Well, the Pharisees finally decide to get in Yeshua’s face for realsies–no more beating around the bush. The debate is over whether it is more important for a poor man to legalistically keep the Sabbath, which fasting for lack of food, or to avail himself of the provision in Torah to eat his fill and celebrate the Sabbath. On one hand, the Pharisees say not to work, on the other hand, they say no fasting is allowed. What will Yeshua do with this catch-22 and how will He begin to set Himself apart as the Greater David, and the Pharisees who oppose Him as the modern-day equivalents of Saul and Doeg the evil shepherd?
Transcript below
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Mark 13—Lord of the Sabbath
23 One Sabbath he was going through the grainfields, and as they made their way, his disciples began to pluck heads of grain. 24 And the Pharisees were saying to him, “Look, why are they doing what is not lawful on the Sabbath?” 25 And he said to them, “Have you never read what David did, when he was in need and was hungry, he and those who were with him: 26 how he entered the house of God, in the time of Abiathar the high priest, and ate the bread of the Presence, which it is not lawful for any but the priests to eat, and also gave it to those who were with him?” 27 And he said to them, “The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath. 28 So the Son of Man is lord even of the Sabbath.”
So, this is part thirteen of my series on the Gospel of Mark, part four of the controversy dialogues, which we will wrap up next week, and part three of the food controversies. We’re going to be introducing a new theme this week, as well, and that is the comparison of Yeshua/Jesus to King David and the comparison of Yeshua’s enemies to David’s enemies. It’s a subtle reference to a rather brutal story, but it’s definitely there. We also have another debate here about what I believe is a parenthetical statement, meaning a phrase inserted by the narrator that can sound like Yeshua said it when it is the narrator telling us something from the outside. Mark does this quite a bit, but because Greek is written as an unending block with no punctuation, it is hard to locate them.
Hi, I am Tyler Dawn Rosenquist and welcome to Character in Context, where I teach the historical and ancient sociological context of Scripture with an eye to developing the character of the Messiah. If you prefer written material, I have five years’ worth of blog at theancientbridge.com as well as my six books available on amazon—including a four-volume curriculum series dedicated to teaching Scriptural context in a way that even kids can understand it, called Context for Kids—and I have two video channels on YouTube with free Bible teachings for both adults and kids. You can find the link for those on my website. Past broadcasts of this program can be found at characterincontext.podbean.com and transcripts can be had for most broadcasts at theancientbridge.com
All Scripture this week comes courtesy of the ESV, the English Standard Version but you can follow along with whatever Bible you want. There will not be a test later.
First of all, this passage today rides on a familiarity with I Sam 21:1-7 and I Sam 22:9-23, so we’re going to cover that first.
Then David came to Nob, to Ahimelech the priest. And Ahimelech came to meet David, trembling, and said to him, “Why are you alone, and no one with you?” 2 And David said to Ahimelech the priest, “The king has charged me with a matter and said to me, ‘Let no one know anything of the matter about which I send you, and with which I have charged you.’ I have made an appointment with the young men for such and such a place. 3 Now then, what do you have on hand? Give me five loaves of bread, or whatever is here.” 4 And the priest answered David, “I have no common bread on hand, but there is holy bread—if the young men have kept themselves from women.” 5 And David answered the priest, “Truly women have been kept from us as always when I go on an expedition. The vessels of the young men are holy even when it is an ordinary journey. How much more today will their vessels be holy?” 6 So the priest gave him the holy bread, for there was no bread there but the bread of the Presence, which is removed from before the Lord, to be replaced by hot bread on the day it is taken away.
7 Now a certain man of the servants of Saul was there that day, detained before the Lord. His name was Doeg the Edomite, the chief of Saul’s herdsmen.
9 Then answered Doeg the Edomite, who stood by the servants of Saul, “I saw the son of Jesse coming to Nob, to Ahimelech the son of Ahitub, 10 and he inquired of the Lord for him and gave him provisions and gave him the sword of Goliath the Philistine.”
