Luke

THe NeW TeSTAMeNT LIBRARY

editorial Advisory Board

C. C lifton BlaCk M. EugEnE Boring John t. Carroll

John T. Carroll

A Commentary

© 2012 John T. Carroll

First edition

Published by Westminster John knox Press Louisville, kentucky

12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20—10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

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For

Maria and Oscar

CONTeNTS

Preface xv Abbreviations xvii Modern Sources and Common usage xvii Ancient Sources xx Bibliography xxi Commentaries xxi Monographs and Articles xxii Introduction 1 Author and Audience 1 Genre and Purpose 5 An Approach to Reading Luke’s Gospel 7 Previewing Central Theological and ethical Concerns

and Commitments 9

Text 14

Design of the Narrative 15

COMMENTARY

1:1–4 Formal Preface to the Gospel 17

1:5–2:52 The Birth and Childhood of Jesus 23

1:5–25 Announcement of the Coming Birth of John 24

1:5–7 Introducing Zechariah and elizabeth 24

1:8–20 The Angel Gabriel Brings a Surprising

Message to Zechariah 26

1:21–23 A Silent Priest and an expectant People 34

1:24–25 elizabeth’s Secret 35

viii Contents

1:26–38 Announcement of the Coming Birth of Jesus 37

Excursus: Parallel Birth Announcements— Mary and Zechariah 43

1:39–56 Connecting the Two Stories: Mary Visits elizabeth 44

1:39–45 Double Welcome and Blessing: Mary Comes to elizabeth’s Home 45

1:46–55 Response of Praise: Mary’s Song 47

1:56 Mary Returns to Her Home 52

1:57–80 John’s Birth and Response of Praise

and Prophecy 53

1:57–66 Responses to John’s Birth 53

1:67–79 Praise and Prophecy: Zechariah’s Song 56

1:80 Waiting in the Wings: John Grows up 63

2:1–20 The Birth of Jesus 64

2:1–7 From Caesar to Manger: The Census

and Jesus’ Birth 64

2:8–14 Heaven Declares Good News to Shepherds 67

2:15–20 From Flock to Manger: Responses

to the Birth of a Savior 71

2:21–40 Law, Temple, and Prophetic Witness

to God’s Salvation 73

2:21 Jesus Is Circumcised and Receives a Name 73

2:22–24 As the Law Prescribes: Purification

and Presentation 74

2:25–35 Prophecy in Prayer and Oracle:

Simeon’s Witness to the Savior 75

2:36–38 The Prophet Anna Adds Her Witness 80

2:39–40 Jesus Grows up in Nazareth 81

2:41–52 A Son and His Father(s): Jesus among

the Teachers in the Temple 82

3:1–4:13 Preparing the Way of the Lord:

The Vocation of a People and Their Messiah 88

3:1–20 The Prophetic Ministry of John the Baptizer 88

3:21–22 The Baptism of Jesus 96

3:23–38 Jesus’ Roots 98

4:1–13 Jesus’ Fidelity to His Vocation as Son of God undergoes a First Test 100

4:14–9:50 Jesus’ Ministry in Galilee 106

4:14–44 Jesus Inaugurates His Ministry 106

4:14–15 The Galilean Ministry Begins:

Narrative Summary 107

4:16–30 Jesus in the Synagogue at Nazareth:

A Prophet’s Welcome 108

4:31–44 Words and Deeds of Power in Capernaum 117

5:1–6:11 Jesus Calls Followers and Addresses Critics 123

5:1–11 The Call of Simon Peter 123

5:12–16 A Leper Is Restored to Purity 126

5:17–26 Healing and Forgiveness of Sin for a Man unable to Walk 128

5:27–39 The Call of the Tax Agent Levi and a Clash of Views at a Celebratory Banquet 132

6:1–11 Sabbath Conflicts 137

6:12–49 Jesus Names Apostles and Teaches Disciples 140

6:12–16 Jesus Chooses Twelve Disciples 141

6:17–49 Jesus Forms a Receptive Audience as a People of God’s Realm 144

7:1–50 Jesus Confirms His Identity

through Acts That Save 157

7:1–10 Restoring Health in the Household

of a Centurion 158

7:11–17 Returning Life to a Widow’s Son 163

7:18–35 Jesus Defends His Messianic Vocation

to Disciples of John and to the Crowds 167

7:36–50 Role Reversal at Table: Jesus, a Pharisee,

and a Sinful Woman 174

8:1–9:50 The Galilean Ministry of Teaching

and Healing expands—and Concludes 181

8:1–3 Women Followers Provide Resources

for Jesus’ Ministry 181

8:4–21 Jesus Teaches the Word in Parables

and Forms a New Family 183

x Contents 8:22–25 Jesus Calms Wind and Sea 190 8:26–39 Release for a Man Afflicted by a Legion

of Demons 191

8:40–56 Jesus Restores Health to a Young Girl

and a Bold Woman 195

9:1–9 The Circle of Jesus’Ministry Widens 203

9:10–17 Jesus Teaches and Feeds a Large Crowd 206

9:18–27 Decisive Disclosure of Jesus’Identity (Part 1): Suffering Awaits the Son of Humanity

and Those Who Are Loyal to Him 209

9:28–36 Decisive Disclosure of Jesus’Identity (Part 2): The Transfiguration 216

9:37–43a Jesus Heals a Boy Afflicted by a Demon 220

9:43b–50 keeping Company with a Messiah Who Suffers 222

9:51–19:27 Ministry Continues as Jesus Journeys

to Jerusalem 227

9:51–62 Following Jesus: The Journey to Jerusalem Begins 227

10:1–24 The Mission of the Seventy-Two 232

10:25–37 Reading Torah and Loving as a Neighbor 242

10:38–42 Mary and Martha: A Disciple Listens

and a Host Labors 246

Excursus: Women in Luke’s Narrative 248

11:1–13 Jesus Teaches the Disciples about Prayer 249

11:14–36 Divergent Responses to Jesus’ Activity 253

11:37–54 Table Talk—and Conflict 258

12:1–13:9 Jesus Teaches Disciples and Crowds

about Wealth, Security, and Vigilance 262

12:1–12 Instructions for Mission in a Setting of Conflict 262

12:13–21 Jesus Teaches about Wealth (I): The Crowd 266

12:22–34 Jesus Teaches about Wealth and Security (II): Disciples 268

12:35–53 Jesus Appeals for eschatological Awareness and Vigilance (I): Disciples 272

12:54–13:9 Jesus Appeals for eschatological Awareness and Vigilance (II): The Crowd 276

13:10–35 An Act of Deliverance and Teaching

about God’s Realm: Welcome and Resistance 280 13:10–21 Images of God’s Reign: Jesus Liberates

a Daughter of Abraham 281 13:22–30 Participation in God’s Realm 288 13:31–35 A Prophet’s Destiny 292 14:1–24 Sabbath Banquet: Healing and Meal Talk 295 14:1–6 Jesus Heals a Man on the Sabbath 295 14:7–14 Advice to Dinner Guests and Hosts 298 14:15–24 God’s Realm as Banquet: A Parable 301 14:25–35 Jesus Warns the Crowds: Discipleship

as the Way of the Cross 306 15:1–32 Lost and Found: Jesus Teaches Pharisees

and Scribes about Divine Grace 308 15:1–7 A Parable about a Shepherd’s Response

to the Loss of a Sheep 309 15:8–10 A Parable about a Woman’s Response

to the Loss of a Coin 311 15:11–32 A Parable about a Father’s (and a Brother’s) Response to the Loss and Restoration of a Son 313 16:1–31 Jesus Teaches Disciples and Pharisees

about Wealth and Fidelity to the Torah 320 16:1–13 A Parable about a Cunning Manager 320 16:14–31 An Appeal for Fidelity to the Torah

through Generous Sharing of Resources 329 17:1–19 Jesus Teaches Disciples about Faithful Service and an Outsider Demonstrates Genuine Faith 339 17:1–10 Jesus Continues the Disciples’education

for Leadership—and Service 339 17:11–19 Ten Lepers Cured, One Saved? 342 17:20–18:8 Jesus Teaches Pharisees and Disciples

about the Present and Coming Reign of God 345 17:20–21 God’s Realm as a Matter of Timing—

and Discernment 345 17:22–37 The eschatological Arrival of the Son of Humanity 347 18:1–8 A Parable about Faith’s Persistence 354

xii Contents

18:9–34 Lessons about God’s Realm

for the Status-Conscious 357

18:9–14 A Parable about Two Prayers 358

18:15–17 Children as Models in God’s Realm 361

18:18–30 entering God’s Realm as Divestment of Wealth 362

18:31–34 Another Preview of the end of the Journey 366

18:35–19:27 Sight, Insight, and Salvation

on the Approach to Jerusalem 368

18:35–43 Jesus Restores Sight to a Blind Man 368

19:1–10 Salvation Comes to the House of a Chief

Tax Collector 371

Excursus: Poverty and Wealth in Luke’s Gospel 374

19:11–27 Approach to Jerusalem and the Approach of God’s Reign 377

19:28–21:38 Jesus’Ministry to Jerusalem 383

19:28–44 Jesus Approaches the City 384

19:45–21:38 Jesus Teaches in the Temple 388

19:45–20:8 Jesus and Temple Leaders:

Reciprocal Challenges to Authority 388

20:9–19 A Parable about Leadership Failure 392

20:20–26 Tribute Tax for Caesar? Jesus Foils

an entrapment Ploy 396

Excursus: The Reign of God and the Roman empire in Luke’s Gospel 398

20:27–44 Children of Resurrection and Son of David: More Debates with Religious

and Intellectual Leaders 404

20:45–21:4 The Poverty of the Powerful and the Power of a Widow’s Generosity 409

21:5–38 Jesus Concludes His Teaching in the Temple and Gives a Glimpse of the Future 411

22:1–23:56 The Death of the Messiah 423

22:1–38 Jesus Shares a Last Meal with His Disciples 425

22:1–13 Divergent Passover Preparations:

Brewing a Conspiracy and Planning a Meal 425

Contents xiii

22:14–38 Jesus’ Farewell Dinner 428

22:39–53 Prayer, Sleep, and Arrest on the Mount of Olives 443

22:39–46 Jesus Prays as the Ordeal of Testing Reaches Its Climax 443

22:47–53 The Arrest 446

22:54–23:25 Interrogations: The Failure of a Chief Apostle and a Death Sentence for the Messiah 448

22:54–62 Peter Fails the Test of His Faithfulness 448

22:63–71 Jesus Confronts the elite Council of His People 450

23:1–25 Jesus Confronts Roman Governor and Tetrarch and Receives a Death Sentence 454

23:26–56 The Crucifixion and Its Aftermath 461

23:26–32 The Way to the Cross 462

23:33–46 The Scene at the Cross 464

23:47–56 Responses to the Death of Jesus 470

24:1–53 The Resurrection of the Messiah 474

24:1–12 The easter Witness of Women Disciples 475

24:13–35 Revelation on the Journey to emmaus 480

24:36–53 A Final easter Appearance: Jesus Teaches from Scripture and Gives a Preview of

the Disciples’ Mission to the World 488

Index of Ancient Sources 499 Index of Subjects 000

PReFACe

“Since many have undertaken to compile a commentary on Luke’s narrative about the things brought to fulfillment among us,” it seemed foolhardy to me to add one more. However, this artful, compelling story and the delightful, daunting challenge of interpreting it for early twenty-first-century readers have so engaged me that I am bold enough to invite readers of this commentary to encounter the Gospel of Luke afresh, reading alongside me. I trust that the result will be new insight and perhaps many questions that will spur to further reading and reflection—and actions, as well, that answer to the religious-ethical vision met in this narrative.

The completion of a large writing project means an accumulation of enormous debt to many people, not all of whom I can name here. I acknowledge with deep appreciation union Presbyterian Seminary’s generous support of the research and writing of this commentary, especially in the form of sabbaticals during and after my tenure as academic dean. To President Brian Blount, former President Louis Weeks, the Board of Trustees, and faculty colleagues, I am grateful for tangible support, unflagging encouragement, and vigorous friendship, without which such an arduous undertaking would have been even more difficult to complete.

I am grateful to Westminster John knox Press and its editorial and production staff of consummate professionals who have overseen all phases of the preparation and production of this volume. Special thanks go to NTL Board colleagues past and present, Beverly Gaventa and Gene Boring, and to editor Marianne Blickenstaff, who has patiently and expertly shepherded the commentary to press. Above all, my primary editor for the NTL Board, Clifton Black, receives thanks for steady encouragement of my work on this project, and for remarkably skilled and efficient editorial work on the manuscript as it neared completion. As writer, I have been exceedingly fortunate (makarios).

I have learned immeasurably from students who have engaged New Testament studies with me over the last quarter century, especially on the campuses of Louisiana State university and union Presbyterian Seminary, and in countless churches, as well as from other Lukan scholars, to whom I am indebted far beyond the acknowledgment in notes and bibliography that available space

xvi Preface has permitted. That learning informs this commentary on every page, but the interpretation, including any mistakes, is mine.

My mother, Mildred, has been a source of steadfast encouragement and my father, James, collaborator with me on another book project, read drafts of early chapters of the commentary, offering his affirmation and wise critique. That he did not live to see the publication of the work saddens me. I am proud of my adult children, Andrew and Anna; the joy I have known through them has helped me to hear the music of praise in the opening chapters of Luke. Luisa and Oscar supported this undertaking with generous gifts of time and energy, acknowledged here with my thanks. No words of gratitude suffice for Maria, for intellectual partnership that enabled me to write a much better, more provocative commentary than would otherwise have been possible, and for the friendship and loving partnership that also brought our little red-headed dynamo Oscar James into the world; I dedicate this work to them.

ABBReVIATIONS

Modern Sources and Common Usage

AB Anchor Bible

ABD Anchor Bible Dictionary. edited by David Noel Freedman.

6 vols. New York: Doubleday, 1992.

ABRL Anchor Bible Reference Library

ACNT Augsburg Commentaries on the New Testament. AnBib Analecta biblica

ANQ Andover Newton Quarterly

ANTC Abingdon New Testament Commentaries

AT Author’s translation

AuS American university Studies

BBB Bonner biblische Beiträge

BDAG Bauer, W., F. W. Danker, W. F. Arndt, and F. W. Gingrich.

Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament and Other Early Christian Literature. 3d ed. Chicago: university of Chicago Press, 2000.

BDF Blass, F., A. Debrunner, and R. W. Funk. A Greek Grammar of the New Testament and Other Early Christian Literature. Chicago: university of Chicago Press, 1961.

BeCNT Baker exegetical Commentary on the New Testament BeTL Bibliotheca ephemeridum theologicarum lovaniensium Bib Biblica

BibInt Biblical Interpretation

BIS Biblical Interpretation Series

BRS Biblical Resource Series

BZNW Beihefte zur Zeitschrift für die neutestamentliche

Wissenschaft

CBQ Catholic Biblical Quarterly

CEB Common english Bible

cf. confer, compare

ch(s). chapter(s)

xviii Abbreviations

E versification in English Bibles

ed(s). edited (by), editor(s), edition

e.g. exempli gratia, for example

ekkNT evangelisch-katholischer kommentar zum Neuen Testament enl. enlarged

eSeC emory Studies in early Christianity

esp. especially

et al. et alii(ae), and others

ETL Ephemerides theologicae lovanienses

euS european university Studies

ExpTim Expository Times

frg. fragment

FTS

HBS

HNT

HSS

HTR

HTS

ICC

i.e.

Int

ISBL

ITQ

JPSP

JBL

JRS

JSNT

JSNTSup

JSOTSup

JSPSup

JTS

kJv

LCBI LCL LeC lit. literally

LNTS Library of New Testament Studies (sequel of JSNTSup) lxx Septuagint

MBI Methods in Biblical Interpretation

Frankfurter theologische Studien

Herders biblische Studien

Handbuch zum Neuen Testament

Harvard Semitic Studies

Harvard Theological Review

Harvard Theological Studies

International Critical Commentary

id est, that is

Interpretation: A Journal of Bible and Theology

Indiana Studies in Biblical Literature

Irish Theological Quarterly

Journal of Personality and Social Psychology

Journal of Biblical Literature

Journal of Roman Studies

Journal for the Study of the New Testament

Journal for the Study of the New Testament: Supplement Series

Journal for the Study of the Old Testament: Supplement Series

Journal for the Study of the Pseudepigrapha: Supplement Series

Journal of Theological Studies

king James Version

Literary Currents in Biblical Interpretation

Loeb Classical Library (quoted with translator’s last name) Library of early Christianity

Abbreviations xix

mg. margin

Ms(s) manuscript(s)

Mt Masoretic Text: Hebrew reading or verse numbers NA^27 Nestle-Aland et al., eds., Novum Testamentum Graece,

27th ed.

naB New American Bible

Neot Neotestamentica

NICNT New International Commentary on the New Testament NIGTC New International Greek Testament Commentary niv New International Version (2011 update)

NovT Novum Testamentum

NovTSup Novum Testamentum Supplements

nrsv New Revised Standard Version

NTS New Testament Studies

NTT New Testament Theology

NTTS New Testament Tools and Studies

ÖBS Österreichische biblische Studien

OBT Overtures to Biblical Theology

olim formerly

orig. original(ly)

p(p). page(s)

PNTS Personalities of the New Testament Series

PRSt Perspectives in Religious Studies

PTMS Princeton Theological Monograph Series

RB Revue biblique

repr. reprint(ed)

rev. ed. revised edition

RST Regensburger Studien zur Theologie

SBeC Studies in the Bible and early Christianity

SBibLit Studies in Biblical Literature

SBLDS Society of Biblical Literature Dissertation Series SBLMS Society of Biblical Literature Monograph Series SBLSS Society of Biblical Literature Symposium Series SBT Studies in Biblical Theology

SHBC Smyth and Helwys Bible Commentary

SNTSMS Society for New Testament Studies Monograph Series SNTW Studies of the New Testament and Its World

SP Sacra pagina

SuNT Studien zur umwelt des Neuen Testament

TDNT Theological Dictionary of the New Testament. edited by

G. kittel and G. Friedrich. Translated by G. W. Bromiley. 10 vols. Grand Rapids: eerdmans, 1964–1976.

xx Abbreviations

TI Theological Inquiries

TR Theology and Religion

trans. translated (by), translator

TSAJ Texte und Studien zum antiken Judentum

v(v). verse(s)

vol(s). volume(s)

WBC Word Biblical Commentary

WuNT Wissenschaftliche untersuchungen zum neuen Testament ZNW Zeitschrift für die neutestamentliche Wissenschaft und die

Kunde der älteren Kirche

Ancient Sources

Abbreviations of the titles of ancient sources conform to The SBL Handbook of Style for Ancient Near Eastern, Biblical, and Early Christian Studies, ed. Patrick H. Alexander et al. (Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson, 1999). Full titles are given in the Index of Ancient Sources. Below are listed sources for which the SBL Handbook does not provide abbreviations.

Diodorus (of Sicily), Herodian, Hist.

Livy, Hist.

Lucian, Hist.

Polybius, Hist.

Pseudo-Lucian, Cyn.

Hist . Library of History

History of the [Roman] Empire

History of Rome (From the City’s Founding) How to Write History

The Histories

Cynicus (The Cynic)

BIBLIOGRAPHY

In the commentary that follows, commentaries are cited by author and page number. Monographs and articles are cited by author, short title, and page number.

Commentaries

Bock, Darrell L. Luke. 2 vols. BeCNT. Grand Rapids: Baker, 1994–96. Bovon, François. Luke 1: A Commentary on the Gospel of Luke 1:1–9:50. edited by Helmut koester. Translated by Christine M. Thomas. Hermeneia. Minneapolis: Augsburg Fortress, 2002.

———. Das Evangelium nach Lukas 2: 9,51–14,35. ekkNT 3.2. Zurich and Neukirchen-Vluyn: Benziger & Neukirchener Verlag, 1996.

———. Das Evangelium nach Lukas 3: 15,1–19,27. ekkNT 3.3. Zurich and Neukirchen-Vluyn: Benziger & Neukirchener Verlag, 2001.

———. Das Evangelium nach Lukas 4: 19,28–24,53. ekkNT 3.4. NeukirchenVluyn and Düsseldorf: Neukirchener & Patmos Verlag, 2009.

Culpepper, R. Alan. “The Gospel of Luke.” In New Interpreter’s Bible, vol. 9, edited by Leander e. keck, 1–490. Nashville: Abingdon, 1995.

Danker, Frederick W. Jesus and the New Age: A Commentary on St. Luke’s Gospel. Rev. ed. Philadelphia: Fortress, 1988.

Fitzmyer, Joseph A. The Gospel according to Luke: Introduction, Translation, and Notes. 2 vols. AB 28–28A. Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1981–85.

Gonzalez, Justo L. Luke. Belief: A Theological Commentary on the Bible. Louisville, ky.: Westminster John knox, 2010.

Green, Joel B. The Gospel of Luke. NICNT. Grand Rapids: eerdmans, 1997.

Johnson, Luke Timothy. The Gospel of Luke. SP 3. Collegeville, Minn.: Liturgical, 1991.

Marshall, I. Howard. The Gospel of Luke: A Commentary on the Greek Text. NIGTC. Grand Rapids: eerdmans, 1978.

Metzger, Bruce M. A Textual Commentary on the Greek New Testament. 2nd ed. Stuttgart: Deutsche Bibelgesellschaft / German Bible Society, 1994.

Nolland, John. Luke. 3 vols. WBC 35A–C. Dallas: Word, 1989–93.

xxii Bibliography

Plummer, Alfred. The Gospel according to St. Luke. ICC. 5th ed. edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1922.

Ringe, Sharon. Luke. Westminster Bible Companion. Louisville, ky.: Westminster John knox, 1995.

Schweizer, eduard. The Good News according to Luke. Atlanta: John knox, 1984.

Talbert, Charles H. Reading Luke: A Literary and Theological Commentary on the Third Gospel. New York: Crossroad, 1982.

Tannehill, Robert C. Luke. ANTC. Nashville: Abingdon, 1996.

Tiede, David L. Luke. ACNT. Minneapolis: Augsburg, 1988.

Vinson, Richard B. Luke. SHBC. Macon, Ga.: Smyth & Helwys, 2008.

Wolter, Michael. Das Lukasevangelium. HNT 5. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2008.

Monographs and Articles

Ahn, Yong-Sung. The Reign of God and Rome in Luke’s Passion Narrative: An East Asian Global Perspective. BIS 80. Leiden and Boston: e. J. Brill, 2006.

Alexander, Loveday, ed. Images of Empire. JSNTSup 122. Sheffield: JSOT Press, 1991.

———. The Preface to Luke’s Gospel: Literary Convention and Social Context in Luke 1.1–4 and Acts 1.1. SNTSMS 78. Cambridge: Cambridge university Press, 1993.

Arlandson, James Malcolm. Women, Class, and Society in Early Christianity: Models from Luke–Acts. Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson, 1997.

Arterbury, Andrew e. “Abraham’s Hospitality among Jewish and early Christian Writers: A Tradition History of Gen 18:1–16 and Its Relevance for the Study of the New Testament.” PRSt 30 (2003): 359–76.

———. “Zacchaeus: ‘A Son of Abraham’?” Pages 18–31 in The Gospel of Luke, edited by Thomas R. Hatina. Vol. 3 of Biblical Interpretation in Early Christian Gospels. LNTS 376. London: T&T Clark, 2010.

Aune, David e. The New Testament in Its Literary Environment. LeC 8. Philadelphia: Westminster, 1987.

Austin, John L. How to Do Things with Words. edited by J. O. urmson and Marina Sbisà. 2d ed. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard university Press, 1975. Orig., Oxford: Oxford university Press, 1962.

Bailey, kenneth e. Poet and Peasant. Grand Rapids: eerdmans, 1976.

———. Through Peasant Eyes. Grand Rapids: eerdmans, 1980.

Baily, M. “The Shepherds and the Sign of a Child in a Manger.” ITQ 31 (1964): 1–23.

Bakhtin, Mikhail. Rabelais and His World. Bloomington: Indiana university Press, 1984.

Bibliography xxiii

Balch, David L. “Rich and Poor, Proud and Humble in Luke–Acts.” Pages 214–33 in The Social World of the First Christians: Essays in Honor of Wayne A. Meeks. edited by L. Michael White and O. Larry Yarbrough. Minneapolis: Augsburg Fortress, 1995.

Bartchy, S. Scott. “Slavery (Greco-Roman and New Testament).” ABD 6:65–73. Bauckham, Richard. The Gospels for All Christians: Rethinking the Gospel

Audiences . Grand Rapids: eerdmans, 1998.

———. “The Rich Man and Lazarus: The Parable and the Parallels.” NTS 37

(1991): 225–46.

Bemile, Paul. The Magnificat within the Context and Framework of Lukan Theology: An Exegetical, Theological Study of Luke 1:46–55. RST 34. Frankfurt

am Main: Peter Lang, 1986.

Betz, Hans Dieter, ed. The Greek Magical Papyri in Translation. Chicago:

university of Chicago Press, 1986.

Bhabha, Homi k. Location of Culture. London: Routledge, 1994. Bieringer, R., G. van Belle, and J. Verheyden, eds. Luke and His Readers: Festschrift A. Denaux. Leuven: Leuven university Press, 2005.

Boismard, M.-É. “The Multiple Stage Hypothesis.” Pages 231–88 in The Interrelations of the Gospels: A Symposium Led by M.-É. Boismard, W. R. Farmer,

F. Neirynck, Jerusalem 1984. edited by D. L. Dungan. BeTL 95. Leuven:

Leuven university Press, 1990.

Bond, Helen k. Pontius Pilate in History and Interpretation. SNTSMS 100.

Cambridge: Cambridge university Press, 1998.

Bonz, Marianne Palmer. The Past as Legacy: Luke–Acts and Ancient Epic.

Minneapolis: Fortress, 2000.

Boring, M. eugene. “The ‘Minor Agreements’ and Their Bearing on the Synoptic Problem.” Pages 227–51 in New Studies in the Synoptic Problem: Oxford

Conference, April 2008; Essays in Honour of Christopher M. Tuckett. edited

by P. Foster, A. Gregory, J. S. kloppenborg, and J. Verheyden. BeTL 239.

Leuven: Peeters, 2011.

Boring, M. eugene, klaus Berger, and Carsten Colpe, eds. Hellenistic Commentary to the New Testament. Nashville: Abingdon, 1995.

Braun, Willi. Feasting and Social Rhetoric in Luke 14. SNTSMS 85. Cambridge: Cambridge university Press, 1995.

Brawley, Robert L. Centering on God: Method and Message in Luke–Acts.

LCBI. Louisville, ky.: Westminster John knox, 1990.

———. Luke–Acts and the Jews: Conflict, Apology, and Conciliation. SBLMS

33. Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1987.

———. Text to Text Pours Forth Speech: Voices of Scripture in Luke–Acts.

ISBL. Bloomington: Indiana university Press, 1995.

Bridge, Steven L. “Where the Eagles Are Gathered”: The Deliverance of the Elect

in Lukan Eschatology. JSNTSup 240. London: Sheffield Academic, 2003.

Brodie, Thomas L. Proto-Luke: A Christ-Centered Synthesis of Septuagintal Historiography, and a Deuteronomy-Based Alternative to Q. Limerick: Dominican Institute, 2002.

Brown, Raymond e. The Birth of the Messiah: A Commentary on the Infancy Narratives in Matthew and Luke. Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1979.

———. The Death of the Messiah: From Gethsemane to the Grave; A Commentary on the Passion Narratives in the Four Gospels. ABRL. 2 vols. New York: Doubleday, 1994.

Büchele, Anton. Der Tod Jesu im Lukasevangelium: Eine redaktionsgeschichtliche Untersuchung zu Lk 23. FTS 26. Frankfurt am Main: knecht, 1978.

Bultmann, Rudolf. The History of the Synoptic Tradition. Translated by John Marsh. Rev. ed. New York: Harper & Row, 1963.

Burridge, Richard A. What Are the Gospels? A Comparison with GraecoRoman Biography. 2d ed. BRS. Grand Rapids: eerdmans, 2004.

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Introduction

First Christian historian, gifted storyteller, literary artist, and theologian: such is Luke’s impressive résumé, although this Gospel writer has not been without his detractors.1 Luke’s achievement is considerable. With literary artistry he presents a moving and memorable portrait of Jesus and a robust vision—from within the world of imperial Rome—of religious faith embodied in just and graciously (as well as provocatively) inclusive social and economic practices. Moreover, alone among Christian authors, he narrates the extension of Jesus’ ministry in a world-encompassing mission of his followers (Acts of the Apostles).

This commentary will stand with those who have read Luke’s Gospel with appreciation of both his literary achievement and the theological and ethical commitments that find expression in his narrative. It will be critical appreciation, as befits engagement with an ancient author who writes out of, and for, a particular culture, from a particular social location, with all the limitations such a project entails (inescapable for any author, myself included). But critical appreciation nonetheless.

Author and Audience

Authorship. Like the other nt Gospels, the one associated with Luke does not name its author. The earliest extant identifications of Luke as the author of this Gospel stem from the late second century C.E., in Bodmer Papyrus XIV (∏75, ca. 200), which in a postscript labels the writing euangelion kata loukan (“Gospel according to Luke”); in a treatise by Irenaeus (Adversus haereses, ca. 180); in the Muratorian Fragment (probably late second or early third century: Gregory, Reception 40); and possibly also in the Anti-Marcionite Prologue (the first part of the Greek preface is often dated to the late second century; see Gregory, Reception 43). In these documents, the profile of the author that emerges, one that draws from nt references to Luke (Phlm 24; Col 4:14; 2 Tim 4:11), correlated with the anonymous “we”-sections in Acts (16:9–17; 20:5–15; 21:1–18; 27:1–28:16), is of a physician (Muratorian Fragment, lines 2–8; ) who was Paul’s “inseparable companion” (Irenaeus, Haer. 3.1.1; 3.14.1). The Greek preface to the Anti-Marcionite Prologue claims that Luke hailed from Antioch and died at the age of eighty-four (cf. Luke 2:37).

1. “First Christian historian,” in Marguerat, First xi (before him, Dibelius, “First”); “gifted storyteller,” in Johnson 3; “artist and theologian,” in Karris, Luke. For classic statements, mid20th century, of Luke’s theological limitations, employing such labels as “early catholicism” and the “triumphalism” of a “theology of glory,” see Vielhauer, “Paulinism”; Käsemann, “Problem” 28–30; idem, “Ministry” 89–92; and note the responses by Kümmel, “Current”; van Unnik, “Storm Center” 22–29; Talbert, “Shifting.”

This late second-century tradition of authorship by a physician named Luke who participated in the Pauline mission cannot be definitively disproved. But neither can it be established and then used as “evidence” in determining the book’s date of composition; indeed, it is explicable as the result of inferential reasoning based on reading the nt texts mentioned above.2 More helpful is the profile of the author that emerges from close reading of the narrative itself (the implied author of narrative-critical analysis). The author (for convenience, I will use the traditional name Luke for this anonymous writer) places himself among second- or third-generation Christians (1:1–3). For such a readership, he produces a genre-bending narrative that employs conventions from both biographical (bios) and historical (historia) narratives that were widely known in the Hellenistic world,3 yet also draws deeply and extensively from the Jewish Scriptures.4 Those Scriptures are authoritative texts for Luke, and the Gospel narrative affirms the importance of fidelity to the Torah (e.g., 2:22–24; 10:25–28; 11:42; 16:17, 27–31; 18:18–20), although the question of the mode of its application among Gentiles proves to be a controversial issue that must be worked out in the course of the mission narrated in Acts (e.g., 11:1–18; 15).

I consider it probable, though not certain, that the author was a Gentile, but if so the story he tells reveals him to be deeply committed to the God, Scriptures, and community of the Jewish people—perhaps a “God-fearer” much like the devout Gentiles drawn to the worship of the synagogue in Acts (see 10:35; 13:16, 26; cf. Sterling, Historiography 327–28, 376; also the profile of the implied reader as God-fearer in Tyson, Images 19–41). The Greek prose is of comparatively high quality among nt books, and Luke displays the capacity to vary the style of expression to suit speaker and occasion (e.g., contrast the lxx-resonant diction of Luke 1:5–2:52 to the cultured Greek of Paul’s speech in Athens in Acts 17:22–31).5 Other literary conventions employed in the histories written by predecessors and contemporaries of Luke (e.g., formal preface, incorporation in discrete blocks of materials from sources, speeches by characters, a sequence of dramatic episodes, and episode-linking narrative summaries) also appear. These features of the narrative suggest a person commanding the social status, education (centering on rhetoric), and resources needed to fashion a convincing, identity-shaping historical account, for adherents of diverse status and religious background, of the origins of the emerging Christian movement.

2. No one has overturned Cadbury’s decisive refutation (e.g., Style 39–72) of the earlier view (e.g., Hobart, Medical) that Luke’s language confirms his occupation as a physician.

3. For the view that Luke has written under the primary influence of the biographical genre, see, e.g., Burridge, What?; Talbert, Literary Patterns 125–40. The specific character of the historical genre influencing Luke has been described in various ways, including general history (e.g., Aune, Literary Environment 138–41), historical monograph (e.g., Plümacher, Lukas), apologetic historiography focusing on self/identity-definition for an emergent group (e.g., Sterling, Historiography), epic providing mythic-historical foundation for a new people (Bonz, Past), and classical historiography (e.g., Moles, “Preface”).

4. Marguerat aptly describes Luke, the “first Christian historian,” as writing “theological historiography” (First 21) at the “meeting point of Jewish and Greek historiographical currents” (25).

Perhaps the most significant influence evident in Luke’s writings, however, is the Jewish Scripture (in Greek translation, likely approximating the lxx)6 from which he extensively quotes, or to which he alludes, and which at many points his narrative emulates (as seen, e.g., in Luke 1:5–2:52 and 7:1–17). Luke’s deep engagement with the ot signals that the task of community definition, identity formation, and legitimation that he has undertaken in this two-volume historical narrative^7 concerns the place of Christian groups in the Roman world, to be sure, but even more their place in the ongoing story of God’s people Israel.

Earliest readers . For whom did Luke write? The prefaces of Luke and Acts address these narratives to Theophilus, represented as a man of considerable status and distinction (kratistos) who has previously received instruction in Christian tradition (Luke 1:3–4; Acts 1:1; see the comment on Luke 1:1–4). But other God-lovers (or beloved of God) would have read—or rather, heard—the narrative with and alongside and after Theophilus.8 Their specific location is unknown (Fitzmyer 1:57: “anyone’s guess”), although it was likely an urban center in the eastern Mediterranean (Antioch, Caesarea, ephesus, Corinth, and Rome have all been proposed [Wolter 10]). One thing is clear: the setting within the Roman empire is an important contextual marker for the narrative, its rhetorical working, and interpretation (see Excursus: The Reign of God and the Roman Empire, at 20:26). Perhaps the horizon of readership Luke imagines is much wider than one city (i.e., its household-based churches) or community,9 as Luke positions Christian readers for continuing life and mission within the Roman realm.

Probably the earliest primary readers already belonged to Christian groups that, like Theophilus, had been taught the tradition and were now ready to have their faith and participation in the movement secured with an identity-nourishing, legitimation-providing narrative. Their historical experience and present circumstance raise basic questions: Who are we as a people in the light of recurrent conflict within synagogues and increasingly Gentile membership? How is Israel’s story—how are its Scriptures, its hopes, its future—still ours to claim? And with the embarrassment of our founder (Jesus) and his prominent successor (Paul) put to death through Roman judicial process, what place do we have in the Roman social world? The story Luke tells (in both Gospel and Acts) appears to take aim at precisely this sociorhetorical exigency: the need of early Christian audiences in urban centers of the Roman empire to answer such questions, whether their own or those of others around them, and as the people for whom Jesus is Christ and Lord, to connect their own story to the ancient story of Israel.10

5. On the value to historians of tailoring diction to the speaker and occasion, see Dionysius, Thuc. 41; Lucian, Hist. 58; Thucydides, Hist. 1.22.

6. On the complex history of Greek translations of the ot and the challenge of establishing the text of lxx writings, see Peters, “Septuagint.”

7. A triad of interests well sketched by Aune, Literary Environment 137; cf. Sterling, Historiography 386–89; esler, Community 205–19.

8. The name Theophilus means “lover [or beloved] of God”; see the comment on 1:3–4.

9. See, e.g., Marguerat, First 78–79, 83; Sterling, Historiography 374–78; cf. kurz, Reading 13. I would not, however, cast the net as widely as Bauckham does (Gospels 9–48); he contends that each nt evangelist wrote for “any church . . . to which his work might find its way” (11).

Luke likely writes for a relatively heterogeneous community in terms of social status and occupation (so Tannehill 24–26; esler, Community 187–97; see Excursus: Poverty and Wealth in Luke’s Gospel, at 19:10), religious heritage (including Jews, God-fearers, and former pagan Gentiles), ethnicity, and nationality (cf. Marguerat, First 83).

Date of composition . The writing and initial dissemination of Luke’s Gospel are typically placed in the period 75–95 C.E. This is a possible but by no means secure date. If, as I judge probable, Luke used Mark as a source, and if Mark was written sometime around 70 C.E., then a date some years after 70 would be the earliest possible time of composition for Luke. even apart from that source hypothesis, the narrative presents multiple allusions to the destruction of the second temple (13:34–35; 19:43–44; 21:20–24), and that textual marker, too, would place the book’s writing after 70. The latest possible date of composition must allow for dissemination before citation by Justin and use by Marcion as his core Gospel narrative in the mid-second century. Therefore Luke’s composition can be fixed sometime between 75 and 125 (cf. Wolter 10); any more precise date is a matter of the scholar’s assumptions and in my view not a reliable contextual clue on which to base interpretation.11

10. In Marguerat’s framing of the questions of identity, Luke “wants to show his readers who they are, where they come from and what formed them” (First 31, emphasis orig.). Maddox highlights the questions “Who are the Christians?” and “How could non-Jews hope to find any value in something which has its roots in Judaism, yet seems to be repudiated by the leaders of the Jews?” (Purpose 183–84).

11. Among those arguing for a date in the first quarter of the second century are Townsend (“Date”), Pervo (for Acts, Dating), and Tyson, who (refining the position of Knox in, e.g., “Acts”) proposes that Marcion read a form of Luke distinct from canonical Luke, which then responded to Marcion’s handling of the Gospel by substantially expanding it (notably adding chs. 1–2 and most of ch. 24; summary in Tyson, Marcion 80–120). Gregory’s analysis of the evidence for knowledge of Luke’s Gospel in extant writings of the second century finds probable early references to this Gospel in Marcion, Justin, 2 Clement, Gospel of the Ebionites, Gospel of Thomas, and Protevangelium of James (summary in Gregory, Reception 293–98).

Genre and Purpose

Genre. Discussion of the (implied) author of Luke’s narrative has already surfaced the question of literary genre. The Gospel may be read as a bios, a biographical narrative (so Talbert, Literary Patterns 125–40); yet if it is taken with Acts as a two-book narrative, it may be aligned more securely with one or another of the historiographical genres that were current in Luke’s world.12 The craft of historiography was the subject of intense critical reflection in the Greco-Roman world (e.g., Diodorus, Hist. 1.1–3; Dionysius, Ant. rom. 1.1–8; Dionysius, Thucydides; Livy, Hist. 1, Preface; Lucian, How to Write History; Polybius, Hist. 1.1–4). The panoramic vision of Luke–Acts, which imagines the whole world (oikoumenē) as an arena of mission in which the nations will be drawn into the realm of God, whose Son Jesus is authentic sovereign (kyrios), suggests as generic analogue the universal histories exemplified by Polybius and Diodorus of Sicily (so Aune, Literary Environment 138–41).

The particular concern of Luke’s literary project for the emergence of Christian groups out of the history of a particular people (Israel), however, better fits what Sterling terms apologetic historiography, a mode of history writing that tells the story of a specific group, recasting its traditions in hellenized forms, to “establish the identity of the group within the setting of the larger world” (Historiography 16–19, 386–89, quoting 17, emphasis removed). This particular people—this “multinational” religious community—inhabits space dominated by Rome yet worships the God of Israel. Therefore the identifyshaping, legitimacy-providing concerns that animate reader response to Luke’s Gospel and its sequel center on the connection of this history to the history, and particular ot histories, that belong to the Jewish people. Luke, then, also draws upon the historiographical models available in ot writings such as 1–2 Samuel and 1–2 kings (i.e., 1–4 kingdoms lxx). Luke offers his two-volume history as an account of the next, and decisive, stage in the history of Israel (cf. Dahl, “Purpose” 88–89). The world-encompassing claims of the narrative begin there. The story Luke tells therefore commences not with Jesus, or John the Baptizer, but with the ancient promises of a faithful God to the people Israel (a prominent theme in Luke 1–2).

Rhetorical aims and purpose . As a historian, Luke’s education would have highlighted rhetoric. Historical narrative was to be artful and entertaining, to be sure, but in service of the primary aims of truthfulness and practical usefulness.13 Narrative, whether bios (biography) or historia (history), was to edify and instruct, ennoble and guide—to forge character. Luke’s Gospel preface articulates explicit authorial aims that square well with these widely shared historical interests, although some rhetorical aims associated with historical narratives in Luke’s era as a matter of generic convention (and correlated reader expectation) are left implicit within Luke’s concise preface. Luke does expressly say, however, that through a deftly arranged narrative of events, his literary project seeks to cultivate in readers such as Theophilus confidence that the teaching it offers is reliable (asphaleia, Luke 1:4). The ensuing (two-book) narrative delivers on audience expectations kindled by the preface and by the genre of the writing. It offers adventure in travel, persuasive and memorable discourse, scenes of intense life-and-death conflict, and tales of peril and dramatic rescue; it is populated by diverse characters whose actions readers will do well to emulate or avoid (cf. Livy, Hist. Preface 10). As participants in an emerging religious movement that was engaged in contest with Jewish groups and traditions and seeking to secure its own place in the Roman social world, Luke’s readers would have experienced the need for group self-definition, identity, and legitimation, for which an artful narrative that provided asphaleia would be both rhetorically effective and pastorally nourishing.

12. On the modes of history writing, see Aune, Literary Environment 77–111; Sterling, Historiography 1–19.

13. See Aune, Literary Environment 95–96. Historians before, after, and alongside Luke reflected deeply on the primary aims and motives of history-writing, with particular concern for the interplay of aesthetic values (style, beauty, reader delight), service to the truth, and practical

Toward these ends, Luke roots the movement in Israel’s story. Despite apparently disconfirming events—including the crucifixion of Jesus, the arrest and execution of Paul, the repudiation of the apostolic testimony by a majority of Jews, and the transformation of this Jewish messianic movement into a primarily Gentile one—the churches have their roots, identity, and confidence for the future in this story, the story of God with God’s people Israel. Moreover, Luke’s audience meets protagonists who collide with Roman power, but their courageous witness, even under duress, inspires bold mission that navigates the empire’s social-economic-religious-political space—even for people whose ultimate loyalty belongs to a different sovereign (see Excursus: The Reign of God and the Roman Empire, at 20:26).

In tracing the movement from Jerusalem to Rome (and beyond), Luke’s primary aim thus is, in the language of the preface, to provide asphaleia: firm, reliable, secure knowledge that this is so, supporting the imaginative construals of history and the world as ruled by God that will nourish faithful living and bold witness (cf. Maddox, Purpose 186–87).

utility. On concerns of artistry and beauty, see, e.g., Dio Cassius, Hist. rom. 1.2; Dionysius, Thuc.

51; Lucian, Hist. 9. Regarding the significance of effective arrangement, see, e.g., Lucian, Hist.

47, 51. For affirmation of truthfulness as the historian’s principal interest, see, e.g., Diodorus, Hist.

1.2 (history as “prophetess of truth,” Oldfather, LCL); Dionysius, Ant. rom. 1.1.2 (cf. 1.6.5, truth and justice the “aim of every history,” Cary, LCL); Dionysius, Thuc. 8 (history as “High Priestess of Truth,” Usher, LCL); Lucian, Hist. 40 (“only to Truth must sacrifice be made,” Kilburn, LCL). On the connection between history’s truth-telling and its usefulness for readers, see, e.g., Diodorus, Hist. 1.2; Dionysius, Ant. rom. 1.1.2; Livy, Hist., Preface 10; Lucian, Hist. 9, 42; Polybius, Hist. 1.1.

An Approach to Reading Luke’s Gospel

Reading Luke’s Narrative . An act as complex as interpreting an ancient text requires both boldness and humility. I do not pretend to be able to construct a precise profile of Luke’s original readers, their sociohistorical context, or their process of hearing this text. Nor am I able to construct an ideal reader who will respond appropriately to all the cues in this narrative.14 As one critical reader, I read Luke’s Gospel out of my own context, with my own literary interests, ethical concerns, and theological convictions—yet as one who pays close attention to the signals and cues in the text and is constrained by them, filling gaps when possible from knowledge of the historical contingencies and sociocultural scripts of Luke’s context, but also acknowledging that in some instances textual indeterminacy cannot be resolved. Diverse readers will respond to these complications in various ways.

The commentary presents a literary reading, a narrative reading that pays attention to sequence, but the interpretation is not restricted to a onetime, sequential hearing of the text. I allow for the possibility of readings and rereadings, in which initial understandings are challenged, deepened, or confirmed, in retrospect, by later materials in the narrative and in the narrative sequel, Acts.

Moreover, I am a reader who admits sympathy with the social, theological, and ethical vision expressed in this narrative. Because of my own social location as a privileged, well-educated, economically advantaged reader, my empathetic engagement with Luke’s Gospel also confronts me with profound challenge (see, e.g., Excursus: Poverty and Wealth in Luke’s Gospel, at 19:10). I believe it is a text with something to say in other times, places, and cultures, including the world I inhabit. Although the scope and primary aims of the commentary do not often permit explicit attention to such concerns, they do percolate throughout the exegesis, and I hope this will at least now and then nudge readers of this commentary to engage them thoughtfully. The ethics of reading and responding to texts, perhaps especially ancient biblical texts, is an important matter, and academic commentaries should not try to evade it—certainly not a commentary on Luke, with its challenging vision of the world as God’s domain.

Luke and Sources . The preface to the Gospel acknowledges that, like other historians, Luke has conducted research that involves use of sources (1:1–3). He does not identify any of his sources, but it has become customary to assume that chief among them were the Gospel of Mark and Q, a source, no longer extant, that was also tapped by Matthew (independently of Luke) and contained primarily sayings of Jesus, as well as a fund of traditions unique to Luke (for convenience: L). Mark supplied the basic shape of the narrative (minus the omitted section Mark 6:45–8:26),15 and Luke expanded the Markan story by extending it (esp. in adding chs. 1–2 and most of ch. 24) and inserting materials shared with Matthew (double tradition) or uniquely Lukan tradition, locating most of those non-Markan materials (from Q and L) in the central section, a journey narrative that runs from 9:51 through 19:27.

14. For discussion of strategies for construing the reader of Luke’s narrative, see Darr, Character Building 16–36; kurz, Reading 9–16; Maxwell, Hearing; Tannehill 27–31; Tyson, Images 19–41.

Dissenting voices, however, persist.16 Some contend that the basic design for Luke comes not from Mark but from a source, no longer extant, that combined Q and L (Proto-Luke), into which Luke inserted Markan materials (classically, Streeter, Four Gospels 199–222; more recently, Brodie, Proto-Luke). Others reject the assumption of Markan priority and dispense with Q, proposing instead that Luke used Matthew as a source, and Mark then combined and condensed both Matthew and Luke (e.g., Farmer, Synoptic Problem; Peabody et al., One Gospel). Still others, while accepting Markan priority, reject Q and its corollary of independent editing of Mark by Matthew and Luke, hypothesizing instead Luke’s use of both Mark and Matthew as sources (e.g., Goodacre, Case; Goulder, Luke). And the view that Luke had access to John’s Gospel has also been championed (e.g., Shellard, New Light; Matson, In Dialogue).17

In my judgment, the hypothesis that makes best sense of the data is that Luke (independently of Matthew) employed Mark, Q, and (whether written or, perhaps more likely, oral) L as sources. Not to be overlooked in discussion of Luke’s sources, moreover, is his use of (many books of) the ot in Greek translation. Caution is necessary, however, because we do not have access to any of these sources in precisely the form Luke would have known them. (Nor, it is safe to say, would Matthew have had access to any sources he shared with Luke in a form that is available to us, or that would have been identical to the versions Luke tapped.) Moreover, the fact that Luke revised the style and language of the sources he incorporated further complicates any attempt to reconstruct the exact wording of his sources. The fluidity of the texts and their early transmission, the interactions between the Gospel texts in the course of their being copied and transmitted, and the complexity of the data (including the problem of minor agreements of Matthew and Luke against Mark, an esp. difficult challenge for the popular two-source hypothesis)18—all these mean that redactional analysis is precarious since it rests on assumptions about the precise content and shape of Luke’s sources and then draws conclusions about authorial motives and aims apparent in the recasting of those sources.

15. The most significant rearrangement of Mark is the relocation of Jesus’ rejection in Nazareth, which becomes an opening, inaugural episode in Luke (4:16–30; cf. Mark 6:1–6).

16. For a recent collection of essays advocating various positions on the interrelationships among the Gospels, see Foster et al., New Studies; Tuckett’s opening essay in that volume provides an excellent sketch of “The Current State of the Synoptic Problem” (9–50).

17. The spectrum of positions is actually much broader than this brief survey suggests. When one takes into account such variables as continuing influence of oral traditions, harmonization of wording in Gospel texts in the course of textual transmission, and possible multiple stages in Gospel composition and dissemination (see, e.g., Boismard, “Multiple Stage”), the complexity of the problem of Gospel relationships and therefore the tentativeness of any source-and-redaction analysis are evident.

18. Helpful summary and analysis in Boring, “Minor Agreements.”

The approach in this commentary will be a synchronic narrative analysis that attends closely to literary shaping of the canonical form of the Gospel of Luke (with a few textual variations dictated by text-critical analysis; see the section on “Text” below). After all, Luke’s earliest readers (audience),19 and most readers since, have not encountered the Gospel narrative with a synopsis at hand. Where comparative analysis with other Gospel accounts (most often Mark) helps expose the distinctive profile of Luke’s account, I will draw upon that analysis (typically in footnotes) to inform the reading of Luke. My ear will be particularly attuned to rhetorical effects of the story as Luke has told it, for earliest audiences but also for diverse twenty-first-century readers. Historical and sociocultural features that figure in the text or are presumed by it (though not a historical reconstruction of its prehistory) will be explored whenever they help cast light on meaning for readers both ancient and modern.

Luke and Acts. Only Luke narrates the extension of the story of Jesus into that of his first followers, who continue the work Jesus had begun (Acts 1:1). Since Cadbury coined the hyphenated expression Luke–Acts in the 1920s (see esp. Making), it has become customary to use this term to refer to the Lukan writings. Although the nature of the unity of Luke–Acts has been the subject of critical examination (e.g., Parsons and Pervo, Rethinking), it is beyond question that Luke wrote both books and that important narrative threads of the Gospel are resumed in Acts (survey of the discussion in Verheyden, “Unity”). The web of promise and fulfillment that connects the story of the Gospel to the ot also connects the story of Acts to Luke’s first volume. Otherwise put, the coherence of the narrative results from the “unifying purpose of God” evident in the events narrated (Tannehill, Narrative Unity 1:2). Because the links between Gospel and its narrative sequel, Acts, are embedded in both narratives (Luke as a matter of prolepsis, or anticipation; Acts by way of analepsis, or retrospective discovery), the thematic coherence of the two writings is discerned through the activity of readers (well stated by Marguerat, First 45–46). This commentary focuses on the Gospel, but when the narrative points interpretation ahead to themes continued or completed in Acts, these connections will be at least briefly observed.

Previewing Central Theological

and Ethical Concerns and Commitments

Luke’s narrative is theocentric: what drives the story is God’s faithful commitment and relentless activity to accomplish the divine purpose for Israel, and through Israel for all peoples (cf. Green 22–23; Tannehill, Narrative Unity 1:2).

19. Most early recipients of Luke’s Gospel would actually have heard it read aloud.

This purpose, commitment, and activity concern salvation: the world is being reordered and human beings are being set free (for God’s rule) from powerful forces that oppress and distort their lives and communities. under the inspiration of Isa 58 and 61 and as metaphor for this work of deliverance, Jesus offers aphesis (Luke 4:18–19), a “release” variously conceived and enacted. It encompasses liberation from destructive (demonic) domination, forgiveness of sin, remission of debt, and rescue from social systems and cultural values that—by valorizing status, wealth, and power—effectively oppress most people.

Salvation and status inversion . God’s project of salvation therefore fulfills ancient promise but does so in a manner that challenges existing cultural norms, social patterns, and political arrangements. It is the poor and the socially marginalized who benefit from Jesus’ ministry of liberation, while persons with status and advantage turn away. It is thus no surprise that Jesus, the prophet and Messiah who is primary agent of God’s rule, encounters intense conflict and, ultimately, rejection and death. This too, Luke’s narrative emphasizes, is nothing new: it is what happens to God’s agents (e.g., 13:33–34; 24:26, 44–46).

The reign of God as imagined and enacted by Jesus challenges conventional notions and practices, especially relating to social status. His ministry effects radical status inversion that is both horizontal (sinners and righteous exchange places) and vertical (persons possessing and those lacking wealth, status, and power trade places). Or rather, Jesus invites any and all to a table where the only status and position that matter are those conferred by a gracious, just God.20 Scenes featuring transposition of place for righteous community insiders and sinners on the social margins occur repeatedly throughout the narrative (e.g., 5:27–32; 7:36–50; 15:1–32; 18:9–14). Community boundaries are stretched still further with the portrayal of Samaritans as exemplary characters (10:30–35; 17:11–19) and of a Roman centurion (and Gentile) as a model of faith (7:1–10).

20. Pushing Luke’s theo-logic here even a step further: Do the horizontal and vertical reversals in Luke mean that “the first shall be lost?” What comes next for the one who is now on the underside (having been demoted from a position of advantage and power) or the outside (having criticized Jesus’ embrace of sinners)? Does that one now become, anew (or for the first time), the audience and object and beneficiary of God’s boundary-transgressing, inclusive grace? Regarding horizontal status reversal, the rhetorical strategies in Luke 15:1–32, with its parables featuring restoration of the lost, suggest an affirmative answer (cf. 19:10). The same may be true of the ending of Acts, where the narrator follows Paul’s stinging rebuke of resistant Jewish auditors in Rome (28:24–28) with the notice that he continued to receive and teach “all” who came to him, presumably including Jews (vv. 30–31). Regarding vertical status reversal, the divine “impossible possibility” of a place in God’s realm for those with wealth, affirmed by Jesus immediately after a rich ruler hesitates to disinvest for the sake of discipleship, then illustrated by rich Zacchaeus’s “salvation” (Luke 18:18–30 → 19:1–10), likewise pictures permeable boundaries between those who have and those who lack status and wealth (cf. the depiction of high-status members of the movement in Acts 17:12). The parabolic rich man and his brothers in Luke 16:19–31 may be without hope, but if the point is not lost on wealthy readers, hope may be restored to them.

Vertical status inversion is no less prominent in Luke’s narrative. From the Magnificat (1:46–55) onward, God’s realm honors persons who lack status, blesses the poor while indicting the wealthy, and radically reconfigures power at the expense of the mighty (e.g., 4:18–19; 6:20–26; 9:46–48; 14:12–14; 16:19–31; 18:15–17, 18–30; 22:24–27). Horizontal and vertical reversals converge when Jesus encounters the “very rich” yet socially marginalized and despised chief tax collector Zacchaeus (19:1–10). Salvation comes even to his household, and it results in moral transformation concretely expressed in a pledge of generous benefaction to compensate victims of corrupt business practices and to aid the poor.

Luke and the Jewish people . The discussion of “author and audience” and “genre and purpose” has already identified community definition, identity, and legitimation as important concerns of Luke’s narrative, with regard to both the Roman order and, even more prominently, the movement’s roots in Jewish Scripture and history. The Gospel presents a complex account of the relation of emerging Christian groups to Jewish religion and people. On the one hand, Luke deeply roots Jesus and his followers in Judaism’s story and Scripture, commitments and practices. Jesus, Messiah and Savior of and for Israel, proffers divine deliverance to God’s people. even the eventual incorporation of Gentiles (in Acts, with occasional anticipations in the Gospel: Luke 2:32; 3:6; 4:25–27; 7:1–10) is not the radical departure it seems but, instead, a continuation of Israel’s story. It is the universal blessing originally intended in the divine promise to Abraham, according to Peter in Acts 3:25.

Nevertheless the Messiah who is also prophet to God’s people encounters resistance and, eventually, repudiation. The Pharisees, key adversaries of Jesus throughout his ministry even as they maintain social ties with him and engage in vigorous debate with him about fidelity to God’s Torah, epitomize this resistance. (Here, and throughout the commentary, unless otherwise indicated, I am discussing narrative characters such as the Pharisees, and other Jewish leader groups and the Jewish public, as literary constructs [i.e., fictional characters], not as the actual historical persons with whom Jesus interacted during his career.) Jesus does not mince words in response to their criticism (e.g., Luke 11:39–44; 16:14–15). But they vanish from the narrative just after Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem (their last explicit mention is in 19:39–40), only to reappear in Acts. The final and lethal opposition to Jesus comes not from them but from the leading priests who dominate the temple system and elite scribes allied with them (19:47; 20:19; 22:2, 52, 66–71; 23:10). Perceiving Jesus to be a threat to their power and influence, they collaborate first with Jesus’ apostle Judas and then with the Roman governor to remove the threat. The divine visitation to bring peace thus goes unrecognized by Jerusalem (19:41–44). In the pivotal scene before Pilate, even the Jewish public, despite strong attraction to Jesus and his ministry throughout the story, side with the elite and powerful among them and clamor for his crucifixion (23:13–25). Immediately after Jesus’ death, however, the people express remorse (23:48), preparing for the apostles’ invitation to them in Acts to repent and join the movement (e.g., 2:22–24, 36, 38; 3:12–15, 17–19).

As the narrative of Acts proceeds, however, Jewish audiences become increasingly hostile to the apostolic message and its emissaries, and Paul’s mission is repeatedly redirected to Gentiles (13:44–48; 18:5–6; 19:8–10; 28:23–28). Paul’s final speech, which represents the climax of Luke’s two books, points the future mission toward Gentiles (or nations, ethnē), to whom “this salvation will go” and “they will hear” (28:28). Even so, to the very end Paul, prisoner of Rome, invokes the hopes of Israel (28:20), epitomized by the affirmation of resurrection (23:6; 24:15; 26:6–8), and hence God’s vindication of Jesus, the crucified Messiah (13:27–30; cf. 2:22–24, 36; 3:12–15; 5:30–31).

Luke’s narrative betrays an intense struggle for the Jewish heritage and its blessing and birthright; it is staking a claim that the Christian movement legitimately appropriates and continues this heritage.21 The Gospel tells only part of that story, anticipating the narrative sequel’s further revision of conventional notions about the composition and character of God’s people (see, e.g., Luke 4:25–27; 7:1–10; 13:22–30).

Jesus . Luke narrates God’s activity of salvation, continuing ancient work and fulfilling ancient promise. Jesus, however, is the primary actor through whom that work is accomplished and that promise realized. (As with other characters, unless otherwise noted, my concern is Luke’s portrayal of Jesus as a literary character, not historical reconstruction of the life and career of Jesus— even if, as I think probable, there are major points of congruence between the Lukan profile of Jesus and the historical figure.) God is Savior but shares that title and role with Jesus (e.g., God is Savior in 1:47, Jesus in 2:11). Moreover, only one with sovereign authority can effect salvation, and God also shares status as kyrios (Lord) with Jesus (God, in 1:17, 25, 46, 68; 4:18; Jesus, in 1:43; 2:11; 10:1). Jesus is God’s authorized regent-on-earth who in word, at table, and in acts of healing bears God’s reign and frees people from powerful forces that oppose God’s purpose and human flourishing.

Jesus, bearer of God’s powerful rule, is Messiah of Israel and thus Son of God in a way that answers to long-standing promises and expectations of the Jewish people for a true monarch (e.g., 1:32–35, 68–75; 2:11, 49; 3:22, 38; 9:35). Moreover, Jesus the Anointed (Messiah) is anointed by God’s Spirit for a specifically prophetic mission, as he announces in Nazareth (4:18–19, 24–27) and on the road (13:33–34), and as disciples and outside observers alike discern (7:16; 24:19; cf. 7:39). As prophet, he performs mighty acts of healing reminiscent of elijah and elisha (7:1–17), declares the word of God (e.g., 5:1; 8:21; cf. 8:11), confronts moral corruption and leadership failure (e.g., 11:29–32, 37–52; 12:1; 19:45–20:18) and exploitative systems that oppress the poor (e.g., 20:45–21:4), displays an uncanny ability to read the thoughts of persons (e.g., 5:22; 6:8; 7:39–40; 9:47), and delivers prescient prophetic oracles (e.g., 9:22; 13:32–35; 17:25; 18:31–33; 19:43–44; 21:5–24; 22:10–12, 21–22, 34; 23:28–31; some of these oracles are fulfilled in Acts or in the historical experience of Luke’s audience, beyond the narrative). And as prophet, he also meets rejection by his people (4:24) and so suffers the fate of prophets before him (13:33–34; cf. 11:47–51).

21. See Strauss, Davidic Messiah 348–49. This topic has been the subject of vigorous debate. For orientation to the broad spectrum of views, see Brawley, Luke–Acts; J. Sanders, Jews; Tyson, Images; idem, Luke.

Jesus accumulates an impressive résumé of honorific titles in Luke’s Gospel: Son of God, prophet, Messiah, and Lord who exercises legitimate rule over Israel. He is also Son of Humanity^22 who acts with authority (5:24; 6:5; cf. 19:9–10), suffers rejection and death (9:22, 44, 58; 17:25; 18:31–33; 22:22), but then receives divine vindication and exaltation (17:30; 21:27; 22:69, tapping Dan 7:13–14). His exercise of power and royal authority is unconventional. Indeed, he “embodies in his own career and destiny the radical status inversion that he proclaimed” (Carroll, “Luke, Gospel of” 732). His path to glory passes through suffering and death, an itinerary for which several roles converge: prophet, Messiah, Son of Humanity, and then, as a final image of countercultural leadership, humble servant (Luke 22:24–27) who, though righteous, suffers injustice and violence, trusting only in vindication by God (e.g., in Luke 23:46 the appeal to Ps 31:6, giving voice to the righteous sufferer).23 Jesus’ exercise of sovereign authority in a fashion congruent with his statussubverting message about the reign of God, a mode of leadership radically different from Roman domination, supplies the model that his followers are to embrace (Luke 22:24–30).

The death of Jesus, the prophet-Messiah-righteous servant who in life and death models authentic human personhood (as the Human One, or Son of Humanity), in line with other events in the Gospel and Acts that threaten to defeat the divine purpose, ironically furthers its accomplishment. A story featuring the activity of Jesus is thus, from beginning to end, God’s story.

22. Throughout the commentary, this is my rendering of the Greek expression ho huios tou anthrōpou, conventionally translated “Son of Man” (as in nrsv). Although the epithet has eschatological connotations that transcend ordinary human experience, by way of Dan 7 (cf. the frequent use of cognate terms in 1 En. 37–71), I think it important to connect the phrase to humanity-in-general, as in Ps 8:4 and ezekiel’s usage (e.g., ezek 2:1, 3, 6, 8)—hence, aptly, the translation “Human One” preferred by CEB. However, one should also seek to preserve the culturally significant dimension of sonship, parallel to “Son of God” (which “Human One” does not effectively capture).

23. Also note dikaios (righteous) in 23:47 and the development of the motif of Jesus as servant of God in Acts 3:13, 26; 4:27–30; cf. 8:32–33.

God . Whether encountered in the (rarely heard) heavenly voice (3:22; 9:35), in the message of angels (e.g., 1:13–17, 30–33, 35; 2:10–14), in the authorizing and empowering activity of the Holy Spirit (e.g., 1:35, 67; 2:25–27; 3:22; 4:1, 14, 18), in the witness of sacred Scripture (e.g., 4:18–19; 18:31; 24:25–27, 45–47), or implicitly in passive-voice verbs in which divine agency is transparent (e.g., 8:17–18; 9:22; 11:9–10; 13:13, 16; 18:34; 24:16, 31), it is God—the Creator God of the Jewish Scriptures and people—who initiates, guides, and assigns meaning to the saving events Luke narrates. As prophet, Jesus articulates the aims and commitments of God (see 9:35; 13:33–34; cf. Acts 3:22–23). And as healer, he liberates the sick and oppressed and reclaims the world from the power of Satan and for the powerful rule of God (Luke 11:14–23; cf. Acts 10:38).

Luke’s narrative, then, highlights the purpose of God ( boulē theou), which, in convention-defying, countercultural fashion and despite formidable obstacles to its realization, moves the “events brought to fulfillment among us” (Luke 1:1) to completion. So the salvation that God intends for Israel, and for all peoples of the earth, becomes reality in the present and hope for the future. Thus Luke delivers a narrative in which readers such as Theophilus may place confidence.

Text

Content from Luke’s Gospel is known from as early as the mid-second century C.E., in references to the “memoirs of the apostles” (i.e., the nt Gospels) made by Justin Martyr and in the construction of Marcion’s Luke-like Gospel (see the discussion of “date of composition” in section 1 of this introduction). For purposes of (re)constructing a reliable text, however, the earliest textual attestation of the Gospel comes from five third-century papyrus manuscripts: portions of chs. 1–6 appear in ∏4; portions of chs. 6–7 and 9–14 appear in ∏45; fragments of ch. 22 (vv. 41, 45–48, 58–61) are present in ∏69; a small section of ch. 17 (vv. 11–13, 22–23) survives in fragmentary form in ∏111; and substantial sections of the Gospel (portions of each chapter in Luke 3–18, including 9:4–17:15 and then also 22:4–24:53 in toto) appear in ∏75 (ca. 200 C.E.). The earliest surviving uncial witness to Luke is manuscript 0171 (ca. 300 C.E., containing 22:44–56, 61–64). The Gospel enjoys complete attestation in a set of codex uncials from the fourth and fifth centuries—Sinaiticus (א), Alexandrinus (A), Vaticanus (B), Bezae Cantabrigiensis (D), and Washingtoniensis (W)—and is partially attested by Ephraemi Syri Rescriptus (C, fifth century) and Zacynthius (Ξ, sixth century). Text-critical notes in the commentary will also occasionally point to readings attested by the uncial codices Regius (L, eighth century), Coridethianus (Θ, ninth century), and Athous Lavrensis (Ψ, eighth–ninth centuries), each containing a complete copy of Luke, as well as important minuscule witnesses (e.g., 33, 1241, 1424, and the minuscule manuscript families designated f^1 and f^13 [Ferrar group]) and, among the ancient versions, Old Latin and Syriac manu

scripts, when these complement the readings of other important manuscripts or attest readings also supported by strong internal evidence.

For the most part, the form of the Greek text on which the translation and interpretive commentary in this volume are based resembles closely that printed in the twenty-seventh edition of Nestle-Aland’s Novum Testamentum Graece (NA^27). However, where my own analysis of the evidence indicates that an alternative reading is to be preferred, I provide clear indication and explanation of that decision. Of particular interest to many readers will be a set of decisions I have made to follow the shorter readings attested by the “Western text,” especially Codex Bezae Cantabrigiensis (D, with the so-called Western noninterpolations; see translation note e for 22:14–38) in several verses in Luke 22 and 24: 22:19b–20; 24:3, 6, 12, 36, 40, 51–52. I offer support for these textcritical judgments at each location (in translation notes and sometimes also in the comment that follows). Nevertheless, I recognize that the “Luke” known to many readers of the Gospel, both ancient and modern, has included the longer form of the text. In the absence of the earliest text as composed by Luke (a state of affairs that will never be remedied), any text that is presented as a basis for interpretation will be an artificial construct and thus only approximate a complex textual reality that was fluid for some centuries and therefore cannot be captured with precision.

Design of the Narrative

As his preface indicates (1:3), order matters to Luke in the construction of his story, an interest he shares with other historians of his era (note the critical reflections on arrangement in historical narrative in Dionysius, Thuc. 9–11; Lucian, Hist. 47–48, 51, 55). Luke has crafted a narrative in which both space and time, and therefore spatiotemporal movement, are configured in meaningful ways. With regard to space, the story begins and ends in the temple at Jerusalem (1:8–23 and 2:22–38, 41–50; 24:50–53), by way of a period of mission in Galilee (4:14–9:50) and a long journey back to the temple (9:51–19:27). And the narrative sequel moves from Jerusalem (Acts 1–7) to Rome (28:16–31), a core foundational narrative of a global mission that embraces the activity of Luke’s audience. With regard to time, the web of prophecy (or promise) and fulfillment links the events of the Gospel to the ot and “Jewish antiquities,” and the teleology of the story moves to divine vindication of the crucified Messiah “on the third day” (Luke 24) and onward, through a period of witness under duress (prolepsis in 21:12–19, with realization in Acts) that will span the destruction of the temple, toward the triumphant return of the Lord Jesus in eschatological judgment and deliverance (Luke 21:25–36).

After a brief preface stating the book’s aims and the author’s credentials (Luke 1:1–4), an account of the birth and childhood of John and Jesus interprets their appearance as the arrival of the long-awaited era of Israel’s salvation (1:5–2:52). The next narrative segment offers further preparation for the messianic mission of Jesus, with focus, in turn, on the prophetic ministry of John, the baptism of Jesus, his ancestry, and a test of his understanding of, and commitment to, his vocation as God’s Son (3:1–4:13). The first phase of Jesus’ Spirit-empowered public ministry centers in Galilee (4:14–9:50), with an opening scene of conflict in his hometown synagogue previewing programmatically not only the aims and focus of Jesus’ mission but also its reception and eventual outcome (4:16–30). The center of the narrative is a lengthy, meandering journey to Jerusalem, where Jesus knows he must meet his destiny as God’s prophet and Messiah (9:51–19:27). After an account of Jesus’ culminating teaching ministry in Jerusalem, in which he confronts the powerful temple system and the elite leaders of his people (19:28–21:38), Luke proceeds to a narrative of Jesus’ last meal with his intimate followers, his arrest, and multiple interrogations (by the highest local Jewish and Roman authorities), leading to his crucifixion (22:1–23:56). The Gospel concludes with an account of Easterday events that mark God’s validation of the condemned and crucified Jesus, interpret his death as divinely purposed and congruent with both scriptural promise and the Messiah’s portfolio, and anticipate the next phase of the story, in which Jesus’ followers (in Acts) will continue his project of salvation for Israel, extending to the whole earth (24:1–53).24

24. This structuring of the narrative is nearly identical to that of Fitzmyer (summary, 1:134; the only variance is that he places 23:56b with ch. 24) and also that of Green (summary, 25–29; Green extends the “way to Jerusalem” to 19:48 rather than 19:27).

COMMeNTARY

Luke 1:1–4 Formal Preface to the Gospel

Luke alone among the nt Gospels begins with a formal preface, adapting literary conventions of Greco-Roman culture to orient readers to the narrative that follows. In content if not in scale, Luke’s brief preface is reminiscent of the much longer historical treatises of his time, but in form it more closely resembles the prefaces of technical treatises in such fields as medicine, astronomy, and architecture (Alexander, Preface). The preface signals that this account is worthy of attention by persons of culture and social position in the Roman empire, even as the work addresses its primary audience of Christian communities known to the author.

The preface consists of a single sentence (1:1–4) designed to capture readers’ attention—weighty and impressive and employing vocabulary unusual in early Christian literature, though common in prefaces of the era. The literary conventions and the public, nonsectarian language employed in these verses give the Gospel, and perhaps Acts as well, a home in the Greco-Roman cultural world. Yet Luke at the same time situates his writing (his logos, as he will characterize it in the even briefer preface that opens his second book addressed to Theophilus [Acts 1:1]) in the world of Christian tradition, of oral and written narratives composed by early Christians. Above all, he claims to have carefully crafted a narrative that relates significant events, and to have done so in a way that can be trusted. More specific information about the audience, aims, and content of the book only becomes evident as the Gospel unfolds, but the author provides enough hints in Luke 1:1–4 that an audience previously acquainted with the Christian story—Theophilus among them—will be ready to hear the story Luke has to tell.

1 Since many have undertakena to compile a narrative about the events that have been brought to fulfillment among us— 2 just as those who from the beginning were eyewitnesses and ministers of the word handed [them] down to us— 3 it seemed good to me, too,b as I have followedc everything carefully for a long time, to write you an ordered account, most excellent Theophilus, 4 so that you may recognize the sure reliabilityd concerning the things you have been taught.

a. The word epecheirēsan (“[many] have undertaken”) literally means “set [their] hand to” and often refers in treatise prefaces to the undertaking of a literary project. It may be dismissive of the attempts of other writers (e.g., Josephus, Life 9; 65; cf. the pejorative nuance of the verb in Acts 9:29; 19:13), but is also used without negative valence (e.g., Josephus, Ag. Ap. 1.13; Polybius, Hist. 2.37.4; 3.1.4; 12.28.3; Diodorus Siculus, Hist. 1.3.2; but see Alexander, Preface 110 n. 12). Verse 3 (“it seemed good to me, too”) supports the latter construal here; Luke joins the company of early Christian narrators, though he will bring his own distinctive gifts to his project.

b. A few Old Latin Mss add “and to the Holy Spirit,” a later expansion that conforms this text to Acts 15:28, where the apostles and elders claim that the Spirit concurs with the community’s decision regarding inclusion of Gentiles and the four “essentials” of Torah observance that pertain to them (again in connection with the verb edoxen [“it seemed good”]).

c. The perfect participle parēkolouthēkoti (“as I have followed”) expresses the claim that Luke has attended carefully to all the events he relates. Although this word could suggest personal experience of these events and personal association with the “ministers of the word” who told about them (Cadbury, “Preface” 501–2), it is likely that the author is claiming that his acquaintance with the story he tells is intimate, thorough, and reliable, as one would expect of a good historian (see the nuanced discussion in Alexander, Preface 128–30, 133–35). I take the adverb akribōs (“carefully”) as modifying the preceding participle (“as I have followed”), not the following infinitive (“to write”); it would be grammatically awkward for both adverbs, akribōs and kathexēs (“in an ordered arrangement”), without connecting conjunction, to modify the infinitive. Nevertheless, the intermediate position of akribōs between “followed” and “write” allows the surmise that both the historian’s investigation of events and his narrative account are distinguished by such care and accuracy that the reader may place trust in what Luke has to say.

d. Epignōs .. . asphaleian: is this security or reliability a quality of the knowing (so Alexander, Preface 137–38, 140: “know for sure”) or of the teaching Theophilus has received? It is unnecessary to force a choice between the two: secure knowledge surely depends on the teaching’s reliability.

[1–2] Luke associates his own literary project with the narratives others have written before him and with the tradition on which all such accounts are based: the witness of persons who “from the beginning” have been present to observe events in which the divine purpose has been accomplished. Luke’s account will provide a secure basis for knowledge about the events it relates, but he is no innovator. It was not uncommon in treatise prefaces to disparage the work of one or more literary predecessors, hence justifying one’s own undertaking (e.g., Josephus, Life 9; 65; Josephus, Ant. Preface 1; Josephus, J.W. Preface 1–5; cf. Dio Cassius, Hist. rom. 39.50.3; Dioscorides, Mat. med. 1.1; see Alexander, Preface 76–77, 109–10), and many scholars are of the opinion that Luke does so here (e.g., Origen, Hom. Luc. 1; eusebius, Hist. eccl. 3.24.15; Klein, “Lukas 1,1–4”). Many unnamed authors, Luke avers, have previously attempted or endeavored (epecheirēsan) to give the materials of the story, the narrative (diēgēsin), a suitable arrangement. (Luke uses the rare verb anatassesthai, apparently as the semantic equivalent of the more common syntassesthai.) By implication, he will succeed where they only tried (hence, failed).

As v. 3 shows, however, Luke, far from distancing his literary effort from his predecessors, closely links his account to theirs (“it seemed good to me, too”). Like them, he will rely on the tradition that has been informed by the witness of those who experienced these events. Like them, he will offer his readers a suitably arranged narrative. Whatever the merits and limitations of Luke’s predecessors (and however many or few they were—it was conventional to speak in such a connection of “many” [polloi]), Theophilus and other readers will find this account to be reliable.

With the very first word of the Gospel, the compound causal conjunction epeidēper (“since”), Luke reaches for an impressive word, one that appears nowhere else in the Greek Bible (though cf. the analogous use of epeidē in the letter sent by the Jerusalem apostles and elders in Acts 15:23–29). The precedent set by other narrative accounts establishes the subject of Luke’s book(s) as worthy of attention. Because they have seen fit to arrange the elements of this story, Luke will do so as well. Yet he will not only attend to appropriate arrangement; he has also followed all these events with care for some time now (v. 3), and the result of his own thorough grasp of this information will be secure knowledge of the tradition—of the events and their meaning—for his readers. This is the main point of the preface, and thus a central aim of Luke’s writings as a whole, and it is clear despite the elusive meaning of some of the individual words in these verses.

With the expression peplērophorēmenōn . . . pragmatōn, Luke couples an unusual word (“were brought to fulfillment,” presumably a synonym for the more common and simpler word plēroō) with one that regularly appears in historical treatises (“events”). The perfect passive participle peplērophorēmenōn is difficult to pin down on first hearing. Its full meaning will become clear, however, as the narrative develops. The passive form implies divine agency: God is the one who brings these events to fulfillment, that is, effects divine (saving) purposes through them. That these events bring fulfillment specifically to scriptural promise will also become evident in the course of Luke’s two-volume work, but the preface, heard by one unfamiliar with the Christian story and proclamation, would simply anticipate an account about completed events, or events that accomplish interesting ends. The tense of the verb indicates that the narrated events, though past, have resulting effects that continue “among us.” One sense of plērophorein is “convince,” and although in its passive voice the word’s pairing with events does not immediately suggest that nuance in v. 1, the anticipated rhetorical effect of Luke’s narration of these significant events is precisely persuasion, assurance about the secure knowledge delivered. Verse 1 directly describes the literary efforts of his predecessors, but indirectly his narrative as well.

Luke twice uses the first-person plural pronoun: “among us” (v. 1) and “to us” (v. 2). We—that is, all who have become part of the company of the Messiah Jesus, from the start of his ministry onward—have experienced the significant events in which God has been at work, in fulfillment of ancient promises to the people (v. 1). And a more restricted “we” of the second Christian generation have received the witness of the tradition (v. 2). In v. 3 Luke proceeds to speak directly as first-person narrator (“to me, too”) to the second-person singular soi (“to you,” i.e., Theophilus). Elsewhere, though, Luke reverts to the less obtrusive, impersonal (and unrestricted) third-person narrator, except for the minipreface of Acts 1:1 (with “I” as the unexpressed subject of the verb) and the sections in the last half of Acts that include the narrator in the action (“we” in Acts 16:10–17; 20:5–15; 21:1–18; 27:1–28:16).

The antiquity of a religious movement or philosophical school was something to be prized, as is evident, for example, in the claims made for the ancient pedigree of Jewish religion by Josephus (Ag. Ap. 1.1; Ant. Preface 3; 4.8.44; 20.11.2). Luke employs terms in vv. 2–3 that suggest Christian tradition is no novelty: ap’ archēs (“from the beginning,” v. 2) and anōthen (“for a long time,” v. 3). But there is more. The credibility of the message that Luke will convey through his narrative is enhanced because he is able to build on the reports of persons who participated in and observed the events from the beginning of the movement, and because he himself has long attended carefully to everything. The adverb anōthen likely carries that sense here, although it may also mean “from above” and so bear meaning similar to ap’ archēs, as in Acts 26:4–5. The ministry of the baptizer John marks the “beginning” (Luke 3:21–23; 16:16; Acts 1:21–22; 10:37; cf. Luke 23:5). It will soon become apparent, however, that the movement’s true beginning lies in the ancient history of God’s people Israel, and in its ancient Scriptures, which anticipated the coming of Jesus as Messiah of Israel and Savior of both Israel and the nations.

The theme of witness is pivotal in Acts, although the key term there is martys (one who bears witness). The apostles are able to proclaim Jesus as God’s Messiah because they were present to observe his ministry, beginning with the baptism of John, and continuing through his crucifixion, resurrection, and ascension (e.g., Acts 1:21–22). Both autoptai (eyewitnesses) and hypēretai (ministers) are governed by one article, so they form a single group. The participle genomenoi could modify its nearest noun (ministers [of the word]), yielding the meaning “eyewitnesses who became ministers of the word” (Dillon, “Previewing” 214–17; Riley, Preface 7). However, the verb ginesthai often appears in tandem with autoptai, and the phrase may be rendered simply “those who were eyewitnesses and ministers of the word”; one group is in view. “The word” receives emphatic final position in the clause, separated by the participle from the noun it modifies (“ministers”). Luke and therefore his audience draw from a tradition that may be trusted because it derives from people who from direct experience know this story, this teaching.

[3–4] In the fashion of historians of the period, Luke garners his readers’ attention, and their confidence, by noting the care with which he has undertaken the task of research and writing (cf. Josephus, Ag. Ap. 1.10; Josephus, Ant. Preface 3). Now that he has for some time carefully attended to (followed) the important events that have been occurring, he is well positioned to write a credible account; moreover, in writing, he has effectively arranged the materials at his disposal so that readers may understand the connections between events and discern the patterns that disclose meaning. The adverb kathexēs (“in an ordered arrangement”) is elsewhere synonymous with the more common word hexēs, as shown by their identical usage in Luke 7:11 and 8:1. If it bears that meaning here, Luke would simply be announcing that he writes to Theophilus “as follows” (du Plessis, “Once More” 268–69). However, it is more probable that the phrase “to write kathexēs” is roughly equivalent to the “compiling of a narrative” undertaken by Luke’s predecessors and thus prepares readers for a narrative that pays careful attention to arrangement, for an effectively ordered account of successive events.

After the manner of dedications common in treatise prefaces in his culture, Luke singles out one among his readers for special mention, addressing the work to “most excellent [kratiste] Theophilus.” The superlative adjective kratiste (vocative case), or its semantic equivalent, often appears in prefaces (e.g., Dioscorides, Mat. med. 1; Artemidorus, Onir. 2–3; Josephus, Ag. Ap. 1.1). Although elsewhere Luke uses it of government officials (Acts 23:26; 24:3 [2E]; 26:25), suggesting that Theophilus may be such an official, it is a conventional word expressing esteem for a person known to the author, whether a person of higher social status or a peer. The once-common view that dedication to Theophilus would have carried with it the expectation that he would underwrite the publication and dissemination of the volume(s) has been shown to misrepresent ancient publication practices, in which a formal dedication served various rhetorical interests (Alexander, Preface 50–63, 193–97). The name Theophilus has been taken as symbolic; rather than an actual individual, the addressee of the Gospel is a “lover [friend] of God” or one “beloved of God” (discussion in Fitzmyer 1:299–300; cf. Bonz, Past 131–32). However, the name is attested as early as the third century B.C.E.1 and, given the convention of dedicating literary works to real persons, it is probable that he is a man of some social standing. A work dedicated to such an individual is worthy of attention even by persons of considerable status and influence. The resumptive preface of Acts 1 addresses Theophilus a second time.

1. A third-century inscription mentions “Theophilus, the son of Philotheos, a Lamptrian”; see Bovon 1:23 n. 68 (cf. Let. Aris. 49).

The preface signals that readers’ confidence in the message conveyed in Luke’s narrative is an important concern; asphaleia (reliability, certainty) receives special emphasis as the preface’s final word. Luke’s audience has access to secure knowledge because this teaching is reliable. It is trustworthy not only because of the traditions upon which the author draws but also, and primarily, because the narrative discloses the presence and purpose of God in guiding these events. Are Luke’s readers outside the Christian movement? key here is the word katēchēthēs (“you have been taught”). Although Theophilus may simply have received information about the Christian story, it is more likely that he is already a member of the community who has been taught the basics of this tradition and that Luke therefore writes to confirm and strengthen the religious conviction of Theophilus and the communities of readers of which he is representative. From whatever situation, Luke now has readers’ attention. It is time to begin the story.

Luke 1:5–2:52 The Birth and Childhood of Jesus

Luke opens the Gospel by speaking in his own voice (first-person singular), with a formal preface that resembles the erudite prefaces of historical and other “scientific” monographs in the Hellenistic world. The narrative of the “things that have been brought to fulfillment among us” begins with 1:5. The change in style and atmosphere is dramatic. Adopting the voice of the third-person narrator who will tell the story until the end of the Gospel, Luke from the outset immerses readers in the world of biblical Israel. The language and idiom, the settings, the characters, and their actions in Luke 1–2 all evoke the story and the Scriptures of Israel.

Luke 1–2 embeds Luke’s story in the ongoing story of Israel; God’s ways with the people continue. Moreover, the atmosphere is charged; the events— and the inspired words that interpret them—carry expectancy and hope, as ancient promises are recalled and renewed and as new promises are made. The beginning of this story inaugurates the era of salvation, long hoped for by God’s people. It introduces, as well, the two key figures whose appearance signals the dawn of the day of fulfillment and salvation. Yet there also are anticipations of the surprising course this salvation in Israel will take. The claims made, the new promises given, and the hopes rekindled with the arrival of John and Jesus all raise glorious expectations for Israel’s future: deliverance from enemies, liberation for the nation and for Jerusalem, a lasting reign of peace ushered in by a king descended from David whose rule will never end. Jesus is acclaimed Son of God, Savior, Lord, and Christ by highest heaven and by Spirit-inspired prophetic voices. All the while, the might of imperial Rome forms the backdrop and thus is a sign of the worldwide reach of the work of salvation that God will accomplish through the two sons of Israel whose births these chapters celebrate—therefore also posing a question about Roman dominion itself. Yet what a stunning contrast Luke’s audience witnesses between such grand promises and hopes and the actual events! A Messiah is born—but to a poor engaged couple, his first bed an animal’s feeding trough, his arrival greeted by shepherds. What sort of king will this be?

And the surprises are only beginning. When Jesus makes his first appearance in the temple (as an infant), his parents hear a prophetic oracle that pairs Israel’s restored glory with the extension of enlightenment to Gentiles, yet also foreshadows conflict and opposition to the Messiah arising from among his own people. A king who is acclaimed but also rejected: what sort of people will this king gather around himself? Who will oppose him, and why, and with what outcome? Promise and hope pervade Luke’s early chapters, but this is the real world, the world that answers to the Roman emperor, a world where prophets and rulers clash, and therefore the story will be much more complicated than listeners might gather from the speeches and hymns and prayers of Luke 1–2.

1:5–25 Announcement of the Coming Birth of John

The beginning of Luke’s narrative anticipates the content and character—and the outcome—of the public careers of both Jesus and the prophet who prepares the way for him: John. This will be a story about salvation, but also radical social reversal that provokes and threatens and therefore leads to intense conflict. The story begins not with Jesus the Savior but with John, whose prophetic task will be to make a people ready for the Messiah. Or rather, it begins with his parents. Luke gives this Gospel roots in Israel’s history and Scripture by introducing as his first characters a devout couple whose life circumstance evokes the memories of Abraham and Sarah, the first parents of the nation; and of Hannah, the mother of one of its great prophets, Samuel. expectant Israel first assumes the form of an aging priest and his wife, childless but righteous.

1:5–7 Introducing Zechariah and Elizabeth

As the narrative begins, Luke’s readers find themselves already in the middle of the story—Israel’s story. Before the first chapter has closed, it will become evident that this story has now reached the long-awaited era of promises fulfilled, hopes realized. With a single phrase, the opening verses, echoing biblical idiom, locate the action geographically and politically. The first characters, Zechariah and elizabeth, then appear; they are the embodiment of faithful Israel. Their circumstance—righteous yet childless—creates dissonance but also, for readers who know the story of Abraham and Sarah, and the story of Hannah, expectation of the unexpected.

5 In the days of Herod, the king of Judea, it happeneda that there was a priest named Zechariah who was from the priestly company of Abijah, and his wife was one of the daughters of Aaron, and her name was elizabeth. 6 Now they were both righteous before God, walkingb in all the Lord’s commandments and righteous precepts—blameless! 7 Yet they did not have a child, because elizabeth was infertile, and they were both very old.c

a. Literally, “it happened, there was a priest”; the word egeneto often introduces a clause in Luke, sometimes followed by kai (“and”) and a finite verb, but at other times (as here; cf. 1:23, 59; 2:1) by a finite verb without the conjunction. This is one of the literary touches that lend to the narrative its biblical flavor: it is a pattern that Luke borrowed from the lxx (kJv, “it came to pass”).

b. The present participle poreuomenoi (“walking,” lit., “going about”; nrsv, “living”) suggests that blameless Torah observance is the customary way of life of the couple; for a comparable ethical use of the verb, see Ps 118:1 lxx (119:1E).

c. Literally, “far along [advanced] in their days,” another biblical idiom (e.g., Gen 18:11; 24:1).

[5–7] The narrative begins in a fashion reminiscent of the opening of many prophetic books of the ot: brief notice of the historical setting in the reign of a particular king, typically with the verb egeneto ([it] “came to pass” or [of the prophetic message from God] “came”; see Jer 1:1–3; Hos 1:1; Amos 1:1; Mic 1:1; Zeph 1:1; cf. Isa 1:1; Hag 1:1; Zech 1:1; also 2 Chr 14:1). This is the first of three such contextualizing markers in the opening chapters of the Gospel, each more detailed than the preceding (1:5; 2:1–2; 3:1–2). While these notices set the stage by locating the characters and their actions in space and time (as one would expect of a treatise with historical interests), they also subtly suggest the presence of a powerful political undercurrent in the story. These events will unfold against a backdrop of power; will it be only backdrop, or will the narrative pose a fundamental challenge to that power? Before long, Luke’s audience will hear bold counterclaims regarding legitimate authority. Within the sovereignty of God (as the one who, apart from 1:43 and 2:11, is kyrios throughout Luke 1–2), it is Jesus, not Herod, who is truly king (1:32–33). Jesus, not Caesar, is Savior and, as Messiah, sovereign Lord (2:11). How will the narrative resolve the tension between the reality of power and politics within the story’s setting and the claims advanced on behalf of its leading character?

Like Matthew (2:1), Luke assigns the birth of Jesus to the reign of Herod the Great (i.e., 37–4 B.C.E.), one of several Herods who appear in Luke–Acts (e.g., 3:1; Acts 12:1; 25:23; see the comments on 3:1–2 and 3:19–20). Since Herod also governed Galilee and Samaria, Judea refers here to the territory of the Jewish people in Palestine (as in 4:44; 6:17; 7:17; 23:5; Acts 10:37; see Fitzmyer 1:322). The ensuing events, though, do occur within the more limited area associated with the name Judea proper.

The center of attention is the aging couple Zechariah and elizabeth. each comes from a family of priests, Zechariah belonging to one of the twenty-four divisions of priests (that of Abijah; the divisions are enumerated in 1 Chr 23–24) who serve in the temple in one-week rotations twice each year, and elizabeth also descending from Aaron (as does her husband). Even more significant than priestly pedigree, though, is their character. The narration is emphatic: they are both righteous (dikaioi), and their lives display blameless fidelity to the Torah. Although they are faithful to God and keep all that the law requires, they have a familiar problem. They bear the ancient stigma that accompanies childlessness. Status markers are therefore mixed: an honor-bestowing priestly pedigree and fidelity to the Torah, to be sure, yet without a child to give this family a future. As elizabeth puts it, her lack of children has been a source of deep reproach (1:25).

elizabeth’s situation recalls that of several women in the ot, notably Rachel (Gen 29:31; 30:1), Hannah (1 Sam 1:2, 5–7), and especially Sarah (Gen 17:17; 18:11), who like elizabeth was both childless and too old to bear children. (Both Elizabeth and her husband are old; the word “both” unites them in advanced age as in faithfulness [vv. 6–7].) But will her infertility have the last word? The biblical precedents hold open the possibility, at least, that laughter and delight may yet find voice in this narrative.

1:8–20 The Angel Gabriel Brings a Surprising Message to Zechariah

The action begins in the temple at Jerusalem, with a Torah-observant people gathered to worship God. The spotlight, however, falls on one solitary figure, the priest Zechariah. As he performs his duties within the sanctuary, heaven interrupts the incense offering and announces news that is too good to be true—too good, it seems, to be believed. The angel Gabriel tells Zechariah that he and his wife will have a son, whose name (John) will itself express God’s act of grace toward them, and who as a prophet in the mold of elijah will begin the work of restoring a people for God. When Zechariah emerges from the sanctuary, he cannot speak, his silence enforced by heaven itself, and astounding good news will remain known, for the present, only to Zechariah—and to the reader.

8 Now while [Zechariah] was performing his priestly service in the presence of God, during his company’s rotation,a 9 the lot fell to him (according to the custom of the priests) to enter the sanctuary of the Lord and offer incense. 10 All the assembly of the people were praying outside, at the time of the incense offering.

11 Then an angel of the Lord, standing at the right side of the altar of incense, appeared to him, 12 and when Zechariah saw this he became distressed and fear fell upon him. 13 But the angel said to him, “Do not be afraid, Zechariah, for your request has been heard. Indeed, your wife elizabeth will give birth to a son for you, and you are to callb his name John. 14 There will be joy for you, and rejoicing, and many people will rejoice at his birth. 15 For he will be great in the Lord’s presence, and he will not drink wine or beer.c He will be filled with the Holy Spiritd—even from his mother’s womb! 16 He will return many sons [and daughters]e of Israel to the Lord their God. 17 Indeed, he will go before him [the Lord God] in the spirit and power of elijah, to return the hearts of fathers to their children, and the disobedient to the frame of mind of the righteous— to make ready for the Lord a people that has been prepared.”

18 So Zechariah said to the angel, “How will I know this? After all, I am an old man, and my wife, too, is very old.”f 19 The angel answered him, “I am Gabriel, who stand in the presence of God, and I was sent to speak to you and to tell you this good news. 20 Behold, you will be silent—unable even to speak—until the day these things have occurred, because you did not have trust in my words, which will be fulfilled in their time.”

a. Literally, “order” or “arrangement”; each subdivision of priests performed temple duties for one week twice each year; the selection of Zechariah (by “lot”) to burn incense (a ritual performed twice daily) was a once-in-a-lifetime honor (details of this procedure later codified in m. Tamid 5–7).

b. Or “you will call”; here the future tense verb carries the force of an imperative. c. The word sikera (beer), commonly paired, as here, with wine, could also be used of various other alcoholic beverages.

d. The phrase “Holy Spirit” lacks the article (also in 1:41, 67), but the adjective “holy” makes the noun “spirit” definite; Luke has one (holy) Spirit of God in view.

e. Literally, “sons,” but to be construed in this instance as including both male and female children (note tekna, “children,” in the next verse).

f. “Far along [advanced] in her days,” the same expression used in 1:7.

[8–10] It is no accident that the first event in Luke’s narrative occurs in the temple at Jerusalem. That is where the Gospel ends as well (24:52–53). At the heart of Israel’s life and worship, among devout Jews who—despite the counterevidence across centuries of history—have clung tenaciously to the hope that God would restore the nation, God intervenes to inaugurate the time of salvation.

Zechariah is chosen by lot to offer the incense offering and enters the sanctuary, the naos, to which only priests could gain access—as distinct from the larger temple complex, for which Luke uses the word hieron (e.g., 2:27, 37, 46). It is the sanctuary of the Lord, that is, God; the word kyrios (Lord) generally refers to God in Luke 1–2. (It is used of Jesus in 1:43, and again in 2:11 but only in tandem with Christos: Jesus is the Messiah-Lord; once Jesus begins his public ministry, the title ordinarily belongs to him.)1 Meanwhile a large crowd is praying outside the sanctuary, at the hour of sacrifice (whether morning or evening; the text does not say). This is the first appearance of the word laos (people), Luke’s preferred term for Israel, the people of God (see 1:17, 21, 68, 77; 2:32; 7:16, 29; 20:1; 23:5, 13, 27, 35; 24:19); those gathered to worship at the temple (like those later assembled before Pilate near the narrative’s end) represent God’s people Israel. The angel’s announcement to Zechariah proceeds to link these two key terms: John’s role will be to prepare a people for the Lord.

1. Rowe finds sophisticated, intentional use of kyrios in Luke’s narrative, which presents Jesus’ ministry as the ministry of God (Christology).

It is scarcely by accident that the people are engaged in prayer when God is about to interrupt the normal course of events in a moment of extraordinary revelation. This pattern will mark Jesus’ ministry as well. While or after he is praying, momentous events will occur, notably Jesus’ baptism, with its accompanying disclosure from heaven of his identity (3:21–22); his selection of twelve apostles (6:12–16); the transfiguration (9:28–36); and his arrest (22:39– 46) and death (23:34, 46). Apart from the prayers before Jesus’ arrest (“Take this cup away from me,” 22:42) and at his death (“Father, forgive . . . ,” 23:34; “Father . . . I entrust my spirit,” 23:46), Luke does not report the content of these prayers. So too in this case: the object of the people’s prayer goes unmentioned. Ironically, however, as the passage continues, a prayer of Zechariah that has not been narrated will receive God’s explicit answer. Whether or not this is what the people are praying for, something is about to happen that will lead to redemption and comfort for the people (2:25, 38).

[11–17] The normal routines of temple worship are underway when heaven intervenes. Without advance warning, an angel appears next to the incense altar where Zechariah is to perform the prescribed ritual. The messenger from heaven remains anonymous at first; only when his words prompt an incredulous question from Zechariah does he disclose his identity to underscore the credibility and authority of his words: “I am Gabriel, who stand in the presence of God” (v. 19). The sending of an angel signals that God is seizing the initiative in Israel’s history—a not-so-subtle hint that this will be a story about divine activity and its disruption of routine practices, even in sacred space (cf. Green 72). But to what end? Luke’s audience will not have to wait long to hear the first clues.

The priest responds in a predictable manner to what he sees: encounter with the divine elicits fear (v. 12; cf. 1:29–30; 2:9–10; for the biblical pattern see, e.g., exod 15:16; Judg 6:22–23; Dan 10:7–8). Within Luke 1–2, however, fear is part of a larger narrative pattern. Three times human beings experience an angelic visitation, the purpose each time being an announcement of the birth, identity, and role of a child to be born, whether John or Jesus (1:11–20; 1:26– 38; 2:8–14). These annunciation scenes present much the same pattern, one that builds on the biblical type-scene of a birth announcement but also draws other elements from Scripture, including the commissioning account.2 The Lukan annunciation scenes share the following structure:

1. appearance of an angel

2. response of fear (which follows the angel’s words of greeting in

1:29)

3. divine message, including the command “Do not be afraid!”; men

tion of the impending (or recent) birth of a child; and prophecy of

the name or identity and role of the child

4. question addressed to the angel, expressing incomprehension

(missing in 2:8–14)

5. giving of a sign that will confirm and interpret the promise 6. departure of the angel (missing in 1:11–20)

These repeated, parallel scenes underscore both God’s surprising initiative and the need for interpretation if human recipients of revelation are to understand and respond appropriately. even more, by accenting the grand roles that await these two sons of Israel, these announcements reveal the significance of this moment in Israel’s history. In these passages, moreover, Luke’s readers meet the first development of a pattern that was hinted at in the Gospel’s first verse (“events that have been brought to fulfillment”) and has continuing importance throughout Luke–Acts (Johnson 15–21). Angelic visitors deliver prophetic oracles that promise unusual events, offering signs that will corroborate and also interpret the events; the ensuing narrative displays their fulfillment, prompting the human response of praise (Farris, Hymns 101–2; Green 48–51).

The narrative thus celebrates God’s saving activity in Israel; it also highlights the human response, showing its complexity (stressed by Coleridge, Birth). Responding to heavenly disclosure, the characters in the story are slow to understand and, even more important, are challenged to move from understanding of God’s initiative to believing acceptance, which finally finds voice in praise of God.

After calming Zechariah’s fears, the angel assures him that his request has been heard (implicitly, by God; v. 13; cf. Acts 10:4). If the divine answer matches the priest’s petition, he has evidently prayed for a child. The angel’s message intimates that the unmentioned request of Zechariah and the people’s simultaneous prayers outside the sanctuary find one and the same answer. The son to be born to elizabeth will participate in the restoration of God’s people. The priest hears unexpected news: with phrasing that echoes similar announcements in the ot (e.g., Gen 16:11; 17:19; Isa 7:14), the angel declares that elizabeth will give birth to a son, and charges Zechariah with the task of naming the child. He is to be given the name John, which, for readers who possess knowledge of Hebrew, associates the child with divine mercy or graciousness: “YHWH has shown favor [is gracious].” Since Luke does not call attention to this potentially symbolic meaning of John’s name, any more than he does for Jesus (see the comment on 1:30–33), it is unclear whether readers are expected to make the connection. The Spirit-inspired hymns of Mary and Zechariah will make explicit what the giving of the name only implies: God has indeed looked with favor upon the people (1:46–55, 68–79; cf. also 1:58).

2. See, e.g., Gen 16:7–13; 17:1–21; 18:1–15; Judg 13:3–20. For analyses of the form and its biblical precursors, see Green 55–56; Fitzmyer 1:318; Brown, Birth 156; Conrad, “Annunciation.” Conrad, observing that the motif of fear is not present in ot birth announcements, argues for a simplified, threefold pattern: (1) announcement of birth, (2) designation of the name, (3) identity of the child (657). He suggests (661–62) that Luke borrows the element of fear from other scriptural texts in which promise of children is given (e.g., Gen 15:1; 26:24). My analysis assumes the presence of a hybrid form in Luke’s narrative.

With emphatic threefold repetition, v. 14 introduces a motif that will reappear often in the coming chapters (cf. already 1:44, 47): “There will be joy for you, and rejoicing, and many people will rejoice at his birth.” Even this detailed prediction by the angel is realized in the ensuing narrative (1:58). Verses 15–17 spell out the grounds for celebration, showing that the joy to accompany John’s birth will not be the private joy of an aging couple finally blessed with a son, or even that of their relatives and neighbors. The celebration has to do with the role that John will play in Israel’s life; it concerns nothing less than the restoration of an entire people.

With six swift strokes, the angel gives a preview of the character and purpose of John’s life. (It is actually seven, with the image of return [epistrephein] repeated in vv. 16–17. For convenience, I combine them here.) John will

be great in the Lord’s presence;

refrain from drinking alcohol;

be filled with the Holy Spirit, from birth onward (or even

before!);

restore human hearts and minds, turning Israel back to the

Lord God, and turning fathers back to their children and

the disobedient to just thinking; and

go before the Lord, as one bearing elijah’s spirit and power,

in carrying out this mission; and thus prepare a people for

the Lord.

This profile links John and his task to the Lord, that is, God—although a later angelic message following the birth of Jesus (2:11) will create ambiguity, suggesting that Jesus too is the Lord whose way John will prepare, for whom he will make the people ready. John’s mission will be that of a prophet (like elijah): to call God’s people to return to their God and so prepare for the Lord’s coming. He will fulfill this task as one empowered by the Spirit. The picture could not be clearer: John’s life is about God—about God’s work of restoring the people Israel.

The description begins with status: John will be “great in the presence of [before] the Lord.” The preposition enōpion (before, in the presence of) appears again in v. 17, with both spatial and temporal nuances: John will also precede the Lord. Jesus’ later evaluation of the Baptizer’s ministry will confirm this promise; he is the greatest among human beings, though all participants in God’s realm will surpass him in honor (7:28). John’s greatness is relativized already in chapter 1, for Gabriel will soon call Jesus “great,” without qualification (v. 32); after all, he will receive the epithet kyrios (Lord) himself. This verbal link between the two birth announcements is one of a number of parallels in language and literary structure that closely associate John and Jesus, yet at the same time display Jesus’ superiority to John.3 Luke’s second volume develops the activity of Jesus’ witnesses (primarily Peter and Paul) in a manner that parallels Jesus’ career. Particular character roles are distinct, yet this literary pattern of parallelism indicates the continuity in the divine activity in the world.

John will live the life of an ascetic (cf. 7:33), his abstinence from alcohol reminiscent of the Nazirite vow (Num 6:1–8), and of the depictions of Samuel and Samson (1 Sam 1:11; Judg 13:7), therefore suggesting that John will be set apart for a special vocation of service to God. Though he will not fill himself with alcohol, he will be filled, instead, with God’s Spirit. This is Luke’s first mention of the Spirit and of being filled with the Spirit. Throughout the birth and childhood narrative, the Spirit is active, inspiring prophetic declarations that carry the same divine authority as the words of angels (1:41, 67; 2:25, 27). Jesus and his ministry, too, will be defined and empowered by the Spirit, as shown programmatically in the accounts of his baptism, wilderness testing, and the inauguration of his public activity (3:22; 4:1, 14, 18). Within Luke 1–2, however, endowment with the Spirit marks John as a prophet. So too does the prediction that he will be Spirit-filled “from the womb of his mother.” Although the phrase could mean either from birth onward or from before birth, the ensuing narrative enacts the latter meaning (1:41, 44), an almost immediate fulfillment of Gabriel’s prophecy. This image recalls Jeremiah’s reflection on his own prophetic vocation (Jer 1:4–5) and reinforces John’s prophetic role and its divine source. Zechariah’s hymn responding to his son’s birth and naming makes John’s prophetic vocation explicit, while also reaffirming the birth announcement’s imagery of going before the Lord and preparation (1:76)

3. This feature of Luke 1–2 has been discussed extensively. See, e.g., Brown, Birth 250–51; Fitzmyer 1:314–15; Green 50–51. Fitzmyer aptly describes the pattern as “step-parallelism,” or “parallelism with one-upmanship” (315).

John will be a prophet in the mold of elijah, especially in his end-time return before the day of the Lord (Mal 3:1; 4:5–6 [3:23–24 Mt]; cf. Sir 48:10). Luke is subtle: John is not identified with Elijah (as in Matt 11:14; 17:10–13; cf. Mark 9:13) but, in a way reminiscent of elisha (2 kgs 2:9–10), will be a prophet whose energy and strength (“spirit and power”) will be comparable to elijah’s.4 John’s Elijah-like task will be one of restoration, of “return”—turning the people back to their God, fathers to their children, and those who disobey to a way of thinking and living that is just (or righteous). In a word, his job will be to summon the people to repentance. The phrases “return many sons [and daughters] of Israel to the Lord their God” and “return the hearts of fathers to their children” echo Scripture, though without direct quotation.5 Language and imagery from a variety of ot texts give shape and texture to the narrative of Luke 1–2 in precisely this allusive manner.

John’s activity will later be briefly narrated, and he will do exactly what Gabriel forecasts for him. He will call people to repentance and challenge them to embrace just dealings with others (3:3–14); he will also point to the greater one (implicitly the Messiah) who will follow him (3:15–17). To be sure, there will be no specific mention of fathers and children; Luke provides an impressionistic sketch of the fulfillment of the angel’s prophetic word, but there can be no mistaking that it is prophecy being realized. Yet the silence about family restoration in Luke 3 builds a bridge to the account of Jesus’ ministry, which, it turns out, divides rather than unites families (e.g., 9:59–62; 12:51–53; 14:26)— because the family undergoes radical redefinition in God’s domain (8:19–21; anticipated in 2:48–49). On the other hand, Gabriel’s depiction of John’s work of family restoration does already hint at the surprising reversals in relationship that lie ahead. Fathers are to return to their children, not the other way around, intimating that the structures of power and justice within the household are about to be turned upside down. Fathers, that is, are included among the disobedient who must heed a call to embrace just thoughts and practices. The fault does not lie with the children. It will be left to Jesus, rather than John, to develop this provocative theme.

4. The more subtle and indirect association of John with elijah has led some to minimize the connection between the two figures (e.g., Wink, John the Baptist 42–43; Radl, Ursprung 137–38; cf. Conzelmann, Theology 22–26; Marshall 59). Despite the language of “spirit and power,” John’s message—his summons to repentance—rather than the working of miracles will recall elijah’s career; as to miracles, it is Jesus who will be linked to this aspect of elijah’s career. Luke pictures Jesus’ activity, too, as prophetic in character (this is true of his successors in Acts as well) and in doing so draws upon imagery connected with Moses, elijah, and elisha (Fitzmyer 1:213–15). Nevertheless, Luke has forged a strong link between John and elijah, particularly in the form of an eschatological mission of preparing a people for the Lord’s coming by summoning them to return, to repent.

5. Luke appears to draw flexibly from Malachi. Thus Mal 2:6 lxx, “He turned many away from injustice” (AT), may inspire the image of the disobedient returned to just thinking in Luke 1:17. In tandem with Mal 3:22–23 lxx (4:5–6E), “And behold, I am sending you elijah, . . . who will restore a father’s heart to [his] son and a person’s heart to the neighbor” (AT; cf. also Sir 48:10), it may also inspire the plural construction in Luke 1:16–17, “many sons [and daughters], . . . fathers and children.”

Verse 16 projects that elizabeth’s son will turn many ( polloi) of the sons and daughters of Israel toward God. The construction is a partitive genitive (i.e., many from among the children of Israel, not all of them), which means that the word polloi in this context is not the equivalent of “all.” Anticipating John’s later prophetic ministry of baptism, which some people will reject (7:29–30), the angel’s prophetic oracle offers the Gospel’s first subtle indication that God’s work of restoration for Israel will meet resistance. Simeon will soon turn the hint into a definite prediction in his own prophetic oracle (2:34–35).

The Gospel’s first vignette presents concerns that will return again and again in the following story, even when the characters in these opening chapters have faded from view. The birth and childhood narrative, therefore, is preparation for the career of the Messiah Jesus but also prepares the reader. Yet in a narrative that features so prominently the pattern of prophecy (promise) and fulfillment, and that makes such extensive use of foreshadowing, suspense for the audience comes in the surprising ways in which promises come true.

[18–20] What a remarkable change lies ahead for elizabeth and Zechariah, if Gabriel’s message is to be trusted! Apparently the change is too extreme for Zechariah’s powers of imagination. He can only respond with a question, one that betrays not only lack of insight but also, in Gabriel’s reframing, lack of trust: “How will I know this?” (v. 18). Not “How is this possible?” but “How will I know?”—in other words, how can I believe this? It is a request for a validating sign. The question recalls Abraham’s own skeptical, questioning response to the promise of a son in his old age (Gen 17:17; the question’s wording is closer to 15:8).

Only now does the angel identify himself as Gabriel, and he claims divine authorization for his message: he has been dispatched with a direct commission from God to declare good news to Zechariah (Luke 1:19). “Good news”: for the first time in the Gospel the verb euangelizesthai (declare good news) appears. John the Baptizer (3:18) and then Jesus (programmatically in 4:18, quoting Isa 61:1; cf. Luke 4:43) will announce good news, which, by way of Second (and Third) Isaiah, is the encouraging message that salvation from God is on the way, that liberation of the poor and oppressed is at hand (Isa 40:9; 52:7; 61:1). The good news still ringing in Zechariah’s ears is somewhat more modest, but stunning nonetheless: he will have a son through whom a people will be restored to God. The choice of Gabriel as the divine messenger is meaningful. Within the ot he appears only in Daniel (8:16; 9:21); there his appearance is associated with prayer and the evening sacrifice (9:21, approximating the setting in Luke 1) and, more significantly, he interprets the seer’s vision as prefiguring events of the end time (Dan 8:17–19; 9:22–27). Thus Luke’s narrative hints that the era of eschatological fulfillment has arrived.

Zechariah is reduced to silence (cf. Dan 10:15), and he will remain unable to speak until the events prophesied by the angel happen. This enforced silence plays multiple roles in the ensuing narrative. Here Gabriel explains the condition as chastisement for disbelief, which implies that faith will accompany its later reversal. Moreover, because of Zechariah’s long months of silence, his later agreement with elizabeth on the child’s name will be all the more striking (Luke 1:60–63). Yet the priest’s silence also serves as a corroborating sign; both the onset of the condition and its later reversal attest the reliability of the angel and the promises he delivers. When Zechariah keeps the charge of naming his son, an act of obedient trust, he will regain his voice, and he will not stop with naming his son. He moves from lack of understanding and trust to acceptance that finally issues in praise of God—and a prophetic oracle of his own (1:64, 68–79).

For the time being, however, the last word belongs to Gabriel. With or without human trust, what God promises will come to fulfillment. At the right time, both Zechariah and Luke’s audience will see and understand.

1:21–23 A Silent Priest and an Expectant People

When Zechariah had entered the sanctuary to perform the incense offering, he left the people waiting—praying—outside. Although he has heard from God’s commissioned messenger exciting news about the future of Israel, he cannot tell it. All that is left for him to do is return home, where he will play his part in the fulfillment of the promises spoken by the angel.

21 The people were waiting expectantly for Zechariah, and they were wondering at his delaya inside the sanctuary. 22 Now when he came out, he could not speak to them, and so they realized that he had seen a vision in the sanctuary. He kept motioning to them, but he remained speechless. 23 And when the days of his priestly service were completed,b he went back to his home.

a. A temporal infinitive with the preposition en, a construction favored by Luke (i.e., “when he delayed inside the sanctuary”).

b. In the interest of a smooth translation, the verb egeneto in v. 23 is left untranslated here (as well as some other occurrences; for this biblical idiom, see translation note a on 1:5).

[21–23] The pace of the narrative slowed as Gabriel delivered the first speech in the Gospel, a prophetic announcement of good news that concerns the fortunes of Zechariah and people alike. The people are aware of the delay, but not of the reason for it, although their supposition (the priest saw a vision) is not far from the mark. Now the action again accelerates: Zechariah emerges from the sanctuary, unable to tell what he has heard. (The shepherds will do better in response to an angel’s birth announcement: 2:15, 17.) He is unable even to pronounce the priestly blessing upon the people (Num 6:24–26; cf. m. Tamid 7:2)—an omission to which Luke does not call explicit attention, although Jesus’ parting words of blessing at the close of the Gospel fill the gap left by silent Zechariah at the beginning (24:51; Fitzmyer 1:328–29). The priest will not offer his own interpretation of the events that are unfolding until after the birth and naming of his son. The language of v. 22 (a present participle in tandem with a verb in the imperfect tense) effectively captures Zechariah’s frustration at his repeated failure to speak to the people: “He kept motioning to them, but he remained speechless.”

Verse 23 brings closure to the scene: Zechariah completes his rotation of temple service and returns home. Journeys help structure Luke’s first two chapters, as they will for the ensuing narrative. Some such notice of movement—of departure or return—or a summary report of a child’s growth signals the close of each major narrative unit in Luke 1–2 (movement, in 1:38, 56; 2:20; growth, in 1:80; combination of the two, in 2:39–40, 51–52). In this instance, however, the narrator delays the transition to the next scene long enough to record elizabeth’s participation in this unexpected drama.

1:24–25 Elizabeth’s Secret

God’s messenger interrupted Zechariah’s temple service with news that was too good to believe. The first confirming sign, the priest’s inability to speak, has occurred. The narrator proceeds immediately to report elizabeth’s pregnancy, beginning the fulfillment of divine promise. Now it is Elizabeth’s turn to fall silent, though by her own choice and for her own reasons. The parents-to-be know what is happening, through God’s initiative; so far, no one else does— except the reader.

24 Now after this time,a his wife elizabeth became pregnant, though she concealed herself for five months, for she said, 25 “So the Lord has done for me in the days when he saw fit to take away my reproach among human beings.”

a. Literally, “after these days”; i.e., when Zechariah’s priestly rotation ended and he returned home.

[24–25] After Gabriel’s surprising revelation to Zechariah, the narrator proceeds without delay to tell of the beginning of the promise’s fulfillment. The focus now is on Elizabeth. A general temporal transition (“after this time”) ties this brief scene to the preceding one; with the priest’s return to his home, his wife becomes pregnant. (The circumstances surrounding Mary’s pregnancy in the Gospel’s next episode will be quite different; no husband’s participation will be necessary.) However, elizabeth chooses not to tell anyone: the revelation remains concealed from all, except Luke’s audience.

Both husband and wife maintain silence, though for different reasons; elizabeth’s silence, unlike Zechariah’s, is voluntary. Her own words provide the explanation: “So the Lord has done for me in the days when he saw fit to take away my reproach among human beings” (echoing Rachel’s words in Gen 30:22–23). Why five months? Does this period of Elizabeth’s isolation remove her from the community in which she has experienced shame—owing to her inability to have children—until her pregnancy is obvious? Who would otherwise take the word of an old woman that she has finally become pregnant? That is a plausible explanation, though one that the narrator does not provide. The story leaves the reader with this gap to be filled.6

The temporal marker that opens the next scene binds the two units closely and provides a clue to the narrative function of elizabeth’s concealment. Gabriel’s next appearance will occur “in the sixth month.” Whatever Elizabeth’s motives for keeping silent about her pregnancy, these two notices of time ensure that Mary will have her own encounter with God’s messenger without any prior knowledge of what has happened to Zechariah and elizabeth. The initiative, both in revealing promises and in bringing them to fulfillment, rests solely with God. elizabeth understands this; she credits God with her unexpected pregnancy. This is what God has done. By intervening in elizabeth’s life, God has brought her experience of shame in the community to an end, anticipating a concern that will resurface in Jesus’ ministry to marginalized persons: the poor, the sick, sinners.

Dramatically altering the private lives of elizabeth and Zechariah, God has also intervened in Israel’s public life. In this story human response to divine initiative matters, as the contrasting responses of elizabeth and her husband already display. Zechariah’s route to trusting acceptance and praise will be more circuitous than his wife’s. The next scene will show yet another response, offering Mary as a model of trusting acceptance of God’s surprising ways. Gabriel’s announcement to Zechariah indicates that in the era beginning with John’s birth and prophetic call, Israel will be given the opportunity to turn toward God. How will an expectant, praying people react to this divine summons? This will become one of the crucial concerns of Luke’s story, even till the end of his second volume (see Acts 28:23–28).

6. Here, as elsewhere in the commentary, the term “gap” (or “textual indeterminacy”) draws attention to the reading process when the narrative does not disclose information about the world it represents. According to Sternberg (Poetics, esp. 186–229), a literary work “establishes a system of gaps that must be filled in” (186) and that create ambiguity (236). The art of reading requires one to distinguish between missing information that matters for interpretation (gaps) and “irrelevancies” that do not (blanks); however, “one reader’s gap may prove [to be] another’s blank” (236).

1:26–38 Announcement of the Coming Birth of Jesus

Within the sacred space at the center of Israel’s life, though hidden from the view of people gathered outside to worship, God’s messenger has spoken unexpected good news. Following biblical precedent, God will bless an old, childless couple with a son who will change the fortunes of the nation. A prophet will arise who will call the people to return to God, to embrace justice, thus making a people ready for the Lord. Heaven has more to say, however. Far removed from the temple and Jerusalem, Gabriel will make a second appearance, this time to a young girl who lacks pedigree. even grander promises and hopes inspired by the Scriptures are about to be realized. As with king David long before, a young man will step from Israel’s social margins to claim the throne. His reign, though, will never end. Faced with this astounding revelation, the young girl—who will by God’s direct intervention become mother of the king—models a trusting, faithful response to divine promise.

26 In the sixth month [of elizabeth’s pregnancy], the angel Gabriel was sent from God to a Galilean towna called Nazareth, 27 to a virgin who was engagedb to a man named Joseph, who was [descended] from the house of David. The virgin’s name was Mary. 28 [The angel]c went in and said to her, “Greetings, favored one, the Lord is with you.”d 29 But she was troubled by this word and puzzled over what kind of greeting this might be.

30 So the angel said to her, “Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God. 31 Behold, you will conceive in your womb and give birth to a son; and you will call his name Jesus. 32 He will be great and will even be called ‘Son of the Most High’! The Lord God will give him the throne of David his father, 33 and he will reign over Jacob’s house forever. There will be no end to his rule.”

34 Mary, though, said to the angel, “How will this be? After all, I have not been intimatee with a man.” 35 The angel answered her, “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you. Therefore, the [child] that is going to be born will be called holy—God’s Son.f 36 Behold, your relative elizabeth has also conceived a son in her womb, and this is the sixth month [of pregnancy] for this woman who has been called barren.g 37 For not a wordh that comes from God will be impossible.”

38 And Mary said, “Behold, [I am] the Lord’s servant. May it happen for mei according to your word.” And the angel departed from her.

a. Polis (city) in Greek, perhaps reflecting Luke’s own social world more than the size of this small Galilean town. On Luke’s preference for the term polis, even for towns and villages such as Nazareth, Nain (7:11), and Bethsaida (9:10), see Rohrbaugh, “Preindustrial City” 125–26; Oakman, “Countryside” 170). Luke uses polis 39 times in the Gospel (cf. Mark’s 8 times) and kōmē (village) only 12 times (cf. 7 in Mark).

b. Or “betrothed.”

c. I have supplied the implied subject in brackets; many Mss, including A C D f^13 33, add “the angel” as a clarifying expansion of the original text.

d. Although the angel’s greeting continues “Blessed are you among women” in a majority of Mss, this line, imported from v. 42, is secondary (it is missing, e.g., in א B L W Ψ).

e. Literally, “I do not know a man [or husband]”—knowledge, i.e., as the experience of sexual intimacy.

f. Or “the holy [child] that is going to be born will be called Son of God.” I have taken huios (son) as a (masculine) noun in apposition to the adjective hagion (holy), which is neuter in gender to agree with “[the child] that is going to be born.” Note the threefold naming of Jesus (using various forms of kaleō) in this speech: “Jesus” (v. 31), “Son of the Most High” (v. 32), and “Son of God” (v. 35). Naming is a reliable indicator of identity and function: what he is called, he is.

g. Or “infertile,” as I have rendered the same word in 1:7. Here “barren” is apt, for the speaker (Gabriel) is reporting the public labeling of Elizabeth (cf. “reproach” in 1:25).

h. Or “nothing”; rhēma here and in v. 38 can denote both word and event (see 2:15, 19, 51; cf. 2:17, 50). Any word originating in God will be eventful, sure of fulfillment (an echo of Gen 18:14 lxx; cf. also Isa 55:11).

i. Reading this as a dative of advantage (i.e., “for my benefit”).

[26–29] Verse 26 embeds the birth announcement to Mary within the unfolding fulfillment of the promise given to Zechariah and Elizabeth. In the sixth month—of her pregnancy, that is, the point at which it will have become obvious—the angel Gabriel returns, this time to Nazareth, a small village in Galilee. Now that Gabriel has introduced himself and his commission from God in the preceding scene (v. 19), the narrator opens this unit by reporting the arrival and divine sending of the same messenger. He is sent to the home of a young woman whose name, Mary, is withheld until she has been described as a virgin (parthenos) who is engaged to be married to Joseph, a man of Davidic descent (for the wording “virgin engaged [betrothed] to a man,” see Deut 22:23 lxx). Mention of Joseph’s family line links Jesus (indirectly) to David and prepares for the declaration that he will take David’s throne (vv. 32–33). At the same time, however, the silence about Mary’s family of origin suggests the marginality of her social position (Green 86), thus anticipating her self-identification in the Magnificat (traditional name for Mary’s Song; see translation note b for 1:46–55) as a person of low position (1:48). Ironically, while she is waiting to gain in (ascribed) honor by marriage into a household that stands in David’s line, she learns from a divine messenger that her status reversal will come instead from the identity of her son—and from God’s choice and initiative.

Mary’s status and circumstance remind readers who know Scripture of a prophetic oracle about another son who was to be born to a young woman (parthenos) as a sign of imminent divine deliverance in time of war (Isa 7:14 lxx). When introducing Mary, the narrator identifies her first of all as a virgin (Luke 1:27), and the following verses develop the image. Mary is puzzled by the news that she, though lacking sexual experience, will have a child (v. 34), and Gabriel answers with the explanation that the pregnancy will be effected by God’s Spirit (v. 35). Obviously the conception of Jesus has a miraculous character, but the emphasis in the narrative falls primarily on the theological claim that the image of virginal conception presses: God has sovereign initiative in the birth of Jesus.7

Betrothal means that formal consent to the marriage has been given and the man has gained legal rights over the young woman (typically 12 or 13 years old). She continues to live in her family home under her father’s control, however, until the consummation of the marriage and her change of residence to her husband’s home (see m. Ketub. 4.4–5; cf. Brown, Birth 123–24; Fitzmyer 1:343–44). When Gabriel “went in and spoke to her,” therefore, Mary was in her family’s home (v. 28).

Mary’s reaction to the greeting by Gabriel, expressed with the compound verb dietarachthē (“she was troubled”), is reminiscent of Zechariah’s earlier distress (etarachthē) at the angel’s appearance in the temple sanctuary (1:12). Mary finds troubling the angel’s word of greeting, rather than his sudden appearance, and she labors to discern that word’s meaning (v. 29), a role to which she will become accustomed as she seeks to make sense of the extraordinary events in which she is caught up (2:19, 51). Gabriel’s greeting, addressed to a young woman of low status, intimates the reversal of social position that will mark God’s reign in this Gospel, beginning with Mary herself: “Greetings, favored one, the Lord is with you” (1:28).8 Despite her marginal place in her social world, God has singled her out for an unusual role. She has already received the grace of God’s special choosing, and she will continue to be one favored (perfect passive participle), as indeed the next greeting Mary hears (from elizabeth) will illustrate (1:40–45). Or, in Mary’s own voice: “God my Savior has looked upon the lowly state of his servant” (v. 47–48). The angel’s greeting is at first perplexing, but Mary will come to understand.

7. Mary’s status as a virgin and the virginal conception of Jesus have been the subject of extensive discussion, esp. in Roman Catholic scholarship. For orientation to the literature, see Brown, Birth 298–301, 517–33; Fitzmyer 1:335–38, 348–50; Bemile, Magnificat 223–36. Mary’s status as a virgin soon to be married (also presupposed in Matt 1:18–25) and the virginal conception of Jesus say less about Mary than they do about God. God is the chief actor in the coming of Jesus the Messiah; his life springs from God’s own Spirit (cf. Tannehill, Narrative Unity 1:25; Bovon 1:47, who also provides a brief sketch of possible influences from the depictions of a hero’s miraculous birth in other literature of the Greco-Roman world [44–47]).

[30–33] After quieting Mary’s fears, Gabriel explains the greeting that has troubled Mary (“Greetings, favored one [chaire, kecharitōmenē], the Lord is with you”). With no claim to honor in the world or before God, she has nevertheless found God’s favor (charis). That favor takes the form of a special vocation to be the mother of the Messiah, the Son of God—who, as readers later discover, will also enjoy favor (charis) with God (2:40, 52) as well as human beings (2:52).

The language of the prophecy is formulaic, echoing both Scripture (e.g., Gen 16:11; Judg 13:3, 5) and the announcement to Zechariah, with variation in wording: “Behold, you will conceive in your womb and give birth to a son; and you will call his name Jesus” (cf. Luke 1:13). As with John, the name—and therefore the identity, character, and role—of Mary’s son is a matter of divine decision, and then obedient human response. This appears to be Luke’s primary interest, for once again the rich symbolic potential of the name remains undeveloped: “YHWH helps”—the Matthean parallel (1:21) draws explicitly from the popular etymology “God saves.” Mary the mother, not Joseph, is the one charged with the task of giving the name (for precedents see Gen 16:11; 29:32, 35; 30:6, 11, 13; Judg 13:24; 1 Sam 1:20), which is fitting, since Luke focuses on Mary’s role in Jesus’ birth (in contrast to the emphasis on Joseph in Matt 1–2). Later, when the name is actually given, Luke will employ the passive voice and thereby reinforce the point that God, not Jesus’ mother, is the source of the name (2:21).

Gabriel’s birth announcement accents the relation of Jesus to God (as Son) and to his people (as ruler). Twice, Mary hears, Jesus “will be called” divine Son (“Son of the Most High,” v. 32; “God’s Son,” v. 35).9 To be sure, Israel’s king enjoyed this status (e.g., Ps 2:7), so divine sonship and the throne of David are related and mutually interpreting images. In Jesus’ case, as the second part of Gabriel’s message to Mary will make clear, divine sonship transcends the status claimed for Israel’s previous kings, for his very conception (not simply his installation as king) will be the work of God’s Spirit (i.e., the “power of the Most High,” Luke 1:35). He will be great (megas, v. 32), moreover, in a way that John (who will be “great in the presence of the Lord,” v. 15) will not be. John’s greatness will not elevate him above the Lord whom he must serve, while Jesus will be great without qualification, as one who will himself receive the epithet kyrios (Lord). Human voices will eventually join the chorus, but the first speaker to call Jesus God’s Son in the narrative will be none other than God, as heard by Jesus at his baptism in 3:22 (forming the basis for the devil’s challenge in 4:3, 9), then repeated for the disciples’ ears at the transfiguration (9:35). Jesus will be Son of God, and uniquely so, and this relation to God will define his vocation and his mission, as he will already realize by the age of twelve (2:49).

8. The phrase “Greetings, favored one!” is alliterative: chaire kecharitōmenē. The imperative form of the verb chairein often serves as a formula of greeting in Greek literature (so, e.g., in Matt 26:49; 27:29; 28:9; Mark 15:18; John 19:3), and the verb also conveys greeting in letter openings (as in Acts 15:23). Mary’s puzzlement over the angel’s greeting suggests that sense here. The verb chairein, however, also often means “rejoice,” and the imperative chaire appears with this sense in prophetic oracles of restoration in the lxx (Joel 2:21; Zeph 3:14; and Zech 9:9; see Fitzmyer 1:344–46). Such intertextual resonance would suit Luke 1:26–38; in a few verses, Mary will bind her own condition as one specially blessed (vv. 46–49) to Israel’s experience of divine succor (vv. 50–55).

