Bible Study Series: Mark 2:23-28. The Sabbath does not hang over our heads like a sword, with the death penalty for an infraction Jesus offers liberty.
I write to learn, and I also translate to learn. The translation is mine, unless otherwise noted. If you would like to see many others, please click on this link:
If you would like to see the original Greek, please click here:
At that link, I also offer more commentary and a Summary and Conclusion, geared towards discipleship. Scroll down to the bottom and check it out!
Let’s begin.
Scripture: Mark 2:23-28
23 And it happened on the Sabbath that he was going along through a grain field, and his disciples began to make their way, plucking heads of grain. 24 The Pharisees were saying to him, “Look! Why do they do on the Sabbath what is not lawful?”
25 He said to them, “Have you never read what David did when he had need and he himself was hungry and those with him, 26 how he went into the house of God at the time of Abiathar the high priest and ate the bread of Presence, which was not lawful to eat, except for the priests, and he also gave some to those who were with him?” 27 He said to them, “The Sabbath was made because of the person, not the person because of the Sabbath. 28 So then the Son of Man is Lord, even of the Sabbath.”
Comments:
23-24:
The law allowed for a man to walk through his neighbor’s grain field and pluck the heads with his hands for a little food, but not with a sickle (Deut. 23:25). But the disciples were doing this on the Sabbath.
The Sabbath was the fourth commandment of the Ten Commandments (Exod. 20:8-11 and Deut. 5:12-15), but those verses do not describe how to keep it. In Num. 15:32-38, people found a man gathering wood on the Sabbath, and Moses ordered them to stone him to death. So what kind of interpretations can come from that illegal act and punishment? Was plucking heads of grain the same thing? But the disciples—not Jesus, incidentally—were eating them, so does that excuse them, since they were saving their own lives (if we stretch things)? Apparently not, because healing on the Sabbath was questionable behavior, too. Or in the next passage, maybe the man with the withered hand was not in a life-or-death situation, while the disciples were.
Here are the Mishnah’s thirty-nine categories of work that were not allowed. This comes from the second century, but it probably reflects the times of Jesus:
- Sowing, plowing, reaping, binding sheaves, threshing, winnowing, selecting, grinding, sifting, kneading, and baking.
- Shearing wool, bleaching, hackling, dyeing, spinning, stretching the threads, the making of two meshes, weaving two threads, dividing two threads, tying [knotting] and untying, sewing two stitches, and tearing in order to sew two stitches.
- Capturing a deer, slaughtering, or flaying, or salting it, curing its hide, scraping it [of its hair], cutting it up, writing two letters, and erasing in order to write two letters [over the erasure].
- Building, pulling down, extinguishing, kindling, striking with a hammer, and carrying out from one domain to another.
These are the forty primary labors less one.
(Source)
The rest of the tractate goes on to define the parameters more precisely.
Religious teachers debated these issues endlessly. In effect, these strict teachers of the law said it was better that people should virtually do nothing on the Sabbath. It is better to be safe than sorry, to be severe and austere than risk too much questionable behavior before a holy God. And plucking and rubbing and eating and walking on the Sabbath was just too risky, as if the disciples were harvesting, like the executed man had been gathering (= harvesting?) wood. Jesus and his crew were walking on the tightrope between breaking the Sabbath and breaking the interpretations of the religious leaders. Today we could perhaps argue over whether Jesus really did break it from a human point of view, but not from a divine one, because he was Lord of the Sabbath.
Commentator R. T. France says that the Jews agreed that the Sabbath should be kept, but they did not agree on what work was, though the religious leaders were very strict. France adds this insight to the above-described background:
It is against this background that we must understand the conflicts which arose between Jesus and the Pharisees over the sabbath. It is not that there was no room for debate and for development of the sabbath halakhah [legal aspects of the Torah]; debate was still continuing even within Pharisaism (not to mention the more stringent interpretations of Qumran). The problem appears to be that Jesus did not debate, but simply brushed aside the whole complex of sabbath prohibitions with sweeping generalisations which seemed to make the whole discussion unnecessary. There is no indication that Jesus either rejected the sabbath law as such, or questioned that the sabbath was intended as a day of cessation from work. But his understanding of what was and was not permissible did not coincide with current interpretation, and yet was asserted with a sovereign assurance which raised sharply the issue of halakhic authority.
In church debates today, we question flashing lights, worship leaders bouncing on the platform, and tight clothes which women (and men) wear, particularly the women who dance, and holey jeans. Just now on Christian TV a woman was speaking on the platform and wore extra-tight pants. Right or wrong? Holey = unholy? That depends on how strict you are. Extra-strict believers say innovation is wrong, while the “freer” ones say, “go for it!” These issues have to be hammered out about every decade.
Apparently, the Pharisees were following Jesus’s company around, or maybe the Pharisees saw them at the edge of the grain field and were waiting for them to come out. Stalking, anyone?
“Look!” this translates the older “behold.” It signals the reader to pay attention or to observe a new development. Here the Pharisees are asking Jesus to pay attention to what his disciples are doing.
