Luke 20:1-8. Sudden Question of the Priests and Scribes. 1. _on one of those days_ -Those" is omitted in א, B, D, L, Q. By careful comparison of the Evangelists we find that after the Triumphal Entry into Jerusalem on Palm Sunday, our Lord was received in the Temple by the children probably those... [ Continue Reading ]
_by what authority_ Rather, by what kind of authority. The implication is -you are only called a Rabbi by courtesyyou are not a -pupil of the wise you are not a priest, or a scribe, or a political functionary. Yet you usurp functions which rather belong to Caiaphas, or the President of the Sanhedrin... [ Continue Reading ]
_I will also ask you one thing_ Rather, A QUESTION. The divine _readiness_and (if we may be allowed the expression) _presence of mind_ of Jesus was most conspicuously shewn on this perilous day and the next day. _and answer me_ We see from St Mark (Luke 11:30) that this emphatic expression came _a... [ Continue Reading ]
_was it from heaven_, _or of men?_ Rather, FROM MEN. This was equivalent to the question with which surely the teachers of Israel should _at once_have been provided with an answer was the Baptist a prophet or a seducer? If they could not answer this question they were obviously _incompetent to decid... [ Continue Reading ]
_they reasoned with themselves_ They went aside to discuss together what answer they should give. This deliberation rendered their confession of ignorance more glaring and more fatal to their claims. _Why then believed ye him not?_ See Luke 7:30. It never occurred to them to speak with the courage... [ Continue Reading ]
_all the people will stone us_ The word is a strong compound _katalithasei_used here only -will stone us to death. Herod had been daunted by the same dread, Matthew 14:5; Jos. _Antt._xviii. 5, § _2._ It illustrates the furious bursts of fanaticism to which the Jews were liable (John 8:59; John 10:31... [ Continue Reading ]
_they could not tell_ Rather, did not know. A wise answer in cases of real uncertainty, as the Hebrew proverb taught "_Learn to say I do not know;"_but a base answer when they _had_an opinion but did not dare to avow it; and doubly base in the matter of a question on which it was their plain duty to... [ Continue Reading ]
_Neither tell I you_ If they were incompetent to decide as to the authority of the Prophet who had saluted Jesus as the Messiah, they were obviously incompetent to decide as to _His_authority.... [ Continue Reading ]
- 19. The Parable of the Labourers in the Vineyard. 9. _to the people_ but still in the hearing of the priests and scribes who had only withdrawn a little into the background (Luke 20:19; Matthew 21:32; Matthew 21:45). St Luke here omits the Parable of the Two Sons (Matthew 21:28-32), in which, as... [ Continue Reading ]
_he sent a servant_ The various -servants" are the Judges, the better Priests, and the Prophets. _that they should give him of the fruit_ The payment is in _kind,_on the _mitayer_system. __... [ Continue Reading ]
_And again he sent another_ Jeremiah 44:4. Literally, "_And he added to send another_" a Hebraism, Luke 19:11; Acts 12:3; Genesis 4:2 _entreated him shamefully_ There is a gradation in their impious audacity. In St Matthew (Matthew 21:35) it is (1) beat, (2) killed, (3) stoned. In St Mark (Luke 12:... [ Continue Reading ]
_cast him out_ On this treatment of God's messengers see on Luke 13:33-34 and Nehemiah 9:26; 1 Kings 22:24-27; 2 Chronicles 24:19-22; Acts 7:52; 1 Thessalonians 2:15; Hebrews 11:36-37, where the same charge is reiterated.... [ Continue Reading ]
_What shall I do?_ Genesis 1:26; Genesis 6:7. _I will send my beloved son_ who "took on Him the form of a servant." Our Lord's teaching respecting His own divine dignity advanced in distinctness as the end was approaching. _it may be_ Literally, "_perhaps."_It occurs here alone in the N. T. and on... [ Continue Reading ]
_that the inheritance may be ours_ "His Son, whom he hath appointed heir of all things," Hebrews 1:2. Comp. John 11:47-53. "They killed that they might possess, and because they killed they lost." Aug.... [ Continue Reading ]
_cast him out of the vineyard_ This may involve an allusion to Christ suffering "without the gate," Hebrews 13:12-13; John 19:17. The prophecy was meant if possible at the last hour to prevent the guilt of its own fulfilment (2 Kings 8:12-13).... [ Continue Reading ]