Whatever else it will mean for Jesus to be the one who rules Israel (the house of Jacob, 1:33) as the king who sits on David’s throne (v. 32), it is the expression of his identity as God’s Son. And that means that the restoration of royal rule by Jesus as a descendant of David—fulfilling scriptural promise (beginning with Nathan’s oracle to David in 2 Sam 7:12–16)—will be the decisive expression of God’s own sovereignty over the nation. That sovereign rule will be unending, a promise emphasized by repetition: “He will reign over Jacob’s house forever. There will be no end to his rule” (Luke 1:33). This, too, is the renewal of scriptural promise (2 Sam 7:13, 16). The interplay between the images of divine sonship and royal rule—the way in which political power will be reconfigured within the dominion of God—remains to be seen. That power undergoes transformation in God’s domain begins to become evident in the next episode, in Mary’s own response to the events in which she is a participant (1:51–55).

[34–38] Talk of a son, not to mention one who will be king for the ages, prompts Mary to pose a small yet weighty question: “How will this be? After all, I have not been intimate with a man” (v. 34). Though betrothed, she and Joseph have not yet had sexual intercourse, so the possibility of a pregnancy is staggering. The question has seemed absurd to some commentators since a woman about to be married would surely expect soon to become pregnant (detailed discussion of interpretive options in Brown, Birth 303–9; Fitzmyer 1:348–50). However, the question has a dual function in the narrative: it reinforces Mary’s status as a virgin and thus the claim of divine initiative in the birth of Jesus, and it also simply provides the occasion for Gabriel’s answer, which gives the explanation of the mystery of Jesus’ Spirit-effected conception.

9.Studies concerned to sift Lukan redaction from source traditions have sometimes assigned these two divine sonship formulas different meanings and cultural homes (e.g., Radl, Ursprung 302–3, 330–31, 353–54). Such speculations do not contribute to interpretation of Luke’s narrative in its present form, for which the expressions are synonymous (see the section “An Approach to Reading Luke’s Gospel” in the introduction to this commentary).

Unlike Zechariah’s structurally parallel question “How will I know this?” (v. 18), which amounts to a request for a sign that will enable assent, Mary’s query concerns the possibility of a genuinely (i.e., humanly) impossible event. The angel explains the mode of the conception in two lines that exhibit synonymous parallelism (v. 35):

The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you.

The image of overshadowing (with the verb episkiazein) suggests divine presence (cf. Exod 40:35) and will reappear at the transfiguration (Luke 9:34). Acts 1:8 will again speak of the Holy Spirit’s coming upon (with the verb eperchesthai) persons singled out for experience of powerful divine presence. The point here is that God is the one acting to bring the Messiah to Israel. It is no surprise that a child born by the agency of the Holy Spirit will be called holy (hagion, Luke 1:35), not simply as a firstborn child being set apart (2:23, quoting from exod 13:2, 12; cf. also Judg 13:7 [Samson]) but as one whose life will be wholly directed by God’s Spirit, who in both living and dying will be righteous (dikaios, Luke 23:47).

Although Mary, unlike Zechariah, neither requests nor needs a confirming sign, Gabriel offers one. Her relative elizabeth, formerly infertile, has entered the sixth month of pregnancy (1:36). God is behind that surprising development, too; for Elizabeth, as for Mary, there is no such thing as “impossible.” The phrasing here (“not a word that comes from God will be impossible,” v. 37) recalls the Lord’s question to Abraham, in response to Sarah’s skeptical laughter about the promise of a son in her old age (Gen 18:14 lxx). God is the one who is acting, and God’s purpose will not be denied, even if it defies human expectations and hopes.

Only Luke intertwines the lives of John and Jesus by making Mary and elizabeth relatives. This detail creates the occasion for the following encounter of the two mothers-to-be, in which John will begin to play his prophetic role. It also underscores, yet again, that Luke is telling one story of God’s saving visitation to the people Israel.

Mary’s response to Gabriel’s message is as eloquent as it is concise: “Behold, [I am] the Lord’s servant. May it happen for me according to your word” (v. 38). Reminded by the angel that God accomplishes what seems impossible to human beings, Mary responds by assenting to the promise she has heard and the role it holds for her. In the Magnificat she will again picture herself as the servant of God (v. 48). Mary provides an authentic model of trust and obedience in response to God’s initiative, anticipating her later role among the disciples of Jesus (8:19–21; Acts 1:14).10 Signaling her trusting acceptance of the divine message, she also indicates that she is willing to collaborate fully (Green 92; Coleridge, Birth 70).

Gabriel’s mission has now been accomplished; the angel can depart. However, the stories of Mary and elizabeth, and of the sons to whom they give birth, have begun to blend. Mary has learned of her relative’s previously secret pregnancy; by visiting Elizabeth, Mary will find convincing proof of the credibility of the message she has received. More can still be said about the distinct, yet related roles in Israel’s future projected for John and Jesus, and about the impact they will have on Israel’s life. It is time for another journey.

Excursus: Parallel Birth Announcements—Mary and Zechariah

The similarity in form and language between the two annunciation scenes reinforces the message that they deliver: God has seized the initiative to give Israel’s story a new direction, one that realizes ancient hopes grounded in the witness of Scripture—and God’s action evokes divergent human responses, trusting acceptance and collaboration being the ideal. When a narrative presents redundant elements, it is the dissimilarities between otherwise similar accounts that stand out. Comparison of the two annunciation scenes is therefore instructive.

In each birth announcement the angel Gabriel prophesies that an unexpected son will be born, previews his future greatness, and specifies the name that is to be given. In each case, the child’s greatness is associated with scriptural promise and with Israel’s eschatological hope inspired by that promise. Both Zechariah and Mary first react with distress, which the angel then addresses with a call not to be afraid. After Gabriel has delivered the prophetic announcement, both priest and young girl counter with a question, and each time the angel points to a sign that will confirm the promise given. These common elements suggest that the two lives about to begin are part of one unified action of God. The narrative will reinforce that impression in the next scene, when the stories of John and Jesus are intertwined in an intimate, personal fashion. Through repetition of a type-scene, the narrative paints a picture of the divine-human encounter that highlights both divine revelation and answering human response, while also inviting comparison of the roles to be played by these two sons of Israel.

10. An aspect of Luke’s characterization of Mary that can scarcely be missed, regardless of ecclesial affiliation or methodological approach (Brown, Birth 318–19; Fitzmyer 1:341; Green 92; Bovon 1:53; Bock 1:126–27; Nolland 1:57, 59; Radl, Ursprung 322; Bemile, Magnificat 236; Gaventa, Mary 55, 72–73).

The contrasts between the two annunciation scenes draw attention to these distinct roles. Particularly intriguing are the differences in age, social status, and location of the priest and the young girl. God favors with angelic visitation a priest, with an established honor-ascribing lineage, faithfully engaged in service in the sacred space of the temple sanctuary—but so too an unmarried girl, her lack of status suggested by the narrator’s silence about her family of origin, in the privacy of her own home in a Galilean town. What the contrast in social position of the two implies, Mary will herself soon affirm— and Jesus will later reaffirm—as a reflection of the character of God’s activity in Israel: it entails reversals in social status of the most radical kind (1:46–55; 6:20–26). Zechariah and his wife are childless, though old, because of elizabeth’s infertility; Mary is childless because she is a young virgin. The modes of conception necessarily differ, with a human father directly involved only in elizabeth’s pregnancy. Therefore, although the Holy Spirit figures in each account (1:15, 35), the function is not the same: John will be a prophet inspired by the Spirit, but Mary’s pregnancy is itself the result of the Spirit—a dramatic image of God as the one with sovereign initiative in the birth and life of Jesus.

Both Zechariah and Mary answer Gabriel’s announcement with a question, yet the difference in wording is revealing. Seeking a legitimating sign, the priest queries, “How will I know this?” The angel interprets this self-interested request as an expression of disbelief, yet proceeds to offer a sign, though not one the priest desires. In contrast, Mary asks nothing for herself but raises a question about causation: “How will this be [i.e., happen]?” The question provides the occasion for the angel’s disclosure of a Spiritinitiated pregnancy (i.e., divine causation), and then Mary responds with trusting acceptance. The annunciation to Zechariah, on the other hand, ends with his enforced silence; demonstration of his obedient trust must wait until the birth and naming of his child. The two recipients of divine revelation represent contrasting responses to God’s initiative, with Mary quicker to grasp and accept its meaning, though the old priest eventually also becomes a model of faith and praise. Finally, Gabriel prophesies distinct roles for these two children in Israel’s life. John will be a prophet who summons his people to return to God; his task is to get the people ready. Jesus will then reign over Israel. Both John and Jesus play decisive roles in God’s saving activity, and it is already clear which of the two will have the greater rank and responsibility.

1:39–56 Connecting the Two Stories: Mary Visits Elizabeth

God has sent a messenger to announce the coming births of two sons of Israel who will restore the people and realize its hopes. Luke now interweaves the two stories, bringing Mary and elizabeth—and their unborn sons—together. even before birth, John begins to exercise his prophetic role, with the aid of his perceptive mother. In response, Mary offers a hymn of praise filled with phrasing and images from Scripture. Displaying the character of her discerning faith, she redirects praise of herself (and even of her son) to praise of God. This is the first of a series of poetic declarations of praise that interpret the meaning of these events, and of these two sons, for Israel, and eventually for the nations as well.

1:39–45 Double Welcome and Blessing:

Mary Comes to Elizabeth’s Home

Mary learned from Gabriel that her relative elizabeth, despite her infertility and age, is pregnant. Without delay Mary journeys to visit elizabeth, who honors her with a generous welcome and—speaking as a prophet, both for herself and for the child she still carries in the womb—recognizes the extraordinary blessing the young woman has received from God. elizabeth also discerns that Mary’s response to divine grace is one of deep trust. The mother-to-be of one who will be Lord is doubly blessed, and in a double sense. She is blessed because of the child to whom she will give birth and also because of her trusting response. Moreover, both elizabeth and John—with his mother’s aid as interpreter—acknowledge the special favor Mary enjoys.

39 Now in those days Mary arose and went with haste into the hill country, to a towna of Judah.b 40 She entered the house of Zechariah and greeted elizabeth. 41 When elizabeth heard Mary’s greeting, it happened that the child in her womb leaped. Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spiritc 42 and called out in a loud voice, “Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb. 43 Why does this [good thing] happen for me,d that the mother of my Lord should come to me? 44 For behold, as the sound of your greeting reached my ears, the child in my womb leaped for joy. 45 Blessede indeed is the one who has believed that what has been spoken to her from the Lord will come to completion.”f

a. Again, polis (city), as in 1:26; cf. “cities of Judah,” to which the prophet of the exile addresses a message of consolation, good news of God’s advent to liberate the people (Isa 40:9).

b. Judah, rather than Judea (e.g., Luke 1:65; 2:4; 3:1); although one expects the genitive case, Luke apparently treats the proper noun “Judah” as indeclinable. Use of the ancient tribal name enhances the association of these events and characters with the biblical story of Israel.

c. As in 1:15, “Holy Spirit” lacks the article (see translation note d for that verse). d. Literally, “Whence is this to me?”

e. The Greek word is makaria, bearing meaning similar to eulogēmenē (“blessed”) in

v. 42. Mary’s Song picks up the makar- root in speaking of her good fortune (as a verb in v. 48). The adjective makarioi appears in the beatitudes in 6:20–22; if the “blessing” of status reversal belongs to Mary, it will be the experience of others as well.

f. Or, staying closer to the syntax of the Greek: “And blessed is the one who has believed that there will be completion [fulfillment] concerning the things that have been spoken to her from the Lord.” Mary’s favored status (“blessed”) and the source of the disclosure to her (“from the Lord”), at the beginning and close, respectively, of the sentence, receive emphasis.

[39–45] With a vague temporal marker (“in those days”), v. 39 binds this story to the birth announcement to Mary. In response to the news she has just received, she travels without delay to Judah (i.e., Judea), to an unspecified town, to visit elizabeth. There is not a word about her motive, or why she hurries so; what matters is not why Mary comes to her relative’s home but what happens after she arrives.

elizabeth welcomes Mary, effusively praising her and her son-to-be. elizabeth is playing the part of prophet here, though she does not receive that designation in the narrative. She does not have an angel to instruct her and cannot know about Gabriel’s visit to Mary; however, prompted by a movement of the child she carries in her womb, she is “filled with the Holy Spirit” (v. 41) and therefore discerns what eye cannot disclose: Mary is pregnant too, and she is favored by God, for she is the mother of the Lord (i.e., elizabeth’s Lord, vv. 42–43).

even elizabeth’s future son honors Mary, leaping at the sound of the visitor’s greeting (the verb is skirtaō, also used of the twins Rebekah carries in Gen 25:22 lxx; cf. Mal 3:20 [4:2e]). The narrator reports this first act of John as an unborn infant (brephos, v. 41), but elizabeth gives it meaning: “As the sound of your greeting reached my ears, the child in my womb leaped for joy” (v. 44). Before John is himself the source of delight (at his birth [v. 58], fulfilling the promise of v. 14), he rejoices in the presence of the Lord’s mother. On cue, elizabeth pronounces a double blessing: both Mary and the child she carries are blessed (v. 42).

Accompanying the blessing is puzzlement: “Why does this [good thing] happen for me, that the mother of my Lord should come to me?” Why should the woman higher in status come to another who is lower in status? The reverse should happen (Green 94, 96). There is irony here; social status is not what it appears to be. By pronouncing a blessing on Mary, elizabeth assumes the posture of one higher in status (apt for an older and married woman), yet she does so only to give Mary the higher honor—as mother of elizabeth’s Lord. Indeed, Mary is most blessed among women (wording reminiscent of Judg 5:24; cf. Jdt 13:18).

The irony of status reversal runs deeper still. The scene is remarkable: in a social world that places little stock in what women have to say (cf. Luke 24:9–11), the narrative pivots on an encounter between two women and on the words they exchange. Fittingly, therefore, Mary will proceed to celebrate the social upheaval and role reversal that mark the salvation God brings (1:51–53). She and elizabeth are enacting such role reversal in this very episode; both women (though lacking the label) speak with a prophet’s voice. elizabeth even gives meaning to the gesture that begins John’s prophetic career! ultimately, however, it will be the sons these women carry inside them who will be prophet and Messiah, agents of divine deliverance for Israel, and for the nations.11

11. For further discussion of the ambivalence regarding women and social status in Luke, see Excursus: Women in Luke’s Narrative, at 10:42.

elizabeth speaks of Mary’s favored status, not only because of the grace she has received as the mother of the Lord, but also because of her trusting acceptance of the message spoken to her by God (the Lord). elizabeth shows prophetic discernment: she not only knows that Mary has received a promise from God but also perceives that Mary has believed. Her visit to elizabeth is itself an expression of that faith. As the following verses show, Mary has faith in God, the God who is inaugurating the era of Israel’s salvation. elizabeth honors Mary, mother of the Lord, but Mary in turn deflects this praise to God. Now, in a hymn of praise, she gives voice to her own understanding of what God is doing.

1:46–55 Response of Praise: Mary’s Song

In a song of praise that begins with Mary’s personal circumstance and then broadens to encompass the whole people, she gives voice to the hopes of Israel. Soon Zechariah and a devout man named Simeon will join the chorus (1:68–79; 2:29–32). Drawing language from Jewish Scripture, Mary celebrates the power and faithfulness of God, who has brought help to Israel, fulfilling ancient promises. With her own experience as inspiration, and employing bold images reminiscent of Hannah’s prayer at the presentation of Samuel (1 Sam 2:1–10), Mary pictures divine deliverance as a dramatic reversal of power and fortune. It is a hymn of praise to God, whose ways challenge and subvert the way things are in the world. It is about God, who keeps promises and cares for the lowly and powerless. Singing her faith in God, Mary models authentic response to divine initiative: joyful praise and bold proclamation.

46 Then Marya said,

“My soul declares the greatness of the Lord,b

47 and my spirit rejoicesc in God my Savior.

48 For he has looked upon the lowly state of his servantd: behold, from now on all generations will consider me blessed!e

49 For the Mighty One has done great things for me,

and his name is holy.

50 His mercy [comes], generation after generation,

to those who fear him.

51 He has acted powerfully by his strong arm;

he scattersf the haughtyg in the imaginations of their hearts.

52 He throws down the powerful from their thrones

and lifts up the lowly;

53 he fills the hungry with good things,

but sends the wealthy away empty.

54 He has come to the aid of Israel his servant, remembering his mercies—

55 just as he spoke to our fathers [and mothers]— to Abraham and his descendants forever.”h

a. elizabeth, not Mary, is the speaker according to a few Mss in the Old Latin tradition (a b l*), as well as a few patristic sources (Irenaeus, Haer. 4.7.1 [Armenian and Latin versions]; Jerome’s translation of Origen, Hom. Luc. 7; and Nicetas). Although the phrasing in v. 56 is grammatically awkward if Mary is the speaker (“Mary remained with her,” as if Elizabeth has been speaking), the narrative’s structure requires a response from Mary to the praise expressed in elizabeth’s greeting, not a second statement from elizabeth. Moreover, explicit mention of Mary rather than elizabeth in v. 56 makes narrative sense because Mary was last mentioned in v. 46, and the focus of the passage is more on her than on elizabeth.

b. Typically translated as “My soul magnifies the Lord”; the title conventionally given Mary’s Song, the Magnificat, is the Latin word that opens this hymn of praise in the Vulgate (megalynei in Greek). With the rendering “declares the greatness,” I am linking this verb to the related noun megala (great things) in v. 49.

c. This verb (ēgalliasen) is a gnomic (timeless) aorist, roughly equivalent to the parallel, present-tense verb “declares the greatness of” in v. 46 (also Fitzmyer 1:366). A series of aorist verbs (with God as subject) follows, generally appearing in emphatic first position in each clause. The word “rejoices” picks up the note of joy from Elizabeth’s praise of Mary (the cognate noun agalliasis, of the unborn John’s movement [v. 44]).

d. A female servant ( doulē), the same word Mary applies to herself in v. 38. Israel is also God’s servant (v. 54), but the word there is pais, which can also mean “child.” Luke 1:69 refers to David as pais, and Acts applies this word to Jesus (3:13; 4:27).

e. echoing Leah’s words after the birth of Asher (Gen 30:13).

f. Reading this and the following aorist verbs as gnomic (timeless), corresponding to the expression “generation after generation” (v. 50)—though to be sure they evoke the

memory of past saving acts of God in Israel’s history.

g. This and the following nouns indicating recipients of divine blessing and judgment are anarthrous (without the article), owing to the compact poetic style of the hymn;

however, I have supplied “the” in English to yield a fluid and compact translation. h. Construing the phrase “just as he spoke to our fathers [and mothers]” as parenthetical, and so taking Abraham and his descendants as the recipients of God’s (remembered)

mercy, rather than as the addressees of God’s spoken word.

[46–50] The Song of Mary (the Magnificat) is a hymn of praise in two strophes, vv. 46–50 and vv. 51–55. The first strophe celebrates divine benevolence to the individual singer (with v. 50 beginning to broaden the scope of divine activity); the second strophe then witnesses to God’s succor of Israel as a stunning reversal of circumstance for the powerful and the powerless. each strophe concludes by pointing to divine mercy, which spans the ages (vv. 50, 54–55; see Tannehill, “Magnificat” 268–69). Employing the poetic device of parallelism and borrowing images and phrases from the ot, the song has the sound of a psalm of praise expressing authentic Jewish piety.12

The hymn opens with a declaration of praise, in two parallel lines (vv. 46b–47):

My soul declares the greatness of the Lord, and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior.

In Greek the verb begins each line, a syntactical pattern that with a few exceptions governs the Magnificat; actions carry the message of the song. The voice of the hymn is the singer’s “I,” using the synonymous phrases “my soul” and “my spirit.” The parallel images in these lines are mutually illuminating: the singer is able to declare the Lord’s greatness precisely because God, the Lord, is the Savior. Both epithets for God, Lord and Savior, amount to a demotion of the Roman emperor. God exercises sovereignty by saving, by delivering, by extending mercy. The two hoti-causal clauses that follow (“for . . .”) spell out the reasons for praise (vv. 48a, 49–50; v. 48b is parenthetical). Actually, the rest of the hymn describes the activity of God as Savior (vv. 48–55), giving the psalm’s motive for praise and the reason for the singer’s joy.

Anticipating the societal reversals of the second strophe (vv. 52–53), vv. 48–49 root praise in the singer’s personal experience of reversal of circumstances. God has noticed her situation of need, and God’s powerful acts on behalf of a lowly servant will lead each future generation to remember her as one specially favored: “For [God] has looked upon the lowly state of his servant: behold, from now on all generations will consider me blessed!” Verse 48 echoes Hannah’s promise to God when praying for a child (1 Sam 1:11 lxx, “If you indeed look upon the lowly state of your servant”) and also Leah’s reaction to the birth of a son (Gen 30:13 lxx, “I am blessed [makaria], for women will consider me blessed”). The language of Luke 1:48 associates the singer with two ot women who desired children but were infertile, seemingly a better fit for Elizabeth than for Mary, and therefore taken by some as evidence that elizabeth is the speaker of the hymn.13 Nevertheless, the singer’s self-identification as servant (doulē) does suit Mary (v. 38), as does her status as specially favored (vv. 42, 45; cf. 11:27). She is the young, unmarried woman who lacks social status but receives honor from God’s surprising, gracious action, and so offers praise.

12. The Magnificat’s focus upon God, the absence of any reference to the Messiah Jesus (apart from the narrative context that Luke gives the hymn), and the presence of language and poetic parallelism characteristic of Jewish psalms have led some scholars to assign the hymn to pre-Christian Jewish sources, perhaps associated with a movement of followers of John the Baptizer, with elizabeth depicted as the original speaker (e.g., Radl, Ursprung 291–92, 308–9). Kaut assigns the first part of the Magnificat to such a group and the second part to Pharisaic circles early in the revolt against Rome (Befreier 308, 315, 322); only the redactional insertion of v. 48b adapts the Magnificat to the Jesus tradition (321–22). For a critique of such reconstructions and an argument that the Magnificat stems from Christian circles, see Mittmann-Richert, Magnificat 291–97. Without any extant Lukan sources to examine here, reconstructions of the tradition history and original social setting of the Magnificat (or of the Benedictus) are highly speculative; they also do not illuminate the role the passages play within Luke’s narrative, which is the primary interest in this commentary.

Verses 49–50 multiply images for God and God’s activity. God is the Mighty One (dynatos) who accomplishes great things; the divine name (i.e., character) is holy, a declaration that recalls Hannah’s prayer (1 Sam 2:2) and perhaps borrows as well from Ps 111:9, which is embedded in a psalm that voices gratitude for an array of divine actions and commitments that Mary’s Song and the larger context of Luke 1–2 also celebrate: powerful acts, mercy, an enduring covenant, and the sending of redemption (lytrōsis) for the people (laos). Moreover, God’s commitment, from generation to generation, is to extend mercy to those who fear God (i.e., who appropriately revere God as holy; the phrasing recalls Ps 103:17). God exercises power in the world, and among the people descended from Abraham (Luke 1:54), not to coerce and dominate but to show compassionate mercy. No less than the following verses centering on social upheaval (vv. 51–53), this image of might expressed in mercy—a mercy that honors the lowly—prefigures the later actions and words of Jesus.

Mary’s experience of gracious divine action exemplifies the working of God on behalf of all the people, as the second part of the hymn will affirm. With the image of generation (genea), vv. 48 and 50 move from the singer’s personal situation to that of all God’s people. All future generations will acknowledge Mary’s good fortune (v. 48), even as in every generation God’s faithful people will experience divine mercy (v. 50). But what, concretely, will that mercy look like when the might of the exalted, holy God confronts the social and religious and political structures of this world?

[51–55] The second strophe sharpens the focus on divine power, though now with the image of an outstretched arm, a metaphor for divine strength (v. 51a). Although the expression epoiēsin kratos (“acted powerfully”; lit., “performed [did] strength”) is unusual, the language of this line echoes such lxx passages as Pss 88 [89e]:10, 13; 89 [90e]:11 as well as the display of divine power in the exodus (exod 6:6; Deut 4:34) and in the promised deliverance of the exiles (Isa 40:10; 51:5, 9; 53:1). In the past, the Mighty One performed deeds of power to liberate Israel, and Mary praises God for now acting decisively to do so again. All the surrounding images of divine action specify who benefits, or suffers, because of it. Luke 1:51a, however, mentions only the powerful divine act itself; this line of the poem stands between an image of deliverance (mercy for those who fear God, v. 50) and one of judgment (dispersal of the arrogant, v. 51b), suggesting that God’s power (the strong arm of v. 51a) is exerting itself to bring both deliverance for the people and judgment of the powers, which is liberation’s historical accompaniment. If so, this recalls the biblical paradigm in which God’s liberation of Israel occurred in concert with the defeat of its enemies (e.g., exod 6:6; Deut 4:34; cf. Ps 88 [89e]:10 lxx; Isa 51:9).

13. See the discussion in Brown, Birth 335; Farris, Hymns 110–12. In his attempt to identify Luke’s source traditions, Kaut holds that v. 48a fits Elizabeth and v. 48b Mary (Befreier 292–93); Radl agrees (Ursprung 291).

Verse 48 drew a sharp contrast between the mighty God ( dynatos) and a humble servant; vv. 51–52 juxtapose the mighty acts of God and the worldly might of the powerful (dynastas) who sit on thrones. The servant of the Lord experiences divine power as gracious, but the mighty encounter divine power in the form of a judgment that overturns, displaces, and nullifies power. In staccato fashion, vv. 51b–54 present a balanced series of six divine acts of either judgment or mercy. The first and last acts form an outer frame; the first concerns judgment against the haughty (v. 51b), and the last concerns covenant-remembering mercy that assists God’s servant Israel (v.54). “Mercy remembered” is a potent image for God’s enduring, gracious commitment to Israel, the divine covenant partner. Within this outer frame—judgment against the proud and mercy for God’s servant—appear two tightly structured linepairs, each exhibiting antithetical parallelism, with the two line-pairs together forming an inverted, or chiastic, parallel:

A He throws down the powerful from their thrones (judgment) B and lifts up the lowly (mercy);

B′ he fills the hungry with good things (mercy),

A′ but sends the wealthy away empty (judgment).14

Here the lowly and hungry align with God’s servant Israel, and with Mary (servant of low status) in the first strophe, as recipients of God’s benevolence. God’s action in the world brings honor, nourishment, and mercy to those who lack these things. By contrast, the powerful who rule, the wealthy, and the arrogant appear together as recipients of God’s judgment.15 God’s action in the world removes the confidence, power, and wealth of those who possess these things. Mary’s Song boldly proclaims a social revolution; God’s realm redraws the maps of human social and political relations and inverts conventional roles. The Magnificat presents a charter of social transformation, one that Jesus will embrace in his ministry (programmatically in 4:16–21; 6:20–26; in parable form, e.g., in 16:19–31).

14. The participles peinōntas (“hungry”) and ploutountas (“wealthy”) begin the clauses in v. 53, breaking the pattern of initial aorist verbs that governs Mary’s Song as a whole. The rhetorical effect of this syntactical variation (heightened aurally through the use of assonance and consonance) is to draw the hearer’s attention to the first and last terms in each compact line of v. 53: hungry → good things; wealthy → empty. The verse thus highlights a double contrast: the juxtaposition of the hungry and the wealthy, and the reversal in their circumstances. The opposition of the wealthy and the hungry, rather than the poor, shows that the singer is presenting evocative images befitting a poem, not precise categories.

15. Hannah’s prayer points to similar reversals affecting rich and poor, well-fed and hungry, and powerful and powerless (1 Sam 2:1–10). Hannah may provide the model for Mary’s Song, although the affinity is more in concept than wording, and the situations differ. Unlike Hannah, Mary praises God before the birth of her son, underscoring her trust in the divine promise.

To be sure, Jesus’ practices and his parables will create this new reality of God’s realm more in symbol and anticipation than in reality, even as the Magnificat, with its description of a world transformed by divine action, is offering a prophetic vision. Roman power, after all, will crush Jesus. Still, if Mary is right about the reversals that divine power produces, crucifixion will not speak the last word. Honor, wealth, and power all undergo radical redefinition in this hymn of praise, and in this Gospel. Yet Jesus, in carrying out his ministry—with its vision of a radical social transformation that elevates the poor and powerless and demotes the wealthy and powerful—will not be an innovator, a point that Mary’s Song already makes clear. The social revolution of God’s realm continues an ancient story. It is about a God who remembers mercy and keeps covenant with God’s people. This is the meaning, in action, of the epithet sōtēr (Savior) for God, with which the hymn begins. This is the way in which God’s ancient promises to the ancestors, above all Abraham, are to find fulfillment. And so Israel, God’s servant, will enjoy divine consolation, just as the prophets announced (e.g., Isa 41:8–9).16

1:56 Mary Returns to Her Home

Mary’s praise of God, responding to elizabeth’s generous welcome, dominates vv. 39–56. The pace of the story slowed momentarily, so that Mary could reflect on the meaning for God’s people Israel of the remarkable events that were underway, and instruct Luke’s audience as well. At the heart of the narrative are the words of these two pregnant women—an intriguing image for an expectant people whose hopes they articulate. Mary has come to elizabeth’s home in haste, but now she lingers, remaining with her older relative for about three months before returning home.

56 Mary stayed with [elizabeth] for about three months, and then she returned to her own home.

[56] Mary remains with elizabeth for three months. There is not a word about what happens during that period, or why Mary leaves when she does. Did she leave before John’s birth, which the next scene narrates? Or is she present among elizabeth’s relatives who celebrate his arrival (v. 58)? Luke’s style of narration generally avoids cluttering a scene with characters. Verses 39–56 maintain sharp focus on the encounter between Mary and elizabeth, and vv. 57–80 rivet attention on elizabeth and Zechariah. Mary’s presence in the latter scene would be a distraction; the narrative successfully splices the stories of elizabeth and Mary, of John and Jesus, in the central scene of Luke 1, and no further overlapping of the characters is necessary. In an analogous fashion, Luke will remove John from the scene before telling of Jesus’ baptism and the beginning of his career (3:19–20).

16. Green captures the theocentric orientation of the passage: “Mary’s Song is not a revolutionary call to human action but a celebration of God’s action” (100; cf. Bemile, Magnificat 240–41). Nevertheless, human response to God’s action, and willingness to participate in it (e.g., by relinquishing possessions for the benefit of the poor), are also crucial dimensions of Luke’s narrative. Mary’s Song does not cultivate passive spectators.

Two faithful women have spoken. God the Savior is acting decisively to change the fortunes not only of these women but also, through their sons, of an entire people. It is time for fulfillment of God’s promise to Zechariah, time for a birth, time for the silent father to reappear and give voice to his own faith. When he finally speaks, he will add texture and color to Mary’s picture of the divine initiative in Israel’s life. Like Mary he will address praise to God, and like elizabeth he will speak prophetically.

1:57–80 John’s Birth and Response of Praise and Prophecy

Now the narrative moves from promise to fulfillment, beginning with the birth of John. Attention centers not on the birth but on the giving of his name, which confirms that events are proceeding as God’s messenger has announced and also that human collaborators are doing their part. even Zechariah models faithful response to divine initiative. In a hymn prompted by the Spirit, he joins Mary in the chorus of praise to God, then adds a prophetic oracle of his own, previewing John’s role and linking it to the salvation that God is accomplishing with the advent of the Messiah. Like Mary, Zechariah interprets the extraordinary events now underway as the fulfillment of divine promises reaching all the way back to Abraham. With increasing clarity readers see the meaning of the story for God’s people Israel.

1:57–66 Responses to John’s Birth

At the birth of elizabeth’s son, her relatives and neighbors come to celebrate with her. Her days of public reproach and private delight are over. The narrative, however, highlights the giving of a name to the child, ending the suspense created by the Gospel’s first scene. Will he receive the name that Gabriel directed a long-silent father to give him (1:13)? Will the once-skeptical priest now believe, and will he be able to speak?

57 Now as for elizabeth: the time for her to give birth arrived,a and she gave birth to a son. 58 Her neighbors and relatives heard that the Lord had shown great mercy to her,b and they were rejoicing with her. 59 And it happened that they came on the eighth day to circumcise the child, and they were calling himc after the name of his father Zechariah. 60 But his mother responded, “No; instead he will be called John.” 61 And they said to her, “None of your relatives is called by this name.” 62 So they began to signald to his father [to indicate] what he wished the child to be called. 63 He asked for a writing tablet and wrote: “His name is John.” And they all were amazed. 64 His mouth was opened at once—and his tongue [untied]—and he began to speak, blessing God. 65 Fear came upon all who lived near them, and all these things were spoken about in the whole hill country of Judea. 66 everyone who heard [this news] took it to heart;e they said, “What then will this child be?” For the hand of the Lord was indeed with him.

a. Literally, “was completed [filled],” a verb ( pimplanai) used for the completion of a set period of time also in 1:23; 2:6, 21, 22. The arrival of Mary’s day to give birth is described in parallel fashion (2:6).

b. Or “magnified his mercy toward [with] her”; the verb is megalynein, as in v. 46, one of the verbal links between the Song of Mary and the surrounding narrative.

c. Or (as a conative imperfect): “they tried [or wanted] to call him.”

d. Inceptive imperfect (eneneuon), reminiscent of Zechariah’s own wordless gesture to the people after he encountered Gabriel (the participle dianeuōn in 1:22). In v. 62 the nonverbal gesture implies that Zechariah is unable to hear as well as speak, although this disability has not been mentioned previously.

e. Literally, “set [this] in their heart[s].”

[57–63] Recurring words and motifs produce the impression of a seamless narrative, of a coherent story about God’s activity. The time for a momentous event has arrived (i.e., the span of time leading to it has been “filled”; v. 57; cf. 1:23; 2:6, 21, 22). Moreover, observers affirm that the Lord has “shown great mercy” (emegalynen kyrios to eleos, v. 58), a phrase that reinforces two images in Mary’s Song: God’s great acts (megala, v. 49; cf. megalynei in v. 46), which enact divine mercy (eleos, vv. 50, 54). Zechariah’s song will continue the concern with divine mercy (vv. 72, 78). Finally, joy spreads to ever wider circles (v. 58), fulfilling Gabriel’s prophecy (v. 14; cf. 1:44; 2:10).

The narrator briefly reports the birth (1:57), then proceeds to something more arresting, the reaction of John’s parents and other observers. Responses to the birth continue through v. 79. Neighbors and relatives gather to celebrate the occasion with Elizabeth (v. 58). They have a dual role, first attesting that the event manifests divine mercy and then testing the faithfulness of the child’s parents in the matter of his name (vv. 59–63). They also participate in the ritual of circumcision on the eighth day (as the implied subject in the phrase “they came to circumcise,” parallel to “they were calling him”). Performance of the ritual displays fidelity to the Torah, although this remains implicit (v. 59a; cf. Gen 17:12; Lev 12:3)—an example of the piety noted earlier (Luke 1:6)—in contrast to later emphasis on faithful observance of the law and Jewish custom on the part of Jesus and his parents (2:22–24, 41–43).

Interest quickly turns to the question of a name for elizabeth’s son. In the absence of any word from the still-silent father, the nameless crowd of friends and family has already settled on the name Zechariah (Jr.!).17 How did they arrive at that choice, and why did they presume to make it? The narrator offers no clue. The narrative effect, though, is striking: the parents of the infant face a test of their fidelity to God, which collides with communal expectation. This confrontation between the boy’s parents and their friends and family introduces an important theme in the Gospel. To adapt a phrase from Luke’s second volume, will they obey God or humans? (Acts 5:29; on the conflict between obedience to God and family allegiance, see, e.g., Luke 8:19–21; 11:27–28; cf. already 2:48–49).

elizabeth sides with God and insists on the name John (v. 60), although (another narrative gap) it is not clear what has led her to that choice.18 The gathered company refuses to yield, protesting that John would be a novel name for this family (v. 61) and signaling to the father to adjudicate (v. 62). Only now does Zechariah, long both silent and absent, reappear in the story. With writing tablet in hand, he settles the matter: “His name is John” (v. 63). Zechariah finally exhibits trusting obedience to God, thus joining ranks with Elizabeth and Mary. The company’s reaction is one that will recur in the narrative, as a typical response to the working of miracles: amazement. However discerning or undiscerning, they do recognize that something extraordinary is happening. The name says it all, although this connection is never made explicit: God has truly shown favor to this old couple, and to Israel.

[64–66] Zechariah has more to say about all this. emerging from months of enforced silence, he begins by praising God: “His mouth was opened at once—and his tongue [untied]—and he began to speak, blessing God” (v. 64). The new father takes his place in the dance of divine action (God is the agent in the passive-voice expression “his mouth was opened”) and faithful human response (“He began to speak, blessing God”), a response dramatically different from Zechariah’s earlier doubt-driven request for a sign (1:18). The narrator simply reports that Zechariah spoke in praise of God, delaying its content until the volley of divinely initiated action and the people’s reaction has concluded. That whole region of Judea learns what has happened, which elicits both fear and a question about the future of such a child (vv. 65–66). Perhaps this is fear of God and not simple terror (cf. v. 50), although this is not made explicit. The narrative aside that ends v. 66 (“For the hand of the Lord was indeed with him”) does suggest that Judean inhabitants recognize God is at work in these events. Still, if Mary, elizabeth, and eventually Zechariah display trusting, obedient response to God’s initiative, it is not yet clear if the whole people will move from fear and amazement to faith.

17. Reading the imperfect-tense verb ekaloun (v. 59) as indicating repeated action already begun, rather than action now attempted (conative imperfect; so Bovon 1:70 n. 28). There is no evidence to suggest that it would be ordinary practice to name a son after his father, but this could occur (e.g., Josephus, Ant. 14.1.3; 20.9.1; Josephus, J.W. 5.13.2; Josephus, Life 2; 9; for choice of the grandfather’s name, see 1 Macc 2:1–2; Jub. 11.15). On Palestinian Jewish customs surrounding the naming of children, see Fitzmyer 1:380–81; Green 109 n. 8.

18. There would be ample biblical precedent for the mother’s naming of the child (e.g., Gen 19:37–38; 29:32–35; 30:6; 38:3–5; see Green 109 n. 9).

Because the words of praise that Zechariah speaks are delayed until the end of the passage, his Spirit-prompted message gets the last word. Also, his concluding prophetic declaration regarding the future role of John (vv. 76–79) can answer the universal question about this child whose birth and identity (name) are so remarkable: “What then will this child be?” (v. 66).

1:67–79 Praise and Prophecy: Zechariah’s Song

Zechariah, like Mary, addresses praise to God with a hymn that also reads the meaning of the events that are occurring, and does so by locating them within the history of God’s people Israel. The salvation promised by God is at hand. God is sending not only the prophet of Israel’s restoration but also the Messiah for whom he prepares the path. Zechariah takes up the preview that Gabriel has given him (1:13–17), adding a few details of his own and offering a specific answer to the question about his son’s future role and task.

67 Zechariah his father was filled with the Holy Spirit, and he spoke prophetically:

68 “Blessed is the Lord, the God of Israel,

for he has visiteda and effected redemption for his people.

69 He has raised up a hornb of salvation for us

in the house of his servant David—

70 just as he spoke through the mouth of his holy prophets from ancient times— 71 salvation from our enemies, and from the hand of all who hate us:

72 showing mercy to our fathers [and mothers]

and rememberingc his holy covenant,

73 the vowd that he made to Abraham our father

to give us 74 [the capacity] to servee him—

free of fear, rescued from the hand of our enemies—

75 in holiness and righteousness before him all our days.

76 And you, [my] child, will be called prophet of the Most High; for you will go before the Lord to ready his ways, 77 to give knowledge of salvation to his people

inf the forgiveness of their sins

78 owing to the compassionate merciesg of our God. By those [mercies] a dawnh will visiti us from on high 79 to shine on those who sit in darkness and in death’s shadow, to direct our feet onto a peaceful way.”

a. This is the first of a series of aorist-tense verbs that continue until v. 76, which shifts to the future. While the aorists in Mary’s Song may be gnomic (timeless), those in Zechariah’s song appear to recall accomplished events—closely tying the arrival of the Messiah descended from David (“the horn of salvation”) to Israel’s long history with the God who delivers God’s people. Although the Messiah Jesus has not yet been born, the aorists in Zechariah’s song indicate that the decisive redemptive intervention of God has already occurred with the Spirit-authored conception of Jesus.

b. The horn of an animal served as a metaphor for strength (e.g., Deut 33:17). See n. 21 below.

c. Taking the infinitives poiēsai and mnēsthēnai as epexegetical: showing (lit., doing) mercy and remembering the covenant are ways of describing the salvation that God has brought. Green construes these as infinitives of result (111): “Thus he has shown mercy . . . and has remembered.”

d. The noun orkon (vow [or oath]), though in apposition to the genitive noun diathēkēs (covenant), appears in the accusative case by attraction to the following relative pronoun.

e. The verb latreuein (serve) often has the more specific meaning of liturgical or cultic service (worship [e.g., 2:37]), but its scope seems broader here: “serve in holiness and righteousness” (v. 75), certainly including liturgical service.

f. Or “by [through],” an instrumental dative with the preposition en.

g. Literally, “bowels of mercy,” an idiom that indicates deep compassion, reflecting the belief that such emotion has its source in the “gut.”

h. Or “rising [star]”; in the lxx the noun anatolē also translates the Hebrew word ṣemaḥ (shoot, sprout), giving the name “Branch” to a future ruler descended from David (Jer 23:5; Zech 3:8; 6:12; cf. 4QFlor [4Q174] 1.11; 4QCommGen A [4Q252] 5.3–4; for a related use of the verb anatellein see Mal 3:20 [4:2e]; Num 24:17; cf. also the conceptual parallel linking star and root in Rev 22:16). This use of anatolē as a messianic designation probably stems from Isa 11:1, 10, although riza (root) appears there, naming a ruler (descended from Jesse) upon whom God’s Spirit will rest and who will rule the nations (Gentiles).

i. Reading the future episkepsetai (“will visit”), with א* B L W Θ, rather than the aorist epeskepsato (“visited”), which appears to be a later scribal “improvement” conforming v. 78 to v. 68 (though the aorist in v. 78 is attested by most Mss). Zechariah’s song shifts to the future tense at v. 76, and this continues (with dependent infinitives) until the end of the hymn.

[67] Like elizabeth before him (1:41), Zechariah speaks prophetically as one “filled with the Holy Spirit,” but the connection between the Spirit and prophetic speech is explicit in his case. In the next chapter, Simeon will speak under the direction of the Spirit (2:26–27), although Anna, whose words are not reported, will be the one called a prophet (2:36). As a prophetic message inspired by God’s Spirit, Zechariah’s song offers both praise to God and a reliable interpretation of the events being narrated (as will the speeches of Jesus’ apostles and witnesses in Acts). Zechariah articulates the hopes of Israel and the fulfillment of ancient promises of God; however hope and fulfillment may be redefined as the story proceeds, Zechariah is a reliable speaker (a different view in Tannehill, Narrative Unity 1:35 n. 46). Luke invites readers to trust Zechariah’s message and so join the chorus of joyful praise.

[68–75] Zechariah’s song, traditionally known as the Benedictus because the passage opens with that Latin word in the Vulgate, shares with Mary’s Song many images and motifs drawn from the ot and a two-strophe hymnic structure that opens with a declaration of praise and then spells out the reasons for praise. The syntax departs, however, from the crisp, paratactic style of the Magnificat, which presents compact clauses often linked by kai (and) as well as balanced parallel lines. Zechariah’s song has longer lines of uneven length, though with some parallelism, and employs a more complex, hypotactic style that presents two series of dependent infinitives in vv. 72–75 and vv. 77–79 and two relative clauses (vv. 73, 78).

The first line (v. 68a) marks the passage as a hymn of praise. The God of Israel, the source of blessing, is blessed (eulogētos, a verbal adjective related to the participle with which elizabeth has pronounced Mary blessed [1:42]). Verses 68b–75 specify the grounds for praise, in one long sentence. Verses 68b–69 present three mutually interpreting metaphors to describe the divine initiative that has elicited praise of God: visitation, redemption, and horn of salvation. The first two metaphors, visitation and redemption, express one idea (i.e., hendiadys): God has visited the people for the purpose of redeeming them. In the lxx the verb episkeptesthai (visit), which may also mean “look upon,” signifies divine presence to judge (Exod 32:34) or deliver the people (e.g., Gen 21:1; exod 4:31; Ruth 1:6; Ps 105 [106e]:4; it reappears in the future tense in Luke 1:78). Zechariah envisages a divine visitation to save, but will the people recognize God’s presence in the work of John and Jesus (cf. 19:44)?

The redemption ( lytrōsis) that God has effected (lit., “done [or performed]”) liberates the people (i.e., a ransom that procures release). Psalm 110:9 lxx (111:9e), too, offers thanks to God for having sent redemption (lytrōsis) to the people; this metaphor expresses Israel’s hope for divine deliverance (cf. Luke 2:38; also 24:21). With the third metaphor, horn of salvation, Zechariah indicates the particular way in which God’s visitation effects redemption. God has raised up a powerful deliverer.19 This is a messianic image; the image of a horn suggests the strength of the deliverer who will arise from the house of God’s servant David.20 To this point, Zechariah’s song replays notes sounded in Gabriel’s annunciation to Mary, not the angel’s message to Zechariah (see 1:32–33). As one filled with the Spirit, he knows what Luke’s audience has learned in the narrative thus far and can deepen their understanding.

Zechariah now describes the divine initiative to bring salvation as the fulfillment of God’s ancient promises given through the prophets (v. 70). After repeating the key word sōtēria (salvation, or deliverance) and lending it concreteness as rescue from enemies (v.71), once more the singer emphasizes that God is keeping ancient promises, this time pointing to the Torah, to the covenant with Israel’s ancestors (“our fathers”), and specifically to God’s oath to Abraham, “our father” (vv. 72–73; cf. v. 55). The salvation that Zechariah celebrates is the culmination of a story that began long ago.

Verses 71–75 spell out that the salvation God is bringing to the people is both salvation from and salvation for: rescue from enemies who hate us and, with the resulting freedom from fear of enemies, liberation to serve God faithfully (vv. 71, 74–75). By shifting to the first-person plural pronoun (vv. 71–75, 78–79), the singer situates himself and his audience (including readers) among the people to whom divine deliverance has come—and with it the possibility of faithful life before God. As in Mary’s Song, deliverance of the people has as its correlate judgment against parties opposed to God, though now this is only implicit (in rescue from enemies) and the depiction is general and allencompassing (enemies and “all who hate us”; cf. the powerful and wealthy in vv. 51–53). Where does the military occupation by imperial Rome fit into this picture? Does salvation mean an end to Roman control of Palestine? Luke will have more to say about this matter, beginning with the singer’s own later reframing of sōtēria (salvation) as forgiveness (v. 77) and continuing with the Roman census that provides the backdrop for Jesus’ birth (2:1–7). Zechariah’s song indicates that salvation is a multivalent term, one that has both sociopolitical and religious dimensions (Green 114–15).

Like the Magnificat, the Benedictus pictures help for Israel as a remembering by God and an expression of divine mercy (1:72; cf. v. 54), but where Mary spoke of God’s remembering mercy, now God enacts mercy by remembering the “holy covenant,” particularly its key promise to Abraham (Gen 22:16–18; cf. 12:2–3; the phrase “vow that he made to Abraham our father” recalls Gen 26:3). Yet here the singer recalls the promise not of land, or progeny, but of perpetual freedom for authentic service of God. (In Acts 3:25 the covenantal promise to Abraham takes the form of blessing for all families on earth.) Zechariah’s song conflates the generative promise to Abraham and God’s declaration to Moses on the purpose of the exodus (exod 3:12; 7:16, picked up in Acts 7:7, again in association with Abraham rather than Moses). The point of Israel’s existence—from the beginning—is service of God, including faithful worship (one meaning of the verb latreuein), to be sure, but also, more broadly, embodiment of God’s ways in all of life, as the expression “serve . . . in holiness and righteousness [or justice]” intimates (v. 75). Zechariah portrays God as a faithful keeper of covenant who shows mercy; God keeps God’s word, and it is a gracious word. God’s people have their part to play as well, answering the divine gift of freedom with genuine worship of the holy God and an enduring commitment to justice.

19. The word ēgeiren (“he has raised up”) indicates the appearance of an agent of divine deliverance here, as in Judg 2:16, 18; cf. Acts 13:22. This verb also later refers to Jesus’ resurrection (e.g., Acts 3:15; 5:30), a nuance that might be heard by a Christian auditor who knows the whole story but is not the primary sense here.

20. The animal’s horn appears as a messianic image in Hannah’s prayer: the “horn of Christ” will be lifted up by God (1 Sam 2:10; a horn is associated with David also in Ps 131 [132e]:17 lxx; cf. ezek 29:21). In the lxx, Ps 17:1 (18e title) and Isa 37:35 call David God’s pais (servant; cf. Acts 4:25, one of many connections in wording and motif between the hymns of Luke 1–2 and the early speeches in Acts).

[76–79] With a sudden change in the person addressed (“and you, child”) and a shift from aorist to future tense, v. 76 signals a change in genre. The singer moves from praise of God, and its grounds, to a prophetic oracle that answers the question “What then will this child be?” (v. 66). So far the hymn has developed the theme of salvation by building on Gabriel’s message to Mary and the Magnificat—hence, in connection with Jesus—rather than the birth announcement he has heard about his own son. Turning now to preview his son’s role, the priest affirms but also extends the prophecy of Gabriel, relating John to the salvation he has just pictured as occurring through the agency of a messianic figure descended from David. Strophe two introduces variation in addressee, genre, and projected role, but scriptural allusions continue, as does the focus on the activity of God. Zechariah’s song, like Mary’s, centers on God and God’s ways with Israel.

When Zechariah forecasts his son’s role, he does not mention what will be its defining symbol, baptism, but he does address the point of the ritual: forgiveness of sins. The narrator’s sketch of the commencement of John’s ministry (3:3) will fuse the prophecy of Gabriel (restoration and return, i.e., repentance, 1:16–17) and that of Zechariah (forgiveness of sins, 1:77). The ensuing narrative will confirm the prophetic message of angel and priest alike. Gabriel depicted John’s task as going before the Lord God in the manner of elijah, and preparing a people for the Lord, though without assigning John the label of prophet (v. 17). Zechariah predicts that his son will be regarded as a prophet and repeats the language of preceding and preparation, but adding a twist (v. 76). John will go before the Lord (not the Lord God), and in the light of Elizabeth’s intervening acclamation of Mary as “mother of her Lord” (v. 43), there is now ambiguity whether John will go before God or Jesus as Lord. Moreover, rather than prepare a people, John will make ready the paths of the Lord (a metaphor from Isa 40:3 taken up in Luke 3:4). If the messages of Godsent angel and Spirit-inspired priest are mutually illumining, not conflicting, readers will expect John to prepare the way of the Lord precisely by making the people ready through a summons to repentance (return to God). Indeed, insofar as repentance and forgiveness are concerned, Jesus will walk the same path as John. In his work of preparation, John will be esteemed as prophet of the Most High—no mean role, to be sure, but clearly giving John a rank below the Son of the Most High, Jesus (1:32).

Verse 78a returns to the image of divine mercy ( eleos, also v. 72; cf. vv. 50, 54) but with a vividness that intensifies: mercy flows from God’s innermost being (“the splangchna [guts] of mercy of our God”).21 The singer ascribes the advent of deliverance for the people, and the particular roles of John and Jesus, to divine mercy. This is why God remembers covenantal promises and sends salvation: God is merciful (cf. 6:36). Also stemming from this divine mercy will be a visit from a dawn (or rising [star], anatolē) from on high (1:78b). With this shift to third-person description (from “you, child” to “a rising star will visit”) and with the reappearance of messianic imagery, vv. 78b–79 return from the preview of John’s specific task to a broader sketch of salvation in which the Messiah, too, figures. Zechariah’s song celebrates God’s initiative in bringing salvation to Israel; John and Jesus play distinct roles that are presented allusively, from scriptural patterns, but are not precisely differentiated. They both participate in the one work of God, which supplies the reason for praise and also the basic content for prophetic proclamation.

The metaphor of rising dawn (or star) for divine visitation is evocative yet also difficult to pin down because the word anatolē (lit., rising) and the cognate verb anatellein (rise) appear with varying nuances in lxx texts that refer to a messianic ruler (cf. anatolē in Matt 2:9, “[the star in] the east” [AT]):

God will raise up ( anastēsō) for David a branch (anatolēn) who will rule in justice, in the time when Judah will be saved (Jer 23:5–6).

Anatolē (Branch) is the name of the messianic ruler who will arise (anatelei) and whose counsel, in concert with the high priest Jesus, will promote peace (Zech 6:12; cf. 3:9).

A “sun of righteousness” will arise ( anatelei) and bring healing (Mal 3:20 [4:2e]).

A star will rise (anatelei) out of Jacob (Num 24:17, given a messianic spin in the Targum Onqelos for this verse).

21. kaut argues that this phrase is the center of the hymn Benedictus II (1:76–79, composed separately from vv. 68–75) and represents the traditioning community’s exegesis of the name John: God has shown mercy (Befreier 197).

Verse 78 may speak directly of a coming visitation by God: “owing to the compassionate mercies of our God, through which [God] will visit [as] a dawn from on high.” However, because Zechariah’s song relates God’s saving visitation to the agency of a Davidic heir (e.g., vv. 68–69), and because the word anatolē carries messianic overtones in several ot texts, the dawn that will come is probably the Messiah, whom God will send.22 In either case, the visit from above and the salvation it will bring are God’s action and enact God’s purpose.

The phrase “from on high” (cf. the epithet “Most High” for God in 1:32, 76) leaves no doubt about the source of the illumination that the rising light of dawn will bring to God’s people even amid darkness and death: it comes from God in highest heaven.23 The shadowy realm of darkness and death, an image borrowed from Isaiah (9:2; cf. 42:7), is not beyond the reach of God, or God’s Messiah. After the biblical pattern (e.g., Isa 9:6; cf. 11:6–10), the Messiah will guide the people (“us”) on a peaceful path (cf. Luke 2:14). It remains to be seen, however, whether all the people will follow him on this road (see 19:38, 42). Zechariah, for his part, models believing response that began in skeptical questioning but ends in bold prophetic proclamation. His hymn, wedding praise and prophecy, presents one biblical image after another to engender hope: Israel will finally know the salvation that God promised long ago. Yet questions remain for Luke’s audience. How will this deliverance intersect with the sober realities of imperial power and politics? Does salvation as freedom to serve God and as forgiveness of sins transform the meaning of salvation viewed as rescue from enemies? And will God’s people recognize that God is visiting to liberate them?

Why does Zechariah’s song follow the birth of John rather than Gabriel’s announcement, a sequence that would create a better parallel to the Song of Mary? Because Zechariah praises God after the Magnificat, the aorist-tense affirmations of the Benedictus make sense (at least for the reader) as pointers to what God has already done in the Spirit-authored conception of Jesus. Moreover, because Luke’s audience hears Mary’s Song first, it is Jesus’ mother, not John’s father, who offers the first perceptive interpretation of these events. Heightened interest in Jesus also results from the fact that attention to the meaning of God’s action in Jesus’ coming both precedes and follows affirmation of what God has done in the coming of John. Of course, the delayed response of Zechariah is simply necessary, in the plot of the story, because of his initial skepticism and the need that he come to trust God’s promisewhich builds suspense into the narrative. Perhaps, though, it is Mary’s Song that departs from the expected pattern; responding in advance to a child’s advent, she displays the depth of her faith. Still, with this Spirit-prompted, prophetic hymn of praise, Zechariah joins company with Mary (and Gabriel) as herald of the good news that salvation has come to God’s people.

22. There is general agreement on the messianic character of the metaphor here (e.g., Fitzmyer 1:387; Bovon 1:76; Nolland 1:90; Mittmann-Richert, Magnificat 214–15, 220–21). Scholars who have sought to reconstruct the prehistory of the Benedictus have proposed that the hymn originally arose within the movement of John the Baptizer, and that John was to precede God, the coming dawn (e.g., Radl, Ursprung 123–28), or would himself be that messianic figure (e.g., Kaut, Befreier 190–91, 199–200). There is no way to prove or disprove this guess. My interest is the meaning of the hymn (and its metaphors) within the Lukan narrative. kaut points to the parallel between “prophet of the Most High” and “anatolē from on high” (vv. 76, 78), but his claim that anatolē is a “semantic substitution” for prophet and that the two name the same figure is not convincing (190–91), at least in the narrative context Luke has provided.

23. Isaiah 60:1–3 anticipates a rising light that will illumine Jerusalem and ultimately the nations (though with different words for the shining of light). Also in Second Isaiah, light reaching the nations (or Gentiles) is an important metaphor for Israel’s task as God’s servant in the world (Isa 42:6; 49:6). Simeon will soon give this task to Jesus (Luke 2:32), and in Acts it will pass to Jesus’ witnesses (e.g., 1:8; 13:47).

1:80 Waiting in the Wings: John Grows Up

Through extensive dialogue and lengthy speeches, Luke’s first chapter introduces the central concern of the narrative, the coming of salvation to Israel. God has intervened in Israel’s public life, disrupting the private lives of an aging, childless couple and an unmarried young woman. God has renewed old promises and declared new ones, and their fulfillment has begun. With a brief notice, which compresses some thirty years of John’s life into a single verse, Luke leaves the story of John and turns to the birth of Jesus. The next time John appears, it will be to perform the role for which the inspired speeches of Luke 1 have fitted him.

80 And the child grew and became strong in spirit. He was in the desert until the day of his public appearance to Israel.

[80] A summary report about John’s growth in size and strength of spirit brings closure to the account of his birth and builds a bridge to the account of his ministry as an adult (3:2–18). In that scene readers will find him where 1:80 leaves him: in the desert (a plural noun in Greek: desert or wilderness areas). This is a suitable setting for one who has adopted an ascetic lifestyle, which exemplifies separation for special service of God (cf. 1:15); a fitting place, as well, to issue a summons to reorient life and embrace radical commitment to the ways of God—and exactly where Isaiah would have him prepare the Lord’s paths (40:3; cf. Luke 3:4).

This will be John’s public appearance to Israel, a reminder that his mission concerns the restoration of Israel. until then, like his mother before him, he will stay out of the public eye while he grows into a demanding job. elizabeth and Zechariah now disappear from the narrative, having completed their tasks. Similar summary reports of Jesus’ growth will close scenes in chapter 2 (vv. 40 [again “grew and became strong”], 52), but the parallel between John and Jesus is not balanced. Not only are there two growth notices for Jesus but also a glimpse of him as a prodigious lad of twelve displays his remarkable understanding, including awareness of his identity as God’s Son, and the special favor of God that he enjoys. The account of Jesus’ birth and youth will thus confirm what Luke’s audience already knows: God is shaping these two intertwined lives, yet the story of salvation for Israel will center on Jesus, not on John.

2:1–20 The Birth of Jesus

Rehearsal of the promises of God and the first signs of their fulfillment have kindled hope that the day of Israel’s salvation has dawned. Chapter 2 multiplies the evidence of fulfillment, narrating the birth of Jesus and offering further testimony to its significance for Israel. However, Luke also begins to develop the meaning of this birth and this Jewish child for the whole world. The might of imperial Rome provides the setting, but it is an infant lying in a feeding trough, far removed from power, who receives heaven’s acclamation as Lord and Savior. Appropriately the first witnesses are shepherds, like Mary lacking status, to whom heaven entrusts good news. The scene ends with a (by now) familiar act that shows both who is directing the events and the shepherds’ trusting response: praise of God.

2:1–7 From Caesar to Manger: The Census and Jesus’ Birth

Irony is thick as Jesus’ life begins. Caesar calls the shots, and his imperial order leads Mary and Joseph to Bethlehem, where Jesus finds his first home in an animal’s feeding trough. Yet the association of both Joseph and Bethlehem with King David and awareness that the birth of this child fulfills the angel’s earlier promise to Mary provide Luke’s audience clues that it is God who is directing the action.

1 It came to pass in those days that an edict went out from Caesar Augustus that all the world should be registered.a 2 This was the first census while Quirinius was governor of Syria. 3 So everyone was going to be registered, each person to one’s own city. 4 Joseph, too, went up from Galilee, from the towthn of Nazareth, to Judea, to the city of David called Bethlehem, because he was from the house and family line of David, 5 to be registered along with Mary, who was engaged to him,b [and] who was pregnant. 6 Now while they were there, the days arrived for her to give birth,c 7 and she gave birth to her firstbornd son. She wrapped him up in cloths and laid him in a manger,e since there was no place for them in the room where guests stayed.f

a. In a census; “all the world” would encompass only the Roman Empire. b. Or “betrothed to him,” as in 1:27. A few Mss instead read “his wife,” and a large number have a hybrid: “the wife who was engaged [betrothed] to him.” In both

instances, the addition of “wife” appears to be secondary, designed to account for Mary’s

journey to Bethlehem to be registered with Joseph. I read the following anarthrous participle ousē as adjectival, although it could be adverbial, giving the reason for Mary’s

journey with Joseph (Plummer 53).

c. As in 1:57, the verb pimplanai indicates the completion of a span of time preceding

the birth of a son (see translation note a on 1:57); this is one of many verbal parallels

between John and Jesus.

d. “Firstborn” prepares for the presentation of Jesus in the temple (2:23); the word

does not in itself indicate that Mary had additional children, though 8:19–21 mentions

his brothers (see Fitzmyer 1:407–8).

e. A phatnē could be a stall for animals, but here it is likely a manger, a feeding

trough.

f. A place of lodging for guests; in 22:11 this word (katalyma) designates a guest

room. The conventional translation in the birth story is “inn,” but Luke later uses pandocheion for that kind of lodging (10:34).

[1–3] Jesus enters a world that must answer to Rome. His homeland has long known military occupation, and the emperor in distant Rome, Augustus (the honorific, divine-sounding title that Luke uses for Octavian, whose tenure as Caesar stretched from 27 B.C.E. until his death in 14 C.E.), directs the steps of Mary and Joseph. Augustus issues an edict that calls for a universal census; the unstated purpose would have been to ensure efficient tax collection and military proscription in a province (only taxation in the Jewish context). The census looms large here since it is mentioned four times in the space of five verses (vv. 1–5; Acts 5:37 shows Luke’s awareness that a census could incite insurrection).

Luke’s account of the census raises a host of historical problems (Brown, Birth 412–18, 547–56; Fitzmyer 1:400–6): (1) there is no other report of an empire-wide census; (2) there would have been no Roman census during the reign of Herod the Great, who died in 4 B.C.E. and who Luke assumes was alive at this time (1:5); (3) a later census following Roman annexation of Archelaus’s territory in 6 C.E. coincided with Quirinius’s tenure as governor of Syria in 6–7 C.E.; and (4) Josephus treats the census conducted in Syria (including Judea) in 7 C.E. as an event without recent precedent (Ant. 17.13.5; 18.1.1). It is impossible to salvage historical accuracy for Luke’s report; however, it is instructive to consider the role of the census within the narrative. The census advances the plot by getting Mary and Joseph to Bethlehem for the birth (Jesus’ birth there comes from pre-Lukan tradition; cf. Matt 2:1).24 But the political undercurrent should not be missed. Caesar orders, and the parents of Jesus do what is required. Despite the picture of social revolution in the Magnificat and rescue from enemies in the Benedictus, Luke’s narrative is not advocating insurrection. Yet the hints that the imperial power of Rome is not the whole story create suspense. How will God’s promise of a Messiah whose rule will never end collide with Caesar’s power?

[4–5] For the second time, the narrative numbers Joseph among king David’s descendants (v. 4; cf. 1:27), this time adding the detail that he traces his roots to Bethlehem, “David’s city.” What better birthplace for a Messiah who will sit on David’s throne than David’s hometown (1:32; cf. 1 Sam 16)? Like Mary, however, Joseph lives in the Galilean town of Nazareth (cf. 1:26–27), and only the Roman census leads him to Bethlehem—fortuitous for the birth of Jesus because of the scriptural link between kingship and that Judean city (also Mic 5:2). In Luke’s story, there is more to human agency and imperial initiative than meets the eye; even the emperor’s decree can accomplish God’s purpose.

Mary accompanies Joseph; the narrator repeats an earlier explanation of their relationship (engagement or betrothal, v. 5; cf. 1:27) and then mentions that she is pregnant—fulfillment of God’s promise and therefore not a source of shame, even if pregnancy for a betrothed girl would raise questions (no mention of this in Luke, unlike Matt 1:18–19). Luke’s reader already knows both facts; this redundancy, together with the second notice of Joseph’s Davidic ancestry, makes sense, after so many intervening verses, as a resumption of this story line. It also underscores yet again the remarkable intervention by God in the Spirit-initiated conception and birth of Jesus.

[6–7] During a stay of unspecified duration in Bethlehem, Mary gives birth to a son. The notice of completed time (“the days arrived [lit., were filled up]”) recalls the birth of John (1:57); the same phrase appears again at the circumcision of Jesus and at his presentation in the temple, binding these scenes together (2:6, 21, 22). These temporal indicators show that there is a purposeful pattern to these events, and on two levels: the divine plan and obedient human participation in it. Luke narrates the birth in a single verse (v. 7) but packs it with evocative images that engage the hearer’s imagination. This is Mary’s firstborn son, a detail that is scarcely necessary after 1:26–38 but recalls the birth and presentation of Samuel (1 Sam 1–2) and also prepares for the presentation of Jesus in the temple (Luke 2:23). This child indeed belongs to the Lord (cf. exod 13:2; Num 3:12–13; 18:15–16), but in a way that his mother will struggle to comprehend (Luke 2:48–49).

24. Another detail that is problematic historically; there is no other evidence that a Roman census would have required registration at the ancestral home rather than the place of current residence (Fitzmyer 1:405; Brown, Birth 549–50). even within the narrative, the supposition that each person went to “his own city” to be registered encounters difficulty, for Joseph and Mary later return to Nazareth in Galilee as “their own city” (2:39). Political history is serving theology here: Mary and Joseph obey Caesar’s edict in a manner ensuring that the infant who will (ironically) depose the Roman emperor will be born in “David’s city,” whence the Messiah is to come.

Mary wraps the infant in bands of cloth and lays him in a manger; these images carry special significance in the story (cf. vv. 12, 16), as sign both to shepherds who will seek the child and to readers who ponder the meaning of such a beginning to the life of a king. The cloth bands exhibit the mother’s nurture of her child, as is fitting even for royalty (Wis 7:4–6; cf. Ezek 16:4). The manger, or feeding trough, is a more elusive image. This is Jesus’ first bed because “there was no place for them in the room where guests stayed,” perhaps foreshadowing his later rejection in his hometown (Luke 4:16–30) and the difficulty he will experience, as Son of Humanity, in finding a place to lay his head (9:58).

An oracle of judgment from Isaiah may have inspired the manger image: “The ox knows its owner and the donkey its Lord’s manger [phatnēn], but Israel does not know me; the people have not shown awareness of me” (Isa 1:3–4 lxx, AT). The manger of Jesus would therefore suggest God’s identification with this child but also pose an unsettling question. Will God’s people come to know and regard the Lord who begins life in a manger? The image also displays the humble origins of Jesus—strange, perhaps, for one who would be king. The connection between “Messiah and manger” brings disorientation and forces Luke’s audience to rethink what it means to be Messiah, what sitting on David’s throne entails (Coleridge, Birth 136 n. 2). This is not so surprising, though, if God is the God of status reversal praised earlier by the child’s mother (1:46–55). Samuel found David among the sheep and anointed him king (1 Sam 16); this child who is to sit on David’s throne also begins life in a place for animals and will find honor first among shepherds.25

2:8–14 Heaven Declares Good News to Shepherds

For the third time, a messenger from God makes a dramatic appearance and delivers a birth announcement that reveals the identity and significance of the child. Shepherds hear good news that a Savior has been born, and the angel gives them a sign that will validate the message and at the same time disclose something of the character of the child. Heaven bursts into song as the scene closes, giving honor to God and celebrating the gift of peace that has come to humanity.

25. Baily argues that the setting of the Lukan nativity among shepherds and the manger of Jesus are the product of a midrash on 1 Sam 16: the new David, too, begins life as a shepherd child at Bethlehem (“Shepherds”; cf. Radl, Ursprung 188–90). For a critique of this interpretation and a counterproposal, see Giblin, “Reflections.” For Giblin, the manger symbolizes God’s sustenance of the people; it is a disclosure of God’s benevolent design, a sign of grace (99–101).

8 In that region there were shepherds who were living outdoors and keeping watch over their flock through the night. 9 Anda an angel of the Lord stood before them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were terrified.b 10 The angel said to them, “Do not be afraid, for behold, I am about to announce to you good newsc [concerning] great joy that will be for all the people. 11 For today in David’s city a Savior has been born for you; he is Christ [and] Lord!d 12 And this will be a sign for you: you will find an infant wrapped in cloths and lying in a manger.”

13 Suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host, praising God and saying,

14 “Glory to God in the highest places,

and peace on earth among persons whom God favors.”e

a. Many Mss (including A D Θ Ψ f 1, 13 33) add idou (behold), a word Luke often employs (as in 2:10 within this scene) to rivet attention (and emulate Septuagintal idiom); however, it is missing from important Mss (e.g., א B L W Ξ) and is explicable as a scribal improvement. Its deletion (if it were original) would be more difficult to explain than its addition.

b. Literally, “they feared (with) a great fear,” a cognate accusative that intensifies the emotional response of the shepherds.

c. The verb is euangelizesthai (declare good news), with charan (joy) as its direct object. I give the present tense here a slight future nuance; the good news will be announced in the next few lines!

d. The reading “[the] Lord’s Christ [Messiah]” has weak attestation (β r^1); it may have arisen from a scribal attempt to conform this text to 2:26. The presence of these two titles of honor one after the other, without articles and without a connecting conjunction, is unusual and therefore the preferred reading. I have supplied “and” to produce a more fluid English sentence. (In Acts 2:36 Jesus is named “Lord” and “Christ,” again without the article but reversing the order of Luke 2:11 and also supplying kai [and].)

e. Or “persons of [God’s] good pleasure.” Although this phrase may also be translated “people of goodwill,” a strong case has been made that the expression (implicitly) points to God’s gracious choosing of human beings, not human disposition or conduct (see Fitzmyer 1:411–12). However, the grammatical ambiguity may lead Luke’s audience to hear both notes simultaneously: peace will come to human beings who are recipients of God’s good pleasure and who have the capacity to embrace the gift. The phrase “goodwill among human beings,” with eudokia in the nominative case, is widely attested in the Ms tradition (including L Θ Ξ Ψ and secondhand correctors of א and B). However, the genitive eudokias is to be preferred. It has strong attestation (e.g., A D W and the original text of א and B), and the occurrence of equivalent expressions in other Jewish literature offers corroboration (e.g., 1QH 12 [olim 4].32–33, “sons of his approval” [Martínez, Scrolls 171]; 1QH 19 [11].9, “sons of your approval” [Martínez, Scrolls 189]; see Fitzmyer 1:411).

[8–12] The role reversal proclaimed in Mary’s Song begins to be enacted in this scene: heaven privileges a band of shepherds with an announcement of good news that bypasses the ruling elite (2:1–2). David’s summons to be king came to him while he was a shepherd (1 Sam 16:11; 17:15; Ps 78:70), and this occupation appears often in the ot as a metaphor for God’s nurture of the people (e.g., ezek 34:11–16) or the responsibility of the nation’s king and other leaders to care for the people (e.g., 2 Sam 5:2; 7:7; ezek 34:1–10, 23). These shepherds, living outdoors (agraulountes) in the vicinity of Bethlehem, happen to be guarding their flock on the night of Jesus’ birth. As God’s messenger visited a priest in the sacred space of the temple, so now an (unnamed) angel stands before shepherds amid the ordinary, enveloping them in the divine glory and, naturally, terrifying them (Luke 2:8). Here glory (doxa) refers to the splendor associated with God’s domain; in the voice of heaven’s chorus, the same word will ascribe honor to God (v. 14).

The angel calms the shepherds’ fear with the same directive, “Do not be afraid,” with which Gabriel greeted Zechariah and Mary (v. 10; cf. 1:13, 30), and offers to turn their great fear (phobon megan) into great joy (charan megalēn). This joy will not be the private possession of the shepherds, however, for the good news the angel declares to them concerns joy that will come to the whole people (Israel). Verse 11 spells out the reason for the people’s joy: “For today in David’s city a Savior has been born for you; he is Christ [and] Lord!” This message focuses on the identity and role of the child born this very day (sēmeron; cf. 4:21, the “today” of fulfillment marked by the beginning of Jesus’ public ministry). The phrase “in David’s city” actually stands at the end of the sentence and thus receives emphasis; David continues to place his stamp on this scene (cf. 2:4). A verse consisting of twelve words includes three christological titles revealing the identity and significance of Jesus. He is Savior and, as Christ, also Lord. The first and last of these epithets have earlier been applied to God (e.g., 1:11, 16, 32, 47), although Elizabeth indirectly called Jesus “my Lord” (1:43). Jesus enters Israel’s history as the agent of divine deliverance (salvation) and as the anointed ruler (Messiah) who has received sovereign authority from God (cf. 22:29). The deliverer called and anointed by God to bring salvation to Israel has been born. Because the Messiah is linked to David and David’s throne, but also because Roman propaganda could acclaim the emperor as Lord (kyrios) and Savior (sōtēr), the angel’s message makes both theological and political claims (Green 133–35). A narrative centering in the salvation that God is bringing to Israel will have something to say also about Roman rule. exactly how this unpretentious child born on the margins of society will save Israel and demote Caesar remains to be discovered.

The focus of 2:11 on the identity and role of Jesus is clear; however, the pivotal role assigned to the shepherds is striking. Three times God’s messenger addresses them, employing the second-person plural pronoun: “announce to you good news”; “a Savior has been born for you”; “this will be a sign for you” (vv. 10, 11, 12). Joy and salvation belong to the whole people, but it begins with this group of shepherds, and their part in the story is crucial. Living on the margins of society, they are perfect candidates to hear good news about a child in a manger and to respond in praise of God. The angel seals his announcement by providing the shepherds a sign they have not requested (as with Mary: 1:36). They will find an infant wrapped in bands of cloth and lying in a manger (2:12). What will the shepherds do with the sign? Will they trust the message God has sent them? Will they reveal to others what God has revealed to them?

[13–14] Zechariah and Mary received private visits by the angel Gabriel, but the shepherds are treated to a more spectacular display of heaven’s splendor. The company of heaven (other angels, vv. 13, 15) suddenly joins the angel and sings praise to God. There are two parallel lines (v. 14):

Glory to God in the highest places,

and peace on earth among persons whom God favors.

Zechariah’s song pictured peace as one of the aims of divine visitation (1:79); the declaration of praise in 2:14 names peace as heaven’s desire for human beings, matching God’s glory in heaven. Peace is to come to “persons whom God favors” (among them, Simeon, as in 2:29), implying that not all will enjoy this divine gift (on the grammatical and text-critical problems, see translation note e on v. 14). The phrase en anthrōpois eudokias could also be rendered “among people of goodwill”; the gift of peace would then come to human beings who order their lives in a way that welcomes it. Perhaps the ambiguity of the expression prompts Luke’s audience to hear both nuances (Coleridge, Birth 144–45). Not only the blessing that comes from God’s gracious choice (as with Mary, 1:28, 30) but also the character of human response to it (to embrace the ways of peace, or not)—both determine whether peace will be realized on earth.

When Jesus enters Jerusalem at the close of his ministry, a multitude ( plēthos) of the disciples, corresponding to the plēthos of the heavenly host (2:13; 19:37), will resume heaven’s song of praise (19:38):

Blessed is the one who is coming, the king, in the name of the Lord;

in heaven, peace,

and glory in the highest places.

The modulation in key is disconcerting. This declaration of praise (in 19:38) locates peace not on earth but in heaven, so that glory and peace both find a home there. Jesus proceeds to lament Jerusalem’s failure to know “the things that pertain to peace,” which indeed have been concealed for the time being (19:42). The city faces destruction because it did not know the season of its visitation (i.e., by God: 19:43). Inspired human speakers, angels, and even the whole host of heaven give voice to high expectations and fervent hopes in the opening chapters of the Gospel, celebrating God’s gracious initiative in Israel’s life. Much will depend, however, on the reception with which the people greet the prophet and Messiah through whom God brings salvation. For now, though, the shepherds hear only joyful words about a Savior and peace on earth, and they will be the first to respond to news of the Savior’s birth.

2:15–20 From Flock to Manger: Responses to the Birth of a Savior

The shepherds make their way to Bethlehem without delay and find the child, just as the angel had said. They reveal to Jesus’ parents what God has revealed to them. Responses to the message multiply, as everyone is amazed, Mary ponders, and the shepherds return to their flocks while praising God. So this scene closes on the same note as the previous one, a fitting response to the birth of a Savior.

15 And when the angels had gone away from them into heaven, the shepherds began to speak to one another: “Let’s go to Bethlehem and see this thinga that has happened, which the Lord has made known to us.” 16 They went with haste and found Mary and Joseph—and the infant lying in the manger. 17 Now when they saw [this], they made knownb the word that had been spoken to them about this child. 18 everyone who heard was amazed at the things told them by the shepherds. 19 Mary, though, kept all these things, turning them over and overc in her heart. 20 Meanwhiled the shepherds returned, glorifying and praising God for everything they had heard and seen, just as it had been told them.

a. Or “word,” the same word ( rhēma) used with that nuance in 2:17 (cf. also 2:19). b. The shepherds reveal, as God has revealed to them (gnōrizein in vv. 15, 17). c. The participle symballousa, lit., “tossing them together”; my translation captures

the force of the imperfect tense of the verb to which the participle is linked (synetērei, “kept”) with the expression “over and over.”

d. The nuance here of the conjunction kai (and).

[15–20] Mary answered God’s message to her, after Gabriel’s departure, by traveling with haste to see a legitimating sign she had not requested (1:38–39). So too the shepherds, at the angels’ departure, confer (2:15) and then make the short trip to Bethlehem with haste to see a sign they have received without asking for it (v. 16). They recognize that the word they have heard, and the event it puts into language (rhēma in its dual meanings), is God’s word, God’s action: “Let’s go to Bethlehem and see this thing [rhēma] that has happened, which the Lord has made known to us” (v. 15b). When their eyes have witnessed the fulfillment of God’s promise, an infant lying in a manger, they follow the lead of God’s messenger. They disclose (egnōrisan) the word (again, rhēma) that had been spoken to them—that the Lord had disclosed (egnōrisen, v. 15). The word is about the child: the focus of the revelation received and now conveyed is the identity and significance of Jesus, in relation to Israel’s hopes for salvation (v. 17; cf. v. 11).

The shepherds are speaking “to them,” seemingly Mary and Joseph, since no one else has been mentioned so far. Yet the narrator now describes the reaction of “everyone who heard” the shepherd’s report: amazement (v. 18). This is a typical response of observers to evidence, in word and act, of divine working (1:21, 63; 2:33; 4:22; 8:25; 9:43; 11:14; 24:41), although it is the shepherds who offer the model response (2:20). They go beyond wonder to praise. The presence of unnamed others with Jesus and his parents parallels the account of John’s birth and naming, where relatives and neighbors were present and “everyone who heard” reacted to the news (1:58–66). The role played by an observing public was more complex and significant in that scene, for that nameless crowd first set an obstacle and test to fidelity before John’s parents, then (in wider circles) expressed both fear and pondering questioning (1:65–66), reactions comparable to those apportioned between Mary (pondering, 2:19) and everyone else (amazement, v. 18) after the birth of Jesus.

Why Mary’s puzzlement (v. 19)? Surely the news that her newborn son is Savior, Messiah, and Lord should not come as a surprise, after Gabriel’s earlier announcement to her. Perhaps the clue is to be found in the setting of the birth. How can the circumstances of the child’s birth—so inconspicuous, so lowly— fit the auspicious hopes kindled, and now rekindled, by God’s messengers? Yet this is the same young woman who praised God for turning society upside down (1:46–55), so while in a remarkable series of events God continues to surprise, compelling Mary to rethink what it all means, her puzzlement should not be mistaken for lack of faith. Sometimes reality is difficult to grasp and accept, even when one knows what is coming. The need of Jesus’ mother to ponder these events reminds Luke’s audience that God’s activity in the world, in its mystery and surprise, sometimes requires discernment that is achieved only with difficulty, even among those specially favored by God. This story centers on what God is doing, and that is not reducible to ordinary human expectation or social convention. As the narrative continues, Mary will have still more learning, and more puzzling, to do. For now, she holds on to and stores up (synetērei) the words and events (rhēma yet again, plural) she has witnessed.

The scene closes on the less ambiguous note of the shepherds’ praise of God for both word and sign-event (“everything they had heard and seen”) that have fulfilled God’s promise. Their return to their flock outside Bethlehem is the notice of departure and return that signals the end of the scene (v. 20).

2:21–40 Law, Temple, and Prophetic Witness to God’s Salvation

Like John, the child Jesus begins life in a world shaped by Jewish piety, and once more, following circumcision and naming, Spirit-prompted prophetic speech comments on the child’s significance and future impact. Representatives of faithful, expectant Israel welcome the infant Jesus and recognize in him the reason for the people’s hope. Speaking within the temple precincts, however, Simeon sounds two new notes. For the first time Luke’s audience hears that the divine initiative to bring salvation will press beyond the boundaries of Israel to reach Gentiles. And the first unambiguous anticipations of conflict within God’s people, of resistance to God’s offer of salvation, suggest that the preceding bold, exuberant announcements of the people’s deliverance, however divinely authorized, tell only part of the story.

2:21 Jesus is Circumcised and Receives a Name

Jesus receives circumcision and a name; both acts of his parents exhibit obedience, whether to God’s messenger (the name) or to the law of Moses (circumcision). The agency of Mary and Joseph, however, is put indirectly; human actions fulfill God’s design.

21 When eight days had passed and [it was time] for him to receive circumcision, he was also given the name Jesusa—the name he had been called by the angel before he had been conceived in the womb.

a. Literally, “his name was called Jesus, [the name] which he had been called by the angel.” Mary and Joseph follow Gabriel’s directive in naming their son Jesus, although their agency is concealed behind the passive voice. In fact, apart from the angel (unnamed here), Jesus is the only person mentioned, whether by name or personal pronoun, in this verse. The spotlight falls solely on him. I have given the preceding phrase tou peritemein auton the translation “for him to receive circumcision” to convey this feature of v. 21 (lit., “[for them] to circumcise him”; cf. 1:59).

[21] The narrator combines in one verse the report of Jesus’ circumcision on the eighth day and the giving of his name. While the naming is much less complicated than it was for John (1:59–64), Jesus’ parents honor the angel’s direction just as John’s did. The name, Jesus, stands at the center of v. 21; if Luke’s readers know the popular Hebrew etymology behind the name (“YHWH saves”; see the comment on 1:30–33), they recognize that his name—and therefore his identity—is emblematic of the task that will belong to him, bringing salvation to God’s people, and to the whole world (cf. 2:30; 3:6). This is a pivotal concern in Luke’s narrative, but the symbolic potential of Jesus’ name is not explicitly developed. Weight falls less on the name than on God’s initiative in choosing it: it is “the name he had been called by the angel before he had been conceived in the womb.” To be sure, Mary and Joseph do as Gabriel has bidden; however, the phrasing in the passive voice (“he was also given the name Jesus”) directs attention away from Jesus’ parents to God. The next scene will compensate for this reserve, as it makes repeated mention of Mary and Joseph’s faithful observance of the Torah. Jesus begins life in a devout, law-keeping Jewish family.

2:22–24 As the Law Prescribes: Purification and Presentation

Like John, the infant Jesus enters the world of devout, Torah-observant Jews, a point emphasized in a temple scene that merges two rituals, purification after childbirth and presentation of a firstborn son. These rituals provide the occasion for further prophetic declarations about the child.

22 And when the days for theira purification had arrived, in accordance with the law of Moses, [his parents] brought [Jesus] to Jerusalem to present him to the Lord— 23 just as it is written in the law of the Lord: “every male [child] that opens the womb will be called holy to the Lord”b— 24 and to offer a sacrifice in accordance with what is said in the law of the Lord: “A pair of turtledoves or two young doves.”c

a. A few Mss have “his,” but this emendation strays even further from the practice that is in view. Only the mother, not mother and child (or father), would participate in the ritual of purification; Luke has conflated the distinct acts of purification (the mother) and presentation (the firstborn son) in this scene.

b. Drawing, with paraphrase, from the language of exod 13:2, 12 lxx. c. A quotation from Lev 12:8 lxx, though borrowing the term “pair” (zeugos) from Lev 5:11 to replace the first “two” (duo). In Lev 12 this is the sacrifice prescribed, in

the case of poor families, for the mother’s purification (not for a child’s presentation).

[22–24] God’s time continues to structure the narrative, and Jesus’ parents find their way within it: “When the days for their purification [arrive], in accordance with the law of Moses,” they bring Jesus to Jerusalem, to present him to the Lord. “They” must be Mary and Joseph, even though they were last mentioned in vv. 16, 19. The Lukan narrator sometimes, as here, employs personal pronouns for which the syntax obscures the identity of an antecedent but the sense is clear. God’s space also structures the narrative; this is the first of three journeys that bring Jesus to Jerusalem. each time, events in the temple reveal something of Jesus’ identity, character, and mission, although in Luke 2 others do the revealing (unlike 2:41–51; 19:45–21:38).

In this unit Luke fuses two discrete ritual observances. After childbirth the mother (not both parents) would participate in a rite of purification that includes the offering of a lamb and either a pigeon or a turtledove—or, if the woman’s poverty requires less, two pigeons or turtledoves—after seven days of ritual impurity and the boy’s circumcision on the eighth day (Lev 12:2–8). The narrator seems to connect this sacrificial offering to the presentation of Jesus as firstborn son (cf. Exod 13:2, 11–16), rather than to the mother’s purification. In an account that reproduces with precision neither the liturgical acts nor their legal basis, the literary arrangement provides a clue to meaning. The two rituals are fused in a chiastic arrangement that places the presentation of Jesus—as firstborn son, “holy to the Lord”—at the center of the unit and the sacrificial offering of two birds at the end:

A “their” purification (v. 22a)

B presentation of Jesus “to the Lord” (v. 22b) B′ presentation of firstborn male as “holy to the Lord”

(v. 23, from exod 13)

A′ sacrifice (for purification) as in the law of the Lord (v. 24, from Lev 12)

The literary design highlights God’s claim upon Mary’s first son Jesus (mention of God as Lord [kyrios] three times in vv. 22b–23!), as well as the poverty of circumstance into which Jesus is born. In the same sacred space, Jesus at the age of twelve will present himself to the Lord (his “Father”) on his own initiative (2:41–51). Concern with poverty may only be implied here, but readers who know Exod 13 realize that the offering of two birds ratifies Mary’s earlier self-identification with the poor, whom God lifts up (Luke 1:46–55). Whatever the confusion about details of the Mosaic law, there is only clarity about the fidelity of Jesus’ parents to God and to Torah. The next move belongs to God, who will answer the faithful service of Mary and Joseph by prompting Spiritled Simeon to prophesy about this holy child who belongs to God.

2:25–35 Prophecy in Prayer and Oracle:

Simeon’s Witness to the Savior

God’s Spirit orchestrates an encounter in the temple between a devout man who has long awaited Israel’s salvation and the Savior. Simeon responds with a prayer that, like Zechariah’s hymn, turns worship into a prophetic oracle that bears witness to the fulfillment of God’s ancient promises to Israel. Yet Simeon’s vision is not parochial: he recognizes that salvation for Israel means illumination for the nations as well, the first clear signal of a central concern of Luke’s two volumes. This prophecy in the temple also anticipates conflict within Israel: not everyone will welcome God’s Messiah.

25 And behold, there was a man in Jerusalem by the name of Simeon; this man was righteous and devout—and waiting expectantly for Israel’s consolation. And the Holy Spirit was upon him. 26 It had been revealed to him by the Holy Spirit that he would not see death before he saw the Lord’s Messiah. 27 And so he came in the Spirit into the temple. While the parents of the child Jesus were bringing him in so that they might perform for him what was customary under the law, 28 Simeon took him into his arms and blessed God: 29 “Now, Master, you are dismissing your servant in peace, as you promised.a 30 For my eyes have seen your salvation, 31 which you have prepared in the presence of all the peoples— 32 a light to bring revelation for Gentilesb and glory for your people Israel.”

33 His fatherc and mother were amazed at the things being spoken about him. 34 Simeon blessed them, and he said to [the child’s] mother Mary, “Behold, this [child] is set in place ford the fall and rising of many in Israel, and to be a sign that is opposed— 35 and a sword will pierce your own soul—so that the thoughtse of many hearts may be revealed.”

a. Literally, “according to your word.”

b. Or “nations” (ethnē). Both “Gentiles” and “Israel” are in the genitive case; these are the recipients, not the source, producer, or content of revelation and glory. I take

“revelation” and “glory” as parallel objects of the preposition eis (for), an accusative of

purpose that I have rendered “to bring.”

c. Joseph replaces “his father” in much of the textual tradition but is a theologically

interested “correction” prompted by the perceived awkwardness of reference to Joseph

as Jesus’ father after the virginal conception.

d. That is, to elicit or provoke (with the preposition eis).

e. The hostile thoughts, i.e., of those who will fall because they oppose Mary’s son;

dialogismoi has a consistently negative sense in Luke, even when used of the disciples

(5:22; 6:8; 9:46, 47; 24:38).

[25–26] The name may be Simeon, but the signature belongs to the Holy Spirit (vv. 25, 26, 27). Simeon is a faithful Jew, his piety described in language reminiscent of Elizabeth and Zechariah (“righteous and devout,” v. 25; cf. 1:6). Moreover, he is “waiting expectantly for Israel’s consolation [paraklēsin],” an apt paraphrase of the hopes that have been articulated by angels, Mary, and Zechariah. The noun paraklēsis (consolation, comfort) recalls Second Isaiah’s proclamation of approaching salvation for Jerusalem (Isa 40:1–2; 49:13; cf. 52:9; see Litwak, “Coat” 122–23; Mallen, Reading 64–65). Many of the images of Luke 1–2 are packed into a single verse in Isa 49:13: rejoicing, divine mercy for the people (laos), consolation, and people of low status (tapeinoi). Simeon gives voice to Israel’s hopes and to the divine promises upon which they rest. The hopes of a people find embodiment in this man whom God now draws to the temple to worship. While there he will encounter a child who embodies the fulfillment of these hopes: the salvation that will comfort not just Jerusalem but also a whole people—and not just Israel but also the nations.

Simeon is usually regarded as an old man because of the Spirit’s promise that he would not die before seeing the Lord’s Messiah (v. 26), the words of dismissal with which his prayer opens (v. 27), as well as his pairing with the old woman Anna (vv. 36–38). However, this is not obvious. His age is no more an issue than it will be in Jesus’ promise of a coming reign of God during the lifetime of some of his listeners (9:27). The point is that God has promised Simeon that he would see the Messiah—a promise about to be realized. The angel called Jesus “Savior,” “Messiah,” and “Lord” (2:11). The formulation in v. 26 retains the messianic title for Jesus but returns the title kyrios (Lord) to God; God exercises sovereignty in the world through the authority delegated to Jesus.

[27–32] The meeting of Simeon and Savior is not a chance encounter. He comes into the temple “in the Spirit,” at the very moment Jesus’ parents are bringing the child there to do what Torah-observant Jews customarily do (v. 27; i.e., the actions narrated in vv. 22–24). Simeon and Jesus meet by God’s design. With physical embrace and spoken blessing, Simeon welcomes the child (v. 28). Like Mary and Zechariah before him, he addresses praise to God. Prayer begun in praise for God’s faithfulness to promise becomes the vehicle of prophetic declaration (vv. 29–32). These words of blessing and prophecy mystify Jesus’ mother and father, and their amazement (v. 33) elicits from Simeon an even more pointed prophetic oracle (vv. 34–35).

He begins with a prayer acknowledging that God has kept faith with him. Verses 29–30 affirm the fulfillment of divine promise, with some reframing. Assured that he would see the Lord’s Messiah, Simeon, as he lays eyes on the Messiah-child, speaks of seeing “[God’s] salvation” (v. 30). Jesus embodies the deliverance that God is bringing to the people, a claim to which the narrative will return (3:6; 19:5, 9). Or, as the angel put it, Jesus, Messiah and Lord, is the Savior (2:11). Holding in his arms the evidence of a promise kept, Simeon opens his prayer with a slave’s acknowledgment of release: “Now, Master [despota, as in the community’s prayer in Acts 4:24], you are dismissing [nunc dimittis in Latin, hence the traditional heading for the prayer] your servant [or slave, doulos] in peace, as you promised” (Luke 2:29). In view of the Spirit’s promise mentioned in v. 26, release from the master’s service is also an image for release to death, to a death in peace. Simeon thus takes his place among the favored ones who experience the peace being brought by the divine visitation announced in Zechariah’s song (1:79).

Simeon’s prayer recalls and at the same time broadens the divine promise. Not only does sight of the Messiah become a vision of salvation; that salvation also concerns the fortunes of all peoples—the first of two surprises Simeon springs on Jesus’ parents, and on Luke’s audience (the second comes in 2:34– 35). God has prepared salvation “in the presence of all the peoples” (v. 31), Israel and Gentiles alike (echoing Isa 52:10). The plural word laoi (peoples) encompasses God’s particular people Israel (laos in the singular, v. 32b) and also the Gentiles (or nations, ethnē, v. 32a). The inversion of Israel and Gentiles, with the extension of revelation for Gentiles mentioned before glory for Israel (v. 32), underscores the element of surprise in the salvation that God has made ready in the person of the Messiah.26

Simeon pictures the salvation prepared by God as light that brings both revelation for Gentiles and glory for Israel. The situation and the needs of the two differ: Israel, as the people of God, receives light that comes from participation in the honor that is due to God, or rather, that points beyond the people’s glory to God’s (cf. Isa 60:1, 19). Gentiles, however, lack what Israel possesses, the Scriptures that disclose God’s purposes and ways (cf. Acts 15:21), and therefore require illumination that reveals the divine will. Both images, glory for Israel and light of revelation for Gentiles, draw from Second Isaiah (salvation bringing glory to Israel, Isa 46:13; revelatory light for Gentiles, 42:6–7; 49:6, 8–9; 51:4–5). If Simeon is to be believed, glory for Israel and illumination for Gentiles are not mutually exclusive; rather, they are twins birthed by the same Scripture and by promises of the same God. What may seem shocking at first, and a disruption in Israel’s history with its God, turns out to be the fulfillment of God’s ancient promise. God is still keeping covenant with Israel. It is not God but the people’s expectations that require adjustment, beginning with Jesus’ own parents.

[33–35] Jesus’ father and mother react with astonishment to Simeon’s words, presumably his declaration that the salvation associated with this child has to do with all peoples, not just Israel, although this is a gap to be filled by the reader (v. 33). The Holy Spirit enables prophets to discern the ways of God, but it is sometimes difficult for even faithful, devout persons to comprehend. Mary, in particular, is still accumulating matters to ponder (cf. 2:51). After blessing Jesus’ parents (not Jesus, who before birth already received elizabeth’s blessing [1:42]), Simeon addresses Mary directly, with an even more surprising—and disturbing—prophecy:

26. Verse 31 may hold another, more subtle inversion. According to Luke 1 the prophet John will prepare a people for the Lord (God) and prepare the ways of the Lord (Jesus; 1:17, 76). using the same verb (hetoimazein), Simeon now declares that it is God who has done the preparing, with the advent of the Messiah.

Behold, this [child] is set in place for the fall and rising of many in Israel, and to be a sign that is opposed—and a sword will pierce your own soul—so that the thoughts of many hearts may be revealed. (vv. 34–35)

Although some have understood the fall and rising as the sequential experience of the same persons (e.g., Marshall 122; Schweizer 57), the ensuing narrative will make clear what the image of the sword already hints (v. 35a): Simeon envisages the contrasting responses and destinies of persons who welcome and of those who resist God’s saving initiative in the Messiah Jesus. Conflict lies ahead. The result of the ministry of John the Baptizer and then the ministry of Jesus the Messiah (as well as his witnesses in Acts) will be a divided people, culminating in the last scene in Acts, where Paul’s message produces division in his audience of Jews at Rome (28:24). Like all prophets and deliverers sent by God, Jesus (and before him, John) will encounter opposition, starting in his hometown synagogue (Luke 4:16–30; for John the Baptizer, 7:29–30). The character of one’s response to Jesus will expose the character of one’s inner thoughts, of one’s disposition toward God (2:35). In this sense, Jesus will be a sign (sēmeion): response to Jesus will point to one’s response to God.

even Jesus’ mother will not be exempt from this discriminating test. The sword that will pierce Mary’s soul has been viewed as an image of the sorrow that awaits her as she witnesses her son’s suffering (Nolland 1:121–22; Marshall 122–23), but Luke does not develop this theme. On this matter, too, Simeon’s point will become much clearer later in the story. Family affiliation does not privilege anyone when it comes to the realm of God—not even the mother of the Messiah, however much she may receive the adulation of the generations (cf. 1:42, 48), and however exemplary her faith and obedience (e.g., 1:38, 45; cf. 8:19–21; 11:27–28). even before Jesus enters adulthood, Simeon’s prophecy will begin to be realized (2:48–49).

Luke’s two-volume narrative begins with the worship and inspired prophetic speech of faithful Jews in the temple at Jerusalem and ends with Paul’s prophetic declaration at Rome that salvation will extend to the Gentiles (Acts 28:23–28). Awareness that God’s salvation encompasses both Israel and the nations, both Jews and Gentiles, first arises within faithful Israel, among Jews who await the nation’s consolation—in close connection with the fulfillment of divine promise to God’s people. Simeon’s prayer and prophetic oracle help define the narrative program for the rest of the story (Johnson 56–57). But how will glory for Israel and illumination for Gentiles be related to each other? How will the continuity and seeming discontinuity in the life of God’s people play out? Who, after Simeon’s example, will embrace the Messiah through whom God effects a people’s salvation, and who will oppose him? Simeon’s gesture of welcome and his prophecy engender hopeful anticipation but also an array of challenging questions. First, though, another prophet has her own witness to present.

2:36–38 The Prophet Anna Adds Her Witness

For the prophet Anna, as for the priest Zechariah, vibrant hope coincides with long experience of delay in the fulfillment of God’s promises. Although the narrator does not report her words, Anna continues the note of praise for God and speaks about Jesus to everyone who is eagerly awaiting the liberation of Jerusalem.

36 Now Anna, Phanuel’s daughter, from the tribe of Asher, was a prophet. She was very old,a for she had lived with her husband for seven years after her marriageb 37 and had been a widow up to the age of eighty-four.c She never left the temple area, since with fasts and prayers she worshiped night and day. 38 This very hour she approached and began to praise God—and she would speak about [Jesus] to everyone who was waiting expectantly for the redemption of Jerusalem.d

a. Literally, “advanced in many days,” the same idiom that appeared in 1:7, 18. Anna is cut from the same cloth as elizabeth and Zechariah.

b. Literally, “from [the time of] her virginity.”

c. Or “a widow for [as long as] eighty-four years.” This would approximate the age of the ancient heroine Judith, who died at 105 (Jdt 16:23); however, Anna otherwise bears little resemblance to Judith. I read the temporal phrase with heōs as marking Anna’s present age. either way, the narrator introduces an aged woman whose religious devotion has been extraordinary.

d. Also attested: “in Jerusalem,” “[of] Israel,” and “in Israel”—each explicable as a response to the more difficult “redemption [liberation] of Jerusalem” (which is supported by א B W Ξ, among other witnesses).

[36–38] An otherwise unknown prophet named Anna appears, her old age and deep piety far surpassing even elizabeth and Zechariah. Anna’s name and the manner in which she expresses devotion to God at the sanctuary are reminiscent of Hannah, the prophet Samuel’s mother. But she has prophetic credentials of her own, although Luke allows the reported speech of Simeon to do double duty here, only summarizing Anna’s prophetic witness as a message about Jesus (presumably congruent with that of Simeon), which she continually addresses (imperfect-tense verb) to anyone who hopes for the redemption, the liberation, of Jerusalem (v. 38).

Anna’s testimony links praise of God, deliverance for God’s people, and a message about Jesus, a now-familiar pattern. Yet instead of reporting her words, the narrator dwells upon her ancestry,27 her advanced age, and her extraordinary piety. Mention of her age (84, possibly even 105 years; see translation note c on v. 37) serves to underscore her unceasing devotion to worship of God; she spends “night and day” in the temple area—hyperbole, but effective characterization. Acts will give Anna successors in the daughters of Philip, female prophets whose words, like Anna’s, go unreported, alongside narrated speech by male prophets (Acts 21:9–14). Nevertheless Anna plays a significant role in Luke 2, reinforcing one more time the impression that Torah-observant, devout Jews recognize in the child Jesus the saving intervention of God in the life of Israel and respond in praise and proclamation.

The beginning of Luke’s narrative rekindles the hopes of Israel, presenting a rich array of images, among them consolation for Israel (2:25), redemption for Jerusalem (2:38) or for God’s people (1:68), salvation (2:30), salvation or rescue from enemies (1:71, 74), salvation as forgiveness of sins (1:77), and divine visitation that will guide toward peace (1:78–79). The God who keeps covenant and who remembers mercy is bringing aid to Israel (1:54–55). The births of John and Jesus, together with inspired commentary upon them, raise expectations that the era of salvation for Israel, not to mention the nations, has dawned. How will this turn out? Will these hopes prove justified? Or will expectations be dashed? By the time readers have experienced the story’s ending, the question will be poignant: “We were hoping that he [Jesus] was the one who was about to redeem Israel” (24:21, echoing the expectancy of Simeon and Anna). Returning once more to the story’s beginning, Luke’s audience will consider and reconsider whether the God who keeps covenant promises also transforms the expectations that people of faith—even discerning prophets—fasten to them.

2:39–40 Jesus Grows Up in Nazareth

Now that Jesus’ parents have met their obligations under the Torah and prophetic witness has previewed, one last time, the child’s mission and future impact, they return home to Nazareth, where Jesus grows up as one favored by God. The stage is set for his public ministry; however, in a transitional episode, the narrative will linger over Jesus’ childhood so as to allow him to find his voice as the Son of God.

27. Daughter of Phanuel, from the extreme northern tribe of Asher. Luke provides no explanation of the significance of these biographical details, although it is intriguing that when Leah gives the name Asher to her maid Zilpah’s son, she speaks of her good fortune (blessedness), which other women will declare (Gen 30:13; echoed in Luke 1:48). That is, Anna comes from a tribe that knows blessing when it sees it. Is this too subtle an intertextual association?

39 When they had finished all the things prescribed by the law of the Lord, they returned to Galilee, to their own town of Nazareth. 40 And the child grew and became strong,a filled with wisdom, and God’s favor was upon him.

a. “Became strong in spirit,” according to A Θ Ψ f1, 13 33, but this expression, identical to the description of John’s growth (1:80), is probably secondary.

[39–40] The narrator again draws attention to the fidelity of Jesus’ parents to the law of God. Guided by the literary patterns from Luke 1:5 onward, readers expect that not only this scene but also the entire infancy narrative will conclude with this two-part narrative summary, which couples notice of travel (return to Nazareth, v. 39) and report of the child’s growth (v. 40, matching that of John [1:80]). Indeed, return to “their own town [polis] of Nazareth” prepares for the formal beginning of Jesus’ ministry in his hometown (4:16–30), and the description of Jesus’ growth in strength and understanding, as well as God’s favor (or grace), an embellishment on the summary of John’s growth (1:80), prepares for Jesus’ emergence as an adult.

It is all the more striking, therefore, that one more episode intervenes, modifying established literary patterns and thus inviting close attention. Jesus, with his parents, will make one more trip to Jerusalem, on the threshold of his adulthood, and there will speak in the narrative for the first time. Identity and mission will converge in his own youthful voice, and he will begin to assume the role forecast for him.

2:41–52 A Son and His Father(s):

Jesus among the Teachers in the Temple

Before taking up the account of the public careers of John and Jesus, Luke provides a snapshot of Jesus’ youth. In one respect, the scene is typical, for it shows Jesus and his family living out their normal routine as a pious, Torah-observant Jewish household. On the threshold of Jesus’ transition to adulthood, however, the annual pilgrimage to Jerusalem for the Passover gives a brief preview of what lies ahead. For the first time in the narrative, Jesus speaks, revealing his awareness of his unique relation to God. Jesus’ presence among teachers in the temple and the confrontation there between the youth and his parents exhibit his remarkable wisdom but, above all, his recognition that he is God’s Son—and that this family affiliation overrides all other family connections.

41 His parents would go to Jerusalem every year for the Passover festival.

42 And when [Jesus] was twelve, they went up to the festival according to their customary practice. 43 After they had completed the days [of the festival], while they were returning, the child Jesus remained in Jerusalem, though his parents did not realize it. 44 Since they thought he was in the group of travelers, they went on their way for a day and then began to look for him among their relatives and acquaintances. 45 When they did not find him, they returned to Jerusalem to look for him.

46 After three days they found him in the temple, sitting among the teachers, listening to them and asking them questions. 47 Now everyone who heard him was amazed at his insight and his answers. 48 When [Jesus’ parents] saw him, they were astonished, and his mother said to him, “Child, why have you done this to us? Behold, your father and I have been worried sick lookinga for you.” 49 And he said to them, “Why were you looking for me? You realized that I had to be in my Father’s domain,b didn’t you?”c 50 But they did not understand the word he had spoken to them. 51 Still,d he went down with them and came to Nazareth; and he submitted to their authority.e And his mother kept all these thingsf in her heart. 52 Jesus advanced in wisdom, in stature,g and in favor with God and human beings.

a. Literally, “while suffering [pain] we were seeking you”; odynōmenoi (in great distress) is an adverbial participle indicating the manner (i.e., emotional state) in which the parents have been searching.

b. Literally, “I must be among [in] the things of my Father.” Does Jesus assert the necessity of his being (1) in his Father’s house (with a sense of location, i.e., the temple); (2) about the affairs of his Father (with a sense of activity); or (3) among the people of his Father (with a personal sense, taking the relative pronoun hois as masculine rather than neuter)? This is a much debated interpretive question (see Brown, Birth 475–77, 490–91; Fitzmyer 1:443–44). My choice of “domain” is designed to convey the nuance of “house” (temple), at the same time paying attention to the absence of the word oikos (“house”) here; moreover, since one may also associate activity and human company with a “domain,” the translation captures something of the ambiguity of the expression Luke has employed.

c. The ou introducing this question signals that Jesus expects an affirmative reply. d. To convey the contrastive nuance I detect here in the conjunction kai. e. Or “was obedient to them”; hypotassomenos, a periphrastic participle indicating

that this was the ongoing state of affairs in the household of Jesus’ parents. f. Or “words” (rhēmata). There is some ambiguity: does Mary ponder all the words

and-events of this episode (Jesus at twelve), or of the whole birth and infancy narrative? g. Hēlikia (stature) can also refer to age; however, this word later indicates Zacchaeus’s height (19:3), and an increase in physical size is more meaningful than an

increase in age in a summary notice about Jesus’ growth.

[41–47] In biographies of great men, it was customary to portray them already as children displaying the character they manifest as adult heroes (e.g., Philo, Mos. 1.5.20–24; Plutarch, Alex. 5; Plutarch, Cic. 2; Philostratus, Vit. Apoll. 1.7; cf. Josephus, Ant. 2.9.6–7; Jub. 11.16; Herodotus, Hist. 1.114– 16; see de Jonge, “Sonship” 340–42). Luke alone among the canonical Gospels follows this practice, relating a scene from Jesus’ youth that builds a bridge to his life as an adult and shows him ratifying the claims made for him earlier in the narrative, with a sharp focus on his identity and vocation as the Son of God. This awareness brings Jesus into conflict with his parents, and the resulting confrontation culminates in his first words in the Gospel. Compared to extracanonical accounts of Jesus’ childhood (e.g., Infancy Gospel of Thomas; Protevangelium of James), Luke’s narrative shows great restraint, concentrating on one theme: Jesus’ precocious understanding of himself as Son not of Joseph and Mary but of God. This is the family to which he ultimately belongs, the one that defines his identity and vocation and claims his allegiance.

The unit begins by coupling two familiar motifs, (1) journey and (2) piety that shows fidelity to the Torah: “His parents would go to Jerusalem every year for the Passover festival. And when he was twelve, they went up to the festival according to their customary practice” (vv. 41–42). Twice in this passage the narrator mentions “Jesus’ parents” (vv. 41, 43), and twice “his mother” (vv. 48, 51); Mary also refers to “your father and I” (v. 48). This continues an emphasis of the previous unit (vv. 27, 33–34) and defines a central issue for this scene. Who are Jesus’ parents? Who is his father? As Jesus approaches manhood and with it responsibility for a life of Torah observance, within a culture that ties identity and vocation closely to family affiliation, the narrative presses a claim already evident in the annunciation to Mary. The life of this young man originates, uniquely, with God. In coming chapters the sketch of his genealogy (3:23–38) and the accounts of his baptism, wilderness confrontation with the devil, transfiguration, and death will all advance this theme (3:22; 4:3, 9; 9:35; 22:42; 23:34, 46; cf. 10:21–22).

The annual pilgrimage of Jesus’ parents to Jerusalem for the Passover, commemorating Israel’s liberation from egyptian bondage, again exhibits their fidelity to the law of Moses (see Deut 16:1–8; and cf. the hope of redemption in Luke 1:68; 2:38). This year, however, Jesus’ presence at Jerusalem—mentioned for the first time in connection with his parents’ ignorance of his decision to stay behind (2:43)—shifts interest from Passover observance to his self-understanding. The passage contrasts Jesus’ understanding (v. 47) and his parents’ lack of knowledge (vv. 43, 49, 50), despite the remarkable revelations they have been privy to earlier. Why does Jesus remain in Jerusalem? The narrator delays disclosure of Jesus’ motives, permitting him to reveal them in his own voice (v. 49).

The parents’ unsuccessful search for their missing son builds suspense (vv. 43–45); since he is not among the company en route to Galilee, they return to Jerusalem and finally locate him after three days, seated among the teachers in the temple and asking questions (v. 46).28 Not only his attentive questions but also his own insight, evident in his replies to the teachers, impresses (v. 47). All are amazed by the precocious youth; the promise of his future greatness begins to be realized. Jesus will be as advertised. This is true not just in general terms—the narrator is silent about the content of his exchanges with the teachers—but also in a quite specific and crucial sense: Jesus begins to emerge from obscurity as the Son of God.

[48–50] Comment on Jesus’ growth in wisdom brackets 2:41–51 (vv. 40, 52), and the scene at the heart of the passage illustrates his wisdom (vv. 46b–47). However, Jesus’ understanding has to do primarily with his relation to God and the implications it bears for his life and vocation (vv. 48–50). The passage gives mixed signals as to genre, structure, and emphasis. On the one hand, consistent with biographical practice, the account seems to be about Jesus’ remarkable insight even as a youth, evident in the unit’s concentric structure, which puts the twelve-year-old’s wisdom on display at the unit’s center (adapted from de Jonge, “Sonship” 338–39):

A Jesus’ parents journey to Jerusalem for the Passover. (vv. 41–42) B Jesus remains behind as his parents depart; they are unaware . (v. 43)

C Jesus’ parents seek and find him. (vv. 44–46a) D Jesus displays wisdom among the teachers. (vv. 46b–47)

C′ Jesus’ parents reproach him. (v. 48)

B′ Jesus answers, though his parents do not understand. (vv. 49–50)

A′ Jesus and his parents return to Nazareth. (v. 51a)

On the other hand, the passage has a linear movement: the parents’ search for their son culminates in an exchange that features Jesus’ first words in the narrative (v. 49). This would thus be the Gospel’s first pronouncement story, in which a brief narrative provides the occasion for a decisive pronouncement by Jesus (Fitzmyer 1:436). The point scored: Jesus’ identity as Son of God relativizes his family ties to Joseph and Mary.

The passage is thus complex, presenting two foci with distinct thematic emphases: Jesus’ wisdom and his divine sonship. While some have appealed to the dual concerns of 2:41–51 and its formal and generic complexity as evidence for its composition history,29 the interplay of the two patterns and motifs within the present narrative design is heuristic. Precisely Jesus’ insight into his unique relation to God draws him to the temple, where his first didactic session with the teachers exhibits his attentiveness to Scripture and foreshadows the teaching session in which he will be the only teacher at the end of his life (19:45–21:36). Moreover, the summary reports of Jesus’ growth that frame the passage highlight not only Jesus’ wisdom but also his relation to God (the favor of God in 2:40, 52).

28. The temporal notice (“after three days”), along with the parents’ activity of seeking and finding Jesus, has led some to conclude that the scene foreshadows the resurrection of Jesus (e.g., Johnson 61–62), but Luke elsewhere speaks of resurrection “on the third day,” not “after three days” (9:22; 18:33; 24:7, 21, 46). Certainly this last story from Jesus’ childhood does anticipate Jesus’ final trip to Jerusalem for the Passover, which will find him once more in the temple among the teachers—rather, as the teacher among religious leaders whose questions he will answer and whom, finally, he will reduce to silence (19:45–21:36).

Verse 48 accents Joseph’s identity as father of Jesus (on Mary’s lips, even: “your father and I”) so as to prepare for the stunning reversal expressed in the son’s response (v. 49). Jesus points beyond Joseph to God as his “Father.” Identity defines vocation, and this is what has brought Jesus to the temple: “You realized that I had to be in my Father’s domain, didn’t you?” (No, they didn’t realize this, the narrator proceeds to observe; they don’t understand [v. 50].) Jesus belongs to God, whose Son he is. The explanation that Jesus gives for his presence in the temple is ambiguous (see translation note b on v. 49). He must be about “the things of [his] Father,” which, as an explanation for Jesus’ whereabouts, sounds like a reference to the temple. He must be right here, in God’s house. Yet the expression is not that precise; it may also indicate the activities, or the human company, that draw Jesus. Jesus realizes that he is under obligation to God, and this is of overriding importance in his life. This is the first of a series of “must” statements, employing the verb dei, in which Jesus reveals his role and destiny (cf. 4:43; 9:22; 13:16, 33; 17:25; 19:5; 24:7, 26, 44). Already as a young man, he knows that God has claimed his life.

[51–52] Jesus’ mother once praised a God who overrules social convention (1:46–55). As a young man of twelve, Jesus exemplifies this in a radical way, but only in anticipation of things to come. Not everything is social revolution and role reversal. Jesus has more growing up to do, and so he returns with his parents to Nazareth (2:51a). There he will progress in wisdom (cf. v. 40), in physical stature, and above all, in the favor of God (cf. v. 40) as well as human beings (v. 52). True, Jesus’ life belongs to God, and his family will be those who hear and heed God’s will. For the present, though, that will mean continuing life as an obedient, dutiful son within the nurture of a pious Jewish family. Meanwhile his mother will keep reflecting on all the events she has witnessed and all the words she has heard (v. 51b), encouragement for Luke’s audience to do the same. She may not have figured it all out yet, but she will ponder and ponder until she gets it, and she then will take her place among the community that honors Jesus as Messiah and Lord (Acts 1:14).

29. De Jonge, e.g., argues that the account originally featured the theme of Jesus’ relation to God as Father, and that Luke (or a predecessor) added the motif of wisdom (“Sonship” 348; cf. Bovon 1:109–10).

The bridge to the adult life of Jesus is in place. From now on, Jesus will be the one to interpret God’s purposes and his own place within them (Coleridge, Birth 208). Before taking up that story, however, the narrative must resume the story of John. He is waiting in the wings, ready for his assignment to prepare a people for the Lord.

Luke 3:1–4:13 Preparing the Way of the Lord: The Vocation of a People and Their Messiah

A three-part narrative completes the time of preparation for the work of the Messiah. The prophetic ministry of John the Baptizer issues an urgent summons for a commitment to justice, thus preparing Israel for its encounter with the one who embodies and enacts Israel’s hopes for salvation (3:1–20). Through Jesus’ baptism and a sketch of his ancestry, Luke then confirms his identity as Son of God (3:21–38). Finally, a time of testing in the wilderness, centering on a contest with the devil over legitimate interpretation of Scripture, displays Jesus’ fidelity to his vocation as Son of God (4:1–13). He emerges from this ordeal, under the Spirit’s empowerment, ready to inaugurate his ministry.

3:1–20 The Prophetic Ministry of John the Baptizer

With the temporal phrase that begins 3:1, the narrative leaves behind the period of (childhood) preparation of prophet and Messiah and abruptly jumps to the activity of the adult John. Now it is his time to prepare a people for the coming of the Messiah. After locating John’s prophetic ministry in time and space, and in relation to the governing powers of his day, Luke situates John in God’s ongoing work of salvation announced by the prophet of Israel’s exile (Isa 40) and characterizes the prophetic ministry of John as an urgent summons to repentance and justice, so readying the people for the Messiah, who will complete the work begun by John.

1 In the fifteenth year of the reign of Tiberius Caesar—when Pontius Pilate was governor of Judea, Herod tetrarch of Galilee, his brother Philip tetrarch of the regions of Ituria and Trachonitis, and Lysanias tetrarch of Abilene, 2 during the high priestly tenure of Annas and Caiaphas—the word of God came to John, the son of Zechariah, in the wilderness. 3 So he went into all the land around the Jordan, proclaiming a penitential washing for the forgiveness of sins. 4 As it is written in the book of the sayings of the prophet Isaiah:

“The voice of one crying out in the desert,

‘Prepare the way of the Lord,

make straight his paths.

5 Every ravine will be filled in

and every mountain and hill brought low.

What is crooked will become straight,

and rough places [will become] smooth paths. 6 And everyone will see the salvation [that comes] from God.’”

7 So [John] began to say to the crowds that came out to be baptized by him, “Brood of vipers, who gave you directions to flee from the wrath that is about to come? 8 Well then, produce fruits worthy of repentance, and do not begin to say to yourselves, ‘We have Abraham for a father.’ For I tell you, God is able to raise up children for Abraham out of these stones. 9 In fact, the ax is already poised at the root of the trees; therefore every tree that does not produce good fruita is being cut down and thrown into the fire.”

10 The crowds began to ask him, “What, then, should we do?” 11 He said to them in reply, “The person who has two tunics should give to one who has none; and the person who has food should do the same.”

12 Tax collectors also came to be baptized, and they said to him, “Teacher, what should we do?” 13 And he said to them, “Charge no more than is due you.”b

14 Soldiers, too, were asking him, “And what about us? What should we do?” And he said to them, “Do not take from anyone by force. And do not accuse falsely.c Be content with your wages.”

15 Now while the people were waiting expectantly and were all thinking to themselvesd about John, [wondering] whether he might be the Christ, 16 John responded to everyone: “I baptize you with water, but one stronger than I am is coming, one for whom I am not worthy to loosen the strap of his sandals. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and with fire. 17 The winnowing shovel is in his hand to clean out his threshing floor and to collect the grain into his barn; but the chaff he will burn with an inextinguishable fire.” 18 exhorting [them] with many other [words] as well, [John] was declaring good news to the people.

19 When Herod the tetrarch had been upbraided by [John] concerning Herodias his brother’s wife, however, and all the evil things Herod had done, 20 he added to all the rest this too: he had John shut up in prison.

a. Reading the singular (which agrees with Matt 3:10), since only a few witnesses (including D) attest the plural. The plural (“fruits worthy”) does appear in v. 8, although some Mss (among them D W) have the singular.

b. Literally, “Do nothing beyond what is appointed to you.”

c. That is, exact wrongfully.

d. Literally, “in their hearts.”

[1–2] In a fashion reminiscent of 2:1, Luke begins his narrative of the public ministries of John and Jesus by locating the story in the world ruled by the Roman emperor Tiberius and by four regional custodians of Roman power, Pontius Pilate, Herod (Antipas), (Herod) Philip, and an otherwise unknown Lysanias.1 Only the first two figure in the story, but they are more than bit players (for discussion of Pilate, see the comments on 13:1–5 and 23:1–5; for Antipas, see the comment on 3:19–20). It is plausible that the fourfold listing of local rulers gives the impression of balance and completeness, with Herod (Antipas), Philip, and Lysanias identified as tetrarchs (“rulers of a fourth”) alongside Pilate. The convergence of political and religious power is marked, too, with the mention of the high priestly tenure of Annas and Caiaphas. Caiaphas was high priest at this time (18–36 C.E.), his father-in-law Annas having concluded service as high priest in 15 C.E. Perhaps the dual notice stems from memory of the enduring influence of Annas and his sons in temple politics. (John’s Passion Narrative, too, assigns a significant role to Annas [18:13, 24].) This intimate connection between religious and political domains is characteristic of the Roman world; in Luke’s narrative, Herodian rulers (Herod the Great and Antipas in the Gospel; Agrippa I and Agrippa II in Acts) are client kings or tetrarchs who serve Roman interests, and Jewish high priests are close collaborators with Roman governors, at whose pleasure they serve. The fifteenth year of Tiberius’s rule would place the start of John’s activity around 29 C.E.

Mention of the ruling elite whose power shapes the world in which John and Jesus are to conduct their ministries does more than set the stage in world history for the story to come. Picking up a thread from chapters 1–2, Luke intimates that while this may be Caesar’s world, the power of the Roman emperor, as well as his local client rulers and the temple institution, is about to meet serious challenge. With the power of Rome and temple as backdrop, “the word of God came to John, the son of Zechariah, in the wilderness [or desert]” (v. 2). Like Israel’s prophets before him, John receives a message from God (similar phrasing in Jer 1:2; ezek 1:2–3; Hos 1:1; Mic 1:1; Zeph 1:1; Zech 1:1). The angel’s promise to Zechariah concerning the prophetic vocation of his son-to-be is now finding fulfillment. As with John’s predecessors, the juxtaposition between prophet and powers anticipates coming conflict between agents of God’s reign and Rome’s, in both the Gospel and its sequel.

1. Josephus mentions a different Lysanias, who ruled the nearby kingdom of Chalcis (also in southern, modern-day Lebanon) more than a half century earlier, dying in 36 B.C.E. (Ant. 14.3.3; see Fitzmyer 1:457–58). Agrippa II, who figures in Luke’s second volume (Acts 25:13–26:32), was for a time king of this same territory.

[3–6] Geography is important in Luke’s account of John. Where Matt 3:5 and Mark 1:5 note the geographic range of John’s audience, Luke reports only John’s location: the wilderness (or desert) and the Jordan River, a pairing that recalls ancient Israel’s sojourn in the wilderness, which readied a new generation for entrance into the land of promise. John proclaims “a penitential washing [i.e., baptism that involved repentance] for the forgiveness of sins” (Luke 3:3). The desolate setting aptly symbolizes the separation from the previous way of life that John demands of his auditors, as he insists on metanoia, transformation of heart and mind. The baptism ritual gives symbolic expression to this change, which must then issue in a change in conduct and relationships (vv. 8, 10–14). The efficacy of the symbolic water-cleansing hinges on the transformed life, with its commitment to just practices, that ensues, much as in Josephus’s account of John’s baptizing activity (Ant. 18.5.1–2). In this respect the baptismal ritual that figures so prominently in John’s activity also resembles the purificatory washing practiced by the Qumran community, which was effective only in concert with repentance and obedience to God’s law (e.g., 1QS 5.7–15; cf. 2.25–3.9; see Webb, John the Baptizer 155–58).

According to the narrator’s description in Luke 3:3, the ritual cleansing over which John presides results in the forgiveness of sins, an outcome that Zechariah has associated with his son’s future mission (1:77), and one that will become the hallmark of Jesus’ ministry as well. The political implications are intriguing, as with the purificatory rites at Qumran; forgiveness is available outside the temple system, a point that remains implicit here. The locus of authority to forgive sins will become a contested issue in Jesus’ ministry (see 5:20–24).

Luke’s abbreviations and expansions of the tradition are intriguing. In Matthew, John addresses Pharisees and Sadducees as a “brood of vipers” (3:7), but Luke directs this confrontational rhetoric to “the crowds” (3:7), later shown to include tax collectors and soldiers. (Retrospectively, Luke 7:29–30 contrasts the “people” [laos] and tax collectors who welcomed John’s baptism to Pharisees and lawyers who rejected it.) The physical description of John in Mark 1:6 also drops from Luke’s account, which rivets attention not on the prophet’s appearance but on his location—symbolically important—and his message.

especially revealing is the expansion of the quotation from Isaiah to include 40:4–5 (only 40:3 appears in Mark 1:3; Matt 3:3), culminating in the promise that “everyone [lit., “all flesh”] will see the salvation [that comes] from God” (Luke 3:6).2 Reinforcing Simeon’s declaration (2:31–32), and enacting scriptural promise, John’s voice in the wilderness signifies that God’s salvation will now be available to all human beings. Luke signals a major theme in the ensuing narrative, in which Jesus and later his followers, not John, will bring salvation to all people. The lines from Isaiah also present an image of radical reversal that develops the motif of role reversal from Mary’s Song: “every ravine will be filled in and every mountain and hill brought low. What is crooked will become straight, and rough places [will become] smooth paths” (3:5; cf. 1:51–53). Scripture thus provides a bridge from Mary’s programmatic celebration of the reversals effected by God, through John’s prophetic witness, to the public career of Jesus, which will highlight the reversals that accompany—or perhaps constitute—God’s saving initiative. To the very end of the story, Luke’s audience will witness salvation being extended to all people, along with surprising reversals in which the lofty are leveled and the crooked straightened (culminating in “this salvation of God” being sent to and welcomed by Gentiles, in Acts 28:28).

2. Luke does not use the first line of Isa 40:5 lxx (“The glory of the Lord will be seen” [AT]), for reasons that are not evident. Another divergence from Isa 40:3 lxx is noteworthy: the “paths of our God” becomes “his [the Lord Jesus’] paths” in Luke 3:4 (cf. 1:43; 2:11 for Jesus as kyrios, “Lord”).

[7–9] Imminent wrath from which one should flee, an ax poised to strike, unfruitful trees even now being cut down and tossed into the fire: the urgency of John’s summons to baptism and life change could not be clearer. When eschatological judgment rapidly approaches, what matters is not election (whether one can call Abraham father: Luke 3:8), and not even whether one has responded to John’s message by submitting to baptism as an outward sign of penitence. What counts is performance (“fruits”). The one chosen by God, the one who undergoes the rite of baptism, must live in a way that corresponds to (is worthy of: axios) the conversion of outlook signaled by the ritual. Deeds demonstrate the genuineness of one’s repentance, and there is no time like the present; the present-tense verbs (“[every tree] is being cut down and thrown” into the fire) suggest that judgment is already underway in John’s preaching. Verse 17 voices John’s expectation that the “stronger one” who is to follow him will complete the judgment already begun in the separation (of grain and chaff) provoked by John’s message (Webb, John the Baptizer 296–97).

Signaled already by the harsh address to John’s audience as children of vipers, his call to repentance challenges any presumption they may hold that, as Abraham’s children, they are secure. Appeal to God’s gracious election is empty before the requirement that Abraham’s family live out God’s ways and purposes. Here John anticipates the message of Jesus: the blessings of fellowship with Israel’s patriarchs come to a reconstituted family of Abraham (13:28), shutting out even persons who have shared meals with Jesus. Not even one who can cry out “Father Abraham” should expect mercy after a life that through contempt for a poor neighbor has neglected Torah obedience (16:19–31). In response to the prophet and Messiah sent by God, division within Israel—no surprise after Simeon’s prophecy (2:34–35)—now commences. Only those who welcome God’s gracious saving initiative belong in the people being newly formed and re-formed by God.

[10–14] In an expansion of the scene that appears only in Luke, John now illustrates what the “fruits worthy of repentance” look like, as he receives three groups (crowds, tax collectors, and soldiers) that come to him with the same question: “What should we do?” The verb poieō (do, perform, produce) appears seven times in this passage (3:8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 14, 19). Performance matters; forgiveness that comes with repentance must lead to action. John instructs the crowds to share clothing and food with those who lack these necessities (v. 11). Tax collectors and soldiers receive similar charges: they are to deal honestly and justly with others when they might be expected instead to exploit their positions (vv. 13, 14). A community of persons who have received John’s baptism will be marked by compassionate care for the needy and by justice. John may preach in the wilderness, but his message of forgiveness and repentance directs the people back to their homes and villages, restoring authentic community.

For the first time in the narrative, tax collectors ( telōnai) and soldiers appear, two character groups on the margins of the Jewish community that play important roles in Luke–Acts. The telōnai collected indirect taxes (tolls and duties) and were widely despised, as documented repeatedly in Luke’s account, which numbers tax collectors among the “sinners,” but also among the disciples and friends of Jesus (5:29–30; 7:34; 15:1–2; 18:10–13; 19:2, 7). The sincere interest of tax collectors in John’s preaching (cf. 7:29) anticipates their positive response to Jesus. Whatever their reputation for dishonesty and greed, salvation belongs to them too, as true children of Abraham (19:9)—if they repent and turn to just and generous practices.

The identity of the soldiers is unclear; they may be from the occupying Roman army, or they may serve Herod Antipas, like those soldiers who later beat Jesus (23:11). Soldiers crucifying Jesus will mock him (23:36), yet centurions of the Roman army are repeatedly cast in a favorable light (7:1–10; 23:47; Acts 10). John’s charge to the soldiers is that they refrain from coercion and extortion, that they be content with their wages.

