2:23-24 Jesus' disciples did something that the Mosaic Law permitted when they plucked the ears of wheat or barley (Deut. 23:25). However by doing it on a Sabbath day they violated a traditional Pharisaic interpretation of the law. The Pharisees taught that to do what the disciples did constituted reaping, threshing, and winnowing on the Sabbath, and that was forbidden work (Exod. 20:10).80
2:25-26 The incident Jesus referred to is in 1 Samuel 21:1-6. Mark was the only evangelist to mention that Abiathar was the high priest then. This seemingly contradicts the Old Testament since Ahimelech, the father or Abiathar, was the high priest then according to the writer of 1 Samuel. The best solution to this problem seems to be that Jesus referred to Abiathar because he was the better known priest during David's reign. The phrase "in the time of"or "in the days of"probably means "during the lifetime of"rather than "during the high priesthood of."81
Jesus' point was this. David technically broke the law by eating bread that only the priests were to eat. Nevertheless he could do so because David was the Lord's anointed servant. As such, he could do things other Israelites could not do. Furthermore the offense was a matter of religious ritual, not a moral violation of the law, as the Pharisees were implying. Another example of violating the letter of the law to observe its spirit is King Hezekiah's granting the Israelites who were unclean permission to eat the Passover (2 Chron. 30:18-20). God did not object to that either. Another explanation of David's action is that God permitted it because of the urgency of his situation and that Jesus was claiming that His mission was equally urgent.82
The Pharisees failed in two respects. First, they did not distinguish which laws were more important.
"Human need is a higher law than religious ritual."83
Second, they did not recognize Jesus as the anointed Servant of the Lord that the Old Testament predicted would come, the Son of David. Mark did not mention, as Matthew did, that Jesus pointed out that one greater than the temple had come (Matt. 12:6). Mark's emphasis was not on Jesus as the King as much as it was on Jesus as the Lord's anointed Servant. As God's anointed Servant, Jesus had the right to provide for His disciples' physical needs even though that meant violating a tradition governing ritual worship.
2:27-28 The Pharisees made the Sabbath a straight jacket that inhibited the Jews. Jesus pointed out that God gave the Sabbath as a good gift. He designed it to free His people from ceaseless labor and to give them rest. Sabbath observance had to contain enough elasticity to assure the promotion of human welfare. Jesus' point was the following.
"Since the Sabbath was made for man, He who is man's Lord . . . has authority to determine its law and use."84
Only Mark recorded, "The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath"(v. 27). One of his concerns in this Gospel was the welfare of mankind.
Since in the Old Testament the Sabbath was the Lord's day in a special sense, Jesus' claim in verse 28 constituted a claim to being God.85He had the right to determine how people should use the Sabbath.
". . . the exousia[authority] of Jesus manifests itself vis-a-visthe rabbinic tradition, the religious hierarchy, and the temple tradition. Foremost here is Jesus' reinterpretation of the Sabbath . . ."86
