Because it entereth
Because it does not enter into the heart of him, but into the bowels is passed -- purifying all the food.
Context Summary
Mark 7:1-23 - Breaking The Bonds Of Tradition
The Pharisees laid great stress on ritual. They followed endless rules, both intricate and troublesome, as to ablutions and outward ceremonials. So long as their devotees were careful in the minor observances, they were permitted a wide license so far as the weightier matters of the Law were concerned. This is a natural tendency of the human heart. It is glad to be able to reduce its religious life to an outward and literal obedience, if only its thoughts may be unhampered. In the life of true holiness everything depends on the control of the thoughts. "As a man thinketh in his heart, so is he." With infinite wisdom the wise man said, "Keep thy heart with all diligence, for out of it are the issues of life," and Jesus put "evil-thoughts" first in the black category of the contents of the evil heart. A gang of thieves sometimes put a very small boy through a tiny window that he may unlock the front door. So one evil thought will often admit an entire crew of evil. Heart of mine, hast thou learned this lesson? Art thou careful enough of thy cleanliness? That the hands should be often washed, that vessels of household use should be kept cleansed, that there should be decorum and neatness in the outward life, all these customs are good. But it becomes thee to inquire whether thou art not more eager for the outward than the inward cleanliness. "Create in me a clean heart," should be thy constant prayer. [source]
Chapter Summary: Mark 7
1The Pharisees find fault with the disciples for eating with unwashed hands 8They break the commandment of God by the traditions of men 14Food defiles not the man 24He heals the Syrophenician woman's daughter of an unclean spirit; 31and one that was deaf, and stammered in his speech
Greek Commentary for Mark 7:19:
Making all meats clean [καταριζων παντα τα βρωματα] This anacoluthon can be understood by repeating he says It was a riddle to Peter as late as that day. “Christ asserts that Levitical uncleanness, such as eating with unwashed hands, is of small importance compared with moral uncleanness” (Vincent). The two chief words in both incidents, here and in Acts, are defile “What God cleansed do not thou treat as defiled” (Acts 10:15). It was a revolutionary declaration by Jesus and Peter was slow to understand it even after the coming of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost. Jesus was amply justified in his astonished question: [source]
Perceive ye not? [ου νοειτε] They were making little use of their intelligence in trying to comprehend the efforts of Jesus to give them a new and true spiritual insight. [source]
Draught [ἀφεδρῶνα] Liddell and Scott give only one definition - a privy, cloaca; and derive from ἕδρα , seat, breech, fundament. Compare English stool. The word does not refer to a part of the body. [source]
Purging all meats [καθαρίζων πάντα τὰ βρώματα] According to the A. V. these words are in apposition with draught: the draught which makes pure the whole of the food, since it is the place designed for receiving the impure excrements. Christ was enforcing the truth that all defilement comes from within. This was in the face of the Rabbinic distinctions between clean and unclean meats. Christ asserts that Levitical uncleanness, such as eating with unwashed hands, is of small importance compared with moral uncleanness. Peter, still under the influence of the old ideas, cannot understand the saying and asks an explanation (Matthew 15:15), which Christ gives in Mark 7:18-23. The words purging all meats (Rev., making all meats clean )-DIVIDER-
are not Christ's, but the Evangelist's, explaining the bearing of Christ's words; and therefore the Rev. properly renders, this he said (italics), making all meats clean. This was the interpretation of Chrysostom, who says in his homily on Matthew: “But Mark says that he said these things making all meats pure.” Canon Farrar refers to a passage cited from Gregory Thaumaturgus: “And the Saviour, who purifies all meats, says.” This rendering is significant in the light of Peter's vision of the great sheet, and of the words, “What God hath cleansed” ( ἐκαθάρισε ), in which Peter probably realized for the first time the import of the Lord's words on this occasion. Canon Farrar remarks: “It is doubtless due to the fact that St. Peter, the informant of St. Mark, in writing his Gospel, and as the sole ultimate authority for this vision in the Acts, is the source of both narratives, - that we owe the hitherto unnoticed circumstance that the two verbs, cleanse and profane (or defile ), both in a peculiarly pregnant sense, are the two most prominent words in the narrative of both events” (“Life and Work of Paul,” i., 276-7). -DIVIDER-
-DIVIDER-
[source]
Greek Commentary for Mark 7:19:
This anacoluthon can be understood by repeating he says It was a riddle to Peter as late as that day. “Christ asserts that Levitical uncleanness, such as eating with unwashed hands, is of small importance compared with moral uncleanness” (Vincent). The two chief words in both incidents, here and in Acts, are defile “What God cleansed do not thou treat as defiled” (Acts 10:15). It was a revolutionary declaration by Jesus and Peter was slow to understand it even after the coming of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost. Jesus was amply justified in his astonished question: [source]
They were making little use of their intelligence in trying to comprehend the efforts of Jesus to give them a new and true spiritual insight. [source]
Liddell and Scott give only one definition - a privy, cloaca; and derive from ἕδρα , seat, breech, fundament. Compare English stool. The word does not refer to a part of the body. [source]
According to the A. V. these words are in apposition with draught: the draught which makes pure the whole of the food, since it is the place designed for receiving the impure excrements. Christ was enforcing the truth that all defilement comes from within. This was in the face of the Rabbinic distinctions between clean and unclean meats. Christ asserts that Levitical uncleanness, such as eating with unwashed hands, is of small importance compared with moral uncleanness. Peter, still under the influence of the old ideas, cannot understand the saying and asks an explanation (Matthew 15:15), which Christ gives in Mark 7:18-23. The words purging all meats (Rev., making all meats clean )-DIVIDER- are not Christ's, but the Evangelist's, explaining the bearing of Christ's words; and therefore the Rev. properly renders, this he said (italics), making all meats clean. This was the interpretation of Chrysostom, who says in his homily on Matthew: “But Mark says that he said these things making all meats pure.” Canon Farrar refers to a passage cited from Gregory Thaumaturgus: “And the Saviour, who purifies all meats, says.” This rendering is significant in the light of Peter's vision of the great sheet, and of the words, “What God hath cleansed” ( ἐκαθάρισε ), in which Peter probably realized for the first time the import of the Lord's words on this occasion. Canon Farrar remarks: “It is doubtless due to the fact that St. Peter, the informant of St. Mark, in writing his Gospel, and as the sole ultimate authority for this vision in the Acts, is the source of both narratives, - that we owe the hitherto unnoticed circumstance that the two verbs, cleanse and profane (or defile ), both in a peculiarly pregnant sense, are the two most prominent words in the narrative of both events” (“Life and Work of Paul,” i., 276-7). -DIVIDER- -DIVIDER- [source]