_He shall come and destroy_ In Matthew 21:41 this is the answer of the people themselves to our Lord's question. _shall give the vineyard to others_ "Lo, we turn to the Gentiles," Acts 13:46. _God forbid_ Literally, _"Might it not be!"_Heb. _Chalilah._In this utterance we hear the groan oi the Jewi... [ Continue Reading ]
_he beheld them_ Rather, looking fixedly on them, to add solemnity to His reference to their own Scriptures. _that is written_ He here refers them to the very Psalm from which the Hosanna of the multitude had been taken. _The stone which the builders rejected_ This is a quotation from Psalms 118:2... [ Continue Reading ]
_shall fall upon that stone_ as the Jews did from the first, 1 Corinthians 1:23. See Isaiah 8:14-15. _shall be broken_ Literally, "_shall be sorely bruised."_ it shall fall as it did on the finally impenitent Jews after Christ's Ascension. _it will grind him to powder_ Literally, _"it shall winno... [ Continue Reading ]
_against them_ This decidedly shews the _primary_sense of the Parable. As yet they hardly realized its wider significance. So when the priests and rulers saw that Jeremiah spoke against them, "Come," said they, "and let us devise devices against Jeremiah...come, and let us smite him with the tongue,... [ Continue Reading ]
20-26. Question about the Tribute Money. 20. _And they watched him._ For the word used see Luke 6:7; Luke 14:1; Luke 17:20. The incident now related took place on the Tuesday in Passion-week the Day of Temptations, or insidious questions the last and greatest day of the public ministry of Jesus. On... [ Continue Reading ]
_Master, we know,_&c. There is something in this fawning malice, and treacherous flattery, almost as repulsive as the kiss of Judas. _neither acceptest thou the person of any_ Galatians 2:6. The word for -person" is _prosopon_, -a maskit is as though they would imply that Jesus was not only an Impar... [ Continue Reading ]
_is it lawful for us to give tribute unto Cesar_, _or no?_ The question was devised with so superlative a craft that it seemed impossible for our Lord to escape. If He said -It is lawful," the _Pharisees_ hoped at once to undermine His popularity with the multitude. If He said -It is not lawful" (De... [ Continue Reading ]
_Why tempt ye mey_&c. Our Lord saw at once that it was a cunning test-question meant only to entrap Him. Not for a moment did these fawning spies deceive him though "Neither man nor angel can discern Hypocrisy, the only evil that walks Invisible, except to God alone." These Pharisees were illust... [ Continue Reading ]
_Shew me a penny_ A denarius. See on Luke 7:41. We see from Mark 12:15-16 that they were obliged to borrow the heathen coin from one of the tables of the money-changers. They would only carry Jewish money in their own girdles. _Whose image and superscription hath it?_ On one side would be the once... [ Continue Reading ]
_unto Cesar the things which be Cesar's_ St Paul very clearly enforces the same duty in Romans 13:6-7. The -tribute" in Matthew 17. 24 was quite different; it was the Temple didrachma. _and unto God the things which be God's_ To Caesar you owe what he demands of _his own_coinage; to the Temple the... [ Continue Reading ]
_they marvelled at his answer_ Comp. Luke 2:47. They thought that escape was impossible for Him; and yet He instantly shatters their deeply-laid plot to pieces by shewing that they Pharisees and Herodians alike _had absolutely decided the question already_(according to their own rule "He whose coin... [ Continue Reading ]
27-40. Discomfiture of the Sadducees. 27. _certain of the Sadducees_ Matthew 3:7. On the Sadducees see the Excursus on Jewish Sects. They were undeterred by the discomfiture of the Pharisees and Herodians, and perhaps their plot had been so arranged as coincidently to humiliate our Lord, if they co... [ Continue Reading ]
_Moses wrote unto us_ The law of levirate marriage. Deuteronomy 23:4. See on Luke 3:23.... [ Continue Reading ]
_There were therefore seven brethren_ In Matthew 22:25 it runs "there were _with us,"_as though they were alluding to an actual case.... [ Continue Reading ]
_And the second took her_ This question about the husband of the "Sevenfold widow" was one of the materialistic objections to the Resurrection, which as an insipid -difficulty" had often been discussed in Jewish schools. It was excessively commonplace, and even if Jesus had given the answer which co... [ Continue Reading ]
