In Capernaum, the leaders of Israel questioned Jesus in their hearts. Beside the sea, they questioned his disciples about their rabbi’s practices. They challenged Jesus in the grain fields, sought to trap him in the synagogue, tried to seize him, thinking he was mad, and accused him of being possessed. In all these things the Lord was a step ahead, he outwitted them with words, he escaped, he made them look foolish.
In Mark chapter 7, Jesus is challenged again, this time about conforming to the Pharisees’ traditions on cleanliness. And this time Jesus really lets them have it.
As this chapter continues, Jesus moves from rebuking the Pharisees to exhorting the people, and then his disciples, saying, “Hear me, all of you, and understand.” This exhortation does not seem to land.
From this encounter, Jesus travels to Tyre. A Syrophoenician woman hears of Jesus and asks him to heal her daughter of an unclean spirit. And here comes the first twist in the story—Jesus responds out of character. Instead of his usual gentle response to lowly folks seeking his help, he responds with prophetic rudeness. He says, “Let the children be fed first, for it is not right to take the children’s bread and throw it to the dogs.” And now for the second twist. Jesus, beset by challenges, accusations, and traps from the leading men in Israel, yet always prevailing, is bested by the humble but clever reply of a Gentile woman. One might say he lost the argument. When viewed in light of the preceding interactions, Jesus’s response appears as a deliberate prophetic drama, a lived-out parable. He gives an answer that many of the leading men and even his disciples would agree with. He gives their answer and sets the woman up to give a good answer, “Yes, Lord; yet even the dogs under the table eat the children’s crumbs.” It is a statement of faith but also a statement of truth. Her winning reply stands in contrast to those who have been seeking to prevail over Jesus. A Gentile woman has done better than they have.
Finally, Jesus travels through Galilee to the Decapolis, where he meets and heals a deaf man with a speech impediment in a prophetically crude manner: “He put his fingers into his ears, and after spitting touched his tongue.”
These stories seem largely unconnected, but in reality, these stories not only inform one another but work together to testify about Jesus and the mighty work he is about to do, and they even allude to how he will do it.
These stories may seem largely unconnected, but in reality, they also work together to testify about Jesus and the mighty work he is about to do, even hinting at how he will accomplish it.
To help illustrate the interconnection of the themes in these stories, I have color coded the themes throughout the telling of the chapter. Here is Mark 7 in Color.
The blue text follows the ministry of the word theme.
The orange follows the theme of cleanliness and relates to holiness.
The green text follows the hearing/understanding theme.
The red text follows the developing theme of the spirit.
Part 1A: Galilee
In the first part of chapter 7, Jesus confronts the Pharisees for promoting the traditions of man against the Word of God (in this case, they use corban dedication to break the fourth commandment – whatever the parents might have gained from them is already devoted to God). The specific issue they challenge Jesus with has to do with cleanliness. Jesus points out the hypocrisy of their outward cleanliness when they are defiled by their rank law-breaking. Jesus uses the opportunity of being confronted with their traditions to rebuke them about their hypocrisy on the matter. He quotes Isaiah and says, “This people honors me with their lips but their heart is far from me” (Mark 7:6). The stewards of the Word of God are bringing something else to God’s people – the anti-Word traditions of men.
Part 1B: Galilee
In the second part of the first Galilee portion of this series of stories, Jesus exhorts all the people, still using the specific issue of cleanliness traditions versus the true character of the Word of God. He says, “What comes out of a person is what defiles him. For from within, out of the heart of man, come evil thoughts, sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery, coveting, wickedness, deceit, sensuality, envy, slander, pride, foolishness. All these evil things come from within, and they defile a person” (Mark 7:20-23). This internal cleanliness or defilement is significant to the whole chapter, but his rhetoric introduces another theme to the mix, the theme of hearing and understanding. He says, “Hear me, all of you, and understand.” And then to the disciples, “Then are you also without understanding?”
Part 2: Sidon of Tyre
Now Jesus travels out of the Holy Land of the Hebrews and encounters a Gentile woman who asks him to heal her daughter from an unclean spirit. The unusual exchange between them—where Jesus likens her to a dog—is hard to make sense of unless we see it connected to Part 1. It serves as a lived-out parable, presenting an indictment against Israel. Jesus travels outside of the Holy Land and finds a Gentile dog who understands. A supposedly unclean woman understands while the supposedly clean ones do not understand. Jesus’s harsh language toward her emphasizes the status contrast between the woman and the leaders of Israel. This contrast is further illuminated by the otherwise extraneous phrase describing the woman’s approach to Jesus—she first “heard of him” then she came, whereas the people in part 1 did not hear. Additionally, we might expect that it would be her faith that made her daughter well. The ESV heading for this story is even titled ‘The Syrophoenician Woman’s Faith.” But the text says, “For this statement you may go your way; the demon has left your daughter.” It was her words. She hears and understands, she speaks well (She wins the exchange with Jesus her statement of faith and a better understanding of the Kingdom), and her daughter is cleansed of her evil spirit.
