Luke 14:20

γυναῖκα ἔγημα : most presentable excuse of all, therefore offered sans phrase; preoccupation this time intense, and surely pardonable? In the natural sphere these are likely forms of preoccupation, but not necessarily either the only, or even the chief in the spiritual sphere, or those which kept the lawyers and Pharisees from accepting the teaching of Jesus. Their prepossessions were religious and theological.

Not only these three but all decline to come. In the natural sphere this is highly improbable and unexampled. Jesus, from no fault on His part as a parable artist, had to make improbable suppositions to exemplify the fact in the spiritual sphere, which in this instance was that the bulk of the Jewish people were indifferent to the Kingdom as He presented it. On the other hand, in the parables spoken in justification of His own conduct, the case put has the highest measure of probability. Vide, e.g., those in next chapter.