The Similar Sayings: Matthew 12:5, Mark 2:25, and Luke 6:3
This article is part of a series on the Jesus verses that are similar, but not the same, in different Gospels. The list of articles in this series is here.
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When I started this series, I thought that most similar verses would only have slight differences. I have been surprise by how distinct most are, similar but different, often in meaning. This led me to think that most of these similar verses were said at different times in different contexts but representing the same teaching. These three verses are more alike and more what I expected, but they still are different enough to feel like they were spoken at different times.
According the the gospels’ narratives, all three of these verses were spoken after Pharisees criticized Jesus’s students for gleaning grain from a field on the Sabbath. However, such incidents likely happened more than once. The group visited many villages, all with wheat fields, on many Sabbaths, and all with Pharisees ready to criticize them. Jesus may have answered all such criticisms with the same lesson from the Old Testament, with his introductory words only slightly changed to adapt to the phrasing of the specific words of the criticism.
Here are the biblical translations of these verses from the NIV.
These three versions all look very alike but are made slightly more alike in English translation than in Greek. The three key verbs here, translated as “have not/never read,” “did,” and “were hungry,” are all the same Greek verbs and in the same form. Here are my English versions that follow the original Greek more closely. Their differences from each other are in boldface.
Matthew: Do you not know well what David did when he starved and those with him?
Mark: Did you never know well what David did when he has need and he himself starved and those with him?
Luke: Nor do you know well this thing David did, when he himself starved and those with him.
As we usually see, Matthew is the simplest, direct and to the point. Mark’s similar verses are often the longest versions, even when the differences are slight, as we see here. Luke’s gospel frequently has more interesting words than the others. Here, I translated it as a statement, not a question.
Though all of these verses are shown as questions in the Bible, we cannot identify questions from the Greek. Unlike many similar languages, Greek does not have a special verb form for questions (the interrogatory form). However, there are certain signs that indicate a statement might be a question. We see two of them here: the verb is near the beginning of the sentence and two of these versions use a “question pronoun,” that is, a pronoun that is frequently used in a question. Here such a pronoun appears only in Matthew and Mark. It is translated as “what,” referring to what David did. A “what” also appears in the Biblical translation of Luke, but it is not one of the pronouns commonly used in questions. It is a demonstrative pronoun that means “this thing.” This makes the Luke version seem more like a statement, a more pointed criticism of the Pharisees.
All three of these verses start with a negative. In each, however, a different negative Greek word is used. From these different words, it seems that Jesus was responding to a differently worded challenge from the Pharisees. The simplest negative is in Matthew’s version, which is the common objective negative. Then, we have the most complex, Mark’s negative, which is a word that means literally “nor when,” which we translate as “never.” Finally, we have Luke’s version, which is also translated as “never” in the NIV but means “nor/neither.” This usually indicates that this line followed another negative statement, probably from the Pharisees. It also makes this seem much less like a question.
All three versions start with the verb translated as “have you not read,” but the word doesn’t mean “read.” It is only translated that way in the New Testament. The word means “to know well,” “to recognize” and “to acknowledge.” It is an exaggeration of the common Greek word translated as “know.” It is made more extreme by its prefix, which means “to know in depth” or “to know from beginning to end.” This word was chosen because this whole question or statement is a challenge to the Pharisees’ prized possession: their knowledge of Jewish Law.
The biggest difference among all these versions are the next words in Mark. They mean “he has need.” The NIV translation moves this to the end of the verse for some reason, perhaps to keep the beginning of all three verses looking more the same.
The only other addition is in both Mark and Luke’s versions. It is the addition of the pronoun “he” in the form of a subject before the verb “starved.” This emphasizes the subject, which is already part of the verb. The sense is “he himself starved.” The verb “starved” is singular.
The phrase “and those with him” is added at the end in the same Greek words in all three versions, but it is not a subject of the verb “starved” as it might appear in English translation. The verb is singular, applying only to David. The “and those with him” was a separate line, added like a tease. In the story, David wanted bread for his companions, but they were not with him. David and the priest have a discussion about the recent sexual habits of his men. David makes it clear that they have been chaste enough to eat consecrated bread.
As we have seen in other similar verses, Matthew provides the basic meaning that is maintained in the other versions. Mark add the idea of his “having need,” which may or may not be needed to clarify Jesus’s point. The version in Luke is pithier, phrased less like a question and more like a criticism, to focus on the key issue of “this thing” that David did.