Mark 2:8

8 Right away Jesus understood in His spirit that they were reasoning like this within themselves and said to them, "Why are you reasoning these things in your hearts? ^[a]

Mark 2:8 Meaning and Commentary

Mark 2:8

And immediately, when Jesus perceived in his Spirit
"His own Spirit", as the Vulgate Latin, Syriac, Arabic, and Ethiopic versions read; not his human soul, nor the holy Spirit of God, though both may be said to be his Spirit; but his divine nature, in and by which he knew all things, even the most sacred thoughts of men's hearts: and as soon as ever the above thoughts were conceived in the minds of the Scribes and Pharisees, they were perceived by him, and told to them,

that they so reasoned within themselves; he said unto them, why
reason ye these things in your hearts?
thereby reproving them, not for reasoning and concluding in their own minds, that none but God can forgive sins; but for imputing blasphemy to him, for pronouncing this man's sins pardoned; he being God, as well as man, of which his knowing the thoughts and reasonings of their minds might have been a convincing proof.

Mark 2:8 In-Context

6 But some of the scribes were sitting there, thinking to themselves:

7 "Why does He speak like this? He's blaspheming! Who can forgive sins but God alone?"

8 Right away Jesus understood in His spirit that they were reasoning like this within themselves and said to them, "Why are you reasoning these things in your hearts?

9 Which is easier: to say to the paralytic, 'Your sins are forgiven,' or to say, 'Get up, pick up your stretcher, and walk'?

10 But so you may know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins," He told the paralytic,

Footnotes

• [a] Or minds