Mark 7:21

For from within, out of the heart of men, proceed evil thoughts, adulteries, fornications, murders,

EXPOSITORY (ENGLISH BIBLE)

Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary

7:14-23 Our wicked thoughts and affections, words and actions, defile us, and these only. As a corrupt fountain sends forth corrupt streams, so does a corrupt heart send forth corrupt reasonings, corrupt appetites and passions, and all the wicked words and actions that come from them. A spiritual understanding of the law of God, and a sense of the evil of sin, will cause a man to seek for the grace of the Holy Spirit, to keep down the evil thoughts and affections that work within.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

Hat which cometh out of the man - His words; the expression of his thoughts and feelings; his conduct, as the development of inward malice, anger, covetousness, lust, etc.

Defileth the man - Makes him really polluted or offensive in the sight of God. This renders the soul corrupt and abominable in his sight. See Matthew 15:18-20.

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary

CHAPTER 7

Mr 7:1-23. Discourse on Ceremonial Pollution. ( = Mt 15:1-20).

See on [1450]Mt 15:1-20.

Matthew Poole's Commentary

See Poole on "Mark 7:19"

Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible

For from within, out of the heart of man,.... The inside of man is very bad, his inward part is not only wicked, but wickedness itself, yea, very wickedness, Psalm 5:9, in him dwells no good thing naturally, his heart is wicked, and desperately so; it is full of evil; and out of the abundance of it, proceed the evil things hereafter mentioned; all its powers and faculties are vitiated, there is no place clean; the understanding and judgment are dreadfully corrupted; the mind and conscience are defiled; the affections are inordinate; not only the thought, but every imagination of the thought of the heart is evil, and that continually: what good thing therefore, can come out of such a Nazareth as this? Nothing, but what follows: for from hence

proceed evil thoughts, adulteries, fornications, murders; which several things are related in Mat_. 15:19 see the note on Matthew 15:19; only the order here is a little different; "murders", which are here mentioned last, are there put after "evil thoughts".

Geneva Study Bible

For from within, out of the heart of men, proceed evil thoughts, adulteries, fornications, murders,

EXEGETICAL (ORIGINAL LANGUAGES)

Expositor's Greek Testament

Mark 7:21. An enumeration of the things which come out of the man, from the heart; first six plurals, πορνεῖαι, etc.; then six singulars, δόλος, etc. (Mark 7:22).

Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

21. evil thoughts] Thirteen forms of evil are here noticed as proceeding from the heart. The first seven in the plural number, are predominant actions; the latter six in the singular, dispositions. Comp. the blending of the singular and plural in St Paul’s enumeration of the works of the flesh, Galatians 5:19-21.

adulteries] The preferable order appears to be fornications, thefts, murders, adulteries, covetousnesses, wickednesses.

Mark 7:21

Vincent's Word Studies

Evil Thoughts (διαλογισμοὶ οἱ κακοὶ)

Thoughts, those which are evil So Rev., in margin. Thoughts that are evil. The word διαλογισμοὶ, thoughts, does not in itself convey a bad sense; and hence the addition of adjectives denoting evil, as here and James 2:4. Radically, it carries the idea of discussion or debate, with an under-thought of suspicion or doubt, either with one's own mind, as Luke 5:22; Luke 6:8; or with another, Luke 9:46; Philippians 2:14; Romans 14:1.