The point is that the man is in a hurry to escape.

14:53-65

The Sanhedrin’s Miscarriage of Justice

This trial breaks a number of Jewish legal principles, if later documents correctly indicate the state of Jewish *law in this period. Mark probably knew most of these rules, and many of his hearers probably suspected them, since these principles of ethics were widely honored. Elites, however, did not always feel bound by such principles.

One might ask how Jesus’ earliest followers knew what happened in a closed meeting of the *Sanhedrin. Even in the most private meetings of assemblies, however, leaks were common, especially when sympathizers had associates who were present (cf. 15:43); one may provide examples both from the Roman Senate and from Jerusalem’s Sanhedrin. (Moreover, from a Christian perspective, the disciples later had access to the report of a major participant: Jesus.)

14:53. “Leading priests,” “elders” and “*scribes” were all represented in Israel’s chief Sanhedrin, the ruling religious court of Israel. A Sanhedrin was a senate, or municipal assembly; Judea’s chief assembly was in Jerusalem. Later tradition claims that the full Sanhedrin, with seventy-one members, normally met in the assembly hall in the temple called the Chamber of Hewn Stone, where they sat in a semicircle with the *high priest in the center. The number may have been simply an average, and *Josephus suggests that they met quite close to the temple, but not in it. In this case, many members of the Sanhedrin (of whom perhaps half would have been necessary for a quorum) hold a secret night meeting without advance notice in the high priest’s home (14:54), although they are investigating what they will claim is a capital offense.

By the more careful legal principles of later rabbis and most general legal principles of antiquity, the meeting that Mark describes would have been illegal on all these counts: a secret meeting, held at night, and in a private home. The leaders would have probably explained it as merely a preliminary inquiry before a real investigation (cf. Lk 22:66). The lack of advance notice could have been excused because it is during a feast and all necessary officials are present; but because Jewish law forbade trials on the sabbath, they were probably also forbidden on feast days (though executions were not). The officials who gather, probably predominantly *Sadducees (note the prominent role of the aristocratic priests in 14:55), seem more concerned with convicting Jesus quickly than with legal technicalities.

14:54. Peter’s trespassing on private property—that of the high priest himself—required serious commitment from a Galilean fisherman. The guards could be the priest’s night watchmen, but presumably they would immediately recognize that Peter does not belong there. They could also be members of the temple guard, waiting to see the results of the trial inside. They may have planned to stay up late for Passover anyway, though under better circumstances.

14:55-56. Despite the high priest’s certainty of Jesus’ subversiveness, at least some members of the council, perhaps scribes, follow the virtuous Jewish tradition of diligent cross-examination of witnesses. But once these witnesses had contradicted one another, all understandings of Jewish law unanimously demanded that they be declared false and the case be rejected as contrived; under Jewish law, in a capital case, false witnesses were to be put to death (see Deut 19:16-21 and the Dead Sea Scrolls). Even though Rome had not given the Sanhedrin jurisdiction to execute false witnesses, the Sanhedrin should have at least disciplined them. That the case continues simply underlines the corruption of those in control (other ancient Jewish sources, from the *rabbis to the *Dead Sea Scrolls, also complain of the corruption of the priestly aristocrats; *Josephus reports concrete examples of it).

14:57-59. Many Jewish people expected that God would establish a new, purified temple at the time he established the *kingdom. Outsiders had naturally misinterpreted Jesus’ teaching about a new temple and warning about the old temple’s destruction as the threat of a mad, messianic revolutionary. But the witnesses still fail the cross-examination.

14:60-61. Jesus’ refusal to answer fits the ancient Jewish model of a martyr showing contempt to a corrupt judge. At least according to later rabbinic practice, the high priest could not legally force Jesus to convict himself out of his own mouth, but the testimony of other witnesses is so far not working; if the later rabbinic practice was valued by many teachers in Jesus’ day, the priestly aristocracy might choose to simply not observe it. The high priest finally asks whether Jesus thinks of himself as a *messiah—hence, to the high priest’s mind, as a revolutionary.

“The Blessed One” was a common paraphrase for “God.” “*Son of God” (see glossary) was an unusual phrase for a high priest to use, but not an impossible one (the Dead Sea Scrolls interpret 2 Sam 7:14 as messianic). Although Mark could have put the high priest’s question in his own words (a common technique in writing at that time), the high priest had probably heard that Jesus had adopted the title for himself, possibly in a messianic sense (12:6).

