That Which Defiles
15 Then some Pharisees and teachers of the law came to Jesus from
Jerusalem and asked, 2 “Why do your disciples break the tradition of the
elders? They don’t wash their hands before they eat!”
3 Jesus replied, “And why do you break the command of God for the sake
of your tradition? 4 For God said, ‘Honor your father and mother’[Exodus 20:12; Deut. 5:16] and
‘Anyone who curses their father or mother is to be put to death.’[Exodus 21:17; Lev. 20:9 ] 5 But you
say that if anyone declares that what might have been used to help their father
or mother is ‘devoted to God,’ 6 they are not to ‘honor their father or mother’
with it. Thus you nullify the word of God for the sake of your tradition. 7 You
hypocrites! Isaiah was right when he prophesied about you:
8 “‘These people honor me with their lips,
but their hearts are far from
me.
9 They worship me in vain;
their teachings are merely
human rules.’[Isaiah 29:13]”
10 Jesus called the crowd to him and said, “Listen and understand. 11
What goes into someone’s mouth does not defile them, but what comes out of
their mouth, that is what defiles them.”
12 Then the disciples came to him and asked, “Do you know that the Pharisees
were offended when they heard this?”
13 He replied, “Every plant that my heavenly Father has not planted will
be pulled up by the roots. 14 Leave them; they are blind guides.[Some manuscripts blind guides of the blind] If the
blind lead the blind, both will fall into a pit.”
15 Peter said, “Explain the parable to us.”
16 “Are you still so dull?” Jesus asked them. 17 “Don’t you see that
whatever enters the mouth goes into the stomach and then out of the body? 18
But the things that come out of a person’s mouth come from the heart, and these
defile them. 19 For out of the heart come evil thoughts—murder, adultery,
sexual immorality, theft, false testimony, slander. 20 These are what defile a
person; but eating with unwashed hands does not defile them.”
The Faith of a Canaanite Woman
21 Leaving that place, Jesus withdrew to the region of Tyre and Sidon.
22 A Canaanite woman from that vicinity came to him, crying out, “Lord, Son of
David, have mercy on me! My daughter is demon-possessed and suffering
terribly.”
23 Jesus did not answer a word. So his disciples came to him and urged
him, “Send her away, for she keeps crying out after us.”
24 He answered, “I was sent only to the lost sheep of Israel.”
25 The woman came and knelt before him. “Lord, help me!” she said.
26 He replied, “It is not right to take the children’s bread and toss it
to the dogs.”
27 “Yes it is, Lord,” she said. “Even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall
from their master’s table.”
28 Then Jesus said to her, “Woman, you have great faith! Your request is
granted.” And her daughter was healed at that moment.
Jesus Feeds the Four Thousand
29 Jesus left there and went along the Sea of Galilee. Then he went up
on a mountainside and sat down. 30 Great crowds came to him, bringing the lame,
the blind, the crippled, the mute and many others, and laid them at his feet;
and he healed them. 31 The people were amazed when they saw the mute speaking,
the crippled made well, the lame walking and the blind seeing. And they praised
the God of Israel.
32 Jesus called his disciples to him and said, “I have compassion for
these people; they have already been with me three days and have nothing to
eat. I do not want to send them away hungry, or they may collapse on the way.”
33 His disciples answered, “Where could we get enough bread in this
remote place to feed such a crowd?”
34 “How many loaves do you have?” Jesus asked.
“Seven,” they replied, “and a few small fish.”
35 He told the crowd to sit down on the ground. 36 Then he took the
seven loaves and the fish, and when he had given thanks, he broke them and gave
them to the disciples, and they in turn to the people. 37 They all ate and were
satisfied. Afterward the disciples picked up seven basketfuls of broken pieces
that were left over. 38 The number of those who ate was four thousand men,
besides women and children. 39 After Jesus had sent the crowd away, he got into
the boat and went to the vicinity of Magadan.
NOTES:
15:1–20 This dispute begins with the question of the
Pharisees and scribes why Jesus’ disciples are breaking the tradition of the
elders about washing one’s hands before eating (Mt 15:2). Jesus’
counterquestion accuses his opponents of breaking the commandment of God for
the sake of their tradition (Mt 15:3) and illustrates this by their
interpretation of the commandment of the Decalogue concerning parents (Mt
15:4–6). Denouncing them as hypocrites, he applies to them a derogatory
prophecy of Isaiah (Mt 15:7–8). Then with a wider audience (the crowd, Mt
15:10) he goes beyond the violation of tradition with which the dispute has
started. The parable (Mt 15:11) is an attack on the Mosaic law concerning clean
and unclean foods, similar to those antitheses that abrogate the law (Mt
5:31–32, 33–34, 38–39). After a warning to his disciples not to follow the
moral guidance of the Pharisees (Mt 15:13–14), he explains the parable (Mt
15:15) to them, saying that defilement comes not from what enters the mouth (Mt
15:17) but from the evil thoughts and deeds that rise from within, from the
heart (Mt 15:18–20). The last verse returns to the starting point of the
dispute (eating with unwashed hands). Because of Matthew’s omission of Mk
7:19b, some scholars think that Matthew has weakened the Marcan repudiation of
the Mosaic food laws. But that half verse is ambiguous in the Greek, which may
be the reason for its omission here.
15:2 The tradition of the elders: see note on Mk 7:5. The
purpose of the handwashing was to remove defilement caused by contact with what
was ritually unclean.
15:3–4 For the commandment see Ex 20:12 (Dt 5:16); 21:17.
The honoring of one’s parents had to do with supporting them in their needs.
15:5 See note on Mk 7:11.
15:8 The text of Is 29:13 is quoted approximately according
to the Septuagint.
15:13–14 Jesus leads his disciples away from the teaching
authority of the Pharisees.
15:15 Matthew specifies Peter as the questioner, unlike Mk
7:17. Given his tendency to present the disciples as more understanding than in
his Marcan source, it is noteworthy that here he retains the Marcan rebuke,
although in a slightly milder form. This may be due to his wish to correct the
Jewish Christians within his church who still held to the food laws and thus
separated themselves from Gentile Christians who did not observe them.
15:19 The Marcan list of thirteen things that defile (Mk
7:21–22) is here reduced to seven that partially cover the content of the
Decalogue.
15:21–28 See note on Mt 8:5–13.
15:24 See note on Mt 10:5–6.
15:26 The children: the people of Israel. Dogs: see note on
Mt 7:6.
15:28 As in the case of the cure of the centurion’s servant
(Mt 8:10), Matthew ascribes Jesus’ granting the request to the woman’s great
faith, a point not made equally explicit in the Marcan parallel (Mk 7:24–30).
15:32–39 Most probably this story is a doublet of that of
the feeding of the five thousand (Mt 14:13–21). It differs from it notably only
in that Jesus takes the initiative, not the disciples (Mt 15:32), and in the
numbers: the crowd has been with Jesus three days (Mt 15:32), seven loaves are
multiplied (Mt 15:36), seven baskets of fragments remain after the feeding (Mt
15:37), and four thousand men are fed (Mt 15:38).
15:36 Gave thanks: see Mt 14:19, “said the blessing.” There
is no difference in meaning. Thanksgiving was a blessing of God for his
benefits.
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