Mark 2:21

οὐδεὶς ἐπίβλημα. This parable and its companion are a further reply to the criticism in Mark 2:18. All three have the pair in this connexion. Both parables set forth the truth that a new spirit requires a new form, and the second expresses it more strongly than the first. Possibly the allusion to a wedding-feast in Mark 2:19 suggested lessons from garments and wine.

ἐπίβλ. ῥάκους�. A patch of undressed rag, a patch torn from new cloth. Lk. augments the folly by representing the patch as torn from a new garment. Nowhere else in Bibl. Grk does ἐπιράπτω occur. Vulg. here has adsumentum for ἐπίβλημα, in Mt. and Lk. commissura; other Latin renderings are insumentum (a) and immissura (d). Similarly, for αἴρει τὸ πλήρωμα and χεῖρον σχίσμα, Vulg. here has auferet supplementum and major scissura, in Mt. tollit plenitudinem (as if τὸ πλ. were acc.) and pejor scissura.

εἰ δὲ μή. “But if a man acts not so,” i.e. if he does commit this folly. Cf. John 14:2; Revelation 2:5. Syr-Sin. has “else the new filling up draws away the weakness of the worn-out one.”

αἴρει τὸ πλήρωμα�ʼ αὐτοῦ. The filling takes away from it. The new material shrinks and tears the old garment on which it is sewn.

τὸ καινὸν τοῦ παλαιοῦ. Explanatory of τὸ πλ. ἀπʼ αὐτοῦ, the new from the old (R.V.); or possibly, the ἀπό not being repeated, “the new complement of the old” (Swete, Gould). The contrast between παλαιός and καινός is found Ephesians 4:23; Hebrews 8:13. See Westcott on Hebrews 8:8.