14:62. Jesus’ statement is a claim to be not only a mortal messiah but the cosmic ruler of Daniel 7:13-14, the embodiment of Israel’s call, who would come in glory and reign forever. (The seating may allude to Ps 110:1.)

14:63. Tearing clothes was a sign of mourning or *repentance, and was required if one heard the sacred name blasphemed. Jesus would not be deemed guilty under later rabbinic procedure; unless Jesus mentions the sacred Hebrew name of God or summons them to what would be presumed to be idolatry (e.g., by calling himself God, which he does not at this point), he is not technically guilty of blasphemy (here not even by the broader popular sense; cf. 2:5-7). A Jewish court would have been more likely to have pronounced him insane; how could this arrested upstart teacher from Galilee think that he would come in the clouds of heaven? Again, elites (throughout the Roman empire) were not always interested in legal technicalities.

14:64. Under Jewish law, the high priest is not permitted to judge the case alone; he has to solicit the council’s vote (if later recorded rules were already in effect, which might not be the case, this vote would begin with the youngest and conclude with the high priest, lest anyone feel intimidated by their elders). Although they cannot have genuinely believed that Jesus has committed blasphemy according to its technical Jewish definition, they have an important reason to deal with him quickly: he poses a clear threat to the temple establishment (11:15-18), and as a messianic claimant he threatens the whole Roman power structure that they, the Jewish aristocracy, represent.

14:65. Unlike public flogging, the behavior represented here—spitting on, blindfolding, striking and taunting a prisoner—was, of course, against Jewish law. While they ridicule Jesus as a false prophet, Peter fulfills Jesus’ *prophecy concerning him (14:66-72); Jesus thus passes an important test for true prophets (Deut 18:22).

14:66-72

Peter’s Denials

14:66-69. Leading slaves in the most powerful aristocratic households exercised more power and status than did the average free person. Female slaves did not normally wield such power, but her life might still well be more comfortable than that of average citizens. Although the high priest undoubtedly had many servants, similar cases from antiquity show that the slave girl would have recognized that Peter was not from the high priest’s household. Peter would also be clothed differently from the guards. As a servant in an aristocratic household near the temple, this women had perhaps been at the temple and could have gotten a good look at Jesus’ disciples in the temple courts. Peter’s withdrawal from the court to the vestibule perhaps anticipates the need to escape.

14:70. Galilean accents differed from Judean accents, certainly in *Aramaic and presumably (as is probably the case here) in Greek. The high priest’s servants and temple guard would have lived in Jerusalem and regarded themselves as Judeans. Regional accents were hard to conceal (cf. Judg 12:6).

14:71. The “curses” Peter utters are not vulgar words; rather, he vows that he does not know the man, invoking curses on himself if he is lying. The temple hierarchy is interested in eliminating the ringleader; followers would be viewed as a threat only if they continued to follow—as Peter had thus far.

14:72. For most people in the ancient Mediterranean world, a rooster’s crowing marked daybreak. Some scholars have suggested that this refererence is to an earlier Palestinian rooster crowing between 12:30 and 2:30 a.m.

15:1-15

Pilate and the King

15:1. The night trial having been illegal, the officials reconvene somewhere around the first light (about 4:30 a.m.) or dawn (about 5:30 a.m.) to quickly make their conclusion official. Local elites could try cases and accuse people before the Roman governor, but only the governor could order executions. (This was partly to guarantee that local elites did not remove Rome’s supporters behind Rome’s back.) Roman officials like *Pilate would meet with clients and members of the public from dawn till about noon, so they must have Jesus ready for Pilate very early; their office would give them priority over others wishing to see him. Pilate lived in Caesarea, on the Judean coast, but during the Passover stayed in Herod the Great’s old palace in Jerusalem; the Roman governor needed to be in Jerusalem to forestall troubles at Passover.

15:2-4. Claiming to be the Jewish king, the *Messiah, would lead to a charge of sedition and treason against the emperor, especially under the paranoid emperor Tiberius. The only offense for which the Jewish leaders could automatically execute any transgressor was profanation of the temple; to them, Jesus’ act in the temple might appear to have at least approached that, but the leaders know that his claim to messiahship would threaten Pilate more. Pilate had not been particularly cooperative with these leaders in the past, and they need to have a strong case for him now.