John’s prophetic ministry in the wilderness, featuring a symbolic washing in the Jordan, evokes memory of Israel’s liberation from slavery and the purging of the wilderness generation to prepare for life in the land of promise, entered by crossing this same river. One answers a call to separate from the former life and its routines, experiences a ritual that symbolizes transformation and commitment to a life of justice, and hears a charge to return to one’s social world to live out that commitment. Through restoration of a penitent people committed to God’s justice, John prepares for the Messiah. John has focused his moral teaching on economic practices that are compassionate and just; Jesus will do the same. For the present, however, John points ahead to the coming one in a more explicit way.

[15–18] Whether prompted by the setting (wilderness and Jordan), by the ritual washing that mediates forgiveness, or by John’s message, a question arises among an expectant people (laos paired with prosdokaō, as in 1:21): Is it possible that this is the Messiah? (v. 15; missing in Matt and Mark, though cf. John 1:19–27). John’s answer moves his auditors toward the knowledge that Luke’s readers already possess (chs. 1–2 distinguish John’s prophetic role from that of Jesus, who is Messiah and Son of God). John’s water baptism will give way to a baptism “with the Holy Spirit and with fire,” administered by one whose power and status far surpass John’s (3:16). even the menial task of loosening the strap of that man’s sandals will be above John. The coming baptism with Spirit and fire concerns eschatological judgment, a completion of the work that John has begun: after John’s separation of wheat and chaff, the one to follow him will use a winnowing shovel to clean out the threshing floor, and he will gather the grain and burn the chaff (v. 17).

The expectation of a dual baptism pictures contrasting outcomes that await the repentant (Spirit, an image of restoration and salvation) and the unrepentant (fire, an image of judgment and destruction).3 The ensuing narrative develops the profile of a people divided in response to the message of prophet and Messiah, beginning already with Herod Antipas (vv. 19–20), as well as in their resulting destinies. John’s oracle regarding baptism with Spirit and fire finds dramatic fulfillment with the descent of the Spirit at Pentecost, where the Spirit appears in tongues “as of fire” (Acts 2:3–4). Later reminders of John’s promise, however, speak of the Holy Spirit, but not fire (Acts 1:5; cf. 11:16; 19:1–7). Spirit becomes the dominant motif in the narrated fulfillment of the prophecy, and fire simply one feature of the Spirit’s tangible manifestation. In the present context, however, with the accumulating images of Spirit and fire, then grain and chaff, John is highlighting the division in Israel to be effected by the ministry of the coming one.

The teaching about the Messiah and a culminating separation-judgment in Luke 3:15–17 indicates that the ethical exhortation of vv. 10–14 is eschatologically charged, in keeping with the image of an ax poised to strike the tree’s roots (v. 9). The practical moral teaching of vv. 10–14 is embedded in discourse that employs severe images warning against presumption and picturing imminent, final judgment. The final picture painted by John is vivid: destruction by inextinguishable fire (v. 17). Yet the narrator’s summary of John’s message changes the palette: with many such words, John gave the people encouraging exhortation, good news (v. 18). This coupling of the participle parakalōn (exhorting, encouraging) and the verb euangelizeto (he was declaring good news) recalls the consoling message of Second Isaiah (e.g., 40:1–2, 9, 11; 41:27; 52:7) and thus the passage with which Luke introduced John’s ministry (Isa 40:3–5 in Luke 3:4–6). This is good news: God’s call to repentance and the demand for justice are part of the work of salvation. John is, as vv. 4–6 claim, the herald of God’s coming salvation—a deliverance that will restore Israel, to be sure, yet will also acknowledge no national or ethnic borders. Whatever the differences in emphasis between John and Jesus (stern judgment and gracious mercy), for Luke the continuity in message between prophet and Messiah, and thus also between Torah and Gospel, is unmistakable.4 The good news that Jesus will bring to Israel (e.g., euangelizomai in 4:18; 7:22; 8:1; Acts 10:36), and his successors will take to the nations (e.g., euangelion in Acts 15:7; 20:24), begins here, with John at the Jordan.

3. Thus understanding the future baptism in terms of its divergent effects on John’s audience, not all of whom are to be numbered among the penitent and just (so Webb, John the Baptizer 298–99). Others associate both Spirit and fire with the same group (e.g., Johnson 66–67; Bovon 1:126; Nolland 1:152–53).

[19–20] After concluding the account of John’s ministry with a concise summary of his message to the people, the narrator now abruptly contrasts the people’s reception of the prophet to his rejection by the tetrarch Herod (Antipas). Antipas, a son of Herod the Great and his Samaritan wife named Malthace, spent childhood years in Rome along with his brother Archelaus, then enjoyed a long tenure as tetrarch of Galilee and Perea (4 B.C.E.–39 C.E.), during which he balanced support of Rome with vigorous advocacy of Jewish interests. According to Josephus, however, when the emperor Gaius Caligula conferred the title “king” on Antipas’s nephew Agrippa I (ruling what had been the tetrarchy of Philip), Herodias, the wife of Antipas, encouraged Antipas to request a royal title as well, a move that backfired; denounced to the emperor by Agrippa, he was deposed for treason and sent into exile (Josephus, Ant. 18.238–55). Luke shows no interest in such details, though; he focuses his account on this Herodian ruler’s relation to the prophet John, and later Jesus (9:7–9; 13:31–33; 23:6–12; cf. Acts 4:25–28).

Herod Antipas, criticized by John for his marriage to Herodias (previously the wife of an unnamed brother)5 and for unspecified other evil acts, has the troublesome prophet imprisoned. Josephus also chronicles John’s arrest and execution, though he attributes to Herod Antipas explicitly political motives—springing from fear that John would foment rebellion—that differ from Luke’s account (Ant. 18.5.2). The execution of John, presented in vivid detail in Mark 6:17–29 and Matt 14:3–12, gets only a half-line in Luke, in a later reminiscence of Antipas (9:9). The focus of Luke’s narrative is instead on the contrast between the response of the people (laos) to John’s message and that of persons with power and influence (Herod, 3:19–20; Pharisees and legal experts, 7:29–30; chief priests, scribes, and elders, 20:1–8). John elicits the same divergent responses, including rejection by the powerful, that Jesus will meet (presented programmatically in 4:16–30). John prepares the path for Jesus in this respect as well. Simeon’s prediction of a divided Israel, falling and rising, begins to come true.

4. Conzelmann’s assignment of John and Jesus to distinct eras in the history of salvation neglects this continuity of concern and proclamation (Theology 18–27). Nevertheless, John later (from prison) voices doubts whether Jesus is performing the expected eschatological mission, evidently due to the contrasting emphases of the two prophetic ministries (see the comment on 7:18–23).

5. Both Mark 6:17 and Matt 14:3 identify Philip as the previous husband of Herodias, a historically inaccurate detail in those accounts. Herodias had been married to Herod Antipas’s half-brother Herod, not Philip (Josephus, Ant. 18.5.1).

3:21–22 The Baptism of Jesus

The stronger one to whom John has pointed, the Messiah who will baptize with the Holy Spirit and fire, first receives baptism himself. The imagery is dramatic: while Jesus is praying, heaven opens; the Spirit comes upon Jesus in an unmistakable, visible way; and a voice declares Jesus’ identity as God’s beloved Son.

21 Now this is what came to pass when all the people were being baptized: Jesus, too, was baptized, and while he was praying the heaven was opened; 22 the Holy Spirit came down upon him, in bodily form like a dove, and a voice came from heaven, “You are my beloved Son; I take delight in you.”a

a. Some Western witnesses (D among them) conform the text to Ps 2:7 lxx, omitting “beloved” and substituting “Today I have begotten you” for “I take delight in you.” This later scribal adaptation substantially alters the christological presentation in Luke’s narrative, which emphasizes the Holy Spirit’s role in the very conception of Jesus. (Acts 13:33 does cite the full text of Ps 2:7b, applying it to Jesus’ resurrection.) The baptismal disclosure to Jesus confirms, for him and for Luke’s audience, what has already been true (Jesus as God’s Son), with this expansion: the adult Jesus emerges from the rite of baptism as a man who is pleasing to God.

[21–22] Luke concludes the account about John before beginning to narrate Jesus’ activity. Although John later dispatches messengers to query whether Jesus is the coming one to whom he had pointed the crowds (7:18–23), the narrator jumps ahead of the story here, recounting John’s imprisonment even before Jesus’ baptism is mentioned. Does this unusual narrative strategy have the aim of relegating John to the period of preparation, removing him from the era of salvation and fulfillment connected with Jesus? (so Conzelmann, Theology 18–27; critique in Wink, John the Baptist 50–51; Nolland 1:156). The account is more subtle. Jesus joins “all the people” who are undergoing baptism (v. 21). While John is not named as baptizer of Jesus, it is John’s baptism that is in view. His arrest, however, has already been told. What is the effect of this presentation?

As in the scene of John’s birth, where mention of Mary’s departure precedes the birth of John (1:56–57), here too Luke narrates a character’s departure before turning to a crucial scene featuring another character. Luke portrays Jesus’ baptism as an encounter in which only two characters have a role to play: Jesus (in solidarity with “all the people” who are responding to the call to turn to God) and God. The baptism of Jesus provides the occasion for an open heaven to send the Spirit upon Jesus, accompanied by the voice of God from heaven, directly disclosing to him his identity as beloved Son of God. Not a new insight for Jesus (cf. 2:49), but dramatic confirmation nevertheless, both for him and for readers: this is who he is. This divine witness to Jesus occurs while he is praying, an element that appears only in Luke’s account of the event, the first in a series of pivotal moments in Jesus’ life when Luke depicts him at prayer (6:12; 9:28; 11:1; 22:41–42; 23:34, 46).

With the visual cue of the dove—in bodily form, a distinctively Lukan touch—and the repeated mention of the Spirit in the narrative introduction to Jesus’ ministry (3:22; 4:1, 14, 18), Luke highlights the connection between Jesus and the Spirit. In his first public statement, Jesus, by way of Isa 61:1, will closely tie his endowment with God’s Spirit to God’s anointing of him for a specific mission: “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, and so he has anointed me” (Luke 4:18: the verb chriō [anoint] is related to the noun christos [Christ or Messiah]). In a speech to Cornelius, Peter will later reinforce this picture of Jesus’ baptism as his messianic anointing: “how God anointed Jesus . . . with the Holy Spirit and power” (Acts 10:38; cf. “in the power of the Spirit,” Luke 4:14). The baptism of Jesus is his messianic anointing; the Spirit that was the agent of his conception (1:35) now impels and validates his mission. He is divinely empowered and divinely authorized for the work he will do.

The voice from heaven is familiar to one immersed in the Jewish Scriptures (here lxx); drawing phrases from Ps 2:7 (“You are my son”), Isa 42:1 (“[my soul] has favorably welcomed him”),6 and perhaps Gen 22:2 (“your [Abraham’s] beloved son, whom you have loved”), God tells Jesus “You are my beloved Son; I take delight [dramatic aorist] in you.” God’s first direct speech in the narrative corroborates the intuition expressed by Jesus in his first words in the Gospel, at the age of twelve (2:49). Before Jesus, with his own wise discernment and faithful action, is able to demonstrate that God has reason to delight in him (the testing in 4:1–13), Luke will once more, from the perspective of Jesus’ ancestry (ironically, that of his “other father” Joseph), reinforce the claim that Jesus is God’s own Son.

6. The lxx of Isa 42:1 uses the verb prosdechomai (welcome, receive), not eudokeō, as in Luke 3:22; however, the Greek version tapped by Luke may have used eudokeō, a speculation suggested by the presence of eudokēsa in the Greek of Ps 2:7 in both Aquila and Theodotion (see Fitzmyer 1:485–86; Nolland 1:162–65). The echo of Isa 42:1 lxx is heard more clearly when one considers also the following words in that verse: “I have given my Spirit upon him” (with reference to God’s servant [or child, pais] Israel).

3:23–38 Jesus’ Roots

Heaven’s disclosure of Jesus’ identity as beloved Son of God, at the baptism, is a moment of high drama, yet at this point the narrative is suddenly suspended. With a bare list of names, Luke now traces the ancestry of Jesus before resuming the story in 4:1. Jesus’ ancestry underscores his divine legitimation: his life has its origin in God. Moreover, Jesus finds his place, and his purpose and vocation, in the continuing history not only of Israel but also of all people.

23 Now when Jesus began [his public activity], he was about thirty years old. He was the son (so it was thought) of Joseph, sona of eli, 24 son of Matthat, son of Levi, son of Melchi, son of Jannai, son of Joseph, 25 son of Mattathias, son of Amos, son of Naoum, son of esli, son of Naggai, 26 son of Maath, son of Mattathias, son of Semein, son of Josech, son of Joda, 27 son of Johanan, son of Resa, son of Zorobabel, son of Salathiel, son of Neri, 28 son of Melchi, son of Addi, son of kosam, son of elmadam, son of er, 29 son of Jesus, son of eliezer, son of Jorim, son of Matthat, son of Levi, 30 son of Simeon, son of Judah, son of Joseph, son of Jonam, son of eliakim, 31 son of Melea, son of Menna, son of Mattatha, son of Natham[n], son of David, 32 son of Jesse, son of Obed,b son of Boos, son of Sala, son of Naasson, 33 son of Aminadab, son of Adim, son of Arni, son of esrom, son of Phares, son of Judah, 34 son of Jacob, son of Isaac, son of Abraham, son of Thara, son of Nachor, 35 son of Serouch, son of Ragau, son of Phalek, son of eber, son of Sala, 36 son of Canaan[m], son of Arphaxad, son of Shem, son of Noah, son of Lamech, 37 son of Methuselah, son of enoch, son of Jared, son of Maleleel, son of Canaan[m], 38 son of enosh, son of Seth, son of Adam, son of God.

a. After Jesus is identified as the son ( huios) of Joseph (which lacks the article), the remaining names in the genealogy appear simply with a genitive article (genitive of relationship); I have translated the article “son” throughout, but the Greek reads as a bare list of the names of the ancestors.

b. Or Obel, which appears with variant spelling in B and the original hands of א and D. Fitzmyer attributes the variant to confusion of the letters Δ and Λ (1:501).

[23–38] By placing a person in a family line that includes noteworthy individuals (e.g., David and Abraham here), genealogies establish and enhance one’s honor. (They may also provide credentials for social rank and role, as with Jewish priests.) Luke’s genealogy attests Jesus’ origin in God; the source of his honor is therefore, finally, God. Jesus’ life carries divine legitimation, reinforcing a point that is by now well established (e.g., Spirit-authored life, 1:35; God’s voice claiming Jesus as God’s Son, 3:22).

Genealogies can also serve a larger purpose, however, documenting the direction and meaning of a people’s history (M. Johnson, Genealogies 81). The genealogy with which Matthew opens is a clear example (1:1–17), and the same holds for Luke. While both evangelists incorporate Abraham and David in Jesus’ ancestral line, Luke reverses the conventional order for such lists (as found in Matthew), beginning not with the founder of the family line but with Jesus’ (apparent) father Joseph. Another divergence from Matthew carries much greater importance. Where Matthew begins with Abraham, Luke traces Jesus’ roots all the way to “Adam, the son of God.” As Simeon and John the Baptizer have prophesied, Jesus will be the bearer of divine salvation not just to Israel but also to all peoples, and he will do so as one whose identity and work have their origin in God.

The distinctive force of Luke’s genealogy comes from its beginning and ending, although the list of seventy-six names (not counting Jesus and God; the precise number varies some in the Mss), delivered staccato fashion, gives the impression of a long, full story of preparation for this life.7 Divine direction, evident in the list’s beginning (Joseph as supposed father of Jesus) as in its ending (“son of God”), works in and through a history that otherwise appears to be controlled by human agency—a feature of Luke’s entire two-volume narrative. The list begins with Jesus, the assumed son of Joseph (v. 23), phrasing that recalls Gabriel’s announcement to Mary concerning Jesus’ paternity (1:34–35) and Jesus’ youthful awareness that God is his father (2:49). In the public view, Jesus is Joseph’s son (e.g., 2:48, 51; 4:22), and by welcoming Jesus into his household, Joseph has taken him into his family line; nevertheless, readers have received deeper insight: he is uniquely God’s Son. The conclusion of the genealogy clinches the point, for Jesus’ family line originates in God. Mention of Adam as progenitor, however, also connects Jesus to the history and fortunes of all humanity (cf. “all flesh,” Luke 3:6).

Sandwiched between the baptismal confirmation of Jesus’ identity as beloved Son of God (3:22) and the testing in the wilderness, which probes the meaning of Jesus’ divine sonship and its implications for life and vocation (“If indeed you are the Son of God”: 4:3, 9), the genealogy accents Jesus’ identity as Son of God.

7. Luke and Matthew include the same names between Abraham and David, with the exception of Adim and Arni (Luke 3:33). Otherwise, the lists mostly disagree, even naming different fathers for Joseph (eli in Luke 3:23, Jacob in Matt 1:16) and tracing the ancestry through different sons of David (Nathan in Luke 3:31, Solomon in Matt 1:6). It is impossible to reconcile the two genealogies (see Fitzmyer 1:496–98). Nearly half the names in the Lukan genealogy are otherwise unknown, but for the rest Luke has drawn from Gen 5:1–32; 11:10–26; and 1 Chr 1:24–27.

4:1–13 Jesus’ Fidelity to His Vocation as Son of God Undergoes a First Test

At his baptism, Jesus has received messianic anointing in his endowment with the Holy Spirit. The genealogy shows that his entrance into Israel’s history as Son of God has been carefully prepared through a family’s and a people’s history. Jesus’ life concerns the hope and the salvation of Israel and of all humankind. But what does all this mean for the manner of life and ministry of God’s Son and Messiah? What vocation does this identity entail? The story of ancient Israel’s testing in the wilderness provides the historical backdrop for the probing of these questions. Scripture points the direction, but Jesus will discern vocation and mission in debate with an opponent who would entice him to abandon his true calling. Will Jesus wisely discern, and then faithfully obey, the vocation that God has set before him?

1 Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit, withdrew from the Jordan and was led by the Spirit in the wilderness 2 as he was being testeda for forty days by the devil. And he did not eat anything during that time, and when it was overb he was hungry. 3 Now the devil said to him, “If you are the Son of God, tell this stone to become bread.” 4 Jesus answered him, “It is written, ‘A person will not live on bread alone.’”c

5 And when he [the devil] had led him up,d he showed him all the kingdoms of the worlde in a moment of time, 6 and the devil said to him, “I will give all this power,f and all their glory, to youg—for it has been handed to me, and I give it to anyone I want. 7 So if you bow down before me, it will all be yours.” 8 Jesus, though, replied to him, “It is written, ‘You will bow downh to the Lord your God, and you will worship only him.’”

9 [The devil] led him to Jerusalem and set him on the pinnaclei of the temple. He said to him, “If you are the Son of God, throw yourself down from here. 10 For it is written, ‘He has given his angels orders about you, to guard you,’ 11 and ‘They will lift you up in their hands, lest you strike your foot against a stone.’”j 12 Jesus answered him, “It has been said, ‘You are not to put the Lord your God to the test.’”

13 When the devil had completed every test, he departed from him for the time being.k

a. Or “tempted” ( peirazomenos). The translation emphasizes Jesus’ prolonged and repeated testing captured with this present participle, a testing not exhausted but typified by the three specific tests narrated, evidently at the close of the forty days.

b. Literally, “in those days, and when they were completed.”

c. Literally, “the human being [anthrōpos] will not live.” Jesus quotes Deut 8:3 lxx, which continues “but on every word that goes out through the mouth of God the

person will live” (so also Matt 4:4, minus the repeated “the person will live”). Although a condensed form of this fuller quotation appears in most Mss of Luke, adding “but on every word of God” (thereby conforming Jesus’ response more closely to Matt 4:4), the

shorter text, attested by א B L W 1241, is to be preferred.

d. Most Mss add “to a high mountain,” another harmonizing expansion (see Matt

4:8); the shorter text appears in א* B L 1241.

e. As in 2:1, oikoumenē, the world in which human beings have made a home; the

Matthean parallel has kosmos instead (Matt 4:8).

f. Or “authority” (exousia).

g. Standing first in the clause, “to you” receives special emphasis (again with “you”

in v. 7).

h. Or “worship” (proskyneō), as in v. 7; the image is one of reverential prostration,

paired in Jesus’ quotation from Deut 6:13 with latreuein (worship, serve). Both Matt

4:10 and Luke 4:8 replace the Old Greek’s “fear” with “worship,” making clear that the

devil’s enticement concerns idolatry.

i. Literally, “wing” (pterygion), perhaps inspired by “wings” (pterygas) in Ps 90

(91e):4 lxx but also evoking other passages that use the image to picture divine protection (e.g., exod 19:4; Deut 32:11; Pss 17:8; 36:7; 57:1; 61:4).

j. The devil quotes Ps 90 (91e):11–12 lxx verbatim, though omitting “[to guard

you] in your ways”; the devil has in mind a selective appeal to divine protection, one

that would override commitment to a life of obedience. Jesus responds with another text

from Deuteronomy (6:16).

k. Or: “until [another, more opportune] time”; the word is kairos, not chronos. The

identical phrase in Acts 13:11 suggests the translation given here.

[1–4] Details of place continue to be significant. Jesus reverses the movement that attended his participation in John’s baptism; now he withdraws from the Jordan and returns to the wilderness. There he undergoes an ordeal that recalls ancient Israel’s forty years of testing in the wilderness—a probing of its capacity for trust in, and fidelity to, God (e.g., Deut 8:2–3). Jesus, like God’s son Israel before him (e.g., Hos 11:1), now faces the same test.8 Although it is forty days, not forty years, the symbolic association with Israel’s wilderness journey is apparent. Moses lingered on Sinai for “forty days and forty nights” (exod 24:18; cf. Deut 9:9, 18, 25), a protracted delay that led the people to rebellion and idolatry. (elijah’s journey to Horeb also lasted forty days and nights [1 kgs 19:8].) In an ordeal of testing in the wilderness that echoes that of ancient Israel, Jesus will show that he has grasped his identity and vocation as Son of God and that he will not swerve from fidelity to God’s ways.

8. This passage is typically labeled the “temptation narrative.” The noun peirasmos can denote testing of character and also temptation or enticement (the noun appears in 4:13; 8:13; 11:4; 22:28, 40, 46; Acts 20:19); similarly, the verbs peirazō and ekpeirazō can mean either “test, put to the test” or “tempt” (peirazō in Luke 4:2; 11:16; Acts 5:9; 9:26; 15:10; 16:7; 24:6; ekpeirazō in Luke 4:12; 10:25). If 4:1–13 echoes Israel’s wilderness experience, as interpreted in Deut 6–8, it is preferable to describe Jesus’ ordeal as a testing of his faithfulness, although temptation or enticement to turn aside from one’s commitments is the same experience viewed from a different angle.

Deuteronomy 6–8 provides the backdrop. All three of Jesus’ quotations from Scripture draw from this source, and all three tests echo it as well: hunger and trust in God’s provision (Deut 8:3, recalling exod 16 [manna]); worship due only to God (Deut 6:4, 13–14; cf. exod 32 [golden calf]); and questioning God’s fidelity to promise and provision for the people (Deut 6:16, recalling exod 17 [Massah]). Jesus, in a sense, recapitulates the experience of testing that God’s “son” Israel endured in the wilderness, but where Israel failed, he succeeds. Both the intensity of the struggle and its cosmological import are heightened by the presence of the devil, introduced for the first time in the narrative.

Luke uses the names devil ( diabolos) and Satan interchangeably for this character, and with comparable frequency, though only diabolos appears in 4:1–13 (devil in 4:2, 3, 6, 13; 8:12; Acts 10:38; 13:10; Satan in Luke 10:18; 11:18; 13:16; 22:3, 31; Acts 5:3; 26:18).9 His role in the testing narrative is reminiscent of the part played by Satan in Job, probing the character of a person. But the devil’s malevolence as the head of forces opposed to God becomes clear as the narrative proceeds. He oppresses human beings (Luke 13:16) and seeks to thwart their faith, and hence their deliverance (8:12). Strong as he is, though, in Jesus the Messiah he encounters a stronger one (11:21–22) who releases people from the devil’s destructive control (Acts 10:38). A first demonstration lies just ahead (Luke 4:33–39). The outcome of the contest in the wilderness thus previews the final outcome of the coming conflict between these spiritual powers. As Jesus bests the devil here, God’s reign will depose Satan.

Jesus, however, does not face the devil alone. Jesus has emerged from baptism “full of the Holy Spirit,” and that same Spirit now leads him in the wilderness throughout his ordeal of testing—the harsher wording of Mark 1:12 has the Spirit drive Jesus out (ekballei) into the wilderness. The “power of the Spirit” will remain with Jesus when he turns from wilderness to Galilee to begin his work (Luke 4:14).

The devil introduces the first challenge to Jesus’ fidelity to God (and also the third, in v. 9) with a first-class (real) condition: “Granted [indeed] you are God’s Son”—the devil assumes this to be true. The ordeal of the temptation centers on the meaning of Jesus’ divine sonship. What does it mean for his life and mission? Is the enticement of the first test for Jesus to embrace a ministry of miracle? Certainly, Jesus will perceive his calling as declaring good news of God’s reign (e.g., 4:43) and summoning the lost into that realm (e.g., 5:32; 19:10), not performing miracles. Nevertheless, he will perform extraordinary acts of healing and even multiply bread for a hungry crowd (9:12–17). The focus of the first test is rather Jesus’ reliance upon God’s provision, and his refusal to order his life to serve his own need. With words borrowed from Deut 8:3, he rebuffs the tempter: “A person will not live on bread alone.” But on what will one rely for life? Luke does not use the affirmation to which Deut 8:3 proceeds: “but on every word that goes out through the mouth of God the person will live.” Even if Luke’s audience is not expected to remember this larger scriptural context of the words Jesus quotes, what is left unstated now receives explicit treatment later. Jesus will urge his followers to trust confidently in God’s provision of food, and other necessities, for those who seek God’s dominion (11:3, 9–13; 12:22–32). Jesus need not turn stones into bread because, even though famished, he chooses to trust in God’s gracious provision.

9. The character of Satan underwent considerable development in the Second Temple period and in early Judaism, and various names were assigned the chief of the forces opposed to God: e.g., Satan (1 Chr 21:1; Zech 3:1–2; Jub. 23.29; As. Mos. 10.1; T. Job 3.6; 6.4; 7.1; 16.2; 20.1; 23.1), Azazel (Apoc. Ab. 13.6–13; 14.5–8; 23.11–13), Mastema (Jub. 10.7–8; 11.4–5, 10; 17.16; 19.28; 1QS 3.23; 1QM 13.4, 11), the angel of darkness (1QS 3.21–24), Beliar or Belial (“worthless one,” T. Levi 3.3; 18.12; 19.1; T. Jud. 25.3; T. Dan 1.7; 5.1, 10–11; T. Reu. 4.8, 11; T. Jos. 7.4; T. Sol. 1.2; Jub. 1.20; Ascen. Isa. 4.14–18; CD 4.13, 15; 5.18; 82; 12.2; 1QM 13.1–5, 11–12; 14.9; 18.1–5; 1QS 1.18, 24; 2.5, 19; 2 Cor 6:15), and Asmodeus (e.g., Tob 3:8, 17; cf. T. Sol. 5.1).

[5–8] The devil now offers Jesus political authority: power over all nations, and the honor that attends it. All this authority, the devil claims, “has been handed [paradedotai] to me, and I give [didōmi] it to anyone I want” (v. 6).10 If he is to be believed, the power wielded by the Roman emperor over “all the world” (2:1) has its source in evil and implicates Rome in idolatrous worship in exchange for dominion over the nations. Once again, the political implications of the narrative are far-reaching but not explicitly developed.

In Deuteronomy 7 the same two verbs ( paradidōmi, didōmi) refer to God’s promise to “give” the nations to Israel, as it prepares to enter the land. Here it is the devil who promises. There are two interrelated problems with the devil’s offer. First, the source of genuine authority in the world inhabited and ordered by human beings is not the devil but God. Jesus will center his message on the sovereign rule of God (basileia tou theou), which reclaims the world from domination by evil powers. Second, the only condition placed on the devil’s offer is for Jesus to acknowledge that the devil is worthy of worship and reverence. But Jesus would thereby abandon the conviction and commitment that lie at the heart of Israel’s life. The answer is prompt, again drawing from Deuteronomy 6: “You will bow down to the Lord your God, and you will worship only him” (v. 13, cited in Luke 4:8).

Not only the source of authority and the condition of the devil’s offer but also the character of power is a concern. Power undergoes radical redefinition in Luke’s story, a point already established by Mary’s Song (1:51–53) and ratified by Jesus (e.g., in 22:24–27). Not content to decline the devil’s offer, Jesus through expelling of demons and healings will proceed to launch a direct assault on Satan’s dominion in this world, releasing persons from oppression. Demonic possession and liberation from it, as interpreted by Jesus, amount to a contest of kingdoms, between the powerful rule of Satan and the mightier dominion of God (11:14–20). Jesus will not seek to exert power over other people but instead liberate the poor and oppressed.

10. These phrases represent expansions of the narrative (cf. Matt 4:8–10). If, as seems likely, the phrasing alludes to the intertexts of Jer 34 (27e):5 lxx and Dan 4:31 lxx, Luke pictures Satan as usurping God’s prerogative to confer authority on whomever God wishes. See the analysis of the testing narrative in Yamazaki-Ransom, Roman Empire 87–96 (for Luke, Satan’s rule over the world, including its political rulers, is “real but illegitimate” and will be “dismantled” [96]).

[9–13] The episode culminates in a debate, set at the temple in Jerusalem, featuring divergent interpretations of Scripture. (In Matt 4 this is the central, not final, test.) The devil, having learned from the first two tests that Jesus seeks guidance from Scripture, resorts to Scripture himself to entice Jesus to turn aside from his commitment to the ways of God (Luke 4:10–11). Now that Jesus’ trust in God, and God alone, is beyond doubt, the devil quotes Ps 91:11–12 to appeal for a spectacular display of that faith. Scripture promises that God will protect from harm those who love God and put their trust in God. Why should the beloved Son of God not throw himself down from the pinnacle of the temple? By means of a dramatic rescue effected by the angels, God will deliver him, validating the trust of which the psalmist speaks.

Jesus counters the devil’s reading of Scripture with one of his own, but turning from a psalm of assurance, which highlights divine protection, to Deuteronomy. He finds instructive a word first addressed to Israel in the wilderness: “You are not to put the Lord your God to the test” (Luke 4:12, citing Deut 6:16). Jesus passes his test (peirazō, Luke 4:2) by refusing to put God to the test (ekpeirazō, v. 12). Jesus succeeds where ancient Israel failed.

If the location of the test—the temple’s pinnacle or “wing” ( pterygion)— suggests divine protection on which human faith may rely, there is an ironic twist. Refuge comes from God, not from the temple, yet not even the Son of God may presume upon God to rescue him from mortal danger (not to mention an act of sheer folly). Jesus has reframed the devil’s psalm-inspired challenge; it is not about bold trust in God but about presumption—the Son of God’s daring to put God to the test by trusting in his own special status. Jesus refuses to do so now, a preview of his later conduct when danger looms. Jerusalem is the place for the climactic test of Jesus’ fidelity, both in this episode and in the larger narrative. Just as Jesus now refuses to presume upon God’s power to deliver him from injury, he will at the end of his life refuse to “save himself” (23:35, 37, 39) or demand that God do so (22:42).

Jesus demonstrates that he has grasped the character of his mission. Frustrated with this failed attempt to divert the Messiah from his vocation, the devil “departed from him for the time being” (4:13). This concluding notice from the narrator, found only in Luke, implies that Jesus’ powerful spiritual adversary has not spoken his last word. He will return to resume his testing of the Son of God. During Jesus’ ministry, the devil (usually referred to as Satan) will continue to be active, dominating and oppressing human beings, yet he will be vanquished at every turn by the stronger one who liberates people from demons (e.g., 4:33–37; 11:14–23) and disease (e.g., 13:16), and will even be routed by his followers (10:17–19). The last mighty assault on the Son of God, however, will focus on Jesus’ closest followers and will be a struggle to the death. Satan will enter Judas to prompt the act of betrayal (22:3). Satan’s testing of Jesus’ disciples will be intense and, to a degree, effective (22:31; cf. peirasmos [testing] in 22:40, 46). For the present, though, Jesus has work to do. He is ready to begin his public ministry, bearing the signature—and power—of the Holy Spirit.

Luke 4:14–9:50 Jesus’ Ministry in Galilee

Jesus’ public ministry begins in Galilee at his hometown synagogue, an inaugural event that in microcosm presents his entire career. He proclaims the reign of God, enacted with grace and liberation (healing, exorcism, acceptance, forgiveness). Empowered by the Spirit, in fulfillment of divine purpose announced in Scripture, Jesus’ ministry brings release to God’s people and begins to press beyond Israel’s boundaries. Jesus ratifies Mary’s prophetic vision of God’s overturning of relations of power and privilege. This activity repeatedly raises the question of identity: speaking and acting with such authority—who is Jesus? At the same time, divergent responses to that activity place another question before Luke’s audience. How will God’s people respond to the Spirit-directed prophet and Messiah whom God has sent? As the story proceeds, a division within Israel emerges: some embrace the mission of Jesus and his disciples; others reject it. The story reaches a decisive turn at 9:51; thereafter Jerusalem is the goal of a journey during which Jesus forms and educates a community of followers while clarifying the reach of God’s salvation in debate with alternative views. The terms of that debate become clear, however, from the beginning of the Galilean ministry.

4:14–44 Jesus Inaugurates His Ministry

The opening chapters of Luke’s story—the account of the births of John and Jesus; the report of Jesus’ baptism, with its triple testimony of divine direct address (3:22b), the presence of the Holy Spirit (3:22a), and the Baptizer’s witness (3:16–17); and the sketch of the genealogy of Jesus, son of Adam and Son of God (3:23–38)—leave the reader in no doubt about Jesus’ identity. He is the Messiah, Son of God, the bearer of salvation to Israel and to the world, and fulfiller of the hopes of Israel. Jesus’ testing in the wilderness then poses the question: What is the vocation of the newly baptized Messiah? Matters of identity and vocation are thus very much before the reader as Jesus begins his public ministry. If the wilderness test of Jesus’ fidelity to the divine call shows, negatively, what Jesus’ messianic vocation is not, the inauguration of his prophetic-messianic ministry shows, positively, how it is that he will bring salvation to Israel.

A highly charged encounter between Jesus and the people of Nazareth, his hometown, becomes the occasion for a programmatic statement of Jesus’ vocation. With the aid of prophetic Scripture (Isaiah), he describes his Spiritempowered mission. He is “anointed” (Christ)—by the Spirit of God—and that messianic anointing is of a prophet who boldly speaks the word of God. The reception of his prophetic message foreshadows the eventual outcome of his mission. even when the Messiah marks the present as a time of God’s favor, a time of salvation and liberation, he himself will win rejection, not favor.

Jesus, God’s Messiah and prophet, meets rejection at home, but his ministry of teaching and mighty acts of healing flourishes in nearby Capernaum. Despite affirmation of Jesus’ words and acts, the people of Capernaum also struggle against the purposes of God that direct Jesus’ activity. The crowds there, clinging to Jesus’ presence, unsuccessfully try to keep him from fulfilling his vocation to spread the good news of God’s reign throughout the region (4:42–43; cf. 10:13–16). Strategically placed general narrative summaries begin and end the section (4:14–15, 44), indicating that the particular episodes Luke presents are characteristic of Jesus’ activity as a whole.

4:14–15 The Galilean Ministry Begins: Narrative Summary

Luke begins the account of Jesus’ public ministry with a brief narrative summary that reveals a great deal about the mission of the newly baptized, Spiritanointed Messiah. The passage locates Jesus’ activity in Galilee, emphasizing his role as a Jewish teacher who wins immediate acclaim. Most important, it stamps him with the Spirit of God. As Jesus’ ministry begins, the same Spirit that descended upon him at his baptism (3:22) and filled and guided him during his wilderness testing (4:1) imbues him with power to carry out his messianic mission. The link between Jesus’ return to Galilee and the Spirit’s power prepares for the dramatic scene at Nazareth, which immediately follows.

14 In the power of the Spirit, Jesus returned to Galilee, and a report about him spread through all the surrounding region. 15 He was teaching in their synagogues and was honoreda by everyone.

a. Or “glorified,” doxazomenos.

[14–15] The same Spirit that sustained Jesus during his wilderness ordeal now empowers him as he begins his public activity. Change of location, as in 4:1 marked by the verb hypestrepsen (“he returned,” v. 14; translated “he withdrew” in v. 1), is again significant. Jesus returns home, to Galilee, to begin his ministry as Messiah “in the power of the Spirit.” Before relating a specific incident, the narrator provides a general description of Jesus’ activity, mentioning only teaching. Narrative summaries will later balance acts of teaching and healing (4:40–42; 6:17–19; 8:1–3; only teaching, however, in 4:31–32; 19:47–48; 21:37–38), yet the accent falls first on teaching. This is what Jesus characteristically does (see 4:31; 5:3, 17; 6:6; 13:10, 22, 26; 20:1, 21:37; 23:5). Since 4:14–15 gives no indication of the content of the teaching (unlike Mark 1:14–15), the Nazareth Sabbath message, which immediately follows, stands as Jesus’ first and defining statement (Luke 4:16–30). Jesus will reinforce the association, first made by the narrator here, between Jesus’ teaching and the Spirit: both his message and his actions on behalf of the oppressed will derive from the work of God’s Spirit (vv. 17–21; cf. Acts 10:38).

Luke 4:15 locates Jesus’ teaching in synagogues (also in vv. 28, 33, 44). The word synagōgē can mean either assembly (gathering) of the people or the place where that assembly occurs. Few buildings so far discovered in Palestine that were dedicated for use as synagogues predate the third century C.E.1 Luke, however, appears to assume that the gathering of the people on the Sabbath to pray and hear Scripture happens in synagogue buildings (a centurion “built the synagogue for us,” 7:5). Such gatherings on the Sabbath, expressing piety matching that evident in temple observances of Luke 1–2, give the setting for Jesus’ initial teaching in Galilee.

Word of Jesus’ activity spreads quickly throughout that region (4:14), and the initial reception that his synagogue teaching wins is uniformly favorable: he receives honor (praise) from everyone (v. 15), positive acclaim that makes the hostile reception just ahead in Nazareth all the more striking. Luke later draws attention to the response of crowds to acts of healing that they witness, and that response often takes the form of praise, though normally addressed to God (e.g., 5:26; 7:16; 18:43; cf. 9:43). With this opening narrator’s summary, focused on Jesus’ teaching, Luke already signals the universal reach of Jesus’ public ministry and message; eventually all attend to what he says and does, and they respond.

4:16–30 Jesus in the Synagogue at Nazareth: A Prophet’s Welcome

Jesus has begun an itinerant teaching ministry in the synagogues of Galilee, and (with narrator’s exaggeration) won universal praise. Not until Jesus comes to his hometown, however, does Luke give an indication of the content of his teaching. Once at Nazareth, Jesus announces the focus, purpose, and direction of his ministry—claiming the authorizing power of God’s own Spirit and marking the present as an era in which prophetic promise within the Scriptures comes to fulfillment. After an initially appreciative though somewhat bewildered response, the people of Jesus’ hometown forcefully reject the prophet and his message. Since this scene inaugurates the public ministry—it comes much later in Mark (6:1–6) and Matthew (13:54–58)—it both indicates the character of Jesus’ mission and prefigures the rejection with which it will ultimately be greeted.

1. See Meyers, “Synagogue” 255. Meyers thinks it likely that the emergence of synagogues as separate buildings in Palestine was primarily a second-century C.E. phenomenon, after the temple’s destruction (private houses typically providing the needed meeting space previously).

This inaugural episode is laced with theological concerns that bear great import in Luke’s narrative. Jesus’ messianic vocation is developed with the aid of several significant associations: empowerment by the Spirit of God; fulfillment of Scripture; the prophetic role; a mission of deliverance for the marginalized, the needy, and outsiders; and resulting rejection by well-placed insiders. This “year of the Lord’s favor”—this “today of fulfillment”—will be complicated! Jesus’ ministry will benefit the poor and the outsider, and it will provoke the powerful and the insider. The reversal of expectation and of social position celebrated in Mary’s hymn of praise (1:46–55) now begins to be enacted.

16 [Jesus] came to Nazareth, where he had been brought up, and as he was accustomed to do on the Sabbath day, he went into the synagogue, and he got up to read. 17 The scroll of the prophet Isaiah was handed to him, and when he unrolled the scroll he found the place where it is written:

18 “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, and soa he has anointed me;

to declare good news to the poor,

he has sent me:b

to proclaim release to the captives

and restoring of sight to the blind,

to send the oppressed away in release, 19 to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.”c

20 And when he had rolled up the scroll, he gave it back to the attendant and sat down. The eyes of everyone in the synagogue were fixed intently on him, 21 and he began to say to them, “Today this Scripture has come to fulfillment in your hearing.”

22 everyone was giving testimony about him, and they were amazed at the gracious wordsd that came from his mouth. They said, “Isn’t this Joseph’s son?”

23 And he said to them, “You will surely tell me this proverb: ‘Physician, heal yourself. What we have heard happened in Capernaum—do also here in your homeland.’” 24 But he said, “Truly I tell you, no prophet wins approvale in his homeland. 25 In truth, I tell you, there were many widows in Israel in the days of elijah, when the skyf was shut for three years and six months—when there was a great famine over that whole land— 26 yet elijah was sent to none of them but instead to Sarepta in Sidon, to a widow. 27 And there were many lepers in Israel at the time of elisha the prophet, yet not one of them was made clean; instead, Naaman the Syrian was.”

28 All the people in the synagogue were filled with rage when they heard this, 29 so they got up and threw him out of the city; and they led him up to the brow of the hill on which their city had been built, to thrown him down. 30 But he passed through the midst of them and departed.

a. Or “because of this.”

b. Some Mss insert here the phrase “to heal those who are crushed [broken] in heart” (from Isa 61:1 lxx), but the shorter text, attested by א B D L W Ξ, is to be preferred.

The infinitive construction “to declare good news to the poor,” positioned between the

phrases “he has anointed me” and “he has sent me,” can be taken with either, but the

translation offered here reads it with the latter (so Bovon 1:149, 154; Green 206, 210).

The mission to proclaim good news to the poor thereby provides a heading for the following lines (concerning the captives, blind, and oppressed; see the comment on vv.

16–21 below).

c. Or “the acceptable [favorable] year of the Lord.”

d. Or, reading an objective genitive here, “words about [God’s] grace [favor].” e. Literally, “is acceptable” (dektos).

f. Or “heaven.”

[16–21] Verses 14 and 15 compress an extended period of activity into a terse summary. Narrative time comes to a virtual halt in vv. 16–17, as the narrator focuses attention on one Sabbath in the town of Nazareth, and then lingers over a series of gestures that place the scroll of the prophet Isaiah in the hands of Jesus: he stands to read, is handed the scroll, and unrolls it. After the reading of Isaiah (vv. 18–19), the narrator again slows the action in v. 20, reversing the physical gestures of vv. 16b–17: Jesus rolls up the scroll, returns it to the attendant, and sits down (cf. Green 209). This literary design casts the spotlight on the words that follow each series of gestures: the passage read from Isaiah and Jesus’ concise commentary upon it. Suspense builds, and the reader joins ranks with the hearers in that synagogue, eyes fixed intently on the speaker (v. 20), ears attentive to the words of Scripture (v. 21).

Verse 16, locating the event in “Nazareth, where he had been brought up,” recalls 2:39–40, 51–52, where Jesus’ growth toward maturity was associated with that town (though with the spelling Nazareth rather than Nazara, as in 4:16). Interesting verbal links connect these two sections of Luke’s narrative. The young child Jesus experienced the “favor of God” (charis theou, 2:40) according to a narrative summary preceding the twelve-year-old’s journey to Jerusalem, which culminated in the young man’s assertion that God is his “father” (2:49). When the adult Jesus returns to Nazareth to assume his role as God’s anointed Messiah and prophet, the synagogue audience marvels at his “words of grace [charitos]” but mistakenly brands him son of Joseph rather than Son of God. The favor of God that has rested upon him from the beginning is now to be extended to others in this era of divine favor (dekton in 4:19, citing Isa 61:2). Yet because divine blessing shatters conventional boundaries and reaches all, the poor and oppressed, even Gentiles, it also results in disfavor for many. The prophet of God who announces an era of divine favor will find no favor in his hometown, among his own people (“no prophet is dektos in his own homeland,” Luke 4:24). Jesus brings salvation to his people Israel, but this salvation is marked by surprising reversals—though on deeper reflection this is scarcely surprising, both because these reversals enact patterns long attested by Israel’s story and because Spirit-inspired prophecy within Luke’s narrative has already signaled precisely this development (Simeon: “fall and rising” for many in Israel [2:34]).

When the narrator depicts Jesus’ Sabbath-day synagogue participation as his customary practice (4:16), this reinforces a point established earlier in the story: like his parents (2:21–24, 41–42), Jesus is a devout, Torah-observant Jew. With his faith nourished in the worship and teaching of the synagogue, it is through his knowledge and interpretation of Scripture that he is able to articulate his messianic vocation, in terms both negative (4:1–13) and positive (vv. 16–21).

The shift from passive to active voice in v. 17 is revealing. The Isaiah scroll “was given” to Jesus, presumably because it was the prophetic book to be read that Sabbath. But then Jesus “found” the passage he would read, with a view to the prophetic message he wishes to deliver.

With a few variations, the quotation of Isa 61:1–2a, interspersing a line from Isa 58:6, follows the text of the lxx. Luke omits the phrase “to heal the brokenhearted” (Isa 61:1), for reasons that are elusive, and also substitutes the stronger verb “proclaim” (or “preach”) for the lxx “call” to declare the year of divine favor (Luke 4:19; Isa 61:2). More significant is the incorporation within the reading of Isa 61:1 of a line borrowed from Isa 58:6: the one imbued with God’s Spirit has the mission of sending “the oppressed away in release.” With this enhancement, the Isaiah passage now emphatically repeats the word aphesis (release): “to proclaim to the captives release [and] . . . to send the oppressed away in release.”2

elsewhere, Luke often uses aphesis with the meaning “forgiveness,” indicating a release from sin (e.g., 1:77; 3:3; 24:47). In the ensuing narrative, however, the realities of sin (requiring “release” in the sense of gracious forgiveness), indebtedness (requiring “release” in the sense of debt relief), and oppression by demonic powers (requiring “release” in the sense of liberation) overlap. If Jesus here announces a Jubilee year of “release” (Sloan, Favorable Year; Ringe, Jesus; Green 212–13; questioned by Johnson 81), he is pointing to an era of salvation in which social, economic, and cultic dimensions of communal life will all be radically reshaped. Where the narrative of Jesus’ public ministry shows him forgiving sin, calling for debt cancellation, and releasing the sick from demonic oppression, readers will understand that Isaiah’s promise of an era of divine favor is being realized.

2. The insertion of phrasing from Isa 58:6 also doubles the image of sending in Luke 4:18, with the verb apostellein.

Also significant is the closing of the quotation of Isa 61:1 at midsentence, stopping short of the phrase “day of retribution,” even though the image that immediately follows in Isaiah—consolation for those who mourn—would be congenial to the Lukan narrative (e.g., Luke 6:21).3 The ministry of Jesus accents gracious divine benefaction and liberation, not divine vengeance (cf. Green 213). Ironically, precisely this emphasis on divine generosity animates the opposition to Jesus that will gain momentum as the story unfolds, with a preview already in the inaugural scene at Nazareth.

As the Isaiah text is taken up in Luke’s narrative, the anointing of which the prophet speaks is none other than the anointing of Jesus as Messiah (Christ), which has as its source and legitimation God’s empowering presence: “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, and so he has anointed me” (v. 18). At Jesus’ baptism the Spirit was present (3:22), and the Spirit’s guidance was evident in the ensuing wilderness ordeal and again at the commencement of Jesus’ public activity (4:1, 14). Now the Spirit gives shape to the messianic ministry of Jesus. His commission is to announce good news to the poor; the following lines flesh out both the recipients of the announcement (hoi ptōchoi, “the poor”) and the announcement itself. The poor include those who are held captive, the blind, and those who are oppressed (an illustrative list, not comprehensive), and the good news concerns their liberation and restoration to sight.

This message of God’s restoring, liberating grace for the poor recalls the Magnificat, in which Mary celebrates God’s exaltation of the poor and those lacking power, at the expense of the wealthy and mighty (1:51–53). Now Jesus, with the help of Isa 61, aligns himself with this scriptural pattern of reversal that has marked the divine project of salvation in Israel. Luke will go on to show Jesus’ enactment of the message:

Jesus pronounces God’s blessing of the poor, in contrast to the misfortune of the wealthy (6:20, 24).

In response to the Baptizer’s messengers, he confirms his messianic identity and vocation by pointing (among other benefactions) to the restoration of sight to the blind and the declaration of good news for the poor (7:18–23).

Jesus commends inviting as dinner guests persons who are unable to reciprocate, including, yet again, the poor and the blind (14:13).4

He tells a parable highlighting the reversal of fortunes of a rich man and a poor beggar (16:19–31).

3. An analogous intertextual move is made in Acts 2:21, where Luke suspends the quotation of Joel (3:1–5 lxx [2:28–32E]) after mention of salvation for all who call upon the name of the lord, just shy of the more limited reference to Jerusalem in 3:5b. In each instance, an element of the text cited that runs counter to the rhetorical interests of the narrative is set aside.

In the Nazareth synagogue, Jesus pictures the “today” of fulfillment as divine succor for the poor, the captive, the oppressed, and the blind. As the narrative progresses, Jesus will consistently carry out this mission. He will embody the message he reads from Isa 61 on this Sabbath day. This is what his messianic anointing means. As the one who speaks definitively on behalf of God, he also accepts the role—and the destiny—of prophet. The year of divine acceptance may have arrived, but that does not carry with it the prophet’s acceptance among his own people.

[22] Verse 22 reports the people’s initial reaction to Jesus’ reading of Scripture and his claim that it is coming to fulfillment “today”: “Everyone was giving testimony [imperfect tense] about him”; they were “amazed at the gracious words that came from his mouth.” The phrase “giving testimony about him” has sometimes been construed as hostile (“testified against him”),5 but their testimony, though accompanied by amazement, is positive in tone: Jesus’ words are gracefully delivered (“gracious words”) or grace-filled in their substance (words “about” grace), or perhaps both. Nevertheless, there is a subtle hint of conflict, for the audience understands Jesus’ sonship in relation to Joseph, not God, and thereby unwittingly distances itself from the view expressed by the angel Gabriel (1:32, 35), by Jesus himself (2:49), and by God in the direct speech to Jesus (heaven’s voice) at his baptism (3:22). But Luke does not attribute the Nazareth company’s rejection of Jesus to his ordinary, and familiar, family pedigree (unlike the accounts in Mark 4 and Matt 13). Jesus himself, by virtue of his prophetic message, will provoke conflict.

[23–27] The plot takes a sudden turn as Jesus, still in conversation with Scripture, incites the synagogue audience with provocative ruminations on the purpose and beneficiaries of his mission. His speech develops in two stages. The first throws the spotlight on Jesus’ prophetic role (vv. 23–24). Playing with a conventional aphorism about physicians, he predicts the future attitude of his audience—or rather, he discerns their true present disposition (v. 23). Then he pictures the hostile reception that prophets invariably encounter at home (v. 24). The word patris (homeland) binds the two verses together. Verses 25–27 then indirectly illuminate Jesus’ prophetic mission by recalling episodes in the prophetic careers of elijah and elisha in which God’s compassionate care bypassed the homeland (i.e., Israel) and instead embraced Gentiles. By the time Jesus has finished speaking, the amazement of “all” (v. 22) has yielded to the rage of “all” (v. 28). Jesus’ powers of prophetic discernment are conspicuous already at the outset of his ministry.

4. The language of beatitude ( makarios) links 6:20–23; 7:23; and 14:14–15. enjoyment of divine blessing is at stake: Who is acceptable to God? (cf. dektos in 4:19, a theme recapitulated by Peter at Cornelius’s house in Acts 10:35).

5. Notably Jeremias, Jesus’ Promise 44–46; for the opposite view, see Siker, “First” 79–80; Green 214–15; Tannehill, “Mission” 53.

Jesus attributes to his hometown audience, as a matter of future but certain speech (pantōs, “surely”), a proverb (parabolē) they will address to Jesus: “Physician, heal yourself” (v. 23). This proverbial saying appears in various settings and with different meanings, including the obvious, cynical one: physicians who would heal others ought to tend to their own health (euripides, Frag. 1086; Gen. Rab. 23). Closer to the mark, in this scene, is the use of this analogy to urge that one not benefit others without taking care of one’s own kin.6 That is precisely the way Jesus spins the proverb in Luke 4; his audience, he declares, will make the point explicitly: “What we have heard happened in Capernaum—do also here in your homeland.” If Jesus is going to bring healing to those in need, such as the blind and oppressed mentioned in Isa 61, then he ought to start at home.

The narrative sequence is awkward. No acts of healing have yet been narrated; the summary of the opening phase of Jesus’ Galilean ministry (4:14–15) refers to the “power of the Spirit” and specifically reports only teaching activity, without mentioning Capernaum. In Luke (where the Nazareth scene has been moved forward to the start of the public ministry; cf. Matt 13:53–58; Mark 6:1–6), Capernaum follows, rather than precedes, Nazareth on Jesus’ itinerary. The future-tense verb Jesus employs (“you will say”) perhaps eases the tension, yet Luke does not record a later return to Nazareth when these words could be spoken. (Such a second visit is scarcely likely in the light of the unhappy ending in 4:28–30.) It seems best to understand that acts of healing at Capernaum, though not explicitly mentioned until 4:31–44, are included within the general summary in vv. 14–15, which, after all, emphasizes the spread of the news about Jesus’ activity “through all the surrounding region.” In this instance Jesus’ prophetic discernment is more about reading the minds and hearts of the people in Nazareth than reading the future. Nevertheless, the appeal here to acts (implicitly of healing) performed in Capernaum sets the stage for the next scene, and readers will be even more impressed by Jesus’ prophetic discernment.

In v. 23 Jesus previews the attitude of his audience by placing words on their lips. Verse 24 provides his commentary by means of an aphorism of his own: no prophets win favor at home (dektos as in v. 19, but now indicating acceptance withheld). This saying implies that the speaker is himself a prophet and anticipates his rejection by those who know him. Jesus here embellishes the developing picture of his identity and vocation by merging in his own person the roles of Messiah and prophet. Now that John’s voice has fallen silent, Jesus takes for himself the prophetic mantle. By linking these two aphorisms (each using patris, vv. 23, 24), Luke hints that the hostility greeting this prophet at home has to do with the mistaken assumption that one whom God has sent will benefit “us,” not “them”; insiders, not outsiders; Israel, not the nations. Such a view runs counter to the description of the year of God’s gracious favor that Jesus has read in the Isaiah scroll, which centers on acts of care for the marginalized, persons who by physical condition or other circumstance stand outside the community. Through a selective telling of the stories of elijah and elisha, Jesus rivets attention on acts of compassionate care extended to outsiders.7

6. On the parallels and the range of meanings they attest, see Nolland, “Classical”; Noorda, “Cure Yourself.”

Verses 25–26 compress into one sentence the account of elijah’s visit to Zarephath (Sarepta) during a prolonged drought (which persisted into the third year, according to 1 kgs 18:1, but lasted three years and six months according to Luke). Jesus observes that the prophet was sent to a widow there, even though many widows lived in Israel at this time of severe famine. elijah’s encounter with the widow near Sidon brought miraculous provision of nourishment as well as the restoring of life to her son (1 kgs 17). Those details are unimportant here, although Luke will later narrate Jesus’ raising of a widow’s only son at Nain (7:11–17), echoing this part of the Elijah story. Of significance in Luke 4 is the fact that God’s help—the passive verb “was sent” implies divine action— comes through the prophet to a Gentile widow, bypassing those within Israel.

In a similar fashion, v. 27 presents a selective reading of elisha’s ministry. The pattern of vv. 25–26 is repeated: there were many lepers in Israel when elisha crossed paths with the Syrian commander Naaman (2 kgs 5), “yet not one of them was made clean”—an exaggerated embellishment of the Kings narrative. Prophets and physicians who take their cues from the God of Israel, far from tending to their own (“heal yourself”), appear to take delight in going elsewhere to perform acts of mercy.

The association between Jesus’ ministry and the activity of elijah and elisha, implicit in vv. 25–27, is reinforced as the narrative proceeds, but not because Jesus turns away from Israel to direct his mission to Gentiles. Nuanced reading of 1–2 kings would not support such an expectation in any case, for those two prophets did not work primarily outside the boundaries of Israel. Jesus’ appeal to them as prophetic exemplars is highly selective. With few exceptions (Luke 7:1–10; 8:26–39), Jesus conducts his ministry among Jewish people. The Nazareth episode prefigures, and helps to legitimate, the later move to Gentiles in the book of Acts, but that is for Luke a post-easter development. Rather, it is Jesus’ sustained concern with the marginalized and outsiders to the community—including, as in this passage, widows and lepers—that connects Jesus’ ministry to that of these prophets of Israel.

7. Thus Luke 4 deploys the Jubilary image of release in a fashion different from 11QMelch (11Q13), which appropriates imagery of Jubilee but extends its benefits only to community insiders (cf. also 4Q521 2.5–8).

[28–30] The transition from Jesus’ final words to the audience’s reaction is abrupt: the conjunction kai (and). “All the people in the synagogue were filled with rage when they heard this,” and they try to put him to death. That is the intent behind the angry march to the “brow of the hill,” from which Jesus could be hurled—killed either by the fall or by the stones with which they would pummel him (so Nolland 1:201). At first, “all” are amazed at his gracious speech, but now “all” turn violently against him. This prophet knows what he is talking about when he claims that prophets do not win approval at home. Somewhat mysteriously, Jesus walks right through the hostile crowd and goes on his way. Violent rejection and a public execution at the urging of his own people do lie in his future, but not yet. As Jesus will later assert, with words reminiscent of this passage: “It is not possible for a prophet to perish outside Jerusalem” (13:33). Not this prophet, anyway.

The Nazareth pericope sets before the reader the entire program of Jesus’ ministry: his bold teaching, inspired by his reading of Scripture; his acts of compassionate care for the poor, sick, and marginalized; and the rejection that he, like countless prophets before him, will experience. If there will be suspense in the narrative that unfolds from this starting point, it will not be from lack of clarity about the purpose and outcome of Jesus’ ministry, but from uncertainty about how it will all happen. And, will Jesus prove to be faithful, to the end, to the vocation he has embraced and here publicly announces?

Luke tells the story of Paul’s final arrest and attempted defense speech in Jerusalem (Acts 21:27–22:29) in a way that recapitulates the pattern evident in Luke 4. In Paul’s case, too, discourse that culminates in mention of a divine sending to Gentiles (22:21) elicits murderous rage. In Luke’s two-volume project, the identity and composition of Israel, and specifically the incorporation of Gentiles within God’s people Israel, are matters of deep and contested significance. Luke anticipates, rather than narrates, that development in the Gospel narrative, but the anticipations are important—they are part of what Jesus “began to do and to teach” (cf. Acts 1:1 niv), work that the apostles whom he commissioned and dispatched to the ends of the earth would carry on after his ascension. The Nazareth episode signals that God’s saving work through the Messiah Jesus extends divine grace to those on the margins of Israel, and ultimately even to those beyond those margins—and that this poses a challenge to Israel and to Jewish identity. But one should not get too far ahead of the story. For now, Jesus will journey to another town in Galilee; there he will continue to teach and, empowered by the Spirit, heal the sick among God’s people.

4:31–44 Words and Deeds of Power in Capernaum

While speaking to the crowd at Nazareth, Jesus raised the expectation that he would act as a physician in Capernaum (4:23). Without delay he ventures to that village on the north shore of the Sea of Galilee and continues to teach in the synagogue (vv. 31–32). With acts of exorcism and healing (vv. 33–41), he also enactsfor the first time the ministry of release he has announced at Nazareth (v. 18). unlike the people of Nazareth, the residents of Capernaum welcome Jesus with open arms, yet they, too, eventually set themselves against his mission. He must journey to other cities to declare the news of God’s reign.

31 [Jesus] went down to Capernaum, a city in Galilee, and he was teaching the people there on the Sabbath day.a 32 They were astonished at his teaching, because his wordsb carried authority.c

33 Now in the synagogue there was a man who had the spirit of an unclean demon, and he began to cry out in a loud voice, 34 “Hey!d What do you have to do with us, Jesus the Nazarene? Did you come to destroy us? I know who you are: the Holy One of God!” 35 And Jesus rebuked him: “Be silent, and come out of him!” And the demon threw him down in their midst and came out of him without doing him any harm. 36 Amazement came upon everyone, and they began to speak with one another: “What is this message?e For with authority and power he gives orders to the unclean spirits, and they come out!” 37 And so a report about him spread to every place in that area.

38 When he got up [and came out] from the synagogue, he entered the house of Simon. Now Simon’s mother-in-law was suffering with a high fever, and they asked [Jesus] about her. 39 Standing over her, he rebuked the fever, and it left her. And at once she got up and began to serve them.

40 As the sun was setting, all who had charge of persons who were sick with various illnesses brought them to [Jesus]. And placing his hands on each one of them, he healed them.f 41 And demons also went out from many people, shouting, “You are the Son of God!” And rebuking [them], he would not permit them to speak, because they knew that he was the Christ.

42 The next day, when he had left [the town], he journeyed to a deserted place. The crowds, though, were searching for him, and they came up to him and tried to keep himg from leaving them. 43 But he told them, “It is necessary for me to declare the good news of God’s reign to other cities, too. That’s what I was sent to do.”h

44 And he was preaching in the synagogues of Judea.i

a. The plural “Sabbaths” here is to be construed as functionally singular (as in 13:10), even though 4:16 employs different phrasing (“on the day of [among] the Sabbaths,” a partitive genitive) to introduce Jesus’ action on a particular Sabbath. Verses 31–32 and v. 44 frame a unit that narrates action on one Sabbath and the next day (vv. 33–43).

b. Or message: logos.

c. Dative of manner: his words were [spoken] with authority.

d. The word ea, which I have translated as an interjection (as in Job 15:16; 19:5;

25:6), has also been read as the imperative of the verb eaō: “Leave [us alone]!” (e.g.,

Green 223). The verb does appear in v. 41.

e. As in v. 32, the word is logos.

f. The majority of Mss (including א A C L) have the aorist tense of the verb “heal,” but

the imperfect tense is somewhat unexpected and is thus the more difficult and preferred reading (attested by B D W et al.). Luke 4:14–44 contains several imperfect-tense verbs, and not just in the narrative summaries, where this is a typical usage.

g. The imperfect tense has a conative nuance here: an attempt is being made (unsuccessfully) to perform the action indicated by the verb.

h. Literally, “I was sent for this [purpose].”

i. This is an intriguing text-critical problem. “Synagogues of Judea” is to be preferred as the most difficult reading: at this stage in the narrative, Jesus is active in Galilee, not Judea. Both alternative readings correct the account by fitting the action to its narrative setting: “the synagogues of Galilee” (A D Θ Ψ); and more subtly, “synagogues of Jews” (W 1424). However, Luke sometimes uses “Judea” to refer to the larger region of Judea and Galilee (7:17; 23:5; Acts 10:37), and it has that sense here.

[31–32] With a general summary of Jesus’ activity of teaching in synagogues and the resulting acclaim (vv. 14–15), the narrator prepared for a dramatic event on one Sabbath day in Nazareth. In similar fashion, a brief report of Jesus’ teaching on the Sabbath in Capernaum, and of the response it generates (vv. 31–32), prepares for a series of events set in synagogue and household in the “city” of Capernaum. Luke aptly has Jesus journey “down” to that village of several hundred inhabitants, located on the north shore of the Sea of Galilee, some 1,800 feet below the elevation of Nazareth.

Jesus’ message on the Sabbath—its content left unspecified—carries an impressive authority that amazes auditors. The exorcism that immediately follows elicits a reaction that again couples exousia (authority) and logos (message, v. 36). Both teaching and acts of healing communicate; they convey Jesus’ authority as bearer of God’s Spirit. Will astonishment at Jesus’ extraordinary power in word and deed give way to faith?

[33–37] The Capernaum synagogue is the setting for an encounter between the demonic and the divine, between impurity and holiness. This is the first of four exorcisms in Luke in which God’s mighty rule challenges the power of Satan and releases persons from domination by evil forces. each exorcism has its own structure—the stories in 8:26–39 and 9:37–43a are more complex, and that in 11:14 is abbreviated—but this first account sets out the basic pattern: introduction of the character afflicted by a demon, including

a description of the condition or need (4:33)

dialogue between the spirit (demon) and Jesus, in which the

spirit expresses knowledge about Jesus, and Jesus rebukes

(commands) the spirit (vv. 34–35a)

departure of the spirit (v. 35b)

response of observers, confirming that healing has occurred.

(vv. 36–37)

The world of Jesus and that of Luke acknowledged the existence of daimones, “demons,” beings intermediary between God or the gods and humanity. They might be beneficent or hostile, although for Luke demons are evil beings opposed to human well-being (despite the neutral use of daimonia, “deities,” in Acts 17:18, placed on the lips of Paul’s Athenian auditors). Luke presupposes that Jesus and his followers are not the only Jewish exorcists (Luke 9:49; 11:19; cf. Acts 19:13), and there are scattered references to exorcism in literature of the period (e.g., Tob 3:17; 6:14–18; 8:1–3; Josephus, Ant. 8.2.5; 1QapGen 20.16–29; 11QapPsa [11Q11] 1.1–6; PGM 4.1227–64, 3007–86; 5.96–172; cf. Philostratus, Vit. Apoll. 3.38; 4.20), although the intellectual elite of the GrecoRoman world could express skepticism about the activity.8 Later Jesus will be forced to defend his exorcisms and in doing so will provide his own interpretation of their significance (Luke 11:14–23).

The “spirit of [or from] an unclean demon”—as distinct from the only spirit mentioned so far in the narrative, the Holy Spirit that directs Jesus^9—seizes the initiative with an outburst in which knowledge about Jesus coincides with hostile resistance: “Hey! [or “Leave us alone!”] What do you have to do with us, Jesus the Nazarene? Did you come to destroy us? I know who you are: the Holy One of God!” There is irony as an unclean demon recognizes God’s Holy One (a correct affirmation; cf. 1:35). Knowledge of Jesus’ name and identity, however, does not indicate acceptance of Jesus’ mission, nor does it give this demonic spirit any leverage in the confrontation with “the Holy One of God” (a popular belief attested, e.g., in PGM 8.6–7, 13). On the contrary, Jesus’ superior power is immediately evident; at his stern rebuke (“Be silent, and come out of him!”), the spirit throws the man down in the midst of the gathered crowd and silently departs without harming him, a tempering of the violent struggle in Mark’s account, in which the spirit convulses the man and cries out as it departs (Mark 1:26).

8. See Hippocrates, Morb. sacr. 2; 5; Lucian, Philops. 16; cf. Sorensen, Possession ch. 4; klutz, Exorcism 68–74. For orientation to recent literature on exorcism, esp. in relation to Luke– Acts, see also Twelftree, Exorcist; Whalen, Impurity.

9. Luke 8:26–39 and 9:37–43a employ “spirit,” “demon,” and “unclean spirit” interchangeably, an equivalence suggested also by 11:24–26, where a parable about an “unclean spirit” follows a debate over the authority expressed in Jesus’ mastery of “demons” (11:14–23). The synonymous phrase “evil spirits” appears in 7:21; 8:2.

Jesus silences the demon. According to Luke 4:41, this is his characteristic response to the spirits’ acclamations of his status as Messiah and Son of God. Why? To what effect? First, Jesus thereby displays his superior power: demons may be able to call out Jesus’ name, but they have no authority over him. The reverse is true. Second, demons’ knowledge of Jesus’ identity may create the impression that Jesus belongs to their world, that he is allied with demonic powers (an accusation that surfaces in 11:15). The gulf between Jesus and these spiritual beings, however, is enormous. The hostile rhetorical question “What do you have to do with us?” implies its own answer: Nothing at all! (for this idiom, see Judg 11:12; 2 Sam 16:10; 19:22; 1 kgs 17:18; 2 kgs 3:13). Whatever the truth affirmed by demonic spirits, Jesus’ abrupt silencing of them shows that he agrees with them: they share no common ground. Third, Jesus reserves to himself the right to define his messianic identity and divine sonship in terms of his unique mission. Finally, Jesus’ rebuke of demons makes clear that knowledge of his special status is not the same thing as faith. When, as here, spiritual awareness takes the form of hostility toward God’s work of liberation, Jesus exposes it for what it is.

This demon’s response to Jesus exhibits one of a number of divergent responses to him in this narrative unit. Demons possess correct information but seek to distance themselves from Jesus and his mission; they serve a different master. The people, for their part, are impressed and amazed, but this too is not faith. The next scene presents a positive response: a healed woman will immediately practice a ministry of hospitality.

“Did you come to destroy us [i.e., spirits allied with Satan]?” Jesus has indeed come to disrupt the demon’s control over this man, to bring release—the first enactment of the release from bondage that Jesus has announced as his vocation (4:18). The summary report of Jesus’ dealings with demons in 4:41 then builds on the expectations generated by vv. 33–37. Jesus’ projected ministry of release for the captive and the oppressed begins to assume concrete form.

[38–39] Jesus is still in Capernaum, but the scene shifts from gathered community (synagogue) to household, from public sphere (word is spreading throughout the region) to private. However, the ministry of aphesis, release for the oppressed, continues, this time in the form of release from illness. The house belongs to a previously unmentioned Simon, whose mother-in-law is suffering from a “high” fever. The addition of megalō (high [great]) is typical of Luke, who often heightens the severity of illness and circumstance for those whom Jesus heals (also 6:6; 7:2, 12; 8:42; 9:38).

The mode of healing, as in the preceding exorcism, is a word of “rebuke” (in contrast to the physical touch of Mark 1:31; Matt 8:15). As if it were a banished demon, the fever “left” (aphēken). This verb, related to the noun aphesis (release), used twice in Luke 4:18 (citing Isa 61), ties this episode to that programmatic declaration of Jesus’ mission. By routing demons and now by healing the sick, Jesus sets people free. In the Spirit-filled Jesus, the oppressive dominion of evil powers meets a stronger power, one intent on restoring health, on liberating (cf. the retrospective summary in Acts 10:38).

The efficacy of Jesus’ word finds immediate demonstration. Simon’s motherin-law arises and provides hospitality to her guests. She “began to serve” them; the verb diakoneō (serve, minister to) marks the grateful response of women healed by Jesus again in Luke 8:1–3. They, too, provide for Jesus’ needs. Practicing a culturally appropriate ministry of hospitality, Simon’s mother-in-law at the same time supplies the visible proof that healing has occurred.

Simon is first introduced in this episode and only subsequently called to discipleship (5:1–11). In Mark, by contrast, the first disciples answer Jesus’ summons before any acts of healing in Capernaum (Mark 1:16–20) and can therefore be placed in Simon’s house to witness the healing (1:29). In one respect, however, the narrative sequence in Luke produces a more plausible report of Jesus’ call to his first disciples. Why not leave everything to follow one who has displayed such remarkable authority in word and deed? After an impressive display of authoritative teaching and healing, which has caught the attention of the whole region, and particularly after the healing of Simon’s mother-in-law, Jesus will summon Simon in the next episode—but not before one more display of his extraordinary capability (5:1–11). This healing thus prepares for the call of Simon, later identified as Peter.

[40–44] After two acts of liberation (release from demonic control and illness), the people of Capernaum flock to Jesus at the end of this same eventful day. They bring to him all those in need of healing, both the sick (v. 40) and the demon-afflicted (v. 41). He obliges, laying hands on “each one” who is sick and healing them, and by his authoritative rebuke forcing demons to depart “from many people”—that is, the many who presented themselves, not several persons among a larger group, some of whom he is powerless to help. Repeating the motif of Jesus’ silencing demons who know his identity (v. 41; cf. vv. 34–35), but adding precision to their recognition (of Jesus as Son of God and Messiah), the narrator provides further confirmation of Jesus’ status, even as Jesus, for the public ear, dissociates himself from these perceptive yet destructive beings. Encountering for the first time from such a dubious source the notion that Jesus is uniquely God’s Son and Messiah, what will the people do with this information? The question of Jesus’ identity, and the divergent responses to it, will become increasingly prominent.

For now, in stark contrast to the Nazareth crowd, the people of Capernaum are positively inclined toward Jesus and more than happy to have him stay among them. The focus is a ministry of healing and liberation rather than, as in Nazareth, provocative teaching. Only in Luke do the residents of Capernaum try to prevent him from leaving. Yet by seeking to keep him to themselves, they, no less than the people of Nazareth, set themselves against the purposes of God. (Luke 10:15 offers as final word on Capernaum one of rejection.) This enthusiastic but misguided response to Jesus’ ministry prompts another explicit statement from Jesus of his aims. He is impelled by divine necessity: he must declare the glad news of God’s reign (dei, “must,” a key verb that expresses the divine intentionality guiding Jesus’ path [v. 43; see also 2:49; 9:22; 13:33; 17:25; 19:5; 22:37; 24:7, 26, 44]). Jesus “was sent” to do the work he has to do, sent by God (theological passive). Picking up the thread from the Nazareth message, Jesus affirms as his primary aim declaring good news (euangelizomai), but now the verb carries a direct object. The good news he declares concerns the reign of God, the first appearance of this central metaphor in Jesus’ proclamation. Jesus’ ministry of release, of liberation, is an expression of God’s sovereign rule, a claim later explicitly linked to Jesus’ exorcisms (11:20).

Jesus, however, now withdraws from Capernaum to the desert (v. 42). The conquest of the devil in the wilderness does not mean that the struggle against demonic forces or the need for prayer-bestowed strength and resolve is over. In the midst of the people, and his teaching and ministry of release, Jesus’ commitment to serve the purposes of God will continually be tested. The reaffirmation of Jesus’ sense of vocation at the end of the scene, employing the phrase basileia tou theou (reign of God), is therefore particularly apt.

And so Jesus leaves Capernaum, although the point is more symbolic than geographical. Jesus must still be in the environs of this town in the next scene (the call of Simon), and he later returns (7:1); moreover, 10:15 presupposes additional events in the town that are never reported.

The narrator’s summaries of Jesus’ teaching in synagogues bracket the account of Jesus’ initial forays into ministry at Nazareth and Capernaum (4:14– 15, 44), as do references to activity in Galilee (4:14–15) and Judea (4:44)—with Judea to be construed broadly, as an encompassing term and inclusive of Galilee. The impression is therefore of a comprehensive picture of Jesus’ teaching ministry. Judea, no less than Galilee, hears the good news of God’s realm. However, Jerusalem, closely associated with the temple, will need to wait to hear Jesus’ message and be challenged by it.

As Jesus opens his public ministry (4:14–44), the Spirit of God places an authenticating stamp on his words and deeds. The authority of Jesus’ teaching, embracing both message and acts of healing, captures the public imagination from the outset. Also the content and character of Jesus’ ministry receive clear statement as Jesus takes up his vocation in Galilee. His mission is to effect release for the oppressed, including both persons harmed by demonic activity and the sick. Jesus’ own declarations of his purpose and vocation begin and end this section: he has been sent, under the Spirit’s direction and empowerment, to proclaim and enact good news for the poor and oppressed, good news that it is God who reigns. From the start, however, Jesus’ message and actions elicit a divided response, just as Simeon has predicted (2:34–35). As with God’s prophets in the past, including most recently John the Baptizer, rejection is part and parcel of Jesus’ destiny.

5:1–6:11 Jesus Calls Followers and Addresses Critics

Jesus has programmatically announced and begun to exercise in Galilee a ministry that brings liberation to persons in need, liberation that is God’s work, God’s sovereign rule effecting social reversal, as Mary’s Song envisages. Thus far Jesus has acted alone, under the Spirit’s empowerment; however, as the sphere of his activity widens and the crowds clamoring for Jesus’ attention grow, he recruits followers who will join him in a ministry of authoritative teaching and healing. At the same time, opposition to Jesus begins to crystallize (on cue: recall Simeon’s prediction [2:34–35] and the first signs of resistance at Nazareth [4:22–30]). Other teachers discover that Jesus’ vision and embodied practice of the reign of God clash with their own and, with increasing intensity, object.

5:1–11 The Call of Simon Peter

At Capernaum, Jesus has healed the mother-in-law of a man named Simon. Now he disrupts Simon’s fishing business, first aiding him in catching fish but then challenging him to accept a new vocation, one in which human beings will be his catch. Though well aware of his own unworthiness, Simon, joined by his business partners James and John, models appropriate response to Jesus’ call to the realm of God, leaving everything to follow him.

1 Now it happened, when the crowd was pressing upon [Jesus] and listening to the word of God, and he was standing alongside the lake Gennesaret, 2 that he saw two boats standing beside the lake. The fishers had gotten out of them and were washing the nets. 3 He got into one of the boats, which belonged to Simon, and asked him to take [the boat] out from the land a short distance. And he sat down and started teaching the crowds from the boat.

4 Now when he had stopped speaking, he said to Simon, “Go out into the deep [water] and let down the nets for a catch.” 5 Simon replied, “Master, after toiling the whole night, we took nothing. Still, at your word I will let down the nets.” 6 And when they did this, they caught an enormous number of fish, and their nets began to tear. 7 They signaled to their partners in the other boat to come and help them. And they came and filled up both boats, so that they began to sink.a

8 Now when Simon Peter saw this, he fell down at Jesus’ knees and said, “Go away from me! For I am a sinful man, Lord.” 9 For amazement seized him as well as all who were with him because of the catch of fish they had taken, 10 including also James and John, sons of Zebedee, who were Simon’s partners. Jesus said to Simon, “Don’t be afraid. From now on you will be catching people.” 11 And so, after they had brought the boats to land, they left everything and followed him.

a. This infinitive of result, in the present tense, indicates an action that is in progress but not complete (hence “began to sink”). “Began to tear” in v. 6 translates an ingressive aorist verb.

[1–7] The call of Simon commences the next major phase of the story. Jesus gathers followers who will listen to his teaching and witness his mighty acts and thus become qualified to teach and act with authority themselves. The presence of Simon at the shore of the lake Gennesaret (unlike the other Gospels, Luke never gives the lake the exaggerated name “Sea [thalassa] of Galilee”) places this scene near Capernaum, although 4:42–44 has seemingly reported Jesus’ departure. Characteristically, the episode opens with Jesus teaching (vv. 1–3).10 Pressed by a large crowd, he gains breathing room by commandeering Simon’s fishing boat, one of two in view; not until v. 10 does the narrator supply the names of the other fishermen, as Simon is the focus of attention.11 From just offshore, Jesus continues teaching the word of God. So far the narrator has allowed the Scripture exegesis at Nazareth to stand as the only exposition of Jesus’ message, otherwise simply summarizing its content as the word of God (v. 1) or the good news of God’s rule (4:43). The exchange between Simon and Jesus, however, introduces a new motif, one that will become central in Jesus’ teaching. He embraces a self-professed sinner and commissions him as a laborer in the realm of God (5:8, 10). The language of repentance and forgiveness does not appear, but Simon is the first of many sinners whose lives will be transformed through encounter with Jesus. In another explicit declaration of his mission, Jesus will soon explain that this is precisely the sort of person he has come to call (5:32).

After concluding the teaching session, Jesus directs Simon to take his boat out to the deep and lower the nets (v. 4). In reply, Simon addresses Jesus as “master” (epistata, also from the mouth of Simon in 8:45; 9:33; John in 9:49; unnamed disciples in 8:24; and petitioning lepers in 17:13). The term (one who “stands over” and so possesses authority; Jesus “stood over” [epistas] Simon’s mother-in-law before healing her in 4:39) suggests that Simon recognizes Jesus’ authority, even over his own fishing boat. Simon observes that he and his partners are empty-handed after a full night’s toil, when the nets would in the darkness of night have been more likely to produce a catch; nevertheless, he will comply: “At your word I will let down the nets” (5:5). Jesus’ authoritative word elicits from Simon a trusting, obedient response; even before the miraculous catch that is imminent, Simon is well on his way to authentic discipleship.

10. In lxx idiom, egeneto de (“now it happened”) introduces the unit (5:1; again in 6:1, 6; kai egeneto [“and it happened”] opens 5:12, 17).

11. In this Gospel the first disciples called by Jesus are Simon, James, and John; Luke 5:10 does not mention Simon’s brother Andrew, who appears in Mark 1:16; Matt 4:18. A similar, though postresurrection, fishing story in John also features Simon Peter but does not mention Andrew (21:1–14). In a listing of the apostles, Luke 6:14 first mentions Andrew and his identity as Simon’s brother.

Vivid details highlight the remarkable nature of the catch. The nets begin to tear, and fish are thrown into a second boat; even so, both boats begin to sink (vv. 6–7). The extraordinary event thus draws attention to Jesus’ powers of prophetic discernment and also makes an epiphany out of the call of the first disciples. How will Simon and his partners react?

[8–11] Simon’s vision is perceptive; his eyes show him more than a catch of fish. Aware that he is in the presence of the holy, he prostrates himself before Jesus and, professing his sinfulness, bids the “Lord” to depart (v. 8, a pattern resembling the theophany of Isa 6). When Simon addresses Jesus as Lord (with the vocative kyrie), this is the first time Jesus is so addressed (it recurs in Luke 5:12 and often thereafter). The narrator adds that Simon and the others who have witnessed the incident—including Simon’s business partners James and John, Zebedee’s sons, identified for the first time—are amazed by what has happened (vv. 9–10). Jesus names their amazement (or awe, thambos) “fear” when, turning to Simon, he speaks the words one expects in such an epiphany: “Don’t be afraid!” (cf. 1:13, 30).

Still singling out Simon, Jesus delivers a prophetic promise (Bovon 1:172). He will henceforth have a new occupation: “From now on you [sing.] will be catching people” (5:10b). Yet the narrator then reports that “they” (i.e., Simon and his business partners) leave everything to follow Jesus. evidently the promise extends to them too. This anticipates the later role of Peter, as Jesus will soon name him (6:14): first among the disciples in the narrative (cf. Johnson 90) but also a representative character whose experiences and actions the other disciples share (for Peter’s prominent role, see 8:45, 51; 9:18–21, 28–36; 12:41; 18:28; 22:7–13, 31–34, 54–62; 24:12, 34; and the first half of Acts). The vocation of catching fish becomes a metaphor for a new task, “catching alive” people. Even as the boat of Simon’s partners is needed to hold the fish caught in his nets, Simon will need coworkers to join him in the task of catching people alive for God’s realm.

And so they leave everything (5:11): a distinctively Lukan embellishment (anticipating Levi’s similar response in 5:28). Answering the call to follow Jesus, in this Gospel, means detaching oneself from one’s former life: family, home, livelihood—and, as will become increasingly clear, possessions (e.g., 12:33; 14:26, 33; 18:22, 28–29; see Excursus: Poverty and Wealth in Luke’s Gospel, at 19:10). Although Simon has urged Jesus to depart (5:8), he ends up going away with Jesus (v. 11; see Johnson 90).

In Capernaum, Jesus has opposed an unclean demon. In this and the following episode(s), it is apparent that his approach to purity concerns is more complex than a simple detachment from the sphere of the unclean. Jesus calls and commissions Simon, who by his own admission is a sinful man and therefore seeks to keep Jesus at a distance. Persons marginalized by circumstances that involve (ritual) impurity, whether because of demonic possession or sin or illness, are welcome in Jesus’ company. The salvation that he brings is not a matter of separation from what is unclean. Nor, as the next story will show, is this a matter of abandoning the Torah.

5:12–16 A Leper Is Restored to Purity

A man whose sickness, leprosy, should lead him away from human company finds his way to Jesus in the heart of a city, gives voice to confident trust in Jesus’ power to restore him, and receives healing, purification. Although healing does not come from priests at the Jerusalem temple, Jesus dispatches the man to them, as the law of Moses requires, for restoration to community will not be complete until they have attested the leper’s cleansing.

12 It happened, when he was in one of the cities, that—behold!—there was a man who was full of leprosy. When he saw Jesus, he fell on his face and begged him, “Lord, you can make me clean if [it’s what] you want.” 13 Stretching out his hand, [Jesus] touched him and said, “I do want [this]; be made clean.” And the leprosy left him at once. 14 [Jesus] instructed him to speak to no one, but instead “Go, show yourself to the priest, and present an offering for your purification, just as Moses prescribed, as a testimony to them.” 15 But the word about [Jesus] kept spreading even more, and large crowds would come together to listen and to be healed of their diseases. 16 However, he was withdrawing in isolated placesa and praying [there].

a. Plural of the same word (erēmos) translated “wilderness” in 4:1 and, as an adjective, “deserted [place]” in 4:42.

[12–16] A man “full of leprosy”—a typically Lukan intensification of the condition (he is simply “a leper” in Mark 1:40)—approaches Jesus while he is “in one of the cities,” one among those “other cities” to which Jesus has been sent (Luke 4:43). The man’s boldness in entering the city already suggests that he is willing to press beyond conventional social boundaries (see, e.g., Lev 13:45–46; 14:39–41; Num 5:1–4; 2 kgs 7:3–4; 15:5), but he does so because he is intent on finding aid from this man whose reputation as teacher and healer has been spreading far and wide. Falling on his face, he addresses Jesus as Lord and, begging for help, expresses confidence in his power, if he wishes, to make a leprous man clean (v. 12).

What is lepra? Not to be confused with the chronic infectious disease now called leprosy (Hansen’s disease), lepra (Hebrew ṣāra‘at) refers in both early Jewish sources (with Lev 13–14 the key text) and ancient medical writings to skin conditions of varying description and severity, including spotting, sores, and lesions (see Weissenrieder, Images 131–67). Whatever the particular physical symptoms, a primary concern and source of distress for the leper was social exclusion (for the basic paradigm, see Lev 13:45–46). especially obvious in the case of leprosy, sickness is both a physiological condition and an experience that is socially and culturally defined. Persons with lepra were segregated from the community, and any contact with them rendered one unclean. A temple priest confirmed healing of the skin disorder through careful examination; after performing the prescribed sacrificial rites (Lev 14:1–32), the person validated as cleansed could be restored to the community. Luke 5:12–16 is the first of three instances in which Jesus cleanses persons afflicted with lepra (also 7:22; 17:11–19), acts of healing that link his ministry to that of elisha (4:27).

Jesus touches the man with his hand (5:13); however, that touch, accompanied by the word “Be cleansed,” brings not contamination but healing. Yet restoration to the community will require a trip to the temple, as the Torah directs. Jesus, like his parents, faithfully observes Mosaic law; his power to heal does not override the Torah. Jesus does not usurp the role of temple priests. Rather, in cleansing the man, he heals him^12 and sends him to the priests who will certify that he is clean and thus able to be restored to the community.

Where Mark has the healed leper disobey Jesus’ command to silence (1:44– 45), in Luke word of the healing spreads without any indication of agency (5:15). The man receives healing (i.e., purification) because of his bold trust in Jesus, and that favorable depiction is not clouded by any hint of disobedience to “the Lord.” Nevertheless, Jesus’ injunction to silence (v. 14) cannot suppress this news, and the outcome is the arrival of even larger crowds, gathered to listen and be healed (v. 15). Once again Jesus withdraws to an isolated place (v. 16), but this time Luke adds that Jesus was praying (cf. 4:42). The periphrastic participle “[he] was withdrawing,” following the imperfect-tense verb of v. 15, “[crowds] would come together,” suggests that this is not a singular occurrence but a customary rhythm of Jesus’ ministry. Repeatedly, Jesus seeks prayerful communion with God, from time to time separating himself from the people to whom he has been sent to bring deliverance. He will return to face the crowds, though, and continue to teach and to heal.

12. The categories of cleansing and healing are synonymous in Luke 17:14–15, and cleansing (purification) can indicate healing of skin sores in the Hippocratic medical writings as well (see Weissenrieder, Images 151–54). Both the man seeking healing and Jesus speak of cleansing (purification), not healing, yet the narrator describes leprosy as something that fills the man, and at Jesus’ touch it immediately leaves him, as demons and fever have left persons. Luke blends the categories of healing and exorcism (see 6:18; 7:21; 9:42; 13:10–17).

5:17–26 Healing and Forgiveness of Sin for a Man Unable to Walk

The preceding two units have displayed Jesus’ response to the disordering conditions of sin (5:8–10) and sickness (5:12–15). Now the narrative weaves together the motifs of sickness and sin, of healing and forgiveness—joining these to the continuing interest in Jesus’ identity and his authority, as well as its source. Jesus has power to heal and authority to bring forgiveness, and both are dimensions of his ministry of release, of salvation.

17 One day it happened that [Jesus] was teaching, and sitting [there] were Pharisees and teachers of the law who had come from every village of Galilee and Judea and from Jerusalem. And the power of the Lord for him to heal was [present].a 18 Men appeared,b carrying on a bed a man who was paralyzed, and they were trying to bring him in and set him before [Jesus]. 19 However, when they did not find a way to bring him in because of the crowd, they went up to the roof and let him down through the tiles, with the bed, into the middle [of the room, right] before Jesus. 20 When he saw their faith, he said, “Man, your sins are forgivenc you.”

21 The scribes and Pharisees began to consider [this], saying “Who is this who is speaking blasphemy? Who can forgive sins except God alone?” 22 Jesus, though, having discerned their thoughts, answered them, “Why are you considering [this] in your hearts? 23 Which is easier, to say ‘Your sins are forgiven you’ or to say ‘Get up and walk’? 24 Nevertheless, so that you may understand that the Son of Humanity has authority on earth to forgive sins,” he said to the paralyzed man, “I say to you, Get up, take your stretcher, and go to your house.” 25 Immediately he got up before them, took what he had been lying on, and departed to his house, glorifying God. 26 Astonishment took hold of everyone, and they began to glorify God—and they were also filled with fear, saying, “We have seen remarkable things today.”

a. Paraphrasing: “The power of the Lord for the purpose of his [Jesus’] engaging in healing activity was [operative].” This infinitive phrase with the preposition eis expresses purpose; because the verb is ēn (“[power] was”), it is difficult to provide an idiomatic translation.

b. Literally, “And behold [ kai idou],” phrasing that reflects Septuagintal style of narration. The phrase focuses the audience’s attention on the characters now entering the scene.

c. Perfect tense: the man’s sins have been forgiven, and he continues in that condition of release (aphiēmi).

[17–20] Jesus’ ministry of liberation continues, once more in the setting of a house, although this only becomes clear when the roof is mentioned in v. 19; the only references to a house (oikos) come when Jesus sends a man he heals back to his own house (vv. 24, 25). While Mark locates the event in a house in Capernaum, the spatial markers are vague in Luke, which is fitting since Jesus has already departed that town. It is a formal teaching session; Jesus, seated, is teaching before an audience drawn from a large area: “every village of Galilee and Judea,” and even Jerusalem (v. 1). But the narrator is more specific: it is Pharisees and teachers of the law who have assembled to hear Jesus. This is the first appearance of Pharisees in the narrative, and they will play a crucial role as critics and opponents of Jesus’ ministry of release. Mark 2:6 and Matt 9:3 place only scribes in this scene, but Luke includes both Pharisees and teachers of the law (nomodidaskaloi).13 Pharisees appear in each vignette from 5:17 through 6:11, and their criticism of Jesus and his disciples intensifies as the story unfolds.

In Jesus’ day, the Pharisaic movement was dedicated to the interpretation and faithful observance of the Torah, including, it seems, particular interest in extending the sphere of holiness, and therefore purity, from temple to people. In the Gospels they become noteworthy as critics of Jesus (and vice versa). Of interest in this commentary is the role and character assigned the Pharisees within the narrative. Their opposition to Jesus, which gains momentum with each encounter, aids Luke’s audience in grasping the distinctive character and commitments of Jesus’ message and practice of the reign of God (see Carroll, “Luke’s Portrayal”; Darr, Character Building 85–126).

The teaching session—teachers listening to a teacher who is intimately associated with God (as in 2:41–52)—is interrupted when a paralyzed man is brought and seeks healing. Yet the interruption delivers the lesson to be mastered, which concerns Jesus’ authority and the forgiveness of sin. even before the man arrives, the narrator creates suspense with the comment that God’s power is with Jesus to heal (v. 17). The hybrid healing-and-conflict story culminates in a decisive pronouncement by Jesus that links his power to heal and the gift of forgiveness. It is a performative speech act: the words Jesus speaks effect transformation in ways both spiritual (sin is forgiven) and physical (the man walks).14

13. In Luke teachers of the law ( nomodidaskaloi) are interchangeable with scribes (grammateis), specialists in legal interpretation (see 5:21).

14. The classic analysis of performative speech is that of Austin, Do Things with Words.

In a dramatic display of faith that does not escape Jesus’ notice (v. 20), the men who are carrying the paralyzed man on a portable bed, unable to approach Jesus because of the large crowd, dig through the roof tiles and lower him into the room before Jesus (vv. 18–19). (Luke styles the house after the fashion of urban dwellings known to him; Mark 2:4 lacks Luke’s roof tiles, evidently picturing a roof built from reeds and clay.) Jesus’ reaction is provocative; observing the men’s bold faith, he says to the man on the bed: “Man, your sins are forgiven you” (Luke 5:20). For the first time in the narrative, faith and healing are linked (see further 7:9; 8:48, 50; 17:19; 18:42); here it is the disabled man’s associates whose faith prompts Jesus to act. unexpectedly, Jesus pronounces forgiveness of the man’s sin, seemingly ignoring the physical disability that is the presenting problem. No explanation is given for this move, but its effect is clear; it provokes a debate between Jesus and other teachers in his audience— all of it to instruct Luke’s audience. For the first time, Jesus brings release (aphesis) in the form of forgiveness, and his claim to have authority to do this raises the related issues of his identity and the legitimacy of his claim.

[21–26] “Your sins are forgiven you.” The reaction is swift. Twice observers ask the question of identity: “Who?” (v. 21; cf. “Why?” in Mark 2:7). Who is Jesus to declare forgiveness of sin, words that suggest spiritual presumption. This amounts to blasphemy, for (the second question) “Who can forgive sins except God alone?”15 The objection is ironic; Luke’s audience knows that by associating Jesus and God in this manner, the Pharisees and scribes are more right than they realize. Jesus is uniquely Son of God and acts under the empowerment of God’s Spirit to do the work of God. Who can forgive sins? ultimately only God, to be sure; however, by the Holy Spirit God has authorized Jesus for a ministry of release that offers forgiveness of sin.

In another act that demonstrates prophetic discernment, Jesus perceives the thoughts of the observers and counters with a question of his own (vv. 22–23): “Which is easier, to say ‘Your sins are forgiven you’ or to say ‘Get up and walk’?” Employing the rhetorical (and rabbinic) device of argument from “greater to lesser,” Jesus poses a rhetorical question whose implication is that the easier thing is to command the man to walk. Jesus, though, has done the more difficult thing, addressing the condition of sin with a word of forgiveness. Contrary to the observers’ protest, Jesus has not actually forgiven the man’s sin but spoken confidently of a divine gift of forgiveness that has already been given (passive voice, a theological passive) and continues in force (perfect tense). Yet he goes on to say that as “Son of Humanity”—the first use of that expression in the Gospel (see the comments on 9:18–22 and 9:23–27)—he does possess authority to forgive sins (v. 24). This debate reinforces the narrative’s earlier claims regarding Jesus’ identity and authority. As God’s Son, commissioned and empowered by God’s own Spirit, Jesus acts with divine authority.

15. The label blasphemy ( blasphēmia) concerns impious disrespect shown to God (or another deity in the Greco-Roman world) or speech defaming another person (as in Luke 22:65, with the cognate verb); see BDAG 178. In 12:10 “blaspheming” is synonymous with “speaking a word against.” In 5:21 the implication appears to be that one who presumes to forgive sin has diminished God’s honor by usurping divine prerogative. The category of blasphemy was not clear-cut in firstcentury Judaism or the wider Greco-Roman world; the ambiguity involved in determining what counts as irreverent disrespect meant that blasphemy was in the eye of the beholder, or rather, the ear of the listener.

This is also authentic human action, expressing authority belonging to the “Son of Humanity” (note the similar move regarding Sabbath observance in 6:5). Later in the Gospel, the role of Son of Humanity will join the motif of rejection by human authority to that of vindication by God (e.g., 9:22, 44; 17:25; 22:69). For the present, the issue of contested authority focuses attention on the liberation that Jesus brings by addressing the reality of human sin with the divine grace of forgiveness. A central concern of the rest of the Gospel (realizing the promise of 1:77) is thus now in play (see 5:17–26; 7:36–50; 11:4; 17:3–4; 23:34; 24:47; cf. 5:27–32; 15:1–32). It will become increasingly clear how important forgiveness is to Jesus—and how strenuously critics protest his practice of mercy.

Healing occurs “immediately” with Jesus’ second command to the paralyzed man: “Get up, take your stretcher, and go to your house” (v. 24). Proof of healing comes when the man does what Jesus has told him to do (v. 25), embellishing those instructions by adding praise of God (a detail missing in Mark 2:1–12), also heard in the response of observers (Luke 5:26). As expected, they express astonishment at the remarkable event, yet also fear (cf. 4:22, 32, 36), but also—sounding a new note—praise (glory: edoxazon) for God. The charge of blasphemy has given way to praise from “all.” What began as a teaching session, then turned into a healing-inspired theological debate, now exhibits the appropriate response to the divine gift of healing: praise for God. Luke’s audience will again witness such a response from healed persons (13:13; 17:15; 18:43) and observers (7:16; 18:43) alike.

Luke 5:17–26 raises a difficult theological question. Since Jesus responds to this man who seeks healing with a declaration of forgiveness of sin, does he thereby imply that the physical disability resulted from sin? (This was a common view of the period, with biblical precedent in, e.g., Deut 28:15, 27–28, 35; Ps 107:17–18; cf. 4QPrNab; b. Ned. 41a; John 9:1–3 explicitly repudiates the notion, as does the book of Job.) The point of the story is to present Jesus’ (contested) authority to enact divine forgiveness in his ministry of release. Still, the question of the interrelationship between healing and forgiveness cannot be dodged. Perhaps it is significant that the declaration of forgiveness does not replace a word effecting healing; for reasons unknown to Luke’s audience, Jesus does address forgiveness as the man’s fundamental need, but he goes on to add the command “Get up and walk” (v. 23). Both disordering conditions—sin and physical disability—require attention. Moreover, for all the emphasis given to restoration of sinners in Luke’s narrative, nowhere else does sin explain a person’s sickness or disability. Rather, Jesus’ acts of healing reverse a disordering of the human condition that is ascribed not to the sin of the one in need of help but to the operation of evil, from which Jesus gives liberation (explicitly affirmed in 13:16). Later Jesus will reject the idea that there is a direct causal relation between sin and calamity (13:1–5).

5:27–39 The Call of the Tax Agent Levi and a Clash of Views at a Celebratory Banquet

The call of Simon to a new vocation of fishing showed that Jesus, far from turning away from a “sinner,” welcomes such a person into his company and work. The healing of a paralyzed man then drew an explicit connection between sin and Jesus’ authority to bring forgiveness, a point only implied in the call of Simon. The episode centering on the tax collector Levi now explores at greater depth the interaction between Jesus’ call to discipleship and his embrace of sinners—and again highlights the criticism that Jesus’ conduct elicits. The new praxis of God’s reign does not mix well with conventional ways of ordering the community’s life.

27 After this [Jesus] went out, and he saw a tax collector named Levi sitting at his tollbooth, and he said to him, “Follow me.” 28 And leaving everything behind, he got up and started following him. 29 Levi gave a great banquet for him in his house, and there was a large crowd of tax collectors and others who were reclining at table with them. 30 The Pharisees and their scribes were grumbling to his disciples: “Why are you eating and drinking with tax collectors and sinners?” 31 Jesus responded to them, “Not the healthy but those who are sick have need for a doctor. 32 I have not come to call righteous people to repentance, but sinners.”

33 Then they said to him, “John’s disciples often fast and offer prayers, and so do the Pharisees’ [disciples], but yours eat and drink.” 34 Jesus said to them, “You can’t make the sons of the bridegroom fast while the bridegroom is with them, right? 35 Days are coming, though, and when the bridegroom is taken away from them, then, in those days, they will fast.”

36 And he also told them a parable: “No one tears a patch from a new garment and puts it on an old garment; otherwise one will have torn the new [garment], and also the patch from the new will not fit with the old. 37 And no one puts new wine into old wineskins; otherwise the new wine will burst the wineskins, and it will be poured out, and the wineskins will be ruined as well. 38 No, new wine is to be put into new wineskins. 39 Still, after drinking old [wine] no one desires new [wine]. Indeed, one says, ‘The old is just fine.’”

[27–32] Tax collectors had flocked to John the Baptizer and heard his admonition to honest and just business dealings (3:12–13). Now Jesus, seeing a tax collector named Levi at his tollbooth, summons him to “follow me,” and the man begins to follow (5:27–28). Only Luke adds the detail that he “left everything,” as Simon and his partners had done (cf. 5:11). In this Gospel discipleship requires a radical response that includes renunciation of wealth (see the comment on 5:8–11). Yet the picture is more complex, for Levi ventures from his tax station to his house and there hosts a festive banquet attended by a large crowd of tax-collector peers and others (v.29). Apparently “leaving everything” does not necessarily rule out continuing connection to household and further expressions of generosity. Levi is clear about one thing: joyous celebration is a fitting response to a life changed because of an unexpected invitation into the company of Jesus. This is, it turns out, paradigmatic for Jesus’ ministry (e.g., 7:34; 15:1–2, 6, 9, 23–24). Symbol of participation in the realm of God, meals also become the occasion for conflict between Jesus and Pharisees (7:36–50; 11:37–52; 14:1–24).

Tax collectors and others: among the “others” present at Levi’s banquet, we learn in 5:30–31, are Pharisees and their scribes, disciples of Jesus, and Jesus himself. The disciples (mathētai, learners) make their first appearance in this scene. As the narrative unfolds, this group gathers in increasing numbers around Jesus as teacher (e.g., 6:17). Jesus will select and commission twelve of them for a special leadership role as apostles (apostoloi, lit. “sent ones”; 6:13–16; cf. 9:1–6), and then dispatch a larger group of seventy-two for a mission tour (10:1–20). In Mark 2:15 and Matt 9:10 the narrator places tax collectors and sinners at the banquet, but Luke has the Pharisees and their scribes label the dinner crowd “tax collectors and sinners”—surely they mean tax collectors and other sinners like them (v. 30; cf. 18:11, 13). Again in 7:39 a Pharisee will fault Jesus for letting a sinner draw close to him, though this time after the narrator has characterized her as a sinner (7:37). The inversion of sinner and righteous in the company of Jesus is underway, and the meal setting becomes a central symbol of this reversal of social position.

Luke heightens the Pharisees’ reaction: they murmur ( egongyzon, 5:30; cf. the similar response by the crowd when another tax collector entertains Jesus in his house [19:7]). They direct their complaint to the disciples, not to Jesus: “Why are you [plural] eating and drinking with tax collectors and sinners?” Returning to the physician metaphor from his Nazareth discourse, Jesus states the obvious: it is sick people, not the healthy, who need the services of a physician (v.31). He then builds on the correlation drawn in 5:17–26 between sickness and sin, healing and forgiveness, comparing his own role to that of a doctor. Just as doctors tend to the sick, Jesus calls sinners, not righteous people, who apparently do not require his services (v. 32)—though the question of exactly who stands in right relation to God, and who needs the intervention of a physician (i.e., forgiveness), will be the subject of provocative reflection before the story is over (e.g., 7:36–50; 15:1–32; 18:9–14). So far in the narrative, it is not the protesting Pharisees but sinners whose lives change as they answer the call into Jesus’ company (Simon and Levi) who model right response to God. Only the sick need a doctor, to be sure, but eventually everyone becomes ill. Jesus’ mission is to sinners, but eventually encounter with God’s Holy One should help everyone to see their need for repentance. So Jesus calls sinful human beings as sinners into God’s work, but not to continue life as before. They are called to a transformed life, to repentance (metanoia), a phrase Luke has added to this saying (cf. Mark 2:17).

The call of Levi and the celebratory banquet at his house is a scene crowded not only with sinners—ironically including the Pharisees, who are so free to use this label of others—but also with a host of themes central to Luke’s narrative: the call to follow Jesus as detachment from possessions; Jesus’ embrace of sinners, expressed symbolically in the intimacy of shared meals; the radical life transformation, or repentance, that ensues; and the indignant protest of Pharisees and specialists in the interpretation of the Torah aligned with them.

With the climactic saying of v. 32 (“I have not come to call righteous persons to repentance, but sinners”), Jesus reinforces previous announcements of his mission. As he continues his ministry, Luke’s audience discovers that the characterization of Jesus’ aims in 5:32 is, though compact, another programmatic statement (cf. 4:16–27, 43). The concluding pronouncement does not close the episode, however; Levi’s banquet is also the setting for parabolic teaching that comments on the evident resistance of teachers of the law to Jesus’ new vision of God’s household.

[33–35] Talk of sin and repentance prompts some of the banquet guests (an unspecified “they”) to broach a related topic of religious practice: fasting. John may be in prison (3:20), but he still has disciples (i.e., students who adhere to his teaching), and it is evidently well known that they, like their teacher (cf. 7:33), engage in the regular discipline of fasting and prayer, something the adherents of Pharisaic teaching do as well (5:33, though the expression “[disciples] of the Pharisees” is odd, as some but not all Pharisees would be “teachers” [rabbis];16 cf. the portrait of an exemplary Pharisee who fasts twice weekly, 18:12). Fasting—intentional avoidance of food and drink, typically accompanied by prayer (a detail only Luke adds)—could carry various meanings, most commonly as a penitential act (e.g., Lev 16:31; Jonah 3:5), as an expression of mourning (e.g., 2 Sam 1:12; 3:35), or as preparation for revelation (e.g., exod 34:28; 2 Bar. 12:5; 21:1–3; 4 Ezra 5.13, 20; 6.31, 35). Fasting may be an accepted religious practice (and is mandatory on the Day of Atonement [Lev 16:29–31; 23:27– 32]), but even though Jesus has barely begun to recruit followers, they have already won attention for their distinctive practices of piety. Rather than fasting, they “eat and drink”—the very behavior criticized in Luke 5:30. (In Mark 2:18 the query observes that the disciples do not fast, but Luke has framed their practice in positive terms that link this unit more closely to the previous one.)

16. With the unusual phrasing in 5:33, however, the narrator is able to construct a debate about an important religious practice among three sets of disciples who receive instruction from rival teachers (or groups): John, Pharisees, and Jesus.

John and his followers fast often, a point Jesus later recalls in a retrospective on John’s ministry. John’s practice of piety differs markedly from that of Jesus, who “came eating and drinking” while the Baptizer refrained from both food and wine (Luke 7:33–34; cf. 1:15). Jesus’ disciples emulate their teacher, eating and drinking as he does, and so the festive meal at Levi’s house is an apt moment to probe the motives of Jesus’ disciples and implicitly, therefore, of their teacher.

Jesus replies with an image drawn from a different social practice, the wedding: “You can’t make the sons of the bridegroom fast while the bridegroom is with them, right?” (5:34). “Sons of the bridegroom” are members of the wedding party, and no one would dispute that their close relationship with the man who is being married means that they share his joy. It would be absurd for them to fast at such a time. Israel’s prophetic Scriptures employ the image of bridegroom to affirm God’s intimate, enduring relationship to the people of God, or as a symbol of eschatological visitation (Isa 54:5–6; 62:4–5; Jer 2:2; cf. Matt 22:1–10; Rev 19:9–10; 21:2, 9). The implication here is that Jesus is the bridegroom, and so his presence is to be marked by celebratory meals such as the one at Levi’s house. The day will come, however, when the bridegroom “is taken away”—forcibly removed—and then will be a time to mourn, time for the austere discipline of fasting. Here Jesus gives a first—oblique yet poignantly clear—preview of his coming death. Although the query mentions fasting and prayer (cf. the later reference to John’s teaching of prayer to his disciples [11:1]), Jesus’ answer only discusses fasting. Praying is another matter; Jesus regularly prays, and he will both instruct his disciples on the appropriate content of prayer (11:2–4) and urge them to pray in time of peril (22:40, 46).

Jesus’ answer to the question about fasting (and prayer), while setting aside for the time being the matter of prayer, rejects neither practice. After all, Jesus himself fasted in his own moment of vocational discernment (4:2). But now is no time for fasting. Timing has much to do with the appropriateness of religious expression. Nevertheless, in a surprising twist illustrated already by Levi’s banquet, Jesus will link even repentance to festive celebration rather than fasting (15:6–7, 9–10, 21–24). Jesus apparently associates fasting not with penitence but only with mourning. Such a view may well trouble advocates of a more conventional, and austere, penitential piety. More familiar forms of piety are surely preferable. Jesus will respond to such concerns with the next piece of parabolic teaching.

[36–39 ] Jesus intensifies the contrast between old and new ways in two miniparables, which only Luke introduces as “parable” (v. 36), that is, as a brief narrative set alongside a reality that it illuminates (here, compact story-like images that function as metaphors). each miniparable imagines a hypothetical situation that common sense recognizes as unthinkable. Nobody would be foolish enough to tear a patch from a new garment so as to mend an old one, for that would result in the ruin of a new garment and a poor fit between patch and old garment (v. 37). Shifting to a subject that is especially suited to the banquet setting—wine storage—Jesus scores much the same point. Nobody would be foolish enough to store new wine in an old wineskin: to do so would result in the ruin of the wineskin and the loss of the wine (v. 38). Both new and old come to ruin if one tries to mix them.

Staying with the image of wine, Jesus (only in Luke) adds a saying about inertia, resistance to change and innovation. One who tastes aged wine has no interest in drinking new wine (v. 39). The meaning of this saying is elusive. Does Jesus commend this posture? Should one stay with the old and reject the new? Or, on the contrary, does Jesus offer an ironic critique of the view expressed? Stubbornly clinging to the old, one fails to see the value of the new and therefore misses what God is doing. In context, the saying does seem to have ironic force. Jesus employs the metaphors of patched garment and wineskin to assert that old and new ways are incompatible, and this serves as his commentary on a debate sparked by his distinctive approach to fasting, celebratory meals, and penitence. Conflict between Jesus’ vision and practice of the reign of God and the more conventional forms advocated by Pharisees and Torah experts is still in its early stages, but it will intensify, and ultimately elite temple priests will also stand against Jesus as a corrupting teacher (23:2–5).

Yet it would be a mistake to regard the conflict, as Luke narrates it, as a matter of innovation attempted by Jesus and being rejected by guardians of the established Jewish tradition. Despite the clash now beginning between Jesus and other interpreters of the religious tradition, the innovative praxis of Jesus’ ministry does not spurn but instead honors and enlivens that ancient tradition (in part, at least, the point of 16:16–31). Luke’s audience will not have so quickly forgotten the lesson of the birth and infancy narrative, which presented the emergence of John and Jesus in Israel as the fulfillment of ancient promises. Those who cling to old ways and so resist what Jesus is doing may think that they are honoring the God of Scripture and Torah, but appearances can deceive. The next passage focuses the question of faithfulness to the Torah by presenting two stories of conflict over the meaning and proper observance of the Sabbath commandment.

6:1–11 Sabbath Conflicts

The two distinct scenes of 6:1–11 form one narrative unit; each is set on a Sabbath day, each probes the range of acceptable conduct on the Sabbath, and each features conflict between Jesus and Pharisees over proper interpretation and observance of the Torah. How does one rightly “remember the sabbath day, and keep it holy” (Exod 20:8; cf. Deut 5:12)? Does Jesus, who has recently spoken about the incompatibility of new and old, advocate adherence to the law of Moses? By the end of the second Sabbath encounter, Jesus’ critics are no longer warily observing him but ragefully discussing what they should do to him.

1 Now it happened, one Sabbath, that [Jesus] was passing through grainfields, and his disciples were plucking the heads of the wheat and eating, after rubbing them with their hands. 2 But some of the Pharisees said, “Why are you doing what isn’t allowed on the Sabbath?” 3 Jesus answered them, “Haven’t you ever read what David did, when he was hungry, along with those who were with him, 4 how he went into the house of God and, taking the bread of the Presence, ate [some] and gave to those who were with him—bread that it is not permitted anyone but the priests to eat?” 5 And he said to them, “The Son of Humanity is sovereign over the Sabbath.”a

6 On another Sabbath it happened that he entered the synagogue and taught. And a man was there whose right hand was withered. 7 So the scribes and Pharisees were observing him, [to see] whether he would heal on the Sabbath, so that they might find reason to accuse him. 8 However, he was aware of their thoughts, and he said to the man who had the withered hand, “Get up, and stand in the center [of the assembly].” He got up and stood. 9 Jesus said to them, “I ask you whether it is permitted to do what is good on the Sabbath or to do what is bad, to save life or to destroy.” 10 After looking around at them all, he said to [the man], “Stretch out your hand.” He did, and his hand was restored. 11 They were filled with rage and began to discuss with one another what they might do to Jesus.

a. Or “Lord [kyrios] of the Sabbath.”

[1–5] This first of two successive Sabbath-day conflict stories places Jesus outside the towns where he has been active so far; while the disciples walk through the grainfields, they pluck wheat (or possibly barley) and eat it (v. 1). Only Luke provides the detail that they are rubbing the heads of grain in their hands (to separate the edible portion from the chaff), conduct that conforms to Deut 23:26 (25e), except for the problem that it is the Sabbath (the journey itself does not surface as problematic in the passage). They are not alone in the fields, however, but in the company of Pharisees, some of whom point out the disciples’ violation of the Sabbath command (v. 2, presumably referring to the Sabbath harvesting prohibition in exod 34:21). As in Luke 5:30–31, Pharisees are criticizing the actions of the disciples, but it is Jesus who answers. This time, however, the complaint is more direct, addressed to Jesus rather than the disciples. Pharisees, in some cases in concert with teachers of the law or scribes, figure in each conflict story of 5:17–6:11, and the confrontations are escalating, the conflict intensifying.

Refraining from any work on the Sabbath, along with keeping the food laws (kašrût, kosher), was one of the distinguishing marks of Jewish life. To grow up within a Jewish community, as Jesus did, meant keeping the Sabbath, and Luke has already noted Jesus’ custom of spending Sabbath in a synagogue (4:16). The fourth commandment of the Decalogue, prohibiting work on the Sabbath (Exod 20:8–11; Deut 5:12–15), specifies who may not work but not what exactly counts as “work.” It is not surprising, therefore, that Jewish texts attest to a continuing debate over the range of acceptable (and unacceptable) behavior on the Sabbath (e.g., Jub. 2.29–30; 50.6–13; CD 10.14–12.5; m. Šabb.7:2). What constitutes work that would profane this holy day? Luke 6:1–11, along with several later pericopes, locates Jesus in the heart of Jewish intellectual and religious life. Debate over legitimate interpretation of the Torah and practices that express fidelity to it (e.g., approved actions on the Sabbath) was the norm in Judaism.17

Jesus’ defense of his disciples’ Sabbath-day behavior appeals to Scripture. Jesus, in the company of his disciples, recalls an incident in which king David “and those who were with him” (vv. 3, 4, repeating the phrase for emphasis) ate bread when they were hungry, in seeming violation of the law of Moses (1 Sam 21:1–6). David conscripted “bread [loaves] of the Presence”—consecrated for use by the temple priests alone (Lev 24:5–9)—and ate some and gave the rest to his companions. Luke does not name hunger as the disciples’ motive, but the hunger of David and the others (Luke 6:3) implies such a motivation. (Leviticus 19:9–10 stipulates that when a field is harvested a portion of the crop should remain unpicked so that the hungry poor may eat, but there is no mention there of the Sabbath, nor here of a harvest.)

There are intriguing differences between the biblical precedent and the contemporary event Jesus links to it. David’s act did not occur on the Sabbath; therefore Jesus invokes the example of David to address a general principle of Torah observance, not just Sabbath keeping. Moreover, the story in 1 Samuel accents David’s initiative and action in eating (he “gave to those who were with him,” Luke 6:4), while it is the disciples, not Jesus, who are plucking grain and eating. The focus on the figure of David makes sense, however, given the point that Jesus makes in his climactic pronouncement: “The Son of Humanity is sovereign over [or Lord of] the Sabbath” (v. 5). So far in the narrative the identification of Jesus as the Son of Humanity, though indirect, has been clear (cf. 5:24), and the link forged here between Jesus and David highlights the regal authority each possesses. The connection is scarcely arbitrary in the mouth of one who has been introduced to Luke’s audience as the long-awaited descendant of David who would occupy king David’s throne (1:32–33). Whatever the meaning of the Sabbath command, and whatever faithful observance of it looks like, this story emphasizes the authority of Jesus, who as the Son of Humanity acts in mercy toward human beings (also 5:24), in this case his disciples. In this and the following story, Jesus is not commending abrogation of the law of Moses but Torah keeping that expresses compassionate mercy for others. Because Jesus’ sovereignty extends to the Sabbath day, it too is to be a day for mercy. In the person of David, Scripture itself provides the precedent.

17. E. P. Sanders emphasizes the implausibility of the Gospel conflict stories centering on Sabbath observance. For example, “Pharisees did not organize themselves into groups to spend their Sabbaths in Galilean cornfields in the hope of catching someone transgressing” (Jesus and Judaism 265). Sanders argues that the prominence of Sabbath controversies in the Gospels reflects the situation of later Gentile churches rather than actual conflict between Jesus and the Pharisees (264–65).

[6–11] The scene shifts to a synagogue for another teaching session on the Sabbath (v. 6; only Luke states that Jesus is teaching). Previously Jesus has healed a man (i.e., expelled a demon tormenting him) in a synagogue on the Sabbath, without fielding criticism (4:33–37). Now, while Jesus is teaching, both he and the (scribes and) Pharisees become aware of the presence of a man whose right hand is withered (6:6; only Luke specifies “right” hand). The Pharisees and scribes are interested—indeed, hostile—observers. They are seeking some basis for an accusation against Jesus, and a Sabbath-day healing would suffice (v. 7). Once again displaying extraordinary prophetic discernment, Jesus reads their thoughts and confronts them directly, instructing the man to stand up in the midst of the gathered people (v. 8).

Before healing the man, Jesus brings the conflict over Scripture interpretation out into the open. He poses a question: “I ask you whether it is permitted to do what is good on the Sabbath or to do what is bad, to save life or to destroy” (v. 9) Not waiting for a response, Jesus looks around at “them all” (v. 10; Luke adds “all” and also omits “with anger” from Mark 3:5—the strong emotion in this story belongs to Jesus’ opponents) and, taking up their challenge, directs the man to stretch out his hand. When he does so, his hand is “restored.” As in the Sabbath-day exorcism, Jesus heals without touching the man; only his word is needed (cf. 4:35). Speaking a sentence on the Sabbath is not proscribed, nor is extending one’s hand; the charge that Jesus fails to honor the Sabbath is thus shown to be ludicrous.

He has reframed the issue, however, in a way that does not permit one to appeal to the Sabbath command as a way to escape the requirement of mercy and justice. Jesus’ rhetorical question permits only one right answer: by one’s action on the Sabbath (or any other day, for that matter), one either does what is good or does what is bad; inaction, without consequence, is not an option. To do nothing, when mercy is necessary, is to do harm. Similarly, on the Sabbath day (or any other day), one will act in a way that either saves life or brings ruin; inaction, without consequence, is not an option. Jesus—bearer of salvation to God’s people, whose ministry offers release in the form of exorcism, forgiveness, and healing—chooses to save life on each day of the week, whenever the need presents itself. Life shaped by such a commitment honors the Torah in the deepest way because it takes the command seriously and seeks above all else mercy and justice (cf. 10:25–37; 11:42; 16:16–31).

The response of witnesses to this healing—and to the accumulating controversial actions and words of Jesus—may be more temperate than in Mark, where Jesus’ adversaries already begin to plot his death at the end of the passage (3:6; also Matt 12:14). Nevertheless, following as it does Jesus’ reframing of Sabbath keeping in terms of mercy and justice, the reaction of scribes and Pharisees (anoia, “out-of-their-mind rage”) shows that they are willing to settle for a form of Torah observance that may lead to harm and ruin rather than to the deliverance that God intends. From now on, Jesus’ activities on the Sabbath will be carefully scrutinized. Jesus’ acts of healing on the Sabbath will continue to spark intense conflict and highlight divergent understandings of Scripture and of fidelity to the Torah as held by Jesus and by other teachers (Luke 13:11–17; 14:1–6). So far the principle that appears to guide Jesus’ approach to the Sabbath is that an act of mercy is never out of season. By doing justice and mercy, one is faithful to God, from whom the Sabbath comes to humanity as a gift.18

6:12–49 Jesus Names Apostles and Teaches Disciples

Jesus’ ministry of liberation—from sickness, demonic control, and sin—is underway, and his reputation has spread throughout Galilee, reaching Judea and even Jerusalem (5:17). While large crowds flock to Jesus to listen to his message and receive healing, Pharisees and other teachers are increasingly critical of Jesus’ views and actions, and of the conduct of his disciples. He has begun to recruit followers, although only four have been named (Simon, James, John, and Levi); as a collective group they have been accompanying Jesus quietly, the promise of a significant mission in “catching people alive” (5:10) as yet unfulfilled. The preparation of the disciples for their mission now becomes the focus of attention; Jesus chooses twelve for a special role as apostles. In his most expansive statement thus far, Jesus shows the disciples—and Luke’s audience— what the life of a disciple looks like in that world ruled by God, into which he is inviting the disciples and through them will soon invite many others.

18. Although Luke does not include the saying in Mark 2:27 that promotes this view: “The Sabbath was made for the sake of people [lit., the human being], not people [lit., the human being] for the sake of the Sabbath” (AT).

6:12–16 Jesus Chooses Twelve Apostles

On the verge of a momentous decision—the selection of twelve apostles—and a major discourse that will form them and the rest of the disciples as people of God’s realm, Jesus again withdraws, seeking direction through prayer on “the mountain.” He then proceeds to choose the apostles; the list of names unsurprisingly begins with the first disciple Jesus has called, Simon, but ends on a disturbing note: one apostle will become a traitor. Not even decisions guided by prayer come with the guarantee of a happy outcome; deadly opposition to the purposes of God will emerge within the company of Jesus’ closest followers.

12 During that time,a it happened that [Jesus] went away to the mountain to pray, and he spent the night in prayer to God. 13 When day came, he summoned his disciples, and after choosing twelve of them, he also named them apostles: 14 Simon, whom he also named Peter, and his brother Andrew; also James and John, Philip and Bartholomew, 15 Matthew and Thomas, James the son of Alphaeus and Simon who was called zealot, 16 as well as Judas the son of James and Judas Iscariot—who became a traitor.

a. Literally, “in those days.”

[12–16] A vague temporal marker (“in those days”) ties the selection of twelve apostles to the preceding stories of healing and conflict. Jesus does not reach this decision on his own: he seeks divine guidance in an all-night prayer session, mentioned only by Luke (v. 12). This is a familiar rhythm of Jesus’ ministry, although here Jesus withdraws not to the desert (or isolated places, as in 4:42; 5:16) but to a mountain, literally “the mountain,” with the article in Greek perhaps pointing to a well-known mountain in that region (despite the lack, otherwise, of geographical details). The mountain setting has rich symbolic meaning, and not just as a generic location for contact with the divine and divine disclosure. Moses received divine revelation on the mountain (Sinai) and then descended to the base of the mountain to impart that revelation to the people (e.g., exod 19:3, 14, 20, 25). Also on a mountain, Jesus receives God’s guidance, selects twelve apostles, and then descends with them to the plain, where he teaches a large crowd of disciples and the rest of the people (Luke 6:17). As Moses showed the people what God required of them as covenant partners, Jesus will now show what God requires of all who, in Jesus’ company, would be people of God’s realm. Luke’s audience will revisit the mountain setting as the space for prayer and revelation (9:28–36; 22:39–53).

Jesus summons the disciples and singles out twelve of them (only in Luke does he explicitly “choose” them), giving them the name and therefore the role of “apostle,” apostolos, one commissioned and sent (6:13). With the exception of Acts 14, which designates Paul and Barnabas as apostles (vv. 4, 14), Luke restricts the use of the term to the twelve specially chosen by Jesus (for Judas’s replacement by the “Lord” [kyrios], again in answer to prayer, see Acts 1:24–26), who play a particular role in the narrative as witnesses to Jesus and as leaders of the restored Israel (see, e.g., Luke 22:28–30; 24:48; Acts 1:21–22). This is the significance of the number twelve: Jesus brings his message and the claim of God’s sovereign rule to the whole people Israel (twelve tribes). Promises of restoration for Israel, evoked by the inspired messages of Luke 1–2, have not been forgotten.

Simon and his brother Andrew and the brothers James and John head the list of the Twelve, as they do in Mark 3:16–18 and Matt 10:2. (Andrew, a nonactor in the rest of the narrative, comes fourth in Mark and also in Acts 1:13, but second in Matthew and Luke, paired with his more famous sibling.) While the lists in the three Synoptic Gospels (Mark 3:16–19; Matt 10:2–4; Luke 6:14–16) show some variation, the first nine names are the same in each case: Simon (Peter), Andrew, James (son of Zebedee), his brother John, Philip, Bartholomew, Matthew, Thomas, and Simon (son of Alphaeus). (Matthew inverts the names Matthew and Thomas.) Judas Iscariot concludes each list. Only Luke includes a second man named Judas (or Judah), and he omits Thaddeus. A second Simon appears in all three Gospels, but only Luke labels him a “zealot” (he is Simon “the Cananean” in Mark 3:18; Matt 10:4). Luke does not explain this epithet, but his audience looks back on the Zealot movement of the mid-60s C.E. that fomented rebellion in Judea and Jerusalem (see, e.g., Josephus, J.W. 2.8.1; Ant. 18.1.1, 6), resulting in catastrophic destruction to temple, city, and land. On the other hand, Paul is a self-described “zealot for God,” according to Acts 22:3, and Simon, too, may be remembered for his religious zeal rather than his revolutionary leanings. Luke leaves this as a gap to be filled by the reader.

The presence of a “zealot” in the apostolic band does fit with the subtly subversive approach to Roman power already encountered in Luke 1–2. Mary’s Song (1:46–55) expresses a prophet’s vision of social revolution, yet Mary and Joseph heed Caesar’s edict (see the comment on the census in 2:1–3). Heaven acclaims Jesus, not Caesar, as Lord (2:11), yet Acts later distances Jesus’ movement from popular rebel uprisings (see 5:34–39; 21:37–40). Moreover, Roman centurions are favorably depicted in Luke–Acts (e.g., Luke 7:1–10; Acts 10:1–48), and Jesus offers no violent resistance to his arrest (Luke 22:47–53). As Jesus first assembles his circle of apostles, however, the inclusion of “Simon called zealot” leaves the question open, for the present: How will the authority of the Messiah Jesus, who has been sent to announce the good news of God’s reign (4:43), confront Roman rule? And what does it say about Jesus’ vision of God’s realm—since the selection of apostles follows prayer to God, this is, for Luke, a statement about God’s purpose as well—that Jesus embraces both tax agents who cooperate with Roman rule and a man whose zeal may strenuously oppose Rome?

The variation in names in Luke, though limited, suggests that the identity of the individuals is less important than the fact that Jesus chooses twelve. Only a few of the apostles reappear in the narrative as individuals. Simon Peter is foremost among them but often represents the larger group (see the comment on 5:8–11). The narrator reports that Jesus gave Simon the name Peter but does not explain the meaning of the name (Petros, “Rocky”), though Jesus will soon picture those who obey his word as building on a foundation of rock (petra, 6:48). John and James, Zebedee’s sons (Luke has already identified their father in 5:10 and does not repeat that detail here), have some prominence in the rest of the story (9:49, 54; in Peter’s company, 8:51 and 9:28; John with Peter, 22:8 and Acts 3:1–11; 4:13–22; 8:14; and James’s martyrdom, Acts 12:2). The terse narrator’s aside with which the unit closes anticipates the fateful role assigned to Judas Iscariot, “who became a traitor”: the aorist tense here reports an event, yet to be narrated, that lies in the author’s past. Not only the people Israel but also Jesus’ inner circle of apostles will divide in response to his ministry. Luke’s audience probably knows this part of the story already, so it is not a startling disclosure, but it casts an ominous shadow over the promising commencement of Jesus’ ministry. The choosing of the twelve apostles is framed in a way that highlights the tensive interaction between the divine purposefulness of Jesus’ activity (his prayer to God on the mountain) and the threat posed by adversaries (Judas’s anticipated treachery). Later it will become evident that the conflict is cosmic in scale: Judas will become traitor because of the malevolent working of Satan (22:3).

unlike Mark and Matthew, Luke does not yet describe the task for which the twelve apostles have been singled out. (In Mark 3:14–15 they are to be with Jesus, preach, and have authority to exorcise; in Matt 10:1 they receive authority to exorcise and heal.) They must first gain an education in the way of life required of those who would call Jesus “Lord” (6:20–49). They will also continue to watch Jesus enact the mercy he preaches as he encounters sinful and sick people, before they are ready to be dispatched as his representatives in mission to Israel (9:1–6; among the seventy-two in 10:1–20). Virtually all their work as witnesses, preachers, and healers, however, must wait until Acts.

6:17–49 Jesus Forms a Receptive Audience as a People of God’s Realm

Accompanied by his freshly minted apostles, Jesus descends to the plain, where an immense throng of disciples and others has assembled to hear him and to seek healing. He obliges. In his longest speech so far, he shows present and potential disciples, and those who would lead them, what God’s gracious mercy requires of all who would follow Jesus. God’s mercy will wear a human face in their company.