11 Then the king sent to summon Ahimelech the priest, the son of Ahitub, and all his father’s house, the priests who were at Nob, and all of them came to the king. 12 And Saul said, “Hear now, son of Ahitub.” And he answered, “Here I am, my lord.” 13 And Saul said to him, “Why have you conspired against me, you and the son of Jesse, in that you have given him bread and a sword and have inquired of God for him, so that he has risen against me, to lie in wait, as at this day?” 14 Then Ahimelech answered the king, “And who among all your servants is so faithful as David, who is the king’s son-in-law, and captain over your bodyguard, and honored in your house? 15 Is today the first time that I have inquired of God for him? No! Let not the king impute anything to his servant or to all the house of my father, for your servant has known nothing of all this, much or little.” 16 And the king said, “You shall surely die, Ahimelech, you and all your father’s house.” 17 And the king said to the guard who stood about him, “Turn and kill the priests of the Lord, because their hand also is with David, and they knew that he fled and did not disclose it to me.” But the servants of the king would not put out their hand to strike the priests of the Lord. 18 Then the king said to Doeg, “You turn and strike the priests.” And Doeg the Edomite turned and struck down the priests, and he killed on that day eighty-five persons who wore the linen ephod. 19 And Nob, the city of the priests, he put to the sword; both man and woman, child and infant, ox, donkey and sheep, he put to the sword. 20 But one of the sons of Ahimelech the son of Ahitub, named Abiathar, escaped and fled after David.
This is one of the most tragic accounts in Scripture, in my opinion. David is pre-emptively fleeing from Saul after being warned by Saul’s son Jonathan that it is no longer safe for him. The King means to murder him. David escapes to Nob, there the Tabernacle was in those days, and asks the priest for five loaves of bread for himself and his men. Now, the only thing the High Priest has on hand is the Lechem ha’Panim, the bread of the presence that only priests were permitted to eat. That’s the twelve loaves that were on display in the Holy Place for a week before being replaced by new loaves. If this was the Sabbath, it would be the day for replacing the loaves and so the priests would not have loaves of regular bread around in preparation for eating the old loaves. Ahimelech, seeing that there was genuine human need and hunger, bypassed the normal regulations and simply made sure that David and his men were ritually pure—that they had not been with women because sexual relations imparted ritual impurity, even if it was with their wives. Remember not to mistake that which makes us ritually unclean with sin, they are not the same thing. If God wanted us clean all the time, the words “be fruitful and multiply” become hard to explain, and it would also be troublesome to explain why women have menstrual cycles. Unclean is no problem. Touching holy things while unclean is the problem. Because they were clean, Ahimelech responded to their need and gave them the holy bread. This is just one of the passages in Scripture which stress the value of human life over legalistically observing the Law. The priest was doing what was right in showing mercy to David and his men.
But Doeg, the busybody, and an Edomite no less (just like King Herod), saw David and went back and tattled to insane King Saul about him. Saul responds by ordering this Edomite to slaughter the priests. Only Abiathar, the son of Ahimelech, survives out of all the priests who were serving at Nob. It is an incredibly sad story. I don’t really know what else to say because it always makes me want to start crying.
Oh, and two more passages, these ones from the Torah:
Lev 19:9-10 “When you reap the harvest of your land, you shall not reap your field right up to its edge, neither shall you gather the gleanings after your harvest. And you shall not strip your vineyard bare, neither shall you gather the fallen grapes of your vineyard. You shall leave them for the poor and for the sojourner: I am the Lord your God.
Deut 24:19-21 “When you reap your harvest in your field and forget a sheaf in the field, you shall not go back to get it. It shall be for the sojourner, the fatherless, and the widow, that the Lord your God may bless you in all the work of your hands. When you beat your olive trees, you shall not go over them again. It shall be for the sojourner, the fatherless, and the widow. When you gather the grapes of your vineyard, you shall not strip it afterward. It shall be for the sojourner, the fatherless, and the widow.
Lev 23:24-25 “If you go into your neighbor’s vineyard, you may eat your fill of grapes, as many as you wish, but you shall not put any in your bag. If you go into your neighbor’s standing grain, you may pluck the ears with your hand, but you shall not put a sickle to your neighbor’s standing grain.
