Luke 10:30

‘Jesus made answer and said, “A certain man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho, and he fell among robbers, who both stripped him and beat him, and departed, leaving him half dead.”

The picture would be a familiar one to all Jews. There was always a possibility when travelling the mountain roads of Palestine of meeting robbers and bandits, and it was especially so on this road, as it twisted and turned through rocky mountainous country, surrounded on all sides by bandit hide-outs, which descended rapidly to Jericho and provided many good places of ambush. And many a Jew had been found lying in this mountain road, either dead or dying, stripped of all his possessions. Foolish or impoverished was the man who walked it alone. And it is a vivid picture of Israel who had also been stripped bare by robbers. Isaiah could ask the question, “Who gave Jacob for a spoil, and Israel to the robbers? Did not the Lord, He against whom we have sinned? For they would not walk in His ways, neither were they obedient to His Law” (Isaiah 42:24). And Jeremiah could add that even God's Temple itself had become ‘a den of robbers' (Jeremiah 7:11). Being made a spoil and being robbed very much pointed to Israel.