_whose wife?_ The forcible order of B, L is "_the woman_, _therefore_, _in the resurrection_, _whose wife does she become of the seven?"_ for seven Rather, for the seven.... [ Continue Reading ]
_The children of this world_ i.e. all who live in the present dispensation. Here, as often elsewhere, the word rendered -world" is _aeon_, which properly means -age." It is not the _kosmos_or material Universe, but the Universe regarded subjectively, i.e. the Time-world.... [ Continue Reading ]
_accounted worthy_ Comp. Luke 21:36; Revelation 3:4; 2 Thessalonians 1:5. _Sane magna dignatio._Bengel. _to obtain that world_ i.e. the genuine inheritors of the future aeon beyond the grave, Luke 14:14; Philippians 3:11. The answer of Jesus is not only full of tolerant condescension, but also of a... [ Continue Reading ]
_neither can they die any more_ Rather, for neither, &c. There is no marriage and no more birth. "There shall be no more death," Revelation 21:4. "The dead shall be raised _incorruptible_," 1 Corinthians 15:52. _equal unto the angels_ Like the angels in being immortal, but superior to them in privil... [ Continue Reading ]
_are raised_ Literally, "_are being raised"_the present of eternal certainty. _even Moses_ The argument is _d fortiori_, as though our Lord would say, "the Prophets prove it abundantly, but I will not quote them since you attach higher importance to the Law. You quote Moses to throw doubt on the Re... [ Continue Reading ]
_he is not a God of the dead, but of the living_ Rather, OF dead BEINGS, BUT OF LIVING BEINGS. The Pharisees had endeavoured to draw proofs of immortality from the Law, i.e. from Numbers 15:31. In later times they borrowed this proof from Christ, lighting their torches at the sun though they hated i... [ Continue Reading ]
_Then certain of the scribes_ Even the Pharisees could not fail to see the luminous wisdom and spiritual depth of our Lord's reply, and while _all_of them would rejoice at this unanswerable confutation of their hereditary opponents, some of them would have the candour to express their approval. Trut... [ Continue Reading ]
_they durst not ask him any question_ The total collapse of their stratagems enhanced our Lord's peril, by shewing how impossible it was for these rich and learned "pupils of the wise" to pose themselves as superiors to Christ in wisdom and knowledge. Assumed contempt was deepened into real hatred,... [ Continue Reading ]
- 47. The Scribes, Sadducees, and Pharisees reduced to a Confession of Ignorance. 41. _How say they that Christ is Davids son?_ Rather, the Christ. See John 7:42; Psalms 132:11; Jeremiah 23:5; Micah 5:2.... [ Continue Reading ]
_in the book of Psalms_ Psalms 110:1. The Jews universally regarded it as a Messianic Psalm, and in Luke 20:3 the LXX. renders, "From the womb, _before the morning star_, did I beget thee." _The Lord said to my Lord_ In the Hebrew it is "Jehovah said to my Lord (_Adonai_)." _Sit thou on my right h... [ Continue Reading ]
_till I make thine enemies thy footstool_ "He must reign till He hath put all enemies under His feet," 1 Corinthians 15:25.... [ Continue Reading ]
_how is he then his son?_ To a Jew it was inconceivable that a father, or ancestor, should call his son "Lord." The only possible solution that the Messiah was only "made of the seed of David _after the flesh_" (Romans 1:3) was one which they had never chosen to accept. They, like the Ebionites, exp... [ Continue Reading ]
_in the audience of all the people_ Rather, WHILE ALL THE PEOPLE WERE LISTENING. Here followed the final rupture of Jesus with the authorities political, social, and religious of His nation. They had now made their own condemnation inevitable, and had justly provoked that great Denunciation on which... [ Continue Reading ]
_to walk in long robes_ with special conspicuousness of fringes, Numbers 15:38-40. "The supreme tribunal," said R. Nachman, "will duly punish _hypocrites who wrap their talliths round them_to appear, what they are not, true Pharisees." _greetings in the markets_ See on Luke 11:43: _Videri quam esse... [ Continue Reading ]
_which devour widows" houses_ Josephus expressly tells us that the Pharisees had large female followings, and an absolute sway in the Gynaekonitis or women's apartments, Jos. _Antt._xviii. 2, § 4. _for a shew_ Rather, IN PRETENCE. Their hypocrisy was so notorious that even the Talmud records the wa... [ Continue Reading ]