After Jesus and his students fed the 4,000 in the Dekapolis, they crossed the lake to return to Jewish territory. Mark calls the nearby town Dalmanuthá. We don’t know where that was, but we guess it was near Magdala: In Matthew’s version of this story, he said Jesus landed near Magadan (an alternate name for Magdala, Mt 15.39).
In this town, Jesus ran into some Pharisees. Maybe they lived there; maybe they went there specifically to see Jesus. But they clearly didn’t go there to learn from him: They went there to debate him. So Jesus left them in frustration, and told his students to watch out for that sort of “yeast”—which they promptly misinterpreted.
Here’s the story.
Right after that,
Jesus got into the boat with his students, and went to a place near Dalmanuthá.Pharisees came, and began to debate
Jesus —looking, as proof, for a heavenly sign from him. Groaning in frustration, Jesus said,“Why do kids these days look for signs? Amen: I swear to you, if a sign was given to kids these days….” He left them, got in the boat again, and went across. They forgot to bring bread. They hadn’t a single loaf in the boat.
Jesus ordered them,“Look: Watch out for the Pharisees’ yeast and Herod’s yeast.” They were discussing this among themselves: “It’s because we didn’t bring bread.”
Knowing this, Jesus said,
“Why do you figure I said this because you didn’t bring bread? Aren’t you thinking, or following my reasoning? Have you already made your minds up? Have you eyes, yet don’t see; have you ears, yet don’t hear; don’t you remember?
“When I broke five loaves for the 5,000, how many baskets were filled with leftovers?” They said, “Twelve.”“When I broke seven for the 4,000, how many equipment-baskets were filled with fragments?” They said, “Seven.” He told them,“Aren’t you following my reasoning?”
The closed-minded Pharisees.
The Pharisees’ usual problem with Jesus is he didn’t do as they did. They had customs and interpretations of the Law which they were fully convinced were correct. They didn’t think—as Christians do, although not often enough—that we’re wrong, and need the Holy Spirit to straighten us out: They saw the Pharisee religion as wholly right… which meant Jesus, whenever he violated it—and he regularly violated it—was wholly wrong.
Jesus described the Pharisees as i geneá áfti/“this generation.” That’s a term people use, not to describe their generation, but another generation. Jesus was in his thirties. These Pharisees weren’t: They were either significantly older enough, or younger enough, for Jesus to notice the age difference, and notice a trait of that generation was to insist upon heavenly signs. (8.12)
I translated this phrase as “kids these days”—meaning they were younger than Jesus—for two reasons. First of all, not a lot of people were older than Jesus. Life expectancy back then was awfully low. Healthcare was non-existent: All the basic treatments, which we take for granted, didn’t exist. A bacterial infection would kill you. A ruptured appendix would kill you. Hernias would never be properly treated. A broken leg would never be set properly, and you’d be crippled for life. No blood transfusions, no vaccines, no dentists to extract rotten teeth. Just pain, misery, and folk remedies. This is why a healer like Jesus was such a big deal. But statistically, there wasn’t much of any older generation for Jesus to critique. So it makes sense that it’d be younger.
And while one might debate, “Back then, people respected their elders, so young people would be a lot less likely to debate Jesus,” time and again, history proves otherwise. It’s human nature. Young people love to challenge authority—even if, ironically, they’re doing it by quoting other authorities, like a young conservative student who challenges his liberal college professor. Young people do this ’cause they figure it’s how they become authorities. God had to command us to respect our parents because, left to our own devices, we’ll ignore them and figure they’re out-of-date. Pharisee students tested Jesus in the story where he said,
And they still are. Who are the Christians most likely to reinterpret Jesus to suit themselves? It’s not the longtime followers—though certainly many of us will do so. It’s the newbies, who want to know why Christianity can’t just get with the times; who don’t fully grasp how evil our times can be. Or, conversely, it’s the newbies who want to zealously implement Christianity upon our times, and force people to behave themselves; who don’t recognize God has given pagans the freedom to run amok, (Ro 1.24) because free will might eventually drive them to God, but legalism will always drive them to resent him.
