Commentary on Mark 12:28-34
One of the many reasons to love the Gospel of Mark is that it is not a story in which the good characters always do good things and the bad ones always do bad things. Before and after Mark 12:28–34, the scribes are portrayed as “villains” (1:22; 2:6, 16; 3:22; 7:1, 5; 8:31; 9:14; 10:33; 11:18, 27; 14:1, 43, 53; 15:1, 31). Jesus faces a series of challenges from religious leaders in chapters 11–12. The scribes are among the ones who start the challenges (11:27).
Yet, although our passage is the last piece of that series (12:34), this scribe’s question (12:28) is not a challenge or test. The scribe holds a positive conversation with Jesus, and Jesus commends him. After this conversation, however, Jesus critiques the scribes harshly (12:35, 38–40). The sharp contrast between our scribe and other scribes can hardly be accidental. But it is not enough to say that our scribe is one of the good characters. He is one of a kind in Mark.
The scribe “heard them disputing with one another, and seeing that he answered them well, he asked him …” (12:28). “Hear” and “see” are recurring expressions (literary motifs) in Mark. As I note in my commentary on Mark 10:46–52, non-disciples are not supposed to understand Jesus’ parables in Mark.
Quoting Isaiah 6:9–10, Jesus says in 4:12 that people out there “may indeed look but not perceive, and may indeed hear but not understand.”1 The implication is that just like the Israelites who did not listen to Isaiah, the Jewish people in the time of Jesus would not listen to him. The consequences are also implicitly paralleled: just as Israel was destroyed by a foreign power at that time (the Babylonians), so too will Israel be destroyed by a foreign power at this time (the Romans).
It is therefore ironic that Jesus says, “Listen!” (4:3), before giving a parable publicly. He reiterates it after the parable: “If you have ears to hear, then hear!” (4:9). A few chapters later he says it again to a crowd as he gives a parable with an implicit reference to that Isaiah passage: “Listen to me, all of you, and understand” (7:14). But will anyone listen to him and understand him?
Our passage begins as the scribe sees (12:28, Greek idōn, “seeing”) Jesus answer the religious leaders well. In the last verse of the passage Jesus sees (12:34, Greek idōn) the scribe answer thoughtfully. Perhaps the author of Mark is nudging us to pay attention to the literary motif of hearing and seeing in the present passage.
The first thing Jesus says in response to our scribe’s question is, “Hear, O Israel” (12:29). The preceding conversations show, at least partially, how the “tenants” of the “vineyard” (= Israel) reject the “son” (12:1–11). It is ironic that Jesus says, “Hear, O Israel,” after the representatives of Israel refused to listen to the Messiah of Israel. Yet, there is a “tenant” who has listened to Jesus and understood his parables (12:1).
I feel that Mark’s Jesus throws a “curveball” at some of the people he likes. For instance, in response to the rich man’s question, Jesus names some of the Ten Commandments and inserts a command, “You shall not defraud” (10:19), as if that command is as important as the Decalogue. Jesus is implicitly asking him if he has accumulated his wealth justly. The rich man states confidently that he has kept all those commandments since his youth. Jesus looks at him, loves him, and throws him another “curveball,” a harder one (see 10:21).
In our passage, the scribe asks Jesus to pick the first commandment. Jesus gives two commandments, calling them “the first” (12:29) and “the second” (12:31) respectively. Why does Jesus mention the second? Is it because it is good to know it, even though it is of secondary importance? Jesus adds: “There is no other commandment greater than these” (12:31). To say nothing is greater than X is to say X is the greatest. Both Deuteronomy 6:4–5 and Leviticus 19:18 are the greatest. Jesus is giving a riddle: How come there are two first commandments?
I wish to stress that the riddle is not easy. Scholars have noted other examples of identifying the greatest commandments or summarizing the Torah in Hellenistic Jewish and rabbinic literature.2 Jesus’ answer surely stands in Jewish tradition, but there is no other example of naming Deuteronomy 6:4–5 and Leviticus 19:18 as the greatest commandments.3 It is not that any Jewish person in the first century would say that the two commandments are obviously one and it is clearly the first commandment. It is just that Christians today have become familiar with the expression “the double love command.”
As commentators have pointed out, the scribe not only regards the two commandments as one but also adds a reference to Hosea 6:6 in his reply: the two commandments “is more important than all whole burnt offerings and sacrifices” (12:33). The scribe would not know that the Jerusalem temple will be destroyed a few decades later. But his answer itself looks to the post-70 period in which sacrifices could no longer be offered.4
The destruction of the temple is quite relevant to the literary context of our passage. Jesus alludes to it right before the series of challenges to him (11:12–25). Jesus predicts it explicitly in 13:2 after his condemnation of the scribes in chapter 12 (verses 35–44).5 While our scribe speaks to Jesus within Mark, his answer speaks to the present time of the first readers of Mark. The scribe’s answer has enduring significance.
It is therefore no wonder that Jesus regards the scribe’s reply as thoughtful (12:34). The Greek word nounechōs, translated as “wisely” in the New Revised Standard Version, really means “thoughtfully.” This word occurs only here in Mark.6 The scribe’s reply is truly exceptional.
Mark’s Jesus throws the hardest “curveballs” at us the readers in many places of the writing—maybe Jesus likes us so much. Here one might wonder why it is a scribe who listens to Jesus, understands his parables, and gives an amazing response to Jesus’ “riddle.” That seems theologically paradoxical because non-disciples are not supposed to be able to do that. Moreover, the scribes are the “tenants” to be destroyed by the “owner” (12:9). They “will receive the greater condemnation” (12:38). It is almost as if our passage is in a direct clash with the rest of the Gospel of Mark.
I believe that Jesus means it when he says, “Listen and understand!” The Isaiah passage is a prophecy on the fate of the nation. What is going to happen is going to happen on the national level. The question is whether we the readers will listen and understand. When we read Mark, it is tempting to feel that we are “better” than the scribes. But do we really understand Jesus?
Notes
- I am not the first person to relate Mark 12:28 to 4:12. See, for example, Joel Marcus, Mark 8–16: A New Translation with Introduction and Commentary, Anchor Yale Bible 27A (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2009), 842.
- Adela Yarbro Collins, Mark: A Commentary, Hermeneia (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2007), 566–70.
- Adela Yarbro Collins, Mark: A Commentary, Hermeneia (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2007), 566.
- Regarding the relevance of Hosea 6:6 to the post-70 period, Rabbi Yohanan ben Zakkai’s remark is well known (Avot R. Nat. 4 A). See the text here: https://www.sefaria.org/Hosea.6.6?lang=bi&with=Talmud&lang2=en.
- The depiction of a poor widow in 12:41–44 is an indirect criticism of the scribes, since Jesus says in the preceding pericope that the scribes “devour” the widows’ houses (12:40).
- In fact, that Greek word does not occur elsewhere in the New Testament or the Septuagint.
November 3, 2024