Luke 5:1-11. The Draught of Fishes. The Calling of four Disciples 1. _pressed upon him_ St Mark (as is his wont) uses a stronger word to express the physical inconvenience, and adds that sometimes at any rate, it was with a view to touch Him and be healed (Luke 3:9-10). _to hear_ The more probable... [ Continue Reading ]
_ships_ Rather, BOATS (_ploiaria_). _standing_ i. e. lying at anchor. _were washing their nets_ If we combine these notices with those in Mark 1:16-20; Matthew 4:18-22, we must suppose that during a discourse of Jesus the four disciples were fishing with a drawnet (_amphiblestron_) not far from th... [ Continue Reading ]
_he sat down_ The ordinary attitude (as we have seen, Luke 4:20) for a sermon.... [ Continue Reading ]
_when he had left speaking_ The aorist implies that no sooner was His sermon ended than He at once thought, not of His own fatigue, but of His poor disappointed followers.... [ Continue Reading ]
_let down_ Rather, LET YE DOWN. The first command is in the singular, and is addressed to Peter only as "the _pilot_of the Galilaean Lake." _Master_ The word is not _Rabbi_as in the other Evangelists, a word which Gentiles would not have understood but _Epistata_(in its occasional classic sense of... [ Continue Reading ]
_a great multitude of fishes_ Of this as of all miracles we may say with St Gregory _Dum facit miraculum prodit mysterium_in other words the miracle was an acted parable, of which the significance is explained in Matthew 13:47. _brake_ Rather, WERE BEGINNING TO BREAK (_dierregnuto_). Contrast this... [ Continue Reading ]
_they beckoned_ It is one of the inimitable touches of truthfulness in the narrative that the instinct of work prevails at first over the sense that a miraculous power has been exerted. _unto their partners_ The word used is _metochois_, meaning fellow-workers. _in the other ship_ St Luke uses the... [ Continue Reading ]
_When Simon Peter saw it_ Apparently it was only when he saw the boats sinking to the gunwale with their load of fish that the tenderness and majesty of the miracle flashed upon his mind. _Depart from me_ The words imply _leave my boat_(_exelthe_) and go from me. Here again is the stamp of truthfuln... [ Continue Reading ]
_he was astonished_ Rather, ASTONISHMENT SEIZED HIM.... [ Continue Reading ]
_partners_ Here _koinonoi_, -associates" in profits, &c. _Fear not_ Accordingly, on another occasion, when Peter sees Jesus walking on the sea, so far from crying _Depart from me_, he cries "Lord, if it be Thou, bid me come to Thee on the water" (Matthew 14:28); and when he saw the Risen Lord stand... [ Continue Reading ]
_they forsook all_ The sacrifice was a willing one, but they were not unconscious of its magnitude; and it was the allusion to it by Peter which called forth the memorable promise of the hundredfold (Luke 18:28-30; Mark 10:29-30). We gather from St Mark that Zebedee (Zabdia) and his two sons had hir... [ Continue Reading ]
The Healing of a Leper 12. _a certain city_ Probably the village of Hattîn, for we learn from St Matthew's definite notice that this incident took place on descending from the Mount of Beatitudes (_Kurn Hattîn_), see Matthew 8:1-4; Mark 1:40-45. Hence chronologically the call of Matthew, the choosi... [ Continue Reading ]
_and touched him_ This was a distinct violation of the _letter_, but not of course of the _spirit_of the Mosaic law (Leviticus 13:46; Numbers 5:2). In order to prevent the accidental violation of this law, lepers, until the final stage of the disease, were then as now secluded from all living contac... [ Continue Reading ]
_he charged him to tell no man_ These injunctions to reticence marked especially the early part of the ministry. See Luke 4:35; Luke 5:14; Luke 8:56. The reasons were probably (i) personal to the healed sufferer, lest his inward thankfulness should be dissipated by the idle and boastful gossip of cu... [ Continue Reading ]
_so much the more went there a fame abroad_ It is clear therefore that the leper disobeyed his strict injunction. Such disobedience was natural, and perhaps venial; but certainly not commendable. _great multitudes came together … to be healed_ Thus in part defeating our Lord's purpose.... [ Continue Reading ]
_he withdrew himself into the wilderness, and prayed_ Rather, BUT HE HIMSELF WAS RETIRING IN THE WILDERNESS AND PRAYING. St Mark (Mark 1:45) gives us the clearest view of the fact by telling us that the leper blazoned abroad his cure in every direction, "_so that He was no longer able to enter openl... [ Continue Reading ]
The Healing of the Paralytic 17. _on a certain day_ The vagueness of the phrase shews that no stress is here laid on chronological order. In Matthew 9:2-8; Mark 2:3-12 the scene is in a house in Capernaum, and the time (apparently) after the healing of the Gadarene demoniac on the Eastern side of t... [ Continue Reading ]
_men_ four bearers, Mark 2:3. _taken with a palsy_ The word used by Matthew (Matthew 9:1-8) and Mark (Mark 2:1-12) is "paralytic," but as that is not a classic word, St Luke uses "having been paralysed" (_paralelumenos_). _they sought means to bring him in_ St Mark explains that the crowd was so g... [ Continue Reading ]
_they went upon the housetop_ A very easy thing to do because there was in most houses an outside staircase to the roof, Matthew 24:17. Eastern houses are often only one storey high, and when they are built on rising ground, the roof is often nearly on a level with the street above. Our Lord may hav... [ Continue Reading ]
_Man_ St Mark has "Son," and St Matthew "Cheer up, son," which were probably the exact words used by Christ. _are forgiven thee_ Rather, HAVE BEEN FORGIVEN THEE, i. e. now and henceforth. In this instance our Lord's power of reading the heart must have shewn Him that there was a connexion between pa... [ Continue Reading ]
