Mark 2:18-22

¹⁸ The disciples of John and of the Pharisees were fasting. Then they came and said to Him, “Why do the disciples of John and of the Pharisees fast, but Your disciples do not fast?”

¹⁹ And Jesus said to them, “Can the friends of the bridegroom fast while the bridegroom is with them? As long as they have the bridegroom with them they cannot fast.

²⁰ But the days will come when the bridegroom will be taken away from them, and then they will fast in those days.

²¹ No one sews a piece of unshrunk cloth on an old garment; or else the new piece pulls away from the old, and the tear is made worse.

²² And no one puts new wine into old wineskins; or else the new wine bursts the wineskins, the wine is spilled, and the wineskins are ruined. But new wine must be put into new wineskins.”

Also found in Matthew 9:14-17 and Luke 5:33-39.

Should read “The disciples of John and the Pharisees …”

Fast (v.18) — The idea Mark wishes to bring is that they were observing a fast at that very time. Levi’s feast probably happened on of of the weekly fast days. The disciples of John sided with the Pharisees in the Jewish ceremonial and ritualistic observances. John was in prison at that time. John’s disciples had not read their leader right when they sided with the Pharisees. He had called the Pharisees a brood of vipers. Here is disciples join with the Pharisees in criticizing Jesus. — Wuest, page 55.

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friends (v.19) — These were not the groomsmen, the friends of the bridegroom, but the guests invited to the wedding. … Our Lord takes John’s own metaphor (John 3:29), substituting the sons of the bridechamber for the friend of the bridegroom, which latter designation John used of himself in his relation to the Messiah he proclaimed. Mourning does not befit a marriage scene. … Jesus seems iconoclastic to the religious rulers of His day, and revolutionary in His emphasis on the spiritual instead of the ritualistic and ceremonial. The question of Jesus … expected a negative answer in the minds of His hearers to His rhetorical question. — Wuest, page 56.

days (v.20) — No article in Greek, so “days of such a nature will come.”

taken away (v.20) — Christ’s death on the Cross

piece of unshrunk cloth (v.21) — “Piece’ is from [a Greek word] meaning “to throw upon,” hence a patch, that which is imposed upon a rent in a piece of cloth to mend it. “New” is [from a Greek word meaning] “unfulled, unmilled, undressed.” It refers to the fuller’s cleansing, shrinking,and thickening, through the use of moisture, heat, and pressure. The point is that unfulled cloth would shrink when used to patch fulled cloth, and thus tear away from the latter. … The worn-out garment, weakened by use and age, would not furnish the unfulled patch with enough of a grip to keep both together.”

Jesus was saying that they couldn’t patch His Kingdom gospel onto the old cloth of the law, and probably especially not to the Pharisees’ interpretation of the law. See my notes on Matthew 9:16-17.

wineskins (v.22) — made from animal skins. Old wineskins, no longer pliant, would burst under the pressure of newly-fermenting wine.

“Old” in Mark’s reference both to cloth and wineskins is not referring to age, but to use and wear. Two Greek words for “new” are used in v.22. “New” wine refers to new in the sense of time. “New” wineskins” are new in terms of use and wear.

“spilled” (v.22) — Not in the best manuscripts. The Greek says that the wine will be “destroyed, rendered useless.”

As with the cloth parable, the Lord was saying that mixing the new with the old renders both useless.