15:5. Jewish accounts of martyrs testify frequently concerning *Gentile judges’ astonishment that the martyrs refuse to cooperate (e.g., 2 Maccabees, *4 Maccabees). Roman law did not interpret silence as an admission of guilt, but a defendant who persistently refused to answer could be convicted by default.

15:6-10. Roman governors might take into account precedent but were free to decide cases as they thought best. Releasing a prisoner at the feast is one local custom on which the surviving historical records are silent, but it fits the culture of the time (e.g., a governor in Egypt in A.D. 85 handed someone over to “the multitudes”). Unlike Jesus, Barabbas is a violent revolutionary; but so far as we know he did not claim to be a king or boast such a large following. Jesus’ accusers painted him as a revolutionary, but Pilate apparently regards Jesus as both more popular and less harmful than the revolutionary Barabbas. If the people ask for Jesus, Pilate can release Jesus without offending the local political leaders (on his prior conflicts with them, see comment on 15:15).

15:11. Ancient writers often criticized the fickleness of crowds. Historically, most of the crowds gathered here are Judeans who do not know Jesus well, in contrast to the Galilean pilgrims who did (probably the bulk of his supporters in 11:9-10).

15:12-15. A severe flogging normally preceded crucifixion, but it was often administered along the way or even after the condemned was fastened to the cross. The condemned would be stripped and often tied to a post; soldiers would use “flagella,” leather whips with iron or bone woven into their thongs, that left skin hanging from the back in bloody strips. Crucifixion was considered the most agonizing and degrading form of criminal execution known in antiquity. It was meant to be death by slow torture; although a victim could die faster from shock due to blood loss, they could spend a few days dying of dehydration or perhaps asphixiation. Hanging naked before crowds, unable to hold back one’s bodily waste or swat flies from wounds, was also meant to humiliate the victim.

When Pilate became governor, he immediately enraged Jerusalem by bringing the imperial standards into the city; more recently, he had built an aqueduct with funds from the temple treasury. His insensitivity had only provoked Jewish hostility, and he had apparently become less eager to clash with the local officials. Local charges against a governor, if believed, could cause him to be recalled, and public order often trumped justice for individuals. Although Pilate remained politically secure until the demise of his possible *patron in Rome, Sejanus, in October of A.D. 31, he must have learned to cooperate with the local elite, for he survived in office for several more years, until A.D. 36. (At that time, according to *Josephus, local complaints did bring his recall.)

15:16-20

Hailing the King

15:16. The Praetorium was Herod the Great’s enormous palace, which Roman governors used when they came to Jerusalem.

15:17. Purple was always expensive (see Acts 16:14), but more significantly here, purple robes and garlands of leaves marked the Greek vassal princes. The soldiers may have had to improvise from a scarlet Roman cloak.

Many scholars think that the crown of thorns, perhaps from the branches of the thorny acanthus shrub or from the date palm (which would look more like a crown), may have been meant to turn mainly outward rather than painfully inward; thus the crown would have mimicked the wreaths worn by *Hellenistic rulers. Because the wreath was twisted, however, some thorns or spikes must have scraped inward, drawing blood from Jesus’ scalp. Only the highest king would wear an actual crown instead of a wreath, so they are portraying Jesus as a vassal prince.

15:18. The Roman emperor was greeted with “Hail . . . ” Thus the Roman soldiers (probably Syrian auxiliaries) mock Jesus (“King of the Jews”) here; they would have had little respect for a Jewish king even had they believed Jesus was one. On other reported occasions *Gentiles dressed people up to mock Jewish kings or abused prisoners physically and with mockery.

15:19-20. One paid homage to a king (including Caesar) by falling on one’s knees. The reed might be on hand for military floggings.

15:21-32

The Crucified King

15:21. Cyrene was in what is now Libya in North Africa and included a large Jewish community. “Simon” was a common name among Jews (its resemblance to the patriarch Simeon made it popular). Devout Jewish pilgrims from throughout the Mediterranean world (and presumably a few God-fearers) came to Jerusalem during Passover. Roman soldiers could impress anyone into service to carry things for them. Because it is a feast and work is forbidden, Simon is not coming from “the field” (literally) as a worker; perhaps he is late for the festival, only now arriving from Cyrene or from where he is residing temporarily in the countryside.

