Quotes & Notes on:     Mark 7:34   

• John Wesley's Notes:
  Ephphatha-This was a word of SOVEREIGN AUTHORITY, not an address to God for power to heal: such an address was needless; for Christ had a perpetual fund of power residing in himself, to work all miracles whenever he pleased, even to the raising the dead, Joh 5:21,26.
   

• Reginald Fuller's Preaching the Lectionary:

   To be posted.
   

• Massey H. Shepherd, Jr., Interpreter's Commentary:

   To be posted.
  
   

• Donald Guthrie, The New Bible Commentary (Revised 1970):

   To be posted.
   

• David Guzik, Study Guide for Mark:
  He sighed: “Behold, ‘a Man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief!’ Behold a Man exercising a ministry full of healing power and elemental light; but never forget that this service was costly.” (Morgan)i. “The ‘sigh’ was an inward groan, our Lord’s compassionate response to the pain and sorrow sin has brought into the world. It was also a prayer to the Father on behalf of the handicapped man. (The same word is used in connection with prayer in Romans 8:23, and the noun in Romans 8:26).” (Wiersbe)ii. He sighed “To show the wretched place of man by sin, and how tenderly concerned God is for his present and eternal welfare; and to intimate that men should seek the salvation of God in the spirit of genuine repentance, with strong crying and tears.” (Clarke)
   

• Catechism of the Catholic Church:
  1151 Signs taken up by Christ. In his preaching the Lord Jesus often makes use of the signs of creation to make known the mysteries of the Kingdom of God. ¹⁷ He performs healings and illustrates his preaching with physical signs or symbolic gestures. ¹⁸ He gives new meaning to the deeds and signs of the Old Covenant, above all to the Exodus and the Passover, ¹⁹ for he himself is the meaning of all these signs.
  
  1504 Often Jesus asks the sick to believe. ¹⁰⁸ He makes use of signs to heal: spittle and the laying on of hands, ¹⁰⁹ mud and washing. ¹¹⁰ The sick try to touch him, "for power came forth from him and healed them all." ¹¹¹ And so in the sacraments Christ continues to "touch" us in order to heal us.
   

• The Fourfold Gospel:

     Jesus here, as in the healing of Jairus' daughter (Mr 5:41), spoke the Aramaic. Why he sighed is not said. It was doubtless an expression of sympathy, though Farrar thinks he did so because he thought of the millions there were of deaf and dumb who in this world never hear and never speak.
   

• Treasury of Scripture Knowledge:

  * looking. Mr 6:41; Joh 11:41; 17:1
  * he sighed. Mr 8:12; Isa 53:3; Eze 21:6,7; Lu 19:41; Joh 11:33,35,38; Heb 4:15
  * Ephphatha. Mr 5:41; 15:34
  * Be opened. Mr 1:41; Lu 7:14; 18:42; Joh 11:43; Ac 9:34,40
   

• Robertson's Word Pictures:
   Ephphatha (dianoichthêti, be opened). Another one of Mark's Aramaic words preserved and transliterated and then translated into Greek. "Be thou unbarred" (Braid Scots). Jesus sighed (estenaxen) as he looked up into heaven and spoke the word ephphatha. Somehow he felt a nervous strain in this complex case (deaf, dumb, demoniac) that we may not quite comprehend.
   

• William Burkitt's Notes:

  (No comment on this verse).
   

• Family Bible Notes:

  (No comment on this verse).
   

• 1599 Geneva Bible Notes:
  The more earnest the superstitious are, the more mad they are in promising themselves God's favour because of their deeds.
   

• People's New Testament Commentary:

  Ephphatha. A word in [Aramaic,] the common language of Judea at that time, meaning, "Be opened."
   

• Albert Barnes' Commentary:

  Looking up to heaven. To lift up the eyes to heaven is an act imploring aid from God, and denotes an attitude of prayer, Ps 121:1,2; Mr 6:41; Joh 11:41.
  
  He sighed. Pitying the sufferings of the man who stood before him,
  
  Ephphatha. This word is Syriac, the language which our Lord used in addressing the man, and means, "Be opened."
  
  {g} "And looking up to heaven" Mr 6:41; Joh 11:41; 17:1
  {h} "he sighed" Joh 11:33,38
   

• Jamieson-Faussett Brown:

   And looking up to heaven--ever acknowledging His Father, even while the healing was seen to flow from Himself (see on JFB for Joh 5:19).
  
  he sighed--"over the wreck," says TRENCH, "which sin had brought about, and the malice of the devil in deforming the fair features of God's original creation." But, we take it, there was a yet more painful impression of that "evil thing and bitter" whence all our ills have sprung, and which, when "Himself took our infirmities and bare our sicknesses" (Mt 8:17), became mysteriously His own.

   

  "In thought of these his brows benign,

  Not even in healing, cloudless shine."

  KEBLE
  
  and saith unto him, Ephphatha, that is, Be opened--Our Evangelist, as remarked on Mr 5:41, loves to give such wonderful words just as they were spoken.
   

• Spurgeon Devotional Commentary:

  (No comment on this verse).
   

• Adam Clarke's Commentary:

    Ephphatha] Ethphathach, [Syriac] Syriac. It is likely that it was in this language that our Lord spoke to this poor man: and because he had pronounced the word Ephphathach with peculiar and authoritative emphasis, the evangelist thought proper to retain the original word; though the last letter in it could not be expressed by any letter in the Greek alphabet.

   

• Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary:

   (No comment on this verse).