This ordinance, of course, is also the foundation of much of our understanding of what was going on in the book of Ruth. The hungry must be allowed to (1) share in the harvest by taking what they wish from the corners of the field during harvest time and (2) to be able to avail themselves of a neighbor’s produce if they are hungry, but only enough to fill their bellies right then. The two situations are different. Ruth was doing the former and Yeshua, this week, is doing the latter. But, the question is—should that be allowed on the Sabbath? Let’s see.
23 One Sabbath he was going through the grainfields, and as they made their way, his disciples began to pluck heads of grain.
I have heard it taught that they were picking up sheaves left on the ground after the harvest had already happened, but this was a time of such desperate poverty that I doubt there would be anything left to pick up after the harvest. The gleaners were good at what they did—they had to be in order to survive. No, it is my belief that this was before the harvest and they were, in fact, picking grain that had not yet been reaped. So, they were standing up and not bending over to gather grain in the dirt. And Torah allows for this. It was not considered stealing unless you took enough for later. You were permitted to fill your stomach but no more. This was how the poorest of the poor survived. And it was considered greed to stop them from doing it. The commandments teach us to trust in God’s provision not only for ourselves but for others. The Land was very good and so it produced far more than was needed.
24 And the Pharisees were saying to him, “Look, why are they doing what is not lawful on the Sabbath?”
So, wait, I just got finished saying that this was allowed—what gives? M. Shabbat 7.2 tells us of thirty-nine forbidden activities on the Sabbath—to avoid accidentally working. Included among these are sowing, plowing, reaping, binding sheaves, threshing, winnowing, selecting, grinding, sifting, kneading, and baking. So, what Yeshua would have been accused of here would be (1) reaping and (2) threshing, in order to remove the chaff from the wheat before eating. This was done by rubbing the kernels of grain between the hands and blowing on it, which might actually count as a third offense, (3) winnowing, So, their beef with Yeshua isn’t over Him taking something He was not allowed to take, but over when He was taking it. But there is an ethical dilemma in interpreting the law this way. The poorest of the poor were not allowed to take, outside of the actual harvest, more than they could eat right at that very moment. They couldn’t come in on Friday and take enough for the Sabbath too—that was stealing. So, if they obeyed the Pharisaic interpretation that would have forbidden them to come back and eat a meal in their neighbor’s field, then they are fasting on the Sabbath, which was also frowned upon by the Pharisees, because it is supposed to be a day of rest and joy looking backward to the provision of Creation, their freedom from slavery, and looking forward to the messianic banquet to come. But what were the very poor to do if they were forbidden to gather enough on Friday? Well, they would go hungry on the weekly feast day. Surely this could not have been God’s intention or a way of honoring God’s abundance! None of the Pharisees were poor people—poor people can’t spend time in legal debates and they don’t have the luxury of being nitpicky. Such things are for people with both time and who do not suffer lack. So, in plucking heads of grain, on the Sabbath, Yeshua is placing need over a legalistic interpretation of the Law. As the Torah repeatedly commands us to care for the poor, widowed, orphaned, oppressed and foreigner—those are the weightier matters, meaning that other things can slide when need be, to meet their needs.
25 And he said to them, “Have you never read what David did, when he was in need and was hungry, he and those who were with him: 26 how he entered the house of God, in the time of Abiathar the high priest, and ate the bread of the Presence, which it is not lawful for any but the priests to eat, and also gave it to those who were with him?”
The Jews were hoping for another David, for God to restore the monarchy in righteousness, and so David is the example used here to justify His decision to place Lev 23:24-25 over Lev 19:9 and Deut 24:19-21. David, Yeshua says, was in need. He was hungry. He and the men with him needed food. They were on the run from the king (just as Yeshua had once been when Herod the Great wanted Him dead but I don’t think He is going there, just an observation from me, I don’t want to read more into His words than is obviously there). David went to the Tabernacle in Nob, where the high priest gave him five loaves of the bread of the presence, which only priests are permitted to eat.
