Mark 3:5

Verse Mark 3:5. With anger, being grieved for the hardness of their hearts] These words are not found in any of the other evangelists. For πωρωσει hardness, or rather callousness, the Codex Bezae, and four of the Itala, read νεκρωσει, deadness; the Vulgate and some of the Itala, caecitate, blindness. Join all these together, and they will scarcely express the fulness of this people's wretchedness. By a long resistance to the grace and Spirit of God, their hearts had become callous; they were past feeling. By a long opposition to the light of God, they became dark in their understanding, were blinded by the deceitfulness of sin, and thus were past seeing. By a long continuance in the practice of every evil work, they were cut off from all union with God, the fountain of spiritual life; and, becoming dead in trespasses and sins, they were incapable of any resurrection but through a miraculous power of God.

With anger. What was the anger which our Lord felt? That which proceeded from excessive grief, which was occasioned by their obstinate stupidity and blindness: therefore it was no uneasy passion, but an excess of generous grief.

Whole as the other.] This is omitted by the best MSS. and versions. Grotius, Mill, and Bengel approve of the omission, and Griesbach leaves it out of the text.