Luke 6:6-11

6. A Second-Sabbath Scene: Luke 6:6-11.

Vers. 6-11.

Do Matthew and Mark place the following incident on the same day as the preceding? It is impossible to say (πάλιν, in Mark, does not refer to Luke 2:23, but to Luke 1:21). Luke says positively, on another Sabbath. He has therefore His own source of information. This is confirmed by the character of the style, which continues to be decidedly Hebraistic (καὶ... καὶ...instead of the relative pronoun).

The withering of the hand denotes paralysis resulting from the absence of the vital juices, the condition which is commonly described as atrophy.

In Matthew, the question whether it is right to heal on the Sabbath day is put to the Lord by His adversaries, which, taken literally, would be highly improbable. It is evident that Matthew, as usual, condenses the account of the fact, and hastens to the words of Jesus, which he relates at greater length than the others. His adversaries, no doubt, did put the question, but, as Luke and Mark tell us, simply in intention and by their looks. They watch to see how He will act.

The present θεραπεύει, whether He heals, in the Alex., would refer to the habit of Jesus, to His principle of conduct. This turn of expression is too far-fetched. The spies want more particularly to ascertain what He will do now; from the fact they will easily deduce the principle. The received reading, θεραπεύσει, whether He will heal, must therefore be preferred.

The Rabbis did not allow of any medical treatment on the Sabbath day, unless delay would imperil life; the strictest school, that of Shammai, forbade even the consolation of the sick on that day (Schabbat 12.1).

Ver. 8. Jesus penetrates at a glance the secret spy system organized against Him, and seems to take pleasure in giving the work He is about to perform the greatest publicity possible. Commanding the man to place himself in the midst of the assembly, He makes him the subject of a veritable theological demonstration. Matthew omits these dramatic details which Mark and Luke have transmitted to us. Would he have omitted them had he known them? He could not have had the alleged proto-Mark before him, unless it is supposed that the author of our canonical Mark added these details on his own authority. But in this case, how comes Mark to coincide with Luke, who, according to this hypothesis, had not our actual Mark in his hands, but simply the primitive Mark (the common source of our three Syn.)? Here plainly is a labyrinth from which criticism, having once entered on a wrong path, is unable to extricate itself.

The skilfulness of the question proposed by the Lord (Luke 6:9) consists in its representing good omitted as evil committed. The question thus put answers itself; for what Pharisee would venture to make the prerogative of the Sabbath to consist in a permission to torture and kill with impunity on that day? This question is one of those marks of genius, or rather one of those inspirations of the heart, which enhance our knowledge of Jesus. By reason of His compassion, He feels Himself responsible for all the suffering which He fails to relieve. But, it may be asked, could He not have put off the cure until the next day? To this question He would have given the same answer as any one of us: To-morrow belongs to God; only to-day belongs to me. The present ἐπερωτῶ, I ask you (Alex.), is more direct and severe, and consequently less suited to the Lord's frame of mind at this moment, than the future of the T. R.: I will ask you. For the same reason, we think, we must read not εἰ, if, or is it, with the Alex., but τί, and make this word not a complement: “I ask you what is allowable,” a form in which the intentional sharpness of His address is softened down too much (see the contrary case, Luke 7:40), but the subject of ἔξεστι : “ I ask you; answer me! What is permitted, to...or to...; for in my position I must do one or the other.” Matthew places here the illustration of the sheep fallen into a ditch, an argument which, as we shall see, is better placed in Luke (Luke 14:5-6).

Ver. 10. A profound silence (Mark 3:4) is the only answer to this question. Those who laid the snare are taken in it themselves. Jesus then surveys His adversaries, ranged around Him, with a long and solemn gaze. This striking moment, omitted in Matthew, is noticed in Luke; in Mark it is described in the most dramatic manner. We feel here how much Mark owes to some source of information closely connected with the person of the Saviour; he describes the feeling of sorrowful indignation which eye-witnesses could read in His glance: “with anger, being grieved at the hardness of their hearts.”

The command Jesus gives the sick man to stretch forth his hand, affords room for surprise. Is it not precisely what he was unable to do? But, like every call addressed to faith, this command contained a promise of the strength necessary to accomplish it, provided the will to obey was there. He must make the attempt, depending on the word of Jesus (Luke 6:5), and divine power will accompany the effort. The word ὑγιής is probably taken from Matthew; it is omitted by six Mjj. It would be hazardous, perhaps, to erase also the words ὡς ἡ ἀλλή with the three Mjj. which omit them.

It is here that Cod. D. places the general proposition, Luke 6:5.

The Jewish-Christian Gospel which Jerome had found among the Nazarenes relates in detail the prayer of this sick man: “I was a mason, earning my livelihood with my own hands; I pray thee, Jesus, to restore me to health, in order that I may not with shame beg my bread.” This is an instance of how amplification and vulgarity meet us directly we step beyond the threshold of the canonical Gospels. Apostolical dignity has disappeared.

The word ἄνοια (Luke 6:11), properly madness, by which Luke expresses the effect produced on the adversaries of Jesus, denotes literally the absence of νοῦς, of the power to discriminate the true from the false. They were fools through rage, Luke means. In fact, passion destroys a man's sense of the good and true. Matthew and Mark notice merely the external result, the plot which from this moment was laid against the life of Jesus: “ They took counsel to kill Him; ” Mark adds to the Pharisees, the Herodians. The former, in fact, could take no effectual measures in Galilee against the person of Jesus without the concurrence of Herod; and in order to obtain this, it was necessary to gain over his counsellors to their plans. Why should they not hope to induce this king to do to Jesus what he had already done to John the Baptist?

Holtzmann thinks it may be proved, by the agreement of certain words of Jesus in the three narratives, that they must have had a common written source. As if words so striking as these: The Son of man is Lord also of the Sabbath day, could not be preserved by oral tradition! The characteristic divergences which we have observed at every line in the historical sketch of the narrative, are incompatible, as we have seen, with the use of a common document.