15:22. The site of the crucifixion might have been named “Place of the Skull” because so many deaths occurred there, or from the shape of the hill left from surrounding quarried rock. (Nevertheless, the purported site of Calvary proposed by Charles Gordon around 1884, which then had the shape of a skull, acquired those contours long after Jesus’ day. In contrast to the traditional site, “Gordon’s Calvary” has no claim to reliability.)

15:23. It is said that pious women of Jerusalem normally prepared a solution like this one and offered it to those being executed to dull their pain (cf. Prov 31:6-7); Jesus chooses to endure the full force of the agony of crucifixion. Many scholars suggest that the myrrh had narcotic effects; others demur, but at the very least, the alcohol in the wine could help deaden sensitivity to pain.

15:24. A person being executed would be stripped naked; nakedness was particularly shameful in the East and for Jews. Roman soldiers could normally retain the executed criminal’s final belongings. Casting lots was a frequent method of making decisions (see comment on Acts 1:26). Often a unit of four men would be dispatched to oversee a crucifixion (although more are possible in this case, since multiple prisoners are executed here).

15:25. The third hour began shortly after 8:30 a.m. and ran till shortly after 9:30 a.m. (The exact time of hours would vary according to the time of sunrise from which they were reckoned, hence according to the season of year.)

15:26. A soldier would sometimes carry in front of or alongside the prisoner a tablet announcing the charge (the titulus) for which one was being executed. Occasionally it could then be posted above the head of the person being crucified, if they were executed on the sort of cross whose vertical beam extended above the horizontal one. The claim to be a king would be sufficient to incur Roman wrath (see comment on 15:2); ironically, however, Jesus is called not a false royal claimant but “King of the Jews,” perhaps reflecting an anti-Jewish sentiment of Pilate or his agents.

15:27. The term for “bandits” here (NIV; ESV; NRSV, cf. “robbers,” NASB) is the same one Josephus used for revolutionaries. Thus these two men may be former colleagues of Barabbas, originally meant to be executed with him that day. Authorities often liked to conduct executions at busy festivals, to provide maximum warning value against potential transgressors.

15:29-32. Some people observing a crucifixion cursed those being crucified; for the temple charge (15:29), see comment on 14:57-59. Many ancient writers used irony, including narrative irony, and Mark is no exception, reporting unintended truth in the words of Jesus’ enemies (v. 31).

15:33-41

The Death of the King

15:33. The “sixth hour” began before noon, the “ninth hour” before 3 p.m. Jesus dies around the time of the normal evening offering in the temple. Stories were told of catastrophes occurring at the deaths of pious *rabbis, especially those whose intercession had been vital to the world; but the biggest point of these signs is that judgment is imminent. Darkness had signified judgment in the past (Ex 10:21-23) and would in the future (Is 13:10; Ezek 32:7; Joel 2:2, 10, 31; 3:15; Amos 5:18; Zech 14:6). In Amos 8:9, darkness falls at noon; cf. Deut 28:29.

15:34. Jesus’ cry is an *Aramaic quotation of Psalm 22:1, which was sometimes recited at this time of day in prayer but receives special significance when Jesus prays it. For biblically literate ancient hearers, the first line could evoke this entire psalm of the righteous sufferer—and its hope of divine vindication. (Jesus probably quoted the psalm in Hebrew, as in Matthew, though cf. Aramaic prayer in Mk 14:36; Mark uses the Aramaic form probably because the saying was transmitted in an Aramaic milieu. “Eli” could be mistaken for “Elijah” much more easily than “Eloi”; cf. 15:35-36.)

15:35-36. Not only was Elijah expected to come at the end (Mal 4:5), but some circles (attested in later rabbinic sources) believed that God sent Elijah like an angel to help or rescue famous teachers.

15:37. Scholars have often argued that crucifixion generally killed by asphyxiation: one became too weary to keep pulling one’s frame up on the crossbeam, the diaphragm was increasingly strained, and eventually one became unable to breathe. But other scholars have recently argued that most victims would die of blood loss (if they were nailed to the cross) or dehydration first. In any case, death typically took a few days—much longer than the few hours Jesus suffered. Perhaps he died quickly due to the severity of the precrucifixion scourging.