“disciples”: It means learner, apprentice.
25-26:
“At the time of Abiathar the high priest”: this is a general reference of time: Abiathar is best known as high priest, even though it has technically his father Ahimelech who was the high priest at the time of the event (Decker, p. 65). Son of the high priest and the high priest himself was a flexible designation.
Did Mark Confuse the High Priest Abiathar with His Father Ahimelech?
It was the bread of the Presence (of the Lord). Twelve loaves were stacked up in two stacks of six, put out fresh each Sabbath. Indeed, only the priests were allowed to eat it.
The story of David and his men doing this is found in 1 Samuel 21:1-6 and 22:9-10. In the first passage, David is not shown to have entered the tabernacle, but neither is he said to stand outside. Jesus is paraphrasing the scene in the OT. David did break the rule. The logic is obvious: David was the greatest king, and the Pharisees were much less than he, so they should stop judging Jesus and his disciples. If you condemn the disciples, you should condemn the greatest king. Jesus is greater than his accusers. It was David as he who took action, and now Jesus places his own authority on the same level as David’s. Jesus is acting outside of religious tradition, and the leaders of this tradition resented it. Matthew will say that Jesus is greater than David (Matt. 22:41-46). He had to go—be killed, eliminated.
In an extra-strict religious environment, this is a remarkable statement. In these few words, first he says that he is greater than David, because in 1 Sam. 21:1-6 David submitted to the priest and asked for food. The priest gave the bread to David, who did not refuse it, even though he knew it was consecrated. However, David never said that he was the Lord of the consecrated bread and of Lev. 24:5-9. Second, Jesus proclaimed that he was the Lord of the Sabbath, when that sacred day is listed in the mighty Ten Commandments. He owned the Sabbath; it did not own him. He stood above the Sabbath, it did not hang over his head like the sword of Damocles.
According to France, Jesus overturned the apple cart in this way:
The relevance of the text to the specific issue raised is not immediately obvious (other than that it relates a previous breach of the law, which is hardly in itself justification for a further infringement!). David acted as he did [when he had need and was hungry], but Mark (unlike Matthew) has not indicated any particular need on the part of Jesus and his disciples. Nor does either the account in 1 Sa. 21 or Jesus’ summary of it mention that David did this on the sabbath, though this is a fair inference from the mention in 1 Sa. 21:6 of the removal and replacement of the bread, which was a sabbath duty (Lv. 24:8). The nature of the ‘illegality’ in David’s case, using for himself and his men sacred food which was reserved to the use of priests, was not directly comparable to what Jesus’ disciples were doing. The question is not in any case whether the specific action could or could not be declared legitimate; it was rather, as vv. 27–28 will make clear, whether Jesus had the right to override the agreed conventions, in his capacity as [Lord of the Sabbath].
France continues:
The focus of the scriptural allusion is not therefore so much on what David did, as on the fact that it was David who did it, and that Scripture records his act, illegal as it was, with apparent approval. The logic of Jesus’ argument therefore implies a covert claim to a personal authority at least as great as that of David. Matthew has clearly understood the pericope in that way, and includes a parallel argument from the ‘defilement of the sabbath’ by the priests in pursuing their temple duties, on the grounds that [something greater than the temple is here] (Mt. 12:6; cf. the similar formula in 12:41, 42).
27-28:
In an extra-strict religious environment, this is a remarkable statement. In these few words, first he says that he is greater than David, because in 1 Sam. 21:1-6 David submitted to the priest high priest and asked for food. The high priest gave the bread to David, who did not refuse it, even though he knew it was consecrated. However, David never said that he was the Lord of the consecrated bread and of Lev. 24:5-9. Second, Jesus proclaimed that he was the Lord of the Sabbath, when that sacred day is listed in the mighty Ten Commandments. He owned the Sabbath; it did not own him. He stood above the Sabbath, it did not hang over his head like the sword of Damocles.
His declaration must have stunned the Pharisees to silence.
“Son of Man”: it is both human (Ezekiel) and divine (Dan. 7:13). It could also be translated as “Son of Humanity.”
For a discussion about the verbal sparring match between Jesus and these religious leaders, please see v. 8.
Wessel and Strauss write of Jesus’s pronouncement about the purpose of the Sabbath:
Jesus concludes with a double pronouncement. The first affirms that the Sabbath was not created for its own sake; it was a gift of God to human beings. Its purpose was not to put people in a kind of straightjacket. It was for their good—to provide rest from labor and opportunity for worship (see Ex. 23:12; Dt. 5:14).
GrowApp for Mark 2:23-28
A.. Have religious leaders told you that a ritual or your appearance was unacceptable? How did you respond?
RELATED
10. Eyewitness Testimony in Mark’s Gospel
2. Church Fathers and Mark’s Gospel
2. Archaeology and the Synoptic Gospels
14. Similarities among John’s Gospel and the Synoptic Gospels
1. The Historical Reliability of the Gospels: Introduction to Series
SOURCES
For bibliographical data, please click on this link and scroll down to the very bottom:
Dr. Jim's Essential Bible Teaching 