Expositor's Bible Commentary Commentary Mark 7:14

"And he called to him the multitude again, and said unto them, Hear me all of you, and understand:" — Mark 7:14 (ASV)

After speaking directly to the Pharisees and the teachers of the law, Jesus called the crowd around him because he wanted them to hear the crux of his teaching about what is clean. He prefaced his statement with a prophetic call to hear his words and then stated clearly what does and does not make a person unclean. What is external cannot defile a person. Food, for example, cannot do this—even if it is eaten with unwashed hands or declared unclean by kosher food laws. What really makes a person unclean comes from within, out of the heart and the will—what one thinks, says, desires, and does.