Luke 6:1

ἐν σαββάτῳ δευτεροπρώτῳ ACD, La[125] Ti[126] δευτεροπρώτῳ is omitted by אBL, W.H[127] See the note.

[125] La. Lachmann.
[126] Ti. Tischendorf.
[127] W.H. Westcott and Hort.

1. ἐγένετο … καὶ ἔτιλλον. This is a Hebraism. The ἐγένετο is really pleonastic (comp. Luke 5:1; Luke 5:12; Luke 9:51, and for the construction without καί, Luke 1:8; Luke 1:41; Luke 2:1). The idiom is specially common in St Luke owing to the Aramaic documents which he used. In Classic Greek we should have had simply διεπορεύετο and ἔτυχε διαπορευόμενος.

ἐν σαββάτῳ δευτεροπρώτῳ. ‘On the second-first sabbath.’ St Luke gives this unique note of time without a word to explain it, and scholars have not—and probably never will—come to an agreement as to its exact meaning. The only analogy to the word is the δευτεροδεκάτη or second tenth in Jerome on Ezekiel 45 and δευτερέσχατος last but one in Heliodorus. Of the ten or more suggested explanations, omitting those which are wholly arbitrary and impossible, we may mention the following.

α. The first Sabbath of the second month (Wetstein).

β. The first Sabbath after the second day of the Passover (Scaliger, Ewald, De Wette, Neander, Keim, &c.).

γ. The first Sabbath of the second year in the Sabbatic cycle of seven years (Wieseler).

δ. The first Sabbath of the Ecclesiastical year. The Jewish year had two beginnings, the civil year began in Tisri (mid-September); the ecclesiastical year in Nisan (mid-March).

The first-first Sabbath may therefore have been a name given to the first Sabbath of the civil year in autumn; and second-first to the first Sabbath of the ecclesiastical year in spring (Godet).

ε. The Pentecostal Sabbath—the Paschal Sabbath being regarded as the protoproton or first-first (Corn. à Lapide).

These and similar explanations must be left as unsupported conjectures in the absence of any decisive trace of such Sabbatical nomenclature among the Jews. It is idle to attempt an explanation of a word so obscure that not a single datum for its use is furnished by the LX[131], by Philo, by Josephus or even in that enormous cyclopaedia of micrology, the Talmud. It is still more idle when the word is almost demonstrably spurious. We can see how it may have found its way into the MSS., and it must be regarded as certain that St Luke writing for Gentiles would either not have used such a word at all, or at any rate not have used it without an explanation. Even Chrysostom and Theophylact have nothing but untenable suggestions to offer. But we may remark that

[131] LXX Septuagint.

(1) The reading itself cannot be regarded as probable, much less certain, since it is omitted in אBL, and in several important versions, including the Syriac and Coptic. Hence of modern editors Tregelles and Meyer omit it; Lachmann and Alford put it in brackets. Its insertion may be conceivably accounted for by marginal annotations. Thus if a copyist put ‘first’ in the margin with reference to the “other” Sabbath of Luke 6:6 it would have been corrected by some succeeding copyist into ‘second’ with reference to Luke 4:31; and the two may have been combined in hopeless perplexity. If it be said that this is unlikely, it seems at least equally unlikely that it should either wilfully or accidentally have been omitted if it formed part of the original text. And why should St Luke writing for Gentiles use without explanation a word to them perfectly meaningless and so highly technical that in all the folio volumes of Jewish Literature there is not a single trace of it?

(2) The exact discovery of what the word means is only important as a matter of archaeology. Happily there can be no question as to the time of year at which the incident took place. The narrative seems to imply that the ears which the disciples plucked and rubbed were ears of wheat not of barley. Now the first ripe sheaf of barley was offered at the Passover (in spring) and the first ripe wheat sheaf at Pentecost (fifty days later). Wheat would ripen earlier in the rich deep hollow of Gennesareth. In any case therefore the time of year was spring or early summer, and the Sabbath (whether the reading be correct or not) was probably some Sabbath in the month Nisan.

διαπορεύεσθαι αὐτὸν διὰ σπορίμων. Comp. Matthew 12:1-8; Mark 2:23-28. St Mark uses the curious expression that “He went along through the corn fields” apparently in a path between two fields—“and His disciples began to make a way by plucking the corn ears.” All that we can infer from this is that Jesus was walking apart from His Apostles, and that He did not Himself pluck the corn.

ἔτιλλον … τοὺς στάχυας. This shews their hunger and poverty, especially if the corn was barley. They were permitted by the Law to do this—“When thou comest into the standing-corn of thy neighbour, then thou mayest pluck the ears with thine hand,” Deuteronomy 23:25. St Matthew in his “began to pluck” shews how eagerly and instantly the Pharisees clutched at the chance of finding fault.

ψώχοντες ταῖς χερσίν. It was this act which constituted the gravamen of their offence.