15:38. Jewish people told stories of disasters occurring at the deaths of prominent rabbis. Scholars debate whether the temple’s inner or outer veil is meant, but Mark would probably think of the inner veil. The holy of holies, which the priest could enter only once a year, was the ultimate symbol of God’s dwelling place. God’s rending the veil could symbolize the departure of God’s presence from the temple (cf. Ezek 9:3; 10:4; 11:23) and/or broadened access to God apart from the temple. Thus he was now available apart from the temple system and the old temple order stood judged.

15:39. Roman officials or officers often delegated missions like this execution to centurions, who would take a small detachment of soldiers. Because Romans viewed the reigning emperor as a son of the deified Augustus, the centurion might be recognizing Jesus not only as “king of the Jews” (15:26) but also as a rival to even the emperor. But a non-Jew might use a phrase like “son of God” also with reference to a pious philosopher or, more commonly, a hero whose father was a deity. In Mark’s Gospel, of course, “*Son of God” means much more than that (14:61). Whatever the specific nuance intended, however, Mark’s irony (cf. 15:29-32) is plain enough: only a Gentile is explicitly impressed by Jesus’ death.

15:40. The women followers were much less likely to be indicted than male followers, but they were still courageous to show up at the crucifixion. The epithet of James, “the Less” (NASB, KJV), is better translated “the younger” (NIV, GNT, NRSV), as the usage of the word in the ancient *papyri indicates. Mary is from Magdala; it has been identified with Tarichea, where many fishermen seem to have worked.

15:41. By the standards of the religiously strict, it could have been scandalous for women (especially married women) to travel with an entourage of male disciples (apparently usually without their wives; the case of families making pilgrimage to Jerusalem would be different); apart from members of the aristocracy, conservitive married Palestinian Jewish women were expected to limit their public activity, keep their heads covered and fulfill their domestic duties. A number of women in antiquity did function as benefactors and *patrons (sponsors), though less frequently than men. Adversaries often cited women supporters against one’s movement; some had criticized *Pharisees for this practice; this case might appear even more potentially scandalous, since these women traveled with Jesus. In this one verse Mark hints at an aspect of Jesus’ ministry that challenges the conventional social order, especially if these women “followed” as disciples, which they presumably did (see comment on Lk 10:39; the common use of “follow” in the Gospels).

15:42-47

The Burial of the King

15:42. The sabbath would begin at sundown, within several hours of Jesus’ death. It was not lawful to prepare the body for burial on the sabbath (see comment on Mt 27:57-58 for what was permitted). One could anoint, wash and wrap the bodies with shrouds even on the sabbath, but more thorough burial preparations would have to wait.

15:43. That the Sanhedrin included pious members like Joseph, and not just the sort who appeared in the trial *narrative (as pious as even they may have supposed themselves), fits the known diversity within even the Jewish aristocracy of the period. While a range of ancient Jewish sources complain about corrupt aristocratic priests, the reports of Josephus reveal that Jerusalem’s aristocracy was divided on many points. Because he awaited the future *kingdom, Joseph was probably not a *Sadducee, unlike many of his colleagues in the Sanhedrin. He valued his people’s hope more than Roman rule.

15:44. Crucifixion often took several days to kill a person unless hurried along (cf. Jn 19:31-32).

15:45. That excavated tombs include few crucifixion victims suggests that the bodies were not generally made available for burial—a horror to Jewish sensitivities (Deut 21:22-23). Presumably if Pilate were accommodating local interests in the execution, however, he would also accommodate them regarding burial. One exception found in a wealthy family tomb suggests that then, as now, those with wealth and social power had extra influence, which they could use for good or ill. Still, Joseph’s request was courageous; identifying with one executed for treason could appear treasonous, and the wealthy were sometimes targeted with charges so leaders could execute them and seize their property.

15:46-47. If Jesus died by 3 p.m., Joseph must have bought the linen quickly, just before sundown (about 6 p.m.) when the sabbath began. Linen shrouds were customary for burial; tombs cut from virgin rock were the best. Large disk-shaped stones could be rolled in a groove over the mouth of a tomb, obstructing entry without the difficult removal of the stone. After a body had been prepared for burial it would be left to decompose for one year; then the eldest son or other closest family member would return, gather the bones for burial in a box and deposit them in a slot on the tomb wall.

