Expositor's Bible Commentary Commentary Mark 2:21

"No man seweth a piece of undressed cloth on an old garment: else that which should fill it up taketh from it, the new from the old, and a worse rent is made." — Mark 2:21 (ASV)

The two parables in these verses were probably spoken on different occasions but both deal with a single theme. Obviously they bear on the question of fasting, but beyond that they also bear on the forms of Judaism generally. In ancient times wine was kept in goatskins. New skins were soft and pliable and would stretch when wine that had not yet completed fermentation was put in them. However, old wineskins that had been stretched would become brittle. The gas from the fermenting wine burst them open, destroying both wine and wineskins. Putting new wine into old wineskins and patching an old garment with a new cloth are just as inappropriate as fasting at a wedding feast. A wedding, new wine, and a new garment are all symbols of the newness that the coming of Jesus brings. That newness cannot be confined to the old forms of Judaism.