Markchapter 10
52 verses · BSBMark book hub →
Speaks with:Matthew 19×13Luke 18×11Matthew 20×11Mark 9×41 Corinthians 7×4Matthew 23×3
Summary
Chapter summary
Divorce question: 'what therefore God hath joined together, let not man put asunder.' Children received. The rich young ruler. Third passion prediction. James and John ask for seats; Jesus answers with the cup and the baptism and the servant saying: 'the Son of man came … to give his life a ransom for many.' Blind Bartimaeus at Jericho.
Context
Gospel · Mark — Mark overview
- A. 1–12 What God Has Joined Together
- B. 13–16 Receiving the Kingdom Like a Child
- C. 17–31 The Rich Man Who Went Away Sorrowful
- D. 32–45 The Sons of Zebedee and the Ransom for Many
- E. 46–52 Blind Bartimaeus Calls Out at Jericho
The outline
A.What God Has Joined Togethervv. 1 to 12
Read vv. 1 to 12 →B.Receiving the Kingdom Like a Childvv. 13 to 16
Read vv. 13 to 16 →C.The Rich Man Who Went Away Sorrowfulvv. 17 to 31
Read vv. 17 to 31 →D.The Sons of Zebedee and the Ransom for Manyvv. 32 to 45
Read vv. 32 to 45 →E.Blind Bartimaeus Calls Out at Jerichovv. 46 to 52
Read vv. 46 to 52 →
The world behind this chapter
Mark 10The history
Mark's version of the divorce teaching contains a clause aimed straight at his readers: if she divorces her husband and marries another. Under Jewish law a woman generally could not initiate divorce; under Roman law she could, and it happened often among the propertied classes. Mark applies the ruling to the world his church actually lived in.
The camel and the needle's eye is meant to be impossible, and the disciples hear it that way — they are astonished, because wealth was widely read as evidence of God's favour. Explanations involving a small gate of that name in Jerusalem's wall have no ancient support.
The request from James and John assumes a royal court, where the seats at a king's right and left were the two great offices of state. Jesus answers with a cup and a baptism — both Old Testament images for a portion assigned by God, here a portion of suffering — and then names what the Son of Man came to do: to give his life as a ransom for many.
The road from Jericho to Jerusalem is a serious climb: about seventeen miles, rising over three thousand feet from the Jordan valley to the ridge. Jericho was prosperous, sitting on the balsam trade with one of Herod's palaces nearby, and the pilgrim traffic through it during festival season is why a beggar worked its roadside.
What it meant to them
Mark names the beggar — Bartimaeus, son of Timaeus — where the other Gospels do not. Naming a minor character usually meant he was known to the community that told the story, someone a reader might have met.
For a church in the imperial capital, the sharpest line in the chapter is about rulers who lord it over their subjects and great men who exercise authority over them. Not so among you. That was not a devotional thought; it was a different constitution.
Sources cited
- Craig S. Keener, The IVP Bible Background Commentary: New Testament
- Richard Bauckham, Jesus and the Eyewitnesses
The text of this chapter
This page carries no textual note on Mark 10. Where this site has examined a place the manuscripts differ, the examination is in the manuscripts room. Every place this site examines →
This page draws on Jamieson, Fausset & Brown, Commentary Critical and Explanatory; John Calvin, Commentaries; John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the New Testament and Matthew Henry, Complete Commentary.