The Greek Text of Mark 7:1-23

Mark 7:1-8; 14-15; 21-23

Now when the Pharisees and some of the scribes who had come from Jerusalem gathered around him, ²they noticed that some of his disciples were eating with defiled hands, that is, without washing them.³(For the Pharisees, and all the Jews, do not eat unless they thoroughly wash their hands, thus observing the tradition of the elders; ⁴and they do not eat anything from the market unless they wash it; and there are also many other traditions that they observe, the washing of cups, pots, and bronze kettles.) ⁵So the Pharisees and the scribes asked him, “Why do your disciples not live according to the tradition of the elders, but eat with defiled hands?” ⁶He said to them, “Isaiah prophesied rightly about you hypocrites, as it is written, ‘This people honors me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me; ⁷in vain do they worship me,
teaching human precepts as doctrines.’ ⁸You abandon the commandment of God and hold to human tradition.”

¹⁴Then he called the crowd again and said to them, “Listen to me, all of you, and understand: ¹⁵there is nothing outside a person that by going in can defile, but the things that come out are what defile.”

²¹For it is from within, from the human heart, that evil intentions come: fornication, theft, murder, ²²adultery, avarice, wickedness, deceit, licentiousness, envy, slander, pride, folly. ²³All these evil things come from within, and they defile a person.”

v1 οι Φαρισαιοι (ος) "the Pharisees" - Two groups are identified, local Pharisees and Pharisees from Jerusalem.

των γραμματεων (ευς εως) gen. "[some] of the teachers of the law" - genitive is adjectival, partitive.

συναγονται (συναγω) pres. pas. "gathered around" - this is the main verb of the sentence, sometimes treated as if introducing a temporal clause.

v2 ιδοντες (οραω) aor. part. "saw" - attendant circumstance participle expressing action accompanying the verb "comes together."

αρτους (ος) pl. "food" – literally bread- references to eating bread normally refer to eating food in general; probably not a link back to the feeding of the five thousand.

κοιναις (ος) "unclean" - common as opposed to "private", but took on the particular ritual sense of "impurity", "defilement", in Jewish circles.

ανιπτοις (ος) "unwashed" – Mark explains the meaning of the word "common" to his Gentile readers.

v3 παντες οι Ιουδαιοι "All the Jews" – many Pharisees practiced rigorous purity rituals, but certainly not "all the Jews." 

πυγνμ (η) "ceremonial" - with the fist. This word obviously has another meaning other than "fist", but it is not known. Yet, the point of the sentence is clear; religious Jews practiced ritual purification. Gundry suggests "raising hands that are cupped in a fist-like fashion, but with fingers held slightly apart to allow full coverage with the least possible amount of water."

κρατουντες (κρατεω) nom. pl. pres. part. "holding to" – grasping- participle is possibly causal, "they do not eat because they strictly observe the traditions of the elders",

v4 κρατειν (κρατεω) pres. inf. "they observe" - infinitive introduces an epexegetic construction explaining, in summary form, the type of traditions received. 

ποτηριων (ον) gen. "of cups" - genitive is verbal, objective

  
v5 επερωτωσιν (επερωταω) pres. "asked" – a historic present tense. 

περιπατουσιν (περιπατεω) pres. "live" - walk abou - in the sense of "conduct oneself."

των πρεσβυτερων gen. adj. "tradition of the elders" - adjective serves as a substantive, as far as Jesus is concerned, their received wisdom is man-made. 

χερσιν (ρ ρος) dat. "with [defiled] hands" - dative is adverbial, modal, expressing the manner of their eatin.

  
v6 των υποκριτων "hypocrites" - This popular Matthean term is only used once in Mark. Note how Mark says that Isaiah's words are for "you". The prophets words are for their own generation, but also for subsequent members of the kingdom.

τοις χειλεσιν (ος) dat. "with their lips" - dative is instrumental, expressing means.

η ... καρδια "[their] hearts" - the issue of scribal religion being external rather than internal (a problem of belief necessitating inner renewal) is developed in v14-23.

  
v7 ματην adv. "vain" – the word is not in the Hebrew text, but is implied.

διδασκοντες (διδασκω) pres. part. "teachings" - participle is causal; "also not in the Hebrew, but in the LXX, and applicable here in reference to the Pharisees. 

ανθρωπων (ος) gen. "merely human [rules]" - genitive is adjectival, limiting "commandments".

v8 αφεντες (αφιημι) aor. part. "you have let go" - abandoned, forsaken, left - participle is adverbial; "you hold to human traditions and drop what God commands." Here the sense is possibly "neglect" (let go by default) rather than wilfully abandon, although a shift from what God commands to a watered down version of the law is surely worse than neglect. Neglecting the good is one thing, defining the good as something other than what God calls good is another. 

κρατειτε (κρατεω) pres. "holding on to [the traditions]" - this verb with the accusative usually means "to hold firmly and completely" but here probably with the sense "keep/observe".

v14 προσκαλεσαμενος (προσκαλεομαι) aor. part. "called" - participle is temporal.

τον οχλον (ος) "crowd" - Jesus now moves his attention from the Pharisees to the crowd, from argumentation to parables.

ακουσατε (ακουω) aor. imp. "listen" – a call to give careful thought to his words that follow.

v15 ουδεν "nothing" Emphasizing that defilement is not caused by contamination from unwashed hands or anything, eg. contact with a dead body, Jesus is not actually demolishing Leviticus 15, nor the image of purity required of God's people as illustrated in the food laws etc., but rather the foolish notion that a person can, by the careful observance of external purity law, be declared holy. 

εξωθεν + gen. "outside of" - spacial.

κοινωσαι (κοινοω) aor. inf. "[can make him] unclean - make common. 

εισπορευομενον (εισπορευομαι) pres. part. "by going [into them]" - instrumental, expressing means.

εκπορευομενα (εκπορευομαι) pres. part. "comes out" - participle is adjectival, "the things which come out." "What defiles a man is what comes out of him", Cassirer.

 
v21 εσωθεν "from within, what comes out that defiles, or better, sin that inevitably comes out of a corrupt heart is what defiles.

των ανθρωπων (ος) gen. "of a person's [heart]" - adjectival, possessive.

διαλογισμοι (ος) "[evil] thoughts" - reasoning, deliberations, designs. "Thoughts" is somewhat misleading as the reasoning is active, rather than a passive. The phrase serves to cover all the evils that follow. 

  
v22 πρεονεξιαι (α) "greed" - covetousness with a sexual connotation.

ασελγεια "lewdness'' - indecency.

οφθαλμος πονηρος "envy" - evil eye.

αφροσυνη "folly" - foolishness, stupidity- not so much intellectual foolishness, but rather the wrongheadedness of unbelief.

  
v23 εσωθεν adv. "from inside" - adverb of place. "A person is corrupted by what is within."