17 [Jesus] went down with them and stood on a level place, along with a large crowd of his disciples and a great multitude of the people from all Judea and Jerusalem and from the coastal area of Tyre and Sidon, 18 who had come to listen to him and to be healed of their sicknesses. Moreover, those who were troubled by unclean spirits were being healed, 19 and all the crowd was seeking to touch him, for power was with him, and he was healing everyone.

20 Lifting his eyes toward his disciples, he said:

“Blessed are the poor,

for God’s realm belongs to you. 21 “Blessed are the ones who are hungry now, for you will be satisfied.

“Blessed are the ones who weep now, for you will laugh.

22 “Blessed are you whenever people hate you, and when they exclude you and mock you and cast your name out as evil because of the Son of Humanity. 23 Rejoice in that day, and leap [for joy], for behold, your reward in heaven will be great; for their ancestors used to treat the prophets in the same way.

24 “But woe to you who are wealthy,

for you have received your consolation.

25 “Woe to you who are now full,

for you will hunger.

“Woe to youa who laugh now,

for you will weep and mourn.

26 “Woe whenever all people speak well of you,

for their ancestors used to treat the false prophets in the same way.

27 “Nevertheless, I say to you who are listening: Love your enemies; treat well those who hate you; 28 bless those who are cursing you; pray for those who are mistreating you. 29 To the one who strikes you on the cheek,b present the other too, and do not hold your shirt back from the one who takes your coat. 30 keep giving to the one who asks of you, and do not ask for your things from the one who has taken [them].

31 “Treat people in just the way you want them to treat you.c 32 If you love those who love you, what sort of creditd is there for you? even sinners love those who love them. 33 And if you treat well those who treat you well, what sort of credit is there for you? even sinners do the same thing. 34 And if you lend [to those] from whom you hope to receive, what sort of credit is there for you? even sinners lend to sinners so that they may receive the same back. 35 No, instead love your enemies and treat [them] well, and lend without hoping for anything back, and your reward will be great; you will be childrene of the Most High, for [God] is kind to the ungrateful and wicked. 36 Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful.

37 “Moreover, do not judge; then you will surely not be judged.f And do not condemn; then you will surely not be condemned. Pardon, and you will be pardoned. 38 Give, and it will be given to you: they will put in your lapg a good measure, pressed down, shaken, overflowing. For with the measure with which you measure out, it will be measured out for you in return.”

39 And he also told them a parable: “Can a blind person guide a[nother] blind person? Won’t both of them fall into a pit? 40 A disciple is not above the teacher, but when trained everyone will be like their teacher.

41 “And why do you see the speck in your brother’sh eye but you do not notice the beam in your own eye? 42 How can you say to your brother, ‘Brother, let me remove the speck in your eye,’ when you do not yourself see the beam in your eye? Hypocrite! First remove the beam from your eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck in your brother’s eye.

43 “For there is no good tree that produces rotten fruit, nor again [is there] a badi tree that produces good fruit. 44 Indeed, each tree is known by its own fruit; for they don’t gather figs from thorn-plants, and they don’t pick a bunch of grapes from a thornbush. 45 The good person, out of the good treasure of the heart, brings forth what is good, but the evil person, out of the evil [treasure of the heart],j brings forth what is evil. For one’s mouth speaks from what fills the heart.k

46 “Why do you call me ‘Lord, Lord’ and don’t do what I say? 47 All who come to me and hear my words and do them—I’ll show you what they are like: 48 they are like a man building a house who dug down deepl and set the foundation on the rock; so when a flood came, the torrent of water burst upon that house but was not strong enough to shake it, because it had been built well. 49 But the one who has heard yet does not do is like a man who built a house on the soil without any foundation; the torrent of water burst upon [the house], and it collapsed at once. The ruin of that house was great.”

a. Reading hymin (you), with ∏75 A D, although the pronoun is missing in many Mss, including א and B, and this might be preferred as the more difficult reading. Unlike the first three beatitudes (vv. 20b–21), each of which addresses auditors by means of second-plural verbs in the second line of the couplet, the first three woes (vv. 24–25) address the readers with the pronoun “you” in the first line. This literary pattern tips the balance in favor of the inclusion of hymin.

b. The original hand of Sinaiticus (א) inserts “right” ( dexian) before “cheek,” thereby intensifying the action as expressing dishonor to the one slapped (with the back of the hand). This variant, not widely attested in the Ms tradition, was likely a scribal interpolation to conform Luke’s text to Matt 5:39.

c. The majority of Mss (among them the uncials א A D) include the phrase “you too [or also]” (kai hymeis), so that the verse would read, lit., “And just as you wish that people would do to you, you too do likewise to them.” Again, this is best explained as a scribal interpolation, conforming Luke’s version of Jesus’ saying to the Matthean parallel (Matt 7:12).

d. The word translated “credit” here, and again in vv. 33–34, is charis, which carries the meaning “(gracious) favor” in 1:30; 2:52 (cf. 4:22). The presence of misthos (reward) in 6:35 suggests the nuance of credit in vv. 32–34: what credit will come to a person who is kind only to those from whom comparable treatment is forthcoming? This is the sense in the Matt 5:46, which employs misthos rather than charis. Nevertheless, the nuance of gracious, gift-like favor is also at play in Luke 6:32–34, for the point of this section of the sermon is that interactions are not to be controlled by balanced reciprocity but should instead express a grace and kindness that go beyond reciprocal exchange (Green 273–74; Johnson 109; Moxnes, Economy 133–34). Thus the meaning is, “What manner of gracious favor from you is there [in that]?” (a rhetorical question whose answer is “none at all”).

e. Literally, “sons” ( huioi).

f. Twice in v. 37 a few textual witnesses (including D, W, and in the first instance A as well) replace kai ou (“and not”)—part of an emphatic future negation—with the

conjunction hina, converting each phrase into a (negative) purpose clause: “[And do

not judge,] so that you may not be judged; and do not condemn, so that you may not be

condemned.” Likely scribes have adjusted the text to agree with Matthew’s use of the

purpose clause “so that you may not be judged” (Matt 7:1).

g. Literally, “they will give into your bosom.”

h. Or sister’s; the Greek word is adelphos (brother), but the language here and in v.

42 marks community members as siblings without gender limitation.

i. The same Greek word translated “rotten” earlier in the verse; the antithetical parallelism is precisely formulated: “good tree, bad fruit; bad tree, good fruit.” j. The words placed in brackets are supplied; I take this as an elliptical expression.

early copyists read the text in the same way; witness the large number of Mss that add

the phrase “treasure of his heart” (it is missing from ∏75 א B D L W Ξ f^1). k. Literally, “out of the abundance of the heart” (cf. kJv).

l. Construing the paired verbs eskapsen and ebathynen ([who] dug and went deep)

as hendiadys (one idea conveyed through two words).

[17–19] In Matthew’s corresponding discourse, Jesus teaches from the mountain (Matt 5–7), but Luke has Jesus, like Moses, come down from the mountain to teach the people (v. 17). Jesus does not sit but stands, a posture that suits the setting—level ground and a multitude of listeners—and so does not signal teaching less formal and intentional than in Matt 5:1 (Jesus sits to teach in Luke 4:20; 5:3). The audience is a large crowd of disciples and a whole multitude of the people who have come from all Judea (probably including Galilee, as in 4:44) and Jerusalem, and even from beyond Israel’s borders (Tyre and Sidon, Gentile territory). explaining what God’s realm means for the life of disciples who would adhere to Jesus’ teaching, Jesus undertakes the formation of a people. The restoration of Israel as a people for God, a people of God’s realm with tantalizingly fluid boundaries (Sidon and Tyre, too), is underway, although it remains to be seen how Jesus’ hearers will respond.

The motivation of the crowd is twofold, matching the customary dual activities of Jesus. They are intent on listening to Jesus, whose renown as a teacher continues to grow, and they seek healing (v. 18). Once more the narrator indicates the source of Jesus’ ability to heal: “power was with him, and he was healing everyone” (v. 19). The power for healing comes from God, as the similar formulation in 5:17 indicates, though this is only implicit in 6:19. The correlation between the desire of sick persons to “touch” Jesus and the experience of his “power”—apparently an unseen (divine) energy that flows from Jesus to the one seeking healing—will again find dramatic demonstration in 8:44–47. Although the sick try to touch Jesus, he has been seen to heal both by touch (5:12–14) and by word, without touch (4:33–36, 39). The narrative shows some interest in the mechanism of healing, but more important is its source, the power of God effective in Jesus, as well as its effect, liberation. The passage draws healing and exorcism together under the rubric of healing: “those who were troubled by unclean spirits were being healed” (v. 18; cf. Acts 5:16). Luke’s narrative does not sharply distinguish between exorcism and healing; both represent liberation, release from forces that harm, distort, and constrain human life. But liberation for what kind of life?

[20–26] In a first major address to large crowds of disciples and potential disciples, Jesus sounds chords similar to the ones his hometown synagogue heard as so discordant in the inaugural statement that formally launched his public activity. Again he begins by announcing good news, but it is so only for the poor (cf. 4:18), the hungry, the weeping, the persecuted. The discourse on the plain opens with a strong affirmation of divine grace, in the form of four beatitudes in which Jesus—in part as an ironic reimagining of the present, in part as a confident anticipation of eschatological reversal yet to come^19—declares blessed precisely those whose experience in this world is misfortune through and through (6:20b–23). unlike the Jesus of Matthew, whose sermon (on a mountain) also opens with beatitudes (nine in number: Matt 5:3–12), Jesus in Luke balances four beatitudes with four “woes” that underscore with impressive symmetry the reversal of value and circumstance that attends the saving work of God in the world (6:24–26). To all for whom life in this world brings comfort and prosperity—the rich, those with an abundance of food, those whose days are filled with laughter, those who enjoy public adulation (each the polar opposite of one of the four beatitudes)—Jesus offers no hope for future consolation. Whatever good fortune there is to enjoy has already been exhausted, and no surplus may be expected from God in the future. Again Jesus is speaking in part ironically—blessedness is not exactly as it appears in life—but in part eschatologically. God has already begun to reconfigure things in the world, and the completion of that reversal of fortunes, still to come, is sure.

Who are the “you” whom Jesus calls blessed, or from whom he withholds blessing? The narrator identifies the audience for this discourse with considerable subtlety, initially singling out the disciples (v. 20), but concluding with the observation that Jesus has spoken “all these words in the hearing of the people” (7:1). What is of particular interest to the disciples is of concern to all; all are summoned to live in the world that Jesus pictures here, the “realm of God,” as he puts it in the first line of the discourse.

The beatitude form was common in diverse cultures, among them egyptian, Greek, and Jewish. Within Jewish literature, one finds generous use of the beatitude, or macarism (from the corresponding Greek word makarios), particularly in wisdom and apocalyptic texts (e.g., Prov 8:32–36; eccl 10:17, juxtaposed with the “alas” [ouai, lxx] of v. 16; Sir 25:7–9; Dan 12:12; 2 En. 42.6–12; 52; also Pss 1:1; 128:1–2; Tob 13:14, with contrasting curse in v. 12). Such texts typically celebrate the good fortune of those who lead righteous lives or praise God. Matthew casts the beatitudes in third person, the conventional form (apart from the last beatitude, Matt 5:11, which employs the second person, as in Deut 33:29; Ps 128:2; eccl 10:17). Luke, however, employs a mixed form; for each of the first three beatitudes, the first line opens as if the speech will proceed in the usual third person (the second and third beatitudes add the adverb “now”):

Blessed [are] the poor . . .

Blessed [are] the ones who are hungry now . . . Blessed [are] the ones who weep now . . .

19. Much as in the poetic prayers and hymns of Luke 1–2, esp. in the prophetic oratorios sung by Mary (1:46–55) and Zechariah (1:68–79).

Then Jesus springs a surprise in the second line of each couplet, bringing this message of experience-defying encouragement home to his audience in the second person:

for God’s realm belongs to you. for you will be satisfied.

for you will laugh.

The much wordier fourth beatitude shifts to second-person address throughout (vv. 22–23). The four declarations of woe then stay with this second-person address: “Woe to you . . .” (vv. 24a, 25a, 25b; with some variation in v. 26a).

The woes of vv. 24–26 employ a form drawn from Israel’s prophetic tradition, whereby the prophet either comments on the present miserable state of an unfaithful people or signals the disaster that is coming when divine judgment visits them (e.g., Isa 3:9, 11; 5:8–22; 31:1; 33:1; Jer 4:13; 13:27; ezek 13:3, 18; 16:23; 24:9; Hos 7:13; Amos 5:16, 18; Mic 7:1; see also Num 21:29; 1 Sam 4:7–8; eccl 10:16; Sir 2:12–14; 41:8). The word ouai (woe) reappears ten more times in Luke’s narrative, always in the speech of Jesus, focusing his conflict with other religious leaders and underscoring the division in the people provoked by his activity (10:13; 11:42, 43, 44, 46, 47, 52; 17:1; 21:23; 22:22). Depending on the present circumstance of members of the audience and their response to what they hear, they will find themselves among the “you” who are blessed or the “you” deprived of blessing. The last section of the sermon contrasts two modes of life, divergent responses to Jesus’ words, and to God’s strange work of mercy (esp. 6:43–49). This first major address to a crowd of disciples and potential disciples thus anticipates that the division of God’s people in response to the ministry of Jesus, now underway, will continue.

The first beatitude has a present orientation, which it shares with the corresponding woe:

Blessed are the poor, for God’s realm belongs to you. (v. 20b) But woe to you who are wealthy, for you have received your consolation. (v. 24)

God’s reign, still to be consummated in the future, is already effective in the present, in Jesus’ ministry, although in what sense remains to be seen. In later exchanges with critics and other observers, Jesus will associate his exorcisms and meals with the reign of God operative in the present (11:20; 14:15–24; cf. 17:20–21). After the first beatitude (6:20), it is scarcely surprising that persons of wealth, power, and status consistently refuse to accept Jesus’ invitation to the realm (or household) of God. In 13:23–30, the images of salvation, admittance into a house, and feasting in God’s realm all point to the same reality. In God’s reign the first and last exchange places (cf. 14:7–24). Jesus extends the offer of a place in the household (realm or banquet) of God, but one who declines now cannot, presuming upon divine grace, expect to receive another opportunity in the future.

Still, those who have no resources of their own, no social status and no economic advantages accruing from it, and who can only rely upon God’s gracious provision—such persons already inhabit a new world. They are blessed (by God) even though they remain destitute; they are the genuinely poor, the ptōchoi (as in 4:18), lacking necessary economic resources. As the second and third beatitudes proceed to show, however, the present blessing despite poverty of circumstance will soon also become a blessing experienced as transformation of circumstance. The book of Acts will begin to tell the story of that transformation through its description of a community committed to such a radical sharing of resources that no one is any longer destitute (Acts 2:44–45; 4:32–37; with a preview in Zacchaeus’s generous act in Luke 19:8).

The middle two beatitudes, in common with the corresponding woes, link present reality in line one—emphatically expressed through a counterintuitive declaration of one’s happy circumstance “now”—and future reality in line two, with a promise, or warning, of future reversal of circumstance. This anticipated reversal is the ground for the statement of blessedness, or woe, in line one.

Blessed are the ones who are hungry now, for you will be satisfied.

Blessed are the ones who weep now, for you will laugh. (v. 21)

Woe to you who are now full,

for you will hunger.

Woe to you who laugh now,

for you will weep and mourn. (v. 25)

The reversal of fortunes for the hungry and for those with full bellies recalls Mary’s Song, which contrasts God’s benevolence toward the hungry (as in 6:21 employing the present participle of peinaō) and God’s dismissal of the rich, empty-handed (1:53).

The first two beatitudes, with their matching woes, later find parabolic enactment in 16:19–31: Lazarus and the rich man exemplify precisely the present situation, and its reversal after death, of which Jesus speaks here. It is not simply that Jesus redefines the meaning of life (and divine favor) in the present; the future will give substance to what only the imagination can perceive now. In fact, since in a sense Jesus’ words begin to create the reality of which they speak (i.e., they are performative speech acts; see Austin, Do Things with Words), the beatitudes already begin to enact the divine work of reversal to which Mary has pointed. If Jesus understands his mission from God to be the declaration of good news for the poor (4:18–19), the beatitudes show him doing just that. The woes reveal the corollary of that good news, for the status inversion of God’s reign means bad news for the wealthy and powerful.

The final beatitude and its matching woe concern honor and status within the community—the public recognition granted to, or withheld from, persons in a social world in which public standing has enormous importance. Here too, Jesus turns things upside down. Those who are truly fortunate are not the praised and honored but the ostracized and persecuted. Or rather, blessed are you whenever your allegiance to Jesus, the Son of Humanity, brings not favor but disfavor, not affirmation but condemnation. This beatitude congratulates persons in the audience who accept the commitment of discipleship, pointing them to what really counts, the promise of divine favor. Those who re-present Jesus in their community will be branded evil because of that identification. Linking the language of exorcism—“cast out your name as evil”—to images of separation and exclusion, the fourth beatitude contrasts divine welcome (“reward in heaven”; cf. 12:33; 14:12–14; 18:22, 29–30) to a community’s rejection.

Jesus will experience this public rebuke himself, his good work of releasing from demonic oppression being branded evil (11:14–15) and his teaching of the people being faulted as distorting and disruptive (23:2, 5). To be a disciple of this Messiah, to be committed to the work of God’s reign, means to face intense opposition, trusting one’s fortunes to God alone. The conflict experienced so far (5:17–6:11) will therefore intensify. Like Jesus, disciples find their place within Israel’s prophetic tradition where, as Luke views it, true prophets meet rejection (4:24, 28–30; 13:34; Acts 7:51–53). Those who speak on behalf of God will be repudiated by God’s people. It will be so for Jesus, and no less so for his followers (see Luke 21:12–19).

What appears to be evidence of divine disfavor—disdain and persecution in the community—turns out to be a sign that God sides with the one scorned, that God vindicates as faithful the very one whom the community despises. The balancing woe is more compact and does not explain the coveted public recognition as religiously motivated, although persons who enjoy the community’s approbation in the present are likened to false prophets of the past, that is, publicly approved prophets whose oracles did not originate with God (e.g., Deut 18:20–22; Jer 6:13–14; 28:15; 29:8–9). Public honor disqualifies one for divine honor (cf. Luke 14:7–14). This woe thus conveys essentially the same point as the woe against the rich. God’s reign creates a world of dramatic status inversion.

[27–38] Verse 27 opens a second section of the discourse: “Nevertheless, I say to you who are listening.” The beatitudes and woes have announced the social reversals that mark “the reigning presence of God”20 and illustrate the working of divine grace for the benefit of the poor and hungry, the weeping and persecuted. But what does life that is congruent with God’s rule look like? How are disciples to live in the world? The balance of the discourse begins to make this plain. At the heart of it is this charge: disciples are to take their cue from the compassion of a merciful God.

20. The apt translation of the phrase basileia tou theou commended by Moloney, Mark 49.

The fourth beatitude pictures hostility and persecution that will be endured by those who align themselves with Jesus, the Son of Humanity. That is the setting for the string of imperatives in vv. 27–38. “Love your enemies,” Jesus begins (v. 27), and v. 35 repeats this radical command. The concluding verses of this section of the sermon hold up divine mercy as the model for the disciple’s life (v. 36); God’s mercy is, finally, why compassion and mercy extend even to enemies, and that is why one refrains from judging another (vv. 37–38).

The syntax is striking; in staccato fashion, without linking conjunctions (i.e., through the use of asyndeton), a series of four imperatives—love, treat [well], bless, pray—calls the disciple, and potential disciple, to a life of nonretaliation (vv. 27–28). If you encounter anyone who is bent on harming you, respond by loving, blessing, even praying for that person. Verses 29–30 illustrate this mode of life in a series of four commands—present [the other cheek], do not hold back [your shirt], keep giving, do not ask—each preceded by a phrase that identifies the recipient of one’s merciful action:

to the one who strikes you on the cheek . . . from the one who takes your coat . . .

to the one who asks of you . . .

from the one who has taken [things from you] . . .

Rather than retaliating, the disciple will respond with unexpected restraint, generosity, and kindness. Bearing the pain and the insult of a slap to the face, the disciple will double the pain by offering the other cheek—and so turn the shame back to the other. Deprived of one’s coat (or cloak, the outer garment, the himation), the disciple will, unasked, surrender also the shirt (or tunic, the garment worn next to the skin, the chitōn)—and the resulting nakedness will turn shame back upon the one (a soldier, or perhaps a creditor?) who has taken the coat.21 This is nonretaliation, to be sure, but it is far from passive (cf. Vinson 187); an act of unexpected restraint and kindness transforms the encounter and exposes injustice for what it is, for all who observe. In a world where the poor and not the wealthy are considered blessed, a world of status transposition, honor and power are not what they have seemed. In Jesus’ vision of things (in the world God rules), genuine power resides with those who, faced with evil, respond with unflinching, courageous, nonretaliatory kindness.

21. Matthew reverses the sequence of inner and outer garments: after first losing the shirt (tunic), one should then offer the coat (cloak). The Lukan version makes better sense.

So too with the more general commands of v. 30. By giving to the one who asks for something, the disciple responds to acquisitive demand (whatever the motive and circumstance) with a gracious generosity that breaks beyond the constraints of reciprocal exchange and resentment. The disciple then has no need to ask for the return of what was taken. At first hearing, Jesus’ admonitions would have puzzled many in the audience, but less so the disciples, who have “left all” to follow Jesus and perhaps have already begun to discover the inner freedom that marks a life not dominated by possessions, not controlled by the need to acquire and protect wealth. This will become a prominent theme in Jesus’ teaching (e.g., 12:13–34; 16:19–31; 18:18–30), though it is implicit here.

Verses 31 and 35, with four more imperative verbs, present appeals that summarize and recapitulate the preceding admonitions:

Treat people in just the way you want them to treat you. (v. 31)22 Love your enemies and treat [them] well, and lend without hoping for anything back. (v. 35a)

The intervening verses present three conditional sentences—“if you love,” “if you treat well,” “if you lend”—each followed by the same observation: “Even sinners” extend kindness to others as a matter of reciprocal exchange, when they expect to receive it in return. effective use of the rhetorical device of repetition delivers the message emphatically. Building on the radical imperatives of vv. 27–30, Jesus issues a call to transcend the practice of reciprocal exchange, to go beyond treating others as one has been treated by them (Johnson 109). Deal with them, instead, as you would wish to be treated yourself, and show kindness regardless of their disposition toward you—that is a posture that can change things. The disciple is called to a higher standard than that of “sinners,” a general label here (as in 5:30, 32) for persons who do not live up to the requirements of the Torah. The implied lesser-to-greater argument runs like this: Sinners, who do not meet their religious and social obligations, nevertheless do right by others who are good to them; much more is expected of the disciple, who will generously offer love and kindness to all.

This way of life, though subversive and countercultural, mirrors God’s own character and commitments and is therefore the mode of living adopted by those who are truly God’s children (cf. Green 274). God is generous even to those who show no gratitude (acharistous, those who have received gracious favor but do not acknowledge the benefaction) and indeed even to the wicked (v. 35b). God’s mercy is the model to be emulated (Tannehill, Narrative Unity 1:209); as disciples do so, they will share the same filial relationship to God “your Father”—“children [lit., sons] of the Most High”—as does Jesus, the “Son of the Most High” (1:32, 76; 2:49). Reward will come, but only from God (cf. 14:12–14 for a similar move beyond the social practice and cultural norm of reciprocal exchange as the basis for “reward”). “Love your enemies”: though disciples will experience rejection because of their affiliation with Jesus and their participation in the reign of God, this is how they are to respond. Later a dialogue along with its embedded parable will reinforce Jesus’ call to love of enemies (10:25–37). Rejecting the notion that the obligation to love one’s neighbor has limited scope, Jesus will go so far as to picture the “enemy” (Samaritan) as showing compassionate mercy: thus one learns to love an enemy not simply by hearing a summons to emulate divine mercy but also by experiencing that mercy from the hand of an enemy.

22. Luke’s version of the “golden rule” (cf. Matt 7:12); for similar statements in Jewish and Greek literature, see Lev 19:18, 34; Tob 4:15; Let. Aris. 207; b. Šabb. 31a (attributed to Hillel); Isocrates, Demon. 14; idem, Nic. 61; Herodotus, Hist. 3.142.

God’s expansive and undiscriminating mercy forms the bridge to v. 37, which reframes the appeal for mercy in terms both negative: Do not judge (krinete), do not condemn (katadikazete); and positive: Pardon (or release, apolyete). This call to refrain from judging others and instead to pardon or release does not lack reinforcing incentives. The form is one of reciprocal exchange: Don’t judge (or condemn), and you will not be judged (or condemned); pardon, and you will be pardoned. However, this is deceptive, for behind the passive verbs in v. 37, God is the implied agent. The one who refrains from condemning others will be spared God’s judgment. The one who pardons another will receive pardon from God. Verse 38 adds another incentive, prodding the audience toward merciful treatment of others. Again the instruction appears to follow the form of reciprocal exchange, but this is deceptive: “Give, and it will be given you [cf. 11:9]. . . . For with the measure with which you measure out, it will be measured out for you in return.” The form of reciprocal exchange bursts with the extravagant description of the return gift: “They will put in your lap a good measure, pressed down, shaken, overflowing.” This picture of the abundant benefaction enjoyed by those who are generous and compassionate to others, once again, points to the gracious benevolence of God. One will get back far more than one gives. As in v. 35, the argument moves from an appeal cast in the imperative mood to the promise of reward, with verbs in the future tense. Jesus will reinforce his appeal to refrain from judging others in the third and final part of the discourse (6:39–49).

[39–42 ] The narrator briefly intrudes in v. 39, signaling the start of the last section of the sermon and marking the following saying as a parable (parabolē): “And he also told them a parable.” Parable-like material actually extends through v. 49, though interrupted by an aphorism about teacher and disciple (v. 40). Indeed, the brief narrative that is most obviously a parable is delayed until v. 47, cast as a simile: “They are like a man building a house” (somewhat analogous is 15:3, where “this parable” introduces not one but three parables). This is Luke’s third use of the word parabolē (cf. 4:23; 5:36). The proverbial saying so labeled consists of two rhetorical questions implying a story that Jesus does not narrate: “Can a blind person guide a[nother] blind person? [Of course not.] Won’t both of them fall into a pit? [They will indeed.]” (6:39). The next verse shows that this untold story about a blind guide who brings harm to both himself and a follower delivers a caution to potential disciples who are in search of a teacher (some of whom are present in Jesus’ audience). It matters a great deal who a disciple’s teacher is, for teachers provide the paradigm that will both direct and constrain their students.

Recalling Jesus’ recent debates with other teachers, notably Pharisees and experts in Torah interpretation (5:17–6:11), readers discern that Jesus is commenting indirectly on that emerging conflict. The point is difficult to miss: far from offering a reliable guide, the teaching offered by Jesus’ critics will only lead to trouble. Verse 40 describes what Jesus is doing in this discourse: he is training disciples to be like him, forming a people of God who will “see,” who live by the norms and commitments of the reign of God. That also means, in the world they inhabit, that like him they will experience rejection.

Verses 39–40 appear to be loosely tied to the literary context, which highlights appeals to refrain from judging others (vv. 37, 41–42). However, the image of sight and blindness in v. 39 prepares for the image of obstructed vision in vv. 41–42, as Jesus resumes his attack on judgmentalism. Returning to second-person address, he summons his listeners to the honest self-examination that is prerequisite for clarity of vision and therefore for appropriate discernment. It is as absurd to presume to judge another as it is to try to remove a tiny speck (karphos) from another’s eye despite the presence of a large beam in one’s own eye. If you are bent on discovering and condemning the faults of others, there will be a price: you will not know the truth about yourself, and you will consequently be unable to reorder life in ways that would be beneficial. Neither will you be any help to the one you are trying to assist. Jesus employs hyperbole to humorous effect: imagine the sight of a person with a log in the eye forcibly removing a tiny speck from another’s eye. The verb ekballō (cast out, expel) elsewhere often depicts the forceful act of exorcism (e.g., 9:40, 49; 11:14–20; 13:32). Humor is vehicle of a serious appeal: leave faultfinding to God. If you want to be helpful to a member of the community who needs restoration (the kinship language, “brother [or sister],” likely points to relationships within a close-knit community, not simply membership in the same family), start by seeking restoration yourself. Beginning from that kind of discernment, one may in the end opt to extend mercy, to offer forgiveness, rather than to judge at all. Since everyone in Jesus’ audience has faults that require remedy, finding faults in others and ignoring one’s own is the height of hypocrisy: “Hypocrite!” Jesus charges (v. 42). One can only position oneself to condemn others by living a life of self-delusion, pretending to be what one is not.

[43–49] Jesus now shifts to a different image, a fruit tree, although similarity in sound between karphos (speck) and karpon (fruit) links this section of the sermon to the preceding verses. Acquaintance with fruit trees yields two distinct observations (vv. 43–44), which merge in an anthropological application (v. 45). The first observation is that the quality of fruit corresponds to the quality of the tree from which it comes; good trees produce good fruit, while rotten fruit comes from bad trees (v. 43). Horticultural science would require a more subtle claim, to be sure, but Jesus is bending the tree toward the moral he intends to draw.

The second observation is that fruit and tree correspond also in kind (v. 44). Figs grow on fig trees, not thorn-plants. Verse 45 then moves from orchard to human conduct. The point is that, like fruit trees, good people produce good fruit (“what is good”), and further, that the character of their actions corresponds to the quality of the heart. The human heart can be a storehouse of abundant good (as in v. 45, so also 12:34 associates the heart and treasure [thēsauros]). Good actions spring from sound character. The life of the disciple will manifest integrity, congruence between heart and action. For example (the concluding note), what fills the heart determines the character of one’s speech. Here and elsewhere in the discourse Jesus aims at expanding the treasure of good that will flow from the disciple’s heart.

The interest in self-examination that has surfaced with the log-in-the-eye figure continues here and will advance in 6:46–49, which challenges listeners to assess the integrity of their commitment to Jesus. He points them beyond spoken allegiance to him as “Lord” to consider whether they are practicing what he preaches. “Why do you call me ‘Lord, Lord’ [cf. 5:8, 12] and don’t do what I say?” (6:46). In narrative time, Jesus has only recently begun recruiting followers, so it is not immediately evident whom this question addresses. For some time the crowds have been seeking Jesus out, however, drawn by both his healing power and his message, and the audience of the Sermon on the Plain includes many such interested observers, potential disciples (6:18–19). With the shift in categories from “teacher” to “Lord,” Jesus now raises the stakes for those who would come after him. To be a disciple schooled by Jesus is not enough; responding to his call means to affirm that he is also kyrios, Lord. His authority must claim and shape their lives. As Lord, he is the one through whom God’s sovereign rule is effective. By definition, one cannot call Jesus “Lord” without also obeying him. Acknowledging his authority therefore means ordering life according to his aims and commitments.

So disciples and interested onlookers alike hear a sharp warning: If you want to attach yourself to me, you had better take seriously what I say. It is a radical and challenging way, but you need to live it. An emphasis on doing, on performance, courses through the whole sermon, as the verbs poieō (do, perform, produce) and agathopoieō (do good, treat well) appear in 6:23, 26, 27, 31, 33, 35, 43, 46, 47, 49. Jesus will reinforce his concern with performance when, confronted by his mother and brothers, he will acknowledge as his true family all who hear and do the word of God (8:21).

Jesus offers a vivid parabolic illustration of the consequences of putting his word into practice and of failing to do so (6:47b–49). Here he speaks as a wisdom teacher: in the figures of two builders, the parable contrasts the paths of wisdom and folly (though without using these terms, unlike Matt 7:24, 26). When torrential rains come, as they inevitably will, only a house constructed upon a solid foundation has a chance to survive the flood. Wisdom evident in the selection of a building site but also in the effort the builder has expended to provide a sound foundation (“dug down deep,” “built well”) leads to a happy outcome. The disturbing final picture of the parable, however, depicts the consequences of folly: the sudden destruction of a house constructed on sand. A house in ruins—Jesus closes the Sermon on the Plain with this arresting image of what is at stake for members of the audience in their response to his teaching.

Verses 43–45 and vv. 47–49 contrast two ways of life, one fruitful and obedient, the other unfruitful and disobedient. Verse 46 supplies the pivot, as Jesus’ rhetorical question exposes the contradiction between professed allegiance to him and failure to live as he has directed. The beatitudes give a stunning picture of God’s gracious benefaction, but God also lays claim to one’s life. Jesus appeals to his audience to do the good, to be fruitful, to hear and heed his teaching. At the same time, vivid display of antithetical modes of living, and of their outcomes, indicates that some will choose the other way. Luke’s audience has indeed already begun to observe a division within Israel in response to the Messiah Jesus, just as Simeon predicted (2:34–35). The contrast in fortunes between those who accept and those who repudiate the mission of Jesus is captured well by the words that begin and end this discourse. Jesus begins with an announcement of unexpected blessedness (makarioi) and ends with an image of grand ruin. Lest Luke’s audience fear that ruin will have the last word, Jesus will continue his mission, through challenging message and gracious benefaction forming a people who will put his teaching into practice, a people of God’s realm. The themes featured in the Sermon on the Plain will thus reappear: status and power inversion, the appeal for mercy, love of enemies, and the challenge to transcend the dominant social practice and cultural value of reciprocal exchange. God’s ways, embodied in Jesus’ words and actions, are strange, but if the sermon begins to have its way with its audience(s), they may begin to become more familiar.

7:1–50 Jesus Confirms His Identity through Acts That Save

In the Sermon on the Plain, Jesus has spoken of a God who is merciful, whose reign blesses the poor and hurting, while calling into question the position and power of those who enjoy status and privilege. Now Jesus resumes a ministry that extends mercy to those in need—that saves, that restores to wholeness through healing and forgiveness—but will also challenge the well-placed and in turn be challenged by them. Chapter 7 features inside-outside reversals. A Gentile soldier displays such deep faith that it prompts Jesus to reimagine the boundaries around the people of God (7:1–10). Then the desperate plight of a widow whose only son has died probes the limits of Jesus’ power to save, to offer blessing to those who weep (7:11–17). With scarcely a pause in the action, John the Baptizer, silent since his arrest, now puts in a cameo appearance, dispatching messengers to press the question of Jesus’ identity. Is he actually doing what the Messiah does? Jesus answers not so much in word as in action as he continues his work of healing (7:18–23). He proceeds to offer his own reflection on the contrasting styles of John and himself, and on the mixed reception accorded them (7:24–35). The picture of a people dividing in reaction to the message of prophet and Messiah sets the stage for a dramatic enactment in the home of a Pharisee (7:36–50). This scene draws together concern with Jesus’ identity and the status inversion—here, inside-out reversal—that his ministry entails. Befriending sinners, he wins the scorn of those who consider themselves righteous.

7:1–10 Restoring Health in the Household of a Centurion

By healing from a distance a Roman soldier’s gravely ill slave, Jesus follows the example of elisha, whose healing-at-a-distance of a foreign military commander figured prominently in the Nazareth inaugural statement of Jesus’ aims (4:27). In contrast to the scriptural story, however, the extraordinary thing about this episode is the bold faith of the Gentile, which amazes even Jesus and inspires him to comment on a role reversal that concerns the identity and composition of God’s people Israel.

1 When [Jesus] had finished all his words in the hearing of the people, he went into Capernaum. 2 Now a centurion’s slave who was ill was about to die; he was deara to him. 3 And when he heard about Jesus, he sent Jewish elders to him to ask him to come and save his slave. 4 They came to Jesus and with urgency began to summonb him, adding,c “He is deserving that you should do this for him.d 5 For he loves our people and even built the synagogue for us.” 6 So Jesus went with them, but when he was still far from the house, the centurion sent friends to tell him, “Lord,e don’t trouble yourself [any further],f for I am not worthy that you should come in under my roof. 7 That is why I did not consider myself deserving to come to you. But say the word, and let my servant be healed.g 8 For I am a man under authority myself, and I have soldiers who come under my orders, so that I say to this one ‘Go,’ and he goes, and to another ‘Come,’ and he comes, and to my slave ‘Do this,’ and he does it.” 9 When Jesus heard this, he was amazed at [the man]. He turned to the crowd that was following him and said, “Not even in Israel, I tell you, have I found faith like this.” 10 When the people who had been sent returned to the house, they found the slave healthy.

a. Or “valuable to him,” or possibly “honored [esteemed] by him” (for the latter sense, see 14:8).

b. A number of Mss (including א D L Ξ f1, 13) have the elders ask (ērōtōn) rather than summon Jesus. However, parekaloun ([they] began to summon) is to be preferred as the more difficult reading; “ask” conforms the elders’ action to their assignment (erōtōn in v. 3) and, by turning the appeal to Jesus into a request, makes the approach to him less brazen. The rest of the story, however, highlights the centurion’s audacity.

c. Literally, “saying”; I take the verbal content of parekaloun ([they] began to summon) as unexpressed; the quoted speech then reinforces this initial appeal (“he is deserving [worthy]”).

d. Literally, “[He] for whom you will do this is deserving [worthy].”

e. Or “Sir,” kyrie; however, the focus on command and obedience in the passage suggests that with this address the centurion is deferring to Jesus’ authority as Lord.

f. That is, “Don’t continue to trouble yourself” (present-tense imperative).

g. The reading iathēsetai ([he] will be healed) enjoys wide attestation, including א A C D W, but I have followed ∏75 B L in reading the third-person imperative iathētō (let [him] be healed). The imperative mood is apt in a passage that has much to do with authority (with the third-person imperative suiting a man who shows deference as the centurion does), and the future indicative (“will be healed”) may be the result of scribal harmonization (Matt 8:8 does have iathēsetai).

[1–10] In a healing story that Luke shares with Matthew (8:5–13), Jesus takes up the mantle of the prophet elisha, not only healing from a distance but also responding to the petition of a Gentile for help. What remained implicit in the Nazareth synagogue address—that Jesus would follow the pattern established by elijah and elisha, carrying God’s help beyond Israel’s borders to outsiders (Luke 4:25–27)—now becomes explicit. In both Luke and Matthew the healing provides the occasion for a pronouncement by Jesus regarding the surprising emergence of faith among Gentiles.

The people, part of the audience for Jesus’ discourse on the plain (7:1), are still present at the end of the episode (the crowd in v. 9). That they are still “following” Jesus after hearing the sermon suggests that they have not (yet) turned aside because of the challenging picture of discipleship that Jesus has begun to paint. This scene is crowded with people: in addition to Jesus and the crowd are two groups of messengers dispatched by a Roman army officer whose slave is at the point of death. Ironically, the pivotal character in the story is a man who never appears onstage.

As in Matthew, the event occurs in Capernaum, site of much of Jesus’ activity even since his announced departure from that town (4:42–43). Verse 2 presents the need for the healer’s intervention, with two details (missing from Matthew’s version) that raise the stakes and lend both urgency and poignancy to the narration: a centurion’s slave is dear to him (or perhaps esp. valuable, entimos), and his illness has brought him near death (contrast Matt 8:6). This is the first of many appearances by centurions in Luke’s two-volume narrative (also 23:47; Acts 10:1–48; 21:32; 22:26; 23:17, 23; 24:23; 27:1–44). “Centurion” translates the word hekatonarchēs (leader of a hundred) and identifies this character as an army officer in charge of a company of one hundred soldiers, hence a person of considerable standing and authority, as the narrative emphasizes.23 Often Luke depicts these army officers in positive terms, as in this passage (also Luke 23:47; Acts 10:1–48; 27:43). Indeed, the faith of the centurion of Luke 7 prepares for the account of Cornelius’s conversion in Acts 10. Despite the revolutionary rhetoric of Mary’s Song, of Jesus’ Scripture exegesis at Nazareth, and of his beatitudes (see Luke 1:51–53; 4:18; 6:20, 24), the gracious benevolence of God extends to a representative of Roman political and military power. The centurion’s power and status, however, form only one dimension of his character; his position as an outsider to Israel creates status ambiguity for him within the narrative. Yet when it turns out that this outsider to Israel is nevertheless a friend of Jewish people, even having funded the construction of a synagogue, the boundaries between Israel and the nations have begun to blur. Before the story is over, Jesus will have pressed further still, commending this Gentile soldier as model of profound faith, and thus documenting the role reversal underway, wherein Israel comes to include Gentiles; they too may have authentic faith in God.

The army officer holds his ill slave in high esteem, or at least regards him as especially valuable. The role of doulos (slave) could mean many different things, depending on the status of the master and the nature of the household served and the service rendered.24 In the present circumstance, what matters is that the slave is seriously ill and that his owner cares enough about him to seek Jesus’ aid. The centurion hears “about Jesus” (7:3), presumably both about his renown as healer, which by now has been broadcast far and wide (4:14, 37; 5:15), and about the fact that he is in town. The soldier therefore dispatches messengers to convey a request that Jesus come to save his slave. The verb diasōzō (save, preserve, or rescue from danger) has in this instance the nuance of healing that delivers from the threat of death. Chapter 7 will close on the same note with which it begins, employing in v. 50 the related verb sōzō (save, deliver).

23. The fact that the centurion is a Gentile is more important in the story than whether he is a Roman army officer (so Green 285) or a commander serving in the militia of Herod Antipas (thus Bovon 1:260). Whatever the historical situation in Galilee at the time of Jesus, the Roman imperial context for Luke’s narrative as a whole, and for a late first-century audience, does point to a leadership position in the Roman army.

24. For discussion of the institution of slavery in the Roman world and of the ways in which the image of slave functions in early Christian literature, see Bartchy, “Slavery”; Harrill, Slaves; Glancy, Slavery; D. Martin, Slavery.

The second group sent by the centurion (v. 6) is unremarkable, consisting of his friends. The composition of the first group, however, is at first hearing unusual, although the narrator simply relates the action without comment: “He sent Jewish elders” (v. 3). A (presumably) Roman army officer dispatches Jewish elders: this development no doubt raises questions for Luke’s own audience—Why Jewish elders? Why would they cooperate?—questions the story proceeds at once to answer. Why would leaders of the Jewish community at Capernaum help a Roman army officer? “He is deserving that you should do this for him.” Indeed, “he loves our people and even built the synagogue for us” (vv. 4–5). The account does not explicitly describe the piety of the officer, as Acts will for another centurion (10:1–2), but it does emphasize his generous benefaction to the Jewish people of Capernaum and his affection for them as a people (ethnos).

The synagogue—here the building where the assembly occurs and not the assembly itself (see the comment on 4:14–15)—stands because of the centurion’s generosity. In the patronal system that organized social relations in the Roman world, he has the part of patron and the leaders of the Jewish community are his clients, owing him gratitude and adulation because of his generous benefactions (Green 286–87; Moxnes, “Patron-Client” 252–54). As it turns out, however, they have something else to offer: mediation on behalf of his ill slave. Jesus has just hinted that the conventional practice of reciprocity in this patronal system is insufficient (6:31–35), and he will eventually deconstruct the patronal system (esp. clear in 14:7–24). For the time being, though, the narrative co-opts this normal pattern of communal relationships in service of Jesus’ ministry of healing—and for a Gentile!

But why would the centurion convey his request to Jesus indirectly, through the mediation of Jewish elders? Here Luke’s version of the story departs from Matthew’s; in Matt 8:5–13 the centurion meets Jesus face-to-face to appeal for help, and there are no intermediaries (likewise in the related healing story in John 4:46–54). Within Luke’s account, the centurion supplies the answer himself, in the speech reported by the second delegation as Jesus is on the way to the centurion’s house: “I am not worthy that you should come in under my roof. That is why I did not consider myself deserving to come to you” (vv. 6–7). This exchange contributes to the complex characterization of the centurion, centering on issues of authority and command as well as worth and honor. The army officer is accustomed to giving orders and having them obeyed (v. 8); his audacity in petitioning Jesus is therefore unsurprising. Yet his insistence that Jesus not come under his roof not only acknowledges the religious and cultural divide between them but also expresses deference to a social superior. One who knows about power recognizes the greater authority that belongs to Jesus. While the Jewish leaders regard the centurion as worthy (axios, v. 4), he views himself, at least in relation to Jesus, as unworthy (using the adjective hikanos and the verb axioō, vv. 6–7). Although the narrator never mentions a word or gesture from Jesus that would accomplish the healing-at-a-distance the centurion believes him able to perform, the friends do find the slave restored to health upon their return to the house. Readers easily fill this gap in the story, concluding that Jesus’ power to heal requires neither word nor touch—not even physical proximity.

The two groups of messengers together play a complex role. Ironically, they allow the story to present a rich, textured characterization of the centurion without his ever stepping into the story directly. Though an army officer who presumably serves the interests of imperial Rome, he “loves our people.” The messengers also illustrate his authority of command: “I order, and they carry out my orders.” It is this way with the centurion’s subordinates in the army, with his slaves, and also with his clients and friends. Nevertheless, though a patron who commands the respect and loyalty of the Jewish community at Capernaum, and though a military commander whose orders are obeyed, he defers to Jesus as his own “Lord.” Moreover, the speech and sight of the messengers make the illness known and document the healing, even at a distance: this is a public event, even as the public character of the boundary-shattering conversion of another centurion in Luke’s second book will be clear from the outset, in the mediating role played by messengers whom Cornelius sends to Peter (Acts 10:7–8).

The messengers, and the healing-at-a-distance to which they bear witness, may echo the biblical story of elisha and Naaman, another Gentile army commander whose healing, as Jesus earlier intimated, prefigures his own ministry (4:27, recalling 2 kgs 5:1–19). In each story the intervention of a prophet of Israel leads to a healing that occurs at a distance, in response to the petition of a Gentile army officer, a petition aided by the intercession of one or more of the prophet’s own people (a servant girl of Israel, 2 kgs 5:2–3; Jewish elders, Luke 7:3–5). The differences in the accounts are obvious, not least the fact that in Luke it is not the soldier but his slave who is ill (and not with leprosy); in an intriguing inversion of roles, 2 kings refers to Naaman as a doulos (slave)—of the Aramean king (v. 6 lxx). When Luke’s audience hears the ensuing story of the healing of a widow’s son at Nain, reminiscent of elijah’s healing of a widow’s son (Luke 7:11–17; cf. 1 kgs 17:17–24), the intertextual echoes of the activity of elisha and elijah become even louder in these two passages. Just as Jesus, at Nazareth, commented on God’s compassionate care reaching beyond Israel to outsiders through elijah and elisha (Luke 4:25–27), so now Jesus’ ministry of healing follows the same pattern. The people who witness these events do not miss the point: God has raised up a prophet and thereby visited the people (to bring deliverance, 7:16; but also eventually to meet rejection, as readers remembering 4:24, 28–30 will anticipate). elijah welcomed the challenge of restoring health to a leprous army commander, so that the Gentile soldier might discover that “there is a prophet in Israel” (2 Kgs 5:8), and upon his healing, the Gentile acknowledged the God of Israel (5:15). After the healing occurred, the prophet dismissed Naaman with the charge “Go in peace.” Luke’s narrative echoes each of these elements of the Naaman story—recognition of a prophet in Israel, acknowledgment of the activity of God, and dismissal in peace—but defers the first two elements to the close of the second healing (Luke 7:16) and the third to the end of the final episode of the chapter (7:50). So in these intertwined accounts of Jesus’ ministry, Luke’s audience hears echoes of the activity of both elijah and elisha.

The first sending in Luke 7:1–10 shows the centurion’s close association with the Jewish people, even as a Gentile (not to mention a military officer serving the occupying Roman army). As his clients, they are in his debt and thus petition for help on his behalf. However, the second sending accents the boundary problem that complicates interactions between Jew and Gentile (cf. Peter’s remark to Cornelius in Acts 10:28). At the same time, however, it also displays the centurion’s extraordinary faith. Both this sensitivity about boundaries and the Gentile soldier’s faith set up the emphatic declaration by Jesus that is the climax of the story: “Not even in Israel, I tell you, have I found faith like this” (Luke 7:9). Jesus has successfully recruited disciples who are willing to leave everything to follow him, and his teaching and healing have drawn interested and sympathetic crowds—but nothing yet as remarkable as the bold trust of this Gentile living at Capernaum. When Jesus mentions Capernaum again, it will not be to praise faith like that of the centurion, or any faith at all, but to lament the town’s present failure and future demise (10:15). Luke 7:1–10 is one more tile in the mosaic the narrative is assembling, picturing the extension of God’s promises for Israel to the nations (so far 2:31–32; 3:6; 4:25–27) and thereby posing the question of Israel’s identity, composition, and boundaries. In the meantime, though, Jesus has more healing to do within Israel: from a distance he has restored health to a Gentile soldier’s slave whose illness had brought death near; now he encounters a widow whose only son has already died. Having healed after the fashion of elisha, Jesus next will emulate elisha’s predecessor elijah.

7:11–17 Returning Life to a Widow’s Son

The beatitudes pronounced blessed those who weep (6:21). When Jesus comes upon a funeral procession, he presses beyond words to actions that give them substance. Restoring to life a widow’s only son, he turns her weeping to joy and revives her hopes for the future. Fresh from an elisha-like act of mercy to a foreign soldier, Jesus in this scene resembles the prophet elijah as he extends compassionate care to a widow and her son, prompting the crowds who observe to recognize God’s gracious visitation.

11 Next [Jesus] went to a city called Nain, and his disciples and a large crowd were accompanying him. 12 When he approached the gate of the city, a dead man was being carried outa—his mother’s only son. Now she was a widow, and a crowd of considerable sizeb was with her. 13 And when the Lord saw her, he was moved with compassion for her and said to her, “Don’t go on weeping.” 14 He came up to the bier and touched it, and the people who were carrying it stopped. And he said, “Young man, I tell you, get up!” 15 The dead man sat up and began to speak, and [Jesus] gave him to his mother. 16 Fear seized everyone, and they were giving glory to God, saying, “A great prophet has been raised up among us” and “God has visited his people.” 17 So this message about him went out into the whole of Judea and all the neighboring areas as well.

a. I have left untranslated the focalizing kai idou (“and behold!”) that begins this clause.

b. The crowd is ample or sufficient: hikanos, the same adjective used in the centurion’s self-description ([not] worthy) in v. 6.

[11–17] After encountering the centurion’s friends at Capernaum, Jesus journeys to Nain, a small Galilean town southeast of Nazareth (about 40 km [25 miles] from Capernaum).25 The narrator links a vague temporal notice (“next,” lit., “in the next [unspecified period of time]”) to a specific geographical location (Nain), only the third town mentioned so far as site of Jesus’ activity (after Nazareth and Capernaum). In a narrative that has located Jesus’ ministry in Galilee (as part of the larger region of Judea, 4:44) in a quite general way, and has noted the wider impact of his activity (most recently in 6:17), the specific mention of Nain, an otherwise obscure village, is striking. As the narrative proceeds, readers familiar with the stories surrounding the prophet elijah—their memories perhaps jogged by Jesus’ appeal to elijah in 4:25–26—hear echoes of that prophet’s raising of a widow’s dead son in 1 kgs 17:17–24 (at Nazareth Jesus drew attention to the first half of that story: the provision of food and water in 1 kgs 17:8–16).

Does the placing of the event at Nain invite comparison, as well, to elisha’s raising of a woman’s dead (and only) son at nearby Shunem (2 kgs 4:32–37; cf. Bovon 1:268)? Whatever one makes of the geography and a possible association with 2 kgs 4, the passage presents an impressive series of intertextual links to 1 kgs 17, suggesting that Luke’s account is modeled after the pattern of elijah’s prophetic ministry in the lxx.

25. Luke labels Nain a city (polis), as he does a number of other small villages; see translation note a for 1:26–38.

Luke 7:11–17

Jesus approaches the “gate of the city.” (v. 12)

There (kai idou), the son is dead. (v. 12)

He sees a widow, mother of an only son. (v. 12)

He is young ( neaniske, “young man”). (v. 14)

The son has died and is about to be buried. (v. 12)

“He was being carried

[exekomizeto].” (v. 12)

Jesus “gave him to his mother [edōken auton tē mētri autou].” (v. 15)

The people respond: “A great prophet has been raised up among us,” and “God has visited his people.” (v. 16)

1 Kings (3 Kgdms) 17:8–24 lxx Elijah goes to the “gate of the city.” (v. 10)

And look (kai idou), a widow is there. (v. 10)

She has a son and other children. (v. 12)

He is young ( paidarion, “little boy [child]”). (vv. 21–22)

The son becomes ill, and no spirit (breath) is left in him. (v. 17)

elijah “carried [ekomisen] him to his bed.” (v. 19)

elijah “gave him to his mother [edōken auton tē mētri autou].” (v. 23)

The woman responds: “I know that you are a man of God, and the Lord’s word in your mouth is true.” (v. 24)

Earlier Jesus emphasized that Elijah “was sent” (i.e., by God) to a non-Israelite widow (Luke 4:26). The only information provided about the woman at Nain is that she is a widow and that she has now lost her only son to death. Nevertheless, the pairing of this story with the healing of a Gentile soldier’s gravely ill slave and the intertextual echoes of elijah and the widow at Zarephath, following other intimations of Jesus’ significance for Gentiles (2:31–32; 3:6; 4:25–27), reinforce the emerging picture of Jesus as divine agent of salvation to Israel and to Gentiles as well.

It is typical of the Lukan narrator to heighten the stakes of a healing by observing that an ill child is an only daughter or son (cf. 8:42; 9:38). In this case the fact that the mother is a widow means that her son’s death has deprived her of her sole remaining male protector, in a social world where the probable outcome is a threat to her continued economic viability (Green 291). The circumstance of the parabolic widow of 18:2–5 and the conflict sparked by provision for widows in Acts 6:1 highlight the importance of caring for the social and economic needs of widows, which is a prominent ot theme (e.g., Deut 10:18; 14:28–29; 24:17–21; 27:19; Job 24:3; Ps 146:9; Isa 10:1–2). It is therefore unsurprising when Jesus, at the sight of the funeral procession, is moved to compassion (or pity)—even though it is only here that Luke applies the verb splanchnizomai (feel compassion [deep within]) to Jesus (it does appear in two parables [10:33; 15:20]; cf. the related noun splanchna in 1:78). Jesus’ compassion enacts the merciful divine visitation announced by John’s father Zechariah (1:68, 78; see Rowe, Christology, 120–21). The rare mention of Jesus’ emotion draws readers’ attention to the widow’s desperate need.26 Acting with the authority of “the Lord” (7:13), Jesus intervenes without being asked for help, addressing the grieving mother with words of comfort—“Don’t go on weeping”—and then touching the bier on which the dead man is being carried (vv. 13–14). By restoring life to the widow’s son, Jesus will be giving her not only a son but also a chance herself to survive.

The word soros, which I have translated “bier,” commonly denotes a container, composed of stone, that holds a dead person’s remains (hence, “coffin”). However, since Jesus touches the soros and directs the dead man to “sit up,” one visualizes a wooden bier on which the corpse rests as it is being carried to the tomb (where, after a period of decomposition, the remains will be placed in an ossuary). The customary burial rites are suspended, though, when Jesus touches the bier and speaks: “Young man [neaniske], get up [egerthēti]!” (v. 14). The imperative verb egerthēti (get up, arise) reappears in the following pericope, when Jesus points messengers of John the Baptizer to his life-restoring acts on behalf of dead persons: “The dead are being raised up [egeirontai]” (v. 22). The command that Jesus gives to the young man, therefore, carries dual meanings. The dead one is to get up, which he proceeds to do without delay, sitting up (v. 15). But he can do so because, in response to the word of Jesus, he has been raised up (by the power of God). After sitting up, the man speaks, and Jesus gives him back to his mother, just as elijah had done for the widow at Zarephath (1 kgs 17:23).

This scene enacts Jesus’ word declaring those who weep to be blessed, because their tears will give way to laughter (6:21). Jesus interrupts a mother’s anguished mourning at the death of her only son. The image of a woman weeping surfaces again later in the chapter, to express not sorrow at death but remorse for a sinful life, as well as gratitude for the gift of forgiveness (7:32, 38). The compassionate mercy of God, extended through the prophet-Messiah Jesus, blesses both kinds of weepers. The raising of the widow’s son at Nain also prepares for the exchange between Jesus and John the Baptizer, which immediately follows (7:18–23), for Jesus will point to the restoration of life to the dead as validation of his identity and work.

26. Matthew and Mark freely use the verb splanchnizomai to indicate the motives of Jesus’ actions, whether healing, feeding, or commissioning apostles (Matt 9:36; 14:14; 15:32; 20:34; Mark 1:41; 6:34; 8:2). Luke’s narrative shows greater restraint in ascribing emotions to Jesus.

“Blessed are the ones who weep now, for you will laugh” (6:21), yet the narrative does not report the widow’s laughter, leaving her response to this extraordinary event untold (not that much imagination is required to fill this gap). Readers have learned, however, that a sizable crowd accompanies the grieving mother (7:12), and the narrator does describe the crowd’s response. (Within these seven verses are four mentions of the participating crowd [ochlos, vv. 11, 12], or people [laos, v. 16], or everyone [pas, v. 16].) They acknowledge Jesus’ action as the work of a prophet sent by God, who has visited the people to bring liberation, just as Zechariah announced (1:68). The crowd’s response, combining fear at an extraordinary event and praise of God (edoxazon ton theon), is not new (cf. 5:26). eventually, though, it will be Jesus who weeps, his tears the result of Jerusalem’s failure to perceive divine visitation and therefore to appropriate the gift of peace that gracious visitation should have bestowed (19:41–44). After Jesus’ sobering remark about a prophet’s rejection at home (4:24), it will not be a shock to Luke’s audience when the crowd’s enthusiastic recognition of divine presence in the ministry of Jesus later yields to hostility. In this case, however, the crowd gets it right—even if not the whole truth about Jesus, who exercises his prophetic role as the Spirit-anointed Messiah and Son of God—and their praise now, like the rejection he will later experience at Jerusalem, validates his identity and his mission from God.

Once again an act of compassionate release on Jesus’ part leads to the spread, far and wide, of word “about him” (7:17)—in this instance, to Judea and neighboring regions. The refrain is familiar (cf. 4:14, 37; 5:15); this is why enormous crowds keep coming to Jesus to listen to his teaching and to receive healing (e.g., 6:17–19). The disciples and the crowd begin often to appear together, as in the scene of Jesus’ teaching on the plain (7:9, 11; cf. 6:17–20; 7:1). Among the witnesses, evidently, are some of John’s disciples. Their report to their teacher “about all these things” (7:18) produces the puzzlement that occasions the next episode. The activity of Jesus forces the question, even in John, of Jesus’ identity and role. This story, unique to Luke, of a prophet raised up by God raising up a dead young man thus prepares for Jesus’ answer to the Baptizer’s doubts about him.

7:18–35 Jesus Defends His Messianic Vocation to Disciples

of John and to the Crowds

The birth and infancy narrative forged a strong link between John the Baptizer and Jesus, while also distinguishing their roles. Together they fulfill God’s promises to Israel, as agents of God’s salvation: John as the prophet who prepares the way, readying a people; Jesus as Lord and Messiah of that people. The account of John’s ministry then drew the two figures together once more. While John was deflecting the people’s messianic expectations from himself to a stronger one who would come (3:15–16), among the crowds who came to hear John and receive his baptism was that stronger one: Jesus, to whom the Holy Spirit and a voice from heaven bore eloquent witness. Yet the narrator gave no indication that John realized Jesus was the one of whom he was speaking (3:21–22). John, arrested and imprisoned, has been out of the picture since then (3:19–20). His impact, however, is still being felt; now his disciples bring him a report concerning Jesus, and he sends two of them to ask Jesus whether he is the coming one to whom John has pointed the people. Jesus answers indirectly, performing acts of healing that authenticate his ministry and role. John’s query prompts Jesus to comment on the division in Israel that is underway, pressing beyond the question of his own messianic role and identity to pose the question of the people’s response to these two very different agents of deliverance whom God has sent.

18 John’s disciples, too, relayed a report of all these things to him, so John summoned two of his disciples and 19 sent them to the Lorda with this message: “Are you the one who is going to come, or should we wait for someone else?” 20 When they had come up to him, the men said, “John the Baptist sent us to you with this message, ‘Are you the one who is going to come, or should we wait for someone else?’” 21 In that very hour he healed many people of [their] diseases, torments, and evil spirits and he gave many blind persons [the ability] to see. 22 And he said in response to them, “Go and report to John the things you’ve seen and heard: the blindb again see; the lame are walking; lepers are being made clean; the deaf are hearing; the dead are being raised up; the poor have good news proclaimed [to them]. 23 Blessed is anyone who does not take offensec at me.”

24 Now when John’s messengers had left, [Jesus] began to talk to the crowds about John: “Why did you go out into the desert? To see a reed shaking in the wind?d 25 No, why did you go out? To see a man dressed in soft garments? Look, those who are in splendid and luxurious clothing are in royal palaces. 26 But why did you go out? To see a prophet? Yes indeed, I tell you—and much more than a prophet! 27 This is the one about whom it is written, ‘Behold, I am sending my messenger before your face; he will prepare your path before you.’ 28 I tell you, among those born of women, no one is greater than John. Yet the one who is the very least in the realm of God is greater than he is.”

29 When all the people heard [this], and the tax collectors too, they affirmed God’s justice,e for they had been baptized with John’s baptism. 30 The Pharisees and legal experts, however, had rejected the purpose of God for themselves when they had not been baptized by [John].

31 “To what, then, will I compare the people of this generation? Whom are they like? 32 They are like children sitting in the marketplace, who call out to one anotherf ‘We played the flute for you, and you did not dance; we sang a lament, and you did not weep.’ 33 For John the Baptist has come neither eating bread nor drinking wine, and you say, ‘He has a demon.’ 34 The Son of Humanity has come eating and drinking, and you say, ‘Look! A glutton and a drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and sinners.’ 35 Yetg Wisdom receives vindication from all her children.”

a. Reading kyrion (Lord) with B L Ξ f^1333, although the textual support for “Jesus” is substantial (including א A). In 7:13 the narrator for the first time used “the Lord” as a substitute for Jesus’ name (again with some texts attesting the reading “Jesus”), appropriate after the centurion’s appeal, “Lord” (v. 6). It is to be preferred in both v. 13 and v. 19 as an unexpected and therefore more difficult reading, yet it is common enough in Luke to fall within the range of this author’s linguistic usage (“the Lord” for Jesus in 10:1, 39, 41; 11:39; 12:42; 13:15; 17:5, 6; 18:6; 19:8, 31, 34; 22:61; 24:34).

b. The phrase “the blind see” begins a staccato series of six two-word clauses, each having only subject and verb and lacking connecting conjunctions (asyndeton), with the possible exception of kai (and) linking “lepers are being made clean” and “the deaf hear” in several Mss (including ∏75 א B D). My translation preserves the pattern of asyndeton throughout this passage, which draws images from Isa 26:19; 29:18–19; 35:5–6; 42:18; 61:1. The compact Greek phrases also omit any articles, and the nouns may therefore be construed as indefinite: “blind persons . . . lame persons . . . lepers . . . deaf persons . . . dead persons . . . poor persons.” Such a cumbersome translation would not effectively capture the economy and rhythm of the verse, so I have generally supplied “the” to yield a more fluid text.

c. Or “[anyone who is not] caused to stumble by [because of] me”; the verb is skandalizein.

d. Or, “What did you go out into the desert to see? A reed shaking in the wind?” Similarly for vv. 25a, 26a. The difference in meaning is slight.

e. Affirmed God as just, in the right; the word is edikaiōsan, from the same verb (dikaioō) that characterizes Wisdom’s relation to her children in 7:35: “Wisdom receives vindication [is affirmed as just, in the right] by all her children” (with similar nuance in 18:14).

f. Literally, “children sitting in the marketplace, and they call out to another [these things] that they are saying.”

g. Rendering the conjunction kai, which seems to have a contrastive nuance here.

[18–23] Jesus is not the only teacher in Luke’s Gospel who has disciples. Adherents of the teaching of John did not vanish after his arrest (cf. 5:33; Acts 18:24–25; 19:3–4; John 1:35–37); now, with news about Jesus spreading everywhere, they bring their teacher a report. Luke uses this exchange to reinforce claims already made for Jesus’ identity and significance and to depict with increasing clarity the divergent responses of God’s people to the mission of Jesus (as to John before him). The imprisoned John dispatches two disciples to ask Jesus: “Are you the one, or should we wait for another?” John’s message to a people who were waiting expectantly (prosdokaō) was that he was not the Messiah himself but that a stronger one was coming (Luke 3:15–16). That greater one would complete the eschatological judgment for which John’s work had prepared. Now, however, it is John who is waiting expectantly—or queries whether he should continue to do so. Is Jesus the stronger one whom John had envisioned? If so, where is the baptism in Spirit and fire (3:16)? Where is the evidence that eschatological judgment is underway (cf. Green 295–96; Vinson 217–18)?

Jesus does not interrupt his work to answer John’s messengers. Continuing to heal—acts of deliverance from diseases, torments, and evil spirits are all classed as healings—he allows John’s envoys to observe. He lets his actions speak for themselves, and they authenticate his identity and mission from God (in contrast to Matt 11:2–6, in which Jesus responds in word, not deed). The restoring of sight to the blind receives particular emphasis (v. 21), anticipating Jesus’ response to the messengers: “Go and report to John the things you’ve seen and heard” (v. 22). Similarly, mention of the deaf as hearing links beneficiaries of Jesus’ healing acts and the witnesses sent by John, though Luke has not yet recorded such a healing. However, sight and hearing have both physical and spiritual meanings in this narrative, and perhaps genuine hearing of Jesus’ word (e.g., 5:15; 6:18, 27, 47, 49) is no less noteworthy than the physical capacity to hear. In any case, summarizing for both the messengers and Luke’s audience what they have seen and heard, Jesus rehearses various types of healing, in the process drawing from several texts in Isaiah, and at the same time recalling earlier moments in the narrative:

The blind again see (typhloi anablepousin; see Luke 4:18; Isa 42:18; 61:1; cf. 29:18; 35:5).

The lame are walking ( chōloi peripatousin; see Luke 5:17– 26; Isa 35:6).

Lepers are being made clean (see Luke 5:12–16; cf. 4:27 and its appeal to 2 kgs 5).

The deaf are hearing (kōphoi akouousin; see Isa 29:18; 35:5; 42:18; cf. Luke 5:15; 11:14).

The dead are being raised up (see Luke 7:11–17, with its links to 1 kgs 17; cf. Isa 26:19).

The poor have good news proclaimed [to them] (ptōchoi euangelizontai; see Luke 4:18; 6:20; Isa 61:1; cf. 29:19).

For John’s benefit, and with his expression of doubt as catalyst, this scene presents an impressive recapitulation of Jesus’ ministry of release. With acts of healing and words of grace, he brings healing to the sick and the demontormented and declares good news of God’s saving embrace to the poor and suffering—words and actions befitting the Savior whom God has sent to Israel. It is a picture of benefaction, of blessing announced and enacted, but the blessing is not in the offer alone. The people’s response matters. Will those who observe be led to give praise to God (cf. Luke 5:26; 7:16)? Or will they join the chorus of critics, failing to perceive God’s hand in what Jesus does, and consequently stumble and fall? If Jesus’ own mother is not exempt from the requirement of discernment and decision (see the comment on 2:33–35), the same is true of John: “Blessed is anyone who does not take offense at [is not caused to stumble because of] me” (7:23). The word makarios (blessed) recalls the beatitudes of 6:20–23, but now the formulation is cast in negative terms and anticipates that some, or many, will take offense, will stumble and fall, just as Simeon predicted (2:34).

The work of God is there to be seen and heard, but not all will discern. A division within the people, in response to the ministry of Jesus, is underway, just as for John before him. Luke 10:23–24 will reinforce this point, picking up the metaphorical use of sight and audition to indicate perception and reception of God’s activity (or failure to perceive and receive; cf. 10:12–16). Not all perceive what Jesus’ disciples see. With different vocabulary (confess, deny), 12:8–10 will likewise picture divergent responses to Jesus.

The imprisoned prophet John has posed a question to Jesus about his identity and role: “Are you the one we are awaiting?” Jesus turns the query back to the questioner: “Am I the one? John, you know the Scriptures (esp. Isaiah!). Now you know what I am doing. What do you think? How do you read?” (cf. 10:26). So Jesus dismisses John’s disciples; they will carry back to their master a challenge to align his own commitment with the divine mission that Jesus is pursuing. For one who knows Israel’s Scriptures, Jesus’ acts of mercy and liberation should provide the authentication that John has sought (a similar catalog of acts of mercy performed by the Messiah appears in 4QMessAp [4Q521] frg. 2.2.1–12). However, the exchange with John’s followers provides the occasion for further reflection on the significance of the ministries of John and Jesus. More to the point, with the crowds still present: How have the people responded to the agents of divine promise and deliverance? How will they respond later in the narrative?

[24–30] The question from John—“Are you the one?”—and Jesus’ answer, in the form of legitimating healing acts and words drawn from Scripture, provide a springboard for further teaching about John and for comment on his relation to Jesus. The dismissal of the messengers from John (v. 24; only Luke calls them angeloi, messengers) prepares for a quotation from Mal 3:1 (cf. exod 23:20): “Behold, I am sending my messenger [angelos] before your face; he will prepare your path before you” (Luke 7:27). With this description of John’s role, Jesus ratifies Zechariah’s earlier prophecy (1:76) and locates both Messiah and prophetic precursor in the unfolding of scriptural promise. After this episode, in which the messenger sent to prepare the Lord’s path must send messengers to ask about the identity of the “coming one,” there can be no mistaking which of the two is Lord and which is the Lord’s servant. unlike Mark (but like Matthew), Luke did not use the Malachi quotation in his introduction of the Baptizer (3:4–6; cf. Mark 1:2; Matt 3:3). Spoken by Jesus now, after the departure of John’s envoys, it underscores the provisional standing and imperfect comprehension of John—perfect foil for the comment that Jesus proceeds to make about his prophetic predecessor.

“Among those born of women, no one is greater than John” (Luke 7:28): if greatness is to be measured in terms of wealth and public position, then one will look elsewhere than at a prophet living an ascetic life in the desert, and now imprisoned. For conspicuous display of wealth and privilege (e.g., in luxurious clothing), one will turn to royal palaces, not to a figure like John (v. 25)—or for that matter, to any true prophet of Israel. And John is an authentic prophet. He may have voiced puzzlement about Jesus, but Jesus counters with an unequivocal affirmation of John as prophet—and more (v. 26). Luke 16:16 will develop more explicitly the point Jesus makes here: John is a transitional figure, a hinge between two eras. He has one foot in the era of the law and the prophets, and the other foot (in his role of preparing the way, of readying a people for the Lord) in the era of God’s coming-and-present reign. Great as John is, the lowest one in the realm of God surpasses him. Indeed, status and greatness undergo radical redefinition in the status inversion that marks the realm of God (e.g., 18:15–17; 22:24–27; cf. 1:51–53; 4:18; 6:20–26; 16:15, 19–31). The phrase “among those born of women” reminds Luke’s audience of the prominent part played by John’s mother, elizabeth, and also by Mary in Luke 1, already a hint of the reversals of role and status to come.

The narrator intrudes in Luke 7:29–30. The sequence is awkward; after this narrator’s aside, Jesus’ speech resumes in v. 31, the change in voice signaled only by the shift back to a first-singular verb, but without any other preparation (cf. the similar pattern in 7:41). The narrator presents a sharp profile of a dividing people. Some, by submitting to John’s baptism, have aligned themselves with God’s aims. Others have refused to do so. Inside-out reversal is at play, for the crowds (the people, laos) and tax agents accepted John’s ministry and now affirm the divine justice evident in Jesus’ affirmation of John, while Pharisees and experts in Torah interpretation, by rejecting John, have turned aside from God’s purpose. The expression boulē tou theou (purpose of God) is significant in Luke–Acts, for this story relates the sure realization of the divine will for Jesus’ life, for Israel, and for the whole world (see Acts 2:23; 4:28; 5:38–39; 20:27; Green 300–301; Squires, Plan of God). The purpose of God does not overwhelm human choice and responsibility and in fact meets intense opposition (that of the Pharisees and legal experts here being a prime example); nevertheless, God’s aims give direction to the narrative and ensure its outcome.

Role reversals, both upside-down and inside-out, are multiplying exponentially in Luke’s narrative: not just the surprising emergence of Gentile faith, not just words of hope for the poor, not just acts of liberation and mercy for the sick and oppressed—but also the embrace of (and by) sinners and repudiation of Jesus by the reputedly upright. After the narrator’s observation has underscored the theme of a dividing people, Jesus will offer his own commentary on this development.

[31–35] The narrator’s aside (vv. 29–30) has brought into sharp focus divergent responses to John’s ministry: on one hand, the affirming laos (people), including tax collectors; on the other hand, the rejecting Pharisees and legal experts. Now Jesus offers further comment on his people’s receptivity to divine initiative. using the similitude form, Jesus points to a children’s game to lay bare the true character of the people’s response to God’s agents. In the process, while giving voice to the complaints of his critics, he also implicitly defends his own style of ministry. Yes, Jesus is the one (so unlike John) who feasts and welcomes sinners (v. 34), echoing an earlier articulation and defense of Jesus’ aims (cf. 5:27–32).

For some in Luke’s audience, the picture of children playing in the marketplace may have evoked the prophet Zechariah’s image of children playing in the streets of a restored Jerusalem (Zech 8:5). The intertextual appeal would then be ironic, for in Jesus’ use of the image, child’s play pictures not restoration of the people but their failure to respond to the agents of restoration whom God has sent.

It is not clear how this child’s game works. Are two groups of children disputing the rules of the game (i.e., which game to play)? If so, one group wants the game to involve festive music and dance, while the other group prefers to act out funeral lament and weeping. The wording (with the reciprocal pronoun allēlois, “to one another”) may suggest this understanding (e.g., Neale, Sinners 138). However, the point of the comparison, which has to do with (some of) the people’s failure to respond to John and Jesus, instead suggests that one group of children wants to play the game—whether to act out joy or mourning—but the rest of the children refuse to play. In a similar way, Jesus observes, many of the people turn away from John with his dirge and also from Jesus with his call to dance (e.g., Fitzmyer 1:678–79). The phrase “this generation” is a hyperbolic, generalizing expression for the people’s failure (cf. Luke 9:41; 11:29–32, 50–51; 17:25). On the other hand, the children who are calling out the game to be played may be a figure for “the human beings of this generation,” while John and then Jesus are the ones who refuse to go along (e.g., Green 302–3). The people would thus be complaining, “We played the flute and you wouldn’t dance”—indeed not, for John preferred to fast. “We sang a funeral lament and you wouldn’t weep”—indeed not, for Jesus preferred to feast (a contrast similar to that drawn in 5:33–35).

“Yet Wisdom receives vindication from all her children” (v. 35)—from both John and Jesus, that is, despite the obvious differences between them, but also from all who have accepted their ministries as authorized by God. In Matt 11:19 Wisdom finds vindication through what she does (“her deeds”), but in Luke it is “from all her children,” who show her activity in the world to be just. All who discern and align their lives with God’s aims vindicate God’s wisdom in sending prophet and Messiah to recall God’s people to their true vocation in the world (Green 304). Personified Wisdom, perhaps prompted by the image of Wisdom as playing child in Prov 8, stands in for none other than God. “All the people” acknowledged John’s work as from God and so affirmed God’s justice (edikaiōsan, Luke 7:29). These are to be identified with “all [Wisdom’s] children” who likewise vindicate divine justice (edikaiōthē, v. 35).

Luke is painting in exaggeratedly broad strokes here: “all the people” declared God just, having received John’s baptism, and Wisdom is declared just by “all her children”; yet the “human beings of this generation,” in their response to God’s prophet and Messiah, are like children who refuse to play the game of the moment, who have failed to acknowledge God’s gracious visitation. Nevertheless even children who refuse to play the game, even members of Jesus’ generation who rebuff his ministry, as well as John’s—even those who turn aside from the purposes of God—cannot but attest the justice of God. The next scene will illustrate the point, as a righteous Pharisee’s indignation at Jesus’ response to an intrusive, unwelcome dinner guest (a woman known to be a sinner) serves only to confirm Jesus’ identity as well as the strange justice of divine mercy.

7:36–50 Role Reversal at Table: Jesus, a Pharisee, and a Sinful Woman

Jesus, the man with the well-earned reputation of enjoying a good meal and befriending sinners (7:34), finds himself in a banquet setting where he can befriend the righteous. At the home of a Pharisee, however, the unexpected appearance of a woman with her own reputation in the town—as a sinner— turns the occasion into another display of feasting and embracing, and being embraced by, a sinner. The twin themes of inside-out role reversal and divergent responses to Jesus continue, bound up with differing views of his identity. Jesus defends the uninvited guest who honors him and criticizes the righteous host who finds fault with him. Within the realm of God, honor and virtue are not what, in polite company, they appear to be.

36 Now one of the Pharisees asked [Jesus] to eat with him, and he entered the Pharisee’s house and reclined at table. 37 And there wasa a woman who livedb in that city, a sinner, and when she became aware that he was reclining at table in the Pharisee’s house, she brought a vase of perfume 38 and stood behind [Jesus], weeping at his feet, and she began to wet his feet with her tears, and she kept dryingc them with the hair of her head, and she kept kissing his feet and anointing [them] with the perfume. 39 When the Pharisee who had invited him saw [this], however, he said to himself, “If this man were a prophet, he would have realized who and what sort of woman it is who is touching him, for she is a sinner.” 40 Jesus said to him in reply, “Simon, I have something to tell you.” And he [said], “Teacher, say [it].”

[Jesus] said,d 41 “Two men owed moneye to a moneylender. One owed five hundred denarii, the other fifty. 42 When they did not have [means] to repay [the debts], he forgavef both [debts]. So which of them will love him more?” 43 Simon answered, “I assume, the one for whom he forgave more.” He said to him, “You’ve judged correctly.” 44 And turning toward the woman, he said to Simon, “Do you see this woman? I entered yourg house—you didn’t give me water for my feet. But she with her tears wet my feet and with her hair dried them. 45 You did not give me a kiss. But she, from the moment I came in, did not stop kissing my feet. 46 You did not anoint my head with olive oil. But she with perfume anointed my feet. 47 Therefore I tell you, her many sins have been forgiven; [that’s obvious] becauseh she loved much. On the other hand, the one who is forgiven little loves little.” 48 And he said to her, “Your sins have been forgiven.” 49 The others reclining at table with him began to say among themselves, “Who is this who even forgives sins?” 50 But he said to the woman, “Your faith has saved you. Go in peace.”

a. Literally, “And behold [or look: idou],” another instance of this attention-focusing phrase that is common in the lxx.

b. Literally, “who was [ēn] in the city.” My translation brings out the demonstrative nuance of the article preceding polis (city).

c. Reading the imperfect tense exemassen, the first of a string of three imperfect-tense verbs that depict the repeated actions of the woman, which Jesus’ host watches, then interrupts. The aorist exemaxen ([she] dried [them]) is also well attested (e.g., ∏3 א* A D L W) and might be regarded as the more difficult reading since it appears in a series with two imperfect-tense verbs. On the other hand, in this case the imperfect tense may be the more difficult reading since it perhaps heightens the impropriety of this gesture (a woman repeatedly drying Jesus’ feet with her hair).

d. Jesus, not Simon, is the implied subject of the (historical) present-tense verb phēmi ([he] says) (contra BDAG 1053). Introducing Simon’s words, “Teacher, say [it],” the phrase ho de (and he) is elliptical, and the verb eipen ([Simon] said) is to be supplied from the context. The placement of the verse division is misleading here.

e. Literally, “There were two debtors to a certain moneylender.”

f. Or “cancelled” (echarisato); the semantic fields of debt cancellation and forgiveness overlap in Luke (e.g., 11:4).

g. The placement of the personal pronoun sou (your) before the prepositional phrase “into your house” accents this word. Later in the verse, the initial position of autē (she) in its clause is also emphatic (again in vv. 45–46).

h. The natural sense of the Greek and the logic of the speaker’s argument appear to clash. Ordinarily one would render the Greek “Her many sins have been forgiven because she loved much,” making forgiveness contingent upon the expression of love. I have supplied in brackets words (“that’s obvious”) that I take to be necessary if the account is to have logical consistency at this point. See further the comment on this verse below.

[36–40] For the second time in the narrative, Jesus is dining in a house, but this time he feasts not in the company of “tax collectors and others [sinners]” (5:27–39) but in the home of a Pharisee, the first of three such meals (also 11:37–52; 14:1–24). each meal at the house of a Pharisee becomes an occasion for conflict, which centers on and thus clarifies the differing religious and communal visions of host and guest. The meal hosted by Simon is no exception. The importance of the host’s Pharisaic affiliation to the developing plot could not be signaled more clearly; he is identified as a Pharisee four times before he receives a name—when Jesus, for whom he is a person and not a party label, addresses him as Simon (7:40). Luke’s audience may be pardoned for connecting this disclosure to Jesus’ call of another Simon, who unlike this Pharisee, regarded himself as sinful and thus unworthy of being in Jesus’ presence (5:1–11). Will this Simon also receive and answer a call to discipleship?

The account has parallels in each of the other Gospels (Matt 26:6–13; Mark 14:3–9; John 12:1–8), but only Luke detaches the scene from the Passion Narrative, making of it a typical event of Jesus’ ministry in which he extends forgiveness to sinners and thereby irks the righteous. The host, as “one of the Pharisees,” is a representative character, and the part played so far by Pharisees—intensifying criticism of the conduct of Jesus and his disciples (5:17–6:11) and rejection of John’s baptism, and therefore of God’s purpose (7:30)—places a question mark beside this meal invitation to Jesus (on the Pharisees, see the comment on 5:17–20). The conflict that ensues between Jesus and Pharisee will not be unexpected, even if the continuing openness of Pharisees to meal fellowship with Jesus leaves their response to him open for the present.

Conflict is sparked by the arrival of an uninvited guest, an unnamed woman whose reputation as a sinner has preceded her and only appears to grow with the extravagance of her actions toward Jesus. Ancient readers familiar with the physical features of Palestinian houses would not (like many modern readers) puzzle over the woman’s ability to gain access to the banquet room (see Bailey, Peasant Eyes 4–5; Green 309) but would be stunned by her audacity, particularly in view of Pharisaic concern with ritual purity and her own status as a sinner (of whatever stripe—the account leaves that gap to be filled by the reader). If Luke’s audience is unfamiliar with the Pharisaic emphasis on ritual purity, the host’s objection to touch by a sinful woman implies such a concern (v. 39), and it will become explicit in 11:37–41. Moreover, readers acquainted with the stereotypical depiction in Greco-Roman culture of women slaves and prostitutes as available for music (“flute girls”), conversation, and sexual activity at banquets would likely sympathize with the scandalized dinner host.27

employing a series of verbs connected with kai (and), enriched with three participles, the narrator lingers over a detailed description of the woman’s physical gestures (7:37–38). Having become aware of Jesus’ dinner invitation, she comes into the dining room, carrying an alabaster vase of perfume, and positions herself behind Jesus’ feet.28 Guests would recline on a dining couch, facing the table, so an approach from behind makes sense. She then bathes his feet with her tears and keeps drying them with her hair, which must therefore be unbound, improper in such a public setting in her culture (Green 310; cf. Corley, Private Women 124–25). She kisses Jesus’ feet repeatedly and anoints them with perfume. The string of imperfect-tense verbs (“[she] kept drying . . . kept kissing . . . [and] anointing”) makes the gestures more dramatic and, for the host, offensive.

The account leaves hidden the woman’s past conduct as well as the previous contact with Jesus that seems to motivate her present action. However, the lavish treatment she gives Jesus, together with the parabolic commentary he provides, wherein love expresses gratitude for mercy received (vv. 41–43), does suggest that this is not their first encounter (Green 308). Echoing the people’s recent affirmation of Jesus as a prophet sent by God (7:16), but from a posture of skepticism, the Pharisee host objects “to himself”: “If this man were a prophet, he would have realized who and what sort of woman it is who is touching him, for she is a sinner” (v. 39). This contrary-to-fact condition—“If this man were a prophet . . . [but obviously he’s not]”—indicates that for Simon, Jesus’ conduct disconfirms his prophetic credentials. By reading Simon’s mind, however, Jesus proves otherwise. Moreover, as a prophet who stands in the tradition of Elijah and Elisha, Jesus’ offer of grace to an outsider is anything but disconfirming. evidence is beginning to accumulate that this prophet through whom God is visiting the people is redefining such matters as touch and purity, inside and outside, sin that alienates and grace that restores.

27. See, e.g., Demosthenes, Neaer. 24; Lucian, Dial. meretr. 3; 6; 12; 15; Plato, Symp. 176e; Plutarch, Adul. Amic. 64F; Plutarch, Sept. sap. conv. 150D–e. Corley provides extensive discussion of women’s participation in Greco-Roman meals (Private Women 24–79; 121–30 on Luke 7:36–50); cf. Smith, Symposium.

28. Only Luke does not expressly note the precious value of the perfume ( myron) used to anoint Jesus (cf. Matt 26:7; Mark 14:3; John 12:3). The woman’s actions are extravagant enough in Luke without mention of the perfume’s cost, which is necessary in each of the other Gospels (but not Luke) because disciples (Mark: “some people”; John: Judas) are present to register a complaint about the wastefulness of the anointing (Matt 26:8–9; Mark 14:4–5; John 12:4–6). In both Luke and John the woman (named Mary in John 12) anoints Jesus’ feet rather than, as in Matthew and Mark, his head. A foot anointing suits both Luke 7, with its attention to questions of hospitality, and John 12, with its anticipation of Jesus’ washing of disciples’ feet in the following chapter.

The host assumes that a true prophet of God would distance himself from a sinner, something the Pharisee does in his own dismissive, pejorative evaluation: “who and what sort of woman . . . a sinner.” Jesus, aware of the host’s questioning of his authenticity as prophet, tied to a harsh view of the woman, captures the Pharisee’s attention. With legitimating gesture and interpreting word, he answered the Baptizer’s doubting query (7:19–20); now he will do the same thing for the dinner host. “Simon, I have something to tell you” (v. 40). “Teacher,” the Pharisee respectfully replies, “Say [it].” Though skeptical of Jesus’ standing as prophet, Simon still recognizes his role and authority as teacher (didaskalos). Addressed as a teacher, Jesus will respond as one. With the woman’s actions in view as object lesson, Jesus will now seek to draw his host into a deeper understanding of God’s mercy toward human beings, and what it means for life in community.

[41–50] Jesus begins Simon’s reeducation with a parable about the cancellation of two debts, one large (five hundred denarii, more than a year’s pay for a laborer), the other a tenth as large (vv. 41–42a).29 When the two debtors are unable to pay, the moneylender forgives both debts. The image of debt cancellation (using the verb charizomai) prepares for Jesus’ declaration of the sinful woman’s forgiveness in vv. 47–48 (using the verb aphiēmi [release, forgive]). Jesus then asks Simon a question that will begin to drive home the point of the parable (cf. the use of the same technique in 10:36): “Which debtor will have greater love for the moneylender” (7:42b)? Simon gives the obvious answer, “The one for whom a larger amount was forgiven,” and Jesus endorses this response: “You’ve judged [discerned] correctly” (orthōs ekrinas, v. 43).

effective choreography now heightens the contrast between Pharisee host and uninvited guest on which the parable is commenting. While turning toward the woman, Jesus addresses to Simon a speech that defends her honor and, at the same time, shames him with a stinging rebuke. even the grammar sets these two characters in opposition. The narrator’s detailed account of the woman’s action (vv. 37–38) has linked a series of verbs with the conjunction kai (and). Jesus’ recounting of his host’s (in)action, however, abruptly introduces each of Simon’s acts of omission without a conjunction (asyndeton), but then follows the clause with a contrasting one, introduced by “but” (de), that recalls once more what the woman did. each clause describing what Simon failed to give begins with the thing withheld (water, kiss, ointment). each clause describing the woman’s acts begins “But she.”

29. As in v. 31, Jesus resumes direct discourse in v. 41 without a clear signal that he is speaking However, Jesus is the implied subject of the historical present verb phēsin (he says).

I entered your house—water for my feet you didn’t give me.

But she with her tears wet my feet and with her hair dried them.

A kiss you did not give me.

But she, from the moment I came in, did not stop kissing my feet.

With olive oil you did not anoint my head.

But she with perfume anointed my feet. (vv. 44–46)

The implication is clear. Simon has failed to act as a hospitable host, and it is the unwelcome guest who has provided the hospitality that Jesus should have received from the Pharisee. In Jesus’ view of things: honor for the sinful woman, but shame for the respected Pharisee.

Another aspect of the strategy of narration is intriguing (Tannehill, Narrative Unity 1:116–17). Description of the host’s neglect of the gestures of hospitality follows the report of the woman’s extravagant act toward Jesus, and it is Jesus himself who provides the description, interpreting it in advance through a parable about two forgiven debts. Only in the light of the sinful woman’s expression of care for Jesus, and his interpretation of this act in terms of forgiveness and love, can the Pharisee’s conduct and his own response to Jesus be evaluated. The story gives the most dramatic enactment so far of the inside-out reversal that attends Jesus’ ministry: sinners receive welcome, while others who appear to be righteous voice indignation and thus put their own place at risk.

For emphasis, Jesus repeats his declaration of the woman’s forgiveness, first addressing Simon, then the woman. The statement to Simon presents the full correlation of love and forgiveness for which the parable has prepared: “Therefore, I tell you, her many sins have been forgiven; [that’s obvious] because she loved much. On the other hand, the one who is forgiven little loves little” (v. 47). The word to the woman, much briefer, focuses only on the gift of forgiveness: “Your sins have been forgiven” (v. 48). Verse 47 is puzzling. Elsewhere in the passage, love is a thankful response to the offer of forgiveness (vv. 41–43, 47b; implicit as well in the woman’s extravagant gestures toward Jesus). In v. 47a, however, forgiveness seems to follow the expression of love as its consequence. A straightforward translation would be: “Her many sins have been forgiven, because she loved much.” This surprising inversion in v. 47a hints that there is no simple calculus of forgiveness and love (or gratitude, or attachment to Jesus) in Jesus’ ministry. Sometimes it may be that the initiative of a sinner (or a sick person) drawn to Jesus precedes the offer of forgiveness (or healing). Willingness to leave behind a disordered life brings one to Jesus, and his acceptance, embodying divine mercy, then invites deepened commitment, perhaps even the radical step of discipleship. Gratitude surely follows the acceptance of undeserved mercy, but for some persons openness to life-change in the company of Jesus may be the first step.

Nevertheless, the perfect tense that Jesus employs—“Her many sins have been forgiven [and she continues in that condition]”—intimates that also in this woman’s case mercy has preceded her demonstration of love. Although readers cannot know when or how this happened, previous encounter with Jesus has evidently resulted in the offer, and grateful acceptance, of forgiveness (Green 313). earlier stories in which Jesus has done precisely that make explicit narration here unnecessary (e.g., 5:17–26, 27–32). Within its narrative context the sentence makes best sense if the phrase hou charin (therefore) and the word hoti (because) are seen as linked, with both modifying the clause “I tell you” rather than the clause “her many sins have been forgiven” (which functions as the direct object of the verb “tell”; see Bovon 1:297). For clarity in the translation, I have therefore supplied in brackets the phrase “that’s obvious.” In other words, the woman’s actions, expressing love, are the reason Jesus can say that she has received forgiveness, not the reason she has been forgiven: “I am able to tell you this—that her sins have been forgiven—because, as we can all plainly see, she has (like the forgiven debtor) loved much.”

The puzzled query of the other dinner guests—“Who is this who even forgives sins?” (v. 49)—recalls 5:21. Jesus’ acceptance of a sinner, who he claims has received forgiveness, again forces the question of his identity. The echo of 5:21 serves as reminder that Jesus is about God’s work of release, of forgiveness. Behind the passive voice (“have been forgiven”) is the action of the merciful God. The dinner guests, then, do not have it quite right: the forgiveness that is affirmed and mediated by Jesus has its source in God. All that remains is for the woman to live as one forgiven, as one made whole (healed, saved) because, in her openness to divine mercy, she dared, vulnerable and without shame, to approach Jesus. So he dismisses her: “Your faith has saved you. Go in peace” (7:50; cf. 8:48; 17:19; 18:42). That is, God has saved, and faith has courageously taken hold of the gift.

Chapter 7 ends as it began, with Jesus saving. Faith opens persons—Gentile soldiers and their slaves, widows and their sons, women (even sinful women) and Pharisees (if they too acknowledge their need to reorient life toward God’s purposes)—to divine mercy, to the gracious offer of deliverance, whether in the form of forgiveness or healing or life itself, and to the restoration to the human community that each carries with it. Festive celebration over a shared meal is the perfect way to mark this transformation of life and circumstance (cf. 5:27–32; 15:1–32), but evidently not at the table of at least one respected community leader.

8:1–9:50 The Galilean Ministry of Teaching

and Healing Expands—and Concludes

In its final phase, Jesus’ ministry in Galilee and its environs broadens. He ventures across the lake into new and strange territory, and after a period of training he dispatches the twelve apostles he has chosen to extend his ministry of teaching and healing. Through extraordinary acts of power, Jesus feeds a crowd, stills a storm on the lake, and continues to heal and release from demonic oppression—glimpses of a glory that the narrative soon paints in brilliant transfiguration colors. Throughout, however, there remains the question of his identity: Who is this? Who can do and say the things he does? As identity and vocation are wrapped up with destiny, the activity in Galilee, in which Jesus has provoked the question of his identity by actions and words that express his vocation, aptly ends with a decisive shift in direction. From 9:51 onward, Jesus will be journeying to Jerusalem, where his destiny lies.

8:1–3 Women Followers Provide Resources for Jesus’ Ministry

In a summary of Jesus’ Galilean activity, Luke draws particular attention to the people around him: the Twelve and—new information—a group of women whose generous support makes possible an itinerant ministry of teaching and healing.

1 And next [Jesus] happened to be traveling from one city or village to another, preaching and declaring the good news of God’s reign, and the Twelve were with him, 2 as well as some women who had been healed of evil spirits and illnesses: Mary who was called Magdalene, from whom seven demons had departed; 3 and Joanna, the wife of Chuza, a business manager [who worked] for Herod; and Susanna—along with many other women who from their own resources provided support for them.

[1–3] With broad strokes the narrator paints a picture of Jesus’ activity in Galilee. Such summaries show that the specific events related are illustrative of a more extensive ministry. Just as Jesus told receptive residents of Capernaum he “must” do, he travels among the villages of the region, preaching (kēryssōn) and announcing good news (euangelizomenos), specifically a message about God’s reign. God’s sovereignty over the world is now on display, for those with eyes to see it (v. 1; cf. 4:43–44). Yet 8:2–3 adds to this summary portrait, naming as Jesus’ companions “the Twelve,” apostles earlier chosen from the company of disciples for a mission they have yet to undertake (6:13–16), but also a group of women who have benefited from Jesus’ acts of healing, a reminder that his ministry of release delivers both authoritative speech and power to heal. As in 6:18–19 and 7:21, liberation from both diseases and demons or unclean spirits is classed as healing (8:2).

The narrator names three of the women (Mary Magdalene, Joanna, and Susanna), but there are many others: While the apostles have a mission-inwaiting, these women already engage in a ministry of their own. They not only follow Jesus but also provide the resources to sustain an itinerant ministry that has no household base to assure economic viability (cf. 9:58). The verb diakoneō (minister, serve, provide support for) and cognate noun diakonia denote various forms of service in Luke’s writings, often with reference to women yet with Jesus as the paradigmatic servant (verb: 4:39; 22:27; noun: 10:40; Acts 6:1). The picture that Luke paints of the company of Jesus has been shaped by but also reconfigures cultural patterns of Jesus’ (and Luke’s) social setting. Conventional patterns of reciprocity between patron and clients are at play, as the women aided by Jesus reciprocate by offering tangible support for his work—though their gifts of money and resources do not then place Jesus (the Lord!) in the position of client who owes them anything (cf. Green 319: the women “mirror the graciousness of Jesus’ own benefaction”).

The shifts in gender roles and in family and kinship relations are intriguing. Joanna’s husband is mentioned, but otherwise these women appear in the narrative without any connection to husband or household (the situation is similar with the men who have gathered around Jesus). Whether as unmarried women or widows, or as married women operating independently of their household system, the women are present in the itinerant band of Jesus’ followers, a remarkable development in a social world where location and role in the household are so determinative of identity and behavior. A new family is gathering around Jesus, as the narrative will soon make explicit (Luke 8:19–21). This family has no male head, for God is its “Father” (e.g., 11:2). The resulting disruptions of existing household and family relationships will involve considerable conflict (e.g., 14:26; 18:28–30; 21:16).

Luke identifies these three women companions of Jesus in the course of his ministry, while Matthew and Mark wait until the crucifixion scene to name the women who have followed Jesus from Galilee and ministered to him (attended to his needs, served him—as in Luke, using diakoneō: Matt 27:55–56; Mark 15:41). Luke also mentions Mary Magdalene and Joanna (with others) at the end of the story (24:10). Only Luke makes explicit that the service offered by women followers has to do with financial support (“from their own resources”). Mary Magadalene comes from the town of Magdala (meaning “tower”), on the shore of Lake Gennesaret near Tiberias. The characterization of Mary as a woman from whom seven demons have been banished (with Jesus implicitly the healer), together with her later role in connection with the resurrection of Jesus (24:10; embellished in John 20:11–18, and expansively in extracanonical literature such as the gnostic Gospel of Mary), provides the raw materials for considerable legendary development, reaching even to the twenty-first century.30 Nothing further is known about Susanna or Joanna, although Chuza, husband of Joanna, would have been a man of some importance, and perhaps wealth, as estate manager for Herod Antipas (in Ant. 18.6.6, Josephus similarly identifies the freed slave Thaumastus as epitropos, estate manager or steward, for Agrippa). Whatever the historical details, this mention of Chuza’s association with Herod is significant to the plot of the story. Soon Luke’s audience will learn that reports concerning Jesus have reached Herod (9:7–9). The transitional narrative summary of 8:1–3 prepares for that development.

8:4–21 Jesus Teaches the Word in Parables and Forms a New Family

Jesus has previously used the teaching device of the parable. Now he presents a parable that provides commentary on what is happening as the crowds hear and respond to his message. The word of God, despite its seeming failure among many in Jesus’ audience, is flourishing, its fruitfulness apparent as a new family gathers around Jesus, a family defined by its commitment both to hear and to perform God’s word. The message that Jesus is broadcasting reveals God’s ways and work, but not everyone perceives. It matters how one is paying attention: God’s word is to be heard—and seen, and lived.

4 When a large crowd had gathered, including persons who had come to him from city after city, [Jesus] told a parable:a 5 “A sower went out to sow his seed, and as he was sowing, some fell along the path and was trampled upon, and the birds of the sky ate it up. 6 Some fell upon rock, and although it came up, it withered from lack of moisture. 7 Some fell in the middle of thorn-plants, and since the thorn-plants grew up with it, they choked it. 8 And some fell onto good soil, and when it had come up, it bore fruit a hundredfold.” As he said this he called out, “Let the one with ears for hearing hear.”

9 Then his disciples were asking him, “What might this parable be [about]?” 10 And he said, “It has been given to you to know the mysteries of God’s reign, but for othersb [I speak] in parables, so that ‘though they look they may not see,c and though they listen they may not understand.’ 11 This is the parable: The seed [sown] is the word of God. 12 The ones along the path are those who have heard, yet the devil then comes and takes the word away from their hearts so that they may not believe and be saved. 13 And the ones on the rock [are] those who receive the word with delight when they hear it, yet they do not have root—who believe for a while but in timed of testing fall away. 14 As for what fell into the thorn-bushes, these are the ones who have heard but as they go on their way are choked by life’s worries and wealth and pleasures and so do not bear mature fruit. 15 However, what [was] in good soil—these are whoever has heard the word with a good and noble heart and holds it fast and bears fruit with perseverance.

30. See Good, Mariam; Hearon, Mary Magdalene Tradition; Meyer, Gospels of Mary; Schaberg, Resurrection of Mary Magdalene. The recent literature on Mary Magdalene is voluminous.

16 “No one, after lighting a lamp, covers it with a jar or puts it under a bed; rather, one puts it on a lampstand so that those who enter may see the light. 17 Indeed, there is nothing hiddene that will not become visible, nor is there anything concealed that will not be made known and come into the open.f 18 Watch,g therefore, how you listen. For thoseh who have will be given [more], while as for those who do not have, even what they think they have will be taken away from them.”

19 Now [Jesus’] mother and brothers came toward him, but they were unable to meet him because of the crowd. 20 It was reported to him, “Your mother and your brothers are standing outside, wanting to see you.” 21 But he replied to them, “These are my mother and my brothers: the ones who are hearing—and doing—the word of God.”

a. Literally, “he spoke through [ dia] a parable,” i.e., in a parabolic way (adverbial phrase); cf. “in parables” in Matt 13:3; Mark 4:2.

b. “For the rest [loipois].”

c. To express the contrast between types of visual perception, I have used “look” and “see” for the same Greek verb, blepō. The lines about seeing and hearing come from Isa 6:9–10.

d. The phrases “for a while” and “in time of testing” employ the same noun, kairos (time, season).

e. Or “covered [kalyptō].” The image in v. 17 is one of concealment, or hiddenness, reversed.

f. The word phaneron (open) is the same as that translated “visible” earlier in the verse.

g. Or “See,” the same verb (blepein) that appears twice in v. 10.

h. Literally, “whoever has”; for a fluid (and gender-inclusive) translation, I have converted the singular pronouns and verbs throughout this sentence into the plural.

[4–8] The economy of first-century Palestine was agrarian, and with a parable that draws from common agricultural practices, Jesus pictures the diverse outcomes that result from varying responses to his message of God’s reign. Depending on the soil conditions that nurture or thwart, the seedling may or may not grow to maturity. Although many listeners do not hear well—that is, with a faith that perseveres—an abundant yield is nevertheless sure, for God’s word is effective (cf. Isa 55:10–11).

Luke gives this teaching session a vague setting, having already used (in 5:1–3) the lakeside backdrop it has in Mark (4:1) and Matthew (13:1–2). The gathering of a large crowd is the trigger for a parabolic message, which focuses on the conditions and effects of genuine hearing. In the Lukan rendition of the parable of the sower and his seeds (the parable also appears in Matt 13:3–8; Mark 4:3–9; Gos. Thom. 9), Jesus highlights not the sower’s actions but what happens to the seeds he sows (i.e., he does not individually plant but broadcasts) in his field. Luke’s addition in 8:5 of “his seed [sporon],” yielding the striking and redundant series “sower . . . to sow . . . [seed] sown . . . as he sowed” (speirōn.. . speirai .. . sporon .. . speirein), shows where the emphasis lies: in Luke this is a parable about seeds and their varying fortunes.

The first seed (or seed-group) falls alongside the path that borders the farmer’s field (v. 5). Luke alone adds the vivid (and realistic) detail that this seed was trampled upon; finally, though, consumption by birds prevents the seed’s growth to maturity. The second seed falls upon rock (petra [also in Gos. Thom. 9]; rocky soil, petrōdes[ē], in Matt 13:5; Mark 4:5), and after sprouting it dries up from lack of water (Luke 8:6). Where Mark and Matthew elaborate the soil conditions that frustrate the seed’s “immediate” initial growth (lack of soil depth, scorching by the sun), Luke condenses the description to the single participle phyen ([it] came up) and the causal phrase “from lack of moisture.” The effect of this abbreviation is sharp focus on what happens to the seed: “it withered.” The third seed falls in the middle (en mesō, only in Luke) of thornplants, which grow alongside it and eventually strangle it (v. 7). Once again, an external force, briefly described, prevents the growth of the seed to maturity. Thus far the parabolic story is a picture of repeated frustration and failure. In a world where famine is frequent and survival depends on a successful harvest, this is a bleak account indeed.

The climax brings reversal, however, with a delayed depiction of successful growth: “And some fell onto good soil, and when it had come up, it bore fruit a hundredfold” (v. 8). In each of the other renditions of the parable, the conclusion pictures an abundant, but multiform, yield (thirtyfold, sixtyfold, and a hundredfold in Mark 4:8; with inversion of sequence in Matt 13:8; sixtyfold and 120-fold in Gos. Thom. 9). This seemingly random variety in outcomes unnecessarily complicates the parable’s ending, prompting the question “Why do the seeds nurtured in ideal conditions produce such widely varying results?” Luke’s version is simpler, however, choosing the maximum yield (a hundredfold; in Gen 26:12 such a yield signals divine blessing of Isaac) and omitting the other two (thirty, sixty), thus leaving only the contrast between seeds that grow to maturity and those that do not. The complexity in the story, as Luke tells it, is far from random: if there is variety of outcome, it stems from differing developmental conditions faced by the seeds—and this falls on the side of failure to produce, not success.

This is a story with a point, but it is not self-evident. Therefore Jesus follows the narration with an appeal to listen well: “Let the one with ears for hearing hear” (v. 8b). This concluding appeal prepares for the ensuing conversation with disciples about the meaning of this parable and the reasons for parabolic teaching. Not all hearing leads to comprehension. For those who follow Jesus, though, and who ask and seek, speech-in-metaphor (including parables) aims at the gift of faith-with-understanding—at revelation of truth, not its concealment. Luke’s audience, too, will have the opportunity to (over)hear an explication of the message of the parable.

[9–15] Jesus has called his audience to perceptive audition, which the disciples—though not privately, away from the crowd, as in Mark 4:10—take as a cue to ask about the meaning of “this parable” (Luke 8:9; the query is more generally about the “parables” in Mark 4:10 and Matt 13:10). Jesus’ reply justifies the query, for when it comes to God’s reign, which is the central metaphor of Jesus’ message, not all is plain. There are “mysteries,” secrets that must be disclosed to be grasped, and the one doing the disclosing is God (the theological passive “it has been given,” v. 10). The disciples receive from God the gift of understanding, but for everyone else the word is spoken “in parables.”31 Why? So that they may see without perceiving, listen without comprehending—lines borrowed from Isa 6:9–10.

Is it God’s purpose to hide truth from some human beings? That is the plain sense of this purpose clause (introduced by hina, “so that”), which, with some abbreviation, Luke takes over from Isa 6:9–10. Yet, as the image of the lamp in Luke 8:16–17 will show, ultimately nothing has been hidden except for the purpose of becoming visible. In fact, according to Jesus’ allegorical interpretation of the parable of the seeds, it is God’s enemy who opposes believing reception of the word (v. 12). God’s ways and work, whether presented in Jesus’ speech or enacted in Jesus’ actions, can be perceived as such only in the hearing and seeing of faith. The Gospel began on this note (with the contrast between Mary’s trusting response and Zechariah’s skeptical response to revelation in 1:18–20, 38), and Luke’s second volume will end on it (Acts 28:26–28, with its more complete quotation of Isa 6:9–10, culminating in the image of believing audition by Gentiles). God sends prophet and Messiah not to keep the people from perceiving but to call Israel to faith—faith that receives the divine offer of salvation. However, not all hear and see in faith: a divided people is in the making. Parables require listeners to ask and puzzle, to seek and imagine and strive, to open mind and heart to new ways of thinking, new modes of living. For “the rest,” therefore, Jesus speaks in parables, which confront listeners with the challenge of authentic response to the word of God, a hearing and knowing that involve the persevering commitment of faith.

31. The boundary between the disciples to whom understanding is given and the crowds (“the rest,” loipoi) who get parables is less rigid in Luke than in Mark 4:11, which characterizes the parable recipients as outsiders—though the disciples who occupy the position of insiders in Mark turn out to be no more comprehending than those outside.

The disciples query “What might this parable be [about]?” Jesus answers precisely, “This is the parable” (v. 11a), and proceeds to explain it as an allegory (missing from Gos. Thom. 9): what is sown is God’s word (v. 11b), but the seeds then turn out to be human beings who, as their life circumstances vary, receive and respond to that word in four different ways (vv. 12–15). Seeds cast along the path represent persons who hear the word, only to have the devil prevent discernment and thus commitment—“the devil [diabolos] then comes and takes the word away from their hearts” (v. 12). A distinctive Lukan touch is the purpose clause that follows; the devil’s aim is “that they may not believe and be saved.” The spiritual being who sought to divert Jesus from his vocation as Son of God (4:1–13) has similar designs for others as well. The corollary of this statement of the devil’s motivation is that the word of God intends to evoke faith in human beings, to save them. This feature of the seed allegory, unique to Luke, significantly qualifies the statement of purpose for the parables (8:10). Jesus’ teaching summons those who hear to faith—faith that shapes life (e.g., 6:46–49; 8:19–21) and receives the divine gift of deliverance.

Seeds that land on rock represent persons “who receive the word with delight when they hear it, yet they do not have root—who believe for a while but in time of testing fall away” (v. 13). In Mark 4:17 (also Matt 13:21) it is the experience of intense affliction (thlipsis) and persecution that leads to the loss of faith, but Luke’s phrasing of the crisis that overwhelms faith aligns the believer’s experience with that of Jesus: faith may fail “in time of testing [en kairō peirasmou]” (cf. 4:1–13). If many in Jesus’ audience enthusiastically welcome his teaching, the allegory of the seeds nevertheless prompts the question: Will their believing acceptance of God’s word—hence, of God’s activity—in Jesus’ ministry survive the ordeal of testing that lies ahead? Not even Jesus’ closest followers will be spared this ordeal (22:31–34, 40, 46). In the world in which the disciples live, genuine hearing of God’s word necessarily involves faith that perseveres despite severe testing, a point that the allegory’s final line makes explicit (8:15; cf. 18:8).

Seeds unable to grow to maturity because of thornbushes represent persons whose reception of God’s word becomes entangled with “life’s worries and wealth and pleasures” (8:14). With this picture of routine concerns and preoccupations of life as a threat to faith’s persistence, the allegory introduces what will become an emphasis of Jesus’ teaching in the journey narrative that begins at 9:51. One modulation of the tradition is particularly revealing in 8:14. It is not the deceptive lure (apatē) of wealth (Mark 4:19; Matt 13:22) but wealth itself that strangles faith. As will become increasingly clear, material possessions, and the life that revolves around acquiring and holding on to them, are a lethal enemy to faith (e.g., Luke 12:13–34; 16:14–15, 19–31; 18:18–25)—the other side of the coin that is stamped “good news for the poor.” Luke also shifts the image from seeds that are unfruitful (Mark 4:19) to seeds that do not bear fruit to maturity (telesphorousin), a change that fits with the emphasis in Luke’s rendition on faith’s perseverance (cf. Bovon 1:310–11).

And faith does persevere, at least in some who hear and welcome the word (Luke 8:15). Once again the distinctive Lukan details are noteworthy. There is something about the seeds, not just the soil conditions (“in good soil”), that affects the outcome. Jesus observes the quality of character that marks persons in whom faith endures and bears fruit: they hear “with a good and noble heart.” It is the interaction between strength of character and environmental conditions that is decisive. Finally, as already noted, the end point matters. Faith may begin well, but will positive reception of God’s word, as Jesus speaks and lives it, endure? Will fruitful living of faith continue no matter what comes? This is a question with which Luke’s audience may evaluate characters in the narrative who hear Jesus’ teaching of the word of God—but also a question that the allegory of the seeds addresses to their own hearing of the message, their own response to the story.

[16–18] Verses 16–17 shift from aural to visual imagery, and v. 18 then combines the two. Through observation of seeds growing in a farmer’s field, Jesus has commented on various modes of hearing and responding to his teaching of God’s word. Now in metaphor he steps from the field into the house, to develop the point about revelation and concealment introduced in vv. 9–10. Verse 16 describes normal household practice (see Vinson 253–54): “No one, after lighting a lamp, covers it with a jar or puts it under a bed; rather, one puts it on a lampstand so that those who enter may see the light.” One does not cover a lit lamp but positions it so that anyone who comes into the house can see (cf. 11:33). Verse 17 then draws an analogy (implied, e.g., in the passive verb “will be made known [gnōsthē]”) to the revelatory activity of God: “There is nothing hidden that will not become visible, nor is there anything concealed that will not be made known and come into the open.” According to Jesus, God is in the revelation business; even divinely purposed concealment is ultimately in the service of disclosure.

Much depends, however, on the recipient of revelation. How will she hear? What will he see? “Watch, therefore, how you listen. For those who have will be given [more], while as for those who do not have, even what they think they have will be taken away from them” (v. 18). The mixing of aural and visual imagery invites reflection on the process of perception (see Darr, “Watch”). Is appropriate seeing needed to support right hearing? Faith requires attentiveness to both the word that Jesus speaks and the acts that disclose the reign of God. As the next unit shows, authentic hearing (and seeing) expresses itself in a way of living—doing what God wills. This is the “how” of hearing that Jesus commends. Two slight adaptations of the tradition shift the meaning in intriguing ways. First, Jesus in Mark cautions listeners about the content to which they attend: “Watch what you hear” (4:24 AT). For Luke, however, interest centers on the mode of attention: “Watch how you hear” (8:18). Second, the consequences of attention receive distinctive nuance in Luke. God gives much to those who receptively attend and who therefore discern, but God takes away (theological passive: “[it] will be taken away”) from those who lack because they neither attend nor discern. What is lost, though, is not what one had—that was illusory!—but what one thought or assumed (dokei) one had (contrast Mark 4:25; Matt 13:12). For those with ears to hear and eyes to see, however, what becomes visible is a new family of faith and obedience as God’s reign establishes itself on earth.

[19–21] Jesus’ interpretation of the parable of the seeds receives further explication in vv. 19–21: the seeds bearing mature fruit are an image of the very persons about whom Jesus now speaks, who hear and perform God’s word. Jesus’ mother and brothers approach him, but the presence of a large crowd prevents their meeting (v. 19). When told that his mother and brothers are “standing outside” and want to see him (v. 20), Jesus responds by redefining family: “These are my mother and my brothers: the ones who are hearing—and doing— the word of God” (v. 21).32 The ministry of Jesus is constituting a new family, a “fictive kinship” group (Vinson 256) that welcomes any who orient their lives around the revelatory, convention-challenging, life-claiming word of God.

In the social world of Jesus (and Luke), family membership was the primary determinant of identity, role, and allegiance; therefore, when Jesus calls as disciples persons who are willing to leave everything to be with him, who make their commitment to the work of God’s realm their primary commitment, he is engaging in socially and politically subversive practices. When he proclaims the good news of God’s reign, with its radical inversions of status and power, and when he embodies this in acts of healing and in shared meals, he is inviting people to reorder their perception of the world, and their conduct within it, in terms of this governing conviction: God is sovereign. Such a religious vision, and accompanying social practices that detach women and men from their families, will create turmoil in the household and inevitably provoke opposition. Luke’s audience expects conflict to ensue, being already familiar with the tension between religious and family loyalty (2:48–50; cf. 2:35; 4:22–24), and will not be surprised when it comes, as early as the next chapter (9:59–62; cf. 14:26; 21:16). Nevertheless, disciples and potential disciples who risk much by leaving their families and households receive much in return as Jesus welcomes them into a new family, the family that looks to God as its head (cf. 18:28–30).

Again in 11:27–28 Jesus will relativize family relationships, diverting blessing from the mother who nurtured him to “those who hear and keep [guard, phylassontes] the word of God” (v. 28). Luke does not, however, write off Jesus’ actual mother and brothers; that would be an unexpected development after the positive depiction of Mary, and of the fidelity of Jesus’ family, earlier in the narrative (chs. 1–2). Before the story ends (in book two), Jesus’ mother and brothers have joined his fictive—but real—family, composed of all who hear and keep the word of God (see Acts 1:14).

32. In Matt 12:50 and Mark 3:35, Jesus defines as his family persons who do the will ( thelēma) of God. Luke makes much the same point, preserving an emphasis on performance, but adapts the phrasing to its literary context, which highlights authentic hearing of the word of God, and to a broader narrative concern that pairs hearing and doing (e.g., 6:46–49; 11:28).

8:22–25 Jesus Calms Wind and Sea

Accompanied by the disciples, Jesus seeks to expand the sphere of his mission, venturing by boat to the other side of the lake (Gennesaret), to an area populated by Gentiles. A sudden storm on the lake, however, creates a momentary crisis of faith and fear for the disciples. When Jesus quiets the fierce wind and rough waves, his followers pose the same question others have been asking: “Who is this?”

22 One day [Jesus] got into a boat with his disciples, and he said to them, “Let’s cross over to the other side of the lake,” and they set out. 23 While they were sailing, he fell asleep; a windstorm came down onto the lake so they were being swamped and were in danger. 24 They came to [Jesus] and woke him up, saying, “Master, Master, we are perishing!” But when he had been awakened, he rebuked the wind and the rough water,a and they ceased, and so it became calm. 25 He said to them, “Where is your faith?” Being afraid, however, they were amazed and said to one another, “Who, then, is this? For he even commands the winds and the water, and they obey him!”

a. Literally, “the wave of water.”

[22–25] Jesus invites the disciples to join him for a boat trip across the lake (Gennesaret, though it is not named here; Luke avoids misleading reference to the “sea” of Galilee), to an unspecified region (v. 22). The next pericope will indicate that Jesus is intent on broadening the sphere of his activity; the destination, the region of the Gerasenes “opposite [i.e., east of] Galilee” (8:26), is an area inhabited by Gentiles. As the boat makes its way, Jesus sleeps, but a strong windstorm puts the disciples in danger as the boat begins to fill with water (v. 23). In Mark 4:37–38 notice of Jesus asleep follows the description of the storm, but the Lukan narration effectively begins with an image of calm (Jesus sleeping), then relates its disruption (the storm and the distress of Jesus’ companions), and circles back to calm at the end (the rebuke of wind and wave)—a sequence that lends force to Jesus’ question to the disciples: “Where is your faith?” (Luke 8:25).

As the disciples rouse Jesus from sleep, the double address “Master, Master”—epistata, a title signaling acknowledgment of Jesus’ authority^33— underscores the urgency of the appeal. “We are perishing!” (v. 24).34 Once awakened, Jesus reproaches the storm-driven waves and wind as if they were demon-directed (the narrator does not report his speech but does describe it with the verb epitimaō [rebuke, reproach]; cf. 4:35, 39, 41). With calm immediately restored, Jesus now reproaches the disciples as well, asking the telling question “Where is your faith?” The narrator provides the answer: even after being delivered from danger, the disciples remain terrified (v. 25). Fear trumps faith, although the formulation Jesus uses implies that the disciples do possess faith, even if it is not in evidence at the moment (contrast Mark 4:40: “Have you still no faith?”). Countering his question with one of their own, though voiced only among themselves, the disciples query, “Who, then, is this?” Who can issue commands to unruly forces of nature, commands that wind and wave obey? Luke accents Jesus’ authoritative word by adding that it is Jesus’ command that produces the marvel of obedient water and wind (cf. Mark 4:41).

Where is the disciples’ faith? Clearly it is still in process of formation. Rescued by Jesus’ powerful word, their awe mingled with fear, the disciples join their own question regarding Jesus’ identity to the similar questions posed by others before them (critics and other observers in 5:21 and 7:49; cf. 4:36; 7:19; Herod Antipas will join the chorus in 9:9). Who is this? Luke’s audience is primed to observe closely as the disciples continue their association with Jesus. How will their faith, and their understanding of Jesus’ role and significance, grow? Moreover, when they again face crisis and danger, will their faith prove a resource to sustain them in a way that is not yet possible?

8:26–39 Release for a Man Afflicted by a Legion of Demons

Safe from the perils of the lake, Jesus creates a storm of his own in the region of the Gerasenes. Immediately after reaching land, he encounters a man whose life is so distorted by the demons inside him that he has long made his home among the buried dead, naked, isolated from the society of the living. When Jesus permits the army of demons to find a new home in a herd of pigs, which promptly rush to destruction, the man is restored to health and, at least potentially, to the community. That community, though, responds with fear so intense that Jesus has no choice but to leave. The man, bereft of his demon army, now tries to remain with Jesus, but in an interesting reversal of the demotion of existent family relationships in 8:19–21, Jesus sends him back to his own house. He will need to be the one who tells the Gerasenes the story of God’s saving work.

33. Replacing “teacher” in Mark 4:38; disciples or petitioners address Jesus as “master” also in Luke 5:5; 8:45; 9:33, 49; 17:13.

34. The Markan disciples’ complaining question “Don’t you care that we are perishing?” (Mark 4:38 AT) becomes an assertion of fact in Luke 8:24: “We are perishing!” Together with the reframing of Jesus’ rebuke of the disciples—lack of faith (Mark 4:40) becomes faith unexpressed in the moment (Luke 8:25), and there is no chastisement of the disciples as “cowards,” as in Mark 4:40— Luke’s modulation of the tradition softens the harsh Markan portrait of the disciples.

26 They sailed to the region of the Gerasenes, which is opposite Galilee. 27 When [Jesus] had gotten out onto the land, a man from the city met him; he had demons and for quite some time had not worn any clothing, and he was staying not in a house but among the tombs. 28 When he saw Jesus, though, he cried out, fell down before him, and said in a loud voice, “What do you have to do with me, Jesus, Son of God Most High? I beg you, don’t torment me!” 29 For [Jesus] had ordered the unclean spirit to come out of the man. On many occasions it had seized him, and he would be bound in chains and shackles, under guard; nevertheless, tearing the fetters, he would be driven by the demon into isolated places. 30 Jesus asked him, “What is your name?” And he said, “Legion”—for many demons had entered him. 31 They began to appeal to [Jesus] not to command them to depart to the abyss. 32 Now a large herd of pigs was there grazing on the hill, so [the demons] appealed to him to permit them to enter [the pigs]. And he did permit them. 33 When the demons had left the man, they entered the pigs, and the herd rushed down the bank into the lake and drowned.

34 When the men who were tending [the herd] saw what had happened, they fled and reported [this] in the city and in the countryside as well. 35 So they went out to see what had happened and came to Jesus, and they found the man from whom the demons had departed sitting, clothed and of sound mind, at the feet of Jesus, and they were afraid. 36 Those who had seen [what happened] reported to them how the demon-possessed man was made well.a 37 The whole throng from the area around the Gerasenes asked him to depart from them, because they were overcome with intense fear. So he got into a boat and turned back. 38 The man from whom the demons had departed begged of [Jesus] to [be allowed to continue to] be with him. However, he dismissed him, saying, 39 “Return to your house and tell the story of all that God has done for you.” So he went away, proclaiming in every city all that Jesus had done for him.

a. Or “saved” (esōthē); the same verb indicates restoration of health in the following unit (8:48, 50).

[26–33] As soon as Jesus sets foot on Gerasene soil, a demon-tormented man comes out to him “from the city.” Mark 5:2 has the man come “from the tombs,” where indeed he also makes his home in Luke’s version (v. 27), but the Lukan phrasing is more subtle. This man has been separated from the city by his disorder and now inhabits a liminal space between worlds: human and demonic, living and dead. Although his approach to Jesus does not have healing as its motive, Jesus meets him in his place between worlds and brings release for which he has not asked. In spatial terms, the approach “from the city” is reversed at the close of the story by Jesus’ direction that the man go back to his house, and by his telling the news of his healing “in every city” (v. 39).

The narrator provides a vivid description of the man’s condition (vv. 27, 29b), interrupted by a verbal exchange with Jesus (vv. 28–29a). The picture is one of powerful, distorting invasion of human life by the demonic. For a long time this man has lived in isolation, of which his lack of clothing and his home with the dead (“among the tombs”) are potent symbols. Shackles cannot restrain his wild outbursts; others cannot control him, though his life is entirely controlled by hostile forces within him. The result of demonic control of the man’s life is an existence in perpetual shame and isolation, cut off from human company. The labeling of the man’s tormentor is fluid, shifting between singular and plural and between “unclean spirit” and demon(s). This flexibility in description suits a man whose self has been overwhelmed by such turbulent forces. Moreover, the single reference to an unclean spirit (v. 29) is significant because it reinforces the image of this man, a tomb-dweller, as ritually impure, though in a story about Gentiles and pigs, this is perhaps not a great concern.

The demons may exert control over the man, but at the sight of Jesus they realize they are overmatched (v. 28). So the man falls down before Jesus and shouts, “What do you have to do with me, Jesus, Son of God Most High?”—trying the same distancing formula that failed a demon in 4:34 (in the plural: “with us”; see the comment on that verse). “I beg you, don’t torment me!” If the man himself is speaking, the irony is humorous: one so tormented by demons is begging Jesus not to begin to torment him! Only now does the narrator disclose that Jesus has already directed the spirit to leave, hence the outburst (8:29a). The demon knows Jesus’ identity (cf. 4:34, 41), and now Jesus asks, “What is your name?” Leverage gained through knowledge of a demon’s name was one of the tools of the exorcist’s trade (e.g., PGM 4.3039–46; 13.242–44; see Twelftree, Exorcist 84; Green 339), but here the dialogue appears to be between Jesus and the man, not the spirit. He identifies himself by his nickname, “Legion,” aptly chosen for, as the narrator now discloses, he has been invaded by “many demons” (8:30). The image of a legion of demons suggests not just a large number but an army. The man’s existence has become a symbol of the disruption and oppression caused by military occupation of the land by the Roman legions.35 Indeed, demonic possession is one of the strategies for “safe” expression of resistance to colonial domination.36 For readers alert to the operation of such a hidden transcript here, the outcome of the story, with its complete annihilation of a “legion” of malevolent, oppressive forces, indicates symbolically that Roman colonial domination of the land and its peoples will come to an end. The power unleashed by the counterreign of God is a superior force, although it remains to be seen in what way the outcome of this confrontation will materialize.

35. For the view that possession by a “legion” of demons is an aggressive, though sublimated, response to military occupation, see Theissen, Miracle Stories 255; and the critique in Green 339 n. 76.

Verses 31–32 shift to the voice of the demons (reporting it through indirect discourse); they try to negotiate with Jesus, whose superior power they recognize. Desiring to avoid “the abyss,” they plead with Jesus that he allow them instead to enter a herd of pigs nearby. (The presence of these pigs is an obvious indicator, for readers who do not know that the Gerasenes are not Jews, that Jesus is among Gentiles.) Jesus, the narrator concisely reports, “did permit them.”37 Again the irony is amusing (except for the pigs and the swineherds). The demons beg Jesus not to order them to go to the pit of destruction, the abyss;38 however, when given free rein with a herd of pigs, they drive the pigs off a cliff to destruction (v. 33). With high drama, and not a little humor, the narrative pictures the destructive—and ultimately self-defeating—fury of evil forces, which are powerless, as the storm was, before Jesus, “Son of God Most High.” Memorable events indeed—and terrifying, as the next plot turn shows.

[34–39] The disciples’ fear on the lake set Jesus’ calm in bold relief; so too the responses to the events surrounding Legion present mutually illumining contrasts. On one side, Legion sits quietly with Jesus, once again in control of his faculties. On the other side is sheer terror. The men who tend the herd leave in a panic and spread word in the city (v. 34). (The loss of a large herd of pigs will not go over well with their owners.) The narrator twice points to the fear of others who learn of these extraordinary events (vv. 35, 37). The narration illumines both the reasons for fear and its results. Residents of the town come out to see for themselves and discover the man sitting calmly with Jesus—and dressed (v. 35)! The narrator records their response in one word: ephobēthēsan (“they were afraid”). even constructive change, like the restoring of health to this uncontrollable man who has been written out of the town’s script, can be disruptive and unwelcome. Typically the extraordinary power evident in Jesus’ actions elicits amazement (e.g., 4:32, 36; 5:9, 26), but this is not the first time that experience of the numinous in Jesus’ power to heal has produced fear (cf. 7:16). eyewitnesses explain how the man has been made well—delivered (saved, esōthē, v. 36 [wording only in Luke’s version]). Despite this positive interpretation of the event, fear lingers, and so with one voice the people of the region ask Jesus to leave (v. 37). He gets back into the boat and turns back (or returns, hypestrepsen).

36. J. Scott describes such possession as a “quasi-covert form of social protest” ( Domination 141).

37. Mark 5:12 reports that the demons appeal to Jesus to “send” them into the pigs and that he then gave them that “permission.” Luke 8:32 aligns the appeal and Jesus’ response, each using the verb epitrephein (permit). Luke’s version places even stronger accent on the demons’ (self-) destructive intent.

38. Mark 5:10 has the demons ask Jesus not to send them “outside that region” (AT); Luke’s rendition, with the image of the abyss, heightens the irony.

One voice remains to be heard, however, and it fills out the picture of contrasts displayed in the responses to the event. While the rest of the people push Jesus away, Legion begs (indirect discourse) to be able to stay with Jesus (v. 38). The one tormented by being “many” has become single-minded in his determination to be with Jesus. When Jesus instead sends him back to his house to tell the story of God’s action for him, he declares in every city “all that Jesus had done for him” (v. 39).

A demon-distorted life has made it impossible for Legion to live in community. His healing allows restoration to community, but matters are more complicated than that. It is not clear from the story how welcoming that community will be toward him. But the spotlight belongs, finally, to this man who has experienced liberation he did not seek: as the story closes, he assumes the role of evangelist, declaring God’s gracious deliverance everywhere he goes. Although Jesus has been driven away, God is not left without a witness among the Gerasene Gentiles.

The healed man, charged by Jesus with the task of telling the story of what God has done for him, proceeds to declare in all the towns of his region what Jesus has done. The shift in the narrator’s language, from the action of Jesus to that of God, is intriguing.39 This is not a heavy-handed substitution of Jesus for God, as if the narrator wished to blur the distinction between these characters, any more than their sharing the name and authority of “Lord” does this. Rather, Luke reminds readers that Jesus’ mission accomplishes the work of God (see the discussion of 7:49–50 in the comment on 7:41–50). Jesus’ ministry of release, which brings salvation, accomplishes the purpose of God—in Israel and, by way of anticipation here (as in 7:1–10), among Gentiles as well. Luke’s narrative is a story of salvation, among God’s people and also among Gentiles. First and last, it is a story about God and what God is doing in the world. This early evangelist among Gentiles, according to the narrator’s concluding summary, got it right.