Lev 24:9 “And it shall be for Aaron and his sons, and they shall eat it in a holy place, since it is for him a most holy portion out of the Lord’s food offerings, a perpetual due.”
It’s pretty clear, this wasn’t bread that they could give to the wealthy or the powerful. It couldn’t be had for a price. It was only for the priests, it was set aside for them by God Himself as an everlasting provision. David was not only not a priest, but he was descended from a Moabite (Ruth). He was from the tribe of Judah, not Levi, and his men go unnamed. This bread was not given to them, but to the priests—and the high priest chose to take the bread that belonged to himself and his brothers and sons in order to show mercy and love to David and his men.
Now, you might protest (but I sure hope not), “And God allowed them to die for it!” Yes, God allowed them to die, but in reading the account, both Doeg and Saul are described as the basest sort of villainous scum. They slaughtered not only the high priest, but every other priest they could find there, whether they had anything to do with it or not. Saul wasn’t doing God’s work here—he was crazed with jealousy and paranoia that would eventually lead to his consulting with a necromancer, and the death of himself and his son. No, Saul was a wicked man and Doeg was a collaborator against the priests of Yahweh. Only Abiathar, named in this verse, survived. Which brings us to a pickle. Don’t get me wrong, I like pickles, but this is one of those situations in the Bible that leaves us scratching our heads and having a bunch of theories, but not knowing for sure which one (if any) is the right answer. Isn’t it great how limited we are and that we don’t know everything??? (And yes, Yeshua just compared the Pharisees to King Saul)
So, here, Yeshua is recorded as saying this was “the time of Abiathar the high priest.” But we read the passage and the high priest was Abiathar’s father Ahimelech. So, we have a few options (1) Yeshua made a mistake, (2) Mark made a mistake, (3) the scribe who copied this made a mistake, (4) Abiathar, being more famous as the high priest under David, is named because although he was not high priest during this time, this incident did happen during his lifetime. Ahimelech was the great-grandson of Eli, the High Priest whose priestly line was prophesied to destruction by the child Samuel. Of course, Ahimelech’s grandfather Phineas was a terrible person who had sexual relations with women who showed up at the tent of meeting (Hophni, his brother, did likewise) and disrespected the sacrifices and both brothers were killed by the Philistines when the ark was captured, and Eli had a heart attack and died when he heard. This left Ahitub as High Priest and he was succeeded by Ahimelech. Abiathar became high priest under King David but was deposed when he betrayed David’s wishes by backing Adonijah instead of Solomon to be David’s successor and the new high priestly line was ordained to be through the descendants of Zadok. So, lots of drama here. Abiathar was a well-known name, Ahimelech only really shows up in this tragic account. He seems to have been a very good man but he served in evil times and paid the ultimate price for it. So, bottom line, we don’t know why this is written this way. Does it change the message? Nope. I just felt it was important to point out the main theories. I didn’t list them all.
Anyway, Yeshua flat out admits that it was unlawful for David and his men to have the bread but there was a greater mitigating factor, a weightier matter, and that was human need. God didn’t give us laws so that we could harm one another but in order for us to participate in the healing of the world, which in Hebrew is called Tikkun Olam. If your keeping of a law does more damage than good then you are probably not keeping it correctly. We were placed on this earth to extend Eden to the ends of the earth, not to legalistically jump through hoops. When we lose sight of that and make the law into a game, we go astray into just selfishly trying to play well enough to win. But we have to want good for those in need—that’s why Yeshua came, because we had severe needs that many of us were completely unaware of. We were dying and we needed life. Whenever we can give life, we must strive to do it—even if a commandment has to be tweaked or ignored for a moment. We do not want to be like those who would refuse to rescue a drowning man just because it was the Sabbath and it would constitute work. We also don’t deny sustenance to the hungry.
