“Corban (that is, given to God)”
But you say that if a man says to his father or mother, 'Whatever you would have received from me is Corban' (that is, a gift devoted to God), he is no longer permitted to do anything for his father or mother. (Mark 7:11–12 BSB)
What it sounds like today
An obscure hypothetical about donations.
The cultural key
This is the Corban vow (Mark names it): declaring assets 'dedicated to God,' a formula that made them legally unavailable to others while the vower could often go on enjoying them. A son could thus vow away exactly the resources his aging parents would have claimed, and teachers held the vow binding even against the command to honor father and mother. A pious-sounding legal instrument for disinheriting your parents. Mark preserves the actual legal word, Corban (Hebrew qorban, an offering), where Matthew paraphrases; the word has been found inscribed on temple-period vessels. The formula's force is starker in Mark too: 'you no longer permit him to do anything for his father or mother.'
Recovered meaning
Jesus' exhibit A of tradition strangling Torah: a loophole that weaponizes religious language to void one of the Ten Commandments. The fiercest words in the chapter, 'you have made void the word of God,' land on a technically legal act.