8:40–56 Jesus Restores Health to a Young Girl and a Bold Woman

unable to conduct a mission of teaching and healing on the other side of the lake, Jesus returns to Galilee, only to be greeted once more by persons in need of healing. Carefully intertwined stories show Jesus restoring health and life—bringing salvation—to two women. The contrasts between them are stark—in age, household and social position, and also initiative. Yet Jesus restores health and hope to both women. Salvation crosses lines etched by social status and power. In the liminal space between two markedly different social worlds, Jesus honors faith that embraces the divine gift of healing, of salvation.

39. Mark’s account is less jarring; Jesus directs the man to tell what the Lord ( kyrios) has done, and he proclaims what Jesus has done (Mark 5:19–20). In Luke 8:39 there is an unmistakable change in key, as the action of Jesus is reframed as the action of God.

40 When Jesus returned, the crowd welcomed him, for they were all waiting for him. 41 Aa man named Jairus came—this man was a ruler of the synagogue—and he fell at the feet of Jesus and began to beg him to come into his house, 42 because his only daughter was about twelve years old, and she was dying. And as [Jesus] departed, the crowds were pressing close to him.

43 There was a woman who had from [the age of] twelve yearsb lived with a flow of blood; though she had spent all her life’s resources on physicians,c she could not be healed by anyone. 44 Approaching Jesus from behind, she touched the fringe of his cloak, and the flow of her blood immediately stopped. 45 And Jesus said, “Who is the one who touched me?” When everyone denied it, Peterd said, “Master, the crowds are surrounding you and pressing in on you!” 46 But Jesus said, “Who touched me? For I know power has gone out from me.” 47 When the woman saw that she could not remain hidden, she came trembling and, falling before him, explained in the presence of all the people why she had touched him, and how she had been healed immediately. 48 So he told her, “Daughter, your faith has saved you. Go in peace.”

49 While he was still speaking, someone from the house of the synagogue ruler came up and said, “Your daughter is dead. Don’t trouble the teacher any longer.” 50 However, when Jesus heard this, he answered him, “Don’t be afraid. Just have faith,e and she’ll be saved.” 51 When he came into the house, he did not permit anyone to enter with him except Peter, John, and James, as well as the child’s father and mother. 52 Now everyone was weeping and mourning her, but he said, “Don’t weep. For she hasn’t died but is sleeping.” 53 And they laughed at him, since they knew that she had died. 54 But taking hold of her hand, he called to her: “Child, get up.” 55 Her spirit returned to her, and she arose immediately; he directed that she be given [something] to eat. 56 Her parents were astonished, but he ordered them not to talk about what had happened.

a. Leaving idou untranslated (lit., “and behold!”).

b. Or “for twelve years”; see the comment on this verse.

c. A few important Mss (including ∏75 B) omit the phrase “though she had spent all

her life’s resources on physicians,” which reads like a condensed version of Mark 5:26

(Metzger 121).

d. In many Mss, others in the company join Peter in protesting Jesus’ question, but this is likely a scribal harmonization with Mark’s account (“his disciples began to say to him,” Mark 5:31 AT); the shorter reading is attested by ∏75 B (Metzger 122).

e. Reading the aorist imperative pisteuson (have faith), with B L Ξ, although the present imperativepisteue ([continue to] have faith) appears in most Mss. The latter form appears in Mark 5:36, and copyists may have conformed Luke’s text to that of Mark. In this verse Jesus appears to be replying to the messenger from the house, not directly to Jairus (as in Mark); if so, the aorist imperative makes better sense.

[40–42] When Jesus returns (to Galilee, that is), an expectant crowd is already there, waiting for him, and they welcome him (v. 40; contrast the Samaritan refusal to receive [dechomai] Jesus by not welcoming the disciples in 9:53). With the verb prosdokaō ([eagerly] await, anticipate), Luke picks up a thread from the earlier accounts of John the Baptizer. The people (laos) awaited the return of John’s father from the temple sanctuary (1:21) and later were full of anticipation, after meeting John in the wilderness, wondering whether he might be the awaited Messiah (3:15). John diverted such expectations toward another figure who was on the way (3:16–17) and later sent messengers who conveyed his own doubt whether Jesus was that coming leader: should another be awaited instead (7:19–20)? The crowd’s welcome of Jesus paints a more positive picture than in the Markan parallel, where a large crowd simply assembles where Jesus is (Mark 5:21). In Luke’s narrative, God’s people are dividing in response to the ministry of Jesus (as of John before him), which drives a wedge between the crowd (ochlos) or people (laos)—and the religious and community leaders. The people are drawn to Jesus, seek healing from him, and welcome his teaching, while community leaders question, criticize, and finally repudiate his mission (e.g., see 7:29–30). Yet the people will eventually side with Jesus’ opponents, even if temporarily (23:13–25), a move that the “multitude of the people [laou]” then immediately regret (23:27, 48), preparing for the apostles’ appeal for repentance in Acts (programmatically in 2:36–38). At this stage in the narrative, though, the crowd’s anticipation and welcome of Jesus, whether as teacher or as healer (the focus in this passage), seem genuine.

A synagogue leader named Jairus now steps into the foreground; desperate need leads this community leader to fall to the ground at Jesus’ feet—an acknowledgment of Jesus’ superior status and authority—and to plead for his help. The appeal (parakaleō, as in Luke 8:31–32) is simply for Jesus “to come into his house” (v. 41; in Mark 5:23 Jairus explicitly asks Jesus to lay hands on his daughter so that she may be saved). The father’s description of his daughter then states the reason for the request: she is his only child, she is twelve, and she is dying. Lukan modulations of the tradition heighten the drama, as she is an only child (also Luke 7:12; 9:38) and dying (Matt 9:18 goes even further: “has just now died” [AT]). Moreover, it is the father, not the narrator at the story’s end (as in Mark 5:42), who as one reason for the petition reveals that his daughter is twelve, hence nearing adulthood and the age for marriage. The man’s faith (or perhaps his desperate hope), expressed in what he assumes but leaves unstated—that if Jesus comes to the house, he will heal the sick child— may remind Luke’s audience of the centurion who earlier petitioned Jesus to heal his servant (7:2–3), although Jairus presents his petition in person.

As Jesus heads with Jairus to his house, the physical proximity of a large crowd (8:42b) may be expected to hinder their progress, although this observation from the narrator (“The crowds were pressing close to him”) also sets up a remark by Peter in v. 45. However, what actually brings Jesus to a full stop, thus placing the child’s life in even greater danger (cf. v. 49), is the sudden appearance of a woman seeking healing (v. 43). With the path to healing for the synagogue leader’s daughter now interrupted, suspense builds in the narrative.

[43–48] Luke preserves from Mark 5:21–43 the interweaving of these two healings (cf. the much abbreviated version in Matt 9:18–26); however, Luke places his own signature on the account. The woman has suffered from a chronic bleeding condition apo etōn dōdeka, which may be translated “from [the age of] twelve years [onward]” or “for twelve years” (Luke 8:43). However, the latter rendering would better fit the accusative of time (duration) in Mark 5:25 (also Matt 9:20) than Luke’s genitive with apo (from; cf. the similar phrasing with apo in Luke 2:36). Is the Lukan narrator associating the woman and the girl even more closely than Mark, not just with the number twelve (which appears only at the close of Mark’s version) but also with the shared experience of illness that struck when they were the same age? If the woman’s condition has persisted since she was a girl of twelve herself, for her entire adult life she has occupied the place of one ritually impure and thus marginalized (see Lev 15:19–31)—not a status conducive to marriage and family or broader participation in the community and its religious and social life. Yet the narrative does not develop the woman’s desperate circumstance in terms of purity but instead highlights her poverty (note the critique of exaggerated attention to purity concerns by Vinson 267–69; cf. Levine, Misunderstood Jew 172–75).

With the number twelve, the narrative binds together these two sick women— this is true also if one reads “for twelve years,” which would mean the woman has endured her ailment the whole life of the child (Green 346)—yet their juxtaposition at the same time draws attention to the contrasts between them. They are an odd pair, differing in age, social and religious status (daughter of a synagogue leader and a woman marginalized by a chronic state of illness and poverty associated with it), and initiative (a girl lying helpless at home and a bold, assertive woman who approaches Jesus). The woman has expended all her resources over the years, seeking in vain to be cured of her ailment by doctors (though without the harsher comment in Mark 5:26 that she “suffered a great deal” at the hands of physicians). If there is suffering in Luke’s version of the story, it stems from the disorder and its social and economic consequences, not from the doctors. The story mentions only their incapacity (to heal) despite repeated efforts, a failure that places in bold relief Jesus’ capacity (dynamis [power] in v. 46), effective even without conscious effort. There is the further irony of a woman spending her whole “life” (bion), the resources needed to sustain life, while trying to end the flow of her life’s blood.

As in Matt 9:20, the woman boldly approaches Jesus and touches the outer fringe (kraspedon) of his cloak (Luke 8:44; she simply touches the cloak in Mark 5:27).40 Touched for a second time by an “unclean” woman, Jesus again ignores concerns with purity. Although his question “Who is the one who touched me?” echoes the Pharisee Simon’s earlier puzzlement (“he would have realized who and what sort of woman it is who is touching him,” 7:39), Jesus does not ask the question because of an interest in avoiding contact with the (unclean) woman but because he realizes that “power has gone out from me” (8:46).

Mark 5:28 adds to the narrator’s description of the woman’s touch a soliloquy that explains the gesture (“If only I touch his clothes, I will be saved” [AT]; cf. Matt 9:21). Luke omits this soliloquy, simply reporting the woman’s action and the healing that without interruption ensues: “She touched the fringe of his cloak, and the flow of her blood immediately [parachrēma] stopped.” The immediacy of healing is emphasized by repetition in v. 47. Direct speech is given instead to Jesus: “Who is the one who touched me?” “Who touched me?” (vv. 45, 46). In each of these intertwined healings, Jesus introduces the vocabulary of salvation (or wholeness, sōzein) to interpret the event, not, as in Mark, the petitioner (Jairus in Mark 5:23 → Jesus in Luke 8:50; the woman in Mark 5:28 → Jesus in Luke 8:48). Jesus interprets, or perhaps reframes, the quest for healing in terms of the divine activity of giving salvation to Israel. This is what his ministry of release is accomplishing.

The presence of a large crowd and the woman’s stealthy touch from behind justify Jesus’ question, which he must repeat when “everyone” denies touching him and Peter points out the obvious, that with so many people surrounding Jesus, the question is unanswerable (v. 45).41 By persisting in posing the question, however, Jesus calls the hidden quester to accountability—and to the direct encounter that will allow him to assign meaning to the event. The accompanying line about power leaving him shows that the repeated question is not about Jesus’ lack of awareness (v. 46). Realizing that she can no longer hide, the woman steps forward, her body language expressing the strong emotion that the narrator leaves unnamed, and bears public witness to what has occurred: “She came trembling and, falling before him, explained in the presence of all the people why she had touched him, and how she had been healed immediately” (v. 47). The woman, audacious enough to approach Jesus in public and touch his clothing, has nevertheless sought to remain concealed. Now, however, she becomes a public witness to God’s saving activity. A private burden becomes a public event; despite her intent to hide in the crowd, in the end she speaks to “all the people.”42

40. Possibly the kraspedon denotes one of the four tassels that Jesus as a Torah-observant Jewish male would wear to “remember and do all the commandments [of the Lord]” (Num 15:38–40; Deut 22:12; see Bovon 1:338, an interpretation rejected by Wolter 326). The woman would thus be touching Jesus’ clothing at the very point where he wears a visible symbolic reminder of the law’s claim upon him.

41. Only in Luke does the narrator relate this denial by all and assign the comment about the crowds pressing upon Jesus to Peter (it is the disciples in Mark 5:31), an intriguing association between Peter and denial of accountability, although here, of course, it belongs to others, and a second question elicits an honest admission (cf. Luke 22:54–62).

The final word, though, belongs to Jesus, who interprets what has occurred (v. 48). Repeating a formula he has used before, when addressing an equally assertive woman (7:50), he speaks of the woman’s cure in terms of deliverance, or salvation (sesōken, “[Faith] has saved [you]”) and connects the experience of deliverance to her faith. With the label “faith” (pistis), he gives meaning to her wordless gestures, her bold and insistent quest for restored health (cf. 7:9). Though beset with a chronic ailment that has marginalized her, she has demonstrated an openness to divine grace, which restores and liberates. From this turbulent, crowded scene, she may now leave “in peace.” So the balance of human and divine initiative is restored at the story’s end. Although the event celebrates the woman’s bold faith—she dares to lay claim to Jesus’ healing power even without his intent or conscious awareness—he gets the last word. It is not just about a cure, not just about power to stop a flow of blood: this is a story of God’s gracious work of salvation, and of the faith that allows it to transform the conditions and possibilities of human life. Finally, the faith of this fearful yet bold woman has liberated her because she dared to approach Jesus and touch him. Divine power to restore life could only say yes to audacious faith like that! The story is not quite over, though, for intertwined with this woman’s salvation is the need of a girl whose life hangs in the balance. Will salvation come to her house as well?

[49–56] Jesus’ progress toward the house of Jairus has been momentarily interrupted, building suspense as the dying girl waits. even before the journey can resume, while Jesus is conversing with the woman, the narrator turns attention back to the suspended healing story. It appears, however, to have come to a full and sad stop. Someone arrives from the house of Jairus, bearing the news that his daughter has died. Therefore, “Don’t trouble the teacher any longer” (v. 49; cf. 7:6). Yet Jesus, still speaking of faith and deliverance to the woman who has just found healing, applies the same vocabulary to the circumstance of Jairus’s daughter: “Don’t be afraid,” he reassures the messenger. “Just have faith [pisteuson], and she’ll be saved” (8:50).43 More than once in this chapter, Jesus has encountered fear, both as impediment to faith (the disciples) and as lack of receptivity (the Gerasenes) to the deliverance that God purposes for human life (vv. 25, 37).

42. Mark 5:33 has the woman report “all the truth,” but in Luke 8:47 (still in indirect discourse) she explains “why she had touched [Jesus]”—apt since Luke did not include the soliloquy that accompanied the woman’s action in Mark 5:27—and the fact of her instant cure. “All the truth” (kJv) becomes in Luke’s version “all the people” who through the woman’s report become witnesses of God’s work of salvation among them.

After arriving at the house, Jesus permits only Peter, James, and John to accompany him, along with the parents; the other disciples and the crowd must wait outside (v. 51).44 The healing of the girl will occur in private space, setting up Jesus’ closing command for silence and thus reversing the pattern of concealment and public disclosure evident in vv. 43–48. Mourners are already present, however, and have begun to weep, prompting Jesus again to offer words of assurance: “Don’t weep. For she hasn’t died but is sleeping” (v. 52). Aware that the girl is dead, the mourners laugh—the bitter, mocking laughter of bystanders who think they know the limits of divine possibility (v. 53), far removed from the joyful laughter that the beatitudes promise to those who now weep (6:21). Once again Jesus interrupts weeping with the gift of healing and life (see also 7:13, 32, 38). enacting as effective, performative speech his words of blessing for those who weep, he gives mourners reason for genuine laughter, sharing in the delight of parents who are about to receive their child back alive and well.

Taking her by the hand, Jesus calls to her to arise: “Child, get up [ egeire]” (8:54).45 At Jesus’ word, she arose (anestē) immediately (parachrēma, the third use of this adverb in vv. 40–56). As in 7:14, 16, the vocabulary of arising (getting up) carries double meaning, denoting a physical motion—getting up out of bed—but also suggesting the restoring of life to a dead person. Jesus gives the girl’s parents two instructions, one practical and the other impractical. The charge to give her food is emblematic of her restoration to the nurture of household and community (8:55). That one is easy. The final command, though, is not: “Her parents were astonished, but he ordered them not to talk about what had happened” (v. 56). How can Jesus expect that this event will remain a secret? even less than the woman’s healing can this event be hidden. This is the daughter of a community leader, and the mourners are already present; indeed, the whole town knows! A few verses earlier, the woman with chronic bleeding tried unsuccessfully to remain concealed but then spoke to the assembled crowds. Now everyone knows about these events, yet the parents are to be silent. What is Luke’s audience to make of this secrecy motif?46

43. Luke adds “and she’ll be saved” (Mark 5:36: “Don’t be afraid; only have faith” [AT]). Luke has shifted the language of salvation or deliverance (sōzein) from Jairus (Mark 5:23, indirect discourse) to Jesus, and from plea to promise. In Luke, Jesus is the one who interprets his healing ministry as acts of (divine) salvation.

44. With the explicit notice that Jesus allows the parents to enter, Luke simplifies the narrative; in Mark 5:37–40 only Peter, James, and John accompany Jesus, yet mourners are then present in the house; after confronting them, Jesus has the parents come along, too. Mourners also appear in Luke’s account (8:42–53); the boundaries in this passage between private and public space, and between concealment and public witness, are fluid.

45. Jesus addresses the child pais, which can mean either child or servant (see 7:7 for the latter meaning), not korasion (Mark 5:41–42). Luke, moreover, omits the Aramaic expression “Talitha koum” (Mark 5:41), as he does the ones that appear in Mark 7:34; 10:51; 14:36; 15:34. Luke thus has Jesus speak in a consistent idiom (in Greek) and perhaps also avoids the impression that Jesus occasionally spoke magical incantations in a strange language.

Perhaps Jesus is trying to keep his ministry of proclamation from being derailed by the compelling attraction of miracle (cf. 4:42–43; see Green 351; Vinson 270). For the time being, therefore, the parents are to place a jar over the lamp of their daughter’s healing (cf. 8:16); nevertheless, these two interwoven healing stories together document the truth of Jesus’ aphorism: “There is nothing hidden that will not become visible, nor is there anything concealed that will not be made known and come into the open” (8:17).

This section of the Gospel narrates one act of deliverance, of salvation, after another.47 Jesus rescues the disciples from a storm on the lake (though the word sōzein [save] does not appear in that unit); then he saves by restoring health to a man named for his legion of demons, a woman suffering from chronic bleeding, and a young girl who has just died. His own band of disciples safe and intact, Jesus proceeds to restore to human community a diverse trio of persons in need. Salvation includes also this dimension of “peace” (8:48; cf. 7:50): Jesus restores marginalized persons of varying status and circumstance to life within the community.

Jesus has taught the word of God—the good news of God’s reign as it reorders human society—and has given tangible expression to that rule in acts of healing and gracious acceptance. The crowds pressing close to hear and observe and receive healing have continued to grow. In the last scene, perhaps seeking to ensure that this increasing public attention does not divert him from his primary task of teaching and preaching, Jesus closes the door and calls for silence (cf. 4:42–43). The disciples, meanwhile, have been watching and listening and learning. Their formation for mission will continue, but the time has come for the circle of those broadcasting the message of God’s reign and healing the sick to widen. It is time for the apostles whom Jesus has named to begin to assume that role, as persons sent out to extend his ministry of release.

46. even if Luke has borrowed the motif from Mark 5:43, readers will ponder its role within Luke’s narrative.

47. Some observers perceive (understand), while others do not—just as Jesus has said they would (Luke 8:9–10). Acts of deliverance coincide with continuing hermeneutical mystery in this narrative’s presentation of God’s reign in action in the ministry of Jesus.

9:1–9 The Circle of Jesus’ Ministry Widens

Some time has elapsed since Jesus selected twelve apostles (6:13–16) and began in earnest their formation as disciples (6:20–49)—prelude to the mission for which he has singled them out. Now, as the crowds continue to press close, he summons the Twelve, gives them practical instructions, and sends them out to do the very things he has been doing. They are his authorized agents and will extend his ministry, as the reaction of Herod Antipas to the ensuing flurry of activity shows. The apostles’ ministry of proclamation and healing once more provokes the question about Jesus’ identity: “Who is this?”

1 [Jesus] summoned the Twelvea and gave them power and authority over all demons and also to heal diseases, 2 and he sent them to proclaim God’s reign and to heal. 3 He said to them, “Take nothing for the journey:b staff or purse, bread or money;c nor an extra shirt.d 4 Whatever house you enter: stay there and leave from there. 5 Whenever they do not welcome you, as you leave that city shake the dust from your feet as a testimony against them.” 6 They left and traveled from village to village, announcing good news and healing everywhere.

7 Now Herod the tetrarch heard about the things that were happening, and he was puzzled, because it was said by some that John had been raised from the dead, 8 by some that elijah had appeared, and by others that one of the ancient prophets had arisen. 9 Herod, however, said, “John I beheaded, but who is this about whom I am hearing such things?” So he was seeking to see him.

a. Some Mss add “apostles” and others “disciples”; the shorter reading “the Twelve” is the source of both readings and is to be preferred.

b. Or “way [road],” hodos.

c. Literally, “silver.”

d. Literally, “so as to have two shirts.”

[1–6] Jesus expands his ministry by conveying his authority and message to the Twelve, whom he earlier named apostles (6:13–16) and who in the intervening chapters have accompanied Jesus, watching and listening, preparing for the mission they now undertake. That mission turns out to be an extension of Jesus’ own ministry of proclamation and healing (9:2). This is the first of two mission sendings; the second (unique to Luke) will engage seventy-two disciples in mission (10:1–20).

Jesus gives the Twelve the power ( dynamis) and authority (exousia) they must have if they are to release people from demonic control and sickness (9:1; Mark 6:7 and Matt 10:1 mention only exousia). They possess the exousia of agents commissioned and authorized by Jesus to act on his behalf, and therefore on behalf of the sovereign God (cf. Luke 10:16). But they also possess dynamis, the capacity to heal and exorcise. The mode of this empowerment is not yet specified, although the fact that Jesus has commenced his own ministry of release under the empowerment of the Spirit (3:22; 4:1, 14, 18) suggests that this will be the divine source of the apostles’ power, too. The connection between God’s Spirit and the apostles’ empowerment for mission becomes explicit when they prepare to undertake a third mission, one that will take them to the ends of the earth, after Jesus’ resurrection (see Acts 1:8). The necessity of a special conveyance of power and authority soon becomes obvious, owing to the strength of the opponent whose authority the apostles will challenge: Satan (see Luke 10:17–19; 11:14–23).

The instructions for mission are specific and concise. The Twelve are to travel light, unencumbered by surplus belongings (an extra shirt) but also by basic provisions (staff, purse, bread, money), instead trusting entirely in God’s gracious provision, which they will experience through the hospitality extended by their hosts in the towns they visit (9:3–4). experience has taught, however, that some in Galilee will reject the prophetic ministry of word and healing (e.g., 4:16–30; 6:6–11; cf. 2:34–35). The division of the people of God, now underway, will continue as Jesus’ authorized representatives do the same things he has done. Therefore he gives practical guidance for the circumstance of rejection: “Whenever they do not welcome you, as you leave that city shake the dust from your feet as a testimony against them” (9:5). The very dust of the village streets will testify against the town because it has refused to receive Jesus’ emissaries. If the parable and allegory of the seeds— commentary on the success and failure of the word in Jesus’ ministry—is on the mark, the Twelve as sowers of the word will find both welcome and rejection (the latter, e.g., among the Samaritans in 9:52–53, and repeated in the mission of the seventy-two [10:11–15]). Later, on the verge of his arrest and execution, Jesus will revise these instructions for mission; the time will come when the apostles must expect to receive not hospitality but hostility (22:35–36).

A brief summary reports that the Twelve do what Jesus has charged them to do: journeying among the villages, they announce good news and heal “everywhere” (9:6). With their message of good news (euangelizomenoi, v. 6), which is also the proclamation of God’s reign (v. 2), and with their effective ministry of healing (vv. 2, 6), the apostles replicate the balanced activity of word and deed that has marked Jesus’ ministry. Therefore the image of welcome (dechomai), which supplies the criterion for evaluating a town’s response to the Twelve (v. 5), encompasses both hospitality and response to the message. Because Jesus’ ministry has expanded through the activity of apostles who emulate his work “everywhere,” for the first time he comes to the attention of the most powerful man in Galilee, the tetrarch Herod Antipas. No less than for John the Baptizer, the mission of Jesus and his followers provokes in Antipas the question about his identity.

[7–9] The flurry of activity gets Herod’s attention. Reports come to him, filtered through an interpreting lens: this is the work of a prophet, perhaps John returned from the dead, or elijah come back to inaugurate eschatological restoration (cf. 1:17), or one of the other ancient prophets (9:7–8). Mention of John’s place among the dead is jarring; not that long ago he was in prison and posing a question regarding Jesus’ identity and role (7:18–20). Herod Antipas, last mentioned in 3:19–20, matter-of-factly confirms that John is dead and takes responsibility: “John I beheaded” (9:9). He thereby adds yet another evil deed to his résumé (cf. 3:20).

The notion that Jesus is a prophet is not new. Jesus has associated himself with the prophetic role (4:24–27), and observers of his ministry have perceived him as a “great prophet” through whom God has visited the people (7:16). So while the reports and opinions presented to Antipas are garbled, they do contain a measure of truth. However, despite Jesus’ solidarity with John and his message, the two figures are not to be identified, as Luke’s audience is well aware. (Antipas knows this, too.) John and Jesus share the prophetic vocation, and that includes the reality of rejection and, ultimately, death. The mistaken view that John has been raised from the dead brings out, one last time, the fact that his role and vocation parallel Jesus’ only to a point. They share the destiny of prophet, but by the story’s end it will become evident that only Jesus, as Messiah and Lord, will be raised from the dead.

But that is getting ahead of the story. The twofold mention here of John’s death, with Antipas as executioner, raises a question about Jesus’ future and the part Antipas will play in it. He has heard reports about Jesus, but there are different kinds of hearing, not all of them receptive and faithful (see the comment on 8:9–15). To his credit, Antipas also wants to see so that he may reach his own conclusions about Jesus: “He was seeking to see him” (9:9). Not until 23:6–12 will this desire be satisfied; meanwhile, Antipas’s acknowledgment that he has executed John and an intervening warning that he has similar designs on Jesus’ life (13:31) will lead readers to anticipate that the coming encounter will pose a grave threat to Jesus, too. The cameo appearance by Herod in 9:7–9 serves as a sobering reminder of the political context for Jesus’ ministry, which gives voice—and embodiment in practice—to a counterreign, the radical, status-inverting world in which God alone is sovereign.

The question of Jesus’ identity continues to gain traction. Who is this? Critics have wondered who he is to declare sin forgiven when only God can forgive (5:21). John and his disciples have queried whether Jesus, who restores health and life but has not acted as eschatological judge, is the “one who is going to come” (7:19). Mystified dinner companions, after their host privately has voiced skepticism about Jesus’ status as prophet, have again expressed puzzlement over the identity of a man who can forgive sins (7:39, 49). even the disciples have asked the question after witnessing his extraordinary power to still a storm (8:25). And now the powerful and menacing figure of Herod Antipas has the same question (9:9). Luke’s audience already knows what characters in the narrative long to discover; nevertheless, the repeating questions about Jesus’ identity effectively build toward a definitive divine disclosure to which a select trio of disciples—with readers overhearing—will soon be privy (9:28–36).

Perhaps, at the same time, this continuing puzzlement about Jesus’ identity provides a clue to the point of Jesus’ earlier silencing of demons who know his identity (4:41). It is evidently important, for genuine response to Jesus’ teaching and acts of gracious deliverance, that people wrestle with the question of who he is. The narrative answers that question for Luke’s audience, but only by letting them observe how characters (even apostles) have a difficult struggle to align what Jesus says and does, and what happens to him, with the expectations they attach to the Messiah, Son of God.

9:10–17 Jesus Teaches and Feeds a Large Crowd

When the apostles return from their first foray into the mission field, Jesus tries to find a private space, presumably to process the experience with them. The crowds, however, do not cooperate. The ministry of teaching and healing thus continues without a break; the large crowds even present a new challenge of hospitality and trust in God’s gracious provision. During their own travels, the Twelve have been learning how to rely on the hospitality of household and village, through which God provides for their basic needs. Now it will be their turn to provide.

10 When the apostles returned, they related to [Jesus] the things they had done, and taking them along, he withdrew in private to a city called Bethsaida. 11 The crowds, though, were aware of this and followed him. So he welcomed them, and he was speaking to them about God’s reign and healing those who had need of healing.

12 It began to get late, and the Twelve came up and said to [Jesus], “Dismiss the crowd, so they may go into the nearby villages and fields and find a place to stay and provisions, for we are here in an isolated area.” 13 However, he said to them, “You give them something to eat.” They said, “We don’t have more than five loaves of bread and two fish, unless we go and buy food for all these people”a— 14 for there were about five thousand men. But he said to his disciples, “Have them sit down in groups of about fifty each.” 15 So they did this and had everyone sit down. 16 Taking the five loaves and two fish, [Jesus] looked up toward heaven and blessed them and broke them into pieces, and he began to give them to the disciples to set before the crowd. 17 They all ate and were filled, and they took upb what was left: twelve baskets of the pieces [of bread and fish].

a. Singular in Greek (“all this people [laon]”).

b. Passive in Greek: “what was left was taken up by them.”

[10–11] upon the apostles’ return from their inaugural mission tour, the narrator reports only that they tell Jesus what they have done. (The summary following the return of the seventy-two will be more descriptive [10:17].) Jesus then withdraws with them to the town of Bethsaida for a session “in private” (9:10); the purpose of the retreat is left unstated, but this is a familiar rhythm in the narrative, and readers can easily fill the gap. The retreat is to create an occasion for prayer and for teaching, apart from the pressure of the crowds (cf. 4:42; 5:16; 6:12). If Jesus intends also to debrief the apostles after this first mission undertaking, that interest is suspended until the completion of the next mission tour (see 10:17–24), because the crowd’s relentless pursuit of Jesus foils the planned private conversation (9:11). Nevertheless, he welcomes them (apodechomai) and continues to speak about God’s reign and to heal.

unlike the parallel account in Mark 6:30–34, which twice mentions an intended private (kat’ idian) retreat to an “isolated place [erēmon topon]” (6:30–31), Luke locates the retreat in Bethsaida, a “city” (9:10). Thus the wilderness and other isolated spaces remain for Jesus a setting for disengagement from public activity, a place for prayer and discernment, in contrast to John’s public ministry in the wilderness (1:80; 3:2; 7:24). The arena for Jesus’ proclamation of God’s reign—and for its expression in communal life and practices—remains the cities and towns of Galilee, just as he has announced at Capernaum (4:43).48

[12–17] Jesus does not view the assembled throng as “sheep without a shepherd” (as in Mark 6:34), but he does see a crowd of hungry people without nourishment. The disciples see the same thing; however, teacher and student come to differing appraisals of the situation. The Twelve urge Jesus to dismiss the crowd so that they may find food and lodging in nearby villages and fields (Luke 9:12; the notice that they were “in an isolated area [en erēmō topō]” is a residual detail from Mark’s account and does not fit well with a scene shift to Bethsaida).49 Jesus, though, places the burden of hospitality on his apostles: “You give them something to eat” (v. 13a). They have just returned from a mission tour on which they have relied for their basic needs upon the hospitality of strangers who host them. Jesus now reverses these roles: the apostles will be the ones through whom God’s gracious provision is mediated to the people. There is a problem, though: “We don’t have more than five loaves of bread and two fish, unless we go and buy food for all these people” (v. 13b), an impossible feat for a massive throng of five thousand men, plus women and children.

48. Luke also does not include the line about compassion Jesus feels toward a crowd of “sheep who do not have a shepherd” (Mark 6:34). On the contrary, the people do have a shepherd, a leader, and that is the Messiah Jesus, even if some of the flock have lost their way and need to be redirected (the image of Luke 15:3–7).

49. The town of Bethsaida, mentioned in the narrative framework of a section of Mark that Luke does not include (Mark 6:45; 8:22), was a fishing village on the north shore of Lake Gennesaret, east of Capernaum, and east of the Jordan’s entry.

Jesus makes the task appear more manageable by instructing the disciples (perhaps now including more than the Twelve?) to have the people sit in groups of fifty, and the disciples comply (vv. 14–15). For readers who recall the generous sharing of resources by a group of women disciples who have underwritten the costs of an itinerant ministry (8:2–3), the initial ineffectiveness of the apostles makes for an amusing contrast, especially since (the reader surmises) they have so recently experienced hospitality that has provided for their own needs when they, like the crowd now, lacked basic provisions. Nevertheless, the merciful benefaction of Jesus takes what they have to offer—including both their limited comprehension of and trust in God’s abundant provision and their few loaves of bread and fish—and converts this into a nourishing meal for five thousand men (plus the women and children, one may be sure). The education of the disciples for their role as leaders of the community continues. To reinforce the lesson that it is God who has provided, the entire crowd eats to satisfaction, and there are twelve baskets of the leftovers, one for each apostle who distributed the food to them in the first place (9:17).

The ritual of the meal is important. This is an ordinary, earthy setting, and Jesus is undiscriminating in his selection of meal companions, including whoever happens to be present to listen to him or seek healing (see Green 365). Nevertheless, this is a sacred occasion. The words and gestures place the eating and the meal participants within the sphere of God’s benevolent care: “[Jesus] looked up toward heaven and blessed [the bread and fish] and broke them into pieces, and he began to give them to the disciples” (v. 16; cf. 22:17, 19; 24:30; Acts 2:42; 27:35). The imagery and its symbolism indicate the source of nourishment (God), the one who mediates the gift (Jesus), and the authorized representatives through whom divine blessing now flows and after Easter will continue to flow to all (the apostles, with other disciples). Meals tangibly express the giving and receiving (the hospitality) of the authentic community that Jesus’ ministry is creating, tangible expression of the realm of God.

Both vertical and horizontal dimensions are noteworthy. The meal discloses the source of blessing (God who provides) and also the boundary-shattering human face of the community created at table, even if the table amounts to rock and grass in a field. In the ensuing narrative, meals continue to be important vehicles of teaching and community—of life in the realm of God—and later meals will echo the words and gestures, the sacred rituals, of this common (but extraordinary) mass meal (e.g., Luke 22:14–20; 24:30; Acts 27:35). Before the Twelve have finished serving, the baskets they hold will suffice to nourish and instruct the whole company of Israel (the symbolism of twelve apostles, baskets, and tribes). With the next mention of Bethsaida, however, it becomes apparent that even the enthusiastic initial response to Jesus in this place is not the last word. Some reject the one whom God has sent (Luke 10:13). Meanwhile the education of the apostles must proceed: they have much still to learn about Jesus’ identity, vocation, and significance.

9:18–27 Decisive Disclosure of Jesus’ Identity (Part 1): Suffering Awaits the Son of Humanity and Those Who Are Loyal to Him

After an unsuccessful attempt to retreat for a private session with the Twelve, Jesus now finds himself alone in prayer not once but twice, accompanied each time by a group of disciples (9:18–27, 28–36). The narrative’s continuing preoccupation with the identity of Jesus reaches a penultimate climax, in two steps. In the first, Jesus inquires of the disciples what the crowds think and what they are willing to say themselves. He then gives surprising, discouraging substance to their confession about his role and vocation. The second part of the disclosure of Jesus’ identity bears the imprimatur of none other than God who, with assistance from Moses and elijah, leaves no doubt who Jesus is and what that means for the disciples and for the road that lies ahead.

18 While [Jesus] was praying alone, the disciples joined him,a and he asked them, “Who do the crowds say I am?” 19 They replied, “John the Baptist, and others [say] elijah, still others [say] that one of the ancient prophets has arisen.” 20 He said to them, though, “Who do you say I am?” Peter replied, “God’s Messiah.”b 21 However, reproving them, he ordered them not to say this to anyone. 22 He said, “The Son of Humanity must suffer many things, and be rejected by the elders and the chief priests and the scribes, and be killed—and on the third day be raised up.”

23 And he was saying to everyone, “If anyone wants to come after me, let that person deny self and take up cross daily and follow me. 24 For any who want to save their lifec will lose it, but any who lose their lifec for my sake, these are the ones who will save it. 25 For what benefit is there for a human being who gains the whole world but loses or forfeits self? 26 Indeed, whoever is ashamed of me and of my words, the Son of Humanity will be ashamed of this one when he comes in his glory, which is that of his Father and the holy angels as well. 27 I tell you, truly, some of those who are standing right here will not taste deathd before they have seen God’s realm.”e

a. For more fluent prose, leaving kai egeneto (“it came to pass [happened]”) untranslated.

b. Or “Christ,” christon.

c. Or “self,” psychēn. For a gender-inclusive translation, I have rendered several pronouns in this verse in the plural (lit., “whoever wants to save his life . . . whoever loses his life . . . this one will save it”).

d. The expression is one of emphatic negation employing the double negative (ou mē) and the aorist subjunctive.

e. Or “God’s reign [basileian].”

[18–22] To this point Luke’s account of the Galilean activity of Jesus has generally followed the Markan outline. However, apart from a few materials (drawing from Mark 7:5–6, 8; 8:11–13, 15) that Luke introduces at various places in chapters 11 and 12, Mark 6:45–8:26 does not appear in Luke—the so-called Great Omission, which has eluded satisfactory explanation among scholars who think Luke used Mark as a source (see Fitzmyer 1:770–71; Bovon 1:361–62; Marshall 364). Whatever the explanation,50 the result is a narrative sharply focused on Jesus’ identity, whether as source of puzzlement or, in this and the following pericope, as a matter of revelation.

unsuccessful in his most recent attempt with his disciples to retreat from the crowd, Jesus is now alone, and while he is praying (a distinctive Lukan touch), the disciples join him (9:18). In two earlier episodes, Jesus’ praying has preceded significant narrative developments (his baptism and the attending divine disclosure of his identity, 3:21–22; selection of the Twelve, 6:12–16). Luke’s audience may anticipate similarly momentous events both in this passage and the next (which also opens with Jesus at prayer, 9:28). If so, the expectation will not be disappointed.

50. This section of Mark contains a second scene with disciples in a boat on the lake (6:45–52) and a second feeding of a large crowd (8:1–10), followed by a discussion that features the disciples’ failure to comprehend the meaning of teaching about loaves and leaven (8:11–21). Perhaps Luke sought to avoid not only the apparent redundancy of these repeated episodes but also the way they highlight the disciples’ lack of understanding (in precisely this way, they are not redundant in Mark’s story). Other omitted units include teaching about purity concerns (Mark 7:1–23), an exchange between Jesus and a Gentile woman who seeks help for her daughter (7:24–30), and two graphic healing stories in which Jesus uses physical contact, and in the first instance also an Aramaic exclamation, to effect healing (7:31–37; 8:22–26). It is conceivable that in each of these passages Luke found the depiction of Jesus to be disconcerting. Jesus is dismissive of the Gentile woman and her need but also, on the other side, seems to dispense with Torah requirements relating to purity (Luke’s approach is more subtle and certainly does not entail abandoning the claims of the Torah). The healings may appear to cast Jesus in the role of magician who relies on incantations and manipulation of physical materials (Garrett finds an “anti-magic apology” in Luke–Acts: Demise 103). A plausible case can be made, then, that Luke was acquainted with this entire section of Mark and deliberately omitted passages (“daring excision”: Johnson 154) that he regarded as unnecessary or even unhelpful in his own narrative. The explanation is plausible but impossible to prove. My primary interest, however, is the literary effect on Luke’s audience of the narrative as Luke has conveyed it.

On this occasion it is Jesus, rather than those around him, who raises the question of his identity: “Who do the crowds say I am?” In reply, the disciples repeat almost verbatim the report that just came to Herod Antipas (9:7–8): John the Baptist (though without mention of death and resurrection), elijah, or one of the ancient prophets (v. 19). The crowds’ point of view is consistent, locating Jesus’ work in the tradition of Israel’s great prophets (also 7:16). Readers have been privy to many exchanges (involving neutral observers, critics, and Antipas) featuring the question of Jesus’ role and identity and will now observe the progress in discernment of Jesus’ disciples. That is the goal of Jesus’ line of questioning. After all that they have seen and heard, how do the disciples perceive Jesus? “Who do you say I am?” (9:20a).

Peter is the one to answer, and his response is concise and to the point: “God’s Messiah [Christ]” (v. 20b).51 Luke’s audience knows that this perception is correct, though incomplete. Jesus is indeed the Spirit-anointed Messiah (2:11; 4:18; cf. Acts 2:36; 10:38) but also Lord (Luke 2:11; cf. Acts 2:36; 10:36) and uniquely the Son of God (Luke 1:32, 35; 2:49; 3:22) and thus God’s prophetic voice (4:24; cf. 13:33). Still, the strong reaction of Jesus to Peter’s confession is surprising. “Reproving them, he ordered them not to say this to anyone” (9:21). Although Peter speaks, Jesus reproves them. Peter has given voice to the thoughts of the disciples as a whole, as a representative character (see the comment on 5:8–11). When demons publicly labeled Jesus as Son of God and Messiah, he commanded silence (4:41). That is sensible; after all, who needs acclamation from such a dubious source? But why would he now command silence about his messianic identity from the disciples?

The narrator uses strong verbs: epitimaō (reprove, rebuke) describes Jesus’ actions in exorcism and in calming a sea storm (4:35, 39, 41; 8:24), and parangellō “orders” silence also after the saving of Jairus’s daughter (8:56).52 This is a serious matter. The best clue to Jesus’ stern rebuke and command for silence comes with the announcement that follows abruptly: “The Son of Humanity must suffer many things, and be rejected by the elders and the chief priests and the scribes, and be killed—and on the third day be raised up” (9:22). This is the first of four explicit passion predictions (also 9:44; 17:25; 18:31–33; cf. 5:35; 13:31–33; 19:12–27; 22:21–22; 24:6–7). Indirectly under the guise of the Son of Humanity (previously identified with Jesus [5:24]), Jesus speaks of his destiny in terms of suffering, rejection, and death—and only then vindication by God through resurrection. The religious leaders of the people—including elders who direct the polity, elite priests who have custody of the temple and its liturgy, and scribes who interpret the law—will reject him and have him put to death. His destiny as Son of Humanity, as one in whom the future of humankind is embodied, is thus the same as that of a prophet (cf. 4:24–30; 11:47–51; 13:33). This aspect of his vocation means that a climactic confrontation with the religious and political powers necessarily lies in the future.

51. Simply “Messiah [Christ]” in Mark 8:29; “Messiah [Christ], the Son of the living God” in Matt 16:16.

52. Mark 8:30 has only the verb epitimaō (rebuke); Luke converts it to a participle and pairs it with parangellō (command, 9:21), so that silence is a direct order.

At the same time, by commanding silence about his messiahship, Jesus endeavors—just as he did when responding to the messengers of John the Baptizer—to retain for himself the authority to define the content and character of his messianic role. As Son of Humanity, his experience of suffering and rejection and his reliance upon divine legitimation (“be raised [egerthēnai]” is a theological passive: raised up, that is, by God)53 significantly qualify the character of his messianic vocation. Later the disciples will learn that the vocation of suffering Messiah is divinely purposed and accords with Scripture (24:26, 46). More immediately, the transfiguration scene will add divine endorsement to the prophetic declaration that Jesus makes here. For the present, though, they are in no position to talk about this: they do not yet understand. This is true even if Luke takes the edge off Mark’s negative portrayal of Peter by omitting the reciprocal exchange of rebukes with Jesus (Mark 8:32–33). What does Jesus’ messianic vocation and destiny imply about the life of the disciple?

[23–27] The beliefs of the crowd have formed the backdrop for a private conversation between Jesus and the disciples about his identity and vocation as the Messiah. For the first time he has explicitly previewed his coming suffering and death. The crowd steps into the foreground again in vv. 23–27, as Jesus discloses to “everyone” the cost of following such a Messiah (v. 23). He speaks of eminent danger but concludes on the more hopeful note of an imminent kingdom and its accompanying glory.

Jesus’ first extended discourse has already made plain that much is expected of those who would answer the call to discipleship (6:20–49); however, the crowds have continued to grow, as illustrated by the feeding of several thousand people who followed Jesus to Bethsaida (9:11, 12–17). Only the disciples receive the revelation that the vocation of Messiah involves rejection, suffering, and death, but Jesus now begins to warn a larger circle of potential followers what it really means to “come after [opisō],” to follow him as disciple: it means denying self and picking up the cross each day and following (v. 23). Jesus has not yet pictured his own fate as cross-bearing, so this is the first introduction of the shocking image of a cross (stauros) in the narrative. Luke’s audience (and Jesus’, within the story) would recoil from the thought of “taking up the cross,” picking up the wooden crossbeam to which one will be fastened (by ropes or nails) and then carrying it to one’s public execution, a slow, painful death in disgrace.54 Only Luke qualifies the image with the adverbial phrase kath’ hēmeran (daily, every day), which appears to temper its harshness. After all, an actual, brutal crucifixion cannot be in view; that is not a repeatable, much less a daily, event. even if the cross functions metaphorically here, however, the bad news is that the cost of following Jesus as captured with this image—conflict and adversity—is not momentary but ongoing.

53. Like Matt 16:21, Luke prefers the theological passive “be raised [ egerthēnai]” to Mark’s “arise [anastēnai]” (8:31). In the same verse, Matthew and Luke also refine Mark’s resurrection “after three days” to one “on the third day.” This specific prophecy of a coming resurrection, after the recent speculation that John has been raised (9:7), develops the contrast in destiny between John and Jesus; it also creates expectations for the future course of the narrative.

Verse 24 elaborates the cost of following Jesus as a way of life that involves radical self-surrender: “For any who want to save their life [or self, psychēn] will lose it, but any who lose their life for my sake, these are the ones who will save it.” The word psychē has in view “the totality of human life,” including social relationships, worldview, and practices (Green 374). Simon Peter, Levi, and others who have answered the call to follow Jesus have “left everything” behind to do so (5:11, 28). Hearing the word and putting it into practice, disciples have joined a new family (8:19–21). Their former life, embedded in a social system and expressing commitments from which they have turned away, truly has been given up, “lost.” A whole crowd of potential disciples now learns that there is no easy path if one wishes to follow this teacher. In case they are not able to absorb the message all at once, he will repeat it, in varying but consistently radical, hyperbolic imagery (see 9:57–62; 14:25–33; 18:18–27). The surrender of life (as now experienced by the self in its web of relationships, commitments, and possessions) for the sake of Jesus—that is, for the sake of wholehearted commitment to God’s reign—is also the surrender of all claims to status apart from the honor that God bestows. Shortly, Jesus will point to children as models of greatness, then as models of life in God’s realm (9:46–48; 18:15–17). Giving up preoccupation with acquisition of wealth, status, and power is the practical expression of the life-surrender Jesus commends in 9:23–24. It is not about masochism or embracing a death wish; rather, it is a commitment to a wholly new life, on the terms defined by the realm of God.

Verse 25 develops the point about the cost of discipleship by borrowing from the arena of commerce and finance. Gain and loss in transactions become metaphors for preservation, or forfeiture, of genuine life: “For what benefit is there for a human being who gains the whole world but loses or forfeits self [the reflexive pronoun heauton]?”55 When Jesus, tested by the devil, affirmed his unequivocal commitment to the vocation that God had given him, he refused the offer of power over all the “kingdoms of the world [i.e., the oikoumenē, the world as socially constructed]” in favor of allegiance to God, the sole source of authority in the world (4:5). Little wonder that, for those who wish to follow him, Jesus would now favor integrity of life over the gaining of the whole world (the kosmos, the entire created world).

54. On the practice of crucifixion, and perceptions of it, see Hengel, Crucifixion; Chapman, Ancient.

Verse 26 employs the vocabulary of honor and shame to present the warrant for self-surrender, to show what is at stake in the disciple’s persevering commitment. Why should one be willing to surrender life for Jesus’ sake? He puts it in negative terms, though the last half of the statement implies the positive, a sharing in the divine glory: “Indeed, whoever is ashamed of me and of my words, the Son of Humanity will be ashamed of this one when he comes in his glory, which is that of his Father and the holy angels as well.” Luke’s audience would recognize the importance of the values of honor and shame on which this statement turns. One need not consult extratextual anthropological models of recent vintage to appreciate the role that honor and shame play in the social world assumed—and fashioned—by this narrative.56 One need only read on (e.g., 11:43; 14:7–14). As the realm of God rewrites conventional social scripts, the meaning of honor undergoes radical redefinition. Rather than striving for public recognition, the esteem and praise of one’s peers and community, the disciple seeks honor from the only source that matters: God. In the mystery of God’s working in the world, the path to authentic honor—to a share in glory (doxa), the splendor associated with the divine presence—passes through suffering and public dishonor (24:26).

It is therefore no accident that the shame (public dishonor) of the disciple who is “ashamed” of Jesus and his words—that is, who turns away from commitment to his cause as too costly—is contrasted to the honor of the Son of Humanity (again, implicitly, Jesus, though the third-person formulation here, immediately following the first-person “ashamed of me,” reads like a reference to a figure distinct from Jesus). Jesus emerges in the story as the paradigm of the radical status reversal, the inverting of honor and shame, that marks God’s realm. Discredited by the religious and political elite, subjected to the humiliating death of crucifixion, Jesus will nevertheless receive vindication from God. The image of the rejected and resurrected Son of Humanity, shamed before human judgment but vindicated by God, thus becomes a crucial image of the status reversal within God’s domain (see 22:69). The Song of Mary is playing in the background once more (God’s great reversal, which brings blessing to the one low in status: 1:48–49). The one rejected and killed by the leaders of his people will return in glory, glory that he shares with God and with God’s holy angels.

55. Without the additional saying about exchange in Mark 8:37 (“What might a human being give in exchange for life [self]?” [AT]), Luke’s rendition focuses more sharply on the antinomy of loss and gain.

56. See, e.g., Malina and Neyrey, “Honor and Shame”; deSilva, Perseverance.

Jesus concludes with a promise: “I tell you, truly, some of those who are standing right here will not taste death before they have seen God’s realm” (9:27). Thus far, Jesus’ use of the figure of the Son of Humanity has been suggestive but tantalizingly underdeveloped. As Son of Humanity, he bears unique authority (5:24; 6:5), and his future holds rejection, death, and resurrection (9:22). Only later does it become clear that Luke (with Mark) draws the image from Dan 7 and its picture of sovereignty over the nations given by God to “one like a human son [or son of man]” (Dan 7:13–14 AT; see Luke 22:69). The one condemned by human authority receives divine vindication and a share in God’s mighty rule. If Dan 7 informs the prophecy of Luke 9:22, the promise of a coming kingdom forms a fitting climax to the unit. Just as Daniel’s human son, embodying Israel’s experience of adversity and its vindication by God, receives dominion, so now Jesus as Son of Humanity will move through suffering to the coming realm of God. That is how to “gain the whole world,” ironically by forfeiting life.

The realm of God is imminent, so much so that Jesus can assure his listeners that at least some of them will live to see it. The phrase “having come with power [en dynamei]” (Mark 9:1 AT) is lacking in Luke, and it is therefore possible that the transfiguration scene, which immediately follows, is to be viewed as that seeing of the realm of God (e.g., Vinson 287)—an anticipatory glimpse of the realm of God (proleptic: Green 376), though not its decisive arrival “in power,” which is a matter for the future (see 21:5–36; cf. Bovon 1:368). Nevertheless, in a real sense God’s reign is already present and powerfully at work in Jesus’ ministry, a counterreign that is liberating humankind from the destructive rule of the powers of evil (e.g., 11:14–23). God’s liberating reign is there to be seen in Jesus’ acts of release (healing, exorcism, forgiveness), and also tasted, in the meal fellowship that expresses already, in the present, life in God’s domain (14:15–24; cf. 5:29–32; 15:1–2). God’s realm is still to come; the powers of evil have not been entirely vanquished, and Israel’s redemption and salvation “to the ends of the earth” are still awaited (Acts 1:8). But it is already reordering the present. Not everyone, however, has eyes to see it and ears to hear it (see the comment on Luke 17:20–21).57 Before dying (one who “tastes death” gets the whole experience, not a sample), as Jesus assures his (and Luke’s) audience, some will perceive. Some will understand—not yet, perhaps, but by the end of the narrative.

57. On Luke’s presentation of the basileia tou theou (realm [reign] of God), see Carroll, Response 80–87. Luke 19:11–27 associates (misguided) expectation of the imminent arrival of God’s reign with the approach to Jerusalem but relocates God’s rule (in its future manifestation) on the far side of Jesus’ death and subsequent vindication by God.

9:28–36 Decisive Disclosure of Jesus’ Identity (Part 2):

The Transfiguration

For the first time Jesus has shown the disciples the future that awaits him as God’s Messiah, encompassing both suffering and glory, and for a larger audience he has begun to spell out the implications for the life of the disciple. Alone with Jesus while he is praying on a mountain, three disciples now witness an extraordinary scene of revelation. A voice from heaven affirms Jesus’ identity as Son of God and, with assistance from Moses and Elijah, ratifies what Jesus has just disclosed about his role and destiny. Looking over the disciples’ shoulders, the Lukan audience, too, witnesses a preview of the future glory that Jesus will enter through his “exodus”—suffering, death, and exaltation—at Jerusalem.

28 About eight days after [Jesus had spoken] these words, it so happened that he took Peter, John, and James along with him and went up on the mountaina to pray. 29 As he was praying, the appearance of his face became different, and his clothing a brilliant white. 30 And two men were there,b speaking with him: Moses and elijah, 31 who, appearing in glory [themselves], were talking about his departure,c which he would soon complete in Jerusalem. 32 Peter and those with him were weighed down with sleep, yet they kept awake and saw his glory, and also the two men who were standing with him. 33 It so happened, as they were separating from him, that Peter said to Jesus, “Master, it’s a good thing that we’re here! So let’s make three tents, one for you, one for Moses, and one for Elijah”—not knowing what he was saying. 34 As he was saying this, a cloud came and began to cover them, and they were afraid as they entered the cloud. 35 There was a voice from heaven: “This is my chosen Son.d Listen to him!” 36 When the voice ceased,e Jesus was found alone. They were silent and for the time beingf reported nothing of what they had seen to anyone.

a. As in 6:12, “mountain” is definite, with the article signaling that the mountain on which Jesus prays is the well-known mountain in that area.

b. Translating kai idou (lit., “and behold”), an attention-focusing phrase that Luke often uses, borrowing from the lxx.

c. Or “exodus,” exodon, likely echoing the exodus narrative of the people’s liberation from bondage in egypt.

d. Or “my Son, the chosen one.” The reading “my beloved Son” is a later scribal emendation influenced by Luke 3:22 and probably by Matt 17:5 and Mark 9:7 as well.

e. Literally, “when the voice had occurred.”

f. Literally, “in those days.”

[28–36] The setting is familiar: Jesus at prayer on a mountain,58 removed from the crowds clamoring for his attention below (v. 28). The scene is far from ordinary, however; the mountain becomes the site for an extraordinary revelation to three of the disciples (as in 8:51 they are Peter, John, and James). Heaven endorses Jesus’ declaration of the meaning and goal of his messianic vocation, with his two greatest predecessors among Israel’s prophets chiming in. All signs point toward his mission’s finale in Jerusalem, the first indication that his destination is the Holy City, where as a youth he first found his voice in the narrative (as Son of God). Jesus will decisively initiate this change in directions (9:51), from then on resolutely making his way to the city where he will meet a prophet’s fate (13:33). His exodos (departure), evoking the memory of Israel’s liberation from slavery, may be a journey effecting deliverance, but only as part of a ministry that is wholly directed toward that aim.59 Yet it is also an exit from life itself, his death—confirming the prophetic announcement in 9:22 but now making explicit that Jerusalem will be the location for that rejection by the powerful.

Luke links the transfiguration to the preceding sayings of Jesus (“about eight days after [Jesus had spoken] these words”).60 The singling out of Peter, John, and James highlights the gap that separates the crowds from this revelatory experience. First to the larger circle of disciples and then to the people, a complicated process involving memory, witness, and convincing scriptural interpretation must mediate the divine testimony to Jesus to which Luke’s audience is privy. The journey from the mountain to comprehending disciples and believing multitudes is long.

Jesus converses with “two men” whom both the narrator and later Peter identify as Moses and Elijah (vv. 30, 33). Does the presence of these towering figures from Israel’s history, each of whom had remarkable experience of divine revelation on a mountain, evoke the witness of Israel’s Scripture—Torah and Prophets—and point it toward Jesus as its fulfillment (cf. Bovon 1:376)? Support for such an interpretation comes in the episode’s climax, when a voice from heaven urges, “Listen to him!” and only Jesus remains in view (vv. 35–36). A retrospective rereading of the passage in the light of 24:27, 44–45 will offer further support for such a construal of Moses and elijah as symbolic characters. At the same time, the concluding line spoken from heaven, echoing Deut 18:15 lxx (“Listen to him,” i.e., the one like Moses whom God will send), accents Moses’ prophetic role, which is important elsewhere in Luke’s writings (see Luke 24:27; Acts 3:21–24; 7:37). elijah belongs here too, not only because of his place in Jewish hopes for the nation’s restoration (see the comment on Luke 1:11–17) but also because the scriptural exegesis that Jesus has delivered at Nazareth implicitly links his own ministry to that of elijah (4:24–26). Jesus appears in good company, therefore, as the definitive and final prophetic voice of God.

58. Not a “high [ hypsēlon] mountain,” as in Mark 9:2; Matt 17:1; for the symbolic function of “the mountain” as setting for encounter with God, considerations of altitude are irrelevant.

59. On this passage’s intertextual associations with the exodus, see Ringe, “Luke 9:28–36”; Garrett, “Exodus”; Strauss, Davidic Messiah, 285–305.

60. The shift from six days (Mark 9:2; Matt 17:1) to eight has no obvious motive or effect (tentative suggestions in Bovon 1:373–74, 378), but it is an unusually precise temporal marker in Luke’s narrative of the public activity of Jesus, prior to the Passion Narrative. Its attention-focusing function amounts to a temporal equivalent of the visually orienting phrase kai idou (and look!).

The description of the transformation in Jesus’ appearance is careful: “The appearance of his face became different, and his clothing a brilliant white” (9:29, avoiding the perhaps loaded term metamorphoō, “change in form,” “undergo metamorphosis” [Mark 9:2; see Bovon 1:375 n. 39]). Moses and Elijah appear “in glory” as well (Luke 9:31, a Lukan embellishment), indicating that Jesus’ changed appearance results from the intrusion of the heavenly into mundane space and time, much as in the shepherds’ experience of heavenly “glory” in connection with another disclosure of Jesus’ identity and significance (2:9). Only in Luke does the narrator report the content of the conversation with Moses and elijah: “[They] were talking about his departure, which he would soon complete in Jerusalem” (9:31). The spotlight thus falls on the end point of the story: Jesus’ exit, including especially his death, about which he has just spoken, but also, it will turn out, his ascension. Moses and elijah, representing the voice of prophetic promise in Israel’s Scripture, point ahead to this departure, a conviction that Jesus will likewise articulate on the day of his resurrection (24:26–27, 44–46). eventually readers discover that the end point of the story is only another beginning, for Jerusalem will become the point of departure for Jesus’ followers as well, their departure on a mission that will take them to the whole world (24:47; Acts 1:6–8).

Another distinctive feature of the Lukan transfiguration account is the expanded role given the three disciples who observe the event. Though fatigued, they fight off sleep and remain awake to see “his glory” along with the two other men (Luke 9:32–33). The disciples indeed see; they are qualified observers who have witnessed these events, so that they may later bear witness to them (cf. 2 Pet 1:16–18), just as they will witness, despite sleepiness, another prayer session on a mountain (22:39–53). The emphasis on visual perception in the transfiguration thus fits with an interest lying at the heart of the disciples’ role in the narrative (esp. that of the Twelve): they are witnesses (martyres) of and therefore to Jesus’ ministry (24:48; Acts 1:21–22).

The three disciples see, but at the same time, and at the very moment of revelation, they do not comprehend what their eyes show them. Narrator and audience share a laugh as Peter, speaking for his two companions, asks Jesus^61 to join a construction crew, fashioning booths in an attempt to prolong this encounter with divine glory—“not knowing what he was saying.” Indeed. They do not yet understand, and they will continue to demonstrate their imperceptiveness in the episodes that immediately follow (see Luke 9:45, 46, 49). The task of interpretation and education for the disciples (their formation for teaching and preaching leadership) has a long way to go. This will be one of the central purposes of the long, winding journey to Jerusalem that will commence at 9:51.

61. The address “Master [epistata],” rather than “Teacher [rabbi],” as in Mark 9:5, suits Peter (cf. Luke 5:5; 8:45).

Peter speaks without comprehending the moment, but not in fear (as he does in Mark 9:6). Luke delays mention of the disciples’ fear until the descent of a cloud,62 one of the classic accompaniments of theophany (exod 16:10; 20:21; 24:15–16; 34:5; Lev 16:2; 1 kgs 8:10–12; ezek 10:4), to which fear is the expected human response (Luke 9:34; cf. 1:12). While the cloud lingers—the picture capturing perfectly the mystery of the divine presence, revealing yet at the same time concealing—the disciples hear a voice from heaven: “This is my chosen Son. Listen to him!” (9:35). Although the disciples do not yet fully grasp the revelation, the transfiguration gives definitive answer to the questions about Jesus’ identity that have been circulating for some time. These three followers of Jesus, with the Lukan audience overhearing, listen to the message that Jesus heard from the same source at his baptism. He is God’s specially chosen Son (“beloved Son” in 3:22; Mark 9:7 kJv; Matt 17:5 kJv), the vocabulary of election echoing the Servant Song of Isaiah (42:1; Acts calls Jesus pais, “servant,” in connection with both glory and the death that precedes it [3:13; 4:27, 30]). The divine voice charges the disciples to “listen to him,” matching expectations for the prophet like Moses whom God would send; Jesus is that one whom the people are to hear and heed as they seek to be faithful to God (Deut 18:15). The voice thus emphasizes the prophetic character of Jesus’ mission (Bovon 1:379) and in so doing underscores the importance of attending to his message (ultimately, the criterion for membership in the people of God: Acts 3:22–23).

In Luke 9:18–36, the voice first of Jesus and then (with scriptural echo) of God reveals the identity and vocation of Jesus, and inextricably tied to them his destiny of suffering (death) and glory (divine vindication), a destiny that configures also the life of the disciple. For the time being, the disciples keep the experience to themselves; silence is their response to the event rather than something Jesus enforces (as in Mark 9:9; Matt 17:9).63

The theophany of the transfiguration reaffirms Jesus’ identity as Son of God and confirms the meaning he has assigned to his role and the preview of the future he has provided. This glory is the kingdom some will see (9:27), yet one gains only a fleeting glimpse of it on the mountain; it remains a reality for the future. However, those with attentive ears and eyes can and must see it also— hidden glory—in the earthy ministry of Jesus, in the world of human need and gracious liberation that already exists, beginning right now at the foot of the mountain. Forget the booths, Peter; the Messiah has work to do.

62. Matthew 17:6 presents the disciples’ fear as a reaction to the heavenly voice.

63. Luke does not narrate an exchange between Jesus and the disciples regarding elijah’s return (as in Mark 9:11–13), but this does not indicate that Luke has dropped the traditional link between John and elijah (though it is true that this Gospel also associates elijah and Jesus). Jesus has already (implicitly) made the connection (7:27).

9:37–43a Jesus Heals a Boy Afflicted by a Demon

The experience of kingdom grandeur was short-lived for Peter, John, and James; while they are still coming down the mountain, a large crowd has assembled. The rest of the disciples have been powerless to assist a young boy tormented by a powerful demon. Their incapacity creates the opportunity for Jesus to heal, displaying again the grandeur of God, who sets human beings free from forces that oppress.

37 The next day, as they were descending the mountain, a large crowd met [Jesus],a 38 and a man thereb cried out from the crowd, “Teacher, I beg you to look upon my son, for he is my only child; 39 and see, a spirit seizes him, and suddenly it screams and shakes him so he foams [at the mouth], and it will scarcely leave him, as it keeps beating him. 40 I begged your disciples to cast it out, but they couldn’t.” 41 Jesus answered, “O faithless, crooked generation, how long will I be with you and need to put up with you? Bring your son here.” 42 And while he was still coming forward, the demon threw him down and convulsed him. But Jesus reproached the unclean spirit and healed the child, and he gave him back to his father. 43 everyone was amazed at the grandeur of God.

a. Leaving egeneto de (“and it came to pass [happened]”) untranslated (cf. 9:18). b. As in 9:30, translating kai idou (lit., “and behold”).

[37–43a] The transitional v. 37 links this exorcism story to the preceding unit. While Jesus and his three disciple companions are still descending from their encounter with the sacred, a large crowd greets them, and from the crowd rings out a voice that is jarring, after the voice from heaven heard up on the mountain: “Teacher, I beg you to look upon my son, for he is my only child; and see, a spirit seizes him and suddenly it screams and shakes him so he foams [at the mouth], and it will scarcely leave him, as it keeps beating him” (vv. 38–39). The narrative moves swiftly from the sacred to the profane—indeed, the demonic! The father’s description of his son’s condition addresses ear and eye alike with vivid detail: “a spirit” (the narrator later terms it an “unclean spirit,” v. 42) takes control of the man’s “only child” (a familiar Lukan motif [cf. 7:12; 8:42]), and the violent physical symptoms manifest the powerlessness of the child. Modern Western readers would explain the boy’s symptoms as the effect of a neurological disorder (a grand mal seizure); however, ancient readers would recognize the symptoms of the “sacred disease.”64 Hippocrates devoted an entire tractate to this disease and tried to explain it and prescribe its treatment, in physical rather than religious categories (The Sacred Disease; cf. the discussion of the Matthean version of this story in Origen, Comm. Matt. 13.6; see Bovon 1:386, 388).

Whatever the etiology of the condition, Luke presents Jesus’ response, in characteristic fashion, as both exorcism and healing—“Jesus reproached the unclean spirit and healed the child” (v. 42)—and also as an act of liberation from oppression. The father reports that the spirit possessing his son will not release him, relentlessly beating, or crushing, him (syntribon, 9:39); he is an example of persons held captive, or oppressed, to whom Jesus brings release (aphesis, 4:18).65 When confronted by Jesus, the spirit makes one last, convulsive attempt to control the boy, but then Jesus enacts the promise of release he announced when, under the inspiration of Isa 61, he opened his ministry. The pattern of narrating the exorcism is unusual: the demon does not speak, and Jesus does not deliver his rebuke in direct discourse. Moreover, the mediating role of the father and the incapacity of the disciples, eliciting from Jesus a lament about a faithless generation, shift the focus of the episode, even if the event of exorcism-healing is reported with dramatic detail.

To add insult (for the disciples) to injury (of his son), the father concludes his appeal for help with a complaint regarding the ineffectiveness of the disciples whom Jesus (with Peter, John, and James) left behind: “I begged your disciples to cast it out, but they couldn’t” (9:40). Jesus counters with a far-reaching complaint of his own: “O faithless [apistos], crooked generation, how long will I be with you and need to put up with you?” (v. 41). The target of these strong words is not evident. Is it the boy or his father, because of the persistent need, and demand, for help? Given the emphatic role of oppressive spiritual forces in the boy’s condition, and the turn to Jesus for help, this seems unlikely. Is it the unclean spirit? The complaint Jesus registers is not about the activity of evil powers (potent as that is in the narrative) but about the lack of faith and the moral bankruptcy of his human contemporaries. Is it the disciples, because their failure to aid the boy implies deficient faith (Green 388–89; Vinson 296)? If so, Luke leaves the suggestion undeveloped (unlike Matt 17:19–20, which addresses the disciples’ “little faith” [oligopistia], and Mark 9:28–29, which implies that unsuccessful exorcism in this case stems from failure to pray). The exact target of the critique remains unclear, but the effect of the statement is chilling. Despite the presence of enthusiastic and apparently receptive crowds, Jesus assesses the situation in pessimistic terms. This raises a question for readers: What will come of all this public attention? Will the people, in the end, come to genuine faith? At the same time, the wording—“How long will I be with you and need to put up with you?”—implies that a time is coming when Jesus will no longer be present to call the people to faithful participation in God’s realm, a hint he elaborates in v. 44.

64. It is common to compare this description to the epileptic seizures known to modern medical practice (Fitzmyer labels the passage “the cure of the epileptic boy” [1:805–11]; cf. Meier, Marginal Jew 2:655; Johnson 158; Bovon 1:386, 388 [each of whom, however, is aware of the cultural distance between the ancient and modern diagnoses]). On the limited usefulness of this shift in explanatory models from the first century (demonic presence) to the twenty-first (biomedical processes), see Green 387–88 n. 118.

65. Though Luke 4:18 does not include the line from Isa 61:1 that makes use of the verb syntribō (“to heal those crushed in heart”), which would make this connection more obvious.

In Mark the exorcism elicits a question from the disciples about their inability to effect a cure, and Jesus replies by pointing to the necessity of prayer (9:28–29), while Matthew highlights the sufficiency of even a little faith (17:19–20). But Luke instead reports the general reaction of “everyone.” They exhibit amazement at God’s grandeur (or greatness, megaleiotēs; cf. 1:49, the “great things [megala]” that God does). Again Jesus fulfills promise as he brings release from oppression. Observing Jesus in action, the crowd is discerning enough to recognize that it is God who is at work. Their faith, however, is bound up with wonder at Jesus’ deeds of power; it is not yet clear whether it will become the perceptive, obedient faith that constitutes his true family (8:19–21). If Jesus is on the mark with his complaint about an unbelieving generation, many in the crowd may never move from wonder (even wonder that is able to recognize divine activity) to genuine faith. It may be useful to give the disciples a wake-up call.

9:43b–50 Keeping Company with a Messiah Who Suffers

The healing activity of Jesus continues to impress the observing crowds, who perceive God’s hand at work. To Jesus’ eye, however, his contemporaries are anything but a believing and faithful generation. On the contrary, human hands will become the instruments of betrayal and rejection, and so Jesus forecasts his coming passion a second time. The disciples fail to grasp the point, however, and their preoccupation with status leads Jesus to present a young child as model of true greatness. The realm of God features hospitality toward just such persons, who lack status and advantage. Though ineffective themselves in their most recent attempt at exorcism, the status-conscious disciples seek to squelch a more successful rival, who wins a more generous review from Jesus. With this larger, more hopeful vision of God’s work of liberation, the Galilean ministry comes to a close. Next stop: Jerusalem, but only after a long journey in which the education of the disciples for their future role as leaders in Israel will continue.

43b While everyone was marveling at all the things [Jesus] was doing, he said to his disciples, 44 “Put these words into your ears: The Son of Humanity will soon be handed over into human hands.” 45 They did not comprehend this saying, however; indeed, it was concealed from them lest they come to understand it, and they were afraid to ask him about this saying.

46 Now an argument arose among them, concerning which of them was the greatest. 47 However, Jesus, knowing what they were thinking,a took a child and had [the child] stand by his side. 48 And he said to them, “Whoever welcomes this child in my name welcomes me, and whoever welcomes me welcomes the One who sent me. For it is the least one among you all who is great.”

49 John responded, “Master, we saw someone casting out demons in your name, and we tried to stopb him because he is not following along with us.” 50 Jesus, though, said to them, “Don’t stop [him]. For whoever isn’t against you is for you.”

a. Literally, “knowing the reasoning [ dialogismon, the same word translated “argument” in v. 46] of their hearts [collective singular].”

b. Conative imperfect: “We were trying to hinder [prevent] him.”

[43b–45] The previous unit ended on the note of astonishment felt by all who observed the healing of a young boy plagued by a fierce spirit. This passage begins on the same note: “everyone was marveling at all the things [Jesus] was doing” (v. 43b). Jesus’ acts of power get attention, and astonishment is a typical reaction of observers (e.g., 4:32; 5:26; 8:25, 56; 11:14). He wants more than public attention, however, and more than amazement. Having just expressed frustration at the moral failings and lack of perceptive awareness—of faith— that he finds in his contemporaries, including even his own disciples (9:41), he is prompted by the crowd’s astonishment to give the disciples a reality check: “Put these words into your ears: The Son of Humanity will soon be handed over [or betrayed, delivered up, paradidosthai] into human hands” (v. 44) This second “passion prediction” is again followed by misunderstanding on the part of the disciples. The introduction (“Put these words into your ears”), a Lukan embellishment, adds gravity to the pronouncement. At the same time, it hints that the disciples will need to expend considerable effort to understand what he is saying, and that they will be unable to do so. Indeed, not until their eyes and minds are “opened” on the day of resurrection will they understand (24:44–46).

The message is “Don’t be misled by all this public acclaim. If you want to know the truth about humanity, consider this: Humanity’s Son will be handed over to human beings.” The formulation leaves room for ambiguity, created by the deletion of the phrase “and they will kill him, and three days after he has been killed he will rise” (Mark 9:31 AT; also Matt 17:23). The disciples’ failure to understand Jesus’ words is therefore more plausible than in the other synoptic accounts. Moreover, the passive-voice verbs show that something is at play beyond the disciples’ own cognitive limitations. The meaning is kept from them, concealed (perhaps a theological passive, though this is disputed by Green 390) so that they might not understand—hearing-without-understanding that is reminiscent of Luke 8:10 (and its quotation of Isa 6:9–10), although the wording is different in 9:45. If the narrator perceives God’s hand in the disciples’ lack of insight, their responsible participation nevertheless comes in the back door with mention that they are “afraid to ask” Jesus what he means (v. 45b).

Concealment is not the final word, however, for everything that is concealed will eventually be revealed (8:17). The disciples will see the truth and understand—and believe—but not until the end of the story. Intervening events, particularly the rejection, suffering, death, and resurrection that Jesus leaves out of the prediction in 9:44—all these will shape that understanding and inform the teaching and preaching that will follow. But the disciples do not yet have that end-of-narrative insight. For the present, their lack of awareness appears to multiply. Their misunderstanding, as something for which they bear some responsibility, is next exemplified in a dispute about greatness. Failure to understand Jesus’ vocation has as its corollary a failure to grasp the vocation of disciple.

[46–48] The disciples, becoming embroiled in an argument about status, continue to display an inability to grasp the character of God’s realm, and of their own vocation within it. In Luke’s shaping of the unit, the motif of “greatness” forms an inclusio:

“which of them was the greatest [meizōn]” (v. 46)

“It is the least one among you all who is great [megas].” (v. 48)

Jesus discerns the point of dispute^66 and gives a specific answer, revising conventional notions of greatness with an image of status inversion that by now is familiar (e.g., 1:51–53; 6:20–26; 7:36–50). But Jesus adds dramatic gesture to his words, summoning a young child (9:47). Jesus identifies himself with “this child” (a formulation unique to Luke; cf. “one such child” in Matt 18:5; Mark 9:37), who is to be regarded as Jesus’ own representative (“in my name”). He positions the child at his side (another distinctive feature of Luke’s account; cf. “in their midst” [AT] in Matt 18:2; Mark 9:36) and declares that hospitality extended to the child is offered to Jesus—and to God as well. The measure of right relationship with Jesus, and therefore with God, pictured in terms of welcome (dechomai, used four times in this verse), is hospitality toward “this child” (v. 48a), that is, one lacking status and power, one possessing no claim to position or advantage, one who can offer little in return, as opposed to social peers and superiors, who can reciprocate in ways that bestow advantage. Jesus clinches the point: the person who is least in the community is great (v. 48b).

66. In rhetorical terms, the stasis of the argument.

For Jesus’ (and Luke’s) culture, this response to the disciples’ dispute about greatness is radical and provocative. In God’s realm honor, status, and power are not what they seem. It is the one low in status, the child, who embodies the greatness that Jesus prizes. By honoring a child, Jesus’ own envoy, one honors Jesus, and in honoring Jesus one honors God (Green 392). Connecting the motifs of hospitality and social inversion, with the child as concrete example, this passage introduces a cluster of ideas that gain in importance as the narrative proceeds (e.g., 14:7–24; 16:19–31). Later Jesus will explicitly present children as paradigm of life in God’s realm, and of the proper exercise of power within the community of disciples (18:15–17; 22:24–27).

[49–50] Jesus has offered low status as indicator of greatness in the community of disciples and presented hospitality to a child as measure of one’s relation to Jesus, and thus also to God. His gesture, placing a low-status outsider at his side as his own envoy, elicits a reaction from John: “Master, we saw someone casting out demons in your name, and we tried to stop him, because he is not following along with us” (v. 49). If response to Jesus reveals one’s disposition toward God—and if response to Jesus also shows, in turn, God’s disposition (the image of being shamed by the Son of Humanity at his glorious return, v. 26)— what about those who are not followers of Jesus? After all, a voice from heaven has directed John and his two companions to “listen to him,” and when they looked they saw only Jesus. Does his band of followers have exclusive claim on God’s liberating power? What boundaries should the company of Jesus enforce?

Jesus takes issue with John’s approach to the group’s boundaries. He counters with a command and an aphorism: “Don’t stop [him]. For whoever isn’t against you is for you” (v. 50). The image of the child at Jesus’ side is not about drawing persons to Jesus but drawing the disciples’ attention to the child as model of appropriate status-seeking. The message, reminiscent of earlier boundary-shattering statements (4:23–27; 7:9), is that God’s work is not confined to “our group.” Wherever God’s work is being done, one should not resist it but applaud it. The use of the “name of Jesus” as a tool of exorcism (as one finds with the names of various deities in the Greek Magical Papyri [e.g., 4.1227–64, 3007–86; 5.96–172]), borrowed even by an outsider to good effect, intimates that wherever evil forces are successfully challenged, God’s reign, of which Jesus is the bearer, is active. Nevertheless, it is God’s work, and the divine project of salvation is bigger than Jesus and his band of followers. To adapt phrasing Luke will employ in the narrative sequel to the Gospel, “Don’t try to stop him. You may find yourself opposing God!” (cf. Acts 5:39).

The passage is perhaps more enigmatic than my sketch of its point suggests, especially as one reads on and meets further play with this cluster of motifs. Jesus has spoken of the cost and challenge of following him as disciple; one must be willing to give up everything (9:23–25). The exchange with John then presses the question of who counts as a disciple and whether it is necessary to be one. Verses 57–62 will pick up that thread, reinforcing the picture of the cost and demands of following Jesus. From now on, everything falls under the shadow of the cross that lies ahead. The question of limits and group boundaries will resurface in a dialogue between Jesus and a specialist in the interpretation of the law. In the spirit of 9:50, Jesus will counter the idea that one may place restrictions on the mandate to love neighbor (“Who is my neighbor?”); indeed, an outsider shows what it means to be a neighbor and how to live the way of Torah and so enter life (10:25–37).

More complicated is the narrative’s further development of the motif of exorcism in relation to outsiders. When Jesus’ own practice of exorcism becomes a contested matter—and precisely as a question about his authority and the source of his power over demons—Jesus will appeal to the exorcisms performed by others to rebut the charge that his power stems from his alliance with evil forces (11:15, 19). Then, in a fascinating reversal of the aphorism in 9:50, he will say “The one who is not with me is against me, and the one who does not gather with me scatters” (11:23). When outsiders are doing God’s work, they are to be viewed as allies; however, when outsiders call God’s work evil, they are adversaries.

In a hilarious episode, Acts will revisit the matter of exorcism in “the name of Jesus” by outsiders to the movement (19:13–17). As the apostles carry out their mission, the name of Jesus is effective in mediating healing as well as exorcism (e.g., 3:6; 16:18). Seven Jewish exorcists, sons of Sceva, attempt to use that same authority (i.e., Jesus’ name) to cast out a demon, only to be thwarted when the evil spirit admits knowing Jesus (Paul, too), but then adds “Who are you?” (19:15). When it is critical to clarify the identity and character of this new movement within the religiously plural Greco-Roman culture, it does matter who is making what sorts of claims and doing what sorts of things by appeal to the name of Jesus. John’s successors will not need, however, to hinder counterfeit exorcists. The demons will do the job themselves.

The ministry in and near Galilee is now over. Jesus is about to begin a journey to Jerusalem, where his destiny awaits. The Galilean phase of Jesus’ activity began with clear signals of the rejection that lay ahead. As it ends, these signals are resumed with the first two passion predictions by Jesus (Luke 9:22, 44). In similar fashion, the next major narrative unit, the journey to Jerusalem (9:51–19:27), begins on the note of rejection (by Samaritans, connected with Jesus’ Jerusalem destination) and ends on the brink of the final conflict with the powers at Jerusalem.

Luke 9:51–19:27 Ministry Continues as Jesus Journeys to Jerusalem

A public ministry of teaching and healing in Galilee has won Jesus the attention of large numbers of people: many are impressed by the authority evident in both his message and his acts of power, but others are disconcerted by his words and especially by the company he keeps. From a larger band of followers, he has chosen twelve to take a leading role in extending his mission to the whole people of God. Jesus makes a decisive turn; from now on, his destination is Jerusalem (9:51). In a circuitous journey toward Jesus’ exodos, occasional healings continue, but the narrative is dominated by teaching—including many memorable parables—and dialogue. A pattern of alternating audiences displays Jesus’ two primary tasks on the journey. Addressing disciples, often in the company of the crowds (potential disciples) that still flock to Jesus, he furthers the preparation of the apostles and a wider circle of disciples for their role in mission. Indeed, they even have on-the-job training in a second mission tour (10:1–24). Addressing critics and adversaries, Pharisees usually among them, Jesus insistently presses his vision of God’s reign and its expression in communal life. He still seeks to convince but finds unrelenting and vociferous criticism. Radical teaching about such things as status inversion—and its embodiment in practice—will inevitably provoke those who enjoy favorable position in the present social order.

especially as Jesus nears Jerusalem, but at other points en route as well, he will point beyond the present conflict to its future resolution. What does Jesus’ experience of acceptance and rejection among his people say about the character of his messianic vocation and about the meaning and shape of God’s realm? The repeated, disconcerting announcement that God’s Messiah and prophet will meet rejection and death at Jerusalem places the entire journey under an ominous cloud. Nevertheless, God’s purposes continue to drive the story, embracing everything Jesus says and does and everything that is done to him.

9:51–62 Following Jesus: The Journey to Jerusalem Begins

Jesus has captured the public imagination throughout Galilee. Large crowds follow, eager to hear him teach or to benefit from his power to heal. Even an outsider has begun to invoke his name to liberate persons from demonic control. The narrative creates the impression of Galilean time and space full to overflowing with the activity of God’s reign. Now Jesus discerns a moment of completion or fulfillment in another sense. It is time for him to move toward the destiny that awaits him at Jerusalem. He begins a long journey to the Holy City, a move that makes mission among the Samaritans a nonstarter and fits with an increasingly radical view of the demands of discipleship.

51 It came to pass, when the days for his being taken upa had arrived,b that [Jesus] set his face to go to Jerusalem. 52 So he sent messengers ahead of him,c and after leaving they entered a village of the Samaritans to prepare for him, 53 but they did not welcome him, because hed was going to Jerusalem. 54 When the disciples James and John perceived [this], they said, “Lord, do you want us to call down fire come from heaven to consume them?” 55 But he turned and reproached them, 56 and they departed to another village.

57 While he was traveling along the road, someone said to him, “I will follow you wherever you go.” 58 Jesus said to him, “Foxes have holes, and the birds of the sky have nests, but the Son of Humanity does not have anywhere to lay his head.” 59 Then he said to another, “Follow me.” But he said, “First allow me to go and bury my father.” 60 And [Jesus] said to him, “Let the dead bury their own dead, but [as for you,] go and announce God’s reign.” 61 Another, too, said, “Lord, I will follow you, but first allow me to say good-bye to the people in my house.” 62 Jesus, though, said to him, “Nobody who puts hand to the plow and looks back is a good fit for the realm of God.”

a. Or “for his ascension [ analēmpseōs].”

b. Or “had been fulfilled [symplērousthai].”

c. Literally, “before his face [or person, pro prosōpou autou],” the same idiom that

appears in 7:27, quoting Mal 3:1, and in Luke 10:1 (cf. 1:17: “before him [enōpion autou]”).

d. Literally, “his face,” the third occurrence of prosōpon in 9:51–53.

[51–56] Verse 51 marks a decisive shift in the narrative’s direction and combines several significant images: a journey with Jerusalem as its goal; a being taken up, or ascension, as the mode of Jesus’ departure there; and fulfillment or completion as its meaning. In the middle of the journey that commences here, and again at its conclusion, Jesus will bring into sharp focus the character and import of the events to occur in Jerusalem (13:31–35; 18:31–33; 19:41–44): the necessity of the divine purpose draws Jesus to Jerusalem, where as God’s prophet he must meet rejection by a people who fail to discern the moment as one of gracious divine visitation. The taking up (analēmpsis; in Acts 1:11, 22 the related verb analambanein is used of Jesus’ ascension to heaven) that will complete Jesus’ journey, and his mission, will be no coronation to earthly rule but an ascension of a peculiar kind, entrance into divine glory by way of suffering and death. This is the exodus that Jesus will accomplish at Jerusalem, aptly anticipated by two heroes of Israel’s history with whom the image of ascension or assumption is also associated (Luke 9:31; see 2 kgs 2:11; Sir 48:9; 1 Macc 2:58; Assumption of Moses).

Jesus resolutely “set[s] his face” to go to Jerusalem, signaling once again that pressure from large crowds seeking his attention and help will not divert him from the course on which his mission has set him (cf. Luke 4:42–43). Jesus’ face (prosōpon) as symbol of his person and now his direction—hence, his intention or purpose—dominates 9:51–53. Having resolved to head for Jerusalem, Jesus dispatches messengers to go “before his face” to prepare for his arrival in a Samaritan village, where he will presumably do what he has done in Galilee: proclaim the good news of God’s reign and heal the sick (though this aim is left unstated; v. 52). These disciple messengers thus have the very role that John the Baptizer played before his demise (7:27; cf. 1:17); Jesus will give seventy-two envoys a similar assignment in 10:1. The messengers to Samaria thus have a preparatory task different from that of the apostles, who conducted a ministry on behalf of Jesus, as his authorized agents, in regions where he would not himself come (9:1–6).

The Samaritan village turns the messengers away, refusing to welcome Jesus because of his intention to go to Jerusalem (lit., “because his face was going to Jerusalem,” 9:53). The narrator neither discloses how the Samaritans know this about Jesus nor explains why the Jerusalem destination is problematic for them. Nevertheless, this brief, enigmatic encounter with Samaria links Jerusalem and rejection of Jesus, thus contributing to a crucial plot development. At the same time, it raises a question for Luke’s audience: What will become of Samaria? Given the history of hostility between Jews and Samaritans, implied in the village’s response to the messengers (knowledge Luke evidently assumes the audience possesses), it is conceivable that rejection will be the final word, that Samaria will never hear the good news of the in-breaking reign of God. Certainly that is what James and John think; indeed, they want to help ensure that outcome, volunteering to petition heaven for a response—destruction by fire—like that summoned by the word of Elijah, also in Samaria (v. 54, echoing 2 kgs 1:10–12). Before the next chapter is over, however, Jesus will have told a parable in which a Samaritan exemplifies life-giving Torah observance (Luke 10:30–35), a surprising twist after initial rejection by this Samaritan village, and one that builds suspense for the outcome of a future mission to Samaria (Acts 1:8; 8:4–25). Jesus anticipates a more favorable future for the people of Samaria by enforcing restraint on the rebuffed disciples. The Samaritan village has refused them hospitality; now Jesus adds his own reproach, refusing to endorse the desire of James and John for retaliation, and they proceed to another village (Luke 9:55–56). Despite the special privilege accorded to the sons of Zebedee, who together with Peter have witnessed the miracle of restored life and a mountaintop disclosure from heaven of Jesus’ identity (8:51; 9:28), their perceptions and thinking are not attuned to their Lord’s (cf. Jesus’ correction of John in 9:49–50). The formation of the apostles for leadership has a long way—a journey to Jerusalem and significant further events there—to go.

[57–62] Travel along the road—the way (hodos) toward Jerusalem—provides the setting for three brief encounters with potential disciples (vv. 57–62). each exchange highlights the radical, and intensifying, demands of discipleship now that the company of Jesus has embarked on the journey to Jerusalem. The narrator presents an artfully crafted chiasm of three miniscenes in which the first and third show seekers taking the initiative and the center portrays a call to discipleship that Jesus himself initiates:

I will follow you wherever you go. (v. 57)

Follow me. (v. 59)

Lord, I will follow you, but first allow me to say good-bye to

the people in my house. (v. 61)1

To the first seeker, Jesus counters with an offer of homelessness. If the man wants to attach himself to this teacher, he must give up the shelter and security of a household: “Foxes have holes, and the birds of the sky have nests, but the Son of Humanity does not have anywhere to lay his head” (v. 58). Even wild animals have better lodging than he does. Conflict between the itinerant life of a disciple and one’s location within the household, the primary source of identity and allegiance in Jesus’ culture, figures prominently in each of the three exchanges in vv. 57–62. As with the other two encounters, the narrator leaves the response of the first seeker an open question. Emphasis falls not on the potential disciple’s response but on Jesus’ description of his own mode of existence, cut off from the safety—and the claims—of any household. The aphorism educates Luke’s audience about the meaning and consequences of commitment to the cause of Jesus.

Responding to a summons to follow Jesus, a second person does not say “No” but “Yes! First, though . . .”: “First allow me to go and bury my father” (v. 59). This is a reasonable and compelling request; after all, the obligation to honor one’s parents is a core requirement of fidelity to the Torah (Exod 20:12; Deut 5:16; affirmed by Jesus himself in Luke 18:20). And no act expresses honor for parents more clearly than provision of burial. In this exchange, as in the next one, a potential disciple asks permission (with the verb epitrepein [9:59, 61]) to delay the start of active commitment to discipleship.2 However, Jesus refuses to give permission: “Let the dead bury their own dead, but [as for you,] go and announce God’s reign” (v. 60).

1. Matthew 8:18–22 presents only the first two of the three encounters, and in each case the initiative lies with the one who seeks to follow Jesus. Luke’s version retains the image of following throughout the passage; by placing Jesus’ own summons to follow at the center, it emphasizes his authority as the one who calls. Luke also twice inserts “God’s reign” as both the message the disciple bears and the reordered world by which the disciple’s life has been reoriented (9:60, 62).

Behind the concern with delay lies a more basic issue, one concerning priority of claim and allegiance. The request to delay discipleship misses the point of this commitment, so vividly expressed in Jesus’ reply to the first seeker. Following Jesus means leaving one’s family and household to join a new family, one located not in a household but in the mobile, boundary-breaking realm of God. Jesus’ insistence is extreme and unrelenting: abandon your (spiritually) dead family and let them bury their own (physically) dead.3 The hyperbole deliberately scores the point that no other claim and allegiance—not even socially expected, divinely legitimated duties—can take precedence over one’s commitment to the work of God’s reign. Freed from duty (even sacred duty) to parents, the seeker will take on the task of a disciple, pointing to the powerful arrival of God’s rule. In view of this new reality, routine life within households is over, including honor for parents and burial for the dead.

The last seeker, like the second, addresses Jesus as “Lord” ( kyrios), and once more the exchange underscores the truth that lies beneath the address: Jesus acts with an authority that commands radical obedience or insists on parting of the ways. Here, too, the path a disciple will take comes into conflict with allegiance to household, a conflict sharpened by Jesus’ reply to a seemingly innocuous request: “Lord, I will follow you, but first allow me to say goodbye to the people in my house” (v. 61). Not even a ceremony of leave-taking is allowed! Here Jesus distances himself from the more lenient response of elijah to a similar request of elisha (1 kgs 19:19–21).4 The claim of God’s realm on the would-be disciple is immediate and may not be evaded or delayed by appeal to family ties (as if members of the household would gladly release one to assume the mantle of disciple): “Nobody who puts hand to the plow and looks back is a good fit for the realm of God” (Luke 9:62). Having drawn a lesson from the activities of wild animals to instruct the first seeker (v. 58), Jesus now points to commonsense farming wisdom to portray discipleship as single-minded detachment from the life and social systems one has known. A farmer who is plowing a field had best look ahead rather than backward. And Jesus means now; the field is already being readied for planting. What the reply to a third seeker implies, the next pericope will make explicit: a plentiful harvest is at hand. More harvesters are needed.

2. Bailey has argued that the delay is not immediate and short-term, in view of the father’s recent or impending death, but indefinite. The man requests permission to remain with his parents until they die, whenever that may be (Peasant Eyes 26–27). This reading of the cultural script implied by the exchange is possible but underestimates the urgency and hyperbole of Jesus’ demand.

3. Drawing from first-century Jewish burial practices, wherein bones of the deceased were transferred to an ossuary a year after primary burial in a tomb, Green offers a different reading (408–9): “Let those already dead in the family tomb rebury their own dead.” For this interpretation, see McCane, “Let the Dead.”

4. The intertextual play here is intriguing. An echo of Elisha’s request of Elijah is difficult to miss. Like John the Baptizer before them, Jesus’ messengers have assumed the elijah-like role of going “before the face [of the Lord]” to prepare for his coming (9:52). John, in line with eschatological hopes associated with elijah, was to prepare a people for the Lord, and that included restoring relationships within the family (see the comment on 1:11–17). In this passage Jesus breaks the elijah mold, pressing as he does the more radical, socially disruptive vision of God’s reign. Jesus’ messengers prepare the people for the Messiah’s coming by turning them toward God; when he arrives, he presses divine authority by turning them away from family and household.

10:1–24 The Mission of the Seventy-Two

The extreme demands facing disciples on the way toward Jerusalem may cause many to hesitate, as exemplified in 9:57–62. The crowds are still a factor to be reckoned with, however, and the company of Jesus is also venturing into new territory, where the news of God’s reign and its tangible expression in acts of healing and hospitality have yet to be experienced. using the image of a harvest, Jesus employs new workers, sending seventy-two of his followers as an advance team to bring the message of God’s approaching realm. They return bearing the excitement of a successful mission, yet Jesus’ words of instruction before their departure, and of reflective commentary after their return, indicate that resistance to the reign of God is intense. The stakes in the mission are high, and many contemporaries of Jesus and his disciples will neither hear nor heed the message they announce.

1 After these things the Lord appointed seventy-twoa others and sent them, in pairs, ahead of him,b to every city and place where he was going to come himself. 2 He was saying to them, “The harvest is plentiful, but the workers are few. Ask the Lord of the harvest, therefore, to send outc workers for his harvest. 3 Go. See, I’m sending you as lambs among wolves. 4 Do not carry a purse, or travel bag, or sandals, and greet no one along the way. 5 In whatever house you enter, first say, ‘Peace to this house.’ 6 And if a son of peace lives there, your peace will rest upon him; but if not, it will return to you. 7 Stay in that house, eating and drinking what they provide, for the worker is deserving of his wage. Don’t move around from house to house. 8 In whatever city you enter and they welcome you, eat what is set before you, 9 and heal the sick there, and tell them, ‘God’s reign has drawn near to you.’ 10 But in whatever city you enter and they don’t welcome you, go out into its streets and say, 11 ‘even the dust from your city that clings to our feet we wipe off against you. Nevertheless, be aware of this: God’s reign has drawn near.’ 12 “I tell you that it will be more bearable for the people of Sodom on that day than for that city.

13 Woe to you, Chorazin! Woe to you, Bethsaida! For if the acts of power that were done in you had been done in Tyre and Sidon, they would have repented long ago, sitting in sackcloth and ashes. 14 Nevertheless, it will be more bearable for Tyre and Sidon in the judgment than for you. 15 And you, Capernaum, will you be lifted up to heaven? You will descend to Hades.

16 “The one who listens to you is listening to me, and the one who rejects you is rejecting me. The one who rejects me, however, is rejecting the One who sent me.”

17 The seventy-two returned with joy, saying, “Lord, even the demons submit to us in your name!” 18 And he said to them, “I was watching Satan fall like lightning from the sky.d 19 See, I’ve given you the authoritye to tread upon snakes and scorpions, and over all the enemy’s power, and nothing will harm you. 20 Nevertheless, don’t rejoice in this, that the spirits are submitting to you; rejoice instead that your names have been inscribed in the heavens.”

21 That very hour he joyfully exclaimed in the Spirit,f “I praise you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, for you have hidden these things from the wise and discerning and have revealed them to babies. Yes, Father, for such has been your good pleasure.g 22 All things have been handed over to me by my Father, and no one except the Father knows who the Son is, or who the Father is, except the Son and anyone to whom the Son wishes to reveal [this].”

23 Turning to the disciples in private, he said, “Blessed are the eyes that see what you are seeing. 24 For I tell you that many prophets and kings wanted to see the things you are seeing but did not see, and to hear the things you are hearing but did not hear.”

a. Most Mss read “seventy”; however, seventy-two is more likely original (hence following ∏75 B D) since it is the more difficult reading. Given the symbolic import of the number 70 (e.g., the 70 elders appointed by Moses [exod 24:1, 9–10; Num 11:16, 24–25]; the 70 nations descended from Noah’s sons [Gen 10 Mt]; the 70 offspring of Jacob [exod 1:5; Deut 10:22]; and 70 years of exile prophesied by Jeremiah [Jer 25:11– 12; 29:10; cf. Dan 9]), it is more likely that the number 72 was altered to 70 than the reverse. However, 72 also carries symbolic freight: the lxx of Gen 10 lists 72 nations, 3 Enoch numbers the princes and nations of the world as 72 (17:8; 18:2–3; 30:2), and the Epistle of Aristeas (35–51) presents the legend that the lxx resulted from the work of 72 translators. Is it significant that Jesus sends 72 others here, making (with the 12 apostles) a total of 84 engaged in mission (7 times 12; for the number 84, see also Luke 2:37 [of Anna])? See the detailed examination of this text-critical problem in Verheyden, “How Many?” (who favors the reading “70,” proposing, with appeal to Greco-Roman sources, that the number indicates a body of persons “formed with a specific goal, and that its members are ready for action” [234]).

b. That is, “before his face,” the same expression as in 9:52.

c. A strong verb, lit., “drive out,” ekbalē, a verb also used of the casting out of demons

(e.g., 9:49; 11:14).

d. Or “heaven.”

e. Or “capacity,” exousia. The following phrase, “over all the Enemy’s power,” suggests the rendering given here.

f. Or “in [his] spirit.” Also well attested are the readings “[in/through] the Holy Spirit” (dative case without preposition; e.g., ∏75 B C K Θ f^1) and “in [en] the Holy Spirit” (e.g., א D L Ξ 33). However, the text omitting “Holy,” whether with the preposition en (in) (∏45 0115 892 2542) or without it (A W Ψ f^13), seems to me the earliest version of the text. As a scribal addition, “Holy [hagiō]” would be making explicit a contrast that does appear in the text, but only implicitly, between the (evil) spirits in v. 20 and the spirit (or Spirit) of Jesus in v. 21. Scribal deletion of “Holy,” on the other hand, is more difficult to explain.

g. Literally, “thus has been [the] good pleasure in your presence,” a reverential, indirect mode of describing a divine quality.

[1–12] Only Luke narrates a second commissioning of disciples (a larger group beyond the apostles) for duty as evangelists, a preview of the mission to the whole world that will form the subject of Luke’s second book to Theophilus. earlier Jesus used the imagery of planting—and a plentiful harvest despite the failure of many seeds to grow to maturity—to comment on the flourishing of the word of God in his own ministry (8:4–15). Now, as he moves into a new mission field on the way from Galilee to Jerusalem and commissions a new coterie of mission workers, he returns to the harvest image. John’s expectations for the coming one who would complete the work of eschatological judgment, separating wheat from chaff and gathering the harvested grain into the barn, begin to be realized (3:17). The first task is to recruit additional workers, and Jesus taps seventy-two of his followers to complement the efforts of the twelve apostles (seventy-two others); he sends them to all the places he intends to visit himself (10:1). Like the messengers to Samaria (and like John the baptizing prophet before them), they will be an advance team whose task is to prepare for Jesus’ arrival (cf. 7:27; 9:51–53), but like the apostles they will also bring the message of God’s reign and the gift of healing (9:2, 6; 10:9, 11). The number seventy-two (seventy, attested in much of the textual tradition, would also be symbolically suggestive [see translation note a for 10:1]) shows that beyond the Twelve the crowds accompanying Jesus include a large group of nameless disciples who have accepted the costs of following him. It also hints at the world mission to come in Acts, as various traditions held that there were seventy-two nations in the world (see translation note a above). Sent out in pairs, they will bear credible testimony (cf. Num 35:30; Deut 19:15), both to the towns they visit and against the towns that reject their message. What is that message? The approach of God’s reign (Luke 10:9, 11), and the offer of peace that reign makes possible (v. 5).

Jesus contrasts the enormous harvest to the small pool of available workers; he therefore begins his charge to them by asking them to petition God, the “Lord of the harvest” (i.e., the One with sovereign authority over the harvest, thus a reminder that Jesus’ mission to Israel is God’s work) for more laborers (v. 2). The seventy-two are thus to pray that their message may find many receptive listeners, who will begin to broadcast the message themselves. Many listeners will be anything but receptive, however, and Jesus warns the seventy-two that they will encounter danger. Just as John the Baptizer anticipated, harvesting means sifting and separation (3:17; cf. 2:34–35). So Jesus sends lambs out into open fields that contain wolves (10:3). The shift in metaphor from harvest to lamb is striking: the lamb metaphor does not describe the task of the disciple but suggests the mode of the disciple’s activity in mission: innocence and lack of guile, but especially vulnerability and exposure to threat, whoever the wolves may turn out to be (Green 413).

This warning, in metaphor, of the danger that lies ahead opens a set of practical directions for the mission, which also concludes on the ominous note of rejection, elaborated at length (vv. 10–16). The instructions, while reminiscent of the ones previously given the apostles (9:3–6), are more detailed and practical. The seventy-two are to travel light; since they will rely upon the hospitality of village residents, they are to be unencumbered by “purse, or travel bag, or sandals” (10:4a). Jesus even charges them not to greet anyone on the road, signaling the urgency of the task, the need for resolute focus on it, and possibly also the reality of hostile resistance (“wolves”) on the journey (v. 4b). There are to be no diversions; the greeting of peace is to be reserved for persons to whom the message is proclaimed, with hospitality and proclamation bound tightly together.

Verses 5–7 direct the seventy-two to houses where they will find shelter and receive nourishment during their stay in a town, and vv. 8–11 then present in parallel fashion directives for mission to cities that welcome and cities that reject them. When they approach a house, their first word will be the greeting of peace (v. 5). This is more than a gesture of nonhostility; it is a prayer-wish for the house to enjoy the blessing of peace from God (cf. Green 413–14). Thus the seventy-two enact the promise that God will “direct our feet onto a peaceful way” (1:79; cf. 2:14). The greeting and offer of peace to a house will be reciprocated if a “son of peace” resides there, that is, a peaceful person, one whose identity is shaped by the experience of God’s shalom and a commitment to embody it in peaceful relationships, even toward strangers. If so, the greeting extended by the disciples will be effective, performative speech; it will accomplish what it says, and “your peace will rest upon him.” If not, it will leave the house when the visitor does (10:6).

When a house extends a peaceful welcome and offers hospitality, the seventy-two are to remain there until they depart the town. Verse 7 even follows the guest missionaries to their host’s dinner table: “Stay in that house, eating and drinking what they provide, for the worker is deserving of his wage. Don’t move around from house to house.” Although for sustenance Jesus’ emissaries must rely on the hospitality of their hosts, this is not a matter of pure grace. After all, these are field workers who are producing a harvest for God’s realm! In this way Jesus modulates the pattern of social roles and expectations; despite the appearance of dependence on the benefaction of others to whom (as patrons) the disciples would then be obligated (as clients), the host who extends hospitality is instead paying workers their wages—on behalf of God.

The social significance of the meal is already clear from Jesus’ practice of feasting with tax agents and assorted others, including a Pharisee, and from the public notice it has generated (5:27–32; 7:34, 36–50). What is new is specific attention to the food and drink to be consumed. The advice is straightforward: guests are to eat and drink what their host’s household does, a point that receives emphasis from its repetition in v. 8. In this respect, the mission of the seventytwo raises a practical issue that anticipates the post-easter mission, for when it moves beyond Jewish communities, the permission to eat whatever food the host family eats and serves will remove a potential obstacle to solidarity at table and thus support the comfortable reciprocal exchange of welcome and proclamation that Jesus envisages. At the same time, there will be complications for social solidarity with Jews to whom ritual purity and kosher food restrictions matter a great deal as an expression of fidelity to God (e.g., Acts 10:1–11:18).

Verses 8–9 give a snapshot of successful mission to a town, and in contrasting parallel form vv. 10–11 guide response to the experience of rejection. Accent falls on this negative outcome, as Jesus locates the town’s rejection of his emissaries in Israel’s history and underscores what is at stake.

A In whatever city you enter and they welcome you,

B eat what is set before you,

C and heal the sick there,

D and tell them, “God’s reign has drawn near to you.”

(vv. 8–9)

A′ But in whatever city you enter and they don’t welcome you, B′ go out into its streets

C′ and say, “Even the dust from your city that clings to our

feet we wipe off against you.

D′ Nevertheless, be aware of this: God’s reign has drawn near.” (vv. 10–11)

The asymmetry between the two sections results, naturally, from the refusal of hospitality in the latter towns, where neither healing of the sick nor instruction about menu is relevant. Replacing these is the symbolic gesture of wiping feet clean before departure. The peace offered to the inhabitants will leave with the seventy-two, but the dust of the town’s streets will remain behind.

Standing in the climactic position in each case, however, is the message the disciples bear with them, whether or not the town’s residents want to heed it. The ministry of Jesus, represented by his advance team of emissaries, has brought the reign of God near. The words spoken and the healings performed—the solidarity of shared meals, too—point beyond the disciples, and even beyond Jesus, to God. God’s realm is approaching, and Jesus’ messengers carry with them an invitation to enter it. Admission will not be compelled, however, and as vv. 12–16 show, even cities from Israel’s ancient past, cities notorious for their enmity to the purposes and people of God, will fare better in the eschatological judgment than will contemporaries of Jesus who reject the message of God’s gracious, powerful intervention to rule and to save. (The phrase “on that day” indicates the day of coming decisive judgment; see v. 14; cf. 17:28–30.) So with an attention-focusing interruption, “I tell you,” Jesus concludes his specific directions for the missionaries-in-training: “It will be more bearable for the people of Sodom on that day than for that city” (v. 12), and Sodom’s reputation for judgment-inviting evil requires no elaboration (Gen 19:1–25; Isa 3:9; ezek 16:48–50). This ominous chord prepares for the rhetorical climax of the discourse, a section that highlights the meaning and significance of rejection.

[13–16] With the interjection ouai (woe, alas), the opposite of a declaration of blessing (makarios), and a shift to second-person singular pronouns, Jesus locates the rejection of his mission on the map of Israel’s history. Israel’s prophets delivered oracles announcing divine judgment against the powerful, wealthy cities Tyre and Sidon (Isa 23; ezek 26:15–21; 28:1–24). Aptly, for a prophetMessiah who has declared that no prophet is accepted at home, among his own people, Jesus reverses the paradigm (Luke 4:24). While Sodom, Tyre, and Sidon remain accountable for their misdeeds, it is Jesus’ neighbor towns in Galilee that may expect the harshest judgment. Why? Because they had an opportunity few have enjoyed: God’s Messiah has brought to them the liberating power and grace of God’s realm (cf. 10:23–24). Yet they have not truly seen and heard, have not listened and then aligned their actions with the divine purpose.

This is the first clear signal that, at least in Jesus’ own estimation, the Galilean towns where he has been active—Chorazin, Bethsaida, and Capernaum being parade examples—in the end have refused to embrace his message. Despite the seemingly enthusiastic response to his ministry at Capernaum and Bethsaida, with large crowds coming to listen and receive healing and nourishment (4:40–42; 9:10–17), Jesus’ appraisal is harsh. Verses 13–14 pair Bethsaida with Chorazin, an obscure village located in the hills just north of Capernaum and otherwise not mentioned in Luke’s narrative. If the once-mighty cities of Tyre and Sidon are without hope in the day of accounting before God, what can the insignificant towns of Bethsaida and Chorazin expect, once they have turned away from the Messiah who has come to them bearing the news and the reality of God’s deliverance? Acts of power there did not lead to repentance, to the transformation of perception and thought, of attitude and conduct, that participation in God’s realm requires. For the first time Luke introduces the verb “repent” (metanoeō), expressing the reorientation and reordering of life— springing from conversion of the imagination, from transformed (meta) understanding (nous)—that Jesus’ message aims to elicit, and that the narrative is cultivating among its readers. Jesus has already declared this programmatically at Levi’s banquet, with the noun metanoia (5:32, anticipated by the Baptizer in 3:3, 8; the verb returns in in 11:32; 13:3, 5; 15:7, 10; 16:30; 17:3–4; Acts 2:38; 3:19; cf. Luke 24:47; Acts 5:31; 11:18).

Capernaum stands alone (“and you, Capernaum,” Luke 10:15), reflecting its importance in the first phase of Jesus’ ministry. There is ironic humor, as Jesus likens Capernaum’s lofty aspirations (“Will you be lifted up to heaven?”) to the ancient hubris of Tyre (Isa 23), and especially Babylon (the phrasing borrows from Isa 14:13). Not heaven but Hades is the destination that Jesus envisages for the town where he has focused so much of his own energies. Here Luke draws from the fund of Greek mythology dealing with the afterlife, where Hades is the abode for the dead; the antinomy heaven–Hades shows that the latter is not the future home of all the deceased but a place reserved for those deserving condemnation (cf. Luke 16:23).

Verse 16 shifts from second-person singular pronouns to the second-person plural, as Jesus resumes direct address to the disciples. Verses 13–15 ostensibly address cities that did not accept Jesus’ ministry, although the oracles of woe (i.e., prophetic judgment) are really for the instruction of the seventy-two (along with the Lukan audience). Verse 16 returns to the plural in a concluding commentary on the meaning of the responses the disciples’ mission will elicit. Whether they are heeded or rebuffed, the response is not just to the disciples but also to the one who sent them as his authorized agents—and if to him, therefore also to God who sent and authorized Jesus.

[17–24] Without a break the narrator proceeds from Jesus’ discourse, designed to prepare the seventy-two for their mission tour, to their return. In view of the emphasis on rejection and judgment in vv. 10–16, the exuberance of the returning disciples comes as a surprise: “The seventy-two returned with joy, saying, ‘Lord, even the demons submit to us in your name!’” (v. 17). They do not describe the joy-inspiring success of their mission in terms of favorable response to the message of God’s reign, but in terms of their effectiveness as exorcists, in contrast to an earlier conspicuous failure (9:40). Like the outsider who irked John and James, they act “in [Jesus’] name” (cf. 9:49), indicating the source of the power to release from domination by evil forces. The seventy-two disciples act on behalf of Jesus, and by virtue of his authority, which through the Spirit’s empowerment derives from none other than God. Like Jesus, the disciples, now and in the future, are doing God’s work and act with divine legitimation and power. Successfully opposing demons, they are undoing Satan’s work in the world, as Jesus’ reply shows.

Jesus underscores the cosmic significance of the mission of the seventy-two, reporting visionary experience that apparently coincided with their successful combat against the demons: “I was watching Satan fall like lightning from the sky. See, I’ve given you the authority to tread upon snakes and scorpions, and over all the enemy’s power, and nothing will harm you” (10:18–19; note the illustrative fulfillment in Acts 28:3–6). The life-distorting, oppressive power behind the scenes belongs to the architect of evil, Satan, who is given that name for the first time in the narrative (the devil, diabolos, in Luke 4:1–13). Because God, not Satan, is sovereign (kyrios, Lord: 10:21) and has defeated Satan (11:14–23), domination by evil powers has been broken. The successful mission of the seventy-two bears eloquent witness to this shift of cosmic import. Therefore, followers whom Jesus just portrayed as lambs facing danger from wolves now receive assurance that they will be protected from any harm intended by Satan, with snake and scorpion as metaphor of that danger to human well-being. The success of the seventy-two means the failure of Satan’s dominion.

Does Jesus’ vision of Satan’s fall from the sky—hence, of his defeat—indicate that the power of evil has already been brought to an end? As Luke’s audience will soon discover, there are still demons to be banished (e.g., 11:14), and resistance to Jesus’ work will escalate, eventually posing a threat even to the integrity of Jesus’ company of disciples. All of this betrays the still-powerful activity of Satan (see 22:3, 31–32, 40, 46, 53; evil forces remain a factor even after easter: e.g., Acts 13:4–12; 19:13–20; 26:18). Jesus’ vision of Satan’s fall, then, must be a prophetic vision of the future, final defeat of Satan. For the present, it is a real, though perhaps hyperbolic, expression of the powerful advance of the reign of the sovereign God, who through Jesus and his emissaries is reclaiming the world from the life-harming dominion of the evil one.5 Satan’s designs on heaven are no more promising than Capernaum’s, or ancient Babylon’s (Luke 10:15; Isa 14:13); in the meantime, the battle on earth will continue to be waged. Despite Jesus’ confident words of assurance (“Nothing will harm you”), persecution, perhaps even to the point of death, awaits (Luke 21:12–19, though also renewing the promise of divine protection in v. 18).6

5. See the discussion of the vision of Satan’s fall in Garrett, Demise 50–55. Her argument that 10:18 presents a prophetic vision of the decisive defeat of Satan in Jesus’ death and resurrection falters on the evidence of continuing demonic activity in Acts (see also Green 418–19).

6. Compare the literary and theological dimensions of Satan’s descent from heaven to earth in Rev 12:7–17, where the dragon-Satan’s deposition from heaven, after his defeat by the angelic forces led by Michael, signals his defeat in heaven but also a period of “woe” and intense persecution for God’s faithful people still living on earth.

Success in exorcism stems from the gift of divine authority over danger and the demonic, signaling the advance of God’s realm. Yet Jesus redirects the disciples’ joy from their effectiveness in mission: “Nevertheless, don’t rejoice in this, that the spirits are submitting to you; rejoice instead that your names have been inscribed in the heavens” (10:20). Those who have undertaken mission “in [Jesus’] name” have their own names inscribed in the heavenly books, symbol of their participation in the enduring realm of God. (For the image of books in which the names of the faithful are written, see exod 32:32–33; Ps 69:28; Dan 12:1; Phil 4:3; Heb 12:23; Rev 3:5; 13:8; 17:8; 21:27.) If Capernaum aspired to a place in heaven, only to be consigned to Hades (Luke 10:15), what qualifies the disciples for inclusion in the heavenly books? Verses 21–24 supply the answer, merging the motifs of (1) the status reversal that marks God’s blessing of humankind and (2) authentic seeing and hearing of divine revelation.

The note of joy (now expressed by Jesus rather than the disciples), an introductory temporal phrase, and the vocabulary of Spirit (though now divine rather than demonic in quality) bind v. 21 to Jesus’ preceding comment: “That very hour he joyfully exclaimed in the Spirit, ‘I praise you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, for you have hidden these things from the wise and discerning and have revealed them to babies. Yes, Father, for such has been your good pleasure.’” For the first time Luke’s audience is privy to the content of a prayer of Jesus. The address to God as Jesus’ Father and “Lord of heaven and earth” prepares for the model prayer Jesus will soon teach his disciples; they too are to pray to a Father who is sovereign (11:1–4). Jesus’ joyful outburst “in the Spirit” serves as reminder that he engages in mission under the Spirit’s empowerment, even though the Spirit has not been mentioned after placing a legitimating divine signature on Jesus’ activity at its commencement (3:22; 4:1, 14, 18). In a fashion reminiscent of earlier prophetic oracles by Zechariah and Simeon (1:67; 2:25–27), the Spirit now inspires both rejoicing and a message.

Jesus first addresses God in prayer (10:21), then speaks to a general audience (v. 22) before directing to the disciples a private comment that concludes the unit (vv. 23–24). To God, Jesus utters praise and profession (exomologoumai) that acknowledges God’s character and action. That Jesus knows God as his Father is not new information for readers (see 2:49), but this is the first time in the narrative that the disciples have heard it, although the transfiguration discloses God’s view of Jesus as divine Son (9:35). Moreover, God is universal sovereign (kyrios) and exercises dominion in the world in a way that defies human expectations. The God of radical role reversal acts to bless the poor and lowly, while the rich and powerful, who feel no need of divine blessing, are left to their own devices. But God also reveals this mystery (“these things”) to babies, while hiding it from those who already possess wisdom and understanding. They are wise and knowledgeable, perhaps, but not discerning—not about the saving purposes and ways of God. It is those low in status, without claim to power or knowledge, whom God honors and instructs. As it turns out, they are also the ones who are receptive to divine teaching.

Thus the pattern of reversal that has marked this narrative from the beginning continues: a young woman, unmarried and lacking pedigree, is chosen to give birth to the Messiah and sings praise to a God who honors the lowly (1:26–38, 46–55); revelation comes direct from heaven to shepherds who, despite their low status, are favored by God and glimpse the Savior-child lying in a feeding trough (2:8–20); the Messiah encounters rejection at home and among the righteous and well-positioned, while the sick and sinners and outsiders embrace him and the liberation he brings (4:16–30; 5:27–32; 7:1–10, 36–50); a young child models authentic greatness, and welcome of this child means hospitality to Jesus himself and to God (9:46–48). Now in 10:21, babies are singled out as recipients of divine revelation, which is concealed from persons of mature knowledge.

Verse 22, in the form of a general statement addressed to an unspecified audience, builds on the prayer’s image of God as sovereign over all things (heaven and earth). Jesus makes explicit what the narrative has to this point implied through the application of the title kyrios (Lord) to both God and Jesus: as Son of God, Jesus acts with the full authority of God. God’s rule presses its claim in the world through Jesus’ ministry. The express focus is on identity: “No one except the Father knows who the Son is, or who the Father is, except the Son and anyone to whom the Son wishes to reveal [this].”7 The character of God, and thus the character of Jesus as God’s Son, is not public information but knowledge that must be revealed. Jesus does not keep this a secret but reveals it to whomever he wishes. Since the Father chooses to reveal “these things” to babies, Jesus has chosen to make them known to his disciples (v. 23), and the narrative conveys them to Luke’s audience as well.

Yet it is not just a matter of identity (of Jesus and of God); knowing the relationship of Father and Son (of God and Jesus), one recognizes also that what Jesus is doing carries divine legitimation. The phrasing “all things have been handed over [paredothē] to me” recalls the account of Jesus’ wilderness testing (4:6, also using a form of the verb paradidōmi). What he asserted then he reaffirms now: not Satan, whose demise he has just witnessed in a prophetic vision (10:18), but God is Lord and worthy of worship. Only God, therefore, may grant authority over all things to Jesus. In turn, Jesus conveys his authority to the disciples—and grants discernment to them and to all who are receptive to his message. He offers God’s word and gracious embrace to all, but many turn away. So this Gospel acknowledges the reality of mixed response to the ministry of Jesus and explains the phenomenon of rejection in multiple ways: as the result of Satan’s opposition to God’s purposes for human life (8:12), as the consequence of human choice and action (8:13–14; 9:41), and as God’s purpose and action (8:10; 10:21).

7. This passage has long struck commentators as a foreign element in Luke (likewise for the parallel in Matt 11:25–27), a christological affirmation more at home in the theological world of John’s Gospel. To be sure, explicit attention to the Father-Son relationship is atypical of Jesus’ speech in Luke; nevertheless the theological claims of the passage cohere with earlier developments in the narrative (see, e.g., 2:49; 3:22; 4:1–13; 9:35).

The mystery of disclosure and concealment, then, is familiar. Commenting on the parable of the soils and seeds and echoing Isa 6:9–10, Jesus earlier asserted that some of God’s people hear and see but do not really perceive (8:10); yet concealment is not God’s last word but penultimate (8:16–18). Jesus’ prayer “in the Spirit” and the following lines about knowing, seeing, and hearing (10:21–24), however, go further. They picture a God who graciously reveals to some but withholds from others. They contrast the present blessedness of the disciples, who see (God’s work of salvation), to the frustrated desire of their predecessors in Israel—even kings and prophets—who wanted to see and hear (vv. 23–24, perhaps including even the prophet John? [cf. 7:22–23]). This is an extraordinary moment of divine revelation to Israel. Because the disciples are receptive to seeing God’s work in Jesus’ acts of healing and liberation (and now in their own activity as well), and because of their commitment to hear and heed God’s word in Jesus’ teaching, they show themselves to be beneficiaries of divine grace (i.e., people whose names have been inscribed in the heavens, in the image of v. 20).

Luke’s audience already knows that for Jesus authentic hearing, expressed in doing, is integral to participation in God’s realm (6:46–49; 8:15, 19–21). Those whose names have been inscribed in the heavens (Satan evidently not among them) are those who with discerning eyes see the work of God among them, who with receptive ears hear the message of God’s gracious and mighty realm, and then put it into practice. Repetition can be an effective teacher, and the next two stories reinforce this dual emphasis on attentive hearing and faithful action.

10:25–37 Reading Torah and Loving as a Neighbor

Two vignettes advance the narrative’s concern to hold together authentic hearing and faithful action: a public debate regarding interpretation of the Torah (10:25–37) and a private conversation probing the roles of women in Jesus’ company of disciples (vv. 38–42). Life-giving hearing of the Torah involves loving action as a neighbor, even to strangers and outsiders. Life-giving association with Jesus, for women no less than for men, privileges attentive listening to his teaching, even at the expense of the duties required by the practice of hospitality.

25 An expert in the law got up to put [Jesus] to the test.a He said, “Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?” 26 [Jesus] said to him, “What is written in the law? How do you read [it]?” 27 He replied, “‘You shall love the Lord your God from your whole heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your intelligence,’ and ‘your neighbor as [you do] yourself.’” 28 And he said to him, “You’ve answered correctly. Do this, and you will live.” 29 Wanting to justify himself, however, he said to Jesus, “And who is my neighbor?”

30 Jesus replied, “A man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho, and he fell into the hands of bandits, who also stripped him and beat him and went away, leaving [him] half-dead. 31 Now by chance a priest was going down along that road, and when he saw him, he passed by on the other side. 32 And in a similar way, when a Levite also came to the place and saw, he passed by on the other side. 33 However, as a Samaritan was traveling, he came to [the man], and when he saw, he was moved to compassion. 34 He came to him and bound his wounds, pouring [on them] olive oil and wine, and after putting him on his own animal, he led him to an inn and took care of him. 35 On the next day, he took out two denarii and gave them to the innkeeper, and he said, ‘Take care of him, and whatever you spend in addition, I will repay you when I return.’

36 “Which of these three do you think became a neighbor of the one who fell among the bandits?” 37 He said, “The one who showed mercy to him.”b And Jesus said to him, “Go and do likewise yourself.”

a. Leaving untranslated kai idou (“and see!”), which focuses the audience’s attention on the character now introduced.

b. Literally, “did mercy with him”; similar phrasing appears in 1:58, 72.

[25–29] Like Matthew and Mark (though in reverse sequence), Luke presents two scenes in which Jesus and a dialogue partner discuss commandments that stand at the center of the Torah (10:25–29 [cf. Matt 22:35–40; Mark 12:28–34] and 18:18–23 [cf. Matt 19:16–22; Mark 10:17–22]). Luke opens both scenes with the same question: “What must I do to inherit eternal life?” (10:25; 18:18), thereby avoiding a debate over the relative weight or priority of particular commandments (as in Matt 22:36, 38–39; Mark 12:28–29, 31). In Luke’s narrative, the whole Torah (indeed, the whole of Scripture) discloses God’s will and purpose, whether in commandment to be observed or in prophetic announcement to be trusted (cf. 11:42, which in contrast to Matt 23:23 does not employ the language of weightier commands; see further the comment on Luke 16:14–18).

Within the journey narrative, Jesus’ audience is fluid. He has just addressed the disciples (10:1–24), but the notice of teaching something “in private” (v. 23) shows that the crowd is present as well, though in the background. Out of that crowd, a man steps forward to raise a challenge to Jesus’ way of interpreting Scripture and practicing it (v. 25). He is a nomikos, a man with particular knowledge of the Torah. Hidden within what may be a sincere religious question, concerning the path to enduring life (pictured as property one inherits), is a challenge to Jesus’ authority as a teacher, a test (ekpeirazōn) of his approach to the Torah. The teacher turns the question back to the questioner: “What is written in the law? How do you read [it]?” (v. 26), signaling that the dialogue will probe the legal scholar’s grasp of Scripture while he is intent on examining Jesus’ interpretation.

The motive underlying the man’s approach to Jesus may be suspect, but his knowledge of the Torah is not. He answers in v. 27 with a deft quotation of Scripture that splices together the commandment to love God with one’s whole being (Deut 6:5) and the commandment to love neighbor as oneself (Lev 19:18). The same list appears in Mark 12:30, though Mark’s affirmation of God as one (v. 29; Deut 6:4) is missing from Luke, who also inverts the pair “strength” and “mind [intelligence]” (Matt 22:37 omits “strength”; Deut 6:5 has “strength” instead of “mind”—heart [kardia] already conveys that aspect of the human being). Jesus endorses this response: “You’ve answered correctly. Do this, and you will live” (Luke 10:28). The Torah opens the path to life for all who keep its commandments, which point those who hear to love of God and love of neighbor as oneself. Thus far the legal scholar and Jesus agree, and the view they share is uncontroversial (see Deut 6:5 and Lev 19:18, commandments reflected in such passages as Rom 13:8–10; Gal 5:14; T. Iss. 5.2; T. Dan 5.3). Yet the examiner presses Jesus on one interpretive detail: “And who is my neighbor?” (v. 29). Just who is this neighbor whom the Torah requires me to love?

To this second question Jesus replies with another counterquestion but prepares for it with a parable and in the process inverts the question, turning “neighbor” from object to subject of action and at the same time giving surprising—shocking—content to the love that Torah prescribes. Jesus explodes the notion that the imperative of loving action has boundaries that include some persons (kin, friends, ethnic group) but exclude others (outsiders, enemies); he radicalizes the twofold love command that is at the heart of the law of Moses (though in a manner anticipated by the command to “love the alien as yourself” in Lev 19:34).

[30–37] The parable begins in deceptively simple fashion, as many Lukan parables do, “A man [anthrōpos tis] was going down. . .” (v. 30; cf. 12:16; 14:16; 15:4, 8, 11; 16:1, 19; 18:10; 19:12). The story introduced by that generic expression, however, is anything but simple. To be sure, it follows a conventional formula, presenting a triad of three travelers who encounter a man in need on the roadside. With the third character, however, it springs a surprise on the audience (both Jesus’ and Luke’s) and thereby challenges previous understanding, attitudes, and commitments.

The setting for the story is the treacherous road that descends from Jerusalem to Jericho (below sea level, thus about 1,000 meters [3,300 feet] lower than Jerusalem). even if Luke’s audience is not familiar, as Jesus’ auditors would have been, with this feature of Palestinian topography, the events narrated in quick succession in v. 30 speak for themselves: “A man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho, and he fell into the hands of bandits, who also stripped him and beat him and went away, leaving [him] half-dead.” A man journeying alone is beaten, robbed, and left to die, his naked body divested of all indicators of status and nationality. Will another traveler come to his rescue?

Not one but three travelers appear. The first two are a priest and a Levite, who both belong to the large workforce of thousands of priests who maintain the cultic operations of the temple institution. It is possible that the priest, who is going down the road, has performed priestly duties in the temple and is now returning home to Jericho, where many priests resided with their families. But this is more information than the parabolic narrator provides. What matters is that the priest, and later the Levite, see the man in desperate need and then, rather than stopping to aid him, keep their distance and continue their journeys uninterrupted (vv. 31–32). Their motives for inaction remain unspecified. Are they concerned to avoid ritual impurity, in the event the man turns out to be dead? This seems unlikely; it would certainly be a flimsy excuse (see Green 430; Levine, Misunderstood Jew 145–48). Are they unwilling to take the risk of helping in a place of such obvious danger? (Is this perhaps a trap, with robbers still nearby? Possibly.) Whatever their motives, they do not have the excuse of being unaware. They have noticed, yet they fail to act. Not their motives but their (in)actions judge them: the lead witness is the Torah’s call to love of neighbor and to compassionate mercy toward the needy.

The failure of priest and Levite becomes all the more conspicuous by contrast with the response of the third traveler, an unlikely candidate for compassionate mercy: a Samaritan. If readers possess basic knowledge of Palestinian history and politics, they will be aware of the centuries-long animosity and distrust that estranged Samaritans and Jews (see ezra 4; Neh 2:19; 4:2–9; Sir 50:25–26; T. Levi 5–7; Josephus, Ant. 9.14.3; 11.2.1; 11.4.3–6, 9; 11.7.1–7; 12.5.5; 13.3.4; 18.2.2; 20.6.1–3; Jub. 30; cf. John 4:9, 20–22). The counterexample in 2 Chr 28:5–15 may have inspired the choice of a Samaritan to model mercy toward the neighbor (e.g., Evans, “Samaritan”), but it would be the exception that proves the rule. even without such extratextual information, the preceding narrative leads the Lukan audience to expect the worst. Samaritans have just rebuffed Jesus’ emissaries, prompting two indignant disciples to lobby for retaliation (9:52–54). The pace of the narration slows, riveting attention on the Samaritan’s reaction to the man lying on the side of the road. His response is surprising: moved to compassion (splanchnisthē; cf. 7:13), he stops, treats the man’s wounds, places him on his own animal, and takes him to an inn where he may recuperate. The Samaritan pays the innkeeper for the man’s lodging and care, and he promises to defray any additional expenses when he returns (10:34–35).

