Mark 7:1-8
The Argument About Washing Hands
1Then the Pharisees and some of the scribes who had come from Jerusalem gathered around Jesus,
2and they saw some of His disciples eating with hands that were defiled—that is, unwashed.
3Now in holding to the tradition of the elders, the Pharisees and all the Jews do not eat until they wash their hands ceremonially.
4And on returning from the market, they do not eat unless they wash. And there are many other traditions for them to observe, including the washing of cups, pitchers, kettles, and couches for dining.
5So the Pharisees and scribes questioned Jesus: “Why do Your disciples not walk according to the tradition of the elders? Instead, they eat with defiled hands.”
6Jesus answered them, “Isaiah prophesied correctly about you hypocrites, as it is written: ‘These people honor Me with their lips, but their hearts are far from Me.
7They worship Me in vain; they teach as doctrine the precepts of men.’
8You have disregarded the commandment of God to keep the tradition of men.”
Berean Standard Bible
A group of Pharisees and scribes has come up from Jerusalem, and the first thing they do is watch the disciples eat. Somebody's hands had not been washed, and they saw it.
Mark stops the story there to explain what the fuss is about, which tells us something about who he expected to be reading. He describes the washing before a meal, the washing after coming back from the market, the washing of cups and pitchers and kettles and the couches people ate on. None of that would need saying to a Jewish reader. Mark says it anyway, patiently, the way you explain a household custom to a guest who has just arrived.
He also tells us where the custom came from. Not from the law God gave Moses, but from the tradition of the elders, which was generations of careful people working out how that law should be kept. There is nothing wicked in the motive. It began as an attempt to take God seriously, handed down by people who meant well and were doing their best with it.
So when the officials put their question, they think they are standing on solid ground.
Why do Your disciples not walk according to the tradition of the elders? Instead, they eat with defiled hands.
The answer goes somewhere they were not expecting. He calls them hypocrites, and then he hands them Isaiah.
These people honor Me with their lips, but their hearts are far from Me. They worship Me in vain; they teach as doctrine the precepts of men.
Isaiah had said that to Israel about the religion of his own day, to people who were confident they were fine. Jesus takes those words and gives them to the most careful religious men in the room.
Then he puts the whole charge into one sentence.
You have disregarded the commandment of God to keep the tradition of men.
Two verbs, pulling against each other. Something got disregarded so that something else could be kept. Their hands were full, and when hands are full one thing has to go down before another can be picked up, and they had put down the wrong one.
Nobody in this scene is arguing for dirty hands. The disciples are not making a point about hygiene, and Jesus never says that washing before a meal is a bad idea. The trouble starts further along, when a rule people made begins to weigh as much as a word God said, and then a little more than that.
How We Know
Verse 6 is a quotation and Mark names its source. Isaiah 29:13 reads that these people draw near with their mouths and honor God with their lips while their hearts are far from him, and that their reverence consists of rules taught by men. Set it beside verses 6 and 7 and the source is unmistakable, though Mark drops the opening clause about drawing near, adds in vain, and rephrases the ending.
Mark also stops the narrative in verses 3 and 4 to explain hand washing, market practice and the washing of cups and pots. He does that for readers who did not know the custom, which tells us who he expected to be reading, and it is the same reason he translates Aramaic elsewhere.
Questions
1 Before we look at them, look at us. What does this family always do a certain way, that nobody can remember deciding?
AnswerBedtimes, seats at the table, how Sundays run, who says grace. Most of it is harmless and some of it is good. The useful part is noticing how much of the way we live was never decided by anybody. It just settled.
2 Where did the hand-washing rule come from?
AnswerNot from the law God gave Moses. From the tradition of the elders, which was generations of careful people working out how that law should be kept. It began as an attempt to take God seriously, and Mark stops the story to explain the whole business to readers who had never seen it done.
3 Jesus answers them with Isaiah. What does the quotation say is wrong with these people?
AnswerThey honor God with their lips while their hearts are far from him, and their worship comes to nothing because they are teaching human rules as though God had given them.
4 Is Jesus telling us that traditions are bad?
AnswerThe passage does not say that, and we should not stretch it further than he does. What he names is what happens when something people made starts carrying the same weight as something God said. He never tells them to stop washing. He tells them what they let go of in order to keep it.
What This Means for Us
Every one of those washing rules started with somebody trying to obey God carefully. This failure does not begin in rebellion. It begins in sincerity. Somebody wanted to be sure, so they built a fence, and then somebody built a fence around the fence, and generations later people were being judged by fences while nobody could remember which parts God had actually said.
Families do the same. We have ways of doing things that started for a reason and now run under their own power. So take one of them and ask honestly where it came from, and whether God requires it. Asking is not rebellion, it is housekeeping.
Prayer
Father, we make rules because we want to get it right, and then the rules get heavier than your word. Show us what you have actually asked of us. Give us clean hands and a heart that is not far away. Amen.