[3] The event took place on a subsequent Sabbath to the one mentioned in Mark 2:23-28, possibly the next Sabbath: the American Bible Society's Contemporary English Version interprets the passage this way: The next time Jesus went into the synagogue ...,[4] as does the biblical commentator George Maclear.

[5] "Some people", probably the Pharisees,[6] who were mentioned in Mark 2:24, 27, were there specifically waiting to see if Jesus would heal someone on the Sabbath, so that they could accuse him of breaking it.

Rabbis of the time would allow healing on the Sabbath only if the person was in great danger, a situation his hand would not qualify for.

[2] The Jewish Encyclopedia article on Jesus notes: "... stricter rabbis allowed only the saving of life to excuse the slightest curtailment of the Sabbath rest (Shab.

[7] Jesus asks the people "Which is lawful on the Sabbath: to do good or to do evil, to save life or to kill?"

Methodist founder John Wesley suggested that his adversaries were already seeking occasion to kill him.

Many other stories of healing at the time involved the healer doing work in some way to effect a cure as compared to this quick almost effortless action here.

[10] According to Mark, this miracle is the spur which sets the Pharisees, as well as the Herodians, against Jesus, having them go out after this and plot to kill him.

The Herodian party was not a religious grouping, but according to Maclear it did hold Sadducean opinions.

[5] Christopher Tuckett observes that a partnership between the Pharisees and the supporters of Herod Antipas would have been historically "implausible".

[14] Jesus then "withdraws", ἀνεχώρησεν (anechōrēsen), and goes down by a lake, presumably the Sea of Galilee, and people follow him there.

Some writers, such as the American commentator Albert Barnes, see the word as meaning flight, as it comes after Mark talks about the plot against Jesus, "... to the lonely regions which surrounded the sea, where he might be in obscurity, and avoid their designs against his life",[15] but it could just as easily mean leaving Capernaum to go to the nearby sea.

[2] Mark says the people had come from "... Judea, Jerusalem, Idumea, and the regions across the Jordan and around Tyre and Sidon".

Whether these people were non-Jews is unclear as the non-Jewish areas listed also contained Jewish populations.

Verse 6:30 may be the only time he uses the word, which is most frequently (68 out of 79) used by Luke the Evangelist and Paul of Tarsus, see Strong's G652.

Mark pictures Jesus as drawing large multitudes to his teaching, and shifts from mountains to lakes to houses at will, creating an evocative landscape that some find lacking plausibility,[18] although the area contains such geographic features.

[21] This might also indicate that by the time of the writing of the Gospels the exact recollection of the "minor" Apostles had become uncertain, and that there is no "Jude Thaddaeus", a creation of later hagiography.

[23] Mark does not explain why Jesus gave Simon the name Peter, meaning rock.

Iscariot might be Judas' last name or might be a reference to where he came from, meaning "man of Kerioth"[23] It may also be derived from sicarii.

[27] The Jesus Seminar feels the version in Luke 11:15–17 is "red" ("authentic") and calls it "the Beelzebul controversy".

[29] His first answer to the charge, that a "house divided" cannot stand, has become a common piece of wisdom, the most famous modern example is Lincoln's use of this phrase during the 1858 senatorial election campaign against Stephen Douglas.

Lincoln used the metaphor of a "house divided" to describe the situation of the United States on the eve of the Civil War.

John, while mentioning none of these incidents, relates in chapter 7 how "... even his own brothers did not believe in him" because he would not go to the Feast of Tabernacles with them and perform miracles, although he later goes there in secret.

Mark has highlighted two reactions to Jesus and his teaching and acts: one of faith, such as that of his followers, and one of disbelief and hostility.