27 And he said to them, “The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath.
This is just one of those gorgeous BOOM! Mic drop moments. “You guys have no clue why the Sabbath even exists if you would deny food to the poor on this day.” Think about what could have happened instead—“But the Pharisees saw them picking grain and one said, “No, my friends! Do not exert yourselves, come and be my guests today!” Nope. That didn’t happen. They saw hungry people meeting their needs as allowed by the Torah and nitpicked them. They were treating Yeshua and His (five?) disciples like they should be more concerned about the interpretation of Sabbath laws than about partaking in the very creation and freedom and prosperity that the Sabbath was meant to be a celebration of. It was given to them so that they could rest from their exhausting lives, not so that they could go hungry because of a technicality. The Sabbath is for man’s benefit, it serves us, it takes care of our needs—not the other way around. It is not a hoop to jump through for the sake of religion but a gift from God to be availed of and enjoyed. If poor people were unable to enjoy this day, then there was a problem.
Now, all that being said, if you go to Israel in modern times, the poor can be seen outside of the markets on Fridays. They have a box. People doing their Sabbath preparation shopping will buy extra supplies-an extra chicken, extra bread, extra wine, etc. so that no one goes hungry on the sabbath, that every family can celebrate. It is a beautiful expression of tikkun olam, repairing the world. I mean, the Talmud tells us that the first century Jews were hateful without cause. No one makes any excuses for it or denies it. A lot of what Yeshua was protesting is no longer the case, okay? There are now measures in place to make sure the Sabbath can be enjoyed by all, or at least in some communities, okay?
But we have to make sure that we aren’t doing the same thing with the Sabbath. We can never allow it to supersede human needs or to perpetuate suffering. If we do that then we are violating the very reasons for Sabbath, and will have replaced a worship of God with a worship of our own legal traditions and doctrines.
To quote Rabbi Simeon ben Minasya (180 CE) “the Sabbath is delivered over for your sake, but you are not delivered over for the Sabbath.” In other words, what Yeshua is saying here is not outside of the boundaries of Judaism—Rabbi Simeon is saying the exact same thing, it is a very Jewish way of looking at the Sabbath but these guys here had lost sight of that if they aren’t seeing the hunger but only the transgression of their interpretation. And we, all of us, always have to be very clear about the difference between the laws and our private interpretations of them, they are most certainly NOT the same thing.
Moving on, we have here what I believe to be a narrator’s remark, and not from the mouth of Yeshua and I will tell you why.
28 So the Son of Man is lord even of the Sabbath.”
Alright, so, you know by now that the Greek texts of Scripture are written like as a giant block. No punctuation. No caps at the beginnings of sentences. No parentheses. I really admire translators, I truly do. Oh my stinking goodness. Also, no chapters and verses for hundreds of more years. No one ever even formulated chapters until the tenth century and they weren’t widely used until the thirteenth or fourteenth and verses were an even later addition. So it makes all of it very difficult to interpret. I think this last verse here ”So the Son of Man is lord even of the Sabbath.” is actually Mark speaking to the reader/hearer. I say this, and a lot of actual scholars (of which I am not one, I just study what scholars write) say this as well, because this is the second time the phrase “son of man” is used but in almost every other case, with the notable exception of at His trial, Yeshua only calls Himself this to His own inner circle and not in front of the general public. So, it would be odd if He were doing it here, but for Mark to be referring to Him this way, to me, makes a lot more sense. I think Yeshua had His mic drop moment back when He said, “The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath.” And that was that. The Son of Man comment, I believe, was for our benefit. Yeshua had made his point and he didn’t need to go making obscure claims to being the Son of Man at this point. Of course, the first time we saw this was back in Mark 2:10, in the phrase, “But that you may know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins” which sounds more like narration than something that comes out of the mouth of Yeshua. To me, anyway. Does it really totally matter, not really, just something to think about as we are going through the text, that Mark makes narrative comments. If they are narrative comments, they are definitely good ones.
It is notable that Paul never refers to Yeshua as the Son of Man but as the Messiah, Christos. Son of Man seems to have merely been Yeshua’s self-designation when He was with His inner circle. I did a teaching on it a few months ago—unlike the term Messiah, which had become very bogged down with theories and expectations, like no one was talking about the Son of Man at this point. It was just too obscure. But Yeshua could take that obscurity and be pretty much working with a blank slate, based on the very little said in Daniel 7, that He could then fill with meaning.