Well. These Pharisees took it upon themselves to challenge Jesus. They wanted him to prove himself, not through the scriptures, not through his good works, not through his fruit, but through a miracle—they wanted “a heavenly sign from him.” (8.11) As if a miracle would prove anything. When you go to a magic show, skeptics will immediately try to explain how each illusion works. They’ll do the very same thing when they encounter a real live miracle. Miracles don’t work on people when they already have their minds made up. For that matter, nothing works—not common sense, not logic, not sworn testimony, nothing. God could appear to them personally, in exactly the way they always knew deep down he’d be, and their response would nonetheless be, “It’s an impressive trick, but come now; be serious.” They claim they want miracles, but what they actually want is a serious challenge for their debunking skills—something they can still take apart, and when they do, it’ll feel like a grand achievement.
Hence Jesus’s response. First, groaning in frustration. The KJV has “he sighed deeply in his spirit.” Ana-stenáxas means “sigh with all your might,” and it’s a very physical action; it’s not a spiritual one. Maybe Mark was metaphorically applying it to Jesus’s spirit, but more likely pnéfmati means “with his breath” than “in his spirit.” I split the difference and deduce Jesus was really frustrated with them. He sure sounds it.
So, enough of those Pharisees. Jesus got back in the boat, and went to Beit Chayda, the same place he sent them after they fed the 5,000. (Mk 6.45)
The closed-minded disciples.
In the boat, Jesus warned his kids,
You’d think Jesus’s students would have been with him long enough to know when he was using analogies, and when he wasn’t. For that matter, you’d think we would know better too. But lots of us still take him literally when he doesn’t intend to be meant that way, and lots of us still assume he’s exaggerating, or speaking in parables, when he really does mean it. We interpret him based on whether or not we want to understand him and follow him: When his commands demand too much of our obedience, or too much of our brainpower, suddenly we figure he’s speaking in metaphors.
The circumstances were that Jesus’s students had forgotten the bread. Back then, you couldn’t assume you’d be able to find food along your journey; you had to bring it with you. Well, apparently there was enough of a hurry to get out of town that the students forgot bread; and since in the Hebrew culture “bread” often referred to any food, they likely forgot to bring any food whatsoever. They’d have to catch fish or something. (Fortunately, several of them were experts.)
Because bread was on their minds, that’s immediately the conclusion they jumped to: “We’re out of bread. That ‘yeast’ comment must mean bread. ‘Watch out for the yeast of the Pharisees and Herod’—maybe they’re out to poison us? Well, it’s a good thing we actually didn’t bring bread. Yeah, we’re good.”
Some Christians interpret this story as if the students figured Jesus was criticizing them for forgetting the bread. But I’m not sure how you can deduce such criticism from “Watch out for the yeast.” If anything, it means avoid yeasty bread, and since they had no bread at all, no problem. The students didn’t believe they were being criticized: They figured Jesus was pleased with him. And isn’t that usually the way with us Christians? If we can spin Jesus’s sayings so we come out sounding like good and faithful servants, it’s precisely the interpretation we’ll embrace. We regularly reject any interpretation which suggests we’re the poor, pathetic followers we often are. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard Christians claim the Sermon on the Mount doesn’t represent Jesus’s true expectations of his followers; it only represents his ideal wishes, and he knows he won’t see ’em fulfilled till the End. Of course, this interpretation is an entirely twisted one, and nullifies Jesus—and is meant to, because people simply don’t want to follow him; they only want to be saved. We need to be very, very careful when our interpretations of Jesus make us sound righteous. We know we’re wrong and he’s right. When it suddenly turns out we’re right, we’d better be quite sure we’re not wrong about being right.
Commentators often point out Jesus’s rebuke sounds very harsh. Well, it had to be harsh: His students were wearing blinders, and Jesus had to knock them off. They were taking him literally when he meant for them to think about what he was saying. So he used the very same language he used when he talked about the people who wouldn’t understand his analogies.
Outside, analogies are all those folks get, so that
observers might observe, yet not see,
hearers might hear, yet not listen;
they may never turn themselves around,
and I may never forgive them. [Is 6.9-10]—Jesus, Mark 4.11-12 KWL
As I said in “Jesus and ‘parables’,” this language refers to people who have closed minds. Though he wants them to listen and understand him, they don’t want to; their minds are already made up. So this is actually sarcasm: “I’m telling you these things because you won’t understand.” And this very same sarcasm is what Jesus is exasperatedly giving his students:
To hammer home the idea that he wasn’t speaking of bread, Jesus reminded them of feeding both the 5,000 and the 4,000. Despite how much bread they had to begin with—and it wasn’t anywhere close to how much bread they needed to feed the masses—how many baskets of leftovers were there? Twelve baskets, and seven equipment-baskets—more bread in the leftover baskets than they’d even brought in the first place—and they thought Jesus was worried about where their bread might came from? Their bread came from God himself. In the Kingdom there is no lack of bread. There’s only abundance.
