Jesus Christ · On the Scriptures
Tradition and Commandment
Pharisees and scribes challenge Jesus over something small — His disciples eating without the ceremonial handwashing their tradition required. His answer is not small. He quotes Isaiah against them, then names one specific, documented case: a man could declare the money that should support his aging parents “Corban” — dedicated to God — and be legally excused from supporting them, keeping a vow while voiding a commandment. Jesus is not against tradition itself. He is against a tradition that has learned how to route around what God actually said.
The Challenge
— Mark 7:1-5, parallel Matthew 15:1-2Pharisees and scribes travel from Jerusalem and notice something: some of Jesus’s disciples are eating without the ceremonial handwashing that “the tradition of the elders” required — a practice not commanded anywhere in the written Law, but handed down and closely guarded. They put the question to Jesus directly: why do your disciples not walk according to the tradition of the elders?
Jesus 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.Jesus's answer opens with a direct charge, not a defense.
How the Vow Routed Around the Commandment
— Mark 7:9-13THE PLAIN PATH
parents supported
What He Is Saying
— a loophole named plainlyJesus first quotes Isaiah 29:13 against His accusers — a worship that honors God “with their lips,” while the heart stays far away — then makes the charge concrete with a single documented case. Under the oral tradition, a man could declare property “Corban,” dedicated to God, and by that vow be legally excused from using it to support his own father or mother. The vow was real. The commandment, “Honour thy father and thy mother,” was still standing, unrepealed — but a technically-kept vow had been built to route around it.
Therefore the Lord said: “These people draw near to Me with their mouths and honor Me with their lips, but their hearts are far from Me. Their worship of Me is but rules taught by men.the verse Jesus quotes against them
Honor your father and mother, so that your days may be long in the land that the LORD your God is giving you.the commandment the vow routes around
He went on to say, “You neatly set aside the command of God to maintain your own tradition. For Moses said, ‘Honor your father and your mother’ and ‘Anyone who curses his father or mother must be put to death.’ But 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), he is no longer permitted to do anything for his father or mother. Thus you nullify the word of God by the tradition you have handed down. And you do so in many such matters.”the full charge, in Jesus's own words
He beats back the vain words of the Pharisees with His arguments, as men drive back dogs with weapons, by interpreting Moses and Isaiah, that we too by the word of Scripture may conquer the heretics, who oppose us; wherefore it goes on: (Isa. 29:13) Well hath Esaias prophesied of you hypocrites; as it is written, This people honoureth me with their lips, but their heart is far from me.
Pseudo-Jerome· Catena Aurea by Aquinas (9999), on Mark 7:6
For laying aside the commandment of God,.... Meaning not any particular commandment, but all the commandments of God, the whole written law; to which they preferred the oral law, or the traditions of the elders, and the decisions of their doctors. So the Syriac, Arabic, Persic, and Ethiopic versions read, "the commandments of God".
John Gill· Exposition of the New Testament (1746-1748), on Mark 7:8
These, doubtless, they imitate and follow, who, despising God's tradition, seek after strange doctrines, and bring in teachings of human appointment, whom the Lord rebukes and reproves in His Gospel, saying, "Ye reject the commandment of God, that ye may keep your own tradition." This is a worse crime than that which the lapsed seem to have fallen into, who nevertheless, standing as penitents for their crime, beseech God with full satisfactions.
Cyprian· Treatise I. On the Unity of the Church (258), on Mark 7:9
The Law, He says, teaches: "Honor your father and your mother" (Exodus 20:12); but you teach children to say to their parents: that which you want from me is corban, that is, dedicated to God. For the Pharisees, wishing to profit from the property of …
Theophylact of Ohrid· Commentary on Mark (1107), on Mark 7:10-13
Making the word of God of none effect, through your tradition,....
John Gill· Exposition of the New Testament (1746-1748), on Mark 7:13
The Same Charge, Matthew's Side
— Matthew 15:1-9 — the parallel accountMatthew keeps the same confrontation from his own angle, with one line Mark does not carry in these words: “Why do ye also transgress the commandment of God by your tradition?” — the accusation turned squarely back on the accusers.
Jesus replied, “And why do you break the command of God for the sake of your tradition?For God said, ‘Honor your father and mother’ and ‘Anyone who curses his father or mother must be put to death.’the commandment Matthew names directly
But you say that if anyone says to his father or mother, ‘Whatever you would have received from me is a gift devoted to God,’the vow, in Matthew's own account
he need not honor his father or mother with it. Thus you nullify the word of God for the sake of your tradition.the verdict: void, not fulfilled
‘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.’”the same Isaiah 29:13 citation, in Matthew's version
But he answered and said unto them, Why do ye also transgress the commandment of God by your tradition?--The charge is retorted with startling power: "The tradition they transgress is but man's, and is itself the occasion of heavy transgression, undermining the authority of God's law."
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown· Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871), on Matt 15:3
This was making the command of God of no effect. Note, Whatever leads to, or countenances, disobedience, does, in effect, make void the command; and they that take upon them to dispense with God's law, do, in Christ's account, repeal and disannul it. To break the law is bad, but to teach men so, as the scribes and Pharisees did, is much worse.
Matthew Henry· Commentary on the Whole Bible (1710), on Matt 15:5-6
"And," it is added in Mark (Mr 7:12), "ye suffer him no more to do aught for his father or his mother." To dedicate property to God is indeed lawful and laudable, but not at the expense of filial duty.
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown· Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871), on Matt 15:6
In vain they do worship me, etc. - By the traditions of the elders, not only the word of God was perverted, but his worship also was greatly corrupted. But the Jews were not the only people who have acted thus: whole Christian Churches, as well as sects and parties, have acted in the same way.
Adam Clarke· Commentary on the Bible (1832), on Matt 15:9
The Careful Boundary
— not against tradition — against a tradition that voids the commandmentThis is not an argument against tradition as such.
Jesus honors Scripture above tradition, and that is exactly the boundary He draws here — not a blanket case against inherited practice, custom, or the handing down of teaching from one generation to the next. To dedicate something to God is, in itself, “lawful and laudable.” What Jesus confronts is a specific, documented case where a tradition had been built in a way that let a vow legally cancel a standing commandment. The charge is aimed at that particular abuse, not at the Pharisees as a body, and not at the practice of tradition itself. Even Adam Clarke, writing on this exact passage, refuses to make it a verdict on one people alone: the same failure, he says, has repeated itself “in whole Christian Churches, as well as sects and parties.”
Where It Points
— the weight the law was always meant to carryJesus does not leave the correction empty-handed. Elsewhere He names, in His own words, what the entire law and the prophets actually hang on — not ritual precision, but love of God and love of neighbor. A tradition that lets a son abandon his own parents while keeping a technical vow has lost sight of exactly that weight.
Closing
A vow kept to the letter, a commandment quietly voided — Jesus names the mechanism plainly and puts Scripture’s own weight above the tradition that had learned to route around it. Not tradition condemned. A loophole exposed.