The parable responds to the question “Who is my neighbor?” After telling the story, Jesus turns the question back to the Torah expert, but reframes it: “Which of these three do you think became a neighbor of the one who fell among the bandits?” (v. 36). Even a lawyer interested in self-justification cannot fail to see the point: “The one who showed mercy to him,” or (lit.) “the one who did [or performed] mercy with him” (v. 37a). One need not read into the answer a legal scholar’s reluctance to credit a hated Samaritan with neighborly love (refusing to label him by his ethnic origin). Rather, emphasis falls on performance. endorsing the lawyer’s appraisal, Jesus reinforces this concern with action, directing the legal scholar to emulate the Samaritan: “Go and do likewise yourself” (v. 37b). Emphasis on appropriate action (employing the verb poieō) pervades the whole unit, from the opening query (“What must I do?” [v. 25]), through Jesus’ initial reply (“Do this, and you will live” [v. 28]), to the concluding exchange, which summarizes the Samaritan’s actions as “doing mercy” and appeals for conduct after that pattern (v. 37).

By reframing “neighbor” as subject rather than object of action, and by telling a story in which the hero who acts in exemplary fashion is a Samaritan, Jesus pushes love of neighbor toward love of enemy. This happens by way of the experience of mercy extended by a despised outsider (cf. 6:27), thus removing the boundaries between friends or kin, to whom I am inclined already to acknowledge an obligation, and outsiders—even enemies—whose needs I might otherwise be inclined to ignore in good conscience. So a conversation that begins as a challenge to Jesus as teacher shows him to be a faithful interpreter of the Torah, a teacher who deepens and radicalizes God’s commands yet thereby honors God’s claim on human life as revealed in sacred Scripture. Faithful action honors God, but one must also pause and listen to know what God requires, a point underscored in the next scene.

10:38–42 Mary and Martha: A Disciple Listens and a Host Labors

To an expert in the interpretation of the Torah who is probing the limits of the command to love neighbor, Jesus offers a Samaritan as model of love that honors the Torah, and he closes the exchange by countering the man’s challenge to him with a challenge of his own: “Go and do likewise yourself.” Turning from an isolated stretch of (parabolic) road to the private space of a house, where hospitality is offered by two women, Jesus balances the call to compassionate action with affirmation of hearing the word, a privilege and priority for women just as for men.

38 Now while they were making their way, [Jesus] entered a village, and a woman named Martha welcomed him [as a guest]. 39 She had a sister called Mary, and she sat down beside the Lord’s feet and was listening to his teaching.a 40 Martha, on the other hand, was distracted with the demands of serving.b So she stood by [him] and said, “Lord, does it not concern you that my sister has left me to do the serving alone? So tell her to help me!” 41 The Lord answered her, though, “Martha, Martha, you are concerned and troubled about many things, 42 but there is need for [just] one: Mary has indeed chosen the good share, which will not be taken away from her.”

a. Or “word,” logos.

b. Literally, “was distracted [as one burdened] with much serving.”

[38–42] The narrator earlier gave notice that women were among Jesus’ close followers and that some of them lent generous support to him and his itinerant band (8:1–3). Two women figure prominently in this scene, sisters who split between them the dual roles of host who extends hospitality (Martha) and disciple attending to the teaching of Jesus (Mary). It is not clear what, if any, contact these women have had with Jesus, although Martha does address him as “Lord”; they appear for the first time in the narrative and are placed in a (generic) village. Verse 38 identifies Martha as the one who welcomed (hypedexato) Jesus, her role as host reinforced by the narrator’s description of her preoccupation with the needs of her guest and then by her complaint (v. 40). Verse 39, by contrast, puts Mary in the posture of disciple who listens, who welcomes Jesus’ words. The distinct roles of the two sisters seem almost a caricature, dividing labors that belong together in the disciple: receiving the Lord’s teaching and serving, or hearing and doing. The noun that characterizes Martha’s labors, diakonia (service or ministry), recalls the service of hospitality rendered to Jesus by Simon Peter’s mother-in-law after he had healed her (diēkonei, 4:39).

This juxtaposition of Martha’s conventional service of household management with Mary’s receptivity to the word of Jesus recalls his own redefinition of family in the company he is gathering around him, composed of all who hear and do God’s purpose (8:19–21). Mary shows herself to belong to this new family: this is the one necessary thing, the good share that will not be taken from her (10:42). Martha is busy with doing, but the pairing of hearing and action that Luke’s narrative commends requires more than action, more than the provision of hospitality, though Martha shows herself to be the kind of host that Jesus has instructed his followers to seek out in their mission journeys.8 Receptive attention to the word must keep company with faithful action in the world; that is Mary’s eloquent though silent witness, following the preceding episode’s accent on “doing” (vv. 25, 28, 37). The same pairing of hearing and doing (keeping, guarding) resurfaces in 11:28 (cf. 6:46–49).

8. Green (434–37) thinks Jesus’ response to Martha faults her anxious, agitated service of hospitality, an anxiousness that does not exhibit authentic faith of the kind modeled by Mary in the passage. This is a helpful observation, though it perhaps overstates the criticism of Martha.

This rhythm of listening quietly and acting decisively is the very rhythm Jesus has displayed in his own working. So the passage, with its picture of women followers laboring and listening, prepares for the next scene, which offers teaching about the disciples’ practice of prayer modeled after that of Jesus.

Excursus: Women in Luke’s Narrative

Luke’s narrative assigns a prominent place to women, but where exactly does it place them? Do women, kept from the important work of public witness and proclamation, operate within conventional social roles?9 Indeed, even for women who appear in the guise of prophet (e.g., Anna in 2:38 and the daughters of Philip in Acts 21:9), the narrator sometimes fails to record their speech, in contrast to their male counterparts (Simeon in 2:29–35 and Agabus in Acts 21:10–11). Or has Luke in significant ways revised the cultural scripts for women in the community?10

From the outset, prophetic statements by Mary and elizabeth chart the course of the narrative, connecting the story that Luke relates to the sacred Scriptures of Israel and the promises of God to which they bear witness (Luke 1:39–56). Jesus’ mother displays trust that defines appropriate response to God’s gracious initiative (1:26–38). More effectively than the male disciples, Susanna, Joanna, and Mary Magdalene model a stewardship of economic resources that serves others (8:1–3). And Jesus’ interaction with the sisters Martha and Mary privileges the role of disciple for women (attending to the word of Jesus), even to the detriment of the traditional household tasks of service and hospitality (10:38–42). Later, women are key early witnesses—as both observers and proclaimers—to the easter events, even if male apostles (and others) dismiss the women’s report, evidence of first-century social constructs of gender (24:1–11).

Seim argues that Luke–Acts delivers a “double message”: women’s voices as prophets and preachers are stifled but not entirely silenced.11 The ambivalence of the narrative regarding women reflects that of the emerging Christian communities. However, as Arlandson has emphasized, when social status is taken into account, the picture is more complicated.12 Women of low social status invariably receive honor at the expense of wealthier and more powerful men, part of Luke’s vertical reversal of poor and rich, while women from higher social strata typically move laterally into the Christian group but do not enjoy elevated status via-à-vis men or women of lower status (188, 192).

To be sure, operating within the cultural constraints of his own social location, Luke does not present women’s ministry on a par with that of the (male) apostles and the other men authorized by them as leaders in Acts. Yet the narrative also hints that their presence within the community of disciples—from elizabeth and Mary of the birth narrative to Mary Magdalene of the resurrection narrative, and on to Lydia and Priscilla (Acts 16:14–15; 18:26)—also means their empowerment as “eyewitnesses and ministers of the word,” and as prophets and teachers (Luke 1:2).

9. See, e.g., D’Angelo, “Women”; Reid, Choosing.

10. See, e.g., Karris, “Women”; Carter, “Getting Martha.”

11. Seim, Double Message; also, more recently, idem, “Feminist Criticism.”

12. Arlandson, Women.

11:1–13 Jesus Teaches the Disciples about Prayer

The exchange with Martha and Mary commends attention to the word of Jesus, fitting prelude to an episode in which his own practice of prayer invites a question and extended teaching about authentic prayer.

1 While [Jesus] was in a certain place praying, it so happened that when he had stopped, one of his disciples said to him, “Lord, teach us to pray, just as John taught his disciples, too.” 2 So he said to them, “When you pray, say:

‘Father,a may your name be revered as holy;

may your reign come;

3 give us, day by day, our bread for the coming [day];

4 and forgive us our sins,

for we too forgive everyone who is indebted to us;b and do not bring us into [an ordeal of] testing.’”

5 He said to them, “Who among you will have a friend and go to him at midnight and say to him, ‘Friend, lend me three loaves of bread, 6 because my friend has arrived at my house from a journey, and I have nothing to set before him,’ 7 and that man will reply from inside [his house], ‘Don’t bother me! The door is already locked, and my children are with me in bed. I can’t get up and give you [anything]’? 8 I tell you, even if he will not give to him after getting up because he is his friend, nevertheless, after being roused because of [the man’s] shamelessness, he will give him whatever he needs.

9 “I say to you: Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and [the door] will be opened for you. 10 For everyone who asks receives, and the one who seeks finds, and for the one who knocks [the door] will be opened. 11 What father among you, when his son asks for a fish, will give him, instead of a fish, a snake? 12 Or when he asks for an egg, will give him a scorpion? 13 Therefore, if you know [how] to give good gifts to your children even though you are evil, how much more will the Father give the Holy Spirit from heaven to those who ask him!”

a. Most Mss have the longer “Our Father in heaven” (a few have “Our Father”), but the shorter text, “Father,” with its attestation in several important Mss (∏75 א B), is to be preferred. Here, as well as in other expansions of the Lukan prayer in various Mss (e.g., the additions “May your will be done” in v. 2 and “But deliver us from evil” in v. 4), scribes have conformed the text to the Matthean version.

b. A few Mss have “debts” in both halves of this line, but the mixing of the metaphors of sin and debt is probably original; later scribes achieved consistency of metaphor by harmonizing the text with Matt 6:12.

[1–4] Jesus at prayer: this familiar scene provides a distinctive setting for Luke’s presentation of the model prayer taught by Jesus. A disciple, recalling the prophet John’s piety and instruction in prayer—the reputation of John’s followers for piety (fasting and petitions) figures in 5:33—requests similar education from Jesus (11:1; Matt 6:9–13 embeds the prayer in the Sermon on the Mount). Also distinctive is the briefer form of the prayer in Luke (Matthew likely expanded it).

The prayer includes five petitions, the first two affirming divine honor and power and the last three asking for the divine provision of food, mercy, and protection from integrity-threatening ordeal. The basis for trusting petition is the character of God, whose powerful rule, experienced as gracious care and provision, evokes human response of allegiance and acclamation. The second petition, “May your reign come,” moves from the divine world to the human world, from reverence for God to the shaping of life in the world.

The precise meaning of v. 3—“Give us, day by day, our bread for the coming [day]”—is elusive. The adjective epiousion ([the] coming [day]) is especially difficult to pin down. Is the request for divine provision of necessary food (bread) eschatological in thrust? That is, “Give us today the bread of the coming day [or age], the bread of tomorrow.” Or is the disciple to ask, each day, for the grace of food necessary and sufficient for the day? The phrasing “day by day [or each day, kath hēmeran]” recalls 9:23 (of cross-bearing) and pictures an enduring faith that persists in trusting God’s provision, during the stressing and sometimes distressing time that stretches out before the reign of God arrives in its fullness (cf. the development of this theme in 17:20–18:8).

Two details in v. 4 are distinctive to Luke. First, the presence of gar (for) grounds the petition for mercy in the practice of mercy, with debt supplying the focusing image. Those who seek divine mercy in the form of forgiveness of sins must be in the business of debt cancellation. To be sure, the first line of the petition (“Forgive us our sins”) ensures that debt has metaphorical range that touches not only economic realities but also other forms of conduct that necessitate reparation, restored relation. Nevertheless, patterns of economic activity and their often-harmful effects on interpersonal relationships and community health (whether in first or twenty-first century) suggest the wisdom of entwining the images of sin and debt, of forgiveness and debt cancellation. Petition for God’s forgiveness rings hollow on the lips of those whose daily conduct exhibits tenacious commitment to unjust economic practices, as indeed John the Baptizer has earlier insisted (3:10–14). Second, panti (everyone) indicates that one’s appeal for divine mercy has its motive and basis in practice of unrestricted mercy. This is a boundary-shattering practice of mercy, thus generating prayer that is congruent with a way of life modeled after God’s own expansive mercy (6:27–38).13

The summons to embody in practices of costly mercy a religious commitment that runs counter to prevailing social norms and practices presents challenges to enduring fidelity. Jesus himself, at the outset of his public career, faced severe peirasmos, an ordeal of testing, or temptation, that probed his integrity of selfhood and his commitment to a vocation as Son of God (4:1–13). His followers will later face the same test and will need persistent prayer to face it courageously (22:40, 46). So the narrative’s unfolding of this motif shows how the petition that God not “lead us into temptation,” in this narrative world, will, like Jesus’ later petition to be spared the “cup” (22:42), sit tensively alongside the reality of conflict that does test authentic discipleship. Thus the petition cannot finally mean a request for a “free pass,” for exemption from painful struggle and suffering that would test authentic commitment. Rather, it becomes prayer to receive empowerment by God’s Spirit to face inevitable struggles with persevering integrity (12:11–12; cf. 21:15).

[5–8] Jesus follows the model prayer with a parable that features pivotal values and practices of his social world. The language and imagery of friendship (vv. 5, 6, 8), hospitality (the dilemma of a man cast unexpectedly in the role of host), and honor and shame (v. 8) pervade this parable. Jesus presents the parable in the form of a rhetorical question: “Who among you will have a friend [who would act in the fashion narrated]?” (vv. 5–7). His comment on the imagined exchange between neighbors (signaled by “I tell you” in v. 8) exposes its absurdity. Given the importance of friendship among neighbors, and of honor and public reputation in the village, it is inconceivable that one would act in such a way. Jesus leaves the point of the parable unstated but reinforces it with a series of aphoristic sayings (vv. 9–13) that bring the unit back to its starting point, prayer—which is to say, trust in divine care and provision.

Verse 8 contrasts two motives for rising from sleep, the first (friendship) being surpassed by the second (shamelessness): the petitioning neighbor’s impertinence in making this unexpected, inconveniencing request on behalf of a needy guest.14 A family asleep, the house locked for the night: no wonder the neighbor might be imagined to shout out, “Don’t bother me [kopous pareche]!” (i.e., “cause difficulties” [v. 7]; cf. 18:5; Sir 29:4). Yet even where friendship does not move one to assist, the demands associated with hospitality and maintenance of honor (or avoidance of shame, the diminishing of public reputation) will impel action. Readers familiar with the importance of honor and hospitality in Jesus’ social world will supply the gaps the parable leaves. Awakened by his neighbor’s shameless plea, the man will give him whatever he needs. Why? The (unstated) cultural script supplies the answer: the primary importance of hospitality in the village, and the desire to maintain honor by means of generous benefaction to a neighbor, even at inconvenience to oneself and one’s family. Another’s hunger impels not only petitionary prayer (Luke 11:3) but also assertive action to provide food (a similar pairing of prayer and assertive action reappears in the parable of a widow’s encounter with a contemptuous judge in 18:1–8).

13. In an analysis of the logical reasoning in 11:1–13, Robbins argues that 11:4 is linked to 6:37–38; 18:13–14; and 23:34 in an “enthymemic network concerning forgiveness” (an enthymeme being a claim that can be framed as a syllogism, though one with a missing element, such as the logical premise or conclusion, that must be evident from the saying’s literary or cultural context). See Robbins, “Enthymeme” 195–201.

[9–13] Building on the imagined scenario of neighborly aid at midnight, vv. 9–13 add two further sets of images and direct the entire series of sayings in vv. 5–13 toward their rhetorical goal: commending a life marked by active, persistent prayer that expresses deep trust in a gracious God. In staccato fashion verse 9 offers three present-tense imperatives (ask, seek, knock), picturing not onetime but ongoing action: Ask (continually), seek, knock: this posture of assertive petition will receive divine response. The future-tense theological passives (“will be given” and “will be opened”), enfolding human action of discovery (“you will find”), point to the source of benefaction: God. Verse 10 then repeats the imagery, employing present-tense verbs to describe the way of things in the world; the basis for persistent seeking is the common experience that it is the one who assertively seeks and petitions who obtains the desired object.

Jesus introduces a new image in vv. 11–12, invoking parental treatment of children in a lesser-to-greater argument that undergirds trust in God’s gracious provision. If even evil fathers routinely give their children good gifts (fish or egg) rather than harmful ones (snake or scorpion),15 how much more may a benevolent God be relied upon to provide what is good—namely, empowering divine presence, the Holy Spirit (contrast “good things” in Matt 7:11). Ask (continually), and what will be given (by God) is not necessarily what is requested but what is needed: God’s own Spirit. So Luke deflects a potential interpretation of these sayings that views God as obligated to answer human petition under the terms set by the petitioner.

14. Translations routinely mistranslate anaideian in v. 8: e.g., “persistence” (nrsv, naB) and “importunity” (rsv), ignoring both the word’s customary meanings (though nEB offers “shamelessness”; see BDAG 63) and the importance of honor and shame in the social worlds of both Jesus and Luke. For discussion of the linguistic and cultural issues, see B. Scott, Hear 88–89; Bailey, Poet, 125–27. In a critique of Scott’s interpretation and the common view of 11:5–7 as a “how much more” argument, Robbins suggests that v. 8, presenting an objection to the argument from analogy in vv. 5–7, subverts social convention by commending shameless advocacy for the needs of others (“Enthymeme” 201–6). Fleddermann similarly contends that the choice of the negative term anaideia (shamelessness) emphasizes that one must “violate all social norms” in responding to human needs, which are “a matter of life and death” (“Three Friends” 281). The imperative of “human response to human need,” not persistent prayer, is the point of the parable (280).

In 11:1–13, Jesus commends and models prayer, then reveals its basis: trust in God’s gracious provision, experienced most deeply as guidance and empowerment by God’s own Spirit.

11:14–36 Divergent Responses to Jesus’ Activity

Conflict between Jesus and his critics, momentarily suspended, now resumes; debate arises over the character and motives of Jesus’ exorcisms. Vigorously defending his ministry as the powerful expression of God’s reign, Jesus depicts his exorcisms as acts of liberation, though some people cannot see it.

14 [Jesus] was casting out a mute demon, and when the demon was coming out, the mute man spoke, and the crowds marveled. 15 Some of them, however, said, “He casts out thesea demons by Beelzebul, the ruler of demons.” 16 And others, testing him, were seeking from him a sign from heaven.

17 Aware of their thoughts, though, he told them, “every kingdom that is divided against itself is laid waste, and house falls upon house. 18 If Satan, too, is divided against himself, how will his kingdom stand? For you say I cast out demons by Beelzebul. 19 But if I cast out demons by Beelzebul, by whom do your sons cast [them] out? Therefore, they will be your judges. 20 However, if by the finger of God I am casting out demons, then God’s reign has come upon you. 21 Whenever the strong man, after arming himself, guards his own house, his belongings are secure.b 22 But as soon as one stronger than he comes and vanquishes him, he will take his armor, upon which he had depended, and they will distribute his booty. 23 The one who is not with me is against me, and the one who does not gather with me scatters.

24 “Whenever the unclean spirit leaves a person, it passes through arid spaces in search of a resting place, but without finding [one]. Then it says, ‘I will return to the house I left.’ 25 And when it has come, it finds [the house] swept and decorated.c 26 Then it goes out and brings along seven spirits more wicked than itself, and they enter and make a home there. So the last condition of that person is worse than the first.”

15. Needless to say, the high incidence of child abuse within homes means that “evil” parents too often do inflict harm on their own children. Jesus’ hyperbole, characterizing gift-bestowing parents as evil, might be turned on its head: even “good” (decent and conscientious) parents in fact sometimes give their children what is harmful. Yet the point remains that God’s care for human children evokes trust in a way that human parenting cannot.

27 While he was saying this, a woman from the crowd raised her voice and said to him, “Blessed is the womb that carried you, and [blessed are] the breasts that nursed you.” 28 But he said, “Blessed, rather, are the ones who hear and observed the word of God.”

29 As the crowds were increasing, he began to say, “This generation is a wicked generation. It seeks a sign, yet no sign will be given to it, except the sign of Jonah. 30 For just as Jonah became a sign for the Ninevites, so also will the Son of Humanity be for this generation. 31 The queen of the South will rise up in the judgment, along with the men of this generation, and she will condemn them, because she came from the farthest limits of the earth to hear the wisdom of Solomon, and here is one greater than Solomon! 32 Men of Nineveh will arise in the judgment, along with this generation, and they will condemn it, because they repented at the proclamation of Jonah, and here is one greater than Jonah!

33 “No one who has lit a lamp puts it in a cellare or under a bushel, but on the lampstand, so that those who enter may see the light. 34 The lamp of the body is your eye. Whenever your eye is sincere,f your whole body isg light-filled also; however, when it is evil, your body too is deprived of light. 35 Therefore, pay attention, so that the light that is within you is not darkness. 36 If your whole body, then, is light-filled, not having any part that is light-deprived, the whole will be light-filled, the way it is with a lamp whenever it provides illumination for you with its light.”

a. Taking the article as anaphoric, referring to such demons as the one just mentioned. b. Literally, “in peace [eirēnē].”

c. Some Mss add scholazonta (empty), but this is likely a later scribal improvement

harmonizing Luke’s text with Matt 12:44.

d. Or “guard,” phylassontes, from the same verb used of the strong man in v. 21 (cf.

12:15).

e. A place for hiding something: kryptēn, related to the adjective kryptos (hidden,

secret), as in the parallel saying in 8:17.

f. That is, single, undivided in focus (haplous).

g. Some Mss (e.g., ∏45 K) anticipate the future tense of v. 36 (“will be”) here or

insert it in the last clause of v. 34, supplying the unexpressed verb (“your body [will

be] deprived of light”). I read the present tense throughout vv. 34–35, with a shift to the

future in the conditional sentence of v. 36.

[14–16] Renewed debate over the character and aims of Jesus’ ministry is occasioned by an act of exorcism (v. 14). Jesus expels a “mute demon” that has left a man unable to speak (kōphos, used of Zechariah in 1:22). The same word can denote incapacity either to hear or, as here, to speak. The man finds his voice, and the crowd’s astonishment yields to divergent responses, both of them confrontational. Some in the crowd accuse Jesus of alliance with “Beelzebul, the ruler of demons” (11:15), while others evidently perceive Jesus as allied with God but challenge him—“testing” (cf. 4:2; 10:25)—to produce a more obvious “sign from heaven” (11:16). Beelzebul is one of several names that Jewish tradition assigns to the chief of the forces opposed to God (labeled “ruler of demons” also in T. Sol. 3; 6); Jesus’ reply apparently equates Beelzebul and Satan (v. 18), elsewhere in Luke also identified as the devil (diabolos).16 The insistence of less hostile observers that Jesus perform (another) sign also shows incapacity to discern God’s activity in this exorcism and thus betrays massive failure of perception, but Jesus scores that point (vv. 29–32) only after addressing the more aggressive charge of demonic empowerment (vv. 17–22) and commenting on the diverse responses greeting his ministry of liberation (vv. 23–28).

[17–22] Jesus offers a robust defense of his ministry, countering the charge that he is able to perform exorcisms because he draws power from the prince of evil. He begins by undermining the accusation on logical grounds. Leading with the commonsense observation that a divided kingdom or house will meet ruin, he shows the patent absurdity of the claim that Beelzebul is the power source for Jesus’ exorcisms, for Satan would then be subverting his own dominion (vv. 17–18). Jesus then applies his critics’ logic to the case of other contemporary exorcists, who will add to his self-defense their own verdict on these false accusations. The implied query is why no one charges these other exorcists of alliance with evil (v. 19). (The activity of exorcists beyond Jesus’ own circle figures also in 9:49; cf. Acts 19:13–14. For extracanonical attestation of the activity of Jewish exorcists, see, e.g., Josephus, Ant. 8.2.5; idem, J.W. 7.6.3; PGM 4.3019–3086; cf. Testament of Solomon and 1QapGen 20, which cast Solomon and Abraham, respectively, as exorcists.)

Jesus next offers a constructive interpretation of his exorcisms, crediting them to none other than God—effective demonstration of God’s powerful reign (Luke 11:20), which liberates from oppressive, evil powers (vv. 21–22). By means of contrasting, parallel first-class (real) conditions (i.e., assumed to be true or true for the sake of argument) that employ instrumental datives, Jesus asserts that God, not the architect of evil, is the source of his power to banish demons:

But if by Beelzebul I am casting out demons (as you assert) . . . (v. 19, a false premise)

But if by the finger of God I am casting out demons . . . (v. 20, Jesus’ counterclaim)

The image of God’s “finger” (contrast “Spirit of God” in the Matthean parallel, 12:28) recalls the plague narrative of exodus (8:19; see L. Perkins, “Finger”), an intertextual echo whose point is difficult to miss: in Jesus’ activity God is (1) powerfully opposing forces that oppress God’s people, thus (2) liberating them (cf. the judgment-inscribing fingers and hand of Dan 5:5, 24–28). This indeed is God’s reign effective even now, in full view of Jesus’ audience (cf. Luke 17:20–21). The evidence that the power of the future has invaded the present is the very liberation of human beings that critics are ascribing to demonic power. Beneficiaries of Jesus’ ministry have been set free—possessions, as it were, of a strong man (Satan), reclaimed by one who is mightier (Jesus, emissary of God, in 11:21–22)—embodied examples of his mission to “send the

oppressed away in release” (4:18).

[23–28] Jesus turns from defense of his exorcisms to commentary on their

diverse effects on persons who observe (vv. 23, 27–36) or benefit from them

(vv. 24–26). The debate in which Jesus is embroiled shows that there is more

than one way to read the evidence; not all have eyes (of faith) to see the signs

(of divine activity). Those who fail to discern will not embrace Jesus’ work and

will therefore oppose him—a striking inversion of an earlier, more generous

affirmation of outsiders (9:50)—unhelpfully scattering what he seeks to gather

(11:23). Nor will they hear the word of God in a way that leads to faithful performance (vv. 27–28), already established by Jesus as a condition of membership

in the family constituted by God’s reign (8:19–21; cf. the association of the

images of blessedness [makarioi], hearing, and seeing in 10:23–24). Verses 24–26 paint a graphic picture of the aftermath of exorcism. With

the haunting image of a banished demon’s home left empty and vulnerable

to invasion by seven more destructive demons, Jesus warns that not even the

gift of exorcism, experienced as liberation effected by God, affords a guarantee of future bliss. Liberation from demonic oppression must lead to positive

reconstruction of life, as occurred with several women followers (8:2, including Mary Magdalene, liberated from seven demons). As the following saying

indicates, the person delivered from demonic oppression must live within the

reality of God’s reign, continuing to hear God’s word and persisting in guarding

it—attentively watching and keeping it (11:27–28; phylassein in vv. 21, 28; cf.

12:15). even enthusiastic acclamation by an admirer receives gentle rebuke, for

what matters, what conveys real blessing, is the reordered life made possible by

Jesus’ benefaction, which requires enduring commitment.

[29–36] Continuing his commentary on the divergent responses his exorcisms have elicited and finally directly addressing the sign-seekers in his audience (11:16), Jesus castigates a “wicked” generation of sign-seekers (v. 29;

cf. “faithless, crooked generation” in 9:41 and the depiction of a sign-seeking

Herod Antipas in 23:8). Jesus instead commends authentic hearing (vv. 30–32) and seeing (vv. 33–36). The sign (sēmeion)—convincing demonstration of divine power, concrete evidence on which belief can be grounded—that Jesus’ contemporaries seek will be withheld; rather, they will receive only the “sign of Jonah” (v. 29). The role that Jonah played at Nineveh, Jesus as the Son of Humanity now plays in his own era (v. 30). To be sure, the connection to Jonah inspires hope, for his divinely commissioned prophetic message prompted the people to repent and so experience divine mercy (Jonah 3). Yet Jesus sounds a sharp warning here, for the failure of his listeners to heed the call to a reordered life will win them condemnation from the people of ancient Nineveh, joined by the “queen of the South” (the queen of Sheba, 1 Kgs 10:1–13; reprise of the intertextually driven argument of Luke 10:13–15). They will be resurrected (i.e., by God: egerthēsetai and anastēsontai are synonymous theological passive verbs in vv. 31, 32) at the end-time judgment for the express purpose of pronouncing judgment upon Jesus’ recalcitrant contemporaries. The stakes are thus even higher now since outcomes in the decisive eschatological judgment turn on response to the message of the one far “greater than Solomon” and “greater than Jonah” who is now in their midst. The one legitimate sign, then,

is a prophetic message received with attentive, obedient audition. To this emphasis on genuine hearing (hearing accompanied by faithful performance of the word), vv. 33–36 add imagery of light and sight. Repeating a

point Jesus made previously (8:16), 11:33 offers the commonsense wisdom that

a light source is useful only when it actually illuminates; when hidden or covered,

it cannot direct one’s path. The implied contrast between sight-enabling light and

sight-hindering darkness becomes explicit in vv. 34–36a, with reference not to a

light source exterior to the body but to the conditions within a person that promote

or prevent sight (analogous to the functioning of lamps [v. 36b]).

Jesus pictures the eye as the body’s light source; one is able to see what the

eye illuminates. This reflects the anthropological understanding of the time:

not a light source external to the body but the eye itself is generative of vision

(see Garrett, “Lest the Light”; Parsons, Body 67–82). The body is a domain

of light or darkness, therefore, depending on the healthy functioning of the

eye (Green 465). Employing the contrasting moral categories “evil” (ponēros)

and “sincere” (or “single, undivided,” haplous), the argument advances from

description of physical processes to eye and sight (or light and darkness) as

metaphors of moral character (cf. the Pharisees’ ponēria, despite outer purity,

in the ensuing scene [11:39]). So Jesus adds the final touch to his rebuke of

an “evil” (ponēra) generation that fails to see evidence of divine activity in

his ministry, even as it presses for signs (v.29); they are culpable for their

own failed vision—an indictment implied in a later exchange with Pharisees

(17:20–21). No future visible cues to God’s mighty reign will win attention

from eyes closed to its present operation in Jesus’ ministry.

Reflecting on the conflict generated by Jesus’ exorcisms, 11:27–36 sounds

a familiar chord, connecting keen perception—hearing and seeing—to faithful

performance of God’s word. As Jesus’ (in)sight has prophetic acuity, he realizes that the large crowds that have drawn near to hear his message and see his

deeds of power have untested fidelity. Even more heated debate and intensifying conflict lie ahead.

16. Satan: Luke 10:18; 13:16; 22:3; devil: 4:2–3, 5, 13; Beelzebul: 11:15, 18–19. Other Jewish texts add other names; see the listing in n. 9 for Luke 4:1–4.

11:37–54 Table Talk—and Conflict

For a second time, Jesus accepts a Pharisee’s invitation to dinner. Again the conviviality of the common table turns into a scene of conflict, provoked this time by Jesus himself. On display are competing visions of God’s reign, each with its own embodiment in a web of relationships and social interactions.

37 When [Jesus] had spoken, a Pharisee asked him to dine with him, and he went in and reclined [to eat]. 38 The Pharisee was stunned when he saw that he did not first wash himselfa before the meal. 39 The Lord, however, said to him, “Now you Pharisees purify the outside of the cup and the dish, but the inside of you is full of greed and wickedness. 40 Fools, didn’t the one who made the outside make the inside, too? 41 Nevertheless, as for the things that are within, give alms, and see, everything is clean for you. 42 But woe to you Pharisees, for you tithe mint, rue, and every kind of herb, yet bypass justice and the love of God.b It was necessary to do these things without neglecting the others.

43 “Woe to you Pharisees, for you love the seat of honor in the synagogues and greetings in the marketplaces. 44 Woe to you, for you are like graves that are unseen, and people walking above do not realize [it].”

45 One of the experts in the law replied to him, “Teacher, by saying these things you are insulting us, too.” 46 So he said, “Woe to you experts in the law, too, for you burden people with loads difficult to bear, and you do not touch these loads with one of your own fingers. 47 Woe to you, for you build the tombs of the prophets, but your ancestors killed them. 48 You are witnesses, then, and you give approval to the deeds of your ancestors, because they killed them, and you build. 49 Therefore, the Wisdom of God has also said, ‘I will send prophets and apostles to them, and they will kill and persecute some of them,’ 50 so that the blood of all the prophets that has been poured out from the foundation of the world may be demanded ofc this generation— 51 from the blood of Abel to the blood of Zechariah, who perished between the altar and the house. Yes, I tell you, it will be demanded of this generation. 52 Woe to you experts in the law, for you have taken away the key of knowledge. You do not go in yourselves, and you hinder others who are going in.”

53 When he left from there, the scribes and Pharisees began to be extremely hostile and to interrogate him about many things, 54 lying in wait to catch him in something [that might come] out of his mouth.d

a. Or “was not first washed”; the aorist passive verb ebaptisthē is to be preferred to the more natural middle-voice ebaptisato attested by ∏45 700, though the shift in meaning is slight. This is a cleansing with water that differs from the life reorientation the same verb (baptizein) signals in 3:7, 16, 21 (cf. 12:50).

b. Taking the genitive phrase “love of God” as an objective genitive (i.e., love for God; so Green 472). For Luke, however, love of God is inseparably bound to love of other (neighbor and enemy alike), as evident in Jesus’ endorsement of the lawyer’s recital of the love command (see 10:27–28; cf. 6:27, 35). Perhaps, then, Jesus is speaking of God’s love, which humans emulate by loving others (Vinson 393).

c. Literally, “sought from”; the sense is: “[blame] charged to” (see BDAG 302). d. Most Mss add “so that they might accuse him.” However, the shorter text (supported by ∏45∏75 א B), which lacks this explicit statement of motive, is to be preferred,

although its omission would be explicable as a case of homoeoteleuton. The same word,

autou (him), precedes and ends the phrase in question and might have led a scribe to

omit the phrase by mistake.

[37–44] A second meal hosted by a Pharisee (cf. 7:36–50) becomes the scene of a polemical exchange, resuming and intensifying the immediately preceding conflict over Jesus’ exorcisms. The host is baffled by Jesus’ lack of concern with purity (v. 38), prompting the guest of honor to develop the metaphorical potential of the image of purity (washing) so as to expose the moral bankruptcy of “you Pharisees” (vv. 39–44). As elsewhere in the Gospel, the Pharisees with whom Jesus spars are a literary construct and not to be identified with any real, historical persons (see Vinson 394). The historical career of Jesus no doubt involved conflict, sometimes intense, with Pharisees, though their conflict likely masked significant areas of agreement and common conviction beyond those suggested by Luke’s narrative. When another meal companion reacts indignantly to Jesus’ critique of Pharisaic practice, which appears to take direct aim at Torah scholars (nomikoi) like himself as well (v. 45), Jesus indicts Torah experts in even harsher terms (vv. 46–52). The meal’s aftermath, unsurprisingly, is mutual hostility (11:53–54; 12:1), prompting Jesus to educate the crowd on the meaning of fidelity in the face of danger and persecution (12:2–12).

The Pharisee host registers surprise when his guest does not wash before the meal (11:38); whether his hands or feet is a detail left unspecified. Earlier a Pharisee host has won Jesus’ rebuke for failing to provide water for bathing his feet (7:44). Jesus reframes the issue of washing or purity by contrasting interior and exterior (11:39–40). While Pharisees are preoccupied with outer purity (cup and dish, following a trajectory set by passages like Lev 11:32–34), Jesus indicts them for inner corruption (“greed and wickedness,” Luke 11:39), naming qualities that contradict the Torah’s vision for human life, exemplified by generous conduct—almsgiving—that would suffice to establish purity (v. 41). Thus v. 39, with its negative picture of Pharisaic piety, builds on the preceding unit’s image of a body full of darkness because of failed vision (vv. 34–36). Later an acrimonious exchange between Jesus and Pharisees will extend this critique of failure to enact Torah-directed practices of wealth divestment for the sake of the poor (ch. 16, esp. vv. 14–15).

Jesus now shifts attention from inner integrity to its outward manifestation: what purifies is loving, just action toward others (11:41–42). Tithing mandated by the Torah is good and right (e.g., Lev 27:30; Deut 14:22),17 as an expression of obedience to God, but tithing is trumped by commitment to God’s ways of love and justice, including their embodiment in generous sharing of resources with the poor (i.e., almsgiving, an important expression of Jewish piety [e.g., Tob 4:7–11; Sir 29:12–13]). Despite the hyperbolic assertion that “everything is clean” for those who give alms (10:41), Luke does not portray Jesus as nullifying the claim of the law but instead as insisting on faithful performance. Supremely important is the claim of love and justice, especially active care for the poor, through generous sharing of resources (almsgiving [v. 41], commanded by Jesus also in 12:33)—otherwise put, acts of justice that mirror the generous love of God (11:42; cf. 6:27–35).

Verses 43–44 further develop the imagery of purity and impurity. If what purifies is just action toward others, especially those who lack resources, a way of life driven by acquisition of wealth and status profanes. Thus the Pharisees, so invested in public recognition (“honor,” 11:43)—despite robust commitment to a holy life, to maintenance of ritual purity, separated from what defiles— unwittingly render unclean everyone with whom they come into contact, as though they are unmarked graves that make those who walk over them unclean (v. 44). By seeking to acquire honor from social status, and at the same time failing to practice the generosity toward the poor that the law they esteem prescribes (enacted, e.g., in almsgiving), these Pharisees turn the domain of holy service of God into its opposite. Jesus will later level a similar charge at elite “scribes” in Jerusalem who not only covet marketplace greetings and seats of honor in synagogues but also sport elegant robes and seek positions of honor at banquets—all the while increasing their own wealth at the expense of impoverished widows (20:46–47; cf. also Jesus’ inversion of conventional honor-seeking meal practices in 14:7–14, again at a meal hosted by a Pharisee). Holy service of God is sometimes not what it seems. Holiness and justice, devotion to God and commitment to just, loving actions toward others—these belong together.

17. Though the tithing practice described (mint, rue, and every kind of herb) exceeds the Torah’s mandate; according to m. Šeb. 9.1, several herbs including rue are exempt from tithing (see Fitzmyer 2:948).

[45–52] Another meal guest, an expert in Torah interpretation (nomikos), perceives that Jesus’ stinging rebuke of Pharisees has hit too close to home, and he objects (v. 45). In response, Jesus extends his critique to the Torah specialists as well (vv. 46–52), though he expands the chastisement with hyperbole that brands an entire generation as resistant to God’s purposes and agents (vv. 49–51). Jesus’ critique of Torah experts is threefold. The first and third charges are similar: these men who know the law of God impose arduous burdens on others without offering any assistance (v. 46), and they possess knowledge— presumably of God’s ways and commands—that they neither exploit for their own benefit (i.e., by putting the knowledge into practice) nor convey to others so that they, too, might derive benefit (v. 52). How can one enter a house if those who hold the key abscond with it? And they do not even use the key in their hands (knowledge of the Torah) to enter (God’s domain) themselves, the same failing a parabolic rich man and his brothers later exemplify (16:19–31).

Jesus develops the second charge at greater length (11:47–51). The Pharisees may resemble unmarked graves that people unknowingly walk over (v. 44), but their colleagues, experts at interpreting the Torah, openly build and maintain the tombs of Israel’s celebrated prophets (v. 47). They may memorialize the prophets, yet in doing so they align their actions with people who violently opposed God’s ancient prophets. The unexpressed explanation is that like their ancestors they, too, oppose God’s agents, both prophets (like John and Jesus) and apostles (apostoloi) presently sent by Jesus (cf. the similar rhetorical move in Stephen’s speech in Acts 7). In the era of God’s reign, inaugurated by Jesus’ ministry, it is now time for the chickens to come home to roost. “This generation” will be held accountable for the deaths of all the prophets in the history of God’s people, extending from the first murdered victim (Abel, Gen 4:1–16) to Zechariah, “who perished between the altar and the house” (oikos, i.e., presumably between the altar of burnt offering in the temple court and the temple building).18 John’s proverbial ax is poised at the root of the tree (cf. Luke 3:9); divine judgment upon a nation that has resisted God’s messengers, sometimes with violence, has delayed for a season (an image developed parabolically in 13:6–9) but is now impending. The last straw will be the repudiation of Jesus, God’s definitive prophet, in Jerusalem (see 13:33–35).

18. Cf. the account of the murder of the priest Zechariah, son of Jehoiada, in 2 Chr 24:20– 22—though Zechariah’s dying petition for vengeance forms a stark contrast to Stephen’s appeal for mercy in Acts 7:60. In Matt 23:35, it is Zechariah the prophet (son of Barachiah) whose death Jesus chronicles, and his murder occurs between sanctuary (naos) and altar. This prophetic identification makes sense in a comment on the violent rejection of all the prophets in Israel’s history; however, the death of the priest Zechariah in 2 Chronicles and the primeval death of Abel (also not a prophet) form effective bookends around Israel’s history—the era of law and prophets (16:16)—and Luke’s Zechariah, not identified more specifically, is therefore likely this figure. See further Green 475 n. 82.

[53–54] Hostility toward Jesus intensifies as a result of the stinging criticism that Jesus has directed against his host and his fellow meal guests in this second dinner hosted by a Pharisee. The picture that Luke paints is of a more aggressive, proactive posture of resistance to Jesus on the part of these rival teachers. With a play on words—Jesus’ opponents begin a program of interrogation (apostomatizein) so as to entrap Jesus out of his own mouth (ek stomatos)—the narrator depicts escalating conflict. Jesus will then reciprocate, delivering a sharp critique of the Pharisees to the disciples, while enormous crowds gather (12:1).

12:1–13:9 Jesus Teaches Disciples and Crowds about Wealth, Security, and Vigilance

The air still charged with hostility, Jesus turns to his followers and directs their response to the opposition that their mission, too, will elicit. Then he challenges alternating audiences of disciples and crowds to discern the present moment and what it demands of those who would be faithful. Prompted by a request for his mediation in a property dispute, he focuses on wealth and security, first to the crowd (vv. 13–21), then to disciples (vv. 22–34). Still speaking to the disciples, he next appeals for eschatological vigilance and readiness (vv. 35–53), before redirecting the message about eschatological awareness to the crowd (vv. 54–59). Finally, responding to a report about an atrocity committed by Pilate, Jesus teaches the crowd about repentance and seizing the opportunity created by divine mercy in the time before approaching judgment (13:1–9).

12:1–12 Instructions for Mission in a Setting of Conflict

Like teacher, so student: the disciples will encounter hostile, even life-endangering opposition when they engage in a future mission on Jesus’ behalf. With that prospect in view, Jesus commends integrity and courage in witness that relies upon divine instruction via the Holy Spirit.

1 At this time,a when a crowd of thousands and thousands had gathered, so that they were stepping on one another, [Jesus] began first to speak to his disciples:b “keep yourselves on guard against the leaven of the Pharisees: hypocrisy. 2 There is nothing concealed that will not be revealed, and [nothing] hidden that will not be made known. 3 Whatever you say in the darkness, therefore, will be heard in the light, and what you speak to the ear in rooms inside [the house] will be proclaimed on the roof. 4 “But I say to you, my friends, Don’t be afraid of those who kill the

body and after that have nothing more to do. 5 I will show you whom to fear. Fear the one who after killing has the authority to throw into Gehenna. Yes, I tell you, this is the one to fear. 6 Aren’t five sparrows sold for [just] two copper coins? Yet not a single one of them is overlooked before God. 7 even more, the hairs of your heads have been counted. Don’t be afraid. You have value beyond that of many sparrows.

8 “And I say to you, everyone who acknowledges me before human beings, the Son of Humanity will acknowledge before the angels of God. 9 However, the one who denies me before human beings will be denied before the angels of God. 10 Still, everyone who will say a word against the Son of Humanity will be forgiven, though for one who speaks slander against the Holy Spirit, [this] will not be forgiven. 11 Whenever they bring you before synagogue assemblies and rulers and authorities, do not be concerned about how or what you should speak in defense or what you should say. 12 For the Holy Spirit will teach you in that very momentc what you must say.”

a. Literally, “in [among] which things [that were occurring].”

b. Alternatively, the adverb “first [of all]” (prōton) could be read with the following phrase, yielding the translation “[Jesus] began to say to his disciples, ‘First [and foremost], keep yourselves on guard.’” However, the emergence of a petitioner from the

crowd, signaling a shift to an implied “then to the crowd” (v. 13), suggests the reading

offered here.

c. Literally, “hour,” hōra.

[1–3] The growing crowds (myriads, tens of thousands) indicate that Jesus’ activity is garnering increasing attention and having broad appeal. This public response does not necessarily signal a positive outcome for the crowd, however, as the graphic image of people stepping on each other and the note of warning that Jesus sounds from the start of the chapter already hint. Before he finishes addressing the crowd in this section, he will have branded them “hypocrites” (v. 56), picking up the image of hypocrisy applied to Pharisees in v. 1. Again in 14:25–35, Jesus will issue a message of caution to the large crowds drawn to his ministry.

He first addresses disciples, though, with the jostling crowds in the background for the moment. Jesus captures the preceding indictment of Pharisees and their Torah-teaching companions under the rubric of “hypocrisy” (distinctively Lukan; the term is missing from the parallel in Matt 16:6, though Matt 23 repeatedly brands the Pharisees and scribes “hypocrites”). The Pharisees live in a way that exposes dissonance between inner and outer (cf. 11:39–40), between what they say and how they live. The phrase “nothing concealed” (v. 2) picks up the image of leaven (hidden in bread) from v. 1 (cf. 8:16–17).

Verses 2–3 sketch a pattern of reversal whereby what is hidden eventually becomes known. This can be heard as proverbial wisdom’s observation about how things work out in human life, although if one perceives divine activity in the passive-voice verbs (esp. in v. 2, “will be revealed,” “will be made known”), the unveiling is God’s doing—an apt construal, in view of the accent on divine activity of mercy and judgment in the ensuing verses. Verse 3 develops the point more concretely, mixing aural and visual imagery: whatever is spoken in the dark will be heard in the light; whatever is spoken inside the house will be proclaimed from the rooftop. One’s integrity and character, revealed in speech and action one previously thought to be hidden, will not remain a secret. What is private will become public information (picking up the contrast of inner and outer in 11:39–40). Because of this inevitable public disclosure of one’s private speech and action, disciples and potential disciples, no less than Pharisees, must heed Jesus’ appeal for integrity. For disciples, who must soon face the fearful threat of public adversaries and answer the summons to courageous public witness to their allegiance to Jesus, this appeal for integrity is an urgent, practical concern. Verses 4–12 elaborate.

[4–7] “But I say to you” (v. 4) signals the next step in the discourse, as it will do again in v. 8 (legō de hymin begins both verses). Fear becomes the central image of this paragraph, which advances from fear of harm (vv. 4–5) to fearnullifying confidence in God’s providential care (vv. 6–7). Verse 4 relativizes the danger posed by mortal enemies, even if it issues in martyrdom; those who have the capacity to take one’s life are not the ultimate threat (cf. 2 Macc 7; Isa 50:4–11). Rather, it is the one who can dispatch to Gehenna, place of torment for the wicked in death—implicitly, God—who commands genuine fear (v. 5). This is the only mention in Luke of Gehenna, referring to the valley of Hinnom south and west of Jerusalem, which had once been a site for human sacrifice (Jer 7:31; cf. 2 Chr 28:3; 33:6) and later evidently served as a place for incineration of trash, a suggestive image for end-time judgment (see, e.g., Jer 7:32; 19:6; 1 En. 26.4; 27.1–3; 54.1–6; 4 Ezra 7.36; Green 482).

Yet this harsh note of warning, which assumes that God is the ultimate judge and destroyer, abruptly gives way to reassuring images of God’s gracious, providential care in vv. 6–7. Alla kai (“even more,” or “but even [beyond this]”) signals a lesser-to-greater argument that reinforces an appeal for trust in God’s gracious care. There is no longer need for fear, because the God who pays close attention to the circumstance of each sparrow will certainly take care of human beings. The assarion (copper coin) was worth only about onesixteenth of a denarius (v. 6; the denarius is generally assumed, on the basis of Matt 20:1–15, to be a typical daily wage for a field hand); even birds to which humans assign little value are precious to God (“before [in the presence of] God” is an indirect way of describing the divine character and commitments). These are apt words of assurance for “friends” of Jesus (v. 4, the only time the disciples are called friends in Luke), especially those who will later face danger if they make public their allegiance to him, as vv. 8–12 proceed to show. The disciple should not fear human threats, but bear courageous witness to God, whose authority over life—and death—is unquestioned and whose care is sure. Assurance thus undergirds Jesus’ call to bold witness. Verses 4 and 7 enclose the unit on this note: “Don’t be afraid.”

[8–12] As in v. 4, legō de hymin (in v. 8 appropriately rendered “And I say to you”) introduces the next step in the discourse. Verses 8–10 are framed in general terms, defining the consequences of anyone’s affirmation, or repudiation, of Jesus (in his universal role as the Son of Humanity; cf. 17:24; 21:27). Jesus warns that human speech-acts on earth will find mirror treatment in heaven: one will enjoy commendation or suffer disapprobation “before the angels of God”— that is, in the presence of God—that corresponds to one’s own witness to Jesus. God’s grace prevails, though, holding open the prospect of forgiveness even for the one who has denied Jesus (v. 10), a concise preview of Peter’s future, threefold denial of Jesus and eventual restoration (22:54–62, with emphasis on Jesus’ vigorous activity to effect Peter’s restoration in 22:31–34, 61; cf. 24:34).

Verse 11 shows that the specific setting of public witness in the face of potential persecution is in view. In such settings, whether religious (synagogue assemblies) or political (rulers and authorities)—though these spheres can scarcely be disentangled in the first century—disciples will experience God’s Holy Spirit as a resource, turning a time of fear-inspiring need into an opportunity for courageous testimony. Luke 21:12–19 will reinforce this message of encouragement, and Acts will repeatedly narrate its enactment (e.g., Peter in Acts 4:5–12; 5:27–32; Stephen in 6:8–15; 7:2–53; Paul in 23:1–10; 26:2–23).

The first of the two mentions of the Holy Spirit in this passage, however, does not present a positive image of empowerment but one of harsh judgment. Assurance of forgiveness does not extend also to those who slander the Holy Spirit (Luke 12:10b). In Mark’s version of this saying, it responds (the narrator explains) to critics who have ascribed Jesus’ exorcisms to his possession by an “unclean spirit” (Mark 3:29–30). This contextual cue is lacking in Luke; the controversy over Jesus’ exorcisms has already been narrated (11:14–26). So the meaning has shifted in Luke, but to what effect? Noting the role of the Spirit in 12:12, one might say that Jesus is scoring a hyperbolic point that those who turn away from the divine source of direction and empowerment in time of ordeal are without hope. More concretely, however, the episode in Acts 5:1–11 may illustrate the sort of culpable speech-act Luke’s account has in view. To be sure, Ananias and Sapphira are not said to slander (blaspheme) the Holy Spirit, but the deception that taints their benefaction to the Jerusalem community amounts to false testimony, lying (pseudomai) to the Spirit (5:3), or testing the Spirit (5:9). Certainly the tragic outcome of the event (the deaths of both husband and wife) is consistent with a withholding of forgiveness. A link to this episode in Acts would help make sense of the narrative transition in Luke 12, since this pericope leads immediately to one that revolves around appropriate use of possessions, contrasting treasure-accumulated-for-self to being “rich in relation to God” (vv. 13–21), a fitting headline for the entertaining story in Acts 5.

For the time being, Jesus cautions the disciples that much is at stake in their public affirmation of him, despite adversity. They will not be left to their own devices, however; they will be able to rely on the empowerment and tutelage of God’s own Spirit, still more evidence of God’s gracious provision and care for human beings.

12:13–21 Jesus Teaches about Wealth (I): The Crowd

Stepping forward from the crowd, a man audaciously petitions the “teacher” to intervene in a conflict over property inheritance. It is a teachable moment, and Jesus responds with a parable that exposes the folly of preoccupation with accumulation of wealth.

13 Someone from the crowd said to him, “Teacher, tell my brother to divide the inheritance with me.” 14 But [Jesus] said to him, “Man, who appointed me judge or divider over you?” 15 And he said to them, “Pay attention; guard yourself against all avarice, because one’s life doesn’t consist in the abundance of possessions.”

16 He told them a parable: “A wealthy man’s field flourished, 17 so he thought to himself, ‘What will I do? For I don’t have a place to gather my crops.’ 18 He said, ‘This is what I’ll do: I’ll tear down my barns and build larger ones, and I’ll gather all the grain and my goods there. 19 I’ll say to myself,a Self, you have many goods laid up for many years. Rest yourself, eat, drink, celebrate.’ 20 God said to him, though, ‘Fool, they are going to demand your life from you this night. As for the things you’ve prepared, whose will they be?’ 21 So it is with the one who stores up treasure for oneself and is not rich in relation to God.”

a. Or “I’ll say to my soul, Soul . . .” This word ( psychē) reappears in vv. 20, 22–23, as the life that a conscious self experiences. It can refer to the life principle that animates the body, to a person’s inner self (as in 1:46; 2:35; 10:27), to life itself (as in 6:9; 9:24; 12:22–23; 14:26; 17:33), or by metonymy to the person who possesses life (as in Acts 2:41; 27:37). For illustrative references to biblical and extrabiblical texts, see BDAG 1098–1100.

[13–15] As an outsider, the man who seeks Jesus’ mediation addresses him respectfully as “Teacher” (disciples have favored “Master” [epistata, 5:5; 8:24, 45; 9:33, 49] or “Lord” [kyrie, 9:54; 10:17; 11:1; cf. 10:40]), yet he is presumptuous enough to direct the teacher’s intervention in what appears to be a conflict over a family’s property: “Tell my brother to divide the inheritance with me” (v. 13). Jesus, however, refuses to allow himself to be drawn into this family dispute. (The presenting issue, concerning division of property and inheritance, will resurface in a story about two parabolic brothers [15:11–32].) Jesus frames his refusal of the man’s petition-demand in a way that echoes the account of Moses in exod 2, but only by way of an intriguing reversal. Moses encounters rejection of his leadership by other Hebrews who pose a rhetorical question-objection that employs similar phrasing: “Who appointed you ruler and judge?” (tis se katestēsen archonta kai dikastēn; exod 2:14 as quoted in Acts 7:27, 35 AT). Jesus turns the question around: “Who appointed me judge or divider [kritēn ē meristēn]?”

elaborating on his refusal to intervene in this family dispute, Jesus offers a parable that subverts the petitioner’s expectation and the acquisitive desires (labeled avarice by Jesus) that may be presumed to drive it. Verse 15, introducing the parable, also provides Luke’s sense of the parable’s gist, a move that is typical of Luke, who seldom leaves readers in the dark about the point of Jesus’ parables (see, e.g., 14:15; 15:1–2; 18:1, 8; 18:9, 14; 19:11): “Pay attention; guard yourself against all avarice, because one’s life doesn’t consist in the abundance of possessions.” Witness the experience of one tragic figure in parable.

[16–21] Imagine this scenario, one that Qoheleth could surely have contemplated (see eccl 2:18–21; 5:13–17; 6:1–2): a man, already wealthy, experiences the good fortune of an unexpectedly abundant harvest, only to lose everything—barns, crops, and capacity to “eat, drink, celebrate” (cf. the refrain in eccl 2:24; 3:13, 22; 5:18; 8:15; 9:7)—due to a sudden, untimely death. Aware that his existing barns will not suffice to store all the grain, he makes plans to build larger ones. God, however, disrupts those plans: “Fool, they are going to demand your life from you this night. As for the things you’ve prepared, whose will they be?” (v. 20).

God’s direct speech is striking; God is given voice only here in a Lukan parable. The rhetorical question God poses begs the answer “someone else.” It is not clear who demands the forfeiting of the rich man’s life; “they” resemble the unspecified “those” in 12:4 who are capable of killing the body but can do no further damage. The basic point is clear: life centered in one’s own prosperity and security is illusory. experience teaches^19 that to assume one will have “many years” to enjoy accumulated “goods” is to fail to reckon with the incalculable reality of death. However, the repeated first-person possessive personal pronouns in the rich man’s soliloquy betray the real problem: “my crops . . . my barns . . . my goods” (vv. 17–18). The community’s voice and need (for food) are missing from the soliloquy, though this silence is implicit here and will be developed explicitly only later (see 12:33–34; 16:19–31; 18:22–23; 19:8). In a limited-goods economy, the accumulation of goods for the wealthy man necessarily carries with it a diminishment in resources for others (Moxnes, Economy 76–98).

19.Although it is the divine voice that delivers the bad news (or for Luke’s audience, “wake-up call”), I read this not as God’s judgment on the man but as wisdom’s observation regarding the way life works out in the world (cf. Sir 11:18–19, e.g.), though implicitly this scenario does accord with the divine purpose. In a similar manner in a later parable (Lazarus and the rich man in 16:19–31), the voice of Abraham describes a life-and-death reversal pattern that implicitly reflects divine judgment (vv. 25–26) on praxis that does not conform to “Moses and the prophets” (vv. 29, 31). First Enoch, too, describes storehouses that hold accumulating wealth that does not endure, though with emphasis on the unjust acquisition of the wealth (97.8–10; cf. 94.8–10); Nickelsburg finds in such passages from 1 En. 92–105 and in Sir 11:18–19 evidence of a broader wisdom tradition that also underlies Luke 12:16–21 (“Riches” 335).

In this parable Jesus picks up a concern with wealth and poverty already accented in Mary’s Song (1:51–53), the Nazareth declaration of Jesus’ mission (4:18–19), and the beatitudes and woes (6:20–26). Again and again he will return to this concern (14:12–14, 21, 33; 16:1–13, 19–31; 18:18–30; 19:1–10; 21:1–4; see Excursus: Poverty and Wealth in Luke’s Gospel, at 19:10).

Jesus follows the parable with a clinching punch line. The tale of the rich man illustrates the misfortune awaiting “one who stores up treasure for oneself and is not rich in relation to God” (12:21). What does it mean to be “rich in relation to God” (v. 21)? It is the opposite of accumulating treasure for oneself. Luke 10:25–37 has connected love of God to love of neighbor, and it will soon become clear that generous sharing of one’s wealth with others in need is how one is wealthy in relation to God (beginning already with 12:33–34). Since God graciously provides what we need—above all, the Holy Spirit (11:13) and a share in the realm of God (12:32)—life no longer need be driven by desperate moves to acquire and accumulate.

If the human impulse to find security through acquiring and possessing things springs, at bottom, from anxiety and fear, then teaching about wealth and security must also speak to these aspects of the human condition. As Jesus turns now to address disciples, he makes precisely this move.

12:22–34 Jesus Teaches about Wealth and Security (II): Disciples

Although theme, focused on matters of wealth and security, ties 12:22–34 to the preceding passage, attention to the audience(s) for Jesus’ teaching marks 12:22–53 as a single discourse, with brief embedded dialogue (vv. 41–42a). Jesus’ exchange with the brother seeking an inheritance share (vv. 13–21) prompts Jesus to expand the lesson for the benefit of disciples (vv. 22–34). Verse 35 opens the second part of the discourse, which in three steps (vv. 35–40, 41–48, 49–53) sketches faithful human response to the gracious provision of God, yet in a world that requires hard work and knows wrenching conflict.

22 [Jesus] said to his disciples, “I tell you, therefore, Do not have anxious concern for your life: what to eat, or what clothing to put on the body. 23 For life is more than food and the body more than clothing. 24 Consider the ravens: they neither sow nor reap, they have neither storeroom nor barn, yet God feeds them. You have much greater value than the birds. 25 And which one of you by having anxious concern can add one moment to your life span?a 26 Therefore, if you are unable [to do] a very small thing, why do you have anxious concern about the rest? 27 Consider how the lilies grow: they neither toil nor spin, yet I tell you, not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these. 28 If God clothes grass in such a way today, while it is in the field, even though it is thrown into an oven tomorrow, how much more [will God clothe] you, people of little faith. 29 Do not strive and striveb for what you should eat or what you should drink, and do not be anxious. 30 For all the nations of the world seek after these things, and your Father knows that you need them. 31 Do strive continually,b however, for [God’s] realm, and these thingsc will be provided to you in addition. 32 Do not be afraid, little flock, because your Father has taken delight in giving this realm to you.

33 “Sell your possessions and give alms. Make for yourselves purses that do not grow old, an inexhaustible treasure in the heavens, where thief does not approach and moth does not destroy. 34 For where your treasure is, your heart will be there, too.”

a. The meaning of hēlikia (life span) is ambiguous, referring to a span in either time or space (i.e., one’s physical size, as in 2:52). An alternative translation, then, would be “can add one cubit to your [lit., “his”] physical size.”

b. Or “seek”; this renders the present-tense imperative zēteite (both v. 29 and v. 31). c. Many Mss add “all [panta],” but this probably stems from the influence of Matt 6:33 on copyists.

[22–32] Verses 22 and 32 frame this unit with negative imperatives: “Do not have anxious concern. . . . Do not fear.” Between those bookends, Jesus appeals to nature in support of his summons to a life shaped by trust in God’s gracious provision. Verses 33–34 then draw the practical implications for a life defined by generous sharing of resources with the poor, the very opposite of the fretful, acquisitive striving that is on such regular display among “the nations of the world” (v. 30). “Therefore” (dia touto) connects Jesus’ “I tell you” (v. 22) to the preceding caution regarding acquisitive greed and suggests that in Jesus’ perception the striving to accumulate things stems from “anxious concern” about having enough to live on. The verb merimnaō (have anxious concern, vv. 22, 25–26) picks up a thread from v. 11 and also links this passage to Jesus’ earlier redirecting of Martha’s fretful labors (10:41).

The rhetorical shaping of 12:22–32 effectively conveys the core message. Tackling head-on the anxious concern from which acquisitive striving springs, Jesus redirects human striving to authentic life, which comes from participation in the realm of a gracious God. Jesus leads with a negative command—Don’t fret about the necessities of life!—exemplified by the paired images of (1) eating and (2) clothing the body (v. 22). A positive assertion then supplies the ground for the appeal of v. 22: (1) life is more than food, and (2) the body is more than clothing (v. 23). The implied claim is that food to nourish and clothing to cover the body are instrumental goods, serving the primary good of an embodied self’s life. Jesus appeals to nature for a first supporting example: “Consider the ravens.” Even though they do not sow, reap, or—in contrast to the prosperous farmer of vv. 16–20—gather into barns, they receive nourishment from God (v. 24a; the image pair of food and clothing continues throughout vv. 24–28). Verse 24b draws the analogy to human life, in a lesser-to-greater argument that with some variation in wording (e.g., ravens replaces sparrows) repeats the claim of 12:7 (diapherete, “you have value,” in both verses): humans surpass birds in value.

An interlude (vv. 25–26) interrogates the audience, by way of a rhetorical question that expects a negative answer—no one has the capacity to extend life by the smallest amount (v. 25)—and a first-class conditional sentence culminating in a question that prods listeners to recognize the futility of anxious care (v.26). Jesus again appeals to nature for a second supporting example: “Consider the lilies,” which grow and thrive without toil (v. 27a). In two steps vv. 27b–28 then draw the analogy to human life: (1) an inverted, greater-tolesser argument asserts that not even the extravagantly wealthy king Solomon could match the lilies for splendor (v. 27b); (2) a lesser-to-greater argument, employing another first-class conditional sentence, asserts that if God adorns with beauty ephemeral grass that is headed for the oven, human need for clothing will assuredly be met (v. 28).

Verses 29–32 present a concluding, direct moral appeal in parallel couplets that juxtapose negative and positive, present-tense commands featuring inappropriate and desirable forms of human striving (vv. 29, 31), each command having its own basis (vv. 30, 32). An admonition to avoid continual striving repeats v. 22, though with drink replacing clothing (cf. Matt 6:25, 31), and leads to a general appeal not to have anxious care (v. 29). Positive support for the negatively framed admonition of v. 29 comes in two steps: (1) All the nations seek these things (v. 30a). (2) God, imaged as a providing Father, knows they are needed (v. 30b; cf. 11:2–13). Jesus then commends a fundamentally different kind of striving, urging listeners instead to strive continually for God’s realm (12:31a). He offers twofold support for the positively framed encouragement of v. 31a: (1) The things needed for human life will be provided, too (v. 31b). (2) God graciously gives (a share in) the realm of God—basis for a general admonition not to be afraid (v. 32).

The repetition of the image of anxious care, with the verb merimnaō recalling the episode of Martha and Mary (10:41; cf. 12:11, 22, 25–26), hints that Jesus is again employing exaggeration to point his audience to what really matters, to the good thing that orients all other human concern and striving. Hospitality is important, but anxious care about providing it is another thing. So too, humans need to work to survive, to have enough food and clothing and shelter and all the rest (as do ravens and, after a manner of speaking, lilies as well, converting energy to plant growth). But anxious care about this necessary human activity diverts one from life’s primary purpose. Trust in God’s gracious provision— Jesus pictures God as the source of nourishment for ravens and glorious garb for field grass—will mean that human activity of production and sustenance does not become a desperate, driven quest to produce, consume, and accumulate.

Verse 32 thus proceeds from fretful, anxious concern to fear, the emotion from which so much self- and other-destructive behavior springs: “Do not be afraid.” Why? Because God derives pleasure from giving you the realm (of God) as a gift. This picture of a gracious God reinforces the affirmation of 11:2–13, with its concluding image of God as the bestower of the Spirit in response to humans’ need-driven prayer.

The argument against a life driven by preoccupation with acquisition and maintenance of possessions (12:13–32), then, has two parts: (1) life oriented around material abundance is illusory and self-defeating and therefore gives no basis for security (vv. 13–21), but (2) life oriented around trust (in God’s provision, in the gift of [a place in] God’s realm) frees one from preoccupations and worries that oppose authentic and joyful living (vv. 22–32). (Jesus’ words deliver a stinging rebuke of a culture two millennia later that all too comfortably fuses religious faith with pervasive commercialism and materialism. Luke’s perspective on wealth and poverty, trust and security, continues to probe and challenge (see further Excursus: Poverty and Wealth in Luke’s Gospel, at 19:10).

The negative command of v. 29, “Do not strive and strive [or seek, zēteite],” provides the counterpoint and corrective to 11:9–10, which might, on its own, be read as condoning self-serving, acquisitive behavior. Human desiring, seeking, and striving rightly ordered—attuned to God’s purpose and ways—centers not on self-aggrandizement but on God’s holy presence and just reign.

[33–34] With a closing appeal for generous giving, Jesus draws the practical conclusion from the preceding argument. Genuine, enduring treasure (picking up the image from v. 21) is located in the divine realm, in heaven. Blurring the boundaries between earth and heaven, time and eternity, however, Jesus ties eternal treasure “in the heavens” to concrete, practical actions here and now: “Sell . . . give alms” (cf. 18:22; Sir 29:11–13, too, links the honored Jewish practice of almsgiving to security-providing treasure). This generous giving to the poor is what fashions a purse that endures or, escalating the imagery, what constitutes a treasury that will never be depleted. The images of purse and treasury unfold in a chiastic pattern:

A Purse that does not grow old.

B Inexhaustible treasure.

B′ Thieves cannot approach (to steal the stored treasure). A′ Moth does not destroy (the purse that holds coins).

Purses wear out, with or without the assistance of moths. A poorly guarded treasury of wealth is vulnerable to a thief’s approach, an image to which Jesus returns in the following passage (12:39; cf. 11:21–22). But an empty purse— treasure depleted through generous giving for the benefit of the poor—is impervious to deterioration over time as well as to a thief’s attack. The human heart attuned to the divine ways and commitments will in generosity of spirit open itself to others who have need and invest resources in them. This is what real, enduring wealth looks like. This is what it means to be “rich in relation to God” (v. 21).

12:35–53 Jesus Appeals for Eschatological Awareness

and Vigilance (I): Disciples

Images of lasting treasure and the gift of God’s realm trigger explicitly eschatological teaching. Jesus addresses first the disciples (12:35–53), then the crowds (12:54–13:9).

35 “Have your belt fastened and your lamps burning. 36 Indeed, you area like people who are waiting for their master when he returns from the wedding, so that when he comes and knocks they may open [the door] for him at once. 37 Fortunateb are those slaves whom he will find keeping watch when he comes. Truly, I tell you, he will gird himself, and he will have them recline at table, and he will come up and serve them. 38 even in the second or third night watch, if he comes and finds [them acting] like this, fortunate are they. 39 know this, however: if the head of the household knew at what hour the thief was coming, he would not have left his house to be broken into. 40 You too be ready, for the Son of Humanity is coming at an hour you do not suppose [he will].”

41 Then Peter said,, “Lord, are you telling this parable to us or to everyone [else] too?” 42 And the Lord said, “Who, then, is the faithful and wise manager whom the master will put in charge over his servants, to give the rationed amount at an apt moment? 43 Fortunate is that slave whose master will find him doing his jobc when he comes. 44 Certainly, I tell you, he will put him in charge of all his possessions. 45 However, if that slave says in his heart, ‘My master is taking his time in coming,’ and so he begins to beat the servants, and to eat and drink and get drunk, 46 the master of that slave will come on a day he doesn’t expect and at an hour he doesn’t know, and he will cut him in two and place his share with those who are unfaithful.

47 “That slave who knew his master’s will yet did not make ready or do what he wantedd will be punished severely. 48 However, the one who didn’t know and did things deserving of a beating will be punished a little. Nevertheless, much will be expected of the one to whom much has been given, and they will ask more of him.

49 “I’ve come to cast fire upon the earth, and how I wish it were already kindled! 50 I have a baptism with which to be baptized, and how I am distressede until it has been completed! 51 Do you suppose that I have come to give peace on earth? No, I tell you, but division instead. 52 For from now on, five will be divided within one household, three against two and two against three; 53 father will be divided against son and son against father, mother against daughter and daughter against mother, mother-in-law against her daughter-in-law and daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law.”

a. Or “be” (imperative); the verb must be supplied.

b. Or “blessed” (makarioi), the same word used in vv. 38, 43.

c. Literally, “acting thus [in this way: houtōs],” that is, performing commendable

service (v. 42).

d. Literally, “with regard to his will.”

e. The verb synechomai might also be translated “[how] I am constrained” (cf. 8:45;

19:43; 22:63), but the parallel to thelō (I wish or desire) in 12:49 suggests the figurative (affective) connotation of distress (cf. 4:38; 8:37). See BDAG 971.

[35–40] The discourse to disciples continues, shifting without transitional markers to a new thematic focus in v. 35, though one that has already been signaled by the preceding unit’s imagery of God’s realm (vv. 31–32), enduring treasure “in the heavens” (v. 33), and a thief’s approach (v. 33). God’s reign is not a timeless reality but concerns practical conduct here and now, on the way to an eschatological future that, despite its seeming delay and unpredictability, is close at hand.

Images suggesting urgency and preparedness open this section: the “belt fastened,” apart from a minor change in word order, quotes Exod 12:11 (preparation for the flight of the Passover narrative) and, together with “lamps burning,” challenges the audience to be poised for immediate action (Luke 12:35). Verses 36–38 locate the summons to vigilance in the domestic sphere. When household slaves await their master’s return from his wedding, the only ones who experience a positive outcome are those who remain awake and alert so that they may open the door to their master (kyrios), even if he is delayed until the second or third watch of the night (i.e., in “the middle of the night, or near dawn” [nrsv], v. 38). In a surprising role reversal, Jesus pictures the master as serving his slaves, not the other way around (v. 37), a role reversal that Jesus himself later enacts (22:24–27)—provided they have proved to be faithful and vigilant, ready to act even in face of the master’s delayed return.20

Verse 39 shifts both the imagery and the perspective from which household relationships are viewed, inviting attention (“know this”) to the scenario of a head of household (oikodespotēs) who would have succeeded in keeping his home secure if he had known the timing of a thief’s approach. Since thieves do not announce their appearance in advance, a household owner must be ever vigilant (cf. Jesus’ deploying of the image of a burglar’s incursion in 11:21–22; 12:33). Jesus then applies the imagery to the situation of the disciples whom he is addressing (with Luke’s audience overhearing): they do not know the precise timing of the coming of the Son of Humanity and must therefore remain ever vigilant. The application to Jesus’ audience is emphatic: “You too: be prepared!” The implication (“second or third night watch”) is that the disciples may anticipate a delay in the return of their Lord (the Son of Humanity), a circumstance that extends to Luke’s audience as well. This first explicit appearance of the motif of a delayed parousia announces a theme to be developed in the rest of the narrative (see 17:22–18:8; cf. 19:11–27; 21:25–33; Acts 1:6–8).21 No less than the disciples are succeeding generations of Luke’s readers challenged to a posture of sustained vigilance on this side of history’s completion.

[41–48] Who exactly is supposed to heed Jesus’ parabolic summons to vigilance? The disciples (“us”) or everyone? This query from Peter (v. 41) introduces the next step in the discourse. Jesus, whom the narrator (matching Peter’s address employing the vocative kyrie) calls “the Lord [ho kyrios],”22 speaks with authority about the reciprocal relationship, roles, and responsibilities of masters and slaves (vv. 42–48). If faithful, wise, and therefore vigilant and prepared slaves are promised blessing (makarios), a slave who is caught unprepared by his master’s return experiences a quite different outcome. Hyperbole marks the rewards given both faithful and unfaithful service. A household manager (or steward, oikonomos) who is dutifully discharging the assigned task of distributing the daily food rations at his master’s return—that person will be entrusted with responsibility to manage all the master’s property (vv. 42–44; cf. 16:10–12). By contrast, if the same slave (i.e., oikonomos) is lured by the prospect of a delay in his master’s return to abandon his assigned duties, and then proceeds to abuse other household slaves and drink himself into oblivion, he will receive harsh punishment and a place in company with other unfaithful people (vv. 45–46). The gruesome image of the slave being cut in two^23 vividly displays what is at stake in ongoing faithful service by the Lord’s servants in the time of his absence (i.e., in anticipation of the parousia).

20. In this unexpected exchange of slave and master roles, Green discerns a subverting of the practice of slavery (501–2), but others point out that the scenario developed in the passage contains elements that confirm the roles of slave and master (e.g., Glancy, Slavery 109; Vinson 428).

21. For discussion of the eschatological perspective that Luke’s narrative presents, see Carroll, Response.

22. Beginning in 7:13, the narrator often refers to Jesus as “the Lord”; see further 7:19; 10:1, 39, 41; 11:39; 13:15; 17:5, 6; 18:6; 19:8, 31, 34; 22:61; 24:34 (also a textually dubious instance in 24:3). In 12:41–48, Jesus as the kyrios (Lord: vv. 41, 42) speaks realistically, in parable, about the dealings of household kyrioi (masters: vv. 42, 43, 45, 46, 47) and their slaves. Luke depicts Jesus as acting with the authority of the Lord—definitive exercise of God’s sovereign rule—and with the parabolic images in this passage pictures the stakes in faithful service of “the Lord” until his (delayed) return. For provocative exploration of the implications for Lukan Christology of this Gospel’s use of kyrios for both Jesus and God, see Rowe, Christology, esp. 197–218.

So the answer to Peter’s question about scope of application (v. 41)—“us or all?”—appears to be “All of the above” (cf. Green 507: “Yes!”). Jesus challenges the disciples, and particularly the Twelve, to be faithful in the greater duties, informed by the greater knowledge, that will define their leadership role. Accountability grows as knowledge and assigned responsibility increase. Yet everyone in Jesus’ company, including Luke’s first reading community, receives in Jesus’ words a call to faithful, wise, and vigilant service, even if their Lord does not return promptly. Accountability for actions in the meantime will come in due course.

[49–53] The discourse suddenly shifts to a new key in v. 49, as Jesus comments in first-person voice about his mission (vv. 49–51), then advances from parable talk about household managers being cut in two (v. 46) to plain talk about real-world households rent asunder as a result of his mission (vv. 52–53). John the baptizing prophet used the image of “fire” (pyr) when prefiguring the Messiah’s vocation (3:16), with fire (despite its pairing with Holy Spirit) implying destructive judgment (cf. 3:7, 9, 17), yet to this point Jesus has declined to appropriate fire for his kingdom’s arsenal, even granting, instead, a reprieve to hostile Samaritans whom the disciples James and John deemed deserving of fiery condemnation (9:54–55). Now, though, Jesus picks up the contrasting images of baptism (water) and fire to present a revised mission statement (“I’ve come to cast fire upon earth”), framed in negative terms that correspond to the intensifying resistance greeting his activity. His desires remain unfulfilled until that fire is kindled (v. 49), and he experiences distress until he undergoes a life-completing washing—his own approaching, metaphorical baptism of death (v. 50).

So Jesus seeks to engender not peace but division (v. 51). Because his proclamation and enactment of God’s reign provoke opposition alongside the offer of peace (7:50; 8:48; 10:5–6), the promised era of peace heralded by his arrival (1:79; 2:14) is elusive (cf. 19:38, 42). The division of which Jesus speaks takes shape within households. Although the angel Gabriel announced that John’s arrival would launch a family-restoration movement (“hearts of fathers [turning] toward their children,” 1:17), Jesus offers a less sanguine assessment of household relationships under the influence of his activity. He later affirms the Decalogue commandment to honor parents (18:20), but 8:21 has redefined family in terms of readiness to hear and do God’s will, and 9:59–62 has summoned potential followers to radical disengagement from primary household relationships—a distancing from household that receives even more radical form in 14:26 and deadlier expression in 21:16. The depiction of Jesus’ firedealing, division-engendering mission in 12:49–53 thus stands in tension with some aspects of the preceding narrative but also anticipates the heightened conflict that his activity will provoke en route to Jerusalem. Jesus’ diagnosis of his contemporaries’ powers of discernment in 12:54–13:9 supplies additional perspective on this growing division.

23. For discussion of the cruel treatment of slaves accused of dereliction of duty (and on other pretexts) in the first-century Roman world, see Wiedemann, Slavery 167–87; Glancy, Slavery 12–14, 30–34, 118–22; Bartchy, “Slavery.” On the harsh treatment often suffered by slaves, see, e.g., 1 Pet 2:18–21; Xenophon, Mem. 2.1; Dio Cassius, Hist. rom. 55.5; Seneca, Dial. 5 (“On Anger” 3.23, 32, 40); epictetus, Diatr. 4.1.127; Apuleius, Metam. 9; Galen, Diseases of the Mind 4.

12:54–13:9 Jesus Appeals for Eschatological Awareness

and Vigilance (II): The Crowd

Discourse by Jesus sustains the concern with awareness and vigilance, but as he redirects his speech from the disciples to the crowds, words of warning escalate into harsh rebuke of his audience for failure in discernment (12:54–59). For all their interest in Jesus as healer (and teacher), the crowds do not recognize the decisive moment in which they live. Continued presumption of God’s patient mercy, on the part of an unrepentant people, will have disastrous results (13:6– 9), for which two recent tragedies should serve as cautionary tales (13:1–5).

54 [Jesus] was saying to the crowds, “Whenever you see a cloud rising up in the west, you say at once that a storm is coming, and so it happens.

55 And whenever [you see] a south wind blowing, you say that there will be scorching heat, and it happens. 56 Hypocrites, you know how to evaluate the appearance of earth and sky, yet you don’t know how to evaluate this moment!a

57 “Why don’t you judge for yourselves what is right? 58 Indeed, as you are going before the ruler with your accuser, make an effort along the way to be reconciled to him, lest he haul you before the judge, and the judge hand you over to the bailiff, and the bailiff throw you into prison. 59 You won’t get out of there, I tell you, until you’ve paid the very last penny.” 13:1 At that very moment some people came up and brought him news about the Galileans whose blood Pilate mixed with their sacrifices. 2 He replied to them, “Do you suppose that these Galileans were sinners more than all [other] Galileans because this happened? 3 No, I tell you, but if you do not repent, you will all perish, too.b 4 Or those eighteen persons on whom the tower of Siloam fell, killing them: do you suppose that they were debtors more than all the [other] people who live in Jerusalem? 5 No, I tell you, but if you do not repent, you will all perish in a similar way.” 6 He then began to tell this parable: “Someone had a fig tree that had been planted in his vineyard, and he came looking for fruit on it but didn’t find [any]. 7 So he said to the vinedresser, ‘See, for three years I have come looking for fruit on this fig tree and haven’t found [any]. Chop it down; why should it also make the soil [around it] useless?’ 8 However, he replied to him, ‘Master, leave it alone this year, too, while I dig around it and place manure. 9 It may bear fruit in the coming year,c but if not, you will chop it down [then].’”

a. This could also be read as a question: “Hypocrites, do you know how to judge the appearance of earth and sky [or heaven] yet don’t know how to judge this moment?”

b. Or “likewise” (homoiōs); in v. 5 Luke uses the synonym hōsautōs (in a similar way), although an impressive array of Mss (including ∏75 A D) repeat homoiōs there. I count this reading as a later scribal improvement in the interest of consistency.

c. Literally, “And if it bears fruit in [or for] the coming year. . . . But if not . . .” (ellipsis: the apodosis [“then”-clause] of the first conditional sentence is implied).

[54–59] After guiding disciples’ response to the momentous, eschatologically freighted era in which they live, Jesus issues a sharp warning to a crowd that is unable to read the signs of the times and therefore cannot respond appropriately. The argument begins with observation of nature. Weather patterns in Palestine are predictable enough, even without benefit of satellite imaging. Spotting a cloud on the western horizon, one might anticipate a storm (v. 54), with moisture arising from the Mediterranean. On the other hand, a southerly wind might lead one to expect a dramatic temperature increase (v. 55), with heat emanating from the Negev and Arabian deserts. Jesus upbraids his weathersmart audience for its selective attentiveness. As inconsistent observers of the world—hence “hypocrites” who cannot act on the basis of critical evaluation of evidence available to them (cf. Green 511–12)—they know how to interpret the sky, but despite their interest in Jesus’ activity, they are clueless about the decisive time into which God’s reign has thrust them, the meaning implied by “this moment” (v. 56; in 17:20–21 Jesus will score a similar point in an exchange with Pharisees; cf. 19:44).

Concern with wise discernment continues in vv. 57–59, though now in the arena of legal disputes settled in human courts—hence the shift from dokimazein (evaluate) in v. 56 to krinete (you judge) in v. 57, preparing for kritēs (judge) in v. 58. The transition to this second occasion for discernment comes in a question that scarcely masks the stinging critique it delivers: “Why don’t you judge for yourselves what is right?” (v. 57). Jesus invites his audience to imagine themselves caught up in a legal action, one that apparently features an unpaid debt (v. 59, “until you’ve paid the very last penny” [lepton, as in 21:2]). The prospect of imprisonment, if the judge rules in favor of one’s accuser, should motivate proactive efforts at reconciliation with that adversary (v. 58, settling out of court; cf. Matt 5:25–26; Luke 14:31–32 offers similar advice, though for a different imagined scenario, kings embroiled in military conflict). Wise discernment knows how to evaluate the present time and frames a fitting course of action. The exchange that follows (13:1–9) places this sobering summons to discernment in the shadow of approaching divine judgment. The horizon that forms the backdrop of the conflict provoked by Jesus’ ministry (12:49–53) is dotted not by rain-bearing clouds but by the prospect of eschatological accountability.

[13:1–5] Jesus’ call to wise discernment of the times is interrupted “at that very moment” by persons bearing distressing news. Discourse about skill in weather prognostication and in evaluation of situations of legal dispute thus sets the stage for a challenge to Jesus to read the signs of the times himself, to interpret the latest headlines. How will Jesus make sense—this is the query implied by the report—of the deaths of Galileans whose worship of God was cruelly interrupted by the Roman governor Pontius Pilate, who had evidently ordered them to be killed while they were engaged in sacrificial rites in the Jerusalem temple (13:1)? Is this an instance of deserved judgment of the sort Jesus has been discussing? To this brutal act of Pilate, Jesus adds a current event of his own: the deaths of eighteen persons, victims of the collapse of a tower “in Siloam” (presumably overlooking the pool of Siloam; v. 4). Neither tragedy is attested by other sources, though the cruelty displayed by Pilate resembles actions attributed to him by both Philo (Legat. 299–305) and Josephus (Ant. 18.55–62, 85–87; J.W. 2.169–77).24 Pilate’s cruelty foreshadows his role in the Passion Narrative (see 23:1–25), which will afford readers opportunity to evaluate his character and at the same time, as they observe his execution of Roman justice, to interpret Jesus’ death at his direction.

Jesus refuses to explain the demise of either Galilean pilgrims or Siloam victims as the consequence of moral failure. employing a repeated “Do you suppose . . . ? No, I tell you . . .” question-and-reply pattern, Jesus asserts that they were not worse “sinners [hamartōloi]” (v. 2) or “debtors [opheiletai]” (v. 4) than their peers in the Galilee and Jerusalem, respectively (debt here is synonymous with sin; cf. 11:4). Disaster, whether contrived by human brutality or the result of a tragic accident, cannot be explained as the consequence of the sins of those who suffer. On this point Jesus sides with Job against his friends (e.g., Job 4:7–9; 10:1–7; 11:4–6; 15:17–31; 22:4–11; 23:10–12) and the broad scriptural tradition to which they might appeal (e.g., Lev 26:14–33; Deut 28–30; Josh 24:19–20; Ps 1; Prov 11–12; ezek 18; Dan 9:11–14; cf. Josephus, J.W. 5.398, 407–8; 7.32–34, 271–72).25

24. For critical appraisal of these accounts of Pilate, see Bond, Pilate 24–48 (on Philo), 49–93 (on Josephus).

Nevertheless, disaster carries with it a warning for Jesus’ audience: “If you do not repent, you will all perish” (Luke 13:3, 5). Persistent rebellion against God will not forever evade accountability before a just God, a point Jesus will clinch with a brief parable that concludes the discourse (vv. 6–9). Retrospectively, in the aftermath of the 70 C.E. destruction of city and temple by Roman armies—interpreted later in the narrative as the outcome of Jerusalem’s failure to discern the divine visitation through the Messiah Jesus (19:41–44; 21:20–24)—readers will recognize in this mention of a Roman governor’s violent exercise of power and of a fortifying tower’s collapse (13:1–5) a poignant prolepsis. Many in Galilee and Jerusalem alike will not heed the summons to repent. even so, the perishing about which Jesus warns the audience (vv. 3, 5) is not simply death but, after 12:4–5 (“Fear the one who after killing has the authority to throw into Gehenna”), eschatological judgment. The stakes are high indeed.

elsewhere in the narrative, Jesus describes his mission as one that centers on restoring the lost, or sinners (19:10; cf. 5:32; 7:34, 47–48; 15:4–7). However, that restoration requires a return, or repentance: the realignment of commitment and action with the purposes of God, a prominent theme in Jesus’ proclamation (5:32; 10:13; 11:32; 15:7, 10; 16:30; 17:3–4; 24:47; cf. 3:3, 8 [John the Baptizer]; Acts 2:38; 3:19; 8:22; 17:30; 26:20).26 Here, readers see the other side of the coin: Jesus seeks the lost and welcomes them into God’s household, to be sure, but acceptance of the invitation means transformation of life. And the time for change is the present. Those who realize what time it is, and who is among them as the bearer of God’s dominion, will repent while there is still opportunity.

[6–9] There is a window of opportunity for repentance, owing to God’s patient mercy, but it will not remain open forever, and one may not presume on being able to reorient life to God’s purposes sometime in the future. This is the point of the parable in vv. 6–9. After three years of mounting frustration at his fig tree’s failure to produce fruit, the owner of the field where the tree finds root—suggestively, a vineyard—gives up and decides to have it cut down, with a view to increasing vineyard productivity (v. 7, “Why should it also make the soil [around it] useless?”). The owner’s persistent, dedicated vinedresser, however, intervenes, appealing for one more year, during which every effort of soil and tree cultivation will be brought to bear to ensure a yield of figs. If that last-ditch effort fails, the owner can proceed with the tree’s destruction the next year (vv. 8–9).

25. On the connection that Josephus forges between disaster and human sin (esp. stasis, public disorder), see Rajak, Josephus 78–79, 91–98.

26. On Luke’s development of the theme of repentance, see Nave, Repentance.

The parable places the unfruitful fig tree within a vineyard, an image emblematic of God’s people Israel (classically in Isa 5:1–7). Luke includes this parable rather than the episode in which Jesus, on the outskirts of Jerusalem shortly before his arrest, curses a fig tree that (out of season) is not fruitful (Mark 11:12–14, 19–21; Matt 21:18–20). In Luke’s parable, as in the Markan and Matthean scenes, the fortunes of God’s people are in play (the metaphorical vineyard); yet the focus in Luke is not on the temple and its leadership (as in Mark and Matthew) but more generally on the people within Israel to whom Jesus is directing his ministry and issuing his call to reorder life for full participation in God’s realm.

Jesus again picks up the baptizing prophet John’s image of fruit-bearing as representing repentance, that conversion of imagination and practice that aligns one with the ways of God (3:8–9; the image of cutting down [ekkoptein] an unfruitful tree appears in both 3:9 and 13:7). Jesus’ ministry, for all its emphasis on inclusive grace and restorative forgiveness rather than immediate judgment (contrast John’s ax poised at the tree root in 3:9) does not, after all, nullify the reality of eschatological judgment. In the imagery of the parable, Jesus’ activity buys God’s people one more year to respond to God’s gracious invitation. The call to be fruitful (6:43–45), and to persevere in bearing fruit (8:8, 15), awaits the people’s response.

Thus the whole narrative sustains the tensive interplay between gracious forgiveness and restoration, on the one hand, and repentance that acknowledges the claim of divine justice, on the other. Luke holds forgiveness and repentance together, even if the sequence is sometimes surprising, with gracious acceptance preceding and indeed eliciting glad and grateful reordering of life (exemplified by Levi [5:27–32], the uninvited dinner guest [7:36–50)], Zacchaeus [19:1–10], and in parable a lost-and-found son [15:11–32]). Jesus, as healer of body and soul alike, seizes the initiative in extending life-restoring grace even to sinners, but he summons them to repentance, to a reordered life, not to persistence in a disordered life (5:32).

13:10–35 An Act of Deliverance and Teaching about God’s Realm: Welcome and Resistance

Jesus continues his ministry of release as he liberates a woman from a longstanding (i.e., long-stooping) disability, inspiring both celebration and withering critique. In defense of this Sabbath-day healing, Jesus interprets the event as release from oppression by Satan (13:10–17). The event and divergent responses to it prompt Jesus to reflect on the character of God’s reign (13:18–21) and participation in it (13:22–30). The picture of inside-out and upside-down reversals by which Jesus images God’s dominion prepares for an exchange with Pharisees, whose warning about Herod’s designs on Jesus’ life leads him to reframe the conflict that lies ahead in the terms defined by his vocation and destiny as God’s prophet (13:31–35).

13:10–21 Images of God’s Reign: Jesus Liberates a Daughter of Abraham

Jesus’ approach to Sabbath keeping again comes under scrutiny (cf. 6:1–11) when he heals a woman with a severe disability in the course of his teaching in a synagogue one Sabbath. The woman’s healing elicits praise of God and affirmation of Jesus’ acts but also criticism centering on the charge of unacceptable conduct on the Sabbath. In response, Jesus defends his action as consistent with his critics’ routine treatment of their animals and also as necessary response on this very day to the reality of oppression by Satan. The image of liberation from Satan’s malevolent domination, together with the divided response that liberation generates, suggests further images of God’s rule as the deeper reality on display in the scene (vv. 18–21).

10 [Jesus] was teaching in one of the synagogues on the Sabbath. 11 And— picture this!a—there was a woman who for eighteen years had had a spirit of weakness,b and she was bent over and was unable to stand completely straight. 12 Now when Jesus saw her, he called to her, “Woman, you have been set free from your weakness,”b 13 and he placed his hands on her. Immediately she was restored,c and she began to praise God.

14 The leader of the synagogue, though, indignant that Jesus had healed on the Sabbath, made a speechd to the crowd: “There are six days on which one may work, so come and be healed on those [days], not on the Sabbath day.” 15 However, the Lord answered him, “Hypocrites, each one of you frees his cow or donkey from its crib on the Sabbath and leads it out and gives it water to drink, right? 16 Wasn’t it necessary that this woman, Abraham’s daughter, whom Satan has bound—consider this:a for ten-plus-eight years!—be freed from this bondage on the Sabbath day?” 17 And when he had said this, all his opponentse were being put to shame, but all the crowd was expressing delight at all the extraordinary things being done by him.

18 Therefore [Jesus] continued to speak:f “What is the reign of God like? To what shall I compare it? 19 It is like a mustard seed, which a mang took and placed in his own garden; it grew and became a tree, and the birds of the sky nested in its branches.”

20 Again he said, “To what shall I compare the reign of God? 21 It is like leaven, which a woman took and hid in three measures of wheat flour until it was all leavened.”

a. The focalizing particle idou (“See!”), as also in v. 16 (“consider this”). b. Or “sickness” (astheneia, also in v. 12), as elsewhere in Luke (5:15; 8:2; with the cognate verb astheneō in 4:40 and the adjective asthenēs in 9:2; 10:9).

c. Or “straightened up” (BDAG 86); my translation brings out the nuance of restoration and also points to the source of the healing (theological passive).

d. “Made a speech,” a rendering that expresses the nuance of the imperfect-tense verb elegen.

e. Literally, “all the ones opposing him.”

f. Rendering the imperfect-tense verb elegen.

g. Or “person” (anthrōpos); however, the pairing of a man who plants (v. 19) and a woman who bakes (v. 21) suggests the translation “man.”

[10–17] For the first time since Jesus’ turn to Jerusalem (9:51), the narrator presents Jesus as engaged in activity that has typified his Galilean ministry, teaching in the synagogue on the Sabbath (see 4:15, 16, 31, 33; 6:6; cf. Green 520–21). Programmatically in 4:16–21, Jesus used such a setting to define his mission as one focused on proclamation of good news for the poor and on liberation and healing for persons on the margins—thus on release. The nexus of teaching, healing, and liberation within this spatial (synagogue) and temporal (Sabbath) setting was then exemplified in the expelling of a demonic spirit (4:31–37). Once again in 13:10–17, and for the last time in the Gospel, Jesus seizes the occasion of teaching in a synagogue on a Sabbath to press his assault on the dominion of Satan (recall 10:17–20; 11:14–26), with a view to releasing a woman whose life has long been restricted by powers at enmity with the flourishing that God intends for human life.

Verse 10 locates the action in space and time (Jesus is teaching in an unspecified synagogue on a Sabbath). What ensues is a hybrid healing-and-conflict story: in vv. 11–13 Jesus heals a woman afflicted by a severe back condition (“bent over and unable to stand . . . straight”), sparking in vv. 14–17 verbal conflict that brings into the open divergent responses to Jesus’ activity.27 Jesus then supplies a coda in which he marks the event as an instance of God’s reign in operation (vv. 18–21).

The need for healing intervention presents itself in a description-packed introduction of a woman among those assembled in the synagogue: she is bent double, a condition she has suffered for eighteen years (v. 11). Contemporary concern with medical explanation of the woman’s disability finds little assistance from the narrator, who attributes the limiting condition to the operation of an oppressive evil power (in his own voice, “spirit of weakness,” v. 11; more explicitly in Jesus’ voice, “whom Satan has bound,” v. 16), even as his chief critic in the scene labels Jesus’ action a healing (v. 14).28 Aptly, then, language of binding and loosing pervades the description of Jesus’ healing intervention (v. 12, apolelysai, “You have been set free”) and his defense of it (v. 15, lyei, “[each of you] frees [his cow or donkey from its crib]”; edēsen, “[Abraham’s daughter, whom Satan] has bound”; lythēnai apo tou desmou, “be freed from this bondage”).

27. Green (519) sees the integral connection between healing and controversy in this unit; cf. Green, “Daughter” 644–49; Hamm, “Freeing” 25–26; O’Toole, “Exegetical Reflections” (though placing the emphasis in this “diptych” on the controversy in the latter half). For Bultmann the unit is incoherent (History 12–13).

Verses 12–13 narrate the healing and the woman’s response. After seeing the woman bent over (v. 12a), Jesus takes the initiative to intervene, first in word (v. 12b) and then with physical touch (v. 13a).29 He says to the woman, “You have been set free” (v. 12b); the perfect tense and passive voice of the verb apolelysai (“You have been set free”), together, point to God as the source of restoration, already decided. It remains only for Jesus, as healer and the agent of God’s work of restoration, to touch the woman (v. 13a) and so to empower her to stand erect (v. 13b), eliciting from her praise of God (v. 13c).30 The blending of the metaphors of sickness (weakness) and demonic binding fits well with this nuance of the perfect passive form: God’s power, effective through the agency of Jesus, has released a human being from Satan’s oppressive domination, in just the way 11:14–26 characterized God’s reign in opposition to the dominion of Satan. Jesus, the “Lord” (v. 15) who acts in the world with sovereign authority granted by God, then effects the healing that restores health, capacity, and possibility for full participation in human community, heretofore limited by the woman’s disability.

The synagogue leader’s hostile reaction to the Sabbath healing turns the story from healing miracle to controversy (vv. 14–17). Indirect criticism of Jesus’ Sabbath practice, addressed to the gathered crowd rather than to Jesus himself (“Come to be healed on one of the other six days of the week, when work is permitted!” [paraphrasing v. 14]), prompts him yet again to defend his activity on the day of rest (vv. 15–16; cf. 6:6–11; another occasion to come, 14:1–6). Jesus’ healing act is two-pronged (word followed by touch), and so too is his defense of his Sabbath practice (vv. 15–16). First, he appeals to his critics’ customary Sabbath routine, whereby they without hesitation lead their domestic animals out to drink water (v. 15).31 The appeal takes the form of a rhetorical question that implies a lesser-to-greater argument, which Jesus completes in v. 16: if a domestic animal, then surely a woman in great need (cf. the assertion of human dignity and value surpassing that of animals in 12:7, 24)! Second, though, it is not just a woman but one bent double because Satan has bound her: “Wasn’t it necessary [edei] that this woman, Abraham’s daughter, whom Satan has bound—consider this: for ten-plus-eight years!—be freed from this bondage on the Sabbath day?” The sense of the verb dei has shifted from its use in the speech of the synagogue leader: “It is [not] permitted” to work, hence to heal, on the Sabbath (13:14) has become “it was necessary” for the woman to be liberated (v. 16). By healing/liberating on the Sabbath, Jesus does not set himself against the purpose of God (hence, the Torah) but instead enacts it.

28. Here and elsewhere, Luke blends vocabulary of healing (sickness) and exorcism (demonic activity); see also 6:18; 7:21; 9:42.

29. Seeing precedes compassionate action also in 5:20; 7:13; 10:33 (parable); 15:20 (parable); 17:14—though not in 7:39; 8:28; 9:54; 10:31–32 (parable); 18:15; 19:7. Jesus initiates physical contact for healing elsewhere in 4:40; 5:13; 8:54; cf. 7:14; 8:44; 18:15.

30. The bent woman’s praise of God, the appropriate response of one healed by Jesus (see 5:25; 17:15; 18:43; for the crowd’s joyful response in 13:17, cf. 5:26; 7:16; 9:43; 17:18), and her very presence in the synagogue highlight her agency. As Reid has observed, the release of this woman from her oppressive burden provides a strong image for women of other times and cultures who also experience oppression (Choosing 167–68). Green helpfully draws attention to the socially marginal place of the bent woman, but his emphasis on “daughter of Abraham” as one restored by Jesus from a position outside the community (“Daughter” 651–52) does not give due weight to the woman’s presence within the synagogue prior to Jesus’ intervention. The synagogue leader is troubled not by her presence but by a Sabbath-day healing (see Vinson 456–57).

But why is an act of liberation necessary on this (Sabbath) day? Why not wait until the next day? The Nazareth manifesto of Jesus provides a clue, with its emphatic “today” (sēmeron) of fulfillment for Jesus’ Isaiah-inspired, Spiritempowered mission of liberation (4:21). Later Zacchaeus’s household will hear Jesus declare that “today” salvation has happened for his house (19:9; the label “son of Abraham” also links the restoration of Zacchaeus and the bent woman of Luke 13). And the penitent criminal crucified with Jesus will receive assurance of a place in Paradise “today,” not at some future time when Jesus will enter his royal power (23:43). eschatological completion may still lie ahead (the burden of the discourse of 21:5–36), but salvation is occurring in hopeinstilling ways through Jesus’ presence now. This deliverance has justice as its other face, with the removing of stifling burdens unjustly imposed by an oppressive power (the case of the bent woman) and generous compensation for victims of economic exploitation (the case of Zacchaeus). Whether viewed as merciful deliverance or exercise of justice, there is no reason to delay action until another day, in the light of “the fierce urgency of now.”32 Where Jesus, the Lord—and Lord of the Sabbath—is present, the present is the time for liberative action. The mandate for action today comes from the reality of God’s reign present and powerfully active, countering the harmful domination of Satan, in this moment.

The intriguing role of the number eighteen in the passage may offer an additional clue. This number appears only here and in 13:4 in Luke–Acts (indeed, in the whole nt).33 First the narrator (v. 11) and then Jesus (v. 16) mention the eighteen-year duration of the woman’s disability, although Jesus plays the theme with variations that heighten the drama: for ten-plus-eight (deka kai oktō) years, Satan has bound the woman. The reader surmises that Jesus comes by this knowledge through prophetic discernment, but also recalls that Jesus himself has introduced this number into his reply to questioners in the preceding passage, when he disputed the conclusion that the eighteen victims of the Siloam tower’s collapse perished because of moral failure that surpassed their peers (v. 4). The catchword “eighteen” thus links the two passages, but to what effect? To be sure, a condition suffered for eighteen years may not appear to be an urgent and time-sensitive need for help, when viewed by someone unfamiliar with, or unconvinced by, Jesus’ claim to be engaged in the present moment in an urgent counterassault on the mighty and oppressive domain of Satan. Yet the connection to the preceding narrative unit suggests that no more than the Siloam-tower victims does this woman deserve her suffering because of moral failing. It is the result, instead, of a burden imposed on her by forces opposed to God’s purposes. Thus the narrative subverts interpretations informed by conventional physiognomic assumptions (i.e., reading moral character from physical characteristics and appearance).34

31. For a glimpse of debates regarding restrictions as later codified in the Mishnah, see, e.g., m. Šabb. 14.3–4; 22.6 (on health concerns); 5.1; 15.1; 16.8 (on leading, untying, and giving water to animals).

32. Borrowing this memorable phrase from Martin Luther king’s call to racial justice in his “I Have a Dream” speech, August 28, 1963, in Washington, D.C., http://www.mlkonline.net/ dream.html.

Jesus’ healing on the Sabbath, far from being an action counter to Torah and to the holy purposes of God, is in harmony with God’s character and ways. If the Sabbath is about restorative rest for human beings, in honor of God, who is alike Creator (exod 20:8–11) and Liberator from bondage (Deut 5:12–15), then it is, in Jesus’ perception, both fitting and necessary to free the woman from bondage on the Sabbath. Sabbath keeping that honors God aligns with God’s work of liberating humans from debilitating, community-shattering oppression by Satan. As in Luke 6:1–11, human need trumps Sabbath-enforcing rules proscribing particular human actions. The theme will reappear, with variations, in 14:1–6.

The healing and the interpretation that Jesus gives it elicit divergent appraisals of Jesus’ activity on the part of his critics and the crowd. Although only the synagogue leader speaks, Jesus’ reply addresses “hypocrites” (v. 15, using the epithet with which Jesus addresses the crowd in 12:56; cf. 6:42; 12:1), whom the narrator later calls “all his opponents” (13:17). The narrator provides clear evaluation of the two positions, contrasting the shame (public disapprobation) experienced by those who oppose Jesus (borrowing language from Isa 45:16 lxx)35 and the delight “all the crowd” take in “all the extraordinary things [endoxois] being done by him” (Luke 13:17).36 Divided response to Jesus’ action and teaching within this synagogue thus exemplifies the household rupture that Jesus has just described as the effect, and design, of his mission (12:52–53).

33. In Acts 9:33 Peter heals Aeneas, who has suffered a debilitating, movement-restricting condition for eight years. Eighteen years does figure twice in the ot as a limited time of subjugation for God’s people (Judg 3:14; 10:8; see Danker 261). However, that temporary period of oppression has the character of divine judgment upon a rebellious people, in contrast to the use of this number in Luke 13 to mark a condition of suffering that does not concern judgment (cf. 2 kgs 24:8, which prefaces the description of king Jehoiachin’s judgment-beckoning evil with the notice that he began to rule at the age of eighteen). Judges 3:15 does go on to speak of God’s sending a deliverer from oppression, much as the bent woman experiences deliverance from her personal bondage.

34. See further Parsons, Body (83–95 on Luke 13:10–17); Hartsock, Sight (169 on the bent woman).

Several features of the passage may suggest, to some readers, that the character of the woman and her healing function symbolically, emblematic of “the expected end-time restoration of Israel” (Hamm, “Freeing” 39). First, the verb anorthoō in v. 13 (make straight) is used in the lxx for reestablishing David’s throne (2 Sam 7:13, 16; 1 Chr 17:12, 14), and in Acts 15:16 James employs it while applying Amos 9:11–12 to legitimate the incorporation of Gentiles within the people of God. Second, the endoxa (extraordinary things) in which the crowd takes delight (Luke 13:17) recall the remarkable things (endoxa) performed by God in redeeming Israel (exod 34:10; Deut 10:21; Isa 48:9). Third, what the back-bent woman is not able to do, anakypsai (stand straight), before Jesus’ touch is precisely what the faithful are called to do at the future parousia of the Son of Humanity, when their liberation (apolytrōsis) has drawn near (Luke 21:28; the only other use of the verb anakyptein in Luke’s writings; see Hamm, “Freeing” 33). Finally, the label Jesus gives the woman, “daughter of Abraham” (13:16), establishes her identity and ascribes honor to her through her participation in the family of Abraham. God’s people, presently afflicted by the oppressive power of Satan (including the vehicle of Roman occupation; cf. the story of a man’s liberation from a “legion” of demons in 8:26–39), will be restored, empowered again to stand erect, with the coming of God’s dominion. Readers attuned to the Jewish Scriptures may thus perceive the bent woman as also a symbolic character who is representative of the fortunes—past and present subjugation but also future liberation—of Israel (cf. Wolter 484–85).

[18–21 ] The narrator’s introductory “therefore” (oun) in v. 18 binds the following verses to the hybrid healing-and-conflict story of vv. 10–17. Jesus thereby adds another genre to the scene as he presents two brief parabolic narratives—here, metaphors taking the form of similitudes, or explicit comparisons, each responding to a question posed by Jesus about the character of God’s reign. With the connecting oun, these two parabolic images, which force the issue of discerning God’s activity in the world, interpret the preceding event as a symbolic enactment of God’s rule, active in the present in Jesus’ ministry of teaching and healing, and transformational in impact, though in a manner that is hidden and indeed imperceptible to many observers (cf. Bovon 2:412). Release of the bent-back woman from oppressive domination by Satan is thus a mark of the powerful activity of God’s reign, in keeping with Jesus’ claim in 11:14–23, even if some do not see this connection.

35. “All who oppose [the God of Israel] will be put to shame [and they will depart in shame]” (AT). Yet Isa 45:17 goes on to speak of the salvation that Israel is being granted by “the Lord,” an enduring deliverance that removes shame. This is a striking intertext for a passage in which the kyrios Jesus confers honor on the bent woman by enabling her to stand tall and by giving her the title “daughter of Abraham” and therefore renewed identity within the family of Abraham.

36. Hostile observers will be reduced to silence in the paired Sabbath healing of a man in 14:6.

Twice Jesus reaches for an analogy to illuminate the character of God’s reign (13:18, 20), in evidence just now in the synagogue, and twice he seizes upon improbable images: a mustard seed (v. 19) and yeast (or leaven, v. 21).37 Jesus first pictures a mustard seed placed by a man in his garden, which grew into a tree in whose branches “the birds of the sky nested [made a home]” (v. 19). Luke presents the parable in a more compact version than Mark 4:30–32 and Matt 13:31–32. Missing is any mention of size; where the “smallest of seeds” becomes the “largest of bushes” in Mark 4:31–32, the point in Luke concerns not size—contrast between miniscule beginnings and enormous impact—but transformation from seed to bird-sheltering tree (more accurately bush in Mark; Matt 13:32 combines bush and tree images). Also distinctive in Luke’s performance of the parable is the location of the planting, described as “placing” (ebalen; rather than “sowing,” as in the parallel accounts) in the man’s garden (rather than a field). Do Luke and his first readers know that planting mustard in a garden is an action that some regard as forbidden (see, e.g., m. Kil. 2.8–9; 3.2)?38 This extratextual knowledge is perhaps unlikely, though such a provocative way of imaging God’s reign would be apt commentary on the Sabbath healing just narrated, contested as illegitimate by the synagogue leader.

The mustard “tree’s” provision of shelter for birds borrows language from one or more ot intertexts—Ps 103 [104e]:12 lxx; Dan 4:12, 21; ezek 17:23— and in two of these passages the proverbially mighty cedar of Lebanon is mentioned (Ps 103 [104e]:16–17 lxx; ezek 17:22–24, though intentionally reduced in height in ezek 17:24), while in Dan 4:11, 20 the tree that images Nebuchadnezzar’s dominion is described as being “as tall as the sky.” The mustard shrub Jesus pictures is not so grandiose an image—an annual plant of one to two meters (or yards) in height morphs into a tree—but just as effective for birds’ nesting, at least in the parable. God’s reign is far from ostentatious, but as to liberating from domination by forces of evil, it is powerfully effective, even if those who would follow Jesus join a company that, unlike birds with nests in which to dwell, is homeless (9:58). Indeed, disciples are called to detach themselves from home (9:59–62; 14:26; 18:28–30).

37. Green notes the “dissonance of images” here, as Jesus juxtaposes peasant existence and the royal rule of God (526).

38. The concern, esp. given mustard’s capacity to proliferate, has to do with (forbidden) mixing of diverse kinds of plants in a garden (see Vinson 459).

Jesus proceeds to a second surprising image of God’s reign: yeast, or leaven. The surprise is twofold: God’s reign in the guise of a woman’s baking of bread; and the image of leaven itself, typically deployed as a negative image for moral corruption (see, e.g., 12:1; 1 Cor 5:6–8; Gal 5:9; Plutarch, Quaest. rom. 109). As in the mustard-seed parable, the analogy of yeast highlights the pervasive, transformative impact of God’s reign, which is as powerful and extensive in its reach as it is ordinary in its appearance. Luke 13:21 adds the motif of hiding or concealment and an emphasis on the fullness of the result: “until it was all leavened.” The activity of God’s rule is, at least for the present, hidden—public enough, to be sure, but its meaning is concealed from many—in the form, for example, of the straightening of a woman’s back on the Sabbath. But it is only temporarily hidden, if Jesus’ earlier declaration is to be trusted (8:17): eventually all will see (cf. 3:6; 17:24; 21:25–27, 31–32).

Leaven was a staple of food preparation in Jesus’, and Luke’s, culture. A piece of fermented dough, retained from a previous batch of bread, was used to start the leavening process for a new batch of dough. The amount pictured here, “three measures of flour,” would be sufficient to feed a large company (Green 527; cf. Bock 2:1228). So it is with God’s reign, active in Jesus’ ministry, reclaiming and liberating from Satan’s domination, and reconstituting a people within the new “family” and home of the community of disciples. The implication is that the healing of the bent woman, not seen by some (notably the leader of the synagogue) as aligned with the purposes of the holy God, exemplifies the reign of God. Aptly, given the emphasis on concealment in the parable and the divided response in the synagogue, the next passage presses the question of participation. For whom is this reign effective? Who will have a share?

13:22–30 Participation in God’s Realm

Through his teaching and acts of healing, Jesus is the bearer of God’s reign, the one who is liberating people from oppressive domination by Satan. Yet there is something hidden, for the time being, about this world transformation now underway. Some do not perceive God’s reign in connection with Jesus’ activity; instead of embracing it, they vigorously oppose it. As Jesus continues to make his way toward his fateful encounter with the powers that hold sway in Jerusalem, the events that have just occurred beg the question: If this is what God’s reign looks like, who will participate in it?

22 [Jesus] was traveling throughout the cities and villages, teaching and making a journey toward Jerusalem. 23 And someone said to him, “Lord,a are only a few being saved?”b And he said to them, 24 “Strive to enter through the narrow door, for many, I tell you, will seek to enter yet will not be able. 25 After the head of the household has gotten up and shut the door, you will indeed begin to stand outside the door and knock, saying, ‘Lord,a open for us!’ And in reply he will say to you, ‘I don’t know you [or] where you’re from.’ 26 Then you will begin to say, ‘We ate in your presence and drank, and you taught in our streets.’ 27 Yet he will tell you, ‘I do not know where you are from.c Go away from me, all you workers of injustice.’d 28 There will be weeping and gnashing of teeth whenever you see Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and all the prophets within the realm of God, but [you find] yourselves thrown outside. 29 They will come from east and west and from north and south and will recline at table in God’s realm. 30 See, the ones who will be first are [now] last, and the ones who will be last are [now] first.”

a. Or “Sir” ( kyrie), as also in the speech of the persons knocking on the parabolic door in v. 25.

b. Literally, “whether the ones who are being saved [are] few.”

c. Most textual witnesses, including א A, conform this phrase to the parallel in v. 25: “I do not know you [or] where you are from” (i.e., by adding the accusative pronoun hymas). I take that to be a scribal improvement and prefer the shorter text (with ∏75 B L 070 1241 2542).

d. Or “all of you who do what is wrong [unjust]” (i.e., an objective genitive).

[22–30] Verse 22 offers another travel notice within the meandering journey narrative of 9:51–19:27 (see 9:51, 53; 17:11; 18:31; 19:28), characteristically vague about location and chronology, but clear and purposeful in two key respects: the defining activity is teaching, and the destination is Jerusalem, thus setting the stage for 13:33–35. An anonymous questioner, whose respectful address to Jesus as “Lord” (kyrie) sets up the stern warning of v. 25, queries the authoritative teacher about the scope of salvation: “Are only a few being saved?” (v. 23).39 The probe is trenchant for Luke’s audience, in view of the sketch that Jesus has just provided of a mission that divides households (12:51–53), encounters undiscerning crowds (vv. 54–59), warns that the window of opportunity for repentance will soon close (13:1–9), and enacts God’s liberating reign but also provokes vigorous resistance (vv. 10–21).

The question, one that with variation will be posed again in 18:26 (“Then who can be saved?”), in response to Jesus’ claim that wealth obstructs the path to salvation, is met with an admonition that sounds like an affirmative reply: “Strive to enter through the narrow door, for many, I tell you, will seek to enter yet will not be able” (13:24; cf. the more exaggerated image in 18:25).40 The inability of many to enter, however, does not necessarily mean that a smaller number (“only a few”) can do so. The image of a narrow door, in tandem with the present-tense imperative “[continually] strive [to enter],” bends the topic of concern away from speculation about numbers and toward seriousness about what is asked of the listening self here and now.

39. According to 4 Ezra 8.1, only a few will participate in the “world to come,” a central element of the theodicy that document constructs in the aftermath of the destruction of the second temple (see 7.47; 8.3; 9.14–15). unlike 4 Ezra, however, Luke’s formulation addresses the unfolding process by which people in the present are embracing the salvation that God offers, or refusing to do so (cf. Green 529).

Jesus elaborates his answer in three steps (vv. 25–27, 28–29, 30). First, returning to the parabolic household imagery deployed in 12:36–38 (though now placing the householder on the inside of the locked door, rather than outside, as in 12:36), Jesus pictures a scenario in which access to a household is emphatically denied, despite previous association between the household master (kyrios) and persons standing outside who believe themselves entitled to gain entrance (13:25–27). Jesus converts the narrow door through which one enters with difficulty (v. 24) into a closed door that one cannot enter at all, because the householder denies knowing the would-be guests (v. 25). There is no mistaking the narrative representations of this parabolic kyrios and his refused guests, given their presumption and the protest it (mis)informs: “We ate in your presence and drank,” and “you taught in our streets” (v. 26). It is not enough to have enjoyed the intimacy of shared meals in Jesus’ company, as Pharisee meal hosts in 7:36–50 and 11:37–52 can acknowledge (cf. 14:1–24). And while large crowds as well as strident critics have gathered to hear Jesus’ teaching, he has insisted that it is not enough to hear his message: one must also perform it (6:46–49; 8:11–15, 19–21).

With the repeated second-plural forms (you) in vv. 24–28, Jesus leaves no doubt that he is addressing this warning to whoever forms his audience (an unspecified “them” in v. 23) as he teaches his way toward Jerusalem. On the basis of meals shared with Jesus or teaching heard, no one should presume to have a place in the present-and-future realm of God; they will have no advantage if they do not respond positively (vv. 25–27). The harsh dismissal by the parabolic kyrios borrows a line from Ps 6:9 lxx (6:8e; Luke 13:27): “Go away from me, all you workers of injustice” (adikias [injustice], replacing the psalm’s anomias [lawlessness]; cf. the similar phrasing in 1 Macc 3:6). The dismissal also recalls the caution of Luke 13:1–9: the window of opportunity to align life with the purposes and ways of God will soon shut (similar denial of access concludes the parable in 14:16–24). Households are dividing in response to Jesus’ mission (12:52–53), because families that inhabit those households are being redefined in terms of performance or nonperformance of Jesus’ word (8:19–21), which includes, by way of the line quoted from the psalm, doing what is just. Crowds that flock to Jesus to receive healing and listen to his teaching cannot presume that they will find a warm welcome unless their attention bears fruit in commitment of life. Not even the lost and sinful who have repeatedly accepted Jesus’ invitation to meal fellowship (e.g., 7:34) get a free pass; Jesus also summons them to reordered lives that respond to the grace they have experienced.

40. Matthew 7:13–14 frames this saying as a conventional “two ways” exhortation to choose the difficult path (and narrow gate) to life, rather than the easy path (and wide gate) leading to destruction (e.g., Deut 11:26–28; 30:15–20; Jer 21:8; Wis 5:6–7; 4 Ezra 7.3–15; T. Ab. 11.1–12; 1QS 3.18–4.26; cf. Did. 1–5; Vinson 466). The Matthean formulation amounts to a more explicit, affirmative reply to Luke’s questioner: many will choose the path to destruction, and only few will find the path to life (Matt 7:14). Luke 13:24 leaves the numbers ambiguous, with the deciding factor being the audience’s response to the imperative that Jesus lays before it.

Second , Jesus shifts focus from the closed door to the festive meal occurring inside, emblematic of the future reign of God (13:28–29). The picture of insideout reversal that Jesus paints, that “you [plural] will see,” takes the image of exclusion a step further. The unfortunate ones excluded from fellowship with patriarchs and prophets are not standing outside a closed door but mourning (“weeping and gnashing of teeth”) after having been banished (“thrown outside”) from privileged positions inside. With its horizontal status inversion, the meal prepares for 14:15–24, in which Jesus will again clarify the connection between meals and God’s reign and continue to press the question of who will be included.

The all-encompassing geographical distribution of participants in God’s realm, in company with patriarchs and prophets, provides a second, indirect answer to the question of 13:23, “Are only a few being saved?” Even if the place of the audience is still to be determined by their response to the invitationwith-demand of the present and future realm of God, many from every part of the world will have a place. The scriptural vision of God’s people expanding to include all nations (e.g., Isa 49:6, quoted in Acts 13:47), of Abraham’s blessing extending to all the families of the earth (the foundational promise of Gen 12:3; 22:18; 26:4, taken up in Acts 3:25), finds imaginative expression in the prophetic vision of Jesus and will begin to unfold in Luke’s narrative sequel (with proleptic cues in Luke 2:31–32; 3:6; 24:47). Israel fulfills its vocation in the world, but its character and composition as a people is undergoing redefinition, as Luke tells the story. The inside-out reversal theme challenges the presumption of any in Jesus’ audience to have an assured place (a point already scored in 3:8; family connections to Abraham are probed in both positive [13:16; 16:22; 19:9] and negative [16:23–31] terms elsewhere, each time in Jesus’ voice).

Third , Jesus follows horizontal honor inversion with an image of vertical status reversal: “See, the ones who will be first are [now] last, and the ones who will be last are [now] first” (v. 30). Here Jesus sounds a familiar chord: in the divine realm he imagines and is enacting in his ministry, disadvantage belongs to persons who now enjoy power, wealth, and status, while honor with God belongs to those who lack these advantages (e.g., 1:51–53; 6:20–26; 9:46–48). Luke will continue to press this countercultural vision in the next chapter (14:7–14) and beyond (16:19–31; 18:15–30; 22:24–27).

From the vantage of the future fulfillment of the reign of God, will those who are being saved be few? Not really.41 To be sure, professions of loyalty to God do not suffice, nor do christological affirmations. Life that enacts theology in ethics (i.e., performing justice) is necessary. And the inside-out reversal that marks God’s realm, as repeatedly narrated in Jesus’ ministry, puts insiders on the outside. Moreover, even for outsiders who respond to the invitation to God’s household and table, grace and mercy are not the end of the story. Those who come to the table must leave it to live out Jesus’ word, and that means to enact justice (v.27) and more: they must mirror the radical divine mercy and grace toward others (6:27–36; 10:25–37). Further, upside-down reversal in God’s dominion advantages those who lack status, wealth, and power, but at the expense of the powerful and wealthy. Luke 18:26 will pick up this vertical reversal in relation to Jesus’ rigorous teaching about wealth, and in a way that triggers a question (“Then who can be saved?”) much like that of 13:23. Despite all these indicators that the scope of salvation is tight and narrow, the contrasting image of a banquet table surrounded—or dining couches filled—by guests from every point of the compass suggests that the warning Jesus sounds has a paraenetic function. The outcome is in the hands and hearts of those who hear, whether they are presently inside or out, on top or at the bottom of the heap.

13:31–35 A Prophet’s Destiny

As Jesus makes his way toward Jerusalem, continuing to teach and heal as the bearer of God’s reign, his journey is briefly interrupted by Pharisees who alert Jesus to a threat to his life. The warning prompts Jesus to reflect on the course and character of his mission and where it is headed. For Jesus, as for all God’s prophets, the danger of Jerusalem looms, but the approaching misfortune will not be his alone.

31 That very hour, some Pharisees approached and said to [Jesus], “Go out; depart from here! For Herod wants to kill you.” 32 However, he said to them, “You go and tell that fox, ‘See, I am casting out demons and [still] completing healings today and tomorrow; on the third [day] I am finished. 33 Nevertheless, I must make my way today and tomorrow and the next [day], for it is not possible for a prophet to perish outside Jerusalem.’a

34 “Jerusalem, Jerusalem, which kills the prophets and stones those who have been sent to her: how many times have I wanted to gather your children the way a hen [gathers] her own brood under her wings—yet you did not want [this]. 35 See, your house is being abandoned. I tell you, you will not see me until [the time] will come when you say,b ‘Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord.’”

41. Here Luke parts company with Matt 7:14 (and with the theodicy presented in 4 Ezra and T. Ab. 11.11–12, as well).

a. Perhaps the message to be delivered to Herod (Antipas) is limited to v. 32 (and thus remains enigmatic); v. 33 would then present Jesus’ explicit commentary to the Pharisees.

b. The phrasing here is textually uncertain; some Mss (e.g., ∏75 B L 892) lack hēxei hote (“[the time] will come when”). Yet this textual variation does not affect the meaning: at some point in the future, (people of) Jerusalem will declare blessed the one (presumably Jesus) who comes in the name of the Lord (i.e., name of God), but until then they will not see Jesus (subjunctive of emphatic negation).

[31–33] Verse 31 binds this scene to the preceding picture of status reversal in the realm of God: “That very hour some Pharisees approached.” In their last appearance in the narrative, Pharisees listened to Jesus’ rebuke of their statusseeking (11:43), among other less-than-admirable qualities, culminating in a caution to the disciples about the hypocrisy of Pharisees (12:1). So the image of “last-first, first-last” reversal in 13:30 forms a fitting transition to the Pharisees’ return appearance. (Luke 14:1–24 will continue to develop these connections among Pharisees, status- and honor-seeking, meals, and the reign of God.) Despite escalating conflict between Jesus and this character group, some of their number approach Jesus out of apparent sympathy, warning him that Herod (i.e., Antipas, tetrarch of Galilee) desires to have him killed (13:31). In view of past hostility between Jesus and Pharisees, it is conceivable that they have concocted the threat as a ruse to remove Jesus from their turf: “Go out; depart from here!” (see Tiede, Prophecy 71–73; Darr, Character Building 106; Johnson 218, 220–21). Whatever uncertainty may arise from Jesus’ past appraisal of the Pharisees’ insincerity, Luke’s audience will nevertheless find the warning plausible, in view of Herod’s desire to see Jesus and his brutal execution of the prophet John (9:7–9; cf. 3:19–20). Luke neither identifies the source of the Pharisees’ information nor directly evaluates it here.

As in 13:1, then, people approach Jesus with troubling news, this time not to solicit his interpretation of events but instead to steer him away from a threat to his life.42 Whatever the immediate danger, the warning builds suspense as Jesus makes his way to Jerusalem, where he will finally come face-to-face with this ruler (23:6–12). For the present, these Pharisees have this much right: Jesus’ ministry is dividing a people and will lead to his demise (foreshadowed already in 2:34; 4:22–30). But this will not happen in the way the Pharisees expect: not Herod but the recalcitrant and powerful elite in Jerusalem are the ones who will orchestrate Jesus’ death. That is a prophet’s destiny.

42. Herod (Antipas) has been identified as tetrarch of Galilee (Luke 3:1; cf. 9:7; 23:6–7), so the Pharisees’ warning may place Jesus still in Galilee (although Antipas also governed the neighboring territory of Perea). The narrative of Jesus’ journey to Jerusalem in 9:51–19:27 is sparse in geographical details, after the notice of a failed initiative in a Samaritan village (9:52–56; cf. 17:11).

So Jesus as (Messiah and) prophet prophesies his coming demise at Jerusalem, the Holy City, the seat of power, where all God’s prophets perish (13:33b). However, that comes not now but later, “on the third day”—referring here not to the resurrection “on the third day” but to his death soon, when “[he is] finished” (v. 32b). For the time being, he is making his way “today and tomorrow,” bearer of God’s saving, liberating rule, evident in particular in healings and exorcisms.

Jesus dispatches these concerned Pharisees to Herod, “that fox” (v. 32), with this message regarding Jesus’ prophetic mission and its final destination. The ensuing narrative will confirm the prediction, further validation of Jesus’ prophetic discernment. The choice of the metaphor fox for Herod is apt, evocative of this powerful ruler’s destructive bent (cf. Song 2:15).43 Jesus’ reply to these Pharisees reinforces the reader’s impression that the warning is realistic and thus contributes to the building of suspense as the story moves toward its conclusion—concerning the “how,” if not the “what,” of the end of Jesus’ ministry in Jerusalem.

[34–35] Still in the voice of Jesus, vv. 34–35 advance from the assertion that a prophet’s destiny awaits Jesus in Jerusalem to a lament that ties the Holy City’s destiny to its response to this prophet. The double address of the lament, “Jerusalem, Jerusalem,” heightens its poignancy, although the weeping that accompanies such a lament is delayed until the city is in view (19:41). A fox like Herod poses no real threat to Jesus, but the same cannot be said for a hen’s vulnerable chicks. Jesus has longed to gather Jerusalem’s children to himself, drawing them, as it were, to safety under his metaphorical hen’s wings (13:34). He is, after all, in the deliverance business. But Jerusalem is the city that kills God’s prophets and stones those whom God sends to it (some of Jesus’ own followers among them: see Acts 7:59–60; cf. James’s death at the behest of “Herod the king” [Agrippa I] in 12:1–2 AT). The city has therefore rebuffed— or will soon rebuff—Jesus’ offer of succor (divine visitation, as he will put it in Luke 19:44). So Jerusalem, pictured as a household (oikos),44 is henceforth desolate, bereft of the divine presence (13:35a). What this passage hints, Jesus will later state explicitly: the city that repudiates God’s visitation, forsaken (by God), will with its children meet destruction (19:43–44; 21:20–24; 23:28–31).

43. On the force of this metaphor, see Darr, Character Building 139–46; Green 536. Darr argues that the fox metaphor in Luke highlights the character of the fox as marauding destroyer, although the qualities of cunning and insignificance are perhaps playing in the background (145). Jesus casts himself in the role of a vulnerable hen facing the fox, a malicious destroyer (Darr, Herod the Fox 183).

44. A household whose daughters, Jesus predicts en route to crucifixion, will later mourn the destruction that befalls the city, in another judgment oracle that incorporates a beatitude (23:28–31). The oikos is probably not the temple, which Luke terms the house of God, but Jerusalem (e.g., 6:4; 19:46). Nevertheless, the impending disaster for the city is inseparably bound to the temple’s destruction (21:5–6, 20–24).

“You will not see me,” he declares, until you say (quoting Ps 117 [118E]:26 lxx), “Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord.” Lament featuring Jerusalem’s (imminent) rejection of God’s messenger converts the blessing that should be a celebratory image into an oracle of judgment.45 For the city will not join the great crowd of disciples in shouting these words of acclamation as Jesus rides in ironic triumph into the city (19:38). It will not perceive his coming as the coming of God’s reign and will therefore turn away from the peace that he would offer it (19:42; thus 19:38 relocates peace from earth [2:14] to heaven). When Jerusalem does “see” him, it will be to seal his prophet’s fate; it will welcome him as one sent by God—one who “comes in the name of the Lord”—only in the eschatological future.46

14:1–24 Sabbath Banquet: Healing and Meal Talk

For the third time, Jesus dines in the home of a Pharisee. As before, this proves to be an eventful occasion: a Sabbath-day healing provokes criticism of Jesus (vv. 1–6), status concern displayed by guests prompts him to rewrite the honor script connected with meals and hospitality (vv. 7–14), and an enthusiastic outburst about the blessing of a share in the banquet of God’s realm calls forth a cautionary corrective in parable (vv. 15–24).

