Mark 7:9-13
A Loophole Called Corban
9He went on to say, “You neatly set aside the command of God to maintain your own tradition.
10For Moses said, ‘Honor your father and your mother’ and ‘Anyone who curses his father or mother must be put to death.’
11But you say that if a man says to his father or mother, ‘Whatever you would have received from me is Corban’ (that is, a gift devoted to God),
12he is no longer permitted to do anything for his father or mother.
13Thus you nullify the word of God by the tradition you have handed down. And you do so in many such matters.”
Berean Standard Bible
The argument is still running. He has just told them they let go of God's command in order to hold on to their own tradition, and now he sharpens it and gives them a worked example.
You neatly set aside the command of God to maintain your own tradition.
Neatly is a word for tidy work, done properly, no mess left behind. He is not describing men who trampled on the law. He is describing men who moved it aside carefully, the way you move a chair.
Then he starts where nobody could object to him, with Moses. Honor your father and your mother, one of the ten. Beside it he sets a second and much harder line about anyone who curses his father or mother. Both were on the books, and everybody in that argument agreed about both.
Honoring your parents in that world was not mainly a matter of tone of voice. There were no pensions. A person's children were their old age, so honoring your father and mother meant food on his table and a roof over her head once neither of them could earn.
Now the workaround.
Whatever you would have received from me is Corban (that is, a gift devoted to God)
Mark stops to translate the word for his readers, which tells you it was a technical term that real people said out loud. A man declares that whatever his parents might have had from him is dedicated to God, and after that he is not permitted to spend it on his father or mother. The vow has closed over it.
Follow what that leaves behind. He has stolen nothing. He has not refused his parents to their faces, and if you asked him he could name the rule he was keeping and be right about it. His mother still goes without.
Jesus is not pointing at a man who broke the law. He is pointing at a man who kept the rules so exactly that he arrived at the outcome the law was written to prevent, with all his paperwork in order.
Then the sentence that closes it.
Thus you nullify the word of God by the tradition you have handed down. And you do so in many such matters.
Nullify is a strange word for so mild an action. They do not argue with God's word, or deny it, or tear it out. They leave it exactly where it has always been, with nothing behind it. And the last clause is the one that should keep a reader awake, because it says this was not one clever loophole somebody found once.
How We Know
Corban is a real word and Mark handles it the way he handles Aramaic elsewhere: he prints it, then translates it. It is the ordinary Hebrew term for an offering brought to the LORD, used from Leviticus 1:2 onward.
The practice he describes is specific. A man declares property Corban, a vow dedicating it to God, and by doing so puts it beyond the reach of a parent with a claim on it. Josephus knows the term and the rabbis later argue about vows that leave a father and mother unsupported, so the conflict Mark describes was a live one.
That level of legal detail, in a term Mark has to translate for his readers, supports an account reporting a dispute inside Judaism rather than describing one from outside it.
- Josephus, Jewish Antiquities 4.73; Mishnah Nedarim 1:1 and 9:1.
Questions
1 Has anyone ever kept a promise to you in a way that was technically correct and still let you down? What did that feel like?
AnswerEverybody has one of these, and it is usually small. The point of asking first is that the man here is doing the grown-up version of it, and none of us hear the story from outside.
2 What did honoring your father and mother mean in practical terms back then?
AnswerLooking after them when they got old. No pensions and no safety net. Children were what a parent had, so honoring them was a matter of food and shelter rather than manners.
3 What did declaring something Corban actually do?
AnswerIt dedicated the thing to God. Once a man had said it about whatever his parents might have received from him, the tradition around vows would not let him spend it on them again.
4 Did the man in this example break a rule?
AnswerNo, and the answer matters. He kept every rule precisely and ended up at exactly the outcome the law existed to prevent. He used the system rather than breaking it, which is why Jesus goes after the system.
What This Means for Us
The most dangerous kind of disobedience does not feel like disobedience while it is happening. The man in this example could have explained himself to anybody. He was being generous to God, he could point to the rule, he was right about every part of it, and his mother went without.
We do smaller versions constantly. Technically we did not lie. Technically we kept the promise. We can lay out exactly why the thing we did was allowed, and the person on the other end of it is still hurt. So when the explanation starts assembling itself in your head, try the other question. Not whether you are allowed. Who it is costing.
Prayer
Father, we are good at finding the version of the rules that lets us do what we already wanted. Forgive us for the times we were right and unkind at the same time. Show us who our choices are costing, and give us the courage to look. Amen.