Luke 9:30-33

2 d. Luke 9:30-33. The Appearing of Moses and Elijah.

Not only do we sometimes see the eye of the dying lighted up with celestial brightness, but we hear him conversing with the dear ones who have gone before him to the heavenly home. Through the gate which is opened for him, heaven and earth hold fellowship. In the same way, at the prayer of Jesus, heaven comes down or earth rises. The two spheres touch. Keim says: “A descent of heavenly spirits to the earth has no warrant either in the ordinary course of events or in the Old or New Testament.” Gess very properly replies: “Who can prove that the appearing of these heroes of the Old Covenant was in contradiction to the laws of the upper world? We had far better confess our ignorance of those laws.”

Moses and Elijah are there, talking with Him. Luke does not name them at first. He says two men. This expression reflects the impression which must have been experienced by the eye-witnesses of the scene. They perceived, first of all, the presence of two persons unknown; it was only afterwards that they knew them by name. ᾿Ιδού, behold, expresses the suddenness of the apparition. The imperf., they were talking, proves that the conversation had already lasted some time when the disciples perceived the presence of these strangers. Οἵτινες is emphatic: who were no other than...Moses and Elijah were the two most zealous and powerful servants of God under the Old Covenant. Moreover, both of them had a privileged end: Elijah, by his ascension, was preserved from the unclothing of death; there was something equally mysterious in the death and disappearance of Moses. Their appearing upon the mountain is perhaps connected with the exceptional character of the end of their earthly life. But how, it is asked, did the apostles know them? Perhaps Jesus addressed them by name in the course of the conversation, or indicated who they were in a way that admitted of no mistake. Or, indeed, is it not rather true that the glorified bear upon their form the impress of their individuality, their new name (Rev 2:17)? Could we behold St. John or St. Paul in their heavenly glory for any length of time without giving them their name?

The design of this appearing is only explained to us by Luke: “They talked,” he says literally, “ of the departure which Jesus was about to accomplish at Jerusalem. ” How could certain theologians imagine that Moses and Elijah came to instruct Jesus respecting His approaching sufferings, when only six days before He had Himself informed the Twelve about them? It is rather the two heavenly messengers who are learning of Jesus, as the apostles were six days before, unless one imagines that they talked with Him on a footing of equality. In view of that cross which is about to be erected, Elijah learns to know a glory superior to that of being taken up to heaven, the glory of renouncing, through love, such an ascension, and choosing rather a painful and ignominious death. Moses comprehends that there is a sublimer end than that of dying, according to the fine expression which the Jewish doctors apply to his death, “from the kiss of the Eternal;” and this is to deliver up one's soul to the fire of divine wrath. This interview, at the same time, gave a sanction, in the minds of the disciples, to an event from the prospect of which only six days before they shrank in terror. The term ἔξοδος, going out, employed by Luke, is chosen designedly; for it contains, at the same time, the ideas both of death and ascension. Ascension was as much the natural way for Jesus as death is for us. He might ascend with the two who talked with Him. But to ascend now would be to ascend without us. Down below, on the plain, He sees mankind crushed beneath the weight of sin and death. Shall He abandon them? He cannot bring Himself to this. He cannot ascend unless He carry them with Him; and in order to do this, He now braves the other issue, which He can only accomplish at Jerusalem. Πληροῦν, to accomplish, denotes not the finishing of life by dying (Bleek), but the completion of death itself. In such a death there is a task to accomplish. The expression, at Jerusalem, has deep tragedy in it; at Jerusalem, that city which has the monopoly of the murder of the prophets (Luke 13:33).

This single word of Luke's on the subject of the conversation throws light upon the scene, and we can appraise at its true value the judgment of the critics (Meyer, Holtzmann), who regard it as nothing more than the supposition of later tradition?

Further, it is through Luke that we are able to form an idea of the true state of the disciples during this scene. The imperf., they talked, Luke 9:30, has shown us that the conversation had already lasted some time when the disciples perceived the presence of the two heavenly personages. We must infer from this that they were asleep during the prayer of Jesus. This idea is confirmed by the plus-perfect ἦσαν βεβαρημένοι, they had been weighed down, Luke 9:32. They were in this condition during the former part of the interview, and they only came to themselves just as the conversation was concluding. The term διαγρηγορεῖν is used nowhere else in the N. T. In profane Greek, where it is very little used, it signifies: to keep awake. Meyer would give it this meaning here: “persevering in keeping themselves awake, notwithstanding the drowsiness which oppressed them.” This sense is not inadmissible; nevertheless the δέ, but, which denotes an opposition to this state of slumber, rather inclines us to think that this verb denotes their return to self-consciousness through (διά) a momentary state of drowsiness. Perhaps we should regard the choice of this unusual term as indicating a strange state, which many persons have experienced, when the soul, after having sunk to sleep in prayer, in coming to itself, no longer finds itself in the midst of earthly things, but feels raised to a higher sphere, in which it receives impressions full of unspeakable joy.

Ver. 33 also enables us to see the true meaning of Peter's words mentioned in the three narratives. It was the moment, Luke tells us, when the two heavenly messengers were preparing to part from the Lord. Peter, wishing to detain them, ventures to speak. He offers to construct a shelter, hoping thereby to induce them to prolong their sojourn here below; as if it were the fear of spending the night in the open air that obliged them to withdraw! This enables us to understand Luke's remark (comp. also Mark): not knowing what he said. This characteristic speech was stereotyped in the tradition, with this trifling difference, that in Matthew Peter calls Jesus Lord (κύριε), in Mark Master (ῥαββί), in Luke Master (ἐπιστάτα). And it is imagined that our evangelists amused themselves by making these petty changes in a common text!