14:1–6 Jesus Heals a Man on the Sabbath

For the fourth time in the narrative, Jesus must answer critics of his Sabbath practice (6:1–5, 6–11; 13:10–17; three of the four concern healings). The healing of a man with dropsy raises concerns about Torah observance, but as the dinner scene in a Pharisee’s home unfolds (in vv. 7–24), it is the metaphorical potential of the man’s condition that especially piques interest.

1 On a Sabbath [day], when [Jesus] went into the house of one of the leaders of the Pharisees, it happened that he was eating bread, and they were observing him. 2 And therea before him was a man who suffered from dropsy. 3 In response, Jesus said to the legal experts and Pharisees, “Is it right to heal on the Sabbath or not?” 4 However, they were silent. So taking hold of him, he healed him and let him go. 5 He said to them, “Who among you, with a son or a cow that falls into a pit, will not immediately lift him outb on a Sabbath day?” 6 They were unable to offer a response to this.c

45. Luke’s narrative thus exposes the fundamental irony, attested in twenty subsequent centuries of history, that Jerusalem, the city of peace, of shalom, has seldom known that reality. What Luke interprets as the consequence of divine retribution, in keeping with a long-standing Jewish tradition, contemporary theological-ethical-political analysis would explain in terms of exceedingly complex historical factors and current international politics.

46. See further the discussion in Carroll, Response 162–63.

a. Verses 1–2 combine two of Luke’s favorite Septuagintal phrases, kai egeneto (and it happened, v. 1) and kai idou (there, v. 2; lit., “and look [behold]!”).

b. Literally, “The son or cow of which of you will fall into a pit, and he will not immediately lift him out?”

c. Literally, “these things”: two questions posed by Jesus(vv. 3, 5) and the act of healing (v. 4).

[1–6] Luke 14:1–24 is a rhetorically artful, thematically coherent unit set at a dinner in a Pharisee’s home, the last of three meals at which Jesus is hosted by a Pharisee (cf. 7:36–50; 11:37–52), this time by a “ruler” among them, one of the socioeconomic elite.47 The setting is important for each element of the passage. Such meals among the social elite regularly featured excessive eating and drinking, use of hospitality to increase one’s social prestige, and animated conversation (see Braun, Feasting, e.g., 38–41, 54–61). Through authoritative teaching by Jesus, the account challenges, in particular, conventional ideas and practices relating to social status, honor, and reciprocity in connection with meals.

The teaching—and the challenge—begins already in the act of healing with which the scene opens. Verse 1 creates audience expectation of conflict: Jesus enters a Pharisee’s home to eat (at Jesus’ own initiative, it seems, until mention of an invitation in v. 12) and it is the Sabbath, a combination that has generated conflict previously (Sabbath and Pharisees in 6:1–11; meals and Pharisees in 7:36–50; 11:37–54). On cue, the Pharisees begin observing Jesus with hostile intent; the participle paratēroumenoi ([they were] observing) signals their adversarial stance (14:1; cf. 6:7; 20:20; Acts 9:24). He does not disappoint, thanks to the presence of a man afflicted by dropsy, hydrōpikos (Luke 14:2). This disorder presents as its most obvious symptom swelling from fluid retention (in contemporary medical description, edema), exacerbated by craving to drink more water. Although the man, silent and passive, does not request healing, readers anticipate that Jesus will again intervene to restore health.

Yet before responding to the man and as if resuming a suspended conversation, Jesus first asks the legal experts and Pharisees present, “Is it right to heal on the Sabbath or not?” (v. 3; in 13:12–13 the healing precedes debate). Answering their silence with action, Jesus takes hold of the man and, after healing him, dismisses him (14:4), then supplies his own rationale for his conduct, employing analogical reasoning reminiscent of 13:15: “Who among you, with a son or a cow that falls into a pit, will not immediately lift him out on a Sabbath day?” (14:5). The expected reply, “No one would fail to do this,” is not forthcoming: the observers are reduced to silence, “unable to offer a response” (v. 6). Their silence leaves Jesus’ view of appropriate conduct on the Sabbath uncontested. By implication (not a new discovery for Luke’s audience), it is permitted to heal on the Sabbath.

47. Braun offers a suggestive sociorhetorical analysis of the passage ( Feasting). He argues that 14:1–6 is a chreia (i.e., a brief anecdote providing a useful basis for comment) composed by Luke, which he elaborates in two parallel analogies (vv. 7–11, 12–14) and a concluding “proof from exemplary precedent” (vv. 16–24), which corrects the misstatement of v. 15 (145–75, esp. 174).

Beyond the legal dispute focused on Sabbath practices, the disorder that triggers debate merits closer scrutiny. The presence of a man suffering from this condition is not as odd in this scene as it first appears.48 Cynic and Stoic authors, in particular, exploit the physical symptoms of dropsy in offering the condition as a metaphor for insatiable greed. This metaphorical association suits the occasion in Luke 14 and prepares for the table talk Jesus will contribute (vv. 7–24). Once again, assumptions about physiognomy are in play (see the comment on 13:10–17), in this case the implicit connection between dropsy’s fluid retention and swelling and the moral quality of unquenchable, acquisitive desire, or avarice. Diogenes, for example, is said to have “compared moneylovers to persons afflicted with dropsy [hydrōpikois],” for in both persons “desires increase the more they acquire the objects of their craving” (Stobaeus, Flor. 3.10.45; cited by Braun, Feasting 34). Polybius, too, associates insatiable greed and the affliction of dropsy, in which continual drinking cannot quench thirst (Hist. 13.2.2; cf. Ovid, Fast. 1.215–16: “The more he drinks, the thirstier he grows” [Frazer, LCL]).49

explicit development of an association between Pharisees and avarice is delayed until Luke 16:14, 19–31, but social practices that are intimately related to acquisitive striving—status- and honor-seeking and the leveraging of reciprocity to gain social advantage—receive immediate critique in the rest of the episode at the Pharisee’s table. The man who suffers dropsy is not the only dinner guest who requires medical attention from the healer of souls, whose mission aims to call sinners to a reordered life (5:31–32).

48. Also suggestive, perhaps, is the witty irony of Jesus’ offering a rescue from drowning in a pit as an analogy to justify a healing intervention that rescues a man from (as it were) drowning in his own futile attempts to quench his insatiable thirst.

49. Plutarch associates compulsion to eat and drink with unhealthy desire to acquire material goods, though without employing the vocabulary of dropsy (“On Love of Wealth,” in Mor. 524A–D; cf. Seneca, Helv. 11.3; Philostratus, Vit. Apoll. 1.9 [to undergird an appeal for ascetic practice]). See further Braun, Feasting 22–42. Braun holds that dropsy is a “Cynic metaphor for consuming passion” (30) and suggests that Jesus addresses the parable of the banquet in 14:16–24 to a host who suffers from dropsical desire (174).

14:7–14 Advice to Dinner Guests and Hosts

As the meal proceeds, debate about healing on the Sabbath yields to advice about meal practices, addressed by Jesus first to status-conscious guests (vv. 7–11), then to the reciprocity-minded host (vv. 12–14). In each case, Jesus’ counsel assumes prevalent cultural norms and social practices, but only so as to subvert them.

7 [Jesus] began to tell a parable to those who had been invited when he noticed how they were choosing the prime seats. He said to them, 8 “When you are invited by someone to a wedding banquet, do not takea the prime seat, in case another who is honored more than you may have been invited by him. 9 When the one who invited both of you comes, he will tell you, ‘Give [your] place to this man,’ and then with shame you will begin to take the last place. 10 Instead, whenever you are invited, go and recline in the last place, so that when the one who has invited you comes, he will tell you, ‘Friend, go up higher.’ Then there will be honor for you in the presence of all your fellow guests.b 11 For all who lift themselves up will be brought low, and those who lower themselves will be lifted high.”

12 And he began to speak also to the man who had invited him: “Whenever you havec a dinner or banquet, do not call your friends or your brothers or your relatives or wealthy neighbors, in case they may also invite you in return and that turn out to be your repayment. 13 Instead, whenever you havec a banquet, invite those who are poor, lame, crippled, blind. 14 Then you will be blessed, because they do not have [the means] to pay you back—for your repayment will comed at the resurrection of the just.”

a. Literally, “recline [kataklithēs] in the prime seat.”

b. That is, “the persons who are reclining at table with you [synanakeimenōn]” (also in v. 15).

c. Literally, “make” (poiēs), here and again in v. 13.

d. Literally, “it will be paid back for [or to] you in the resurrection of the just.”

[7–11] Jesus joins the Pharisees in observation mode (cf. v. 1), and when he notices other invited guests jockeying for the prime seats at the banquet (v. 7), he interjects a critique of this behavior. Jesus first offers direct instruction, employing the imperative mood: Don’t grab the seat reserved for the most prestigious guest at a wedding banquet (v. 8a)! Verses 8b–10 elaborate by way of an imagined scenario (hence the label “parable” for the speech, v. 7): Far better to have one’s social prestige publicly recognized and one’s honor magnified than to experience the shame of having overestimated one’s status and therefore being ushered to a seat suitable for a person of lower status. It is prudent to aim low, then let the banquet host call one to a place of greater prestige, rather than to aim too high (cf. Prov 25:6–7 for similar counsel).

Verse 11 then grounds the instruction and the imagined scenario in a general comment about vertical status reversal. Jesus claims that the pattern is universal: “For all who lift themselves up will be brought low, and those who lower themselves will be lifted high.” It is not immediately clear whether Jesus is offering a sage comment about the way life operates, or whether God is concealed in the passive-voice verbs (“will be brought low” and “will be lifted high”), as the author of these status reversals. The negative connotation of abasement or humiliation in Greco-Roman culture (see Braun, Feasting 49–54) and the strong correlation between banquet seating and social status (the subject of critique by Plutarch, in “Dinner of the Seven Wise Men,” Mor. 148F–149B) make it unlikely that Jesus is basing a principle on lived experience, as if it would commend intentional status reduction.50 Recalling the Magnificat’s praise of God for effecting reversals of status, wealth, and power (e.g., 1:51–53), Luke’s audience will probably see divine agency here too, a view that would then be confirmed by the resurrection-reward image of 14:14 and by the virtually identical phrasing in 18:14, where the context leaves little doubt that God is the author of the status inversion. The counsel Jesus offers has stinging irony; he advises nothing less than intentionally seeking out the very humiliation, in view of one’s social peers, that one most desires to avoid. What if the host doesn’t intervene to call you out and usher you to a place suitable for persons of higher status? That disconcerting scenario remains unarticulated in Jesus’ “parable.” He invites his audience, and thereby Luke invites his, to imagine an alternative community in which status defines social relations in a radically different way.

Verses 7–11 thus invoke cultural norms and associated social practices relating to status- and honor-seeking, but only so as to subvert them (cf. Green 550). True honor, paradoxically, comes to the one who seeks the position of those who lack status. The next piece of advice, directed to the meal host, goes a step further, reorienting honor-seeking toward the one from whom authentic reward, or honor, comes. The countercultural character of the teaching intensifies.

[12–14] Jesus turns from meal guests to the host who has invited him (v. 12a) and offers unsolicited advice regarding the Pharisee’s future guest lists. In antithetical parallel lists, each comprising four groups of potential invitees to a dinner or banquet, Jesus identifies the sorts of persons one should not invite (v.12b), then the sorts of persons one should invite (v. 13). He follows each set of four with a supporting rationale, the first negating the social convention of reciprocity (v. 12c), and the second parodying it, substituting an invitation list that exemplifies the divine realm, wherein God’s invitation to life—imaged as the “resurrection of the just”—compensates one (i.e., reciprocates) for generous hospitality extended to people who cannot reciprocate and thereby enhance one’s social prestige (v. 14).

50. See further York, Last 173–82; Braun, Feasting 43–54. A third-century C.E. amulet (POxy 2554.I.2.10–11) grounds a prediction of fortunes in the coming year in a general principle of reversal including claims that the poor “will be exalted [hypsōthēsontai]” and the wealthy humiliated (tapeinōthēsontai). Also 1 En. 92–105 presents a sustained contrast between the rich, who are brought low, and the poor, who are lifted up.

The rhetorical shaping of the subunit, then, effectively paints the contrasts between two incompatible cultures of reciprocity:

A Whenever you have a banquet, do not call

B your friends, or your brothers, or your relatives, or wealthy neighbors,

C in case they may also invite you in return and that turn

out to be your repayment. (v. 12)

A′ Instead, whenever you have a banquet, invite

B′ those who are poor, lame, crippled, blind. (v. 13) C′ Then you will be blessed, because they do not have [the

means] to pay you back—for your repayment will come at the resurrection of the just. (v. 14)

An intriguing variation in syntactical style reinforces the contrast between these parallel, potential guest lists. The conventional guest list (v. 12b) is weightier and more ornate, employing conjunctions (mē plus threefold mēde, “not . . . or . . . or . . . or”]) to link the terms and also highlighting the social investment of the host in these relationships through a threefold repetition of “your” (sou, omitted from the fourth term in the series, though a few manuscripts do add sou with “neighbors”). A more impressive list, to be sure, featuring as it does one’s friends, kin, and wealthy neighbors, but this is the one to discard. The replacement guest list (v. 13) contains only the four nouns (poor, lame, crippled, blind), without pronouns or connecting conjunctions. The jarring staccato style suits such surprising, countercultural advice from Jesus in the guise of social director for this Pharisee (cf. the similar listing and stylistic technique in 7:22).51 Jesus challenges him to invite the destitute, persons who live in poverty (ptōchoi), and persons who lack the physical capacity to acquire sufficient economic resources to be self-sustaining (lame, crippled, and blind)—and to offer them the nourishment and the dignity of a place at table, even though (or precisely because) they cannot respond in kind to a banquet invitation. These are the ones to invite.52

51. When the same replacement guest list reappears on the lips of the parabolic host in 14:21, though with the third and fourth terms inverted, the words will gain a head article (the) to introduce the series and the conjunction kai (and) to connect them—stylistic variation, but the same countercultural point.

52. Jesus earlier described his mission as bringing help to the poor and the blind, among others beaten down by life (4:18–19), and in 7:22 is then portrayed as doing just this for the lame, poor, and blind (i.e., three of the four listed in 14:13). even among elite Pharisees, he is actively recruiting others to join him in extending a ministry of care to the marginalized. For in-depth analysis of these character groups in Luke, see Roth, Blind.

In vv. 12–14 Jesus again invokes cultural norms and associated social practices relating to honor and status, but only so as to subvert them. Now the focus is the practice of reciprocity, whereby one seeks to exploit interactions with others of varying social status in such a manner as to increase one’s own social prestige. every social transaction is calculated to give one some advantage through the exchange (see Braun, Feasting 104–5). In Jesus’ vision of the divine economy, however, the only gain that matters is that bestowed by God. Participation in the future life of God’s realm— enduring life, entered through the resurrection of the just—is not a matter of furthering one’s social interests and standing in this life but instead the fruit of a life of generous hospitality, which seeks to honor precisely those who have nothing beneficial to offer (thus resuming the moral appeal of 6:27–36), except for what God will offer on their behalf. In the process, the substantial cost in lost social prestige carries with it an unforeseen future blessing.

Aptly, in a conversation with a Pharisee, who affirms the notion of resurrection (as Luke knows: see Acts 23:6–10; cf. Luke 16:27–31; 20:27–38), Jesus invokes this expectation in 14:14 (earlier anticipations in the narrative: in 7:11–17, 22 the dead are temporarily restored to life; in 9:7 some people speculate that John has been raised from death; and in 11:31–32 Jesus pictures the queen of the South and the people of Nineveh arising in the eschatological judgment to condemn his contemporaries; cf. also 2:34 [a metaphorical rising, anastasis]; 13:27–28). Luke elsewhere can picture a universal resurrection (of both just and unjust, Acts 24:15; cf. Luke 11:31–32), but the emphasis here on an eschatological resurrection of the just (or righteous, dikaioi) fits the belief to the context, which highlights a moral appeal to abandon self-interest now in performing justice. God’s validation will come. God’s realm has a present face, glimpsed in something as practical and ordinary as meal hospitality. As seen already in 13:24–30, however, it also has a future face; the image of resurrection in 14:14 thus shows the flip side of denying fellowship to those who fail to perform justice (13:27).

14:15–24 God’s Realm as Banquet: A Parable

Taking a cue from Jesus’ invoking the eschatological image of resurrection (v. 14), one of the other dinner guests adds his own beatitude to that of Jesus (v. 15). Participation in the banquet of God’s realm indeed conveys blessing, but one should not presume to have a secure place at that table, a point that Jesus clarifies with a parable about a banquet host who responds to shunning by the originally invited guests—his social peers—by filling the hall with just about everyone else. The larger unit’s concern to redefine status and honor within the realm of God thus continues to shape the discourse.

15 When one of the fellow guests heard this, he said to [Jesus], “Blessed is whoever will eat bread in the realm of God!”

16 [Jesus] said to him, though, “Someone was having a huge banquet, and he invited many people. 17 At the hour of the banquet, he sent his slave to tell the ones who had been invited, ‘Come! For it is now ready.’ 18 Yet they all began, one by one,a to offer excuses. The first one said to him, ‘I bought a field, and I need to go and see it. I request of you, have me excused.’ 19 Another said, ‘I bought five teams of oxen, and I’m going away to inspect them. I request of you, have me excused.’ 20 Still another said, ‘I married a woman and therefore can’t come.’ 21 So the slave came up and reported these things to his master. Then the head of the household, outraged, said to his slave, ‘Go out quickly into the streets and lanes of the town and bring back here the poor and crippled and blind and lame.’ 22 [Afterward] the slave said, ‘Master, what you ordered has been done and there is still room.’ 23 So the master said to the slave, ‘Go out into the roads and hedges and insist that people come in, so that my house may be full. 24 For I tell you, not one of those men who had been invited will taste my banquet.’”

a. Or “all in concert [alike]” ( apo mias, from one [mind]; see BDAG 107), or possibly “all from one [voice],” supplying phōnēs (voice) to complete the ellipsis (see Fitzmyer 2:1055).

[15–24] A dinner guest, inspired by the image of resurrection, tacks his own beatitude on to the one Jesus has just pronounced: “Blessed is whoever will eat bread in the realm of God!” (v. 15). True enough—just ask Lazarus and the rich man with whom he trades places, precisely because he fails to do what this parabolic meal host is led by circumstances to do (16:19–31; cf. 14:21, picking up the refrain of v. 13). The difficulty with the exuberant exclamation is that it appears to assume the speaker’s inclusion in the divine realm, for which the banquet is festive symbol. This assumption is precarious, in view of the warning that Jesus has issued in 13:22–30. Some who expect to feast will be denied admission, or banished. The parable with which Jesus corrects the confident beatitude of the dinner guest warns that some for whom a place at the banquet is reserved will voluntarily choose not to participate.On the heels of his counsel about banquet guest lists, Jesus launches the parable with notice of a large-scale banquet, to which many are invited (14:16).53 The host will eventually compile an invitation list of the kind that Jesus is commending to his own banquet host, but only after a significant detour. As one would expect, he begins by inviting his social peers, or perhaps even social superiors in whose circle he aspires to move.

53. Matthew’s related parable converts the story into a wedding banquet for the king’s son and exaggerates virtually every aspect of the parable, though retaining the basic plot of originally invited guests declining to attend and surrendering their places to others (Matt 22:1–14). The Gospel of Thomas also contains a form of the parable, one that resembles Luke’s version. In Gos. Thom. 64, though, there are 4 rather than 3 excuses for declining to attend, and 3 of the 4 explicitly concern

When the feast is ready, the host dispatches his slave to issue the customary summons: “Come; it’s ready!” (v. 17). What unfolds, however, is a complete unraveling of the planned banquet. The usual advance invitation to the occasion has, as one might expect in such a close village culture, apparently permitted exchange of gossip about the meal, the invited guest roster, and the host. Otherwise the circumstance of 100-percent declined invitations is wholly improbable. The parable proceeds to narrate a conspiracy of last-hour refusals to attend, therefore intentionally dishonoring the meal host.54

Verses 18–20 enumerate three excuses, which the listener understands to be representative of the responses—or the unanimous response (“all in concert”)— of all the invitees. The first asks to be excused because he has a compelling need to “go and see” a field he has purchased (v. 18). This claimed necessity (anankēn) prepares for the snubbed host’s strategic response (anankason, an imperative of the cognate verb, figures prominently in v. 23). Another invited guest, with the same phrasing as the first, also asks to be excused (“I request of you, have me excused,” v. 19), explaining that he is going “to inspect” five yokes (pairs) of oxen he has purchased (ēgorasa, “I bought,” appears in these first two excuses in vv. 18–19). The parallels in phrasing and excuses of the first two invitations are disrupted when a third invitee declines to attend. Foregoing the courtesy of requesting to be excused, this man simply announces that he has married a woman and therefore “can’t come” (v. 20). The slave proceeds to report what has happened to his master (v. 21a).

Verses 21b–24 narrate in two steps the would-be banquet host’s response to this unanticipated series of events. While the scenario imagines magnanimous generosity that fills the hall with dinner guests, the description of the householder’s motivation (anger) and reasoning (to exclude each of the originally invited guests, v. 24) indicates that the parable is again picturing an inside-out reversal rather than an uncomplicated expansion of the dinner company. In keeping with the preceding account of a ministry that is eliciting divergent responses (e.g., 12:54–59; 13:22–30; cf. 2:34), the story thus has both comic and tragic dimensions. As commentary on the dinner guest’s enthusiastic exclamation that participation in the banquet of the divine realm conveys blessing, or good fortune (14:15), the parable’s plot displays both good and bad fortune. It is not a matter of blessing for all; the key is whether one chooses to participate. And as the culminating instruction of 14:1–24, the parable exemplifies the redefining, or subverting, of honor- and status-seeking conventions that participation in the dominion of God entails.

the conducting of business (collecting debt owed by a merchant, collecting rent, purchase of a house, and hosting a friend’s wedding banquet). The excuses set up the clinching warning: “Buyers and merchants [will] not enter the places of my father” (trans. Layton, Gnostic Scriptures 392).

54. See Rohrbaugh, “Pre-industrial City” 141. Braun plausibly argues that the parable depicts a conspiratorial, dishonoring exclusion of the would-be host from the invitees’ fellowship (Feasting 130–31).

even if the excuses of the original invitees are not, as seems to be implied, the result of a carefully choreographed rejection of the banquet host by his social peers, they prove problematic, at least in terms of the values Jesus commends in Luke. The first two excuses place the invitees among the socioeconomic elite of the city; the first is likely an absentee landlord who must inspect a field he had purchased, and the second is the owner of a field large enough to require ten oxen to plow (Rohrbaugh, “Pre-industrial City” 142–43). The third invitee, recently married, may be claiming that he already has social obligations to honor and so “cannot take on the new reciprocal obligations” that would follow from acceptance of this dinner invitation (Rohrbaugh, “Pre-industrial City” 143).55 The invitees, and presumably others whose voice they share, decline to come because they are entangled in their own concerns with property, wealth, and the social obligations associated with the household (Johnson 232; Green 559–60). Their united front of rejection drives the banquet host to repudiate prevalent norms of social interaction and so turn his own social world upside down.

The initial response of the indignant householder to the shame of unanimous rejection by his peers, or intended peers, is to instruct his slave to locate dinner guests among the “urban poor” of the city (Braun, Feasting 81–88): “Go out quickly into the streets and lanes of the town and bring back here the poor and crippled and blind and lame” (v. 21). It is as if the banquet host has decided to follow to the letter Jesus’ counsel to his Pharisee host regarding his own future guest lists (14:13)—even if he gets there only by way of a creative detour, driven by his outrage at having been snubbed by his originally intended meal companions. Luke’s audience will recall the explanation appended to the earlier, virtually identical list, which turned on the recognition that none of the invited guests will be able to reciprocate (v. 14), even if it is not repeated here. The host abandons the customary strategem of status-enhancing reciprocity in favor of a festive banquet that cannot possibly be reciprocated. In the process he chooses as meal companions low-status city dwellers whose fellowship can only diminish his social prestige.

upon learning from his slave that the execution of this revised plan still leaves room for additional guests (v. 22), the host proceeds to an equally radical, countercultural Plan B: “Go out into the roads and hedges [i.e., just outside the city] and insist [anankason] that people come in, so that my house may be full” (v. 23). These are likely not persons from the countryside but low-status, socially marginalized persons who reside just outside the city because of the way they earn their subsistence living—an occupation that requires proximity to the city but is “socially odious”—or beggars, disenfranchised city dwellers, and the like (Braun, Feasting 93–94). The express reason for this second set of “invitations” is simply to fill the hall. The point becomes even clearer in v. 24: no place will remain for any of the original invitees, should they change their minds and later seek admittance (cf. 13:25).

55. In Deut 20:7 marriage (of an engaged warrior) provides a legitimate excuse (among others listed in vv. 5–8) for release from combat duty; Jesus’ banquet scenario does not admit the excuse as legitimate.

The host’s directions in 14:23 are forceful, employing the imperative anankason (insist or compel; the cognate noun anankēn indicates necessity in v. 18). It is not a matter of compelling the last set of invitees to come against their will, although an unfortunate history of this text’s interpretation has exploited that reading in support of forced conversion to Christianity or pressure to recant heretical views.56 Attention to the vocabulary of invitation employed in the story, however, and recognition of the cultural scripts in play point in a different direction. The language of invitation becomes more and more forceful as the story unfolds, mirroring the increasing social gap that must be bridged (Braun, Feasting 88): call or invite (v. 16) → bring back (v. 21) → insist or compel (v. 23). These socially suspect outsiders to the city’s social system will be wary of the serious breach of status boundaries that is being contemplated (Rohrbaugh, “Pre-industrial City” 145). The slave will need to use forceful persuasion to override that understandable suspicion: this is a genuine invitation (cf. Green 562; Fitzmyer 2:1057).

elaborating the countercultural vision of 14:7–14, here vv. 15–24 subvert conventional ideas and practices relating to honor, reciprocity, and blessing. Both horizontal and vertical reversals of status and position characterize the domain over which God is sovereign, as well as the concrete social practices of communities, such as the ones Luke is addressing, that seek to embody the divine rule, following the paradigm Jesus has set. God’s reign is breaking into the world and claims priority concern, next to which ordinary engagements and preoccupations recede in importance (cf. 9:57–62; 17:26–30). employing hyperbole, Jesus will expand that point in the next unit (14:25–35). The grace note is unmistakable: the parable highlights the inclusion of persons of low status, the marginalized and outsiders. But accompanying inclusive generosity is risk for those for whom the banquet was first prepared. Many are turning away from God’s reign as manifest in Jesus’ ministry. This is another point at which the history of the text’s interpretation can be misleading. The picture of reversal and replacement painted by the parable does not have to do with Gentiles supplanting Jews in the people of God, although in the context of later Gentile Christian communities it is understandable that such an interpretive move seemed obvious.57 Within the narrative setting, the parable’s scenario of inside-out reversal and replacement warns the righteous and status-oriented (Johnson 232, “leaders”) that much is at stake in their response to Jesus’ invitation into God’s realm, an invitation that persons on and beyond the social margins have been eager to accept.

56. See, e.g., Augustine, Ep. 185, Cor. Don. 23–24; Thomas Aquinas, Summa 2.10.8; Calvin, Commentary on a Harmony 2:173; more complete survey of texts in Norwood, “Compel”; Bovon 2:513–14, 516–22.

Jesus has more to say about honor-subverting, inside-out reversals in connection with feasts that are symbolic enactments of God’s realm. But before he resumes that topic of conversation with Pharisee critics (15:1–32), he pauses to issue to the crowd a warning that reinforces his earlier call to wise discernment.

14:25–35 Jesus Warns the Crowds: Discipleship as the Way of the Cross

As if the convention-shattering teaching at the Pharisee’s dinner was not provocative enough, Jesus delivers an even more radical message to crowds that are accompanying him as he travels. In view of the severe demands of discipleship, he cautions his listeners to follow with eyes wide open to the cost.

25 Large crowds were walking along with [Jesus], and he turned and said to them, 26 “If any come to me and do not hate their own father and mother, wife and children, and brothers and sisters—indeed, even their own life—they cannot be my disciples.a 27 Any who do not carry their own cross and come after me cannot be my disciples.a

28 “For which of you, when you want to build a tower, does not sit down first and count the cost, [to determine] whether you have [sufficient resources] to complete it? 29 Otherwise, when you have laid the foundation and are then not able to finish [the building], everyone who sees [it] will begin to ridicule you: 30 ‘This man began to build yet he was not able to finish.’ 31 Or what king, when he is going out to engage another king in battle, will not sit down first and determine whether he is able with ten thousand [soldiers] to encounter the one who is coming against him with twenty thousand? 32 If not, while he is still far away, he will send a delegation to ask the terms for peace. 33 In the same way, then, each of you who does not take leave of everything you possess cannot be my disciple.

34 “Salt is therefore good, but if the salt has been rendered tasteless,b with what will it be seasoned? 35 It is useful neither for soil nor for manure; they will throw it out. Let the one who has an ear to hear listen.”

57. See, e.g., Plummer 363 (of the third invitation); Schweizer 238–39.

a. For a gender-inclusive translation, I have rendered the singular pronouns and the noun mathētēs (disciple) in the plural in vv. 26–27.

b. Or “has become insipid”; the verb mōrainein can mean “making [or being] foolish” (BDAG 663).

[25–33] Without a clear marker of the transition to a new scene, Jesus is no longer at the Pharisee’s dinner party but back on the road (v. 25), accompanied by a crowd. He picks up where he left off when addressing the crowd in 12:54–13:9, sounding the note of warning and the need for wise discernment. The focus now, however, is the need for sober realism about the cost of following him.

To be a disciple means to detach oneself from the entanglements that come with household, family, and possessions. Here Jesus picks up the thread from 9:23–25, 59–62: those who would answer the call to participate in the realm of God must turn aside from ordinary household relationships and expectations. The rhetoric is even more severe and exaggerated, however: “If any come to me and do not hate their own father and mother, wife and children, and brothers and sisters—indeed, even their own life—they cannot be my disciples. Any who do not carry their own cross and come after me cannot be my disciples” (vv. 26–27). The daily cross-bearing of 9:23 has become a onetime and hence a more literal and horrible reality. Family and household, which in Jesus’ (and Luke’s) culture constitute the primary determinant of identity and status, for that very reason present a formidable obstacle to the commitment of discipleship and must be set aside. Matthew 10:37 tempers the demand, speaking against loving parents more (hence, Jesus less) rather than calling for hating kin, but in Luke the priority of the realm of God is pictured in the most extreme terms imaginable.58The point of the hyperbole is not to require that potential followers detest family members and wish them harm, as modern usage of the term “hate” might suggest. Rather, Jesus is challenging listeners to embrace a singular commitment and allegiance to him and to the divine realm into which he is inviting all who would follow him (cf. 9:59–62). Moreover, not only loyalty to family and honoring obligations to household but also safety and life itself must be set aside if one wishes to follow Jesus. The shame and brutal suffering of crucifixion beckon disciples, too.

Jesus completes the set of unreasonable demands on would-be disciples in Luke 14:33, adding the insistence that one “leave everything.” Wealth, too, is an obstacle to single-minded commitment to God’s realm and must be relinquished (cf. 12:15, 33; 18:18–30). A primary function of households is to increase and preserve property or wealth, so in practical terms 14:33 is closely related to vv. 26–27. Before challenging potential disciples’ attachment to possessions, though, Jesus presents two parabolic illustrations that underscore the need for realistic appraisal of the cost of discipleship.

58. On the rhetorical force of such extreme demands, see Tannehill, Sword. It is crucial to acknowledge the cultural gap between Jesus’ (or Luke’s) social world and that of contemporary readers, many of whom experience household and family as fragile and vulnerable, and who know hate as a destructive reality that is counter to the human flourishing that should characterize the domain of God.

First, the scenario of an unfinished tower: to avoid the public humiliation of a construction project begun but never completed, the builder should be sure that sufficient capital is available to complete the building (vv. 28–30). Second, shifting the setting from construction to war zones, the scenario of a battle prudently avoided: a king whose army is half the size of the enemy force will be smart not to engage battle but instead sue for terms of peace (vv. 31–32). These imagined scenarios converge to make the same point, as v. 33 indicates. Crowds drawn to Jesus will do well to weigh the cost of discipleship before making that commitment.

[34–35] The unit ends with a saying about salt that (in content) is loosely connected to the preceding instruction but is logically bound to it through an opening oun (therefore). “Salt is therefore good,” but if it has lost its salty character^59 and so is useless for seasoning or preservation of food, or even for agricultural use with soil or manure, then it will be thrown out. Aptly, Jesus tacks on to the brief and obscure parabolic saying a summons to listen well: “Let the one who has an ear to hear listen” (v. 35). This repeats a call to hear that also concludes the parable of the sower, seeds, and soils (8:8). That link, along with the use of eutheton (fit, suitable) here and in 9:62, suggests an interpretive approach. One who puts hand to plow but does not look ahead is not well suited for the reign of God (9:62); one who hears the message of that reign but does not persevere in faith and faithfulness (8:4–8) is not well suited for the role of disciple. Therefore, in the same way that salt, if it does not remain salty, is set aside, the disciple must persist in the radical commitment that has been undertaken in order to participate in the present-and-future dominion of God (cf. Bovon 2:544; Fitzmyer 2:1068). In view of the severity of the challenge Jesus has just issued to potential disciples, the crowd will do well to listen carefully.

15:1–32 Lost and Found: Jesus Teaches Pharisees and Scribes about Divine Grace

On three occasions since they last found fault with his penchant for sharing meals with “tax collectors and sinners” (5:27–32), Pharisees have been meal partners of Jesus and each time have sparred with him over their differing views of sin and restoration, status and fidelity to Torah (7:36–50; 11:37–54; 14:1–24). Now Pharisees join scribes in once more registering complaint about his intimate association with such persons. He counters with a vigorous defense of his practice in the form of a parable trilogy pressing the claim that a gracious God celebrates the restoration of the lost in Jesus’ ministry.

59. Perhaps the salt that becomes unsalty is not sodium chloride (which would not make sense) but a complex mineral (e.g., from the land near the Dead Sea) that contains salt but through contact with other materials has lost its saltiness (see Culpepper 293). Luke assumes the occurrence but shows no concern about the chemistry involved.

15:1–7 A Parable about a Shepherd’s Response to the Loss of a Sheep

The theme is familiar: Jesus’ interactions with tax collectors and others who bear the social stigma of “sinners,” persons living outside the structure of faithful Torah observance, provoke the righteous to protest. In reply, he seeks to explain and defend his practice, but also to persuade righteous critics to embrace it. The vehicle of persuasion is a threefold parable set. Jesus begins with the story of a shepherd who leaves ninety-nine sheep behind while endeavoring to restore one lost sheep to the fold—an image of divine grace that persistently seeks out the lost.

1 All the tax collectors and the sinners were drawing close to [Jesus] to listen to him, 2 and both the Pharisees and the scribes began to complain, saying, “This man welcomes sinners and eats with them.”

3 So he told them this parable: 4 “Which of you,a if he has a hundred sheep and has lost one of them, will not leave the ninety-nine behind in the wilderness and go away to [keep seeking] the lost one until he finds it? 5 And when he has found find it, in joy he lays it on his shoulders, 6 and after coming home he invites his friends and relatives, saying to them, ‘Celebrateb with me, for I found my lost sheep!’ 7 Just so, I tell you, there will be joy in heaven over one sinner who repents, more than for ninetynine righteous persons who do not need to repent.”

a. Literally, “Which man [or person, anthrōpos] among you?” The pairing with a woman in vv. 8–10 suggests that the owner of the hundred sheep is a man.

b. Or “rejoice [syncharēte] with me,” here and again in v. 9.

[1–2] Jesus has concluded the preceding traveling discourse, which emphasizes the rigorous demands facing those who follow him (14:25–35), with a call to listen. Now “all the tax collectors and the sinners” approach Jesus to do just this (15:1). Although there is no indication of setting, the association of Jesus with these persons of diminished reputation suffices to provoke sharp critique from Pharisees and scribes. They supply the setting that especially disturbs them: “This man welcomes sinners and eats with them” (v. 2). Having just encountered a dinner scene that clarifies what is at stake in social prestige for persons who share meals, Luke’s audience will return with a fresh perspective to the familiar dispute between Pharisees, with their scribes, and Jesus about his mealtime association with “tax collectors and sinners.” He now assumes the role of hospitality-extending host (cf. 5:27–32; 7:29–30). Their grumbling thus resumes an old quarrel: the compound verb diegongyzon intensifies the indignant murmuring (egongyzon) of 5:30 (in 19:7 the narrator will assign diegongyzon to the crowd that observes Jesus’ fellowship with chief tax collector Zacchaeus). Jesus answers this complaint with a vigorous defense of his conduct, employing three parables that celebrate the restoration of the lost (15:3–32).

[3–7] Jesus replies to his critics with “this parable,” actually three thematically coherent parables: a shepherd’s persistent search for a lost sheep (vv. 4–7), a woman’s persistent search for a lost coin (vv. 8–10), and a father’s patient attempt to restore a lost (younger) son and a disaffected (older) son (vv. 11–32). All three parables highlight recovery of something that has been lost and a wider community’s celebration of that recovery. The third parable creates a more complex scenario, adding the protest of an apparently not-lost son, which forms the climax of the story and of the entire chapter, thus giving voice to Pharisaic critics of Jesus even as he seeks to persuade them to embrace his vision of God’s realm.60

Like the parable about a woman and her lost coin, the parable of a shepherd and his lost sheep begins with a rhetorical question that draws the listener into the story: “Which of you, if he has a hundred sheep and has lost one of them, will not . . . ?” (v. 4; cf. v. 8: “What woman with ten silver coins, if she loses one coin, does not . . . ?”). Jesus has previously employed this rhetorical technique of introducing a parabolic narrative with a question, in support of both didactic (11:5–7) and persuasive (14:5) aims. Here the rhetorical form serves the aim of persuasion: it seeks to elicit the critical listener’s identification with the dilemma of the parabolic character and assent to his chosen action—and thus to empathize with Jesus, who is explaining and defending his conduct through the shepherd character (and again through the character of the woman in 15:8–10).

The basic plot of the story sets the pattern for the rest of the chapter: loss of one sheep from a larger herd (v. 4a) → persistent search (v. 4b) → joy at finding the lost sheep (v. 5) → call to communal celebration of the recovery of the lost sheep (v. 6). Jesus then states the point of the parable: just as the community celebrates within the parable, so heaven delights in one sinner who repents, more than in ninety-nine righteous who do not have need to repent (v. 7; the line about the righteous is not repeated after the second parable [v. 10]).61 Variations on the parable appear in Matt 18:12–14 and Gos. Thom. 107; a distinctive element of Luke’s version is the detail that the man leaves ninety-nine sheep behind in the wilderness (or desert, erēmos), an image of vulnerability and exposure to danger (v. 4; cf. “hills” in Matt 18:12 niv).62

60. The parables of the lost sheep and lost coin also contain not-lost things (the 99 sheep and the 9 other coins), but these do not figure in the parabolic plot. Viewed retrospectively, vv. 3–7 and 8–10 may percolate subversively, though—esp. the former, if readers assume that the shepherd took no obvious precaution for the 99’s safety but simply abandoned them.

No mention is made of others to whose care the shepherd entrusts the ninetynine, although readers may fill this gap by assuming that the man is not acting alone with such a large herd^63 and would not be foolish enough to abandon them in the wilderness (for the view that the shepherd acts irresponsibly, see Vinson 504). Still, the gap is suggestive, inviting reflection on the risk that Jesus has taken with his moves of gracious hospitality toward sinners, in relation to those who never left the fold—witness his need to tell this parable! Jesus’ mission seeks to restore persons who are lost and calls the community—including the righteous who have no need (or none yet acknowledged) to reorder their lives—to welcome them and celebrate. Intertextual resonance with ezek 34:11–16 (cf. Isa 40:11), which employs the shepherd metaphor for God’s restoration of a lost and exiled people, reinforces the point that this activity of Jesus is furthering the gracious purposes of Israel’s God. In case the point is not yet clear or compelling, Jesus will reinforce it with another brief parable.

15:8–10 A Parable about a Woman’s Response to the Loss of a Coin The imagined setting shifts from wilderness to household, and a woman householder becomes the central actor. The plot and the point, however, replay 15:3–7.

8 “Or what woman with ten silver coins, if she loses one coin, does not get a lamp and sweep the house and carefully search until she finds it? 9 And when she has found it, she invites her friends and relatives,a saying, ‘Celebrate with me, for I found the silver coin that I’d lost!’ 10 Just so, I tell you, there is joy in the presence of God’s angels over one sinner who repents.”

61. The tag about “righteous persons who do not need to repent” (15:7) is reminiscent of 5:31 (also in a defense to Pharisees of Jesus’ choice of dinner companions), in which the image of healthy people without need for a physician’s services appears to imply that some righteous people have no need for repentance. By the end of the third parable in Luke 15, with its characterization of a once-dutiful but now dishonoring older son (vv. 25–32), and after a parable about the temple prayers of a Pharisee and a tax collector (18:9–14), Luke’s audience is likely to regard the assertion that some people do not need to repent as tongue-in-cheek irony. Indeed, it is esp. the targets of Jesus’ persuasive appeals in Luke 15 who, it turns out, have need for the conversion of imagination, perception, and practice that repentance entails. See further the comment on 18:9–14.

62. Within the narrative setting of the community discourse in Matt 18, vv. 12–14 emphasize the restoring of sheep (i.e., community members) that have strayed, while Gos. Thom. 107 rivets attention on the special qualities of the one sheep that is sought out (the largest and most beloved). The refrain of joy in heaven over the repentant sinner (Luke 15:7, 10) and the pairing of the lostsheep parable with the lost-coin parable are also distinctively Lukan.

63. Though Varro (Rust. 2.10.1–2, 11) assumes that a shepherd tends a flock of eighty or more sheep and recommends that each shepherd stay with his own herd at night.

a. The feminine article (tas) indicates that these friends and relatives are women.

[8–10] The protagonist of the second parable of Luke 15 is a woman whose only identifying marks are her dimly lit house,64 her ten silver coins (drachmas), and the circle of (female) relatives and friends whom she invites to celebrate with her the retrieving of a lost silver coin. The reader must fill in the rest of the gaps left by the parable’s narrator (Jesus): Is she a widow who lives alone? Does she also possess other coins in addition to these drachmas? If not, does she live in relative poverty? What form does the communal rejoicing take, and if it is a feast, why would this woman spend more than the value of the coin to celebrate its recovery? The drachma in question would have been a silver coin valued at approximately one-hundredth of a mina (or pound), perhaps a day’s subsistence wage. So the woman is by no means destitute, especially if she owns the house in which she resides. If, however, she possesses only these ten coins and lives alone, her economic situation is far from secure—certainly in contrast to the prosperity of a man who owns one hundred sheep.

However readers may fill such gaps,65 Luke’s emphasis lies elsewhere. The parable employs different characters, setting, and imagery, but it is a variation on the same theme sounded in vv. 3–7. It is nevertheless striking that Jesus casts himself, as it were, as a persistent woman householder so as to interpret and defend his gracious hospitality toward sinners.66 Both the imaging of Jesus’ enactment of God’s reign in a woman’s activity within the household and the implication that the divine reign comes in modest scale and ordinary human life settings recall the leaven parable in 13:20–21. Here the emphasis falls on divine grace as celebratory embrace of the lost.

The refrain “joy in the presence of God’s angels [or in heaven] over one sinner who repents” (vv. 7, 10)67 seems to cast God in passive mode, as responding to the initiative of the returning sinner, but the preceding parabolic images suggest, on the contrary, God’s actively and persistently seeking out the lost. As the move from parable (vv. 3–6 and vv. 8–9) to commentary on heaven’s reception of the penitent (vv. 7, 10) intimates, Jesus’ practice of hospitality and healing—his mission to seek out and save the lost, as he will put it in 19:10— takes the divine initiative to persons in need of restoration, and God’s gracious acceptance of restored sinners validates that mission of Jesus. Jesus persistently seeks the lost, and God celebrates the recovery of the lost and their restoration to community through Jesus’ ministry. In the third parable in the set, persistent seeking will yield to patient waiting for the return of the lost, hinting that the waiting father is an image of God directly rather than of God’s reign as enacted by Jesus. Here initiative is evidenced on both sides: on one side, the compassionate grace of God, embodied in Jesus’ practices of hospitality and healing; from the other direction, the quest of the lost for forgiveness and restoration.

64. The lamp may be necessary because there are no windows (Green 576), or the reader may imagine a nocturnal search.

65. On readers’ activity of filling in gaps in the narrative, see n. 7 in the comment on 1:24–25.

66. Jesus has also assumed the role of mother hen in 13:34. Paul makes an even more audacious rhetorical-metaphorical move in 1 Thess 2:7, picturing himself as a breast-feeding nurse.

67. The participation by angels in heaven in the fortunes of the righteous (or wicked) reflects conventional Jewish apocalyptic notions (see, e.g., 1 En. 40; 71; 104.1–6; Apoc. Zeph. 3.1–9; 6.16–17; T. Ab. 11–14; cf. Luke 12:8–9; 16:22); for full treatment of the role of angels in various historical periods and literary genres, see Newsom, “Angels (Old Testament)”; Watson, “Angels (New Testament)”; cf. Garrett, No Ordinary Angel esp. 194–208; Davidson, Angels at Qumran esp. 300–303. In Luke, the occasional appearance of angels on earth, as bearers of a divine message or

15:11–32 A Parable about a Father’s (and a Brother’s)

Response to the Loss and Restoration of a Son

The third parable defending Jesus’ acceptance of tax collectors and sinners repeats the pattern of the first two: what has been lost is recovered, and its restoration then prompts communal celebration. However, this most expansive of Jesus’ parables adds complicating plot elements—issues relating to inheritance, rivalry between brothers, and voiced protest against the restoration of the lost one—that permit Jesus’ critics to find themselves within the story and thereby be persuaded to embrace his practice of hospitality, enacting the welcoming grace of God’s dominion.

11 And [Jesus] said, “A man had two sons. 12 The younger of the two said to his father, ‘Father, give me the share of the property that is to come to me.’ So he divided his estatea between them. 13 After a few days the younger son collected everything and traveled to a distant land, and there, by living dissolutely, he scattered his property. 14 Now when he had spent everything, there was a severe famine throughout that land, and he began to experience deprivation. 15 So he went out and attached himself to one of the residents of that land, who sent him into his fields to feed pigs. 16 And he longed to fill his belly from the carob pods that the pigs were eating, yet no one would give him [any]. 17 When he came to himself, however, he said, ‘How many of my father’s hired workers have more than enough food, while I am perishing because of famine here! 18 I will get up and go to my father and say to him, “Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you. 19 I am no longer worthy to be called your son. Treat me as one of your hired workers.’” 20 So he got up and went to his father.

instruments of divine protection or rescue or judgment, underscores the eschatological import of the events in which God has a hand (see 1:11–20, 26–38; 2:9–15; Acts 5:19; 8:26; 10:3; 12:7–10, 23; 27:23–24). The joy the angels voice is a hallmark of Luke (e.g., chara, joy, in 1:14; 2:10; 8:13; 10:17; 15:7, 10; 24:41, 52; agalliasis, rejoicing, in 1:14, 44). Sabbath Shirot (4Q400–407) offers one rendition of songs (of the Sabbath sacrifice) in the angelic heavenly liturgy, in which the angels’ joy would be expressed (see Newsom, Songs; Davidson, Angels at Qumran 235–54); cf. the worship in the divine presence in 1 En. 39.

“While he was still far off, though, his father saw him, and he felt deep compassion and ran and embraced his neck and kissed him fervently.b 21 The son said to him, ‘Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you. I am no longer worthy to be called your son.’c 22 But the father said to his slaves, ‘Quickly bring out a robe—the bestd one!—and put it on him, and get a ring for his finger and sandals for his feet, 23 and bring the fatted calf, slaughter it, and [then] let’s eat and celebrate! 24 For this son of mine was dead and has come back to life; he was lost and has been found.’ So they began to celebrate.

25 “However, his older son had been in the field, and when he approached the house, he heard the sound of music and dancing. 26 He summoned one of the servants and began to inquire what was going on.e 27 And [the servant] said to him, ‘Your brother has come, and your father slaughtered the fatted calf, because he received him back safe and sound.’ 28 But he was enraged and would not go in. His father, though, came out and began to plead with him. 29 He replied to his father, ‘Look here, I have slaved for you—for how many years?—and I never failed to obey an order of yours, yet you never gave me a kid-goat so that I could celebrate with my friends. 30 But when this son of yours came—who consumed your estatea with prostitutes!—you slaughtered the fatted calf for him.’ 31 He said to him, ‘Child, always you are with me, and all my things are yours. 32 But it was necessary to celebrate and rejoice, because this brother of yours was dead and is alive,f lost and has been found.’”

a. Literally, “life” ( bion), here and again in v. 30; the son has asked for his share of the father’s ousia (property) and thereby receives a portion of his father’s life.

b. This rendering seeks to capture the intensive form of the verb katephilēsen, with the prefix kata. The phrase, lit., reads “fell upon his neck and kissed him.”

c. Many Mss, including א B D 33, add the phrase “treat me as one of your hired workers,” but this is probably a later interpolation to square the son’s delivered speech with the one he has rehearsed (v. 19).

d. Literally, “first” (prōtēn).

e. Literally, “he began to inquire [inceptive imperfect] what these things might be.”

f. Most Mss (including A D W Θ א^2 [a secondhand corrector of א]) read anezēsen (“he came back to life,” or “lived again”), but this is a secondary adjustment of the text to bring v. 32 into line with v. 24. The simple verb ezēsen (“he lived,” or “he is alive,” i.e., without the prefix), attested by ∏75 B א* (the original hand of א), is to be preferred. There is little effect on meaning.

[11–20a] This longest and most familiar of the extant parables of Jesus begins simply: “A man had two sons” (v. 11). The plot complications begin immediately, however, and the outcome of this tale of two very different sons remains in doubt to the end. The dramatic story unfolds in three acts, each featuring interactions between the father and one of his sons: (1) the inheritance demand, departure and decline of the younger son, and his decision to return home (vv. 11–20a); (2) the father’s restoration of the younger son and festive communal celebration of his return (vv. 20b–24); and (3) the older son’s enraged protest and his father’s attempt at reconciliation (vv. 25–32). Act 3 represents a substantial departure from the pattern of the two preceding parables and is pivotal to the message and impact of the parable.

The story begins with the younger son’s request to receive his share of the family property and the father’s division of the estate—that is, of his entire means of sustaining life (bion), as in v. 30 (and again with the same sense in 21:4)—between his two sons (v. 12). The request (actually, a demand: “give me,” in the imperative mood) is reminiscent of an earlier petition to Jesus that he direct a brother to divide the family inheritance (12:13). Jesus refused that request and proceeded to warn against destructive avarice (vv. 14–21); moreover, commonsense wisdom cautions against the action (see, e.g., Sir 33:20– 24). The parabolic father, however, accedes to the request, even if it in effect means that the son is treating him as if he were already dead (Vinson 509). If the inheritance division follows the pattern prescribed by the Torah, the younger son receives one-third and the older son a double share (Deut 21:17), though this detail is suppressed in the story’s narration.

In short order, the younger son gathers his property, leaves home, travels to a distant region, and expends his entire inheritance “by living dissolutely” (Luke 15:13–14a; the image of “scattering” [diaskorpizein] property will reappear in 16:1). The precise details of that profligate life are left to the audience’s imagination, although the older brother will supply his own ungracious rendition later in the parable (15:30). But even apart from the content of the younger son’s conduct, his swift demise shows why the early inheritance division was so imprudent: the preservation of the family’s land and property, such a crucial cultural value in first-century Palestinian culture, is put at risk. In every respect, the young man’s conduct has dishonored his father and family and brought disgrace to himself. The extent of his shame becomes evident when famine strikes and, lacking any resources, he secures a below-subsistence job of feeding pigs, even (presumably) as a Jew who would ordinarily have nothing to do with them (vv. 14–15). The picture can scarcely be more graphic: he is not only feeding carob pods to unclean animals but also continuing in a constant state of hunger himself, with no one to help him (v. 16).

Verse 17 forms the pivot in this first act of the drama: having hit bottom, with his belly empty and with no prospects for a better life, the younger son “came to himself.” He then launches into a soliloquy in which, inspired by the memory of the ample nourishment enjoyed by his father’s hired hands, he decides to return home and rehearses a plea to his father for mercy and a job as common laborer (vv. 17b–19). even if motivated by intense hunger pangs and desperation about future prospects, the soliloquy mounts a planned confession that shows awareness of the depth of the younger son’s sin and his shame. He will admit to his father:

I have sinned against heaven and before you. (v. 18b) I am no longer worthy to be called your son. (v. 19a) [And therefore:] Treat me as one of your hired workers. (v. 19b)

Recognizing that words of remorse will not undo actions that have caused him to forfeit his status as a son, and in desperate need of food, the young man will seek only a job in the employ of a generous man—his father—back home. “So he got up and went to his father” (v. 20a). The image of arising (getting up), with the participle anastas, already anticipates the motif of new life with which his father will interpret his return and restoration to the family (vv. 24, 32; cf. Green 582). With his resolve to arise and go to his father, he begins the movement from death to life.

[20b–24] Act 2 rivets attention on the father’s response to his son’s return. everything about the father’s reaction is extravagant, prodigal, excessive, and as the narrator informs us, flows from his compassion (esplanchnisthē; this verb indicates the motivation for response to need also in 7:13 and [in another parable] 10:33). He sees his son in the distance, and in an astonishing public gesture runs out to meet him and embraces him with an affectionate kiss (v. 20b; the wording recalls esau’s embrace of Jacob upon his estranged brother’s return [Gen 33:4]). Any hesitation and uncertainty the younger son may have felt about returning dissolves, and he proceeds to an impeccable, word-for-word delivery of the rehearsed confession (Luke 15:21). To be sure, he does not get to the petition (give me a job as a hired hand), but in view of his admission to his father that he no longer deserves the name of son (v. 21), the omission of that request registers not as hesitation on his part but as the result of his father’s preemptive move to contravene the son’s disavowal of any continued place in the family. Before the younger son can even ask for anything from his father, grace intervenes; as in v. 12, the son addresses his father with the vocative pater, but this time no imperative of request or demand follows. Instead the father issues a series of commands to the household slaves, directives unmistakably signaling that the one who by his own admission is not “worthy to be called son” will nonetheless be reinstated in that role and reinvested with that honor. The impoverished pig-feeder, who no doubt arrived in tattered clothing and bare feet, is to be fitted with the “best robe,” a ring, and sandals (v. 22), and the fatted calf is to be slaughtered for a grand feast (v. 23). It is a matter, the father explains, of lost and found, to be sure, but even more, of death and life (v.24a). The son who was dead to his father and his family has, as it were, sprung back to life. “So they began to celebrate” the new life this restored son can now commence (v. 24b).

There is just one thing missing from this joyful picture, and it is not a trivial matter. The parable began, innocently enough, with the line “A man had two sons.” What of the older son?

[25–32] In act 3 the older son reacts to the provocation of his father’s joyful embrace of his returned brother—except that he no longer regards him as brother (“this son of yours”)—and the father pleads for familial reconciliation. The Jewish Scriptures offer ample precedent for intense sibling rivalry between brothers (beginning with Cain and Abel in Gen 4). In particular, the status inversion of older and younger brothers, with the younger brother stealing privilege and advantage that properly belong to the older, is a powerful biblical theme (e.g., Jacob and esau in Gen 25:19–34; 27:1–45; Joseph and his brothers in Gen 37; ephraim and Manasseh in Gen 48:13–20; David and his brothers in 1 Sam 16:1–13). So the older son’s reaction to this surprising turn of events has rich scriptural resonance and is therefore unsurprising, even apart from the correlation between his indignant protest and that of the wider narrative’s Pharisees and scribes, which it illumines.

While the feast is already underway—slaughtered calf, music, dancing, the works—the older son trudges back to the house from the field, where he has been hard at work, as always (Luke 15:25; we soon learn of his slave-labor sensibilities from his own mouth [v. 29]). Curious about the commotion, he asks a household servant to explain (v. 26), and the servant, employing emphatic kinship language, reports, “Your brother has come,” and “your father” has slaughtered the fatted calf to celebrate his safe return (v.27). kinship language remains prominent through the rest of the scene, but in a manner that underscores the family rupture that has occurred; the older son calls his brother “this son of yours,” evoking his father’s conciliatory “this brother of yours” in reply (vv. 30, 32). After the enraged older son refuses to join the party (contrast his anger [ōrgisthē] to the compassionate response [esplanchnisthē] of his father), the father comes out to plead with him (v. 28), just as he has earlier run out to welcome his returning son. The older son has dishonored his father by petulantly avoiding the feast, a gesture that places him on a par with his dishonor-dispensing brother. Now he neglects even the basic courtesy the younger son has unfailingly shown in addressing his father (pater, in vv. 12, 21): “Look here,” the older son begins abruptly, and to justify his protest, he launches into a recital of family history (v. 29) and a litany of the younger son’s misdeeds (v. 30).

By the older son’s account of family life, he has been a dutiful and reliable son, in contrast to the hedonistic younger son whose prostitute-exploiting profligacy has consumed his father’s bion, resources needed to sustain his life. (The contrast between hyperobedience and moral failure anticipates the contrast later drawn between a parabolic Pharisee and a sinful tax collector [18:9–14].) The words he chooses to describe his performance of his filial role are revealing: “I have slaved [douleuō, cognate to the noun doulos, slave] for you,” and “I never failed to obey an order [or command, entolēn] of yours” (15:29). This depiction of sonship mirrors the view of a father as authoritarian and controlling, common enough in Jesus’ culture but in no way fitting for this father, at least as he has been portrayed in the parable.68 The role inversion is striking: the son who has forfeited a son’s status and was willing to become a hired hand in order to survive is nevertheless confirmed as beloved son, while the son who has remained by his father’s side has converted his status as son into a slave’s obedient and, it turns out, grudgingly resentful service.

However much his vitriolic rebuke of the younger son, as well as his bleak account of his own existence, exaggerates, the older son appears to have a legitimate complaint. As the father observes, all the family’s property now belongs to his older son (v. 31), though the father would retain right to use it. With the younger son’s return, therefore, his older brother’s property will be diminished (i.e., further scattered or consumed [vv. 13, 30]). Self-interest and the integrity of the family inheritance, not to mention the favoritism apparently being shown the younger child, provoke the older son’s protest. Yet the story does not end with this understandable expression of resentment; the father responds, in character, not with harsh rebuke but with a reaffirmation of his intimate bond with his elder son: “Child [teknon, expressive here of tenderness; the first time the parable has used this word rather than huios, son], always you are with me” (v. 31). More than property is at stake (“All my things are yours”). The father is intent on restoring the family, and that requires reconciliation with both sons: the one in his remorse and the other in his resentful rage. And it requires their reconciliation with each other; so the father tries to give his older son a brother again (cf. Hultgren, Parables 82): “This brother of yours”69 has been found and is alive again. That is why celebration is “necessary” (v. 32).

68. B. Scott offers provocative ruminations on the parable’s portrayal of the father as nurturing rather than conventionally paternal (Hear 117, 121–22). On the power of the father as head of household, esp. in relation to his sons, see, e.g., Aristotle, Pol. 1.2.12; 1.5.1–2; Dionysius, Ant. rom. 2.26.4–27.2 (“virtually full power” over his son; Cary, LCL); Josephus, Ag. Ap. 2.25.

69. This formulation by the father lovingly mirrors—and transforms—the heartless tag “this son of yours” voiced by the older son (v. 30).

With that affirmation of new life and celebration, the story ends. Jesus’ auditors, and Luke’s readers, are left to ponder the older son’s reaction to his father’s plea. Because the older son mirrors the protest raised by the righteous against Jesus’ scandalous embrace of “tax collectors and sinners”—too-casual acceptance of persons who do not take the Torah seriously amounts to a community-threatening, cheap grace—Jesus has given his detractors a voice in the story.70 Thus the father’s concluding appeal addresses primarily Pharisees. Will they join the party? The pervasive imagery of food and feasting in the parable—carob pods and an empty stomach (vv. 16–17), fatted calf (vv. 23, 27, 30), the kid-goat never offered (v. 29), property “consumed” (v. 30)—is evocative of Jesus’ own practice of hospitality; it brings the narrative back full circle to the criticism of Jesus’ meal fellowship with tax collectors and sinners, to which the whole chapter replies.

The last word belongs to the father’s affirmation of renewed life and the necessity of celebration, and therefore the open-endedness of the parable is deceptive. There is really only one possible response: come in and celebrate! (cf. B. Scott, Hear 103). Pharisee critic and Lukan reader alike are left with that claim, that unforgettable picture of divine grace. With this parable, especially its plot-complicating third act and concluding entreaty, Jesus images his own persistent quest to reach the righteous as well. Although he focuses his ministry on the lost, those who need help and healing, not on the well and righteous (cf. 5:31–32), he does not write off the Pharisees but continues trying to reach them too, to persuade them. In his ministry, Jesus shares with his Torah-observant critics a commitment to grace embodied in a reordered life (5:32; 15:7, 10; imaged also in the younger son’s return [15:17–20]), but—and here is the rub—the reordered life (repentance) that Pharisees also applaud may follow the offer of gracious acceptance rather than precede it. The parables of Luke 15 are a vigorous attempt at persuasion (deliberative rhetoric); the third parable leaves the outcome in the hands of the Pharisees: will they be able to move beyond offense at Jesus’ gracious hospitality toward the lost and join the party, symbol of the realm of God?

The phrase “have no need of repentance,” which follows the parable of the lost sheep (v. 7), has already established rapport with righteous Pharisees in Jesus’ audience (cf. 5:31–32), a rapport that the third parable in the trilogy strengthens with the inclusion of the character and voiced complaint of the older brother. But the implication seems unavoidable that there is only one appropriate response to the father’s entreaty; the decision whether to join the banquet is an indicator, finally, whether the righteous are truly dikaios (righteous, just). Later Jesus will draw a parabolic sketch of a Pharisee who appears to be impeccably righteous yet whose prayer does not find favor with God, precisely because the Pharisee assumes his moral superiority to a sinful tax collector, who does receive vindication (18:9–14). These observations call into question the seeming concession that there are some righteous who need no healing or repentance, a point anticipated by 7:30, the Pharisees’ rejection of the purpose of God in their refusal of John’s repentance-baptism (Heil, Meal Scenes 118). For the time being, Luke suspends reporting any response of Pharisees who are listening; one more story about scattering of a householder’s property will give them even more provocation to which to react.

70. For B. Scott, the elder brother, at least in Luke’s rendition of the parable, is a “surrogate Pharisee” (Hear 105).

16:1–31 Jesus Teaches Disciples and Pharisees about Wealth and Fidelity to the Torah

Luke 16 begins and ends with parables that center on wise, faithful use of material resources, framing a unit that asserts the continuing claim of the Torah. The first parable (vv. 1–8a) casts the spotlight on a rogue business manager who wins surprising commendation from the very boss whose property he has been systematically diminishing (picking up the image of scattering possessions from 15:13), a puzzling scenario that requires further commentary to reset the moral compass for readers (16:8b–13). The second parable (vv. 19–31) depicts a postmortem turning of the tables in which a rich man and a poor man trade places, dramatically enacting the radical, upside-down status inversion of which both Mary and Jesus have spoken (1:51–53; 6:20–26). The failure of the rich man (and also his brothers) has stemmed from a costly misreading of law and prophets, an incapacity to hear their claim; this point is anticipated by the otherwise loosely related sayings of 16:14–18.

16:1–13 A Parable about a Cunning Manager

Though without explicit indication of a scene change, Jesus now addresses the disciples. He delivers an enigmatic parable featuring a resourceful business manager who, faced with imminent firing, devises a clever strategy to secure his future (vv. 1–8a). The parable’s puzzling commendation of a seemingly dishonest manager inspires a set of brief sayings that guide and tame its interpretation, clarifying that faithful stewardship of resources entrusted to one’s care is imperative (vv. 8b–13).

1 [Jesus] was saying to the disciples, “There was a wealthy man who had a business manager,a and accusations were brought to him that this man was scattering his [the rich man’s] property. 2 When he had summoned him, he said to him, ‘What is this I hear about you? Hand over the account of your management, for you can’t serve as [my] business manager any longer.’ 3 The business manager said to himself, ‘What will I do? For my bossb is taking the manager’s job away from me. I am not strong [enough] to dig. I am ashamed to beg. 4 I know what I’ll do, so that when I am removed from the manager’s job, othersc may receive me into their households.’ 5 So when he had summoned each one of his boss’sb debtors, he began to say to the first, ‘How much do you owe my boss?’b 6 [The debtor] said, ‘A hundred containers of olive oil.’ And he said to him, ‘Take your bill and sit down quickly and write: Fifty.’ 7 Then he said to another, ‘And how much do you owe?’ He said, ‘A hundred bushels of grain.’ He saysd to him, ‘Take your bill and write: eighty.’ 8 The bossb commended the unrighteous business manager,e because he had acted shrewdly.

“For the childrenf of this age are shrewder than the childrenf of light in relation to their own generation. 9 And I tell you, make friends for yourselves by means of unrighteous wealth,g so that when it fails, othersc may receive you into eternal tents. 10 One who is trustworthy in very little is trustworthy also in much, and one who is unrighteous in very little is unrighteous also in much. 11 Therefore, if you are not trustworthy in the domain of unrighteous wealth, who will entrust the true [wealth] to you? 12 Moreover, if you are not trustworthy in what belongs to another, who will give you what is your own? 13 No household servant can serve two masters, for he will either hate one and love the other or be devoted to one and despise the other. You can’t serve God and wealth.”

a. Or “steward” ( oikonomos): a servant, who later calls the rich man his “master” (see note b below) and bears the responsibility to manage the latter’s property and business transactions (including loans). The word oikonomia, translated “management” or “manager’s job” in vv. 2, 3, 4, is traditionally rendered “stewardship” (kJv).

b. Literally, “master,” kyrios (also in vv. 5, 8).

c. Or “they”; the subject is implied in the verb dexōntai (“they may receive”). d. A rare occurrence of the historical present in Luke, lending immediacy to the narration and reinforcing the sense of urgency in the scene.

e. Or “steward of unrighteousness [injustice]”; I construe the genitive phrase tēs adikias (“of unrighteousness”) as a descriptive genitive (functioning as an adjective, “unrighteous”) that indicates the character of the manager.

f. Literally, “sons of this age” and “sons of light,” human beings who take their identity and character from the present evil age or the divine realm of light.

g. The same phrase and same idiom as in v. 8; tēs adikias is a descriptive genitive modifying “wealth,” “unrighteous mammon [wealth].” Mammon, a vivid image that reappears in vv. 11, 13, is a loanword from either Hebrew (māmôn) or Aramaic (māmônā’) and signifies the domain of property or wealth as a sphere in which it is wrong (and ultimately unprofitable) to place trust (see Fitzmyer 2:1109–10).

[1–8a] Jesus has directed the parable trilogy of chapter 15 to his critics among the Pharisees and legal experts. Now he speaks to the disciples, although it soon becomes clear that Pharisees have not vanished from the scene and are also listening (16:14). In diverse ways, the parables in 15:11–16:31 display a concern with misguided use of property or wealth, and they picture divergent outcomes, ranging from extravagant mercy (the younger son of 15:11–32) to harsh, unrelenting judgment (the rich man of 16:19–31).

This parable is provocative and its point elusive, as shown by the appended sayings (vv. 8b–13), which seek both to interpret it and to constrain its interpretation. The extent of the parable has been variously assessed, with its conclusion set at v. 7, v. 8a, v. 8b, or v. 9.71 Verse 9 provides a formal marker of Jesus’ comment on the parable (“And I tell you”), but his interpretive reflection begins in v. 8b, which employs an idiom that ill suits the rich man/boss (master) character in the parable (“children of this age” and “children of light”), although these phrases are unusual on the lips of the Lukan Jesus as well. For purposes of interpreting Luke’s rendition of the parable (as opposed to reconstructing an earlier form and message), determination of the parable’s ending recedes in importance. Jesus’ voice continues throughout, whether as narrator of the parable (through v. 8a) or as commentator who clarifies its point and implications (vv. 8b–13).

In several respects the manager in this parable resembles the younger son in the preceding parable; each scatters property (15:13; 16:1), prompting criticism (15:30; 16:1); through interior monologue, each contemplates a course of action (15:17–19; 16:3–4) that he proceeds to execute, with positive results; and each relies on a merciful response by the character whose property he has diminished. (The boss’s restrained response, similarly, mirrors the father’s in the preceding parable.) The manager’s dissipation of the rich man’s property, however, at least in the adjustment of loan contracts, departs from the younger son’s dissipation of his father’s estate: in the manager’s case, the loss of wealth creates economic benefit for others and at the same time heightens the rich man’s social prestige; but the younger son’s actions have diminished his father’s social prestige.

A set of structural parallels with the parable of the rich fool in 12:16–20 is also suggestive:

71. For 16:7, see Jeremias, Rediscovering 34–36; Crossan, “Servant Parables” 33; Wolter 547– 48. For v. 8a (most often favored in recent scholarship), see Via, Parables 156; Loader, “Rogue” 522, 527–28; Fitzmyer 2:1105–7; Parrott, “Dishonest Steward” 513–14 (though reading v. 8a as a question). For v. 8b, see Marshall 619–20; Bailey, Poet 107–9; Paliard, Lire l’Écriture 27. For v. 9, see Williams, “Is Almsgiving?” 296; Ireland, Stewardship 90–96 (though his discussion conflates analysis of the parable’s extent and a claim that v. 9 was Jesus’ “original application of the parable” [see 92, 95–96]).

Luke 12:16–20

1. Rich man alone is depicted.

2. Problem: abundant harvest exceeds storage capacity.

3. Internal monologue: ti poiēsō, hoti, . . . (“What will I do? For . . . ?”)

4. Resolution, strategy: touto poiēsō (“This is what I’ll do”).

5. evaluation of the strategy by God: aphrōn (“Fool . . .”).

Luke 16:1–8

1. Rich man has a manager.

2. Problem: accusation of mismanagement and demand to turn in the account books.

3. Internal monologue: ti poiēsō, hoti, . . . (“What will I do? For . . . ?”)

4. Resolution, strategy: egnōn ti poiēsō (“I know what I’ll do”).

5. evaluation of the strategy by the manager’s “lord”: commended him, because phronimōs epoiēsen (“he had acted shrewdly”).

While the structures are parallel, both the strategies adopted by the parabolic protagonists and the outcomes to which they come are polar opposite. Whereas the rich farmer planned to secure only his own future, the manager of a rich man made friends by depleting his own (or his boss’s) resources, and thereby secured his future. Unlike the rich farmer, he has “made friends” for himself through his use of material resources, perhaps not the enduring treasure and purses that 12:33–34 pictured, but pointing in that direction.

A host of difficult interpretive issues bear on the reading of this text, and navigating them while keeping clear focus and seeking a coherent reading is a daunting challenge. First, the character of the debts is ambiguous; are these rents owed by tenants to a wealthy, absentee landlord? The magnitude of the debts suggests, instead, that they are merchant debts stemming from large-scale business transactions (cf. the rebate Pliny offers in relation to his grape harvest, in Ep. 8.2.1–8). In vv. 6–7 the reductions of 50 percent of the olive oil and 20 percent of the wheat would leave in place debts that are still sizable, perhaps as much as 2,000 liters of olive oil and 850 bushels of grain.72 Certainly the manager stands to gain much less from grateful reciprocal exchange if the debtors to whom he has become (temporary) benefactor are tenant farmers who need debt relief.73

The meaning of the debt reductions, too, has received divergent explanations. Some have argued that the manager reduces the debts by the amount of the loans that would have represented loan principal inflated to include unlawful interest. Others have contended that the manager removes his markup, his customary commission.74 Yet the manager asks each debtor, “How much do you owe my boss [master]?” Even if Luke’s readers are assumed to be able to fill the gaps in the narrated economic transactions in this manner (i.e., inclusion in the loans of interest or commission), neither of these explanations of the debt reductions is convincing. The “unrighteous manager” would thereby be converted into a scrupulously honest, law-observant figure, and the parable would lose its shock effect (such as elicited the responding sayings in vv. 8b–13). Moreover, this interpretation requires that the “unrighteous” tag be limited to the manager’s job performance before his dismissal, yet it is applied immediately after he executes his survival strategy (v. 8). The most convincing explanation, therefore, is that the debt adjustments represent profit reduction that costs the rich man (see Kloppenborg, “Dishonoured Master” 479–86). The result is comic, indeed bizarre: the manager wins the boss’s praise, and ensures his own survival, by doing the very thing that got him fired—dispersing the rich man’s property (v. 1; see Crossan, “Servant Parables” 33).

72. Taking the liquid measure batos (v. 6) as equivalent to approximately 40 liters, following Josephus, Ant. 8.57, and the dry measure koros (v. 7) as equivalent to 15 bushels, following Josephus Ant. 15.9.2; on the scale of the debts and the reductions, see Fitzmyer 2:1100–1101; Jeremias, Rediscovering 143–44; Kloppenborg, “Dishonoured Master” 482; Hultgren, Parables 150–51.

73. Of the kind described, e.g., in Pliny, Ep. 3.19.6; 9.37.1–5; 10.8.5; cf. POxy 2351.25–38.

Diverse appraisals of the character of the business manager follow the interpretation of his strategy of debt reduction. The range of character construals is dizzying. The manager has aided “oppressed farmers,” though out of selfinterest (Gächter, “Dishonest Steward” 131), or wisely corrected loan terms that had not given due regard for the capacity of the debtors to repay (Firth, “Unrighteous Steward” 94). Or by contrast, he has embezzled, then falsified the loan documents (Jeremias, Rediscovering 143); or he has played the successful rogue in a picaresque comedy, taking Jesus’ auditors on a “moral holiday” (Via, Parables 159–61). Or he is a “smart businessman” untroubled by “ethical scruples” (Schweizer 254), or a clever (not unjust) manager who conceives a “smart ‘bailout’” plan (P. Perkins, Parables 167–68). Or he is a rascal and a swindler who moves from incompetence at the outset to flagrant dishonesty at the end (Paliard, Lire l’Écriture 24–26). Or somewhat less harshly, his character exhibits “laziness organizing itself under crisis” (Crossan, “Servant Parables” 32).

The variety of proposals indicates the magnitude of the gaps the reader must fill in the narrative, largely owing to the need to compose cultural scripts that are left implicit, and therefore shows the ambiguity of characterization in the parable, including that of the rich man, who commends his fired manager. However, the framing of the entire parable with pejorative description—the accusation that the manager has dispersed his boss’s possessions (v. 1)75 and the rich man’s labeling of the protagonist as unrighteous even while commending him for a shrewd strategy (v. 8)—points the reader toward an evaluation of the manager that blends the qualities of shrewdness and dishonesty. The fact that Luke (perhaps also the tradition he taps) appends sayings that distinguish children of this age from children of light (v. 8b) and unrighteous mammon from eternal homes (v. 9), immediately contrasting trustworthy and righteous handling of another’s things (vv. 10–12), demonstrates that the parable’s earliest readers regarded the manager and his actions as unrighteous (i.e., dishonest). He is praiseworthy, then, at least in the estimation of the rich boss, for his cunning and not for his virtue. He is also self-aware and knows his limitations (v.3). He concocts his debt-reduction scheme in order to avoid the equally unattractive options of physical labor (digging—he lacks the requisite strength) and begging (a precipitous decline in social prestige, one that a rich man’s business manager cannot abide). And he acts swiftly and decisively (“Sit down quickly,” v. 6), as he must if he is to implement his scheme before handing over his account records.

74. Removal of unlawful interest: Derrett, Law 48–77; Firth, “Unrighteous Steward.” Removal of the manager’s markup or commission: Gibson, “Unjust Steward” 334; Gächter, “Dishonest Steward”; Fitzmyer 2:1097–98. P. Perkins sees both interest and commission included in the loan reduction (Parables 167–68). For a concise critique of these economic explanations of the parable, see Landry and May, “Honor Restored” 289–90.

The rich man turns out to be a more complex and ambiguous character than readers might have expected, given the negative portrayal of rich men and wealth earlier in Luke’s Gospel (1:53; 6:24; 8:14; 12:13–21; cf. 12:33–34; 14:33). The magnitude of the debts—and the two quantified in 16:6–7 are only representative of more extensive business dealings overseen by the manager— leaves no doubt that this is a very wealthy man. His initial action meets expectation: he dismisses the manager without hesitation upon hearing the accusations and demands that the account books be surrendered (16:2). When he reappears, however, his restraint in response to the fired manager’s debt-reduction scheme, framed by the narrator in indirect discourse as praise of the man’s shrewdness (v. 8a), is unexpected.76

This surprising twist in the story is an interpretive crux. Again, readers can only build coherence by filling gaps in the assumed cultural script. Taking account of the high value placed on social prestige, public honor, as well as the assumptions of an economy with limited goods to go around (see Moxnes, Economy 76–79), the most probable explanation is that the manager, by reducing the loan obligations of the debtors, has not only created reciprocal obligation that will benefit himself but also enhanced the rich boss’s honor.77 The manager has craftily fashioned a scenario beneficial to all parties: he now has a host of debtors (perhaps merchants) who “owe” him, ensuring his future survival; the debtors have reduced loans to repay; and the master enjoys a new reputation for generosity and kindness—such honor surpassing wealth in importance in his social world. At least, that is the plan. Readers equally suspicious of the desperate schemes concocted by embezzling scoundrels and of the moral character of wealthy landowners may wonder, instead, if the savvy manager has not simply succeeded in duping his former boss, and now the whole village knows it!

75. B. Scott argues that the verb used in 16:1, dieblēthē (“accusations were brought”), which is related to the noun diabolos (devil), signals that the accusations spring from hostile motives (Hear 261). However, the manager’s failure to defend himself against the accusation, together with the label “unrighteous,” suggests that there is basis for the charge (so Marshall 617; Fitzmyer 2:1097).

76. Bailey holds that the manager has “risked everything” on the mercy of the master, whose generous response confirms the trust as well placed (Poet 98). By contrast, Green offers a consistently negative reading of rich man’s character from beginning to end (591–92 n. 272). Do such radically divergent readings hint that the ambiguity in the rich boss’s characterization is part of the very fabric of the story and cannot be resolved?

Either way, the fired manager’s clever scheme has cost the rich owner (diminished his property still further), but the cost in lost social capital would be even greater if he were now to cancel the debt reductions as unauthorized (see Bailey, Poet 101–2; Hultgren, Parables 151–52). Hence the master is left only with words of commendation for his former business manager.

With these interpretive decisions in place, though acknowledging that ambiguity is still in play, what reading of the parable results? Because the concern in this commentary is not to (re)construct the original message of the parable in the setting of Jesus’ historical ministry but instead to present a focused interpretation of the parable as Luke has rendered it within the narrative, it is necessary to continue reading (listening) in the company of the disciples to whom Jesus is addressing the story. Here the seamless transition from the parable to Jesus’ comment upon it (beginning with v. 8b) cues readers not to foreclose their response to the parable just yet. The cultural re-scripting with which readers (myself included) have been laboring to fill the story’s gaps recedes in interpretive usefulness as Luke’s Jesus begins to guide their sense-making with his own explicit comment on the puzzling parabolic plot.

[8b–13] Verses 8b–13 guide the reader’s response to the parable. Several details signal that the dismissed-but-resilient manager—or the rich boss, for that matter—does not exemplify the values, commitments, and practices of God’s reign, as expressed in Jesus’ ministry. He is branded as unrighteous (v. 8a),78 and his cunning typifies that of “this age” (v. 8b).79 Despite its friend-making capacity, wealth does not last, in contrast to eternal homes (v. 9). Moreover, trustworthy handling of materials—another’s or one’s own—is distinguished from unjust activity (vv. 10–12); the domain of wealth (mammon) is characterized by injustice or unrighteousness, as distinct from authentic good (alēthinon, v. 11). And to clinch the matter, service rendered to God and that to mammon are mutually exclusive commitments (v. 13).

77. Landry and May argue that the self-interest of master and steward coincide: the desperate scheme of the manager restores the honor of the master, who recognizes how well the steward’s actions reflect on him and so praises him (“Honor Restored” 304–5). Kloppenborg also places the master’s honor at the center of the parable, but in a quite different way (“Dishonoured Master”); after the fashion of the dinner host of 14:16–24 and the father of 15:11–32, the master responds to the besmirching of his honor caused by the steward’s actions not through severe reprisal against the fired steward, so as to restore his own honor, but in an unexpected act of mercy that subverts the honor code of his social world.

78. The same genitive of quality, tēs adikias (translated in 16:8a with the adjective “unrighteous”), reappears in the phrase “unrighteous wealth” (lit., “mammon of unrighteousness”) in v. 9 (the equivalent of the phrasing that employs the adjective adikos in v. 10).

The sayings of vv. 8b–13 develop the message and implications of the preceding parable in five interlocking steps, which culminate in the decisive eitheror of v. 13. First, the protagonist of the parable becomes a poster child for “the children of this age,” who are “shrewder than the children of light in relation to their own generation [or their own kind, genean]” (v. 8b), an intriguing, asymmetrical contrast between a spatial-temporal metaphor (age) and a perceptual metaphor (light, with a figurative moral sense, as in 11:34–36).80 Given the moral ambiguities and challenges of this world, intelligence is demanded of the people of God’s realm. What would “street smarts” such as that displayed by the business manager look like, when translated into the values of God’s reign? Luke’s audience (along with Jesus’ disciple auditors in the story) leans forward to listen closely for an answer.

Second , picking up the image of reciprocity and friend-making (others “may receive me into their households,” v. 4), Jesus urges his audience of disciples, “Make friends for yourselves by means of unrighteous wealth, so that when it fails, others may receive you into eternal tents” (v. 9). Wealth is potentially corrupting and corrosive, yet it can be a means to the accomplishment of good. Although money and material possessions do not endure, appropriate use of such resources can win one lasting friends (cf. the inexhaustible treasure and ageless purses of 12:33). The imperative of v. 9 picks up several threads from the parable: (1) one should make friends (2) who help secure one’s future, (3) through use of material resources (4) in ways that are entangled with the “unrighteousness”—the moral ambiguity, one might say—of money and property.

Verse 9 confirms that the reciprocal exchange expected by the manager through his debt-reduction scheme takes the form of hospitality, a welcome into the households of the debtors who benefit from his benefaction (dexōntai [they may receive], echoing v. 4). Luke’s readers will not take that self-interested reciprocal exchange at face value, however, because Jesus has already been portrayed as subverting such norms and practices of reciprocity (see the comments on 6:27–38 and 14:12–14; cf. 15:11–32). The distinction that 16:9 draws between ephemeral “unrighteous wealth” that will be exhausted and eternal homes (aiōnious [eternal], in contrast to aiōnos [this age] of v. 8b) cues the reader to press beyond the depictions of patronage, benefaction, reciprocity, and self-interest within the parable. But how may one use unrighteous money and property to make friends that secure eternal homes? Precisely by reducing the debt burden of—sharing economic resources with—those who cannot reciprocate. Assured of a place in the divine realm, they will become lasting friends to those who share resources generously with them.

79. It is conceivable that the “children of this age” umbrella is broad enough to cover the rich boss as well: in that case the reader may redraw that parabolic character as a mammon-corrupted rich man who routinely engages in exploitative business practices, thus recognizes a corrupt yet brilliant business scheme when he sees one, and is moved to grudging admiration (cf. Green 593).

80. The duality of “children [sons] of light” and “children of darkness” (or comparable expressions) is prominent in the Dead Sea Scrolls (for “sons of light,” see, e.g., 1QM 1.3, 9, 11, 13; 1QS 1.9; 2.16; 3.13–14, 24–25) and in a number of Jewish apocalyptic texts (e.g., 1 En. 108.11; cf. John 12:36; 1 Thess 5:4–5; eph 5:8–14).

Third , Jesus contrasts trustworthy and unrighteous handling of wealth, whether another’s (vv. 10–11) or one’s own (v. 12). Verse 10 is framed as a lesser-to-greater argument, shifting from the conceptual/metaphorical domains of v. 8b (this age vs. light) and v. 9 (unrighteous wealth vs. enduring homes) to those of trust and uprightness, but developing the same contrast: “One who is trustworthy in very little is trustworthy also in much, and one who is unrighteous in very little is unrighteous also in much.” Now the polarity has two aspects: (1) moral quality, opposing faithful (pistos) and unrighteous (or unjust, adikos) activity; and (2) scale, contrasting little (analogous to this age and unrighteous wealth in the preceding lines) and much (analogous to light and enduring homes). Verse 11 reinserts explicit language of wealth, but only so as to point beyond it: “Therefore, if you are not trustworthy in the domain of unrighteous wealth, who will entrust the true [wealth] to you?” The image of unrighteous wealth echoes v. 9, and Jesus also builds upon the lesser-to-greater argument of v. 10, now distinguishing between unrighteous and true wealth (cf. 12:33–34 on genuine and enduring treasure). These sayings press well beyond the paradigm of the parabolic manager as model of stewardship of another’s resources; he came up with a clever scheme to ensure his survival, but it is far better to be trustworthy, to be faithful.

Fourth , with another conditional sentence, Jesus stays with the image of trustworthiness and, playing off the steward role of the parable, contemplates promotion to owner status: “Moreover, if you are not trustworthy in what belongs to another, who will give you what is your own?” (v. 12). What does trustworthy handling of possessions look like, in Luke’s narrative? Despite crisis-mode action driven by self-concern, the parabolic manager gives a (partial) clue, though he presents a flawed model: by sharing resources with others to lessen their burdens, one should make friends—but not (here, unlike the manager’s example) with a view to receiving anything in return. Moreover, by now the disciples should be aware that their vocation requires divesting of their money and property, for the sake of others; they have been pried loose from what is “[their] own” (e.g., 12:33; 14:33; cf. 18:28).

Fifth , Jesus finally reaches the goal of the passage, cast as a wisdom saying about clashing loyalties: “No household servant can serve two masters, for he will either hate one and love the other or be devoted to one and despise the other. You can’t serve God and wealth” (v. 13). Jesus uses hyperbole in framing the potential conflict in loyalties to two lords: there is no middle ground between love and hate, which is to say, between devoted service and contempt. In case there is lingering confusion from the scenario of a business manager’s seeking personal benefit through the domain of (unrighteous) wealth and property, Jesus clinches the point: God and wealth represent competing and incompatible claims and allegiances. Service (douleuein, the same verb used by the older son in 15:29) of God cannot coincide with service of, or slavery to, wealth. One who places trust in mammon has badly misdirected that trust.81 Nevertheless, with the cunning manager as improbable mentor, one can use wealth toward constructive ends that serve God, by releasing what one has and thereby making friends—not subordinate clients but friends—for eternity.

Jesus’ bold statement that wealth and the divine are incompatible domains, though addressed to disciples, elicits a strong response from Pharisees who are overhearing the instruction (v. 14). Answering their ridicule, Jesus will offer another parable to display what failure to practice this way of life looks like, and to indicate what is at stake (vv. 19–31). A rich man chooses not to make a friend of the beggar who lies day after day at his gate; therefore, unable to escape the lure of wealth, he lives in a manner oblivious to the claim of Torah and prophets, thus despising faithful service to God.

16:14–31 An Appeal for Fidelity to the Torah

through Generous Sharing of Resources

Pharisees overhearing Jesus’ teaching about wealth, culminating in his assertion of the incompatibility of commitment to both wealth and God as lords (16:1–13), respond with ridicule (v. 14), prompting Jesus to engage his detractors, once again, in hermeneutical debate. Through a set of loosely connected sayings, he insists on fidelity to Torah and prophets in the present-and-coming era of God’s reign (vv. 15–18), then illustrates that fidelity to the moral vision of Scripture and resumes consideration of the dangers and possibilities of wealth in a parable that features radical status reversal of rich and poor (vv. 19–31).

14 Now the Pharisees, being lovers of money, were listening to all these things, and they were ridiculing [Jesus]. 15 He said to them, “You are people who justify yourselvesa before human beings, but God knows your hearts. For what is exalted among human beings is an abomination before God.

81. The irony would be esp. thick if the word “mammon” is related to the Hebrew verb ’ mn, “be firm”—and if Luke is aware of that etymology and therefore points to material resources as that in which one places trust (see Fitzmyer 2:1109).

16 “The law and the prophets were until John; from that time onward, the realm of God is being proclaimed [as good news], and everyone is being strongly urged [to enter] it.b 17 It is easier for heaven and earth to pass away than for one letter stroke of the law to fall. 18 everyone who divorces his wife and marries another commits adultery, and one who marries a woman who has been divorced from her husband commits adultery.

19 “There was a wealthy man, and he dressed himself in purple and fine linen as he feasted extravagantly every day. 20 But a poor manc named Lazarus was leftd at his gate, covered with sores 21 and longing to fill his belly from [the food] that fell from the wealthy man’s table. Moreover,e dogs would come and lick his sores. 22 Now it happened that the poor man died, and he was carried by the angels to the bosom of Abraham. The rich man died too, and he was buried. 23 In Hades, while he was in torment, he lifted his eyes and sawf Abraham from a great distance—and Lazarus in his bosom. 24 So he called out, ‘Father Abraham, show mercy to me and send Lazarus to dip the tip of his finger in water and cool off my tongue. For I am in agony in this flame.’ 25 Abraham, though, said, ‘Child, recall that you received your good things during your lifetime, and Lazarus likewise [received] bad things, but now he is being comforted here while you are in agony. 26 Moreover,g an enormous chasm has been fixed between us and you,h so that those who might want to cross over from here to you cannot [do so], nor can [anyone] pass over from there to us.’

27 “He said, ‘I ask you, then, father, to send him to the house of my father— 28 for I have five brothers—so that he may give witness to them, lest they too come to this place of torment.’ 29 However, Abraham said, ‘They have Moses and the prophets; let them listen to them.’ 30 He said, ‘No, father Abraham, if someone goes to them from the dead, they will repent.’ 31 And he said to him, ‘If they do not listen to Moses and the prophets, they will not be convinced even if someone rises from the dead.’”

a. Or “who regard yourselves as righteous [just],” dikaiountes.

b. Literally, “strongly urged into it.” I am reading the verb biazetai (is being forcefully urged) as a passive form, parallel to the passive euangelizetai ([the realm of God]

is being proclaimed [as good news]), and positive in sense (similarly Fitzmyer 2:1117;

Green 603; Johnson 251); the negative sense “suffers violence” would suit the Matthean

version better than Luke’s (see Matt 11:12). If the verb is taken as a middle-voice form, the sense might be positive ([everyone] is forcefully pressing their way [into it]) or

negative (with violence pressing [into it]).

c. A desperately poor man, a destitute individual (ptōchos), as in 4:18; 6:20. d. Literally, “was thrown [or placed],” ebeblēto.

e. The Greek expression (lit., “nevertheless even [dogs would come],” alla kai) suggests a contrast to the preceding description of hunger unsated, although this is difficult

to capture in translation. While the poor beggar cannot taste scraps of food from the

extravagant daily feasts at the wealthy man’s home, dogs are able to make a meal by

licking the poor man’s sores.

f. Historical present verb (lit., “he sees”), as is the verb of speaking in v. 29 (lit.,

“Abraham says”).

g. Literally, “and in all these things.”

h. Intriguingly, a second-person plural pronoun: the rich man and others who share

his unfortunate circumstance, soon to include his five brothers.

[14–18] Verse 14 shows why there was no indication of scene change when Jesus began to address the disciples in 16:1; Pharisees are still present and have been listening “to all these things” (Jesus again addresses disciples in 17:1). They react to Jesus’ emphatic either-or of service to God or slavery to wealth (v. 13) by mocking Jesus (v. 14)—their ridicule explained by the narrator as the result of their firm location in the camp of those enslaved to wealth (as philargyroi, lovers of wealth [lit., silver]).82 Jesus responds with a set of sayings that address preoccupation with status (v. 15) and affirm the continuing validity of the Torah and the prophets (vv. 16–18), then a parable that contrasts the fortunes, in life and after death, of a rich man and a poor beggar (vv. 19–31). The concern that gives vv. 14–31 at least a measure of coherence, despite diverse genres and topics, is the enduring claim of Torah and prophets on human conduct, and in particular their implications for the handling of possessions.

Jesus turns up the heat on his detractors, who, he charges, seek public honor at the expense of their standing before God (v.15). Self-vindication may secure them high social standing, but God knows one’s inner character (“heart”; on God as knower of the human heart, see Acts 1:24; 8:21; 15:8; cf. Luke 1:51; 3:15; 5:22) and, moreover, disdains what is exalted (hypsēlon) among human beings. This comes as no shock to Luke’s readers, who by now have been well schooled on God’s inclination toward radical status inversion. The reign of God subverts the customary strategies by which people defend their social prestige (recall, e.g., 1:51–52; 14:11; cf. 18:9, 14). Indeed, status-seeking is no more pleasing to God than idolatry, a common correlate of the strong term that Luke employs here (bdelygma, “abomination”; e.g., Deut 7:24–25; 1 kgs 11:5; Dan 9:27; 11:31).83

82. It was common in the Greco-Roman world to label one’s philosophical opponents “lovers of money” (e.g., 1 Tim 6:10; 2 Tim 3:2; Epictetus, Diatr. 1.9.19–20; Dio Chrysostom, Or. 32, Alex. 9; cf. idem, Or. 35, Cel. Phryg. 1; see Johnson 249–50; Moxnes, Economy 1–9). The verb the narrator employs in Luke 16:14 for the Pharisees’ mocking of Jesus, ekmykterizein, reappears in Luke 23:35, where it echoes Ps 21:8 lxx (22:7e).

Before directly challenging (with the parable of vv. 19–31) the dismissive repudiation of his teaching regarding wealth, Jesus engages the Pharisees, strong advocates of Torah observance, on their own turf. Jesus’ radical stance on wealth, it turns out, is no innovation but stems from his faithful appropriation of the law and the prophets, whose claim on human action endures even in the era of God’s eschatological reign. Jesus will not surrender the Pharisees to a life driven by concern with wealth and status, at least not without a fight.

The precise meaning of v. 16 is obscure and has been the subject of extensive debate: “The law and the prophets were until John; from that time onward, the realm of God is being proclaimed [as good news], and everyone is being strongly urged [to enter] it.” Although in 16:16 Conzelmann found reason to distinguish the era of Jesus (God’s kingdom) from that of Israel (law and prophets) and assigned John the Baptizer to the era of Israel (Theology 12–17, 20–27), Luke’s narrative accents the continuity in God’s working throughout Israel’s history, as v. 17 shows, and John appears as a pivotal figure, with a foot in both eras (like Jesus, he “was declaring good news” [3:18]).84

Later scholarly debates about Lukan eschatology and periodized salvation history aside, what point is Jesus making in v. 16? What does he mean with the image of entry into the realm of God by forceful urging (biazetai)? The Matthean rendition of this saying pictures violence done to the people of God’s realm (11:11–12);85 however, Luke casts the saying in positive terms and, with customary hyperbole (“all,” “forceful urging [or entry]”), forges a strong link between the proclamation of the good news, with its vigorous invitation into the divine realm, and the religious heritage of the Jewish people (“law and prophets”). Whether the verb biazetai is read with passive nuance (be strongly urged) or middle (enter forcefully), the point is much the same: despite the resistance and scorn of some Torah-serious critics (Pharisees among them), “everyone” (i.e., virtually everyone else) is energetically and vigorously pressing into God’s realm at Jesus’ (to some) controversial invitation.

The passive-voice nuance pitches the saying from the direction of the proclaimer’s activity of urging others to enter the divine realm, thus reinforcing the image of the double invitation of 14:21, 23, which also includes broad, indiscriminate—and forceful—inclusion.86 The middle-voice nuance casts the saying in terms of the activity of those who have been accepting Jesus’ invitation into God’s realm or household, among them women, tax collectors, and reputed sinners (e.g., 5:27–32; 7:29 [“all the people”], 34–35 [“all of Wisdom’s children”], 36–50; 15:1–32).87 On either reading, both of which are congruent with Luke’s narrative, the realm of God imagined by Jesus is capacious, offering space for everyone who will enter.

83. Compare Deut 24:4, in which bdelygma indicates the abhorrent impurity that would attend a man’s remarriage of a wife he has earlier divorced—a possible intertextual prompt for the stitching of the divorce saying of Luke 16:18 to vv. 16–17.

84. Fitzmyer adopts Conzelmann’s three-stage epochal interpretation of salvation history in Luke–Acts but modifies the schema by viewing John as a transitional figure (2:1115).

85. The saying about the law paired with it by Luke (16:17) appears also in Matt 5:18.

Nevertheless—the de of 16:17 is adversative—the all-encompassing realm of God does not nullify the long-standing claim of the Torah on a people’s obedience to the purposes and commitments of God. Again, Jesus employs exaggeration: before the tiniest stroke of a letter of the law would fall away (a keraia, a small hook; BDAG 540), heaven and earth would vanish. In 21:33 Jesus will picture the eventual dissolution of heaven and earth but at the same time affirm the persistence of his word, another indication that Luke is aligning Jesus’ teaching and enactment of God’s reign with the Torah as enduring expressions of the divine will.

Verse 18 is difficult, for multiple reasons: it strikes many commentators as a misfit in its present location (e.g., Fitzmyer 2:1120; Vinson 525); it appears to override an explicit provision contained in the Torah (Deut 24:1–4), a puzzling move after the unequivocal affirmation of the law’s enduring claim, down to its most minute detail, in the preceding verse; and its evidently uncompromising rejection of divorce challenges contemporary readers.88 Contextual and intertextual clues that would help readers make sense of the statement are lacking (cf. the parallel in Matt 5:32). Luke does not incorporate the more extensive treatment presented in Mark 10:2–12, which introduces Jesus’ radical position on divorce precisely as a contribution to a Pharisaic debate on the subject and opposes God’s creative purpose revealed in Gen 1–2 to the provision in Deut 24 permitting divorce—hence explicitly affirming (one element of) Torah by countering (another element of) Torah.

86. exactly this sense of the passive of biazomai, being strongly urged or pressed (16:16), is attested in first-person voice in a letter by an early first-century man named Sarapion in POxy 2.294.16–17.

87. Whether in passive or middle voice, I take the saying of 16:16 as an instance of hyperbole and read it in a positive sense; while the Pharisees and some others are holding back, “everyone [i.e., everyone else, it must seem] is being forcefully urged [or pressing forcefully] into God’s realm.” even so (v. 17), the law’s demand on human action in the world has not been left behind. Might Jesus yet succeed in recruiting the Pharisees to the cause of God’s reign?

88. For discussion of the ethical and pastoral challenge of Jesus’ stringent view of divorce, see Carroll and Carroll, Hard Sayings 49–53; Collins, Divorce 227–31; Hays, Moral Vision 347–78. Account must be taken of Jesus’ affirmation of marriage, and also of what appears to be a rejection of divorce for its asymmetry of choice (the husband’s initiative alone; cf. Josephus, Ant. 15.7.10) and impact (the divorced wife’s economic vulnerability), at least in the Lukan formulation of the saying.

How does the assertion that a man’s second marriage after divorcing his wife, or his marriage of a divorced woman, is tantamount to adultery relate to the preceding affirmation of the law’s enduring validity, and to the following parable in which rich and poor men trade places? Within vv. 14–18, the saying on divorce is to be read as an example of the preceding, exaggerated affirmation of the continuing force of the law, understood as a reliable and binding expression of the divine purpose for human life. When Luke returns to the subject of adultery in a selective enumeration of the Decalogue, indeed placing it in the lead position, he signals unambiguously that the new demands of the reign of God, or of discipleship, do not cancel the role of Torah as path to life (18:20–21, reinforcing a similar affirmation in 10:25–28).89 So the assertion that a man who divorces his wife or marries a divorced woman engages in adultery,90 implying that the dissolved marriage is still intact, affirms the Torah, though at the expense of more than a letter-stroke of a portion of the law—and withholding all the supporting hermeneutical apparatus. However, a Lukan audience that does not know either Deut 24:1–4 or the hermeneutical debate between Jesus and Pharisees recorded in Mark 10:2–12 will have no inkling that Luke 16:18 stands in tensive relation to v. 17. Moreover, as the radical critique of divorce attested in the Dead Sea Scrolls (e.g., CD 4.14–5.1) also documents, intensification of the law’s demand does not amount to repudiation of the Torah but is, instead, a rigorous form of fidelity to it (see Green 604; for a similar move, see Matt 5:21–48).91 Or has Luke perhaps read Deut 24:4, with its branding of a divorced man’s remarriage of his first wife as a polluting “abomination,” in a more stringent sense, extending its logic to the case of second marriage to other women as well (evidently the approach that underlies CD 4.14–5.1)? If that is the case, Luke 16:18, even in its severe rigor, would more clearly amount to an affirmation of the law’s directives on marriage and divorce.

But what of the relation of v. 18 to the following parable? A first-century audience would not overlook the relevance of the topic of marriage and divorce to a discussion of property, for that was an integral aspect of marriage.92 One practical effect of the permissive provision of Deut 24:1–4 would have been to place divorced women in a more vulnerable economic position, comparable to that of widows, which was a particular concern of Luke (e.g., 7:11–17; 18:1–8; 20:47; 21:1–4; cf. Acts 6:1–6). Pressing beyond the degree of protection that Deut 24 offers a woman divorced by her husband, in the form of a “certificate of divorce” (24:1, 3), Luke 16:18 gives an added measure of economic security by making the man’s initiating of divorce (for purposes of remarrying) less attractive. As with the parable of 16:1–8a, much of the hard work of Luke’s readers to (re)construct the cultural and intertextual scripts in play leaves such interpretive responses tentative. But an implicit concern regarding the economic impact of divorce on women becomes an explicit, vivid, and unavoidable concern in the parable with which Jesus next challenges his Pharisee auditors.

89. Brief mention of persons engaged in adulterous practice is made also by a parabolic Pharisee in 18:11.

90. Luke’s rendition, unlike Mark 10:12, does not contemplate a woman’s initiation of divorce.

91. Fitzmyer, however, maintains that Luke 16:18, by going “beyond” the law, does not exemplify it (2:1119). On Luke’s treatment of the Torah, see Wilson, Law.

92. Thus CD 4.14–5.1, which like Luke 16:18 radicalizes Deut 24:1–4 and regards any remarriage after divorce as “fornication,” associates that fornication with riches and the profaning of the temple in a trio of esp. offensive activities.

[19–31] Several times Jesus has taken up the matter of appropriate use of possessions (12:13–21, 33–34; 14:33; 16:1–13; cf. 6:20, 24; 14:12–14), so this parable depicting the contrasting fortunes of a rich man and a poor man addresses readers well educated on the topic. The parable enacts the role reversal Jesus has earlier announced with his beatitudes for the poor and hungry and corresponding woes for the rich and well-nourished (6:20–21, 24–25), which was itself a reprise of the prophetic vision at the heart of the Magnificat (1:51–53). Within the narrative of Luke 16, however, the parable aims more immediately to persuade Pharisees who find Jesus’ teaching about property and possessions to be objectionable (v. 14). The intervening sayings indicate that the work of persuasion is well underway; attentive listening to the law and the prophets, a central concern of Pharisees, should already equip one to handle material resources faithfully and justly. The last section of the parable returns explicitly to the theme of faithful observance of the law (vv. 27–31). The mandate for compassionate generosity is not Jesus’ innovation: it is at the heart of Scripture.

unlike the two preceding parables (15:11–32; 16:1–8a), this one exhibits not scattering of property (15:13; 16:1) but focused concentration and preservation of wealth, and strategic use of it, through lavish hospitality presumably restricted to elite peers, to maintain social prestige—a way of life already debunked by Jesus (6:27–36; 14:12–24). But where diminution of property has earned a gracious response and admits of redemptive possibilities (evident in the responses of father and rich master, respectively, in 15:20–24; 16:8), the use of wealth to serve the interests and sustain the position of the wealthy, to the neglect of the needy near one at the gate, elicits a harsh and unforgiving response, surpassing even that greeting the rich farmer of 12:16–20. The result is a dramatic and extreme role reversal.

Much scholarly discussion has been devoted to the cultural environment from which the story comes. Particular attention has gone to an egyptian folktale that highlights the contrasting burials and fortunes after death of a rich man and a poor man, and a rabbinic story preserved in the Jerusalem Talmud that similarly contrasts the funerals and fortunes after death of a tax collector and a scholar of the Torah (y. Sanh. 6.23c, 30–43).93 epigraphic and literary evidence, however, suggests much broader interest within the Greco-Roman world in the choreography of the afterlife, including various destinies of people and, occasionally, reversals of circumstance for rich and poor (e.g., 1 En. 94:8–10; 96:4–8; 97:8–10; 102–4; Lucian, Cat. 15; Lucian, Men. 12) and also the possibility of disclosure to the living of the condition of the dead (whether by messenger, dream, or other means).94 The parable of Lazarus and the rich man taps this rich cultural fund of images and reflections.

93. Translations of these two tales are available in Boring et al., Hellenistic Commentary 227–29.

Verses 19–21 introduce the two main characters, whose spatial proximity masks a vast distance—a separation in life circumstance and social position anticipating the physical chasm that ensues after death (v. 26; cf. “from a great distance” in v. 23). The rich man is conspicuously wealthy, dressed like royalty, sporting expensive purple robes and fine linen (cf. Judg 8:26; 1 Macc 8:14) and feasting (euphrainomenos) not occasionally but daily (v. 19). Deposited at his gate to beg is a destitute man named Lazarus (v. 20)—his name remarkable not only because Jesus does not otherwise name parabolic characters but also because his name “names” his life reality. Only God can be a source of help to him (the fuller form bearing this meaning, eliezer [or Elazar], is the name of Abraham’s putative heir, presumably his servant, in Gen 15:2).95 The poor man does not feast but is consumed by sores (heilkōmenos) and longs to make a meal out of the scraps that fall from the rich man’s table (the phrasing recalls the younger son’s longing to fill his empty belly in 15:16),96 only to suffer the further degradation of having dogs lick his sores (16:20–21). The separation between these two men, while extreme, is neither inevitable nor necessary and could have been bridged by the initiative of the rich man to open his gate and extend a generous hand. But this never happened, even though their acquaintance has a history—the rich man knows Lazarus’s name (v. 24). The “gate,” which should be a public space for rendering justice, particularly compassionate justice for the vulnerable (e.g., Amos 5:12, 15; cf. Green 609), has become a site of dehumanizing injustice.

94. See, e.g., Hock, “Lazarus”; Bauckham, “Rich Man”; Nickelsburg, “Riches”; and Lehtipuu, Afterlife (esp. 12–18, 29–38). In Lucian’s Cataplus, Micyllus comments on the turning of tables in the abode of the dead, where the poor (penētes) laugh, while the rich (plousioi) experience distress and lament (Cat. 15). In 1 En. 92–105, the severe (eschatological) judgment greeting the wealthy, numbered among the “sinners,” is contrasted to the bliss awaiting the righteous poor. Another penetrating social critic, Juvenal, exposes the enormous gap between the wealthy and the poor in this life (e.g., Sat. 132–46).

95. On the etymology of the name, see Fitzmyer 2:1131. The coincidence that the name Lazarus also appears in John with reference to a character who returns (for a time) from the dead is a curious confluence of the traditions that have shaped these two Gospels (see John 11). Later tradition assigns a name, or rather various names, to the rich man as well: Neuēs in ∏75; Nineveh in the Sahidic version; and eventually Dives, a misreading of the Latin translation “a certain man was rich [dives].” Yet the anonymity of the rich man, in contrast to the naming of the destitute beggar, is an important technique of irony in the parable (on the irony connected with the rich man, see Green 608). The name Nineveh is a particularly suggestive embellishment since it aptly sets up the motif of repentance at the parable’s end (vv. 30–31). Any expectation of repentance such as that attributed to ancient Nineveh in the tale of Jonah, however, is frustrated by the rich man’s dialogue with Abraham in vv. 24–31.

96. There are intriguing verbal parallels with the parable of the father and his two sons. As the younger son longed to fill his belly (epethymei chortasthēnai, 15:16) with carob pods, so Lazarus longs to fill his belly (epithymōn chortasthēnai, 16:21) with bread crumbs. And while the father calls for a celebratory feast at his son’s return, the rich man feasts in this way each and every day (euphrainein in 15:23–24, 32; 16:19).

Verse 22 forms a pivot in the action, as the deaths of the two men begin to reverse their life paths. While the rich man receives the honor of burial, the poor man is accorded the greater honor (though, the silence implies, likely unburied) of being ushered by angels to enjoy the company of the patriarch Abraham.

In vv. 23–26, the exchange of places becomes complete and irrevocable in the afterlife. Verse 23 sets the stage, placing the rich man in torment in Hades, the abode of the dead, and through his eyes viewing Lazarus’s blessed condition of intimate fellowship with the patriarch Abraham (“in his bosom”; 13:28 locates Abraham, with the other patriarchs, in the realm of God). The image “bosom of Abraham” suggests intimate association and care of which Lazarus was deprived before death (cf. T. Ab. 20.14). Dialogue between the rich man and Abraham ensues, continuing until the end of the parable.97

With striking irony, one who denied hospitality to Lazarus pleads with the figure who epitomizes hospitality toward strangers, Abraham (Gen 18:1–15; a character trait developed, e.g., in Philo, Abr. 22–23; T. Ab. 1.1–2; see Arterbury, “Hospitality”). The rich man thus declined to extend hospitality to one unable to reciprocate, unlike the parabolic dinner host of Luke 14:16–24 (cf. 14:12–14). Invoking his privileged status as member of Abraham’s family, the rich man addresses a petition for mercy to “father Abraham” (v. 24), bidding him to “send Lazarus” to dip his finger in water and bring relief to the flame-afflicted agony of the rich man. Abraham’s reply acknowledges the petitioner as his child (teknon), yet points matter-of-factly to the obvious: “You’ve received your good things already, during your lifetime, while Lazarus received only bad things. Now it’s his turn to experience comfort while you suffer” (paraphrasing v. 25; the line recalls, with variation in wording, 6:20–21, 24–25).

Abraham’s next line makes clear that this role reversal is permanent; he explains that a fixed, unbridgeable chasm now separates the two men, so that even if Abraham (or Lazarus) wanted to act out of pity to aid the suffering man, it is impossible to do so (v. 26). Only a gate stood in the way of an act of mercy while they were alive; it was fixed and immoveable only because of the rich man’s choice. In terms of the imagery of 16:4, 9, he missed an opportunity to make a friend by releasing some of his wealth to nourish the destitute Lazarus. Now the separation has grown to a chasm, and it is by God’s just purpose (theological passive: “chasm has been fixed”) that it cannot be crossed. The rich man missed his limited window of opportunity to repent, or to enact justice, to pick up the images from 13:1–9, 22–30. As elsa Tamez trenchantly observes, “The parable shows that everything is played out in . . . this world. To leave it for later is already too late for both oneself and one’s descendants” (“Rereading” 323). Only intervention in the dehumanizing injustice of poverty depicted in the parable’s first scene (vv. 19–21) would make possible a change in the outcome displayed in the second scene (the afterlife).

97. A literary-rhetorical detail that undercuts the once-common division of the parable into two parts, the first featuring a reversal of fortunes (vv. 19–26) and the second scoring the point that a messenger from the dead will not lead to reformation of life (vv. 27–31), with the latter often assigned to post-Jesus tradition (see, e.g., Bultmann, History 178; Fitzmyer 2:1126, though at 2:1127 admitting “a certain unity” in the parable’s two parts). Arguments for the unity of the parable have been mounted by, among others, Schnider and Stenger, “Tür”; Hock, “Lazarus”; Bauckham, “Rich Man.”

Verses 27–31, extending the dialogue between rich man and Abraham, also extend the warning of impending judgment to his five brothers. His choice to ignore the needy person lying just outside his gate amounted to a failure to hear and heed the law and the prophets, and the same failure will lead them to the same misfortune. Not even a dead man’s return to warn them—in the rich man’s plea, pictured as a message borne by a messenger sent, presumably temporarily, from the place of the dead, but escalated in Abraham’s response to the more dramatic image of resurrection—will capture their attention if Scripture has failed to do so. For Luke’s audience, this is a poignant anticipation of later narrative developments, when incapacity to read Scripture and resistance to the message about one raised from the dead will keep close company (see, e.g., Acts 3:17–26; 4:8–21; 13:26–41; cf. 15:21; Luke 24:25–27, 44–47).

emphasis on the father-child relationship continues, as the rich man twice more addresses Abraham as father (16:27, 30). unlike the destitute Lazarus (and unlike the repentant younger brother of 15:11–32), however, he and his brothers are and will remain estranged from the patriarch, as the baptizing prophet John might have cautioned (3:8). The solidarity of all the sons in the house of the rich man’s own father (16:27) is ultimately one not of contented feasting and celebration but misery. The call to authentic hearing of the message of law and prophets, including, implicitly, their demand for sharing of resources to meet the needs of the poor, continues in the era of the reign of God, inaugurated by (John and) Jesus (v. 29; cf. 16:16). And the reader will recall that authentic hearing expresses itself in obedient action (6:46–49; 8:19–21; cf. 10:25–37).

As parabolic narrator, Jesus challenges his audience of Pharisees to receive instruction that the rich men within the parable cannot hear—all of it to the enlightenment of Luke’s audience. Those who have abundance must not sleep so comfortably and dine so sumptuously if they are open to taking the long view. The claim of God’s dominion, just like that of Scripture (Moses and prophets), impels those with economic means to distribute what they have to address the desperate needs of those who lack resources to sustain life. It is a matter of life and death, both in this life and beyond. Apart from authentic repentance (a prominent Lukan interest: 3:10–14; 5:32; 15:3–10; Acts 2:38; 3:19; 5:31; 11:18; 17:30; 20:21; 26:20)—transformation of perception, conversion of imagination, reordering of practice—there is no hope even and especially for those who experience present life as an unending succession of delight, comfort, and luxury.

The vertical status reversal on display in the parable exposes its stark juxtaposition of delight and misery, of prosperity and poverty, as a profound injustice that runs counter to the divine purpose for human life (perceptively observed by Bauckham, “Rich Man” 231–33). The juxtaposition gives a twenty-firstcentury reader pause and, perhaps, considerable discomfort. The reality of deep poverty and extravagant wealth coexisting in the closest imaginable spatial proximity, not to mention the lure of gated communities and walled-off luxury resorts that keep the expendable poor at a “safe” distance—all this means that the parable of Lazarus and the rich man is far from an exotic, archaic tale. Contemporary readers have the benefit of Moses and prophets, as well as Jesus’ message and praxis of God’s reign, along with Luke’s rendition of this parable and, as the narrative proceeds, of the good news of resurrection. But if the damning juxtaposition of wealth and poverty is left untouched in our world, what excuse remains for us?

17:1–19 Jesus Teaches Disciples about Faithful Service and an Outsider Demonstrates Genuine Faith

In an interlude between two conversations with Pharisees (16:14–31; 17:20– 21), Jesus continues his instruction of disciples for their future life together and further instructs apostles for their leadership role within the community of disciples (17:1–10). As he travels toward Jerusalem, he encounters ten lepers who are on a quest for restoration, one of whom, a Samaritan, emerges as another surprising model from the margins of faithful response to the saving work of God (17:11–19).

17:1–10 Jesus Continues the Disciples’ Education

for Leadership—and Service

The audience and topic change at 17:1, but the tone remains serious; on the heels of a sobering warning for Pharisees, framed around a picture of the doom that accompanies incapacity to repent (16:19–31), Jesus teaches his own followers a series of brief lessons on responsible care for vulnerable community members, the mandate of magnanimous mercy, the power of faith, and the importance of loyal service that rests content with carrying out assigned duties. 1 And [Jesus] said to his disciples, “Occasions for stumbling are unavoidable;a nevertheless, woe [to the one] through whom they come about. 2 It would turn out better for such a person if a millstone were placed around his neck and he were thrown into the sea than for him to cause one of these little ones to stumble. 3 Be on your guard. If your brotherb sins, admonish him, and if he repents, forgive him. 4 even if he sins against you seven times during the day—and also turns back to you seven times, saying ‘I repent’—you are to forgive him.”

5 The apostles said to the Lord, “Increase our faith!” 6 But the Lord said, “If you had faith like a mustard seed, you would say to this mulberry tree, ‘Be uprooted and planted in the sea,’ and it would obey you.

7 “Which of you, if you have a slave plowing or tending sheep, will say to him, when he has come in from the field, ‘Come here at once and have a seat!’? 8 Instead, won’t youc say to him, ‘Prepare something so that I may dine, and put on your belt and serve me while I eat and drink, and after that you eat and drink’? 9 Will youc offer thanks to the slave because he did what had been commanded? [Of course not.] 10 So also, when you have done all that has been commanded you, say ‘We are unworthyd slaves; we’ve [simply] done what we were under obligation to do.’”

a. Literally, “It is inconceivable [or impossible] that causes of stumbling [ skandala] will not come.”

b. That is, a disciple regarded as sibling, including women.

c. Literally, “Won’t he say to him?” (similarly, v. 9, “Will he offer thanks?”).

d. Or “useless,” “worthless,” achreioi.

[1–10] Jesus turns again to the disciples in a set of loosely related sayings that address community relations among disciples (vv. 1–4), the scope and power of faith (vv. 5–6), and the meaning of loyal service (vv. 7–10). Verses 1–4 shape relationships with others, commending responsible concern for others’ well-being (vv. 1–3a) and generosity in forgiving those who regret harm they have done (vv. 3b–4). The imagery of vv. 1–3a is graphic and extreme. Although sources of stumbling and failure (skandala) are unavoidable, this does not let the one who does the damage off the hook (v. 1; cf. Matt 18:7). Better by far to be thrown into the sea with a heavy stone around one’s neck than to be the cause of the stumbling (or falling, skandalizein) of “one of these little ones” (Luke 17:2).98 Care for others is not restricted to the community of believers but is to be extended to all who are (lit.) low in status, to the little and young, a prominent concern in this Gospel (cf. 9:46–48; 18:15–17; 22:26). Thus the admonition is strong: Pay especially close attention to the way you relate to the vulnerable. Be on the alert! (v. 3a).

98. Luke lacks the phrase “[little ones] who believe in me” (Mark 9:42; also present in Matt 18:6), as well as the following sayings on causing oneself to stumble (Mark 9:43–48).

Jesus develops another facet of other-concern in vv. 3b–4. Not only should the disciples remain vigilant so that they do not become the cause of another’s stumbling; they should also respond with practically limitless mercy to another disciple (lit., a “brother,” adelphos) who sins. If the other does sin, hold that one accountable (“rebuke,” epitimēson), but if repentance follows, simply “forgive” (aphes). So, as Jesus resumes chapter 15’s probing of the reality of gracious forgiveness, the failure of repentance in the preceding parable (16:27–31) is reversed. even persistence in sin, seven times on the same day, provided that it leads to return and repentance (metanoeō, “I repent”), calls one to extend forgiveness, to release the other (a more compact version of the direction in Matt 18:15–22). Jesus’ ministry of release (Luke 4:18–19) thus will continue among his disciples. Persistence in sin to the degree that Jesus pictures may lead one to wonder whether the expression of regret and repentance is genuine, yet the focus is not on the motivation of the other but on the call to disciples to embody magnanimous grace. Justice and accountability are not thereby nullified, as the imperative “rebuke” shows.

Verses 5–6 pick up v. 2’s image of being tossed into the sea, again in a hyperbolic saying but this time spinning it in a positive direction. Stepping forward in the company of disciples, the apostles request that Jesus (“the Lord”) expand their faith (the first explicit appearance of the apostles as a group since 9:10).99 Although there is not an obvious connection to the preceding sayings about care for the least and the mandate of grace toward those who sin, the petition suggests sober recognition by the disciples of the challenge posed by the sayings. In reply, “the Lord” pictures faith—or faithfulness (pistis)—of miniscule proportion (mustard-seed scale) as able to accomplish the extraordinary: an obedient mulberry tree that heeds one’s command to be replanted in the sea.100 A little faith can accomplish a great deal, so the request to “add to” the apostles’ faith receives gentle, reassuring correction, critique apparent, moreover, in the contrary-to-fact condition Jesus employs, which assumes that the apostles do not (yet) possess the mustard-seed faith he invites them to imagine. The very next episode will present a Samaritan leper as exemplar of life-transforming faith that is open to the extraordinary activity of God (17:19).

99. On Luke’s usage of kyrios for Jesus (in vv. 5–6), see translation note a on 7:19 and the comment on 12:41–48.

100. Matthew’s version of the saying in Luke 17:6 responds to disciples who seek explanation of their failure to perform an exorcism (Matt 17:19–20, but replacing an uprooted tree with a moveable mountain). Where Matthew’s Jesus speaks of the scale of transformative faith in reply to disciples’ puzzlement over their experience of failure in ministry, Luke has the apostles ask for expanded faith on the heels of Jesus’ call to limitless mercy.

Verses 7–10 make clear that if the apostles’ desire to be equipped with increased faith stems from an interest in enhancing their position in the community of disciples, their concern should not be the securing of advantage, recognition, or reward but simply faithful service, reliable performance of the duties they have been assigned. Once again, Jesus invites his auditors to imagine a scenario, in this case unthinkable, with the question “Which of you?” (v. 7; cf. 11:5; 14:5). Would a householder assume the slave’s role when his slaves have completed their day’s labors, preparing their meal and waiting on them, hand and foot? And would a master thank the slave for doing his job? Of course not! (17:7–9). It is somewhat surprising that Jesus places his disciple auditors in the position of slave owner—perhaps an indicator that some members of Luke’s first reading communities commanded sufficient economic resources to own slaves. Here Jesus is not endorsing or commending slavery but simply assuming the social system of his world. Verse 10 shifts to the perspective of the slave: if illumination is to be sought in this social system, then one who has been given service to perform should do so without expectation of special commendation or reward: “We are unworthy slaves; we’ve [simply] done what we were under obligation to do.” Disciples are summoned to loyal service that is not motivated by an interest in reward or in elevating their own position.

Later Jesus will invert the scenario, offering his own humble service as model to be emulated by the disciples (22:27); the one in the power position in the community must seek not self-aggrandizement but other-concerned service (a countercultural lesson the apostles are still learning in 22:24–27).

17:11–19 Ten Lepers Cured, One Saved?

Jesus’ journey toward Jerusalem, in the company of the disciples whose formation as a community of and for God’s realm he has been nurturing on the road, is interrupted by a group of men afflicted by leprosy. Aptly, given the “border” setting in proximity to Galilee and Samaria, the Samaritan among the lepers aided by Jesus models the thankfulness and the acknowledgment of God’s glory—and the faith—that such an act of gracious deliverance should evoke.

11 When [Jesus] was on his way to Jerusalem, he happened to be passing through [the region] between Samaria and Galilee. 12 And as he was entering a village, ten men afflicted with leprosy, who were standing far off, met him. 13 They raised their voices, saying, “Jesus, Master, have mercy on us.” 14 When he saw [them], he said to them, “Go and show yourselves to the priests.” And it came to pass, when they were departing, that they were made clean. 15 Now one of them returned, when he saw that he had been healed, praising God with a loud voice, 16 and he fell on his face at Jesus’ feet as he thanked him. He was a Samaritan. 17 Jesus said in response, “Weren’t ten made clean? Where are the [other] nine? 18 Were none found returning to give glory to God except this foreigner?” 19 And he said to him, “Get up and journey on. Your faith has delivered you.”

[11–19] For the second time in the narrative, Luke reports an encounter between Jesus and a leper (cf. 5:12–16); 7:22 intimates, however, that this was a routine feature of Jesus’ healing ministry, one that according to 4:27 links Jesus to the prophetic ministry of elisha. On this occasion, not one but ten men identified as leproi (men afflicted with leprosy) seek Jesus’ help (on the nature of the disorder, see the comment on 5:12–16). Markers of spatial location and movement are prominent in the passage: Jesus is resuming his journey toward Jerusalem (cf. 9:51, 53; 13:22, 33); from 17:11 until Jesus’ entrance into the temple in 19:45, the frequency of travel notices increases (18:31, 35; 19:1, 11, 28; see Green 615–16), heightening suspense regarding the impending arrival in the Holy City and bringing the circuitous travel narrative to a close. In a curious triangulation of sites, Jesus is placed in a liminal zone, the border space “between Samaria and Galilee” (17:11; on the significance of Samaria in Luke, see the comments on 9:51–56 and 10:30–37). Fittingly for persons in a perpetual state of ritual impurity by virtue of their skin lesions, they keep their distance (17:12) even as they raise their voices to shout a plea for mercy to one they address respectfully as “Master” (v. 13; epistata, as in 5:5; 8:24, 45; 9:33, 49). Jesus then directs the ten, “Go and show yourselves to the priests” (17:14a, as in 5:14, though without that verse’s further elaboration regarding an offering for purification). Left unstated: dispatch to the priests, whose certification of restoration from the condition of leprosy is necessary (Lev 14:1–32), might route the men to the temple and hence to the same destination as Jesus, though they may seek out priests who reside closer to home (ambiguity recognized by Green 624; cf. Fitzmyer 2:1154).

It is only in the course of their departing that the men realize they have been made clean (ekatharisthēsan, 17:14b); where the earlier healing of a leper involved physical touch (5:13), Jesus’ word suffices in this instance. At the discovery (“when he saw”) that he has been healed (iathē), one of them turns back, trumpeting God’s glory in a loud voice (17:15) and, face to the ground, thanking Jesus (v. 16a). Only now does the narrator state the healed man’s pedigree: “He was a Samaritan” (v. 16b; see Tannehill, Narrative Unity 1:118–19). From the perspective of the Jewish community, as Jesus bluntly puts it, he is “this foreigner” (or “stranger,” allogenēs, v. 18)—in contrast to the sons and daughters of Abraham who populate this part of Luke’s narrative (13:16; 16:24–31; 19:9). There is clear precedent, however, for outsiders to Israel enjoying access to divine succor (4:25–27; 7:1–10; 8:26–39). Now, in this liminal space—a border zone between Galilee, site of Jesus’ productive earlier ministry, and Samaria, site of ministry spurned (9:52–56)—the doubly marginalized, liminal character of a Samaritan leper dares to turn aside from Jesus’ explicit directions, returning to the source of his healing.101 Though cast in harsh terms, Jesus’ reaction, in speech to observers assumed to be present (“Where are the nine?”; “none . . . except this foreigner?” [17:17–18]), acknowledges the Samaritan’s response to healing as the fitting one.102

So he bids the man, “Get up and journey on,” this time without specifying a destination (v. 19). “Your faith has delivered you,” he says—made you whole, saved you, restored you to health (sesōken)—thereby placing the Samaritan leper in select company among community oustiders aided by Jesus, alongside such diverse characters as a Roman soldier (7:9), a woman despised as a sinner (7:50), a woman suffering from chronic bleeding (8:48), and just ahead on the route to Jerusalem, a blind beggar (18:42). Once again a person on the margins exemplifies the bold trust that is able to accept the restoration to wholeness and to full community participation that God’s saving purpose for human flourishing intends and accomplishes. The vocabulary of healing in the account progresses from a petition for mercy (17:13) to the experience of being made clean (v. 14; cf. v. 17), which the Samaritan interprets as healing (v. 15) and Jesus then reframes as deliverance, salvation, to which the man’s faith has opened up access (v.19). When did the Samaritan’s faith deliver him? The careful nuancing of vocabulary for the healing and the sequence of action and speech suggest that the faith that “has saved [delivered]” includes the return to thank Jesus and honor God, even if it also encompasses the initial bold approach to seek Jesus’ help in the first place—hence, both preceding and following the experience of physical healing. In Luke’s story, salvation draws together the multilayered (physical, spiritual, and social) human quest for health and restoration (cf. Green 624)—often from beyond the margins of the community—and the gracious divine initiative encountered in Jesus’ ministry.

As the Samaritan is able to see and say, and perhaps exuberantly sing (v. 15, and reinforced in Jesus’ comment in v. 18), his restored health is an event that calls for public acclamation of the glory of God. Thus this narrative of Jesus’ healing act and a Samaritan’s response of faith and grateful praise supplies a second answer to the apostles’ request for enlarged faith (v. 5). Faith on the scale of a mustard seed may be able to transplant trees (v. 6), but Samaritan-leper-sized faith relocates body and self in relation to community and so rewrites a human future.

101. Much ink has been spilled over what many scholars have regarded as puzzling geographical notices in 17:11: was Luke clueless about Palestinian geography, confused about the relative locations of Galilee and Samaria (see, e.g., Conzelmann, Theology 70; Fitzmyer 2:1152–53; cf. Bovon 3:149)? Due attention to the symbolic associations of the sites that Luke triangulates here (Jerusalem, Jesus’ destination; Galilee, Jesus’ homeland and area of initial ministry; Samaria, cultural and religious border space and site of earlier rejection; see Green 621–22; Vinson 545), however, as well as the way in which location sets up the Samaritan’s performance as (provocative) exemplar of faithfulness, suggests that the spatial markers flow from meaningful rhetorical design, whatever the (im)precision of Luke’s mapping of Palestine.

102. In 17:15 as elsewhere in Luke’s narrative, the fitting response to the experience of healing (or “divine benefaction”: Neyrey, “Lost in Translation” 4) is glorifying (doxazōn) God; see 5:25–26; 13:13; 18:43.

About the future of that liminal, Samaritan zone, Luke will have more to say in Acts, which relates a fruitful mission in Samaria (Acts 8). For the present, however, the approach of Pharisees with a question about the reign of God occasions teaching from Jesus about present and future expressions of God’s powerful rule.