_Who is this_ The word used for -this person" is contemptuous. St Matthew puts it still more barely, -This fellow blasphemes," and to indulge such thoughts and feelings was distinctly "to think evil thoughts." _blasphemies_ In classical Greek the word means abuse and injurious talk, but the Jews us... [ Continue Reading ]
_when Jesus perceived_ Rather, JESUS, RECOGNISING. _their thoughts_ Rather, THEIR REASONINGS.... [ Continue Reading ]
_Whether is easier, to say_ An impostor might _say_-thy sins have been forgiven" without any visible sign whether his words had any power or not; no one could by a word make a man -rise and walk" who had not received power from God. But our Lord had purposely used words which while they brought the... [ Continue Reading ]
_the Son of man Ben-Adam_has a _general_sense of any human being (Job 25:6, &c.); in a _special_sense in the O. T. it is nearly 90 times applied to Ezekiel, though _never_used by himself _of_himself. In the N. T. it is 80 times used by Christ, but always _by_Himself, except in passages which imply H... [ Continue Reading ]
_took up that whereon he lay_ This circumstance is emphasized in all three narratives to contrast his previous helplessness, "borne of four," with his present activity. He now carried the bed which had carried him, and "the proof of his sickness became the proof of his cure." The labour would have b... [ Continue Reading ]
_were filled with fear_ See on Luke 5:8.... [ Continue Reading ]
The Call and Feast of Levi. On Fasting. The New and the Old 27. _and saw_ Rather, HE OBSERVED. _named Levi_ It may be regarded as certain that Levi is the same person as the Evangelist St Matthew. The name Matthew (probably a corruption of Mattihijah) means, like Nathanael, Theodore, Doritheus, Ad... [ Continue Reading ]
_he left all_ It is most probable that St Matthew, like the sons of Jona and of Zebedee, had known something of our Lord before this call. If Alphaeus (Matthew 10:3; Mark 2:14) be the same as the father of James the Less, and the same as Clopas (John 19:25) the husband of Mary, and if this Mary was... [ Continue Reading ]
_made him a great feast_ This shews that Matthew had something to sacrifice when he "left all." The word rendered -feast" literally means -reception." _a great company of publicans_ Comp. Luke 15:1. The tax-gatherers in their deep, and not wholly undeserved unpopularity, would be naturally touched... [ Continue Reading ]
_their scribes and Pharisees_ Some MSS. read - _the Pharisees and their scribes_," i. e. those who were the authorised teachers of the company present. The scribes (_Sopherîm_from _Sepher_-a book") were a body which had sprung up after the exile, whose function it was to copy and explain the Law. Th... [ Continue Reading ]
_They that are whole_ Our Lord's words had both an obvious and a deeper meaning. As regards the ordinary duties and respectability of life these provincial scribes and Pharisees were really "whole" as compared with the flagrant "sinfulness" of the tax-gatherers and "sinners." In another and even a m... [ Continue Reading ]
_I came not to call_ Rather, I HAVE NOT COME. _the righteous_ This also was true in two senses. Our Lord came to seek and save the lost. He came not to the elder son but to the prodigal; not to the folded flock but to the straying sheep. In a lower and external sense these Pharisees were really, as... [ Continue Reading ]
_And they said_ St Luke here omits the remarkable fact that the disciples of John, who still formed a distinct body, joined the Pharisees in asking this question. It is clear that they were sometimes actuated by a not unnatural human jealousy, from which their great teacher was wholly free (John 3:2... [ Continue Reading ]
_the children of the bridechamber_ The friends of the bridegroom the paranymphs who accompanied him to meet the bride and her maidens; Judges 14:11. The question would be specially forcible to John's disciples who had heard him speak of "the joy of the friend of the bridegroom" (John 3:29). _fast_... [ Continue Reading ]
_the days will come_ Rather, BUT THERE WILL COME DAYS. _when the bridegroom shall be taken away from them_ Rather, AND WHEN (καὶ A, B, D). Comp. John 16:16, "A little while and ye shall not see me." The verb used _aparthê_occurs nowhere else in the N. T., and clearly hints at a violent end. This is... [ Continue Reading ]
_a piece of a new garment upon an old_ Rather, NO ONE RENDING A PATCH FROM A NEW GARMENT PUTTETH IT UPON AN OLD GARMENT. The word σχίσας -rending" though omitted in our version is found in א, A, B, D, L. Our Lord delighted in using these homely metaphors which brought the truth within the comprehens... [ Continue Reading ]
_new wine into old bottles_ Rather, WINE-SKINS. The skins used for holding wine were apt to get seamed and cracked, and old wineskins would tend to set up the process of fermentation. They could contain the motionless, not expand with the fermenting. To explain this passage, see Excursus III.... [ Continue Reading ]
_new wine … into new bottles_ Rather, NEW (νέος) WINE INTO FRESH (καινοὺς) WINE-SKINS. The new spirit requires fresh forms for its expression and preservation; the vigour of youth cannot be bound in the swaddling-bands of infancy. It is impossible to be _both_-under the LAW " and -under grace." The... [ Continue Reading ]
_having drunk old_ This verse is peculiar to St Luke, and is a characteristic of his fondness for all that is most tender and gracious. It is an expression of considerateness towards the inveterate prejudices engendered by custom and system: a kind allowance for the reluctance of the Pharisees and t... [ Continue Reading ]