Mark 7:6-7 - Exposition

Our Lord quotes against them a prophecy of Isaiah ( Isaiah 29:13 ), Th is people honoureth me with their lips, but their heart is far from me. But in vain do they worship me, teaching as their doctrines the precepts of men. The prophet here gives the cause of the blindness of the Jews, because they honored God with their lips, while their heart was far from him; and their worship of him (for that is the meaning of "their fear") was the commandment of men, which they had been taught; that is, they worshipped God, not according to that spiritual worship which he had commanded, but after the traditions of men and of their own scribes, partly futile, partly perverse, and contrary to God's Law. So he says, Well did Isaiah prophesy of you. The word is καλῶς , "excellently—beautifully—did he prophesy concerning you ( τῶν ὑποκριτῶν ), the hypocrites." Not that the prophet had the hypocrites of our Saviour's time in his mind when he uttered these words, but that the Spirit of God which was within him enabled him to describe accurately the character of those who seven centuries afterwards would be doing the same things as their forefathers. And observe how they were punished. For as they gave a lip-service only to God, praising him with their mouth indeed, but giving their heart to vanity and the world; so God on his part would give them the words only—the shell, so to speak, the letter which killeth; but take away from them the kernel the spirit and the life, so that they might not lay hold of it nor taste it.