The Pharisees and scribes saw the disciples eat without the ritual washing, and "they found fault" (Mark 7:2). They did not take it up with the disciples, though. Gill observes that they asked Christ Himself, "for their chief view was to find fault, and quarrel with him." Matthew Henry notes that they had come from Jerusalem "to pick quarrels with our Saviour there." He also points out what their wording reveals: they did not openly ask why the disciples did not do as they did, though that was what they meant, "coveting to make themselves the standard." The issue was not cleanliness but loyalty to tradition. As Barnes puts it, they accused Him of violating their traditions, "as though they were obligatory."

Jesus did not defend the disciples' table manners. He turned the question back on the questioners: "Well hath Esaias prophesied of you hypocrites, as it is written, This people honoureth me with their lips, but their heart is far from me" (Mark 7:6). He charged them with "laying aside the commandment of God" to "hold the tradition of men" (Mark 7:8). His example was Corban: Moses said, "Honour thy father and thy mother," but their tradition let a man call his support "a gift" and so be free of helping his parents (Mark 7:10-12). Then He called the people and taught that "There is nothing from without a man, that entering into him can defile him" (Mark 7:14-15).

Mark explains the custom for readers who did not know it: the Pharisees and all the Jews would not eat unless they washed their hands "oft," and they washed cups, pots, brasen vessels, and tables as well (Mark 7:3-4). Barnes says the hands "were considered defiled, or polluted, unless they were washed previous to every meal." The washing was ceremonial, not hygienic.

Barnes defines "the tradition of the elders" as "What had been handed down, not what was delivered by writing in the law of Moses, but what had been communicated from father to son, as being proper and binding." The "elders" were the ancients of earlier generations, not the old men then living. The KJV "unwashen" follows the Textus Receptus, which reads aniptois, "unwashed." Other Greek editions read koinais, "common" or "defiled," which is why the ESV says "defiled hands." "Corban" is explained in the text itself: "that is to say, a gift" (Mark 7:11).

This question reveals what God cares about most. The Pharisees measured holiness by hands and cups. Jesus, quoting Isaiah, measured it by the heart: "their heart is far from me" (Mark 7:6). Worship that keeps human rules while ignoring God's commands is "in vain" (Mark 7:7).

Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary sees a larger purpose here: "One great design of Christ's coming was, to set aside the ceremonial law; and to make way for this, he rejects the ceremonies men added to the law of God's making." In the verses that follow, Jesus moves from hand washing to the real source of defilement: "from within, out of the heart of men, proceed evil thoughts" (Mark 7:21). The accusers came to expose the disciples, and Jesus exposed what was in the heart of all of us.