The question about the two greatest commandments is raised while Jesus is already in Jerusalem. Jesus enters Jerusalem triumphantly in Mark 11:11; he cleans up the temple area and begins his Jeremiah-like discourse against the chief priests and the scribes (Mark 11:15-19), his authority has been questioned (Mark 11:27-33), and he has troubled them with the parable of the landowner and his son (Mark 12:1-12). Even the Herodians engaged him on the question of patriotism (Mark 12:13-17). The Sadducees have just tested his doctrinal allegiance on the question of the resurrection (Mark 12:18-27) when a scribe came up to ask him about the greatest of the commandments (Mark 12:28)
.Outline of Mark 12:28-34
The question about the greatest commandment becomes an opportunity for spelling out the two greatest commandments. The scribe had asked about the "first of all commandments." In his reply, Jesus does not only give the first, but also the second. When the scribe acccepts these answers, Jesus makes a pronouncement over him: "You are not far from the kingdom of God." (12:34c). An outline of this exchange can be presented thus:
| Verses | Description | |
| 28 | Introduction: A scribe hears the disputation (about the resurrection) and raises his own question. | |
| 29-30 | The Greatest of the Commandments. Jesus replies with a quotation from the "Shema Yisrael" (Deut. 6:4) | |
| 31 | The Second Greatest. Jesus adds the second commandment, quoting from Lev. 19:18 | |
| 32 -33 | Greater than any sacrifice or offering. The scribe comments on Jesus' reply by adding a reference to Hos. 6:6 (or Mic. 6:6-8) right after his mention of the second commandment. | |
| 34 | Conclusion. Jesus closes the discussion with an observation about the scribe's nearness to the kingdom of God. |
The scribe anticipated the answer from the Shema; it was after all something that every Israelite learned by heart. Deut. 6:4 is equivalent to today's Pledge of Allegiance: by it the Israelite affirmed his subjection to the covenant made by God with his fathers. The quotation from Lev. 19:18 as the second greatest commandment was not entirely new. Wisdom passages have been composed and handed on to generations of Israelites about the love of neighbor. But the scribe understood it well when he associated Lev. 19:18 with the passage in Hosea 6:6 -- a passage that has been linked to the Lord's welcoming attitude towards publicans and sinners (cf. Matthew 9:9-13)
.The Quotation From Hosea 6:6
The Passage in Hebrew and Greek "What I want is mercy not sacrifice." The original word used is dox hesed and can also mean "fidelity". Hesed is what we normally render as "grace" and one of its connotations is the devotion of someone of higher rank to someone lower in station (we find this kind of devotion in the centurion for his servant.). Thus the rendering in the LXX, eleov "eleos".
Hosea 6:6 in Context The context of the passage is in Hosea 5:15-6:6 which is actually a dialogue between God and Israel. In Hosea 5:15, Yahweh who has been offended by the irreligion of his own covenanted people vows to withdraw his presence from them. Israel responds with a cultic plea in "Hosea 6:1-3". This ritual prayer, however, betrays how much of the Baalistic religion has entered even into the piety of Israel: they address Yahweh as if He were as predictable as night and day or the onset of spring. In 6:4-5 Yahweh expresses his bitterness towards those who pay him lip service. Then in verse 6, Yahweh gives his answer to the prattle of a people which has been unfaithful to Him:
It is hesed I desire, not sacrifice;
knowledge of God, not burnt offerings.
The Use in Matthew's Call of Levi. In Matthew 9:9-13 where this passage is used in the call of Levi, it takes on a meaning that is quite new. The tax collector was for all purposes someone "low" -- he is one of those considered as "lost" and can never be saved. In the system of the Jerusalem Temple, the tax collector can never hope to be rendered clean because the money he has will never be accepted. Jesus in calling to himself the "unsaveable" was actually showing to everyone that it is not God's will that anyone be emarginated. The text from Hosea in fact reads: "It is fidelity I want, not sacrifice." Fidelity here is fidelity to the covenant. When Jesus points this text out to the Pharisees, he was actually challenging them to be faithful to the demands of the covenant with God who does not wish that anyone be lost, and fidelity to the covenant includes the requirement of mercy, of a graceful turning towards the unaccepted and unwelcomed.
Lev. 19:18 In Paul
The use of Hosea 6:6 in Mark 12 is the first time that the Hoseanic passage is used in a Gospel. As such, one can perhaps argue that Matthew began to use it in association with Jesus' attitude towards sinners precisely because of its association to Lev. 19:18 in Mark 12:33.
Lev. 19:18 is actually the conclusion of a longer set of precepts about "the neighbor" (Lev. 19:13-18) which is punctuated by the signature "I the Lord". The whole of verse 18 reads:
You shall not take vengeance
or bear any grudge against the sons of your people,
but you shall love your neighbor as yourself:
I am the Lord.
The parallelism in this verse equates "sons of your people" with "your neighbor". Love, here is still "national". The neighbor is then "one who is other than myself but belonging to my people." To love the neighbor as oneself is to love the other because we belong to the same corporate reality: "Israel." We underline "corporate" because of the particular way the Israelite regards himself: as part of one body. The previous precepts are all against outward deeds of injustice and oppression (vv. 13-16) and the more interior attitudes of the heart, hate (v. 17). And all these are summed up in the one line, "you shall love your neighbor as yourself."
Sins against the other, of oppression and injustice when balanced against offerings and sacrifices weight more. This is the attitude of the prophets from Amos to Jeremiah. There are passages for example where the prophet denounces sacrifices as impiety when these are expressions of a neglect of mercy and compassion, e.g. Am. 5:21-26, Isaiah 1:11-15; 58:1-9. This attitude is so ingrained in Israelite spirituality that Paul, one who derives from a family of Pharisees, would even identify the whole law with Lev. 19:18
For the whole law is fulfilled in one word:
You shall love your neighbor as yourself (Gal. 5:14)
"Love" writes Paul, "does no wrong to the neighbor; therefore love is the fulfilling of the Law." (Rom. 13:10)
Given the above considerations, it is not difficult to see why the scribe would agree to what Jesus said about the second of the commandments. Steeped in the spirituality of the fathers, he knew that the love of neighbor, the precept that sums up the commandments from the fifth to the tenth, verifies and extends the first four. For if the love of God is fidelity to the covenant, then that love becomes exteriorly manifested in the fulfillment of the commandments towards the neighbor: you shall not kill, you shall not commit adultery, you shall not steal, you shall not bear false witness, you shall not covet anything of thy neighbors, from his possessions to his wife... And all this is greater than any sacrifice or holocaust because Yahweh does not need such things (cf. Psalm 50). In Hosea's words, what He desires "is mercy, not sacrifice" (cf. Hosea 6:6 in the LXX)
