Mark 7:11

ὑμεῖς δὲ λέγετε. “But ye say.” As in Mark 7:2-5 and Mark 4:26; Mark 4:31, we have a confused constr. Mk forgets that he began with ὑμεῖς δὲ λέγετε and leaves the ἐὰν εἴπῃ sentence unfinished. Omit λέγετε and the constr. will stand; with λέγετε Mark 7:12 should run οὐκέτι οὐδὲν ποιήσει. Cf. Mark 3:22.

Κορβᾶν, ὅ ἐστιν Δῶρον. As in Mark 5:41; Mark 7:34; Mark 14:36, we have Aramaic with a translation. Κορβάν is not found in LXX., but Josephus (Ant. IV. iv. 4) gives it with this translation. It means a dedicated or vowed gift, a gift not to be revoked by the giver (Ibid. c. Apion. i. 22). The Scribes taught that a vow, however unrighteous, mast stand. Even if the man who made it desired to remedy the wrong, and even if the wrong was to his own parents, he could not be allowed to remedy it. Such ruling cuts right across the Fifth Commandment. See Wright, Synopsis, p. 69; Driver on Deuteronomy 23:24. The sentence means, “Whatsoever support thou mightest have from me is Korban, irrevocably given elsewhere.” Luther, putting a comma after me in Vulg.—Corban quodcunque ex me, tibi profuerit—took it to mean, “If I dedicate it, it is far more valuable to thee.”