Luke 19:11

9. The Parable of the Pounds: Luke 19:11-27. Luke 19:11. The Introduction.

We have already observed in the multitudes (Luke 14:25; Luke 18:38; Luke 19:1-3), and even in the disciples (Luke 18:31; comp. with Matthew 20:20 et seq.), the traces of an excited state. Luke 19:11 shows that it went on increasing as they approached Jerusalem. The profound calmness and self-possession of Jesus contrasts with the agitation which is produced around Him.

The words ἀκουόντων αὐτῶν, “ as they heard these things,” and προσθεὶς εἶπε, “ He added, and spake,” establish a close relation between the parable of the pounds and the preceding conversation. But we need not conclude therefrom that this parable was uttered as a continuation of the conversation. It may, indeed, have been so merely in respect of time (Luke 19:28). The relation indicated by the introduction is purely moral: the so striking contrast between the conduct of Jesus toward Zaccheus, and the generally received ideas, was such that every one felt that a decisive crisis was near. The new was on the eve of appearing; and this imminent revolution naturally presented itself to the imagination of all in the form in which it had always been described to them. The word παραχρῆμα, immediately, stands first in the proposition, because it expresses the thought against which the parable following is directed. The verb ἀναφαίνεσθαι, to appear, answers well to the great spectacle for which they were looking.

That Luke himself deduced this introduction from the contents of the parable, as Weizsäcker supposes, is not impossible. But up to this point we have too often recognised the historical value of those short introductions, not to admit that Luke's source, from which he took the parable, contained some indication of the circumstances which had called it forth.