16:1-8

The Women at the Tomb

Having predicted the *resurrection appearances (14:28), the Gospel of Mark would be complete with or without 16:9-20; Mark does not need to narrate them. Many ancient documents were content simply to predict and foreshadow events certain to come after the *narrative itself had closed (e.g., the Iliad, perhaps the most popular book in Greek antiquity, foreshadows Achilles’ death and Troy’s fall without narrating them). Such suspension was a literary and *rhetorical technique in this period. Some books (e.g., the Jewish historiographic work known as *Pseudo-Philo) and speeches and essays (such as some of *Plutarch’s) also end abruptly. Scholars debate whether Mark ended here deliberately and, if so, why he did so. Mark may have wished to end just short of the resurrection appearances themselves because his persecuted readers were still sharing in Jesus’ cross but needed to be reminded of the foolishness of their present doubts of their ultimate triumph.

16:1. Bodies were normally anointed with oil (then rinsed with water) before burial, but because Jesus had died on Friday just a few hours before the sabbath began (at sundown, around 6 p.m.), this anointing had been postponed (they could not buy spices then; 16:1). Men were allowed to dress only men for burial, but women could dress men or women. Spices may not have been used for everyone but were often used for the bodies of special persons (e.g., Herod). They reduced the immediate stench of rapid decomposition in the normally hot Mediterranean days. After one day and two nights, the women could expect that the body would already stink. But Jerusalem is over two thousand feet above sea level and is cool enough in April that in a sealed tomb the body should have still been approachable.

16:2. The time is around 5:30 a.m.; it was customary to arise at dawn. They bought spices from merchants (16:1) before coming to the tomb, either in the morning or (perhaps more likely) on Saturday evening after sundown. Light was insufficient to reach the tomb before Sunday morning.

16:3-4. The disk-shaped stone rolled in a groove across the entrance to a tomb, and several strong men might be needed to roll it back (comparable to many other tombs here). After the conclusion of the initial mourning period, tombs were normally opened only for the secondary burial of bones a year later and for subsequently deceased family members to be buried there.

16:5. In Jewish literature, angels are normally garbed in white. These women need not have initially assumed that this figure is an angel; the priests in the temple and some others also wore white.

16:6-8. Ancient writers often valued irony. Throughout Mark, people spread news that they were supposed to keep quiet; here, when commanded finally to spread the word, people keep quiet. If the original Gospel of Mark ends here, as is likely, it ends as suddenly as it began, and its final note is one of irony. Many other ancient works (including many treatises and dramas) also had sudden endings.

16:9-20

The Commission (An Appendix)

The manuscript tradition and style suggest that these verses were probably an early addition (not original) to the Gospel of Mark, although a few scholars (such as William Farmer) have argued the case that they are Markan. In any case, most of the content of these verses is found elsewhere in the Gospels, and the traditions seem to be fairly early.

16:9-11. The witness of a woman was deemed much less reliable than that of men, as both *Josephus and the *rabbis attest (Roman law concurred). Given this view and the fact that Judaism was not expecting an individual resurrection of the *Messiah, it is not surprising that the *disciples do not believe Mary Magdalene.

16:12-14. According to Jewish tradition, supernatural beings like angels, *Satan and Elijah were capable of disguising themselves in different forms (a feature also applicable to some figures in Greek mythology). The resurrected Jesus apparently shares this trait.

16:15-18. Among the signs of the messianic era, Isaiah predicted that the sick would be healed and that mute tongues would speak (Is 35:5-6; the idea of tongues could refer to the sort in Acts 2:4 and 1 Cor 14, however), and that God’s people would be witnesses for him (Is 43:10). The powers here attributed to believers are the sort that characterize many of the *Old Testament prophets (cf. this theme in Acts).

16:19-20. Both Jewish and Greek readers could relate to the idea of an ascension of a great hero to heaven (like Heracles or, in postbiblical Jewish tradition, Moses); the closest and best-known idea would likely be Elijah. For Jesus to sit at God’s right hand, however, goes beyond this idea—it means that Jesus reigns as God’s agent (Ps 110:1; cf. Mk 12:36).

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