And he said to them, Well do ye set aside the commandment of God, that ye may observe what is delivered by yourselves [to keep].
Religious leaders from Jerusalem had just challenged Jesus about His disciples eating with unwashed hands. He answered by naming what they were doing: setting God's command aside with skill, to keep a rule of their own.
Matthew and Mark together give four descriptions of what these men did with God's command. One writer traces them as steps that get worse, not four ways of saying the same thing:
These four terms about this one sin seem to show a rising scale of error. At the starting point, the commandment is (1) left on one side or ignored. Then it is (2) rejected and its claims refused. Next it is (3) crossed and violated. Lastly it is (4) made ineffective and void, as a human rule takes its place.
Verse 9 sits at stage two. In verse 8 they let the command slip. Here they refuse it.
The word behind "rejecting" means more than breaking a rule. It means treating something as having no claim on you:
Further, these boastful zealots had rejected the commandment of God. In the original, the verb seems to mean slighting or disregarding the claims the law had on them. They acted as if those claims were not worth noticing (compare Hebrews 10:28, Greek). The Lord used the same word when He spoke to the seventy He sent out to preach: "The one who hears you hears me, and the one who rejects you rejects me, and the one who rejects me rejects him who sent me" (Luke 10:16).
One writer sets out the order behind the charge:
There is the process: give up what is of God, and then you will fall into the hands of man. It is not a comparison of things as to whether this is better than that. The evil is laying aside the commandment of God, and preferring man's tradition to it. The only thing that has a claim upon the Christian heart is what comes from God.
Jesus does not leave the charge as a bare claim. He picks one accepted custom and shows where it led. The command it pushed aside was the one about caring for father and mother.
The word of God gives plain directions for children to honour their parents. But they had a tradition by which they could claim to set aside their property for the use of God. They said "It is Corban," meaning a gift devoted to God, so it could not go to help a needy parent. So, by their tradition, they set aside the word of God. They avoided their duty to needy relatives and served their own greed.
What made the arrangement work was how it looked from the outside:
Many a Jew used "Corban" as a cover, and so dropped all his rightful duties towards his poor old parents. And he did it with an air of holiness, for did it not seem more pious to devote things to God rather than to one's parents?
Rejecting one command might look like a limited failure. One writer says the damage goes further, because a rival authority takes over:
They did not only set aside one commandment so that they might keep their tradition. By doing this they also made null and rejected the authority of the whole word of God. If I break one, I am guilty of all; but in setting up another authority, I displace and make void and null the whole word of God, which claims all authority. If another can direct, I am not sole master, and the man is not my servant. This not only misleads the servant; it sets the master aside.
This verse does not make teaching or help from others wrong. It marks where authority stops:
To hear men of God, to get help from servants of God, to value an explanation of the truth — all this is good. But it is very different from an authoritative rule or creed that men impose as binding on the conscience. It is never right to accept in that way what comes from man. God alone and His word bind the conscience. His servants may teach, but if they teach rightly, it is the truth of God.
- Drift first. They let the command slip before they refuse it. Verse 8 comes before verse 9, and both come before tradition makes God's word void.
- Refusal next. "Reject" means treating God's claim as unworthy of notice. Jesus used the same word for those who reject His messengers and Himself.
- Swap follows. Give up what is from God, and you fall into the hands of man. The evil is not that tradition is worse; it is that they dropped God's word.
- Cost shows. Corban let a man look devoted while his parents went without. The rule served greed and wore an air of holiness.
- Cure holds. Teaching may help the conscience, but only God's word may bind it. One added rule sets up a rival master and unseats the whole.
For Moses said, Honour thy father and thy mother; and, he who speaks ill of father or mother, let him surely die.
Jesus answers the religious leaders not by claiming His own authority. He opens the book they claimed to teach. He sets one plain commandment against a rule they had invented to get around it. The verse raises two questions. What does it mean to honour a father and mother? And how did men who prized Scripture end up cancelling it?
Matthew reports the same moment with different wording. One commentator explains why both records are true.
We must not think that the Lord in any way played down the purely divine origin of the law. On the contrary, it is clear that Moses was at the same time presented as the mediator between God and His people. This we may see by comparing this passage with its parallel in Matthew. There the words of Jesus are reported as, "God said, Honor your father and your mother." Both records are, of course, true. The Lord's full statement was that (1) God spoke, and (2) He spoke through His servant Moses. Each writer kept the part of the Lord's words that best fitted the purpose of his own account. Matthew shows that the tradition of the elders clashed with the words of God. Mark stresses that it clashed with the words of the nation's lawgiver.
The command is not about polite feelings. It cost money, and that is why people wanted a way around it.
First, then, the Lord brings forward the law of Moses, the word of God: "Honor your father and your mother." This command clearly made it a duty for the Jews to provide for their parents when needed. (See Proverbs 3:9 for a similar use of the word "honour.") But they wanted to escape this responsibility, so they invented a holy-sounding excuse.
The Lord does not quote the command on its own. He quotes the penalty that came with it.
The word of God promised long and prosperous days in the land to the obedient, but a criminal's death to the disobedient (compare Lev. 20:9; Deut. 27:16; Prov. 20:20; Prov. 30:11). And the solemn charge spoken from Mount Ebal was, "Cursed be anyone who dishonors his father or his mother" (Deut. 27:16).
That penalty rests on God's own estimate of the offence.
To honour parents is right and of God; to make light of them unfits a man to live, in God's estimate.
The next verse names the device. A man could declare his property "Corban" — a gift devoted to God — and so escape helping his parents.
Under cover of "Corban" many a Jew stripped himself of all his rightful duties towards his poor old parents. And he did the thing with an air of sanctity, for did it not appear more pious to devote things to God rather than to one's parents?
Adding to Scripture is one thing. This rule went further. One writer shows that it worked against God's Word.
This was simply a matter of the tradition treating the son's cold-hearted selfishness as holy... It was not merely a tradition added to the Word (which is bad enough), but a tradition opposing God's Word. The Lord adds, "and many such things you do." This was only one example. Once men despise the Word of God in the smallest matter, it is not long before their cunning deceit undermines anything and everything it pleases.
The danger is not limited to one nation or one time. One writer applies it to anyone who lets human rules stand beside Scripture.
God's word is a living reality, and a complete standard of truth and practice. Everything that man adds as a supplement is a deformity; it is that which, as it does not flow from God, is inconsistent with the light. Man is incompetent to regulate what belongs to God.
- Word. "Moses said" and "God said" report the same speech. God spoke through His servant, so the law is God's word, not human rule-making.
- Weight. That word promised long, prosperous days to the obedient child. It promised a criminal's death to the child who reviled his parents.
- Work. Honouring parents meant supporting them in practice — providing for them when they were in need.
- Workaround. "Corban" let a son label his money a gift to God and walk away from his parents, looking holy while he did it.
- Warning. A tradition that opposes the Word undoes it. And once people despise Scripture in one small matter, nothing is safe.