Luke 9:53

they did not receive him The aorist implies that they at once rejected Him. The Samaritans had shewn themselves heretofore not ill-disposed (John 4:39), and St Luke himself delights to record favourable notices of them (Luke 10:33; Luke 17:18). But (i) there was always a recrudescence of hatred between the Jews and the Samaritans at the recurrence of the annual feasts, (ii) Their national jealousy would not allow them to receive a Messiah whose goal was not Gerizim, but Jerusalem, (iii) They would not sanction the passage of a multitude of Jews through their territory, since the Jews frequently (though not always, Jos. Antt.xx. 6, § 1) chose the otherroute on the East of the Jordan.

as though he would go to Jerusalem This national hatred between Jews and Samaritans (John 4:9) still continues, and at the present day it is mainly due to the fanaticism of the Jews. In our Lord's day the Jews called the Samaritans -Cuthites" (2 Kings 17:24), aliens (2 Kings 17:18), -that foolish people that dwell in Sichem" (Sir 1:25-26), and other opprobrious names. They accused them of continuousidolatry (2 Kings 17), and charged them with false fire-signals, and with having polluted the Temple by scattering it with dead men's bones (Jos. Antt.xx. 6, § I, Luke 18:2, § 2; B.J.11. 12, § 3). No doubt originally their Monotheism was very hybrid, being mixed up with five heathen religions (2 Kings 17:33; 2 Kings 17:37); but they had gradually laid aside idolatry, and it was as much a calumny of the ancient Jews to charge them with the worship of Rachel's amulets (Genesis 35:4) as for modern Jews to call them - worshippers of the pigeon" (Frankl. Jews in the East, 11. 334). But the deadly exacerbation between the two nations, which began after the Exile (Ezra 4:1-10; Nehemiah 4:1-16; Nehemiah 4:6), had gone on increasing by perpetual collision since the building of the Temple on Gerizim by the renegade priest Manasseh and Sanballat (Nehemiah 13:28; Jos. Antt.xi. 7, xii. 5, § 5), which was destroyed by John Hyrcanus B.C. 129.