But what Mark was saying in this little parenthetical remark is fairly clear, I think, in that Yeshua is the one who sees what the real issues are and has the authority to make final determinations on what is and is not allowed on the Sabbath and for what reason. Last week, we talked about the parable of the bridegroom, the torn cloak and the wineskins and we continue with that line of thought this week—but really, all the controversies involve Yeshua being bigger than black and white, cut and dried rules. He sees what is really going on and, like Solomon, makes rulings that make sense, are compassionate, and reveal truth in ways that hard and fast rules never could. So, as always, with Yeshua, the question isn’t, “What is legal,” but instead, “What is right. What reveals the heart of God toward man? What heals, what delivers, what meets needs, what restores people and communities? What is merciful and what is well-meaning oppression?” Because when we look at the law without looking at the people, we get oppressive. We serve dry concepts instead of serving God and our neighbor. And it is so totally easy to do.
I love to tell this story and it is a bit irreverent so hang in with me for a little bit here. When people tell me they would never work on the Sabbath under any circumstances, I tell them my own little parable.
A family is on their way to Sabbath services. They love the Sabbath. They love their fellowship. They love the worship time and the children’s program. They got up, got dressed up, ate breakfast that was pre-prepared the day before, piled into the car and were singing “These are the Days of Elijah” along with Paul Wilbur on the CD player. Oh, my goodness, what do they see alongside the road but a family with a flat tire! It’s July, in Texas, and even though it is only 10am it is already getting pretty hot. Hmm…what to do? They pull over, roll down their windows and say, “We’re praying for you guys, but it’s the Sabbath so we can’t help you out. God bless!”
As they drive away, the stranded family is left growling bitterly while watching a Jesus fish and the “Got Yeshua” bumper sticker fade into the distance. I will spare you my impersonation of the language probably being muttered under their breath.
The next person to pull over is an atheist. He has a Darwin fish on one side of his bumper and on the other side, a sticker that says, “If you want religion then move to Iran.” He’s wearing a Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster shirt. But he rolls up his sleeves and asks the family what the problem is. Being rather handy, he helps the dad change the flat and has them on the road in no time flat. As the family pulls in behind him on the road for a while, they cannot help but look at those bumper stickers and really wonder what the heck good that first family was and what the heck good their beliefs actually are.
Yeshua would ask, “Who was their neighbor?” I would ask, “Who was the best witness for their belief system?” Meaning, who would the family more want to be like right now?
Contrast this with what we would, hopefully, all agree should have happened.
The family on the side of the road was struggling with the tire. The husband had been injured in a recent work-related aacident and was on disability. The last thing they wanted was to have to call for service, but he had a busted arm and his wife was doing all she could just to keep the children from jumping out of the car with the dog. It was only 10am but it was already in the high 80’s and aiming to be a very long day. But then, what do they hear? The first thing was music, sounds like religious music and the familiar sound of tires pulling up onto the gravel in front of them. They see the bumper sticker and the gleaming fish. The dad hops out of the car, removes his suit jacket, rolls up his white sleeves and helps the dad get that tire back on. An older girl comes up alongside the car and leans into the open window, asking about the dog and telling the kids some jokes. When the family follows the believers back onto the highway, they are thinking entirely different thoughts and the atheist drives right by without the opportunity to help and be a better neighbor.
Who got to make a lifelong impact and be a savior to this family? The people looking out for themselves by not “violating the Sabbath and, in doing that, violated the core tenants of the Sabbath? Or the people who, with gladness, violated the Sabbath for the sake of people?
Another story, and this one is better because it is actually a true story and I am going to try to retell it faithfully.
After the Indonesian tsunami in 2004, a team of Israeli medical personnel arrived to help the survivors. Indonesia is a largely Muslim country. When they saw that the doctors and nurses were Jews, they were asked, “But isn’t it the Sabbath?” To which they responded, “For your sake, we desecrate the Sabbath with pride.”
Weightier matters, indeed!