Jesus ended this story with a statement he’d made in the middle of it:
In the gospels, whenever Jesus corrects his students, we Christians so often take Jesus’s side: “Those silly kids. Why wouldn’t they ever learn?” Yet we make the very same mistakes. Why won’t we ever learn? Well, for the very same reasons: We gotta stop assuming we’re right simply because we hang out with Jesus, and start following Jesus.
Oh yeah… the yeast.
What’s the Pharisees’ and Herod’s yeast?
A lot of Christians figure “yeast” automatically means “evil.” They treat Jesus’s parables as if they’re some sort of bible code: Since yeast—something which can infest an entire ball of dough—tends to be used as an example of something insidious, (1Co 5.6-8) it must always mean something insidious. Yeast is a bible-code word meaning “spreading evil.” Of course, if that’s the only way we’re allowed to interpret it, what does it mean when Jesus says the Kingdom is like yeast? (Mt 13.33) Because he can’t mean the Kingdom is like spreading evil; the Kingdom is like spreading good. Therefore, yeast isn’t always an evil thing; we can’t automatically jump to that conclusion. We only know, in this story, it’s not good, ’cause Jesus warned his students to watch out for it.
A lot of Christians don’t bother to deduce the interpretation, and flip to a gospel which contains the answer key:
Beware of the leaven of the Pharisees, which is hypocrisy.
—Jesus, Luke 12.1 ESV
And there you go. We’re done. Jesus said it was hypocrisy. Case closed.
Or is it? When Matthew retells this story, it ends like this:
“Why can’t you understand that I’m not talking about bread? So again I say, ‘Beware of the yeast of the Pharisees and Sadducees.’” Then at last they understood that he wasn’t speaking about the yeast in bread, but about the deceptive teaching of the Pharisees and Sadducees.
Okay, now that must be what Jesus meant. Or perhaps it means both: Jesus was condemning the hypocritical teaching of the Pharisees… and Herod, and probably the Sadducees. Right? …Well, let’s make sure.
Certain Christians who interpret Mark on its own, and don’t bother to compare it with what Jesus said in the other gospels, deduce the “yeast” Jesus meant was the Pharisees’ doubt. After all, they doubted what Jesus had to say, and wouldn’t believe him unless he showed them a miracle, and opposed him till he left town. So, upon leaving town, he warned about their “yeast”—then upbraided his followers because it seems they likewise doubted Jesus: They were out of bread, and despite two mighty miracles of multiplication, had lost sight of the fact Jesus had access to plenty of bread.
Well, I already dealt with how the students’ problem wasn’t actually doubt; it was being willfully dense. But it actually doesn’t make any difference what the students did or thought: Jesus’s original statement was about what the Pharisees and Herod did, so to deduce the yeast is, we gotta look at what they did.
You might notice how, other than Jesus’s warning about Herod’s yeast, Herod isn’t even in this story. Maybe he, or his followers, were in town, but Mark doesn’t say so. But certain Christians figure the reference to Herod is a clue: Herod was a slimy politician, so maybe Herod’s yeast had to do with seeking worldly power and worldly goals, and that’s what the Pharisees wanted too, and Jesus was warning against that. (And since politicians are hypocrites, that certainly suits Matthew’s statement.) At the same time, Herod was also a good example of someone who had heard of Jesus’s miracles, (Mk 6.14) and wanted to see for himself, (Lk 9.9) but miracles made zero impact on Herod’s belief: He wouldn’t reform no matter what he saw. So again, perhaps the problem is doubt. And there’s a third possibility: The Pharisees’ yeast, and Herod’s yeast, are two different problems. But I doubt it.
Well, you’ve likely guessed my vote. I already pointed out how Jesus’s beef with the Pharisees wasn’t just their doubt. It was how, even if he showed them the miracle they requested, it’d make no difference. Seems to me the Pharisees were being hypocrites: They claimed they’d believe if they saw a miracle, but we all know better. And Herod, even though he believed Jesus was the supernatural second coming of John the Baptist, (Mk 6.16) wouldn’t repent either; in Luke we even read of where he wanted to see Jesus perform a miracle, and was disappointed, (Lk 23.8-11) but again, a miracle would have made no difference.
So I agree with Luke: The yeast was hypocrisy.
And it’s still something we Christians need to watch out for.