Israel does not hear and understand. Their leaders do not speak well (“making void the word of God by the traditions that they have handed down. And many such things they do.”). They have been rebuked by Jesus and are then contrasted to the woman as being the unclean ones. Jesus tells Israel it is not what goes into a man than makes him unclean but what comes out of a man. And what is coming out of Israel is unclean—they pervert the word against God’s people and have a spirit without understanding.
We are meant to see in this collection of stories that it is Israel who is possessed by an unclean spirit. By healing the girl, Jesus illustrates the remedy Israel needs. Israel needs Jesus to cast out Israel’s unclean spirit.
Part 3: Galilee/Decapolis
Mark concludes this narrative cycle with Jesus’s encounter with a deaf man who has a speech impediment. Notice how all the previous themes are present and come together in this healing.
Then he returned from the region of Tyre and went through Sidon to the Sea of Galilee, in the region of the Decapolis. And they brought to him a man who was deaf and had a speech impediment, and they begged him to lay his hand on him. And taking him aside from the crowd privately, he put his fingers into his ears, and after spitting touched his tongue. And looking up to heaven, he sighed and said to him, “Ephphatha,” that is, “Be opened.” And his ears were opened, his tongue was released, and he spoke plainly (Mark 7:31–37).
Why this guy? On this particular journey Jesus probably met and healed thousands of people. Why does Mark write about this one? Considering Parts 1 and 2, we see a connection. Who else has a speech impediment? Part 1A shows that it is Israel who has a speech impediment. Those charged with bringing the Word and character of God to his people and to the world can’t speak it correctly. They speak with an impediment. Who else in this chapter is deaf? In Part 1b we see that all of Israel, including the disciples cannot hear and understand what Jesus is teaching them about the Kingdom (in contrast to the Gentile woman in Part 2). And who can deliver Israel from their speech impediment and deafness? Jesus can. And how does he do it? Not by keeping his hands clean according to the Pharisees, but by getting them prophetically dirty, sticking his fingers in the man’s ears, spitting, and grabbing the man’s tongue. Jesus pays no mind to the traditions of men that impede the work of the true Word of God.
Jesus sighs and says, “be opened,” and the man’s ears were opened and his tongue released. With this sigh we get a hint that not only must God’s people be delivered from their unclean spirit, they need a new clean spirit to make them holy. If we see this man doubling as a representative of Israel, and if we look ahead to when and how the fullness of the speech and understanding deliverance comes to God’s people, then we see Mark 7 as a remarkable foreshadowing. When are the ears of the people opened? When are their tongues released? It is when the Holy Spirit, the breath (sigh) of God, is poured out at Pentecost. The “be opened” sigh of Jesus remains mysterious unless viewed in light of the other stories which help complete the picture. Why would Jesus sigh or groan unless if not part of a lived-out parable? The connection to the other stories help us see it as a symbol of his Spirit.
There are other details in chapter 7 that hint at a Pentecost and the New Creation understanding of this chapter. Part 2 opens with the subtle phrasing, “there he arose and went away.” In John 16 Jesus speaks about the coming of the Spirit, “if I do not go away, the Helper will not come to you. But if I go, I will send him to you.” Mark 7:19 includes a parenthetical comment about the cleanliness of all foods which is a significant Pentecost issue (Acts 10). And the phrasing in 7:35, where the man is said to “speak plainly,” resonates with what Jesus tells the disciples in John 16 again. But one need only look to the description of Pentecost in Acts 2. There we see a rushing wind, released tongues, understanding, and the presence of all the nations.
Mark 7 is a brilliant literary presentation of the gospel. Israel is sick on the inside, speaking with an impediment, deaf to understanding, possessing an unclean spirit, a spirit that places them in opposition to the true values of the Kingdom. Jesus is the only one who can heal them and redeem the Kingdom. And by his actions—healing the Gentile woman’s unclean spirit possessed daughter and the deaf man with a speech impediment—we see him demonstrating what is needed and foreshadowing both what he will do and how he will do it.
At the end of chapter 7, the people praise Jesus. Jesus charges them to keep it to themselves. “But the more he charged them, the more zealously they proclaimed it” (Mark 7:36). Some might interpret this as evidence that the people still lack understanding, as they fail to heed Jesus’s instruction, speaking out of turn or without the necessary wisdom. However, I believe it aligns more with the overall narrative to view this as a picture of the Holy Spirit emerging from within the people, a direct result of Christ’s transformative work, further foreshadowing the day of Pentecost. The people can’t help but speak well of Jesus, zealously proclaiming the truth: “He has done all things well. He even makes the deaf hear and the mute speak” (Mark 7:37).
George Edema, M.Div, is a minister in the Presbyterian Church in America. His short story, “Sir Galahad and the Golden Meadow,” can be found in the collection The Lost Tales of Sir Galahad from Rabbit Room Press (2022).