Luke 3:23

Luke 3:23. And Jesus himself, when he began , i.e., is ministry. This is the only grammatical view. The last verse told of how God had solemnly declared Him to be the Messiah, and the subsequent history tells of His ministry.

Was about thirty years of age. ‘About,' indefinite, but probably o ver that age. The Levites did not enter upon their public duties under that age, and it is improbable that He would deviate from the usage. The beginning of the ministry could not have been later than U. C. 782 (see Luke 3:1), and probably was two years earlier.

Being the son (at was supposed) of Joseph. The words, ‘as was supposed,' would be a curious introduction to a genealogy of Joseph. We therefore prefer to explain this, ‘being the son, as was supposed, of Joseph,' but in reality through his mother, ‘ of Heli,' the father of Mary, and His nearest male ancestor. ‘It is remarkable that, in the Talmud, Mary the mother of Jesus is called the daughter of Heli. From whence have Jewish scholars derived this information? If from the text of Luke, this proves that they understood it as we do; if they received it from tradition, it confirms the truth of the genealogical document Luke made use of.' (Godet.) Others supply ‘son in law' between Joseph and Heli, but this is not in keeping with the regular succession of the passage,' and involves the groundless assumption that Mary was an heiress, whose family was now represented by Joseph. The first view is open to fewest objections. An untrustworthy Jewish tradition says that Mary's father was named Joachim. The Jews did not keep the genealogies of women, but this is the genealogy of Heli; and to call our Lord, the son of Heli (His nearest male ancestor, the names of women being passed over) accords with Jewish usage. The name of Mary would be unnecessary after Luke's account of the Nativity. Besides, our Lord was ‘the son of David,' and that could be true, according to the gospel history, only through His mother. It implied everywhere in the Old Testament that the Messiah should be an actual descendant of David, and in the New it is taken for granted that Jesus fulfilled this promise. It is precisely in this Gospel, that we would look for her genealogy, since she has been the principal figure thus far. The view that this is the genealogy of Joseph is attended with insuperable difficulties. How could Joseph be the son of ‘Jacob' (Matthew) and ‘the son of Heli' (Luke)? A solution by the theory of a Levirate marriage, is unsatisfactory; two such must be assumed; and even then the difficulty is not met, for the offspring of a Levirate marriage must be recorded as that of the older deceased brother, and two distinct genealogies would not be given. On such a point a mistake is scarcely conceivable.