Chapter # 1 Paragraph # 10 Study # 3
April 20, 2019
Moss Bluff, Louisiana

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1901 ASV

43 And he strictly charged him, and straightway sent him out,
44 and saith unto him, See thou say nothing to any man: but go show thyself to the priest, and offer for thy cleansing the things which Moses commanded, for a testimony unto them.
45 But he went out, and began to publish it much, and to spread abroad the matter, insomuch that Jesus could no more openly enter into a city, but was without in desert places: and they came to him from every quarter.

• I. Jesus' "Strict Charge".
  • A. Mark's choice of a word to describe Jesus' "attitude" just before He "cast him out" is significantly difficult to grasp.
    • 1. This word (embrimesamenos), when associated with "cast him out" (exebalen), suggests a very strong "attitude".
      • a. The word is omitted from Theological Dictionary of the New Testament altogether and there are no resources in the Logos Library System 2.0 that address it.
      • b. I found it in Liddel and Scott's enormous dictionary of the Greek language. It had a wide range of meaning in the secular culture of the Greek language, but all of its uses pretty much coalesced into an attempt to describe a powerful emotional attitude.
      • c. It is apparently used five times in the Greek New Testament and only once in the Septuagint (to translate a verb that, in Hebrew, indicates a very great, and angry, frustration taken out on Israel because of Rome's refusal to permit the king of the north to invade the king of the south's land: Daniel 11:30).
        • 1) In Matthew 9:30 and Mark 1:43, this word is tied to Jesus' insistence that a person He has just healed "tell no one".
        • 2) In Mark's only other use (14:5) the word is used to describe the hostile attitude toward the woman who "wasted" her ointment on Jesus (14:5). There the word is associated with a word that is translated "had indignation within themselves" and that "indignation" was, piously, justified by a so-called interest in the "poor". But the fact is that Judas was so angered by the "waste" (because it would have given him access to a very large sum of money if it had been sold and put in the purse of the group over which he had responsibility: John 12:6) that he went out and planned to turn Jesus over to the enemies to be put to death and this reveals the intensity of his hostility. Also, the entire group was under a significant amount of emotional strain because they were under the threat of death by being associated with Jesus (John 11:16) Who had been rebuked by those enemies for allowing the people to welcome Him to Jerusalem as the Son of David.
        • 3) The other two uses are John 11:33 and 38 and both present Jesus' attitude just before He raised Lazarus from the dead. These uses are also problematic as they do not tell us exactly what was "troubling" Jesus. He "wept", but we do not really know why.
      • d. That this word is used by Mark in 1:43 may well explain why there is a textual problem in 1:41. Some texts in 1:41 describe Jesus as "indignant"; others as "filled with compassion". Those texts which introduce "indignation" do not have either the same level of textual support, or a comparable use in Mark (the word orgistheis is never used by Mark in all of his Gospel) to substantiate its presence in 1:41.
    • 2. Mark deliberately tied this first verb to a second, as we noted above (I.A.1.).
      • a. This second verb is also very significant: it is used in the immediate context to describe Jesus' "casting out" of demons (1:34 and 39); and it is used in 1:12 to describe the Spirit's "driving" of Jesus out into the wilderness to be tempted by Satan.
      • b. Thus, Mark's "point" is that the one(s) being "cast out" are under a serious level of Jesus' authority; an authority which the demons cannot resist, but which the leper ignores.
    • 3. The question is this: what is Mark saying was Jesus' attitude after having cleansed the leper, and what does this signify?
      • a. The particulars of the text/context.
        • 1) It was "compassion" that moved Jesus to cleanse the leper so that He could establish "compassion" as a most fundamental motivation in the character of God: "I am willing".
          • a) This "compassion" thesis has a contrast presentation in 9:22 that seems to argue that it is in this text for a strong purpose.
          • b) It is also a general fact of life that the Jews' "T"heology, drowned as it was in hyperlegalism, was extremely short of "compassion" (compare Matthew 18:27/18:3 [which tie compassion and mercy together] with Matthew 9:13 and 12:7 [which declare the absence of "mercy" from Jewish "T"heology]). The fact that the leper was unsure of Jesus' willingness/compassion was a sufficient reason for Jesus' deep irritation with "demonic doctrine".
        • 2) It is beyond obvious that Jesus wanted the leper to keep mum about what He had done until His action was revealed to the priests and also afterward.
        • 3) It is also beyond obvious that the leper, having received so great a mercy, could not find it in himself to submit to Jesus' command.
        • 4) It is also a "point" of Mark's argument that the leper's disobedience made it impossible for Jesus to "openly" enter into a city (a concept first mentioned in 1:33 where the entire city gathered at the door of Peter's home). Why was this a "problem"?
      • b. Conclusions.
        • 1) There is a potent contrast between Jesus' "compassionate willingness" and His equally potent "insistence" (embrimesamenos coupled to exebalen) that the leper keep mum about what He had done for him.
        • 2) Just as Jesus forbade the demons which He "cast out" (exebalen) to tell the truth about Him, so He forbade the leper whom He "cleansed" to tell the truth about Him.
        • 3) And in the larger picture, Jesus was prevented from openly entering any city by the mobs of people wanting favors from Him: this was at least indirectly a declaration that Jesus was not seeking "popularity".
        • 4) In the midst of this, Mark tells us that it was important to Jesus that the priest(s) "know" that He had cleansed a leper.
        • 5) Thus, we have to conclude that Mark was presenting both "compassion" and "hostility" in this text, but the two have different objects: "compassion" for the leper; "hostility" toward "demonic doctrine".

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This is article #069.
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