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MARK 2:24 — KING JAMES VERSION 0
Mark 2:23Mark 2:25
“And the Pharisees said unto him, Behold, why do they on the sabbath day that which is not lawful?”
The Pharisees said to him, look, why are they doing what is unlawful on the Sabbath? — the accusation is directed at Jesus rather than at the disciples, holding him responsible for his followers' behavior. The unlawful in their framing refers not to the Torah itself but to the scribal interpretation of the Torah: picking a few heads of grain had been categorized as a form of the thirty-nine prohibited labors on the Sabbath. The Pharisees' interpretation of Sabbath law is not arbitrary — it is the product of serious effort to define what work means. But Jesus' response will distinguish between the letter of scribal interpretation and the spirit of the Sabbath's original purpose.

Church Fathers on Mark 2:24

We read also in the following part, that they who came and went away were many, and that they had not time enough to take their food, wherefore, according to man’s nature, they were hungry.

Bede · 8th century · in Marc., 1, 13

For it was a precept in Israel, delivered by a written law, that no one should detain a thief found in his fields, unless he tried to take something away with him. For the man who had touched nothing else but what he had eaten they were commanded to allow to go away free and unpunished. Wherefore the Jews accused our Lord’s disciples, who were plucking the ears of corn, of breaking the sabbath, rather than of theft.

Augustine · 4th century · de Op. Monach., 23

For David, when flying from the face of Saul [1 Sam 21] went to the Chief Priest, and ate the shew-bread, and took away the sword of Goliath, which things had been offered to the Lord. But a question has been raised how the Evangelist called Abiathar at this time High Priest, when the Book of Kings calls him Abimelech.

Theophylact · 11th century
Read all 7 entries in the readerCatena Aurea · St. Thomas Aquinas, tr. J. H. Newman · public domain
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