Commentaries:
Robertson's Word Pictures (NT)
Making all meats clean (kaqarizwn panta ta brwmata). This anacoluthon can be understood by repeating
he says (legei) from verse Mark 7:18. The masculine participle agrees with Jesus, the speaker. The words do not come from Jesus, but are added by Mark. Peter reports this item to Mark, probably with a vivid recollection of his own experience on the housetop in Joppa when in the vision Peter declined three times the Lord's invitation to kill and eat unclean animals (Acts 10:14-16). It was a riddle to Peter as late as that day. "Christ asserts that Levitical uncleanness, such as eating with unwashed hands, is of small importance compared with moral uncleanness" (Vincent). The two chief words in both incidents, here and in Acts, are
defile (koinow) and
cleanse (kaqarizw). "What God cleansed do not thou treat as defiled" (Acts 10:15). It was a revolutionary declaration by Jesus and Peter was slow to understand it even after the coming of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost. Jesus was amply justified in his astonished question:
Perceive ye not? (ou noeite). They were making little use of their intelligence in trying to comprehend the efforts of Jesus to give them a new and true spiritual insight.
Other commentary entries containing this verse:
James 4:8
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