The parables of the kingdom
(ch. 4) further explain the scribes’ response to Jesus and his to them. Jesus
uses Isa 6:9–10 to explain his statement that “those outside” receive
everything in parables “so that they may not turn again and be forgiven”
(ἀφεθῇ αὐτοῖς), rather than “I will heal them” (ἰάσομαι αὐτούς in the OG; רפא
in the MT). The use of “forgiveness” language recalls the immediately preceding
unforgivable-sin saying (3:28). Then, the Markan Jesus expresses a parabolic
judgment against the scribes for misnaming the Spirit’s power to which his
exorcisms testify. Now, Jesus explains that judgment using Isa 6:9–10. Like
Isaiah, Jesus teaches in parables to confirm “outsiders” in their spiritual
blindness and self-condemnation. Mark’s narrative use of Isa 6:9–10 thus
affords readers the opportunity to recognize coherence between the authority
and kingship of the one Lord God and the Lord Jesus, and the responses of God’s
past and present people (cf. Isa 5; Mark 12:1–9). (Elizabeth Evans Shively, “Israel’s
Scriptures in Mark,” in Israel’s Scriptures in Early Christian Writings: The
Use of the Old Testament in the New, ed. Matthias Henze and David Lincicum
[Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 2023], 247, emphasis in original)
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