17:20–18:8 Jesus Teaches Pharisees and Disciples about the Present and Coming Reign of God

As in 12:35–13:30, Luke takes up the matter of wise discernment of the times, and of the way in which the present activity of God’s reign, though imperceptible to many, should both shape life now and also prepare people for an approaching moment of accountability. Proper perception of the character of the present moment gives focus to a compact exchange with Pharisees (17:20– 21); orientation to the future is the primary concern of more extended address to the disciples, which unfolds in two parts, a discourse on the coming of the Son of Humanity (vv. 22–37) and a parable in which a widow seeking justice from a dishonorable judge models the perseverance that the course of history will demand of those who would be faithful (18:1–8).

17:20–21 God’s Realm as a Matter of Timing—and Discernment

The Pharisees, last seen in a hostile exchange with Jesus in which each party has challenged the other’s perception of wealth and property (16:14–31), return to pose a less charged but equally important question concerning the timing and character of the arrival of God’s reign. Jesus redirects the Pharisees’ attention from future signs, for which they may be on the lookout, to the present activity of the divine rule in his own ministry.

20 Asked by the Pharisees when God’s realma is coming, [Jesus] replied to them, “God’s reigna does not come accompanied by conditions one observes,b 21 nor will they say, ‘Look, [it’s] here!’ or ‘There!’ For see, the realma of God is in your midst.”

a. “Realm” or “reign”; the same word (basileia) appears in vv. 20a, 20b, and 21. b. Literally, “does not come [is not coming] with observation.”

[20–21] Despite mounting hostility evident in recent encounters between

Jesus and the Pharisees (11:53–54; 14:1; 15:2; 16:14), they approach him with what appears to be a genuine question (presented in indirect discourse): When is the reign of God coming? (17:20a). Jesus’ answer, however, delivers implicit critique: the question misses the mark because the Pharisees have missed the evidence of the reign of God already inaugurated in Jesus’ ministry, witnessed most recently in the healing of ten lepers, including one whose faith has opened access to salvation (vv. 11–19; cf. 11:20). To paraphrase: God’s realm will not come with advance signs that permit prognostication; on the contrary, God’s reign is among you even now (it is the work in which I am engaged), though you do not perceive it (17:20b–21). The problem with the Pharisees’ question thus concerns not only timing (God’s reign as both present and future rather than just future) but also the character of God’s realm, as well as the audience’s response to it. The reign of God will not come with dramatic accompaniment and advance warning signs that one may observe (meta paratērēsōs)—certainly not for the attention of Pharisees, whose hostile observation of Jesus has already won notice (forms of the cognate verb paratēroun in 6:7; 14:1).103

The unusual phrase entos hymōn might be rendered “within you” or “within your reach [grasp],” but in a plural construction with reference to Pharisee inquirers at this point in the narrative, the reading that makes best sense is “in your midst” (or “among you”). The implication, given the question posed by the Pharisees, is that they are unable to perceive the present operation of God’s reign, or the present embodiment of God’s realm in Jesus’ ministry and company of disciples (on the sense of the adverb-as-preposition entos, see BDAG 340–41; Bovon 3:166–68; Bock 2:1414–17; Carroll, Response 79–80).104

Despite the emphasis on the present activity of the reign of God in 17:20–21, as in 11:20 (cf. 4:43; 6:20; 8:1; 9:2; 10:9, 11; 16:16), and despite the distinction drawn by Luke 17:20–37 between that present reign and the eschatological coming of the Son of Humanity (Bovon 3:168), Luke connects the two images and thus retains a future dimension for the realm of God (also clear in 21:31; 22:16, 18; cf. 11:2; 22:30; see the analysis in Carroll, Response 80–87). The full manifestation of God’s mighty reign, the completion of God’s purposes for Israel and all the nations, is a matter of hope for the future, not present accomplishment. Nevertheless a prominent concern of the narrative is vigilant and faithful living in the present, shaped by the values and commitments of the divine realm, which will fit one for participation in it.

103. Strobel contends that what is in view here is observance of the Passover, with its associated eschatological expectations (Aquila’s Greek translation of exod 12:42 employs the noun paratērēsis); see, e.g., “Passa-Erwartung.” Note, however, the critique in Fitzmyer 2:1160; Nolland 2:852; Carroll, Response 78 n. 157.

104. The Gospel of Thomas presents variations on the tradition underlying Luke 17:20–21 (for v. 21, cf. also Mark 13:21; Matt 24:23) in two logia that picture the realm of God as a present reality unrecognized by many (Gos. Thom. 3, 113; cf. 51). In Gos. Thom. 113, it is disciples (not Pharisees, as in Luke) who pose the question “When is the kingdom going to come?”

Thus, while Jesus’ concise, perhaps deliberately and provocatively enigmatic, answer to the Pharisees’ inquiry about the divine realm ends the discussion—the narrator does not report their response—concern with the topic has not been exhausted.105 Both Jesus’ disciples and Luke’s audience will have reason to probe for an answer to this question: How does the elusive presence of God’s realm relate to the future that will unfold after Jesus, the bearer of the divine reign, is no longer here?

17:22–37 The Eschatological Arrival of the Son of Humanity

Having just affirmed the present activity of the reign of God, Jesus proceeds, in the first of two major eschatological discourses, to orient disciples to the future coming of the Son of Humanity (vv. 22–37; cf. 21:5–36). Only the vigilant need apply.

22 [Jesus] said to the disciples, “Days will come when you will desire to see [just] one of the days of the Son of Humanity, yet you will not see [it].

23 And people will say to you, ‘Look, [he’s] there!’ ‘Look, [he’s] here!’ Don’t follow [them].a 24 For just as lightning, when it flashes, lights up [the whole sky], from one part of the sky to another, so will the Son of Humanity be on his day.b 25 First, however, it is necessary that he suffer many things and be rejected by this generation.

26 “Just as it happened in the days of Noah, so too will it be in the days of the Son of Humanity: 27 they were eating, they were drinking, they were marrying, they were being married, right up to the day Noah entered the boat—and the flood came and destroyed everyone. 28 Likewise, just as it happened in the days of Lot: they were eating, they were drinking, they were buying, they were selling, they were planting, they were building,

29 but on the day Lot departed from Sodom, fire and sulfur rained from heaven and destroyed everyone. 30 It will conform to this same patternc on the day when the Son of Humanity is revealed.

31 “On that day, anyone who is up on the roof while his things are in the house should not go down to retrieve them. Likewise, one who is in the field should not turn back. 32 Recall Lot’s wife! 33 Whoever seeks to preserve life will lose it, but whoever loses [it] will preserve it. 34 I tell you, two [men] will be on one bed on that night; one will be taken and the other will be left. 35 There will be two [women] grinding at the same [mill]; one will be taken and the other will be left.”d 37 In response, they said to him, “Where, Lord?” And he said to them, “Where the body is, there the eagles,e too, will be gathered together.”

105. In the Pharisees’ last appearance in the Gospel narrative, they object to the disciple crowd’s acclamation of Jesus as king when he prepares to enter Jerusalem (19:38–39); once again, even if Pharisees have comprehended Jesus’ point in 17:20–21 that God’s realm will not be attended by observable signs, they have failed to grasp the crucial connection between God’s reign and its bearer, Jesus.

a. Hendiadys: the phrase “[Don’t] go away and pursue” expresses one idea: “Don’t follow.”

b. Some Mss (including ∏75 B D) omit the phrase “on his day.” While it might be a copyist’s later clarifying addition, its absence may be better explained as the result of homoeoteleuton (both anthrōpou and autou share the same ending, ou). even if not original, the phrase only makes explicit what the verse already implies without it; note, however, the plural “days of the Son of Humanity” in vv. 22, 26.

c. Literally, “according to the same things,” although many Mss, adding a single letter to auta ([the] same things), read “these things” (tauta). The difference in meaning is minimal.

d. The original text of ∏75 lacks v. 35, but this omission may result from the scribal error of homoeoteleuton, since both v. 34 and v. 35 conclude with the same word, aphethēsetai ([the other] will be left). Some Mss (e.g., D f^13 700) insert, with variations in form, v. 36: “Two will be left in the field; one will be taken and the other left.” This is likely a later interpolation influenced by Matt 24:40: the verse repeats imagery already present in Luke 17:31 (“in the field”) and disrupts a typical Lukan pairing of male and female characters by adding a third member in the series of parallel images.

e. In modern translations, commonly rendered “vultures,” but the word is aetoi (aetos, eagle, as distinct from gyps, vulture; Job 39:27–28 sets the two words side by side); see Bridge, Eagles 57–86; O’Day, “Gather.”

[22–37] As Jesus pivots his attention from Pharisees to disciples, concern swings from present to future, and the imagery also shifts from time (when? [v. 20]) to space (where? [v. 37]); spatial references pervade the discourse (vv. 24, 27, 29, 31, 34, 35, 37; see Bridge, Eagles 36). Deeper than questions about when and where, however, lies concern with how it happens, how to be prepared, and therefore who will participate in the realm of God, in its future expression, resuming an interest prominent in 12:35–13:30.

The exchange with the Pharisees about God’s realm, then, leads to explicit teaching for the disciples about the future coming of the Son of Humanity (i.e., for Luke, Jesus himself; on this epithet for Jesus, see the comments on 5:21–26 and 9:23–27) and its implications for present life. Jesus has faulted the Pharisees for failing to recognize the divine realm at work even now and therefore has dismissed the notion that a future appearance will be accompanied by a display of signs for which one can be on the lookout. Now, speaking to disciples, Jesus offers the image of lightning (v. 24) to picture the “apocalypse” (apokalyptetai, “[he] is revealed,” in v. 30) of the Son of Humanity as an event that will be obvious and universal. To judge from the analogies of Noah (vv. 26–27) and Lot (vv. 28–29), however, it will not occur with unambiguous advance signals that everybody will recognize. It therefore is not a contradiction to Jesus’ denial of an observable divine realm in vv. 20–21. The reign of God and the future revealing of the Son of Humanity are thus closely related realities yet also distinct; note the comparable distinction-with-connection between the two in 21:27 (eschatological coming of the Son of Humanity) and 21:31 (proximity of God’s realm), with the image of approaching redemption (21:28) as hinge between the two.

“Days will come,” Jesus begins (17:22), employing a phrase that signals a future time of decisive judgment or restoration.106 He anticipates a time when the disciples will fervently desire to “see”—that is, experience again or recapture the eventful, momentous quality of his public ministry. With variation in imagery, Luke 17:22 repeats the point Jesus made in 5:34–35, when he envisaged future “days” of fasting when the disciples would mourn a bridegroom (himself) taken from them. He will indeed be removed from the scene, and his disciples will long to experience again the hope and vitality known through their association with him, but to no avail (cf. 24:18–24, though that disciple pair is privileged to “see” him, if only momentarily).107

The expression “one of the days” could be taken as reference to a future period when the disciples will share in the glory of the reign of the Messiah.108 In that case the sobering note “yet you will not see [it]” would emphasize the delay in the arrival of that time, even beyond the lifetimes of the disciples to whom Jesus is speaking. However, the affirmation of a culminating appearance of God’s reign and of the Son of Humanity before “this generation” has run its course (21:25–33; cf. 9:27) and the analogy to 5:34–35—these taken together suggest a look back to Jesus’ ministry, though certainly with expectation of its final realization in the future (see Bovon 3:169; Nolland 2:858; Green 632–33; Marshall 658–59). Jesus provides both assurance and caution in a two-part answer. First, although some may announce his appearance (“there” or “here,” inverting the order of 17:21), the disciples should not be misled by (should not chase after) such misguided declarations (v. 23; cf. 21:8, which predicts deceptive claims, prematurely, that the moment has come, ho kairos ēngiken). Second, by contrast to such localized appearances, the eschatological revealing (“on his day”) of Jesus as the Human One (the sense of “Son of Humanity”) will be of such scale and splendor as not to be missed or mistaken, any more than one can miss a lightning flash that lights up the whole sky (v. 24). Before then, however, his rejection by his contemporaries must come to a head (on Jesus’ negative appraisal of his “generation,” see also 7:31–34; 9:41; 11:29–32, 50–51); his glorious return will follow suffering (17:25).109

106. Judgment: Luke 19:43; 21:6; 23:29, each time in apparent reference to the destruction of Jerusalem (cf. 5:35; Amos 4:2; Jer 7:32; 16:14; Zech 14:1). Restoration: Jer 23:5, 7; 30:3; 31:27, 38; 33:14; Amos 9:13.

107. Drawing upon the classical rhetorical technique of antanaklasis (repeating a word, but with contrary meaning; see Quintilian, Inst. 9.3.68), Lang argues that Luke uses “see” in two different senses in 17:22: the disciples will desire to see (i.e., witness) one of the days of the Son of Humanity but will not see (i.e., comprehend)—not until they realize that suffering is constitutive of his identity (“You will desire”); as additional examples of this technique in the Gospel, Lang points to 8:10 and 9:60. Lang holds that the discourse in 17:22–37 does not have the eschatological coming of Jesus in view but the approaching events of his passion (289–90, 292–99).

108. “Day” and “days” in reference to the eschatological era oscillate in the passage: singular in vv. 27, 29, 30, 31 (and suggestively, “night” in v. 34; cf. 12:35–40); plural in vv. 22, 26, 28.

But return he will, though many, absorbed in the routine activities of life, will experience the event as destructive rather than liberative. In 17:26–30 Jesus thus projects that the divided response his ministry has elicited will find eschatological expression as well, one prefigured by two stories of catastrophic judgment in Genesis: “Just as it happened in the days of Noah, . . . likewise . . . in the days of Lot” (vv. 26, 28). Although the Genesis (6–8) accounts of the flood and of the destruction of Sodom (and Gomorrah, Gen 19) highlight the wickedness of those generations—proverbial evil that Luke’s text may presuppose^110— Jesus’ discourse does not mention their sinfulness. Thus he makes a rhetorical move similar to that in 13:1–5, where he refused to correlate the experience of tragic death and the sinfulness of the victims but instead employed the disaster scenario to appeal for repentance on the part of his audience (cf. 10:12–15). So too here: the moral depravity of the people of the flood generation and of Sodom is beside the point; preoccupation with the routine activities needed to sustain household life will hinder the participation of the disciples and others after them in the decisive events that lie ahead.

A striking stylistic feature of the discourse is the staccato string of verbs without connecting conjunctions (i.e., the stylistic technique of asyndeton) in vv. 27–28, and with a crescendo effect (four verbs in v. 27, building to six in v. 28, with the first two verbs identical in the two parallel series). This is rhetorically powerful, attention-riveting syntax:

They were eating, they were drinking, they were marrying, they were being married. (v. 27, describing contemporaries of Noah)

They were eating, they were drinking, they were buying, they were selling, they were planting, they were building. (v. 28, describing contemporaries of Lot)

These are not evil or harmful activities, unless engagement in these routines of life diverts attention from more important, world-refiguring events that are occurring, in the same way that the entanglements of household life pose an obstacle to authentic discipleship during Jesus’ public career (9:57–62; 14:26; 18:22–23, 28–29; cf. 14:16–24, esp. the excuse-justifying activities in vv. 18–20, which resemble the fuller enumeration in 17:27–28).

109. The third of four explicit passion predictions (cf. 9:22, 44; 18:31–33); recall also the foreshadowing in 2:34–35; 4:24, 28–30; 5:35; 13:31–33 (cf. 22:21–22; 24:6–7). On the “divine necessity” (dei) of suffering as the Messiah’s route to glory, see also 24:26, 46; Cosgrove, “Divine ΔΕΙ.”

110. See, e.g., Schlosser, “Jours.”

Also suggestive is the interplay of singular and plural uses of “day”: days of Noah and Lot, analogous to “the [coming] days of the Son of Humanity,” depict the ongoing life of routine and normal activity, which the day (bringing either destruction or deliverance) abruptly and unexpectedly interrupts.111 As it was for the contemporaries of Noah and the contemporaries of Lot, so it will be for those (in Jesus’ future—and Luke’s) to whom Jesus will be definitively revealed as the Human One (v. 30). His significance and role as divine agent, previously unrecognized or denied by many, will be disclosed for all to acknowledge, disclosed by none other than God (“will be revealed” is a theological passive); a similar motif appears in the Parables of enoch (see, e.g., 1 En. 46; 48; 62:6–11; 69:28–29; cf. Rev 1:7, in a hybrid citation of Dan 7:13 and Zech 12:10).

Aptly, given the backdrop of the flood and of Sodom’s devastation, vv. 31–37 paint a picture of intense crisis and urgency, drawing on those ancient exemplars of destruction to offer a set of disturbing images of the end-time drama associated with the appearing of the Son of Humanity. However, while the (nearly) universal annihilation that resulted from the Genesis events “destroyed everyone” on “the day” (vv. 27, 29), Jesus forecasts a culminating judgment-with-deliverance that provides greater opportunity for a positive outcome (offering a 50/50 image, “one will be taken and the other will be left,” vv. 34–35).

Verses 31–33 merge images of sudden, threatening crisis and detachment from household and its materials. Whether one finds oneself resting on the roof or laboring in the field when “the day” arrives, one must not go back inside to retrieve one’s belongings (v. 31).112 What good are a few belongings if the attempt to salvage them means that one is overtaken by death? (The example of a rapidly advancing army may be the implied image here; 21st-century readers may imagine a house-consuming fire.) Verse 32 briefly returns to the lesson of Sodom, warning listeners to avoid the fate suffered by Lot’s wife, whose decision to turn back for a moment brought her to ruin (Gen 19:26). Those who would remain faithful to the end and therefore survive whatever ordeal the end time may bring must be willing to let everything go, to surrender attachment to household and its activities and things (Luke 17:33; cf. 14:25–33; 18:18–30). The ones who forfeit life will be those who strive to preserve it (lit. [with irony], “to obtain life as a possession”). They have failed to “leave everything” (aphiēmi in 5:11; 18:28–29), so now they are “left” to ruin (17:34–35). By contrast, it is precisely those who let go of life (psychēn) and its normal preoccupations who will keep it alive (zōogonēsei).

111. A similar oscillation between singular and plural forms of “day” occurs in 1 En. 96.8; 97.1–5. Bridge contends that the point in vv. 26–30 is not the suddenness of judgment but the “removal of the righteous” (Eagles 41), anticipating the motif of separation in vv. 34–35.

112. An exterior staircase or ladder would ascend to the roof, so if one is to escape peril, one should not descend the stairs and then go into the house to retrieve belongings.

Verses 34–35 graphically depict these divergent outcomes, imagining sudden and seemingly arbitrary separation of people: “Two [men] will be on one bed on that night; one will be taken and the other will be left. There will be two [women] grinding at the same [mill]; one will be taken and the other will be left.” Who experiences deliverance, the one taken or the one left? The Noah and Lot analogies suggest those taken are rescued from the disaster that overtakes people left (behind), as also (more subtly) does the preceding assertion that only persons willing to relinquish life will obtain it. If so, this entails an intriguing inversion of Luke’s frequent use of the verb aphiēmi (here, in the form aphethēsetai, “will be left”) to signify release (from oppression or debt) or forgiveness (e.g., 4:18 [the cognate noun]; 5:20–24; 7:47–49; 11:4; 12:10; 17:3–4; 23:34), although it aligns with the uses in 9:60 (“leave” the dead to bury their own dead) and 13:35 (the house “left” [forsaken]).

No explanation is given for the one being taken and the other being left. Is the sense that the suddenness of the incursion of history’s final act will not permit any last-minute realignment of life with the values, commitments, and practices of the realm of God (cf. 12:35–13:9)? Or is the point simply a warning to the audience (both Jesus’ and Luke’s) that the day will come, suddenly and without opportunity for advance preparation, when all will be held accountable? That day will bring deliverance for those faithful to God, but judgment for all who cling to values, commitments, and practices that run counter to the ways of God. either way, the point concerns neither judgment alone nor salvation alone but division in which divine justice effects both rescue and a surrender to destruction. In the sudden separation of two men in bed and of two women grinding at the mill, therefore, Simeon’s oracle of a people divided (some fall and some rise, 2:34–35), John’s prophecy of eschatological judgment as division (3:17), and the divergent responses to both John and Jesus as agents of God (e.g., 7:29–34; 12:8–10, 51–53) find definitive completion in the future coming of the Son of Humanity—the return of Jesus to deliver and gather a people (cf. 21:27–28). Luke 21:34–36 fills in the picture: those “taken” are rescued so as to stand tall before the Son of Humanity in that day when all are called to account.

Advancing from the Pharisees’ concern with timing (“When is the realm of God coming?” [17:20]), the disciples interject a question about place: “Where, Lord?” (v. 37a). Jesus replies in kind: “Where the body is, there the eagles, too, will be gathered together” (v. 37b). Question and answer are equally enigmatic, and Luke’s readers must work hard to fill gaps so as to discern meaning. Are the disciples seeking a precise location for the separation graphically depicted in vv. 34–35? Are they asking, more specifically, the whence of the ones taken? Or the place of the ones left? Whose body (sōma)—and is this a lifeless body? (The parallel in Matt 24:28 employs the word “corpse” [ptōma], and later Luke employs sōma for the body of the crucified Jesus [23:52, 55; 24:3, 23].) And what are these “eagles” (aetoi)? Are they assembled by God (theological passive)? Do they represent a destructive symbol (gathered to devour a fallen body; cf. Rev 19:17–18, 21) or a life-bearing one (eagle’s wings lifting the body heavenward)?

With so many questions raised by so few words, it would be foolish to imagine this text univocally delivering precise, clear meaning to Luke’s readers of any generation. Ambiguity and multivalence will inevitably characterize audience responses to the verse.113 Nevertheless, a few particularly suggestive lines of interpretive response can be identified. The first follows Jesus’ path to eschatological glory by way of suffering and death. Verses 22–25 tie accurate perception of the Son of Humanity (in v. 30, his being “revealed”) to his suffering. Therefore, when readers encounter Roman prefect and soldiers assembled to participate in the crucifixion of Jesus, knowledge of the eagle as symbol par excellence of Rome and its mighty legions will prompt recognition of the fulfillment, at least in part, of the prophecy in v. 37.114 Where Roman might has been assembled to dispatch the body (of Jesus), there the division among Jesus’ followers is effected (e.g., Peter’s denial and Judas’s betrayal). Thus, at least on one level, the discourse of 17:22–37 foreshadows the events of the Passion Narrative (emphasized by Lang, “You will desire”).

Yet the passion drama does not exhaust the meaning potential of the discourse; there is eschatological remainder, especially in light of the robust images of universal revelation of the Son of Humanity and all-encompassing judgment (vv. 24, 26–30), as well as the climactic mention of the eschatological coming of the Son of Humanity at the close of this narrative unit, in which Jesus is addressing disciples (18:8). Two different ways of connecting the images of eagle, body, and the separation of people taken and left behind—as part of an eschatological scenario—may be sketched. If one focuses attention on those “taken,” the answer to the question “Where [i.e., whence]?” directs readers to track eagles’ wings skyward (i.e., heavenward).115 The eagles are gathered (by God) to bear the faithful, in company of the Son of Humanity, to the eternal realm of God.116 However, if one identifies the body with the people “left,” the eagle returns, as it were, to the shields of the Roman army, and then the eagle becomes emblem of the destructive judgment that will befall those not rescued for participation in the realm of God. Roman armies as agents of destructive historical judgment in Jerusalem (19:43–44; 21:20–24) thus provide an ominous image of the eschatological judgment that lies beyond that catastrophic event.

113. For the range of interpretations that have been proposed, see, in addition to the commentaries, Bridge, Eagles; O’Day, “Gather”; Lang, “You will desire.” Both Bridge and O’Day offer constructive engagement with patristic readings of this text.

114. See, e.g., Josephus, J. W. 3.123; Pliny, Nat. 10.5.16, in an extended natural-history discussion of the eagle (10.2.3–10.6.18).

115. Compare “eagle” in Jewish texts such as Exod 19:3–6; Deut 32:10–12; 4Q506.6–8; and T. Mos. 10.7–10 (cf. 1 En. 96.1–2), as well as Greco-Roman mythology (e.g., apotheosis traditions attested in Herodian, Hist. 4.2.10–11; Dio Cassius, Hist. rom. 56.42; and the legend of Ganymede); see Bridge, Eagles 80–81.

Whatever the direction of reading adopted, some things are plain. The future of Jesus will usher him to glorious dominion only by way of rejection and suffering, and the future of the disciples will bring them face-to-face with rigorous testing. With all humanity, they will be called to account on “that day,” the moment when the Son of Humanity is revealed for all to acknowledge (17:30), when he “comes” (18:8; 21:27). But will they prove faithful? Especially given the protracted struggle and challenge to faith that history will bring, will faith persist until “the day”? Jesus has more to say on this topic, yet he will do so not in riddle but in parable (18:1–8).

18:1–8 A Parable about Faith’s Persistence

Still addressing disciples, but shifting genres to a parable, Jesus invites his audience to imagine the confrontation between a dishonorable judge and a widow seeking justice who will not take no for an answer. Luke directs his audience to hear the story as a cautionary tale about the imperative of persistent prayer. God is trustworthy and responsive to the plight of the faithful, but life in the real world in the era that stretches out before the return of the Son of Humanity will nevertheless pose a challenge to faith.

1 [Jesus] was telling them a parable, the point of which was that they must pray continually and not grow discouraged: 2 “There was [once] in a certain city a judge who neither feared God nor respected [any] human being. 3 Now in that city there was a widow, and she kept coming to him, saying, ‘Give me what is my just due from the one who has treated me unjustly.’a 4 Yet for a time he would not [do so]; afterward, however, he said to himself, ‘even though I neither fear God nor respect [any] human being, 5 nevertheless, because this widow is pummeling me, I will give her justice lest, in the end, she wear me out by [repeatedly] coming.’” 6 The Lord said, “Hear what the unjust judge says. 7 But God will effect justice for his chosen ones who are crying out to him day and night, won’t he? And is he delaying [in doing so] for them?b 8 I tell you, he will swiftly effect justice for them. However, when the Son of Humanity comes, will he find faith on earth?”

116. For patristic readings that follow such a path, see, e.g., Ambrose, Exp. Luc. 8.55–56; John Chrysostom, Hom. 1 Cor. 24.7; Theodoret, Div. Prov. 5.12; cf. Jerome, Comm. Matt. on 24:28 (among texts collected by Bridge, Eagles 151–61). For Bridge, the force of the disciples’ question in v. 37 is “Where will we be taken?” (50). Luke has composed the discourse from the perspective of the survivors; primary emphasis falls not on the destruction of the wicked but on the salvation of the elect (55), who will be reunited with the Lord when he is revealed in glory (56). Bridge further proposes that Luke’s choice of episynagein (gather together), rather than the synonymous synagein in Matt 24:28, may reflect the use of episynagein as a technical term for the eschatological ingathering of Israel in the lxx (Ps 105 [106e]:47; 2 Macc 1:27; 2:7–8, 18; see Eagles 54–55). With this same verb, Luke 13:34 depicts Jesus’ frustrated desire to gather Jerusalem’s children as a hen gathers her chicks.

a. Or “Vindicate [ ekdikēson] me against [apo] my adversary [antidikou].” My translation draws attention to the common root (dik-) shared by the words ekdikēson and antidikou, employs a typical meaning of the preposition apo, and suits the social-world context of the case, where financial concerns would probably have been in dispute.

b. Verse 7 is difficult to translate; here I construe it as containing two questions. The first, employing the emphatic double-negative ou mē, anticipates an (emphatic) affirmative answer (see BDF 184; Hultgren, Parables 256). The second question, in the present tense, expects a negative reply. On the meaning of makrothymei (here, wait patiently; i.e., delay), see BDAG 612; Fitzmyer 2:1180 (cf. Sir 35:21–22 [17–20a lxx]).

[1–8] With the frame the narrator places around this parable featuring a widow’s relentless quest for justice when faced with a nonresponsive judge (vv. 2–5), Luke guides readers to experience it as a summons to persevering prayer (v. 1), an activity that proves necessary because, even though God can be trusted to deliver justice speedily, injustice is tenacious and faith is therefore vulnerable (vv. 6–8).

The parable itself is memorable, both in its vivid characterization and in the unusual actions its brief plot depicts. A judge who should know better ignores a widow’s repeated petitions for justice (on the mandate for compassionate justice in treatment of widows, see, e.g., Deut 24:17; Isa 1:17). Perhaps he does know better; nevertheless, he neither fears (reveres) God^117 nor holds anything but contempt for other human beings—such is the parabolic narrator’s (Jesus’) harsh characterization of him (v. 2), and such also is the defiant self-portrait the judge himself paints (v. 4). He is the epitome of an “unjust judge” (v. 6).118 Yet the judge finally does intervene in the widow’s unspecified legal dispute with an unnamed adversary—not out of any commitment to justice, but out of self-concern pure and simple. The judge’s soliloquy speaks volumes: “Because this widow is pummeling me, I will give her justice lest, in the end, she wear me out by [repeatedly] coming” (v. 5).

117. Contrary to the injunction in 2 Chr 19:7, which links fear of God and a judge’s capacity to render justice.

118. Danker views the judge’s self-portrait more positively as an assertion of his impartiality (294–95), but his refusal to hear the widow’s case suggests otherwise.

Jesus draws cartoon-character sketches that defy expectation: a judge who cares not a whit for justice; a vulnerable widow who acts aggressively with persistent courage, such an imposing force that the judge feels he is undergoing pummeling by a boxer. These character sketches are humorous, of course, but it is the sort of serious humor that knows, and names, the stark reality—within Rome-occupied Palestine in the first century, but in other times and places as well—of oppression and injustice suffered by persons to whom the judicial, economic, and political systems continually turn a cold, silent shoulder.119

Luke’s introduction to the parable (18:1) builds on prior instruction about prayer, presented both through Jesus’ modeling of prayer (see the comment on 3:21–22) and through explicit teaching about the topic (11:1–13). If the model prayer commended by Jesus has directed disciples to petition for the coming of God’s reign (11:2), the parable of the persistent widow presents exhibit A that the unfolding of history will not promptly and unambiguously deliver on that request. Just as the widow Anna continually prayed and fasted in the temple, “night and day” (2:37), out of her deep longing for God’s deliverance of the people, and just as this parabolic widow relentlessly seeks justice when the system is stacked against her, so history will demand that God’s “chosen ones”120 persist in their oppression-resisting, justice-seeking cries to God “day and night” (18:7).

Interacting with the preceding parable, the formulation in vv. 7b–8 is intriguing, tensively capturing at one and the same time the affirmation of God’s utter reliability and an acknowledgment that life in the world will nevertheless not deliver efficient justice and vindication for those who place trust in God. When the Son of Humanity eventually comes (again) in the consummation of God’s rule in the world—and not swiftly (en tachei), despite v. 8, but only after protracted delay (acknowledged, e.g., in 12:35–40; 19:11–27; 21:7–28)—it is a real question whether faith(fulness) will endure to welcome him. Indeed, before the Gospel narrative concludes, the disciples to whom Jesus is speaking here will be overwhelmed by the ordeal of testing that they encounter precisely because they prove unable to match Jesus’ own persistence in prayer (22:40, 45–46). Luke’s audience (whether late first or early twenty-first century), overhearing Jesus’ sobering message for the disciples, will have difficulty sidestepping the questions implicitly addressed to them: Will you persist in faith? Will you be found faithful until the end?

119. Note the amplification in the depiction of another widow in 21:1–4; cf. 20:45–47. A comparable case involving a widow’s legal dispute with her son-in-law appears in POxy 8.1120; see further Schottroff, Impatient Sisters 101–4.

120. Eklektōn (18:7), the only use of the plural form of this word in Luke (the singular eklektos appears in 23:35); cf. in lxx: Ps 104 (105e):6, 43; Isa 42:1; 43:20; 65:9, 15, 23; see Fitzmyer 2:1180.

Verses 6–8 unpack the parable in a lesser-to-greater argument reminiscent of 11:5–8. Much as the reluctantly hospitable neighbor in that parable points to the abundantly more generous hospitality of a trustworthy God,121 this parable’s unjust judge (ho kritēs tēs adikias, 18:6, with the same construction as in 16:8–9 for the unjust manager and mammon) points, despite himself, toward the reliable commitments of a faithful, just God. God, that is to say, is not like this reluctantly responsive judge.122 By contrast, God will vindicate without needing to be prompted. Yet even if the divine sovereign lacks the defiant disdain of the parabolic judge, we do still wait for justice on this planet, and we do still need—without giving in to despair—to continue resisting tenacious violent forces that produce injustice in the humanly constructed world. Indeed, one might recount innumerable tales of crushing oppression, brutal injustice, for which persistent petition and resistant action have been both necessary and, to all appearances, met with silence (or worse). In such moments, when history deals unrelenting, unjust suffering and when God has seemed distant and silent, why go on believing in God?123 This is the challenge to persevering faith that Jesus’ parable invites readers to consider.

The concluding, sobering note in Luke 18:8 about the challenge of persevering faith(fullness) in the light of the course of history, with its persistent injustice and oppression and manifold tales of ever-retreating vindication, picks up the apostles’ request for increased faith (17:5), adding another reason why this request makes sense in a world like ours. As in several other passages in Luke’s Gospel (e.g., 7:36–50; 14:7–24; 15:11–32; see Maxwell, Hearing), the audience needs to work at supplying the answer an open-ended story is seeking. More immediately, however, readers will encounter another parable juxtaposing two dramatically different characters, one that resumes Luke’s sustained concern with status inversion in the realm of God.

18:9–34 Lessons about God’s Realm for the Status-Conscious

Scene and cast changes accelerate as the travel narrative brings Jesus close to his destination. Rapidly changing audiences—the self-approving (18:9–14), disciples in the presence of infants and their parents (vv. 15–17), a rich ruler in the presence of others who include Peter (vv. 18–30), and the Twelve (vv. 31–34)—hear a sustained, radical challenge from Jesus to reconceive understandings of status, honor, and wealth within the realm of God.

121. Luke 11:11–13 adds a second lesser-to-greater argument in which the benefactions of parents image the more profound generosity of God.

122. Divine justice, according to Sir 35:17–19, is marked by a refusal to ignore the complaint of the widow (cf. Deut 10:17–18).

123. On the Shoah, e.g., see Wiesel, Night; idem, Ani Maamin 49; and on genocide in Cambodia, the drama by Filloux, “Silence of God.” Many other examples could be mentioned.

18:9–14 A Parable about Two Prayers

Jesus resumes his attack on conventional notions of honor and practices of status-seeking by telling unspecified listeners assured of their own uprightness (v. 9) a parable about two men at prayer in the temple, in which honor before God defies customary expectation.

9 [Jesus] then told the following parable to some people who had confidence in themselves as righteous yet showed disdain for everyone else:

10 “Two men went up to the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. 11 The Pharisee was standing by himself and praying, ‘God, I thank you that I am not like other people: robbers, the dishonest,a adulterers—or even like this tax collector. 12 I fast twice a week. I pay a tithe on everything I buy.’ 13 The tax collector, though, stood at a distance and would not even raise his eyes toward heaven, but he kept pounding his chest, saying, ‘God, show mercy to me, the sinner.’b 14 I tell you, this man, rather than the other, went down to his house justified. For all who lift themselves high will be brought low, but those who lower themselves will be lifted high.”

a. Or “unjust persons,” adikoi, the opposite of moral integrity and uprightness. b. The article with hamartōlō (sinner) signals that the tax agent, at least in his own estimation, is a conspicuous sinner in this temple setting.

[9–14] Without clear indication of a scene change, the narrator introduces a new audience for another parable of Jesus, one that moves concern with prayer from the parable’s narrative frame (in vv. 1, 6–8) to the center of its plot. While the auditors lack names and party labels, they sport clear moral-character badges that elicit from Jesus a story that plays a now-familiar tune. To “some people who had confidence in themselves as righteous yet showed disdain for everyone else” (v. 9; a profile reminiscent of Jesus’ Pharisee detractors in 16:15), Jesus holds up a parabolic mirror that pictures once again the radical status inversion effected by the realm of God. If the moral of the story is not clear enough, Jesus clinches its point in a closing assertion of the table-upending activity of God that subverts conventional notions of status and honor: “All who lift themselves high will be brought low, but those who lower themselves will be lifted high” (18:14b; verbatim repetition of 14:11, except for a minor change in conjunctions from kai, [and] to de [but]). In the next two vignettes (18:15–17, 18–30) the disciples return. Despite variable audiences and genres in this section of the narrative, the thematic focus that lends coherence to 18:9–34 is Jesus’ radical reconfiguring of status and honor for the realm of God.124

Two men at prayer in the temple (v. 10) present a study in contrasts—in position and body posture, in the content of their prayers, and in their dramatically different ways of life, one exemplary and the other morally repugnant (vv. 11–12, Pharisee; v. 13, tax collector). The Pharisee stands by himself (pros heauton),125 his position conveying his attitude toward other people, expressed in his prayer. The tax collector, by contrast, stands “at a distance,” his face turned downward, away from heaven, in humility (or perhaps humiliation), pounding his chest in remorse (as the people leaving Jesus’ crucifixion will do in 23:48).

The tax collector’s prayer is compact (“God, show mercy to me, the sinner,” 18:13 [six words in Greek]), overshadowed by the description of his body language (19 words). The Pharisee, however, is full of words (29 in all): prominent among them are five first-person verbs. Cast in the form of thanksgiving (“I thank you”), the prayer is thus actually self-referential, centering on the meritorious activities of a man who knows himself to be virtuous—surpassing even the demands of the Torah, and certainly surpassing the moral qualities of other people. The first part of the prayer features comparison with others, dressed as gratitude for the life path not taken (“robbers, the dishonest, adulterers—or even . . . this tax collector,” v. 11).126 The disdain for a fellow worshiper voiced by this man of virtue is palpable. Part 2 of the prayer moves beyond thanksgiving, naming two of the routine practices that define this Pharisee’s piety (typical of Pharisees, according to Luke [5:33; 11:42]): if the Torah mandates an annual fast on the Day of Atonement (Lev 16:29–31), he fasts twice weekly (cf. Did. 8.1); if the Torah prescribes payment of a tithe on what one produces (Lev 27:30–33; Num 18:26; Deut 14:22–27; cf. Luke 11:42), he goes so far as to pay a tithe on everything he buys (Luke 18:12). By story’s end, these two men have exchanged roles, at least in Jesus’ appraisal. Of the two men, only the conspicuous sinner, the tax collector, returns home vindicated—that is, deemed righteous by God (dedikaiōmenos, a theological passive, in v. 14); thus the affirmation of God’s justice by tax collectors who had received John’s baptism (edikaiōsan in 7:29) circles back. But why?

124. Readers meet rapidly shifting audiences in the last part of the travel narrative; each character group takes turns stepping into the foreground, while the others fade into the background. So (beginning with ch. 16, though the pattern of alternating audiences reaches back further in the narrative): disciples, 16:1–13; Pharisees, 16:14–31; disciples, 17:1–10; healing interlude (ten lepers and implied observing crowd), 17:11–19; Pharisees, 17:20–21; disciples, 17:22–18:8; unspecified status-preoccupied persons, 18:9–14; disciples (together with parents of infants), 18:15–17; rich ruler, 18:18–30 (with unspecified auditors, vv. 26, 29; and a query from Peter, v. 28); the Twelve, 18:31–34. Through both challenge and provocation addressed to detractors and moral formation addressed to disciples and crowds, Luke’s narrative forms reading communities attuned to the commitments and practices of God’s dominion.

125. This phrase in 18:11 could be rendered “concerning himself,” and the content of the ensuing prayer certainly matches, but the parallel with the tax collector’s location suggests a similar spatial nuance for the Pharisee.

126. There is irony in the Pharisee’s move to distance himself from robbers ( harpages), in view of Jesus’ earlier indictment of Pharisees as “full of greed” (harpagēs, 11:39), in a stinging rebuke of Pharisees that also faults them for piety that is better at tithing spices than practicing justice or the love of God (11:42).

While the parable, with its inside-out status inversion of righteous Pharisee and sinful tax collector, may have been shocking for Jesus’ first listeners, Luke’s audience has been well tutored by the preceding narrative to make sense of the reversal. In a single snapshot the parable captures a set of interactions among Jesus, tax collectors, and Pharisees in which tax collectors have consistently responded positively to Jesus (as to John before him) and received his hospitality and acceptance, and with it also answered his summons to a reordered life. Yet Pharisees, despite the hospitality of shared meals, have resisted Jesus’ ministry and, in particular, his acceptance of tax collectors and other conspicuous sinners (5:27–32; 7:29–30; 15:1–2; for a similar reversal in roles between a Pharisee and a woman with reputation as sinner, see 7:36–50). The Pharisee’s prayer articulates his contempt for others whom he assumes to be morally deficient and therefore out of favor with God. He thus exemplifies the sin and need for mercy of the self-approved righteous, even if they do not recognize their need.

In the realm of God, as Jesus imagines and enacts it in Luke’s Gospel, honor extends to those who do not seek to establish it for their own advantage, in a status-competitive arena that will inevitably mean diminished honor for others, but who instead trust God to provide authentic honor. Vindication, validation as just and virtuous, comes from God. So a self-aware, self-abasing tax collector who comes to the temple seeking only mercy finds favor with God. Divine validation, meanwhile, is withheld from a Pharisee who fails to recognize his need for it. For all his zeal to observe the Torah, he stumbles in observance of the key commandments to love God and neighbor (in the terms of 10:25–37 and 11:42).

In summarizing, and extending as a universal principle, the reversal of role and position displayed in the parable, 18:14b fuses horizontal and vertical status inversion, a connection already drawn in the case of Jesus’ rebuke of Pharisees in 16:14–15.127 These two types of role reversal interact again in the account of Jesus’ encounter with a real-world tax collector, though with a surprising twist (19:1–10). On the way to the home of Zacchaeus, though, Luke keeps concerns of status in the foreground, presenting in the next two scenes (18:15– 17, 18–30) another study in contrasts, this time juxtaposing low-status infants and a wealthy member of the social elite, a Torah-keeping ruler. Which of these embodies the reign of God?

127. Gowler (Host 269 n. 188) suggests the shift in focus from righteousness to pride and humility in 18:14 is anticipated in the earlier characterization of the Pharisees (esp. 11:42–44 and 16:15).

18:15–17 Children as Models in God’s Realm

Stepping into the narrative, or carried into it, in a vignette that replays an earlier episode (9:46–48) are parade examples of the vertical status reversal that Jesus has just announced: infants. The disciples try to keep them at a safe, quiet distance from Jesus, but he again forges a close link between young children, as persons of minimal status, and the realm of God.

15 Peoplea were bringing even infants to [Jesus], so that he might touch them; however, when the disciples saw [this], they began to scold them.

16 Jesus, though, summoned them,b saying, “Permit the little children to come to me, and do not hinder them, for God’s realm is [composed] of such persons.c 17 Indeed, I tell you, whoever does not receive God’s realm as a childd will not enter it.

a. Literally, “they” (unexpressed subject of the verb).

b. That is, the infants (neuter plural pronoun).

c. Or “the realm [reign] of God belongs to such [persons] as these.” d. understanding the presence of an ellipsis here, the phrase might also be rendered

“receive God’s realm as [one receives] a child,” or “receive God’s realm as a child [does].” See the comment below.

[15–17] For the second time in the narrative of Jesus’ public activity, children enter the story; as in the previous episode (9:46–48), Jesus affirms children at the expense of undiscerning disciples. On this occasion other persons (likely parents) take the initiative to bring babies (brephē) to Jesus so that he may touch them, presumably for healing (18:15).128 This is left unspecified as the narrator rivets attention on the disciples’ resistance and Jesus’ welcome of children, exemplars of God’s realm (vv. 16–17).

Why do the disciples scold (or rebuke, with the strong verb epetimōn) the persons who seek Jesus’ attention for young children (esp. after 9:46–48; cf. Jesus’ celebration of divine disclosure to metaphorical babies [nēpioi] in 10:21)? The narrator withholds explanation of their motive, so readers have a gap to fill. When a member of the social elite seeks audience with Jesus immediately afterward (18:18), readers may infer that the disciples, still statusconscious (note the reprise of 9:46–48, with variation, in 22:24–27), assume the rich ruler should not be forced to wait while Jesus concerns himself with infants (recall the delay in Jesus’ aid for a synagogue ruler due to an interruption by an anonymous woman in 8:40–56). Whatever the disciples’ intent, their rebuke by Jesus betrays a failure to grasp what Jesus’ enactment of the reign of God is doing to conventions of status and honor, articulated as recently as 18:14 (the disciples’ lack of awareness and insight receives notice again in 18:34). Although Jesus does not rebuke the disciples (contrast Mark 10:14), his insistence that the children be permitted access to him (Luke 18:16a), his assertion that children are paradigmatic participants in God’s realm (v. 16b; see Carroll, “Perspectives on Children” 188–90), and his declaration that everyone with hopes of a place in it must take on the inferior status of a child (v. 17)—these amount to a vigorous though implicit correction of the disciples.

128. Jesus himself positioned a child in the center of the action in 9:47; cf. his allusion to child’s play in 7:32. “Infants” (brephē) in 18:15 replaces the paidia (children) of Mark 10:13 and Matt 19:13

Verse 17 can be construed variously (the first two options below fill in an assumed ellipsis in different ways): one must receive God’s realm (1) as one receives children (by extending hospitality to them; Green 651); (2) as a little child receives it; or (3) as if one were a child (i.e., as a person of minimal status; not meaning, in speech to adults, while a child). In view of the emphasis on universal, vertical status reversal in v. 14, as well as the age and capacity of the children here (infants), the third option is preferable: God’s realm belongs not to the wealthy, powerful, and high in status—or those who are preoccupied with enhancing their status and honor—but precisely to those whose honor is conferred by God alone.

Interest in this theme, and in the practical face of the countercultural status inversion that is constitutive of God’s realm, continues in the next unit. The polar opposite of infants—a wealthy ruler, a privileged member of the social elite—approaches Jesus on a quest for eternal life.

18:18–30 Entering God’s Realm as Divestment of Wealth

Young children are paradigmatic participants in the realm of God. What are the implications for persons at the other end of the social prestige scale? The arrival of a rich ruler on a quest for eternal life occasions teaching from Jesus that suggests an answer, and in doing so it raises troubling questions for disciples as well.

18 One of the powerful elitea asked [Jesus], “Good teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?” 19 Jesus said to him, “Why do you call me good? No one is good except God. 20 You know the commandments: ‘Do not commit adultery. Do not murder. Do not steal. Do not give false witness. Honor your father and mother.’” 21 And he said, “I’ve kept all these since I was young.”b 22 When Jesus heard [this], he said to the man, “One thing is still lacking in you. Sell everything you have and distribute [the proceeds] to the poor, and you will have a treasure in heaven—and come, follow me!” 23 But when he heard this, he became sorrowful, for he was extremely wealthy.

24 Now when Jesus saw that he had become sorrowful, he said, “How difficult it is for those who have possessions to enter God’s realm. 25 Indeed, it is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a wealthy person to enter God’s realm.” 26 Those who had heard [this] said, “Then who can be saved?” 27 And he said, “What is impossible for human beings is possible for God.”

28 So Peter said, “See, we’ve left everythingc and followed you.” 29 He said to them, “Truly, I tell you, there is no one who has left household or wife or brothers or parents or children for the sake of God’s realm 30 who will not receive back—multiplied!—in this age, and in the age that is coming, eternal life.”

a. Literally, “a ruler” ( archōn).

b. Literally, “from [my] youth.”

c. Or, in the reading preferred by ∏75 and supported by B א^2 (a corrector of א),

“We’ve left [our] own things.” Perhaps panta (everything) is secondary, conforming the wording of 18:28 to 5:11, 28 (cf. 14:33), but it is also possible that in a context emphasizing the disciples’ renunciation of household, later copyists who knew that Peter did not forsake his own wife (cf. 1 Cor 9:5) tempered his sweeping claim to have “left everything.”

[18–23] Without interruption or scene change, a man of stature and influence in the community, a ruler (archōn; cf. 23:13, 35; 24:20), approaches Jesus on a spiritual quest: “Good teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?” (18:18; repeating verbatim the lawyer’s question in 10:25, though without the dubious motive and adding the complimentary term “good”). Deflecting the respectful compliment, Jesus locates true goodness in its one source, God (v. 19), then reciprocates the respect with an open acknowledgment that the ruler knows the commandments, from which Jesus proceeds to quote a sample of five dealing with human interactions: prohibitions of adultery, murder, theft, and false testimony, and the imperative of honoring father and mother (v. 20).129 Jesus is correct that the ruler knows the commandments; indeed, he has enacted that knowledge in faithful, lifelong practice (v. 21).130

129. Citing exod 20:12–16; Deut 5:16–20, but with altered sequence that places the prohibition of adultery first (differing from Mark 10:19) and the positive command to honor parents last, yielding a household-relationship framing of the commands.

A history of law-keeping notwithstanding, this man has come to Jesus on a quest, hinting that he already realizes something is missing from his religiousethical practice. Jesus acknowledges the deficiency—“One thing is still lacking in you”—and names it in radical terms: “Sell everything you have and distribute [the proceeds] to the poor, and you will have a treasure in heaven—and come, follow me!” (v. 22).131 Ironic wit here: what is lacking is, paradoxically, an incapacity to release abundance! A member of the social elite hears a challenge to redistribute wealth to those who lack economic resources.132 Only now, in describing the quester’s reaction, does the narrator disclose that the man is “extremely wealthy” (v. 23). A rich ruler who commands great social prestige is reduced to sorrow at the prospect of needing to relinquish a prime source of his public stature, his wealth. unlike Mark (10:22), Luke does not report the rich man’s departure, only profiling his emotional response and its cause. The outcome (what does he decide to do?) is thus left suspended. As Jesus proceeds to comment on the exchange, for the instruction of his disciples and other auditors, the rich quester evidently remains to overhear it. Luke artfully constructs a unitary scene encompassing the whole of 18:18–30 (see York, Last 155), which begins and ends with the image of eternal life, along the way displaying diverse responses to the perils and possibilities of possessions.

[24–30] Observing the pained reaction of the rich ruler, Jesus extends and radicalizes the challenge. It is not just in this particular human life that possession of material wealth poses a hindrance to participation in the realm of God; entrance into God’s dominion is equally difficult for others who have stuff (possessions, chrēmata, v. 24). Humanly speaking, it is actually an impossibility: no more than a camel can navigate through a needle’s eye can a wealthy person gain entrance into the domain that God rules (v. 25). The ruler’s initial question concerned inheritance of eternal life (v. 18; cf. v. 30); Jesus shifts metaphorical fields, reframing inheritance of enduring life as entrance into a realm of which God (not the social elite) is the ruler (vv. 24–25, 29; cf. vv. 16–17). Only by relinquishing his claim to power, and its basis in his economic resources, can the rich man (and others like him who command great wealth and status) enjoy the blessing of enduring life. The same is true for Jesus’ disciples who have already given up household and its material life (vv. 28–30). Verse 30 returns to the image of eternal life but sheds the metaphor of inheritance.

130. Phillips argues that the one thing the ruler lacks is “obedience to the tenth commandment” (the prohibition of coveting), “which Jesus conveniently omitted” in his summary of the commandments (Reading 165). This is an unnecessarily negative reading of the man’s character and Torah observance. Jesus’ teaching regarding wealth is congruent with Scripture but radicalizes its claim. This man’s inability to release wealth for the sake of the poor signals, to be sure, a failure to hear and heed Moses and the prophets (as 16:14–31 makes clear), but that need not mean violation of the commandment against coveting what belongs to others. For Luke, the claim of Moses and the prophets runs deeper still.

131. On first blush, there is an apparent contradiction in v. 22 between “one thing lacking” and its unpacking in two elements (give away to benefit the poor and follow Jesus); however, the two actions (disinvest wealth to reinvest in the poor and answer a call to follow) are being presented as one coordinated response to a summons to discipleship. The phrasing of v. 28 confirms this reading; there Peter reminds Jesus that he and his disciple peers “having left, followed,” with participle and verb coordinating one composite action (Mark 10:28 and Matt 19:27, by contrast, employ two finite verbs at this point).

132. Luke employs diados (distribute), a more intensive form than dos (give) in Mark 10:21.

The claim of v. 24 (the needle-threading camel) employs humorous hyperbole, but Jesus’ use of humor does not mask the seriousness of what he has to say. The people who are listening respond with a question that expresses concern, if not stunned bewilderment: “Then who can be saved?” (v. 26; cf. 13:23). Salvation thus joins eternal life, the realm of God, and treasure in heaven (18:22) as images in vv. 15–30 of the blessed life that God purposes for human beings, which they in turn desire and seek. The introduction of the salvation metaphor in v. 26 gives insight into the “how” of entrance into the realm where life is ruled by God (reframing the concern with inheritance). One must be delivered—by God, that is, as indicated by the passive verb “be saved.” Even if the speakers do not intend a theological passive here, Jesus’ answer indicates as much in v. 27: God does the humanly impossible work of saving.

As posed, the question assumes an unhappy outcome for most, if not all— more despairing by far than the similar query in 13:23. Nevertheless, the passive formulation “be saved” beautifully sets up Jesus’ reply. God accomplishes what people cannot possibly do: “What is impossible for human beings is possible for God” (18:27). Jesus’ affirmation of the divine “impossible possibility”133 recalls the angel Gabriel’s word of assurance to Mary (1:37), which itself evoked memory of the story of Abraham and Sarah, with its spotlight on God’s proclivity to do the humanly impossible work of creating life where there is no reasonable hope for it (Gen 18:14 lxx). So is there a possibility of (eternal) life for human beings, by way of salvation-entry into the realm ruled by God, perhaps even for those who have economic resources? Within a few verses, Luke will proceed to narrate an eventful, character-rich answer to the question (19:1–10).

Peter, until now a silent background figure in the scene, steps forward to speak on behalf of his apostolic colleagues. They have done what Jesus has challenged the rich ruler to do: “See, we’ve left everything and followed you” (18:28; cf. 5:11, 28; 14:33). So where do they stand? On the camel’s impossible path toward places in God’s domain reserved for those delivered into enduring life? Picking up with minor variation the terms of his summons to costly discipleship addressed to the crowd in 14:26, Jesus offers a word of reassurance: “Truly, I tell you, there is no one who has left household or wife or brothers or parents or children for the sake of God’s realm who will not receive back—multiplied!—in this age, and in the age that is coming, eternal life” (18:29–30).134 Although Jesus does not spell out what restored household and family relationships—with surplus—in this age look like, this only makes sense as a celebration of the new, fictive family that has gathered around Jesus and will continue as a cohesive community after his death. Already now this set of intimate relationships compensates for the ties set aside for the sake of discipleship. And what is more, assurance of eternal life, of a flourishing that will outlast this life, makes the disciples’ present detachment from household and material wealth well worth the cost (cf. treasure in heaven, 18:22; and recall the note of assurance in 12:22–34).

133. I borrow the phrase from an essay by Philip Clayton (“Impossible Possibility”), though not addressing its philosophical concern. To shift to Aristotle’s analysis of literary art, the later account of Zacchaeus’s experience of salvation (19:1–10) presents the saving of the wealthy as a “probable impossibility” (see Poet. 25: the ideal must surpass the reality).

The cost that attends following Jesus results from his own path through suffering; as that destiny approaches, it is time to remind the Twelve what is in store as they approach Jerusalem. Although they have come far and have received encouragement from the promise of a bright future, their reeducation is unfinished.

18:31–34 Another Preview of the End of the Journey

In the most extensive prophecy yet of the events that lie ahead in Jerusalem, Jesus continues his education of his chosen apostles; however, understanding still eludes them.

31 Then [Jesus], taking aside the Twelve, said to them, “Note well,a we are going up to Jerusalem, and everything written about the Son of Humanity through the prophets will be fulfilled. 32 For he will be handed over to the Gentiles, and he will be mocked and insulted and spat upon, 33 and after torturing him they will kill him—and on the third day he will rise.” 34 [The Twelve] understood none of this, and [the meaning] of this declarationb was concealed from them, and so they could not comprehend these things.c

a. Or “See [Behold]!” idou. b. Literally, “word,” rēma.

134. Households are added to, and sisters dropped from, the list as given in 14:26; Mark 10:29 lacks “wife.”

c. Literally, “the things that were being said.” I render the imperfect-tense verb eginōskon as conative: they could (not) comprehend. The incapacity of the Twelve to understand Jesus’ words results from its meaning being hidden from them.

[31–34] The travel narrative nears its end with the approach to Jerusalem (v. 31). That destination will bring Jesus face-to-face with his destiny as prophet and Messiah (13:33), and he chooses this moment to try once more to prepare the Twelve for what lies ahead. Here is the last in a series of four predictions of the passion of the Son of Humanity (after 9:22, 44; 17:25; cf. 5:35; 13:31–33; 19:12–27; 21:21–22; 24:6–7). This one, addressed specifically to the Twelve rather than to a generic group of disciples as in the previous three, adds new pieces in a more detailed sketch: Jesus’ death and resurrection as fulfilling “everything written about the Son of Humanity through the prophets” (cf. 24:25–27, 44–46, which shift from Jesus’ role as Son of Humanity to that of Messiah; see also Acts 2:22–36; 3:18, 24), his being handed over to Gentiles,135 his being mocked.136

The common denominator in all four Lukan passion predictions is the Son of Humanity as the one whose destiny is being prophesied. The variations in vocabulary and participants, and in the amount of detail provided, sustain readers’ interest even as the repeated announcements give prominence to the event, as well as to Jesus’ prophetic discernment (in 18:31 grounded in Scripture)— awareness that in two of the four passages is explicitly kept from the disciples or apostles who are listening (9:45; 18:34):

The Son of Humanity must suffer many things, and be rejected by the elders and the chief priests and the scribes, and be killed—and on the third day be raised up. (9:22)

The Son of Humanity will soon be handed over into human hands. (9:44)137

First, however, it is necessary that he [Son of Humanity, v. 24] suffer many things and be rejected by this generation. (17:25)138

We are going up to Jerusalem, and everything written about the Son of Humanity through the prophets will be fulfilled. For he will be handed over to the Gentiles, and he will be mocked and insulted and spat upon, and after torturing him they will kill him—and on the third day he will rise. (18:31–33)

135. Luke 18:32, as in Mark 10:33 but omitting Mark’s chief priests and scribes, whose part was already forecast in Luke 9:22.

136. Again, as in Mark, but heightening the dishonoring abuse of Jesus through the addition of hybristhēsetai ([he] will be insulted), and also employing the passive voice (cf. active verbs with “him,” Jesus, as direct object in Mark 10:34), thus focusing attention on Jesus as the one so treated.

137. In 9:44 the outcome of death (and resurrection) is left unstated, but after 9:22, readers easily fill the gap.

138. The motifs of suffering and rejection connect 17:25 to 9:22.

Although the prophetic announcement of 18:31–33 is specific and graphic, the Twelve are unable to comprehend, a fact highlighted by its repetition in v. 34: “understood none of this,” “could not comprehend these things.” Indeed, the meaning is hidden from them, at least for now (v. 34). This is likely a theological passive; disclosure of the meaning of these approaching events, by the risen Jesus, will come only later, after the crucifixion and resurrection “on the third day” (hence, on Easter; cf. “after three days” in Mark 10:34; see Luke 24:25–27, 44–46).

18:35–19:27 Sight, Insight, and Salvation

on the Approach to Jerusalem

Lack of insight on the part of the Twelve sets up two episodes in which Jesus encounters men desiring to see, leading to talk about their experience of salvation (18:35–43; 19:1–10). With Jerusalem near, these claims about present salvation raise expectations of an imminent arrival of God’s realm, a hope to which Jesus responds with a parable that corrects that misperception and—by drawing together images of kingship, rejection, delay, and accountability—interprets in advance the events about to be narrated (19:11–27).

18:35–43 Jesus Restores Sight to a Blind Man

The apostles cannot (yet) understand plain talk about the violent end that awaits Jesus as Son of Humanity in Jerusalem, even if it flows from divine, Scriptureattested necessity (9:22, 44; 13:31–33; 17:25; 18:31–33). As if to expose all the more clearly the lack of (in)sight of Jesus’ closest followers (18:34), Luke now introduces a man who is unable to see physically yet through encounter with Jesus finds himself on a path not only to physical sight but also to the sort of insight and faithful response expected of disciples.

35 Now when [Jesus] was drawing near to Jericho, a blind man happened to be sitting alongside the road, begging. 36 And when he heard a crowd passing by, he began to inquire what this was about. 37 They told him that Jesus the Nazorean was approaching. 38 So he cried out, “Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!” 39 Yet those who were going ahead [of the rest] were scolding him, so that he would be quiet. He kept shouting all the more, however: “Son of David, have mercy on me!” 40 Jesus stopped and directed that [the man] be brought to him, and when he had come near, he asked him, 41 “What do you want me to do for you?” He said, “Lord, I [want] to see again.”a 42 And Jesus said to him, “Receive your sight back! Your faith has made you well.”b 43 At once he [could] see, and he began to follow [Jesus], glorifying God. And when all the people saw [this], they gave praise to God.

a. Or “see,” anablepsō. The verb anablepein appears in v. 41, as a desire spoken by the blind man; in v. 42, as a command by Jesus; and in v. 43, as the narrator’s description of the healing that ensues. More completely filling in the ellipsis in the blind man’s response, one might translate thus: “Lord, [I want you to do/act for me] so that I may see [again]” (v. 41).

b. Or “saved you,” sesōken se.

[35–43] Approaching Jericho (about 25 km [16 miles] east-northeast of Jerusalem; cf. 10:30), Jesus and the crowd accompanying him come upon a blind man who, sitting and begging alongside the road, inquires what is happening (18:35–36). Attention to variations from the Markan telling of the story highlights distinctive features of Luke’s narration: the event happens as Jesus is approaching Jericho rather than leaving it (as in Mark 10:46 and Matt 20:29);139 the blind man is anonymous (Mark 10:46 emphasizes the name Bartimaeus); and he engages in a series of activities: sitting, begging (Mark calls him a beggar), and inquiring about the crowd (a detail missing in Mark). Thus Luke constructs a plausible scenario, in which a blind man’s persistent, obstacleovercoming quest for restoration of sight by “Jesus, Son of David” expresses an expectant trust that Jesus labels “faith” at the story’s end (18:42).140 This is the first (and only) account in Luke of restoration of sight to a blind person, though 4:18 and 7:22 include this among the core activities of Jesus’ mission (echoing Isa 29:18; 35:5; 42:7; 61:1–2), and 7:21 provides a general narrative summary of such healing acts (cf. 14:13, 21 and the metaphorical-moral use of blindness and sight/light in 6:39; 11:34–36).

Verses 37–39 present the blind man’s exchanges with the crowd. He learns from them that “Jesus the Nazorean” is approaching.141 He then shouts out, “Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!” (v. 38). The narrator provides no explanation for the blind man’s awareness of Jesus’ connection to David. It is perceptive, however (recall Luke 1:32; 2:4; 3:31), even if there is debate ahead about the way in which the titles “Son of David,” “Christ,” and “Lord” are related (see the comment on 20:41–44), and still a measure of ambiguity regarding the manner of Jesus’ participation in the royal dynasty of David (cf. 19:11–27).

139. Luke has yet to narrate the encounter with Zacchaeus in Jericho (19:1–10); curiously, after Jesus enters Jericho in Mark 10:46, no activity is narrated until he is departing.

140. Hartsock argues that Luke’s blind man is not, like Mark’s Bartimaeus, an example of the “blind who sees clearly” but instead one to whom Jesus must give both physical and spiritual sight (Sight 184); he therefore conforms to the conventional physiognomic topos of the physically blind as also spiritually blind, “likely punished by the divine world,” and “helpless and pitiable” (207). This analysis underreads the character and action of the blind man in Luke’s account.

141. Nazōraios is likely the equivalent here of Nazarēnos; see BDAG 664–65. Fitzmyer (2:1215–16) suggests as “possible added nuance” Jesus as a “consecrated one” (nāzîr) or sprout of David’s line (nēṣer).

In the light of Jewish traditions that associate one royal son of David, Solomon, with the ability to effect cures (e.g., exorcisms in Testament of Solomon), the plea to this Son of David for help makes even more sense. The people who are in the front of the travel company (hoi proagontes), however, chastise the man and try to silence him, but to no avail (18:39). Does the spatial designation “in the front” also function metaphorically, hinting at a status inversion so typical of Luke, with a blind beggar besting persons who are “first,” that is, preeminent (Green 664)? Despite a forceful rebuke aimed at this disruptive beggar (epetimōn [were scolding]), the petitioner repeats his plea for mercy verbatim (though this time omitting the name of Jesus), shouting all the more (or even louder).

At this point Jesus intervenes, directing that the man be brought to him (v. 40). Asked by Jesus what he wants, the blind man now addresses him as “Lord” (kyrie) and says simply “I [want] to see” (or “see again,” anablepsō, v. 41). Jesus answers, in turn, with the command “Receive your sight back [anablepson]!” and adds, “Your faith has made you well (v. 42), the third time he has tied the experience of healing or liberation to the faith of one who has approached him out of deep need (cf. 7:50; 8:48; note also 5:20). Here that faith appears to combine insight into Jesus’ role as divine agent of healing, a turn toward him in expectant trust (if not desperate hope), and especially persistence that overcomes obstacles. The perfect tense of the verb sesōken (“has made [you] well,” or “has saved [you]”) acknowledges that the deliverance from which restored sight results—or perhaps that it symbolizes—is already effected (see the comment on 13:10–17, esp. vv. 12–13). Proof of the healing then comes promptly 18:43: “At once he [could] see, and he began to follow” Jesus (third use of anablepein in the passage). Yet this is more than demonstration that healing has occurred. While Jesus’ own circle of closest followers is struggling to comprehend the path on which Jesus is taking them (18:34), this blind man proceeds from restored sight to the response expected of a disciple: following Jesus. He moves from sight to following and then, as is fitting for one who has enjoyed the divine benefaction of healing, glorifies God, thereby also sparking praise of God among “all the people” (v. 43; for this model response to the event of healing, see also 5:25–26; 7:16; 13:13; 17:15).

One destitute man’s quest to see, leading to the experience of salvation and ensuing “discipleship” and praise of God, prepares for the story of another man’s quest to see (Jesus) and his own experience of deliverance. Though worlds removed from the blind man in life circumstance, Zacchaeus is no less estranged from the community of God’s people. For all his wealth and privilege, he recognizes his own deep need, which only Jesus will be able to turn toward the transformed life practice that marks “children of Abraham” who embody the values and commitments of God’s realm.

19:1–10 Salvation Comes to the House of a Chief Tax Collector

extending the status reversals that have dotted the landscape of Jesus’ journey since 9:51, recent encounters with a wealthy member of the elite and a poor blind man have displayed the formidable challenge that wealth poses to the experience of salvation (18:18–30) and the gift of saving sight for a poor man who makes up in bold, insistent faith what he lacks in social standing and economic resources (18:35–43). As the traveling company enters Jericho, diverging narrative trajectories converge in the person of Zacchaeus. He personifies mixed and indeed clashing status indicators. His extreme wealth appears to prime him for trouble, yet his role as tax collector holds out hope for a positive outcome when he comes face-to-face with Jesus. Which trajectory will prevail?

1 [Jesus] entered and was passing through Jericho, 2 and a man named Zacchaeus was there. He was a chief tax collector, and he was wealthy.

3 He was seeking to see Jesus—[to see] who he was—yet he was unable [to do so] because of the crowd, for [Zacchaeus] was short. 4 So he ran ahead to the front [of the crowd] and climbed up a sycamore tree so that he might see [Jesus], because he was about to pass through in that spot.

5 When Jesus came to the place, he looked up and said to him, “Zacchaeus, climb down quickly! For I must stay in your house today.” 6 So he quickly climbed down and received him joyfully. 7 All the people who saw [this] grumbled, “He has gone in to stay with a sinful man.” 8 Zacchaeus, though, stood up and said to the Lord, “See now, Lord, I am going to givea half of my possessions to the poor, and if I have cheated anyone of anything [as of course I have],b I am going to pay it back fourfold.”

9 Jesus then said to him, “Today salvation has happened forc this household, because he too is Abraham’s son. 10 For the Son of Humanity came to seek and save the lost.”

a. Construing didōmi (also, later in the verse, apodidōmi [I am going to pay back]) as a futuristic present: “I am going to give.” See the comment below.

b. A first-class (or real) condition: Zacchaeus has indeed engaged in the activities described in the protasis (if-clause).

c. Reading this as a dative of advantage; some Mss (e.g., A D) insert the preposition en (in), turning the dative of advantage into one of location.

[1–10] Transit through the town of Jericho (v. 1) is halted because a rich man there, a chief tax collector (v. 2), is on a determined quest to see Jesus (vv. 3, 4). As in the previous episode, the crowd throws up an obstruction (v. 3), this time not only physical, owing to Zacchaeus’s diminutive stature (v. 3), but also, it turns out, through social exclusion on moral grounds (v. 7: “a sinful man”). The spectacle of a short man climbing a sycamore tree to catch a glimpse of a man otherwise hidden by the crowd is comic theater of the absurd (on the negative physiognomic associations of short stature, see Parsons, Body 97–108). That Zacchaeus cuts such an undignified profile despite his vast wealth suits his marginal social position as a tax collector and cues the reader that his riches will not have the last say about him.

The pivot of the passage comes in vv. 5–6. Now Jesus does the seeing; when he spots Zacchaeus in the tree, he commands him to “climb down quickly,” because “I must stay in your house today” (v. 5). Zacchaeus’s compliant response is immediate and joyful (v. 6). At the observing public’s complaint regarding Jesus’ willingness to stay (and implicitly dine) at a conspicuous sinner’s home (v. 7, adopting the protest typically lodged by Pharisees earlier in the narrative: 5:30; 15:2; cf. 7:39), Zacchaeus launches into a vigorous defense of his impugned honor. But is this a speech of self-vindication, describing Zacchaeus’s customary practice of compensating generously anyone he has overcharged?142 Or is it, instead, an impassioned, repentant response to Jesus’ gracious acceptance of him?143 On either reading, Jesus defends the public honor of a man held in contempt by the Jewish community at Jericho: “Today salvation has happened for this household, because he too is Abraham’s son” (v. 9). Jesus’ clinching line, “For the Son of Humanity came to seek and save the lost” (v. 10), in tandem with the public disapprobation suffered by Zacchaeus (difficult to imagine if, as the head tax collector in Jericho, he already regularly practiced such noble conduct), indicates that Zacchaeus is another example of inside-out reversal in Jesus’ ministry, a “sinner” accepted by Jesus.

The reversal has multiple layers touching on the central Lukan concerns of hospitality, salvation, and participation in the people of God. Jesus directs Zacchaeus to extend hospitality to him, and when he does so joyfully, the honored guest becomes the one who offers hospitality: gracious welcome of a despised resident of Jericho into the community of God’s people, through public affirmation of his status as true member of Abraham’s family. The result of an unpopular gesture of acceptance by Jesus is nothing less than a reordered life, symbolized by Zacchaeus’s pledge to adopt a new set of practices regarding tax collection and, more fundamentally, wealth.

142. As in Byrne, Hospitality 150–52; Fitzmyer 2:1220–21; Johnson 285–87. Green (672) suggests Zacchaeus’s repentance “lies outside the narrative.”

143. E.g., Hamm, “Luke 19:8”; Tannehill 277; Marshall 697–98. Exploring the typological comparison between Zacchaeus and Abraham (Gen 18), Arterbury argues that Zacchaeus begins as a negative, “anti-Abraham” figure who hoards wealth; however, the intervention of Jesus transforms him into “an Abraham-like rich man who generously gives portions of his wealth away to others” (“Zacchaeus” 26–30, esp. 30). Parsons draws from ancient perceptions of physiognomy to support a thoroughly negative portrait of Zacchaeus before his conversion (Body 105–6).

So Jesus declares that “salvation has happened for this household” and its son of Abraham (v. 9). The conclusion seems inescapable that the experience of deliverance, of salvation, for the chief tax collector of Jericho has something to do with his commitment to respond in a particular way to God’s hospitality extended to him by his guest. Yet the verbal parallel between vv. 5 and 9 (in Greek) indicates that the key factor is the welcoming presence of Jesus himself, without which Zacchaeus’s joyful, repentant response would not have happened:

“Today in your house I must stay.” (v. 5)

“Today salvation for this house has happened.” (v. 9)

Much as in 15:3–32, rescue of a lost one is an act of divine initiative and grace; the pledge to enact justice and generosity is its effect, not its precondition. Nevertheless, Zacchaeus, responding as he has to Jesus’ gracious acceptance, has entered the domain of salvation (cf. Simeon’s reaction to Jesus in 2:30: “My eyes have seen your salvation”). His response has opened up a reordered life that is shaped by the values and commitments of God’s realm: honest admission of responsibility for past corrupt business dealings; resolve to make it right, to enact justice for the benefit of those whom he has wronged (the first-class condition in v. 8 indicates that he has engaged in such practices; see translation note b above); and commitment to generous sharing of his great wealth to meet the needs of the poor.

The contrast to the rich ruler of 18:18–23 is instructive.144 The impossible possibility of a rich man’s entrance into the domain ruled by God has been promptly narrated. The fact that Zacchaeus does not relinquish 100 percent of his wealth indicates that there is no single formula for divestment of wealth for the sake of participation in God’s realm, as the encounter with the ruler might have suggested.145 Yet in its basic pattern the picture is clear: it is a movement along a well-established narrative trajectory. Jesus’ encounter with Zacchaeus once more displays his core mission: his ceaseless quest, as the bearer of God’s reign to God’s people, to restore the lost (cf. 5:32), extending God’s saving embrace beyond the margins of the community. A man of mixed status such as Zacchaeus is especially well positioned to respond favorably; where the rich ruler faced loss of honor through divestment of wealth, the rich tax collector stands to gain honor precisely through relinquishing much of his wealth. until his meeting with Jesus, his negative social prestige has been bound up with his wealth and the mode of its acquisition (see York, Last 158, 162).

144. Among the connections between 18:18–30 and 19:1–10 are these: both men are wealthy (plousios, 18:23, 25; 19:2); both pericopes address the release of wealth to benefit the poor (ptōchos, 18:22; 19:8); and salvation of the rich figures in both passages (18:26; 19:9–10). See Arterbury, “Zacchaeus” 22.

145. A point emphasized by Phillips, who (though perhaps overstating the thematic consistency of Luke’s materials on wealth and poverty) argues that Luke condemns greed and commends generosity (e.g., Reading 173). This, not “an ethic of self-impoverishment,” is Luke’s primary concern.

Salvation has been a prominent topic of discussion in this section of Luke’s narrative: “Then who can be saved?” (18:26). Though elusive for one rich man, salvation has come to a destitute blind man (18:35–43) and now also, improbably, to a wealthy tax collector. Deliverance talk, with Jerusalem near: is God’s realm about to make its decisive appearance?

Excursus: Poverty and Wealth in Luke’s Gospel

Luke’s Gospel displays deep, sustained interest in the topic of poverty and wealth, an interest that continues in Acts (e.g., 2:44–45; 4:32–5:11; 8:18–24). At the same time, the narrative does not appear to commend a consistent, univocal posture (L. Johnson, Literary Function 130).146 On the one hand, it associates discipleship with a summons (mandate?) to detach oneself from household and possessions (Luke 14:26, 33; 18:22, 28–29; cf. 5:11, 28). Disciples-in-mission are to take nothing with them, relying instead on the hospitality of hosts to provide for their needs (9:3–4; 10:4–9). The domain ruled by wealth, moreover, is a dangerous habitat, for attachment to wealth entangles one in concerns that run counter to the values and commitments of the realm of God (8:14; 12:22–34; 14:18–20; 16:13; 17:26–30). So the narrative is laced with warnings addressed to the wealthy (e.g., 6:24; 12:13–21; 18:24–25) and pictures of radical reversal of power and position for rich and poor (e.g., 1:51–53; 6:20–21, 24–25; 16:19–31).

On the other hand, Luke provides narrative portraits of appropriate and faithful use of possessions that does not take the form of total dispossession. Levi, tax agent turned disciple, “leaves everything” (at his tax office, 5:28), but then hosts a festive banquet (5:29). A group of generous women funds the itinerant ministry of Jesus and his band (8:2–3). Parabolic traveler (the Samaritan in 10:34–35) and banquet host (14:21–23) expend funds to aid persons in desperate need. Such benefactions, surely not extended with expectation of any return (cf. 6:32–36; 14:12–14), are not possible if disciples immediately relinquish everything they own (cf. the need-providing, communal sharing of goods pictured in Acts 2:44–45; 4:32–5:11). Indeed, Zacchaeus follows the rich ruler’s reluctance to separate himself from his status-undergirding wealth (Luke 18:23) with a dramatic pledge to right past wrongs through generous practices of compensation and distribution to benefit the poor, but this does not amount to total divestment (19:8; cf. the fired property manager’s plan to convert economic resources into the asset of future relationships in 16:4–7). even the direction that disciples not take provisions with them on the road will be reversed with a view to a less hospitable environment for future mission (22:35–36). Is the expectation of complete dispossession of economic resources restricted to the first generation of disciples, indeed only to the first phase of their itinerant mission (cf. Pilgrim, Good News 101–2; Phillips, Reading 179–80; Stegemann, “Following” 72, 77–80)?

146. Ireland argues that Luke presents a consistent view, focused in a concern “to warn his rich readers of the potentially fatal obstacle riches pose for wholehearted discipleship and thereby to exhort them to faithful and charitable use of their possessions,” use that displays one’s “ultimate loyalties” (Stewardship 165–96, esp. 166, 195). Ireland rejects the position that Luke expresses bias for the poor and against the rich; the danger comes in “attachment” to wealth (178), the problem that 14:33 addresses. Jesus does not demand that disciples renounce all they possess (184). For Ireland, the “twin emphases on the dangers of riches and their proper use strongly suggest that Luke’s dominant concern in the material on riches and poverty is the salvation and/or assurance of rich readers” (187). Ireland’s analysis exaggerates the uniformity of perspective on this theme in Luke’s narrative, tilts the rhetorical concern too far toward assumed wealthy readers (e.g., does Luke offer assurance or rather warning?), yet scores a number of important points. For example, it is surely right that Luke challenges readers to use resources at their disposal in a manner that expresses their “ultimate loyalties” (195). And “poverty is to be relieved, not pursued” (187), as evident in Jesus’ healing acts, which give shape to his proclamation of good news to the poor (4:18–19) precisely by redressing conditions that marginalize and impoverish (cf. Tannehill, Narrative Unity 1:132).

Luke, then, does not provide a monochrome picture of poverty and wealth, a quality of the narrative that hints at some measure of heterogeneity within Luke’s earliest communities of readers with regard to wealth and correlated social status. Nevertheless, the Gospel delivers a message that, while not uniform, is clear and coherent—and one that poses a continuing challenge to readers of other places and times as well. Jesus and the community that he is forming as a people of God’s dominion extend hospitable welcome to persons of low status who are socially and economically marginalized; they provide generous benefaction (including food and healing, when needed) to the poor and needy. Disciples who serve this sovereign are pried loose from household and goods, a detachment from all lesser allegiances that permits a generous sharing of resources with others that mirrors the generosity of God.

The examples of Zacchaeus and women patrons of Jesus show that this redistribution of resources need not occur in an instant (despite 14:33) but may be a sustained practice of generosity. Yet hoarding goods and accumulating wealth for oneself, to the neglect of others in need, is ruled out and is exposed by Jesus as a soul-shrinking way of life that springs from fear and lack of trust in God’s provision (12:13–34). Wealth is not a matter of ultimate concern; however, the poverty of many is a matter of concern to God, and therefore the legitimate and life-giving role for economic resources is not accumulation of goods to enhance one’s own social position, nor to provide (the illusion of) economic security. Instead, the legitimate role for resources is generous sharing by those who have with others who lack what is needed to sustain life.147 The community of disciples is therefore called to generosity and other-concerned benefaction that (esp. assuming a limited-goods economy) is necessary to support human flourishing for the whole people of God. Therefore possessions have the potential to divert one from the values, commitments, and practices of the realm of God but also (16:13 notwithstanding) to serve God’s purposes in the world.

147. And by extension for later readers, commitment to strive toward economic structures and social systems that effect economic justice.

This sustained concern with wealth and poverty and its varying expressions within the narrative raise questions about both audience and rhetorical aim(s). Does Luke address such materials primarily to listeners who are (relatively) economically advantaged (e.g., Seccombe, Possessions 228–29; Ireland, Stewardship 195), or are both rich and poor to be imagined as present in Luke’s audience (e.g., esler, Community 171–79, 187–97; Donahue, “Two Decades” 143–44)? And to what effect? How would readers in an urban setting in the Greco-Roman world, especially those who command considerable economic resources and all the social advantages accruing to wealth, respond to Luke’s narrative and its radical devaluing of wealth and status?

This ethical stance has exemplars in the community’s authoritative tradition as well as the wider culture. A few examples will suffice. Jewish Scripture commends generous sharing of resources with the poor (e.g., exod 23:11; Deut 15:7–11; 24:14–15; Prov 19:17; Job 31:16–22; Isa 58:7, 10) and indicts the wealthy and powerful for neglecting the needs of the poor (e.g., Isa 3:14–15; Jer 2:34; ezek 18:12–13; 22:29; Amos 2:6–7; 4:1; 5:11–12; 8:4–6). Almsgiving becomes a prominent feature of Jewish tradition and practice (e.g., Tob 4:7–11; Sir 29:12–13). An apocalyptic writing such as 1 En. 92–105 turns the tables on wicked rich and righteous poor in a manner that resembles the vertical status-reversal pattern in Luke’s Gospel (see Nickelsburg, “Riches”). Hellenistic moralists such as Plutarch condemn greed (e.g., “On Love of Wealth,” in Mor.). And Cynic philosophers’ advocacy of a life of simplicity and poverty mounts a sustained, stinging critique of wealth (e.g., epictetus, Diatr. 3.22; Diogenes Laertius, Lives 6.87–88; Pseudo-Lucian, Cyn. 6–8; see Stegemann, “Following” 80–86).

Given that Luke’s treatment of wealth and poverty, while radical and countercultural, would have many points of connection with other cultural currents, what impact would the development of this theme have exerted on Luke’s earliest readers? The mission and message of Jesus—featuring good news for the poor, including provision of food, restoration of health, and affirmation of almsgiving and benefaction without expectation of return—would have engendered hope in members of Luke’s communities who lack economic resources (notably, the urban poor; see esler, Community 171–79; Braun, Feasting 81–88). They have reason to expect welcome into a community that shares resources with its poorest members. (Acts 2:44–45 and 4:32–37 offer concrete, if idealized, models of that community in action.) For wealthier members among Luke’s audience, however, the indictment of wealth, the warnings against acquisitiveness and greed and preoccupation with possessions, and the call to discipleship that relinquishes wealth for the sake of the poor and needy—these would all be received as strong urging to generous benefaction that makes economic resources available to the needy with whom they are now associated. As Stegemann has put it, the earliest Lukan audience would be a “community of solidarity” that crosses boundaries of status and wealth (“Following” 120; cf. the picture of Pauline house churches as heterogeneous in social status in, e.g., Meeks, First Urban 51–73). Of this countercultural community of solidarity, Jesus’ feeding of a large crowd (Luke 9:12–17) and the parabolic feast of 14:16–24 (cf. 14:12–14), as well as the generous redistribution of money by women disciple-patrons of Jesus (8:2–3) and that pledged by Zacchaeus (19:8)—these would be positive examples to be emulated. By contrast, the parabolic rich farmer (12:13–21) and Lazarus’s rich neighbor and his brothers (16:19–31) represent negative models to be avoided. Appreciation of the rhetorical force of these positive and negative models is heightened when the twenty-first-century reader considers not only the importance of social status in Luke’s culture but also the vulnerability of most members of urban society to climate-related food shortages and famine in the Roman world (see kim, Stewardship 52, 253–83).

Generous sharing by the poor that surpasses the benefactions of the wealthy is a documented reality in the twenty-first century,148 and the stark juxtaposition of the very rich in close proximity to the destitute poor—contrasting extreme wealth and extreme poverty—is a common phenomenon in many societies. These phenomena are anticipated by Luke’s narrative: witness the characters of Lazarus and his wealthy, gated neighbor (16:19–31) and the life-dispossessing widow and the elite scribes of 21:1–4. The moral agency and empowerment of the poor are affirmed not only by examples such as the generous though destitute widow but also by the narrative’s subverting of conventional norms and practices relating to benefaction and reciprocity. The generous sharing of resources by the wealthy in Luke’s community should not be undertaken so as to enhance their honor as community patrons and benefactors, with a corresponding diminution of honor and status on the part of the poor who benefit from their benefactions— a countercultural practice (see kim, Stewardship 269–72; cf. the rhetorical moves to delegitimize deference to the wealthy in Jas 2:1–7). Moreover, in this community of solidarity, the poor would have legitimate right to point out failure in benefaction on the part of wealthier members if basic needs of impoverished members in the community are not being adequately addressed. (The least radical expression of social protest on the part of those who lack power, J. Scott would remind us, is holding those with power to their espoused values [Domination 92].) Of this, Luke’s narrative sequel offers one tantalizing hint, with its snapshot of conflict provoked by the failure of the apostolic community to meet the needs of “Hellenist” widows (Acts 6:1).

Reeling economies and high levels of unemployment and underemployment mask a deeper, more pervasive global reality of poverty in the twenty-first century. Preoccupation with one’s own economic security and institutional survival, given precarious economic circumstances, is understandable. People and groups who command wealth, however, encounter in Luke’s narrative, and especially in the Lukan Jesus’ vision and practice of the divine realm, a radical call to redistribute economic resources to those in need. If Luke is, to some degree, “evangelist of the rich and respected,” it is only with the rhetorical aim of a “conversion [of imagination and practice, I would add] that is in keeping with the social message of Jesus” (Stegemann, “Following” 91). Luke thus places many twenty-first-century readers in an uncomfortable position among those opposed to—and opposed by—the values, commitments, and practices of the divine realm as Jesus pictures and enacts it.

19:11–27 Approach to Jerusalem and the Approach of God’s Reign

Declaration of salvation today (19:9), with arrival at Jerusalem imminent? Surely God’s dominion is about to redraw the social, economic, and political maps and liberate God’s people from oppressive domination. Misguided anticipation of an imminent arrival of God’s realm (v. 11) prompts Jesus to tell

148. See, e.g., Piff et al., “Having Less, Giving More.”

a parable that weaves together two strands, one clarifying the character and timing of God’s realm and the other interpreting in advance the events—the exact opposite of instant kingship—that are about to unfold in Jerusalem (vv. 12–27).

11 As they were listening to these things, [Jesus] in addition told a parable because he was near Jerusalem, and they supposed that the reign of God was about to appear at once. 12 Therefore, he said, “A man of high status went to a distant land to receive for himself kingship and [then] to return. 13 He summoned ten of his slaves and gave them each ten minasa and said to them, ‘Do business [with this money] while I am gone.’ 14 His [fellow-] citizens hatedb him, however, and they sent an embassy after him bearing the message, ‘We don’t want this man to rule over us as king.’

15 “Now it so happened that when he came back after receiving the kingship, he directed that these slaves to whom he had given the money should be summoned to him, so that he might learn what business they had conducted. 16 The first came up and said, ‘Master, your mina has acquired ten more.’ 17 So he said to him, ‘Well done, good slave. Because you have been trustworthy in a very small amount, receive authorityc over ten cities!’ 18 Then the second came [forward] and said, ‘Master, your mina has produced five more.’ 19 So he said to this one as well, ‘You, too, receive [authority]c over five cities.’ 20 And the otherd came [forward] and said, ‘Master, see, here is your mina, which I was keeping laid away in a piece of cloth. 21 For I was afraid of you, because you are a demandinge man: you take up what you didn’t put down, and you reap what you didn’t sow.’ 22 He saidf to him, ‘I will judge you from your own mouth, wicked slave. You knew that I am a demanding man, taking up what I didn’t put down and reaping what I didn’t sow? 23 Why, then, didn’t you give my money to a banker? That way, when I came [back], I would have collected it—with interest!’ 24 And he said to those who were standing around, ‘Take the mina from him and give [it] to the one who has ten minas.’ 25 They said to him, ‘Master, he has ten minas!’ 26 ‘I tell you, to everyone who has, [more] will be given, but from the one who does not have, even what that one has will be taken away. 27 However, as for these enemies of mine who didn’t want me to rule over them as king, bring them here and slaughter them in my presence.’”

a. The mina, or pound, was a Greek monetary unit, the equivalent of approximately 100 silver drachmas. especially when compared to the reward later promised the servants―authority over ten and five cities―this is not a large amount (in contrast to the Matthean parallel, where the servants do business with a talent, some sixty times the value of the mina [Matt 25:14–30]). See BDAG 654; Fitzmyer 2:1235. b. An imperfect-tense verb, picturing a customary, not a momentary, disdain. c. Literally, “be one having authority” (similarly in v. 19, though the phrase “one

having authority [ exousia]” is implicit there).

d. Many Mss omit the article, so that the text reads “another came.” This is almost cer

tainly a later scribal correction, for the wording “the other came” is both better attested

(e.g., א B) and the more difficult reading: in Luke’s version of the parable, there are ten

slaves, not the three of Matthew’s parallel text (Matt 25:14–30).

e. Or strict, austēros; see BDAG 151–52.

f. A historical present verb (legei), lending vividness to the narration: “he says.”

[11–27] Verse 11 sets the occasion. The approach to Jerusalem, and likely also Jesus’ public announcement that salvation had come “today” to Zacchaeus’s house (v. 9), has prompted speculation about the imminent establishment of God’s reign (parachrēma mellei, was about [to appear] at once). In response, Jesus tells a complex parable that combines two plots, one featuring a royal reign (basileia) conferred (v. 12), rejected (v. 14), and then reasserted with violent reprisal (vv. 15a, 27); and the other narrating and appraising the service rendered by that king’s slaves during his absence (vv. 13, 15b–26).149

Part 1 (vv. 12–14) introduces the two plots. A throne claimant is repudiated by his own people (vv. 12, 14), and because he must make a long journey to receive royal power, he entrusts property to ten servants to conduct business on his behalf during his absence (v. 13). The parable’s opening therefore generates audience suspense on two points. First, what will come of the claim to royal power? And if it is made secure, how will the returning new king exercise that power over his fellow citizens who have rejected him? Second, how will the servants fare in their business dealings? The element of the parable that is a uniquely Lukan expansion, the royal claimant motif, is reminiscent of Herod Archelaus’s trip to Rome (in 4 B.C.E., after the death of his father, Herod the Great) in an unsuccessful attempt to win recognition as king, a royal title opposed by some fifty Judeans and Samaritans, in concert with others in Rome (see Josephus Ant. 17.11.1–2; J.W. 2.2.2; 2.6.1; 2.7.3). In the parable, however, the fortunes of both citizens and the man who would be king differ from the event as narrated by Josephus. (Archelaus was not confirmed as king but only received the designation ethnarch.)

Part 2 (vv. 15–27) narrates the outcomes, presented through dialogue between the king and his slaves (vv. 16–23) and then surprised observers (vv. 24–26), and finally through violent reprisal against the new king’s enemies (v. 27).

149. The Matthean version of the parable (Matt 25:14–30) lacks the throne-claimant motif that Luke has inserted; the effect of the expansion in Luke is to adapt the parable to provide interpretive commentary on the narrative that is unfolding as Jesus reaches Jerusalem. Schottroff, however, views the parable as a coherent story (not a combination of two) about the rise to power of a vassal king and his administrative management of his kingdom (Parables 187).

In v. 15, the man of high social rank ( eugenēs, lit., “wellborn,” in v. 12), invested with the royal authority that his fellow citizens had contested, returns to settle accounts with his servants and a subject people who despise him. Although ten slaves have received identical property with which to conduct business, the narrative profiles only three (as in Matthew). The first slave has generated a tenfold increase (a profit of ten minas), and his business acumen translates into a reward of administrative authority over ten cities (vv. 16–17). The phrase en elachistō pistos (“trustworthy in a very small amount,” v. 17) recalls 16:10; 19:15–26 mirrors the lesser-to-greater framing of the admonitions in 16:10–12. Next, the second slave, able to produce a fivefold increase on his proxy investment for his master (adding five minas), is rewarded with authority over five cities (vv. 18–19).

With the appearance of the third slave, the plot takes a tragic turn and continues to spiral downward through the end of the parable. Paralyzed by fear of a demanding (austēros) master, and by fear of taking a risk, he chose to protect himself against potential loss and therefore hid the mina in a piece of cloth. He now safely returns the entrusted mina, only to face withering rebuke from his master (vv. 20–23). The master condemns the unprofitable slave out of his own mouth, repeating (in v. 22) the slave’s characterization of him in v. 21: “You take up what you didn’t put down, and you reap what you didn’t sow.” Very well, then, why no attempt to generate revenue, if only from a banker’s interest on deposited funds (v. 23)? Having forfeited any reward for faithful service, the third slave must also surrender the mina, which the master orders that the persons standing around (perhaps other slaves or other observers of the dialogue) hand over to the ten-mina slave (v. 24; less gruesome by far, however, than the fate of the unprofitable slave in Matt 25:30, with which the text of Codex Bezae [D] also embellishes Luke 19:27).

The master-king’s command elicits a reaction of surprise, if not dismay or protest: “Master, he has ten minas!” (v. 25). The parabolic narrator’s voice drops out momentarily, allowing the first-person voice of the master to take over (“I tell you”), explaining his action, though in a way that does not lessen the provocation but only sharpens it: “To everyone who has, [more] will be given, but from the one who does not have, even what that one has will be taken away” (v. 26).150 With this realistic snapshot of the “economic and political structure of an exploitative kingship” (Schottroff, Parables 185), within an assumed limited-goods economy (see the comment on 12:16–21), the parabolic king turns the values and practices of the realm of God upside down. Jesus calls disciples, by contrast, into a domain in which those with abundance release what they have to those who lack. This dissonance intimates that whatever correlation is being drawn between the events of the parable and the reign of God, wrongly assumed to be imminent (19:11), the parable does not show how God’s realm operates. The economic exploitation on display in vv. 15–26 and the graphic violence to follow in v. 27 represent realistic depictions of the world that Jesus, and his followers after him, must navigate. More immediately, they anticipate the events lying just ahead in Jerusalem—as well as a generation later, with the destruction of the temple (70 C.E.), now past for Luke and his audience. But this is not the mode of operation of God’s rule, even if it does illuminate what is happening as God’s reign engages the world of economics and politics in the first-century Roman Empire.

150. There is an awkward transition in narration in vv. 25–26: in v. 25 the bystanders interrupt the master’s words, and v. 26 returns to the master’s voice, though without any signaled change in speaker other than the shift to first-person singular (“I tell you”). Verse 26 thus puts directly into the parabolic master’s mouth (without an introductory “he said”) a saying that Mark 4:25 ascribes to Jesus. Is there ambiguity in the voice and point of view here (“I tell you”), as Jesus’ voice as parabolic narrator coalesces with that of the master within the parable (cf. Luke 16:8–9; 18:6)?

Finally, then, in v. 27 the other shoe drops: the parabolic narrator (Jesus) resumes the suspended plot of the rejected but confirmed king. Having parceled out differential rewards to his slaves, calibrated according to the skill and success of their business dealings, the king now in brutal fashion avenges his citizen-enemies’ rejection of his royal aspirations. The parable’s tragic, violent conclusion, read from the end of the Lukan narrative backward, and in the light of the historical memory of the fall of Jerusalem to the Roman army in 70 C.E., would be regarded retrospectively as Jesus’ advance interpretation of the events that are coming. In the imminent future, neither the decisive appearance of God’s reign nor acclamation of Jesus as divinely authorized king awaits in Jerusalem. Instead, Jesus will meet rejection and a violent end.151 His royal rule will be affirmed, to be sure, but only after a long journey (the exaltation of resurrection and ascension to God’s right hand; see, e.g., Acts 2:22–36). Meanwhile, during the time of his absence, of uncertain duration, the community he leaves behind will be accountable for what they do with the tasks he has assigned them—above all, the charge to take the Gospel to the ends of the earth (Luke 24:47; Acts 1:8), activity that adds numbers of a different sort, in the form of people added to the community of God’s people (e.g., Acts 2:41; 4:4; 6:7).

Violent reprisal sanctioned—indeed, ordered—by the parabolic king will also find its correlate beyond the limits of the story Luke narrates, though it does ominously and poignantly foreshadow the destruction of Jerusalem and its temple and also links those events to the city’s (or more precisely, its ruling elite’s) repudiation of the Messiah-king sent to it (19:41–44; cf. 13:34–35; 21:20–24). So while the parable does not display the mode of operation of God’s reign, it nevertheless anticipates what will happen when the bearer of God’s reign encounters the power of Rome and its collaborating local elite at Jerusalem, and then a generation later, when Roman might will return to the city to suppress rebellion.

151. L. Johnson argues that the subsequent narrative confirms rather than revises or corrects the expectation of an imminent appearance of God’s reign in Luke 19:11 (“Kingship”); however, see the critique of this interpretation in Carroll (Response 100–3).

To summarize, the parable in 19:12–27 responds to the expectation of some, inspired by the approach to Jerusalem, that the divine realm is imminent (v. 11). It does so by clarifying the character of the divine rule and the timing of the Messiah’s assumption of royal authority, and it also implicitly issues a summons to servants of that kyrios to faithful performance of the mission entrusted to them in the time that stretches out before his return. More immediately, the parable prepares readers for the difficult events to come: the rejection and violent execution of the Messiah and, beyond the story, Rome’s destruction of city and temple. Israel’s king-designate enters glory—and sovereign rule—only by way of rejection and suffering, as he has repeatedly said (9:22, 44; 17:25; 18:31–33; cf. 13:31–35; 24:26, 46). When God’s reign confronts the powers that shape and dominate the humanly constructed world, the collision will be ferocious, and its aftershocks will continue to be felt for a very, very long time. The confrontation is about to reach its narrative climax as Jesus makes the final move to “go up into Jerusalem” (19:28).

Luke 19:28–21:38 Jesus’ Ministry to Jerusalem

After extensive travels during which Jesus has undertaken the formation of a community of disciples for the domain ruled by God, continued to provide the benefactions of healing and acceptance at table, and vigorously responded to detractors, he finally arrives at the goal of his journeying: Jerusalem. In the period leading up to the liberation-commemorating festival of Passover, he spends nights on the Mount of Olives overlooking the city and engages by day in a public ministry of teaching in the temple. So the narrative returns full circle to its beginning, in a reprise with intriguing role reversals of a session among teachers in the temple at age twelve (2:46–50).

Jesus will enter into conflict with members of the local ruling elite, indeed sparking the confrontation himself with a bold prophetic-symbolic act and declaration in the temple (19:45–46). With the stakes raised by both location (Jerusalem and temple) and power (sparring with the local ruling elite), conflict this time will turn lethal. This does not come as a surprise to Luke’s audience; the signals of such an outcome have been frequent and increasingly explicit (2:34–35; 4:24, 28–30; 5:35; 9:22, 44; 13:31–35; 17:25; 18:31–33). Suspense is thus connected not with the outcome but with the mode of its accomplishment. How will the prophet-Messiah and Caesar-demoting Lord (see the comment on 2:8–12) meet his scripturally appointed, divinely purposed destiny? And as for his disciples, especially his commissioned apostles, who have been slow to comprehend a mission headed for suffering and death (9:45; 18:34), how will they acquit themselves?

Before the Passion Narrative (chs. 22–23) reveals all, Jesus has a challenge to set before the powers that steward the temple and govern the city and the people of God. His triumphal procession into Jerusalem garners public attention and provokes divided response (19:28–40), prompting him proleptically to mourn the city’s future demise (vv. 41–44). Then he disrupts temple commerce (vv. 45–46), teaches the people (vv. 47–48; 20:9–18), and engages in debate with a variety of rival teachers and elite leaders: chief priests and scribes (20:1–8, 19–26), Sadducees (20:27–38), and scribes (20:39–44). In a final public statement addressed to disciples with “all the people” overhearing, Jesus condemns an exploitative economic system that fosters status-seeking even as it oppresses the poor (20:45–21:4), then presents a prophetic preview of the conflict, crisis, decisive judgment, and liberation that will usher the people toward the end of history, along the way clarifying the place of the coming siege of Jerusalem and destruction of the temple complex in that eschatological scenario (21:5–38).

19:28–44 Jesus Approaches the City

The long, circuitous journey that began at 9:51 now reaches its destination. Jesus enters the city to the divided response that has greeted his ministry all along, as enthusiastic acclamation competes with pointed criticism. Jesus first orchestrates a symbolically rich, intertextually suggestive entry into Jerusalem (19:28–36), accompanied by a chorus of divergent voices (vv. 37–40). The sight of the city moves Jesus to deliver a sorrowful prophetic oracle announcing Jerusalem’s coming destruction, owing to its failure to perceive the momentous divine visitation that is at hand (vv. 41–44).

28 When [Jesus] had said this, he went on ahead, going up to Jerusalem. 29 And as he drew near to Bethphage and Bethany, at the mountain that was called “[the Mount] of Olives,” he sent two of the disciples 30 with these instructions:a “Go into the village on the other side, where as you are entering you will find tied up a colt no one has ever sat on. Untie it and bring it [to me]. 31 If anyone asks you, ‘Why are you untying it?’ you will respond like this: ‘The Lord has need of it.’”b 32 When the ones who had been sent went out, they found [the animal] just as he had told them. 33 And as they were untying the colt, its owners said to them, “Why are you untying the colt?” 34 They said, “The Lord has need of it.”b 35 So they brought it to Jesus, and throwing their cloaks on the colt, they had Jesus mount [the colt]. 36 As he went on, they were spreading their clothing on the road.

37 Now already, as he was approaching the descent from the Mount of Olives, the whole multitude of disciples began, with loud voices, to praise God joyfully for all the mighty acts they had seen. 38 They said,

“Blessed is the one—the king—who is coming in the name of the Lord. In heaven, peace; and glory in the highest places.”

39 Some of the Pharisees from the crowd, though, said to him, “Teacher, chastise your disciples!” 40 He replied, “even if they are silent, the stones will shout!”

41 And as he drew near, when he saw the city, he wept over it. 42 He said, “If only you too recognized, this day, the things that make for peace. But for now they have been hidden from your eyes. 43 For days will come upon you when your enemies will put up siegeworks around you and encircle you and press against you on all sides, 44 and they will raze you to the ground—and your children within you—and they will not leave in you one stone upon another, because you did not recognize the occasion of your visitation.”

a. Literally, “saying” (legōn).

b. Or, reading hoti here (and again in v. 34) as causal: “Because the Lord has need of it.”

[28–36] The beginning of this section mimics the start of the journey section (“to go to Jerusalem” [9:51] → “[going up] he went into Jerusalem” [19:28]; cf. 18:31); Jesus finally reaches the goal of his journey. The spatial adverb emprosthen ([he went on] ahead) makes clear who is leading the company. Approaching Jerusalem from Jericho to the east, the travelers come to the foot of the Mount of Olives, an impressive hill that overlooks the temple mount across the kidron Valley, and a site that has eschatological import (see Zech 14:4). The small villages of Bethphage and Bethany lie just ahead, on the eastern slope of the Mount of Olives (Bethany, about 3 km [2 miles] east of Jerusalem, appears again as the site of the ascension in 24:50–51; Bethphage’s location is otherwise unknown). Jesus dispatches two disciples to secure a colt for his use in riding into Jerusalem (vv. 29–31). Which of the two villages they enter remains an unimportant, unmentioned detail. What matters is that Jesus directs the action and anticipates events to occur, and the disciples faithfully obey and find everything exactly as Jesus has predicted (vv. 32–34). The narrative therefore portrays both obedience to the sovereign Lord and fulfillment that confirms his prophetic discernment. So, on cue, a colt’s owners (kyrioi) question why the disciples have untied it,1 and they learn that “the Lord [kyrios]” needs to use it. Thus he becomes the first man to ride the animal, and aptly so, since the intertext in play, Zech 9:9 (lxx), has a “new colt” serve as mode of transportation fit for a king—one who is righteous (dikaios; cf. Luke 23:47) and whose business as king is “saving” (sōzōn; cf. Luke 2:11, 30; 19:9–10; 23:35–43).

Verses 35–36 bring the colt to Jesus, position him on the animal, cushioned by garments (coats, himatia) placed by disciples, and then scatter still more clothing (also himatia) on the road—a gesture of acclamation and obeisance for the king as he prepares to ride in parodic triumph into Jerusalem.2 In the following verses this nonverbal expression of honor for Israel’s Messiah-king finds words—and answering rebuke.

1. In the narrative’s emphasis on the untying of a tied colt, Green sees an intertextual parody of Gen 49:11, which pictures an extravagantly wealthy ruler who ties his colt to a vine. Jesus, though messianic king, must borrow the colt (684)!

2. Precedent for this symbolic act is provided, e.g., by 2 kgs 9:13. In Mark 11:8 the disciples throw their cloaks on the animal, and Jesus sits down on it. Luke’s version (19:35) has the disciples position (epebibasan) Jesus on the colt. The implicit intertextual echo of Zech 9:9 becomes an explicit quotation in Matt 21:5 (which also cites Isa 62:11); both Matt 21:5 and Luke 19:35 employ forms of epibainein (mount; epibebēkōs in Zech 9:9 lxx).

[37–40] As the procession nears the path leading down (the western slope of) the Mount of Olives toward Jerusalem (v. 37), a chorus of voices from a large throng of disciples acclaims Jesus as the king who comes in the name of the Lord (God), quoting Ps 118:26 and bringing into the open the symbolic claim implied by the choice of a new colt to ride into the city. The acclamation, inspired by powerful actions (dynameōn) witnessed and cast as joyful praise of God, recalls the declaration of an angelic chorus in Luke 2:14. Variation in phrasing, however, underscores the irony of the occasion: peace in the disciples’ shout has been relocated from earth to heaven (19:38).

As if on cue, some Pharisees present in the crowd step forward to urge Jesus to silence (chastise or rebuke, epitimēson) the disciples (v. 39). Their aims and motives are left unstated. Do they dissent from the affirmation of Jesus’ royal status? Or are they motivated by concern to avoid Roman military action that would doubtless suppress a potential uprising (cf. 13:1–3, 31–35)? Whatever their intent, as in 13:31–35 Jesus refuses to adopt the Pharisees’ point of view on the high-stakes events that are unfolding. even if he could quiet the multitude of his followers, the rocks would claim their own voices so as to fill the void (19:40; cf. the rocks-turned-Abraham’s-children in 3:8; and in the ot rocks as witnesses in, e.g., Josh 24:27). This is one messianic claim that is simply not going away. Nevertheless, the resumption of the Pharisees’ caution in 13:31 reminds readers (yet again) that the confrontation between prophet and powers in Jerusalem will end not in joyful acclamation or triumph but in rejection and death. The parabolic plot of the rejected king (19:12, 14, 27) already begins to be enacted.

The Pharisees’ last appearance in the Gospel narrative thus places them once more in opposition to Jesus. However, it is not Luke’s last word about them: they will figure prominently in Acts, not least in the person of Gamaliel (Acts 5:34–39) and then also in Paul and other Pharisee believers (15:5; 22:3; 23:6; see Carroll, “Luke’s Portrayal”). Already the end of the Gospel narrative leaves ambiguity: although this group of Pharisees resists alignment with the disciples’ affirmation of Jesus as king, they will not be mentioned again as participants in polemical debates with Jesus in the temple (Luke 20) or in the passion drama (chs. 22–23; both Acts 5:34 and 23:1–10 do place Pharisees in the Sanhedrin). Following the Pharisees’ critical word, Jesus will without delay proceed to offer his own perspective on the city’s response to the momentous opportunity being extended to it to embrace the peace purposed by God, as the divine agent of deliverance and peace rides into Jerusalem (Luke 19:42).

[41–44] For the second time, but now accompanied by tears triggered by the view of the city from the Mount of Olives (v. 42), Jesus predicts the future destruction of Jerusalem (see 13:34–35), a refrain that he will play again in the eschatological discourse (see 21:5–6 [temple], 20–24 [Jerusalem]) and en route to the crucifixion (23:27–31). The repetition of the acclamation “Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord” in 19:38 (though adding “the king” to 13:35) tightly binds the Jerusalem entry narrative to the first prophetic oracle of Jerusalem’s devastation. In that declaration the event was figured as the enacting of divine justice (i.e., retribution) for a city that has repeatedly rejected and killed divine messengers. Although Jesus has longed to shelter its children as a mother hen does her chicks, Jerusalem’s house is abandoned (i.e., by God, 13:34–35). Now Jesus resumes the theme in 19:41–44; those metaphorical chick-children will be overtaken along with the rest of the city by the total devastation it will suffer (v. 44).

knowledge of what makes for peace, Jesus laments, has been concealed from the city (v. 42), likely a theological passive expressing divine action— reversal of the expectation voiced in Zechariah’s Benedictus (1:79)—and a reminder of the importance of right perception (“hidden from your eyes”; see the comments on 10:17–24; 11:29–36; and 18:35–43). The city’s demise is now figured as divine visitation unrecognized (19:44b), in another reversal of earlier expectation (see 1:68, 78), and therefore the divine offer of peace to the “city of peace” is being declined.

Verses 43–44a picture the result in graphic terms: Jerusalem’s enemies will construct siegeworks and encircle the city, then raze it to the ground, children included, and the destruction will not leave a single stone untouched. Stones imagined as shouting praise (19:40) have yielded to an image of complete devastation. With regard to the temple itself, stones in a heap as metaphor of destruction reappears in 21:6. Specific mention of the destruction that will overtake the city’s children lends added pathos to the oracle, in a narrative that highlights the special place of low-status children in the realm of God (9:46–48; 18:15–17). Children’s play in the streets, metaphor of the failure of Jesus’ contemporaries to discern the divine summons to justice and grace in the ministries of John and himself (7:32–34), vanishes from the “forsaken” city (13:35)—ironic subversion of the promise in Zech 8:5, which offered children playing in the streets as metaphor of the city’s future restoration (see the comment on 7:31–35).

The combination of weeping and a prophecy of destruction that will strike Jerusalem and its children resurfaces in 23:27–31. What is ominous forecast for Jesus’ listeners on the verge of entry into Jerusalem is tragic, historical memory for Luke and his audience. king rejected and city destroyed: in this respect, too, the gloomy parable plot (19:12, 14, 27) inches closer to realization. First, though, Jesus will stake a claim on the temple as site of authoritative teaching addressed to the people and of confrontation addressed to the powers that now rule city and temple.

19:45–21:38 Jesus Teaches in the Temple

upon arrival at Jerusalem, Jesus goes directly to the temple and resumes his engagement with other teachers there, last narrated when he was twelve. Now the exchanges lead to a plot to deliver him to the power of the Roman governor. Meanwhile Jesus also teaches the people, who continue to be drawn to his person and message. He points them and his own followers beyond the present confrontation of the elite and powerful at Jerusalem to the climactic appearance of God’s reign, effecting both judgment and deliverance, and ushering history to a close.

19:45–20:8 Jesus and Temple Leaders:

Reciprocal Challenges to Authority

Jesus occupies the temple as the location for his climactic public teaching. This reprise of the scene of instruction in 2:46–47, also set in the temple, brings significant reversals in role. The one who as a youth listened to the teachers and queried them now becomes their teacher. Where once he impressed with his answers, now he provokes and enrages his listeners (i.e., those among them with power and position), whose amazement at his “answer” is hostile (20:26). Reciprocal challenges to authority raise the curtain.

45 When [Jesus] went into the temple, he began to drive out the sellers,

46 saying to them, “It is written, ‘My house will be a house for prayer,’ but you have made it a hideout for bandits.”a 47 And he was teaching in the temple every day. The chief priests and the scribes, however, were seeking to destroy him, as were the men of highest statusb among the people. 48 Yet they could not find anything to do, for all the people were listening to him attentively.c

20:1 One day, as he happened to be teaching the people in the temple and telling the good news, the chief priests and the scribes, along with the elders, were astonished. 2 So they said to him, “Tell us, By what authority are you doing these things? Or, Who gave you this authority?”

3 He answered them, “I will ask you something, as well; you tell me, too:

4 What was the source of John’s baptism, heaven or human beings?”d

5 They were debatinge among themselves: “If we say, ‘From heaven,’ he will say, ‘Whyf didn’t you believe him?’ 6 But if we say, ‘From human beings,’ all the people will pummel us with stones, for they are convinced that John is a prophet.” 7 So they replied, “We don’t know where [his authority comes] from.” 8 Jesus said to them, “Neither am I going to tellg you by what authority I am doing these things.”

a. Or the Scripture citation deployed by Jesus may extend through the end of the verse (i.e., encompassing also the image drawn from Jer 7:11: “hideout for bandits”). b. Literally, “the first ones” (prōtoi).

c. Or “hanging [on to his words] as they listened to him.”

d. Literally, “Was John’s baptism from heaven or from human beings?” e. Reading the imperfect (rather than the aorist), with א C D W.

f. Several Mss (e.g., A C D k) insert oun (therefore), a later, clarifying addition. g. A futuristic present (legō), as in 19:8.

[45–48] As once before Jesus acted on the necessity of being “in my Father’s domain” (2:49) by venturing to the temple, now he enters the city and proceeds without delay to the temple precincts. In order to be about the work appropriate for this sacred place, however, he must first reclaim it for its intended role, forcefully driving out (ekballein, used of the expulsion of demons in 9:40, 49; 11:14–20; 13:32) profit-seeking merchants (“sellers,” 19:45). In explaining his disruptive action, Jesus appeals to two prophetic texts: “It is written, ‘My house will be a house for prayer’ [citing Isa 56:7],3 but you have made it a hideout for bandits [drawing from Jer 7:11]” (Luke 19:46). The phrase borrowed from Jeremiah (“hideout for bandits”) implicitly condemns the unjust practices of those selling sacrificial animals and prepares for further indictment of exploitative business activity by the social elite (20:45–47) and in connection with the temple treasury itself (21:1–6). Jesus’ words and actions in the temple thus challenge the authority of the institution, at least as in its present mode of operation, and of the priestly elite who control it. Far from being a place for authentic worship, the temple, in the hands of its powerful custodians, has become a refuge for those who engage in unjust, exploitative economic practices, much as in the literary context in Jeremiah of the phrase Luke borrows from Jer 7:11 (see esp. Jer 7:5–10; cf. Green 693).

Having reframed commerce in the setting of God’s house as thievery (or banditry) and with a subversive, symbolic-prophetic action suspended that commerce, Jesus converts the temple into a teaching zone.4 Daily he teaches an attentive people (laos), whose attraction to him in large numbers (lit., “all the people”) frustrates the resolve of the elite (leading priests and scribes and men of highest status, the prōtoi [“first ones”]; 19:47–48).5 In the temple, therefore, as in the preceding narrative and as prophesied by Simeon (2:34), the people are dividing in response to Jesus’ authoritative teaching. This time it is “all the people” versus the wealthy, powerful elite. The narrative drives a wedge between the people, who attend to Jesus’ teaching (19:48; 21:38; cf. 22:2, 6), and their leaders, who question, seek to entrap, and plot against him (19:47–48; 20:19, 20; 22:2–6). This divergent response sets up and indeed necessitates a conspiracy between Judas and the chief priests, so that they may seize Jesus “apart from the crowd” (22:2–6), although ironically at his arrest an armed “crowd” of a different sort will appear to arrest him (22:47).

3. But without the phrase “for all nations,” retained in Mark 11:17 (also missing in Matt 21:13).

4. That Jesus is shown teaching, rather than praying, in the “house of prayer” does not mean surrender of a core function of the temple (see, e.g., 1:10, 13; 2:37; 18:9–14; 24:53), any more than the absence of the phrase “for all nations” signals a lack of concern for the place of the nations in God’s realm. Indeed, recall Simeon’s Spirit-inspired prayer, spoken in the temple, with its mention (2:32) of light to bring revelation for Gentiles (or nations). elsewhere, Jesus’ commitment to practicing, modeling, and teaching about prayer is plain (see 3:21; 6:12; 9:28; 11:1–4; 22:41–42; 23:34, 46). As for the nations (ethnē), they enter the domain of salvation in a centrifugal movement away from the temple (24:47; Acts 1:8; 13:47; 28:28; see Green 694). Luke later depicts the temple as an unwelcoming place for Gentiles (ethnē; see Acts 21–22), but that is not the issue Jesus is contesting in Luke 19:45–48.

The dramatic shift in allegiance that occurs in the scene before Pilate (23:13– 23) is therefore stunning. It does not come as a complete surprise, however, to readers who have listened closely to Jesus’ teaching, for his characterization of “this generation” has at points been scathing (see 7:31–34; 9:41; 11:29–32, 50–51; 17:25; cf. 19:14, 27). In any event, the people’s eventual decision to align themselves with the elite and powerful—temporary though it may be— sets the stage for the mission speeches of Acts, with their summons to repentance (e.g., Acts 2:38; 3:19; cf. 5:31). The Lukan Passion Narrative does not tell the story of the rejection of God’s people, but does point to the need for a radical reordering of loyalties and commitments in response to God’s saving work in Israel.

[20:1–8] Jesus makes the temple (i.e., the outer court, not the inner sanctuary, the naos) his classroom, and the subject of his teaching, the narrator reports in a word, is the “good news” (euangelizomenou, v. 1a), which by now Luke’s audience will understand is the good news of God’s reign (4:43), with its message of encouragement for the poor (4:18). Whether because of the content of what Jesus teaches the people or because of the boldness of his public activity even while temple leaders are determined to destroy him (19:47), the chief priests, scribes (legal scholars), and elders—a leadership group “representative of the Jerusalem sanhedrin” (Green 699)—register amazement (20:1b) and then challenge his authority “[to do] these things” by questioning its source, and hence its legitimacy (v. 2). If by “these things” they mean Jesus’ disruptive act, accompanied by indicting word, in the temple (19:46–47), they are countering an implicit subverting of their authority with an explicit disputing of his. However, this is not the first time Jesus’ authority to speak and act as he does has been questioned, though for the first time with the word exousia, “authority” (see 5:21 [including observers from Jerusalem; Jesus mentions exousia in his reply, 5:24], 30; 6:2, 7; 7:39; 11:15; 13:14; 15:2; cf. 7:34; 11:53–54; 14:1). In the question Luke’s audience may therefore hear a summative probing of the power source and the legitimacy of his entire ministry (cf. the devil’s offer of worldwide exousia in 4:6).6

5. Grangaard identifies 19:47–48 and 21:37–38 as opening and concluding frames of the conflict scene in the temple, 19:47–21:38 (Conflict 43–45). This observation regarding narrative structure is helpful, but unlike Grangaard, I connect 19:47–48 to vv. 45–46 and see the larger section opening at 19:28.

Jesus answers the question with one of his own, in vv. 3–4: “What was the source of John’s baptism, heaven or human beings?” (v. 4). Luke’s audience anticipates that this is a difficult trap, in view of the rejection of John’s prophetic, baptizing ministry by Pharisees and specialists in the law (7:30), a rejection now ratified by Jesus’ present sparring partners (20:5). Indeed Jesus has boxed them into a corner, where they debate among themselves how to respond (vv. 5–7). The division between “all the people” and the elite among them that is occurring in Jerusalem in response to Jesus’ ministry mirrors that earlier in the narrative in response to John (vv. 5–6; cf. 7:29–30). Fearful of strong public reaction—imaged with ironic hyperbole as pummeling with stones, as though the people were stepping forward as witnesses to the blasphemy committed by Jesus’ interrogators (cf. Grangaard, Conflict 74)—if they were to state openly their repudiation of John (20:6), they are also unwilling to go on record now as validating John’s activity as divinely sanctioned. Doing so would invite the counterpunch “Why didn’t you believe him?” (20:5). They are therefore left with nothing to reply (v. 7). When they decline to answer Jesus’ question about the source of John’s authority, he in turn refuses to answer their question regarding the source of his (v. 8). For Luke’s readers, the implication is clear: Jesus realizes that his own authority, indeed (like John’s) heaven-originated authority, would for that very reason remain unacknowledged by his detractors if he were to affirm it publicly. Jesus will in parable take up the issue of alignment (or not) with agents sent by God and affirmation (or not) of their legitimacy, but in speech to the people (v. 9), though with the elite opponents of Jesus overhearing (v. 19). The conflict in the temple, turning on incompatible views of divine authorization, will escalate. Before conversation and interrogation have ended, Jesus will return to the suspended question of his legitimate authority, pegging it with assistance from scriptural intertexts to his messianic status as Lord (vv. 41–44, drawing from Ps 110:1) and his role as Son of Humanity who receives divine vindication (Luke 22:69).7

6. The phrasing of the question “Who gave you this authority [ tis estin ho dous soi tēn exousian tautēn]?” echoes the devil’s second test in the desert in 4:6: “I will give you all this authority and [the nations’] glory [soi dōsō tēn exousian tautēn hapasan kai tēn doxan autōn],” perhaps hinting that a second testing of Jesus’ fidelity to his messianic vocation is beginning. The hint soon becomes a shout (22:3; cf. 4:13; also 23:35, 37, 39).

7. Because Jesus’ debate opponents continue to listen in the background (v. 19), his defense of his divinely granted authority may be seen as commencing already, implicitly, in vv. 9–19, with its image of the beloved son’s being sent to the vineyard (cf. Tyson, “Conflict” 319–23; Grangaard, Conflict 80, 96).

20:9–19 A Parable about Leadership Failure

The contest over legitimate authority now engaged, Jesus turns to address the people. employing intertextually resonant metaphors of vineyard and builderrejected stone, he paints a grim picture of failed leadership of the nation and its tragic consequences. This parabolic teaching inspires renewed efforts by the powerful to seize him.

9 [Jesus] then began to tell the people this parable: “A man planted a vineyard and leased it to tenant farmers and went away for some time.

10 In due course,a he sent a slave to the tenant farmers so that they would give him a portion of the fruit from the vineyard. But the tenant farmers gave him a beating and sent him away empty-handed. 11 So he decided to send another slave, but that one, too, they beat and treated shamefully and sent away empty-handed. 12 He decided to send a third [slave], but they wounded this one as well and cast him out. 13 Then the ownerb of the vineyard said, ‘What will I do? I will send my beloved son. Surely they will treat him with respect.’ 14 When the tenant farmers saw him, however, they began to discuss among themselves, saying, ‘This is the heir. Let’s kill him, so that the inheritance may be ours.’ 15 So they cast him out of the vineyard and killed him.

“What, then, will the owner of the vineyard do to them? 16 He will come and he will destroy these tenant farmers, and he will give the vineyard to others.” Now when they heard [this], they said, “No way!”c 17 But staring at them, he said, “What, then, is this [Scripture] that has been written? ‘[The] stone that the builders have rejected—this has become the cornerstone.’ 18 everyone who falls on that stone will be dashed to pieces. And it will crush whomever it falls upon.” 19 The scribes and the chief priests tried to lay their hands upon him that very hour, yet they were afraid of the people—for they were aware that he had told this parable about them.d

a. Or “at [an apt] time,” a temporal dative with kairō.

b. Or “master,” kyrios.

c. Or “May it not be so!” This translates mē genoito.

d. Or “to them,” pros autous. In this context, the prepositional phrase likely carries a

hostile nuance: the scribes and priests perceived that the parable was directed against them.

[9–16] Jesus, now embroiled in heated debate with powerful members of the local elite at Jerusalem and—no surprise—discerning their hostile rejection of his divine commission, tells the people a transparently allegorical parable. Though addressed to the general public assembled in the temple (v. 9), the parable’s provocative attack on failed leadership at Jerusalem is not lost on the chief priests and scribes. As they listen in the background, they recognize that Jesus is telling the parable, presumably including the psalter image of the rejected stone transformed into building cornerstone, about them (v. 19).

The plot features a wealthy absentee landlord whose tenant farmers rebel. They first refuse to pay the contracted yield of the vineyard harvest, but eventually they become emboldened, with designs on taking possession of the land for themselves, to kill the son and heir. The tenants’ rebellion intensifies as the plot moves forward (cf. Hultgren, Parables 375; Grangaard, Conflict 84). The owner’s three slaves, sent one by one to collect the rent owed, are in turn (1) beaten and sent back without payment in hand (v. 10); (2) beaten, treated in a manner that brings dishonor (atimasantes), and sent back without payment (v. 11); and (3) wounded (traumatisantes) and driven away (v. 12).

The narrator now gives voice to the vineyard owner (or master, kyrios), employing the internal monologue technique common in Luke’s parables (see 12:17–19; 15:17–19; 16:3–4; 18:4–5): “What will I do? I will send my beloved son” (20:13). Surely he will command respect! But not so: violence escalates from physical beating to murder, inspired by the tenant farmers’ illusory and foolish hope of taking control of the land from its legal heir (vv. 14–15a). The sequence is telling: the tenants first drive the owner’s son outside the vineyard, then kill him.8 The narrator of the parable thereby stitches its plot more firmly to the wider narrative, in which Jesus will (implicitly) meet death outside the city. What, the parabolic narrator queries, will the vineyard owner (kyrios) do? Dispensing with messengers (having finally learned his lesson), he will confront the tenant farmers himself and, after seeing to their destruction, will give the vineyard to other tenant farmers (20:15b–16a; punishment of the tenants is missing from the version in Gos. Thom. 65).

The response to this tragic, violent tale is immediate. Jesus’ listeners recoil in horror and spontaneously react to the parable: “No way [mē genoito]!” (v. 16b). Nonelite listeners, who form Jesus’ main audience in the story (and also nonelite readers), would be expected at first to sympathize with the tenant farmers (cf. B. Scott, Hear 251). For the parable’s plot assumes an exploitative economic system that features a concentration of wealth, with its primary basis in land ownership, in the hands of a few. It also shows a redistribution of land and wealth away from those who work the land and to those who own it and derive its economic benefits though they reside elsewhere, as absentee landlords. Indeed, Jesus condemns an urban variation on this theme in 20:47. The audience’s reaction of dismay to the parable’s conclusion, with the destruction of the tenant farmers and the transfer of tenancy to others (v. 16b), is therefore unsurprising.9 But would the tenants’ recourse to violence and the pathos of the owner’s loss of his “beloved son” not prompt listeners—Jesus’ and Luke’s—to rethink an initial appraisal of the story’s characters influenced by prevalent economic stereotypes?

8. In this detail, Luke agrees with Matt 21:39 against Mark 12:8; moreover, where Mark has a longer string of slaves dispatched and a mix of beating and killing, Luke presents a more compact and plausible narrative intensification.

The unmistakable scriptural resonance of the vineyard as metaphorical image of God’s people Israel (Isa 5:1–7; cf. Ps 80:8–16; Isa 27:2–5; Jer 2:21; ezek 19:10–14; Hos 10:1; Green 704–6; Brawley, Text to Text 28–30) suggests that more may be at play in the negative reaction of Jesus’ listeners. The fortunes of Israel are somehow at stake in the tragic tale Jesus has spun. Whatever the original context and message of the parable in Jesus’ ministry, its allegorical cast within Luke’s narrative cannot be missed. The following, appended commentary, quoting Ps 118:22, and the hostile reaction of the chief priests and scribes (Luke 20:19) show that the entire parable—especially its picture of the violent rejection of the “beloved son” of the vineyard’s “lord,” inviting violent reprisal, and the metaphorical connection that the parable forges with Israel and thus with rightful custodianship of land, people, and temple—interprets the depiction in the Lukan narrative of Jerusalem’s rejection of the prophetMessiah, the beloved Son (see 3:22; cf. 2:49; 9:35; 10:21–22) sent to it by God (cf. 19:12, 14, 27 and see the comment on 19:12–27).

In hindsight, it also later becomes clear to Luke’s audience that the transfer to others of the right of vineyard tenancy images the emergence in Israel of a new leader group that will be faithful in its leadership of God’s people (see 22:28–30; Acts 1–5; cf. Green 705; Hultgren, Parables 377). A fruitful Israel under a new leadership group, not the rejection of Israel or the supplanting of Israel itself by Gentiles, is in view in the allegorical interpretive commentary pictured in Luke’s rendition of the parable. unlike the intertext, Isa 5:1–7, the Lukan parable pictures destruction not of the vineyard but of those who tend it, for a failure in justice (see Green 705; Hultgren, Parables 357–59). Read retrospectively, the parable thus again displays Jesus’ prophetic discernment of events that are about to occur.

It is unlikely, however, that the people’s negative reception of the tragic tale (or its conclusion) would include all these concerns. The terse report of the parable’s negative reception by the people holds open the tantalizing possibility—assuming one way readers might fill this gap left by the narration—that in this reaction the apparently firm boundary between an approving laos (people) and a disapproving elite leader group is revealed to be less firm than it appears.10 From a quite different perspective and for different reasons, the people begin to shift slightly toward closer alignment with Jerusalem’s elite leader group in its response to Jesus—an anticipation of their later temporary alliance against Jesus before Pilate (23:13–23), and an echo of the Nazareth synagogue audience’s earlier rejection of the hometown prophet (4:24, 28–30).

9. For interpretation of the parable along these lines, though with particular attention to its message in Mark, see Herzog, Parables 98–113. In Herzog’s reading, the parable exposes the futility of violent peasant revolt against an oppressive economic system such as that depicted in the parable.

10. Grangaard suggests that the people’s reaction to the parable stems from the belief that destruction of Israel’s religious leaders would mean “further subjection to the people of Rome” (Conflict 91; cf. Vinson 617–18).

[17–19] Whatever the reasons for listeners’ negative reaction to the parable, or its tragic ending, Jesus turns again to Scripture to reinforce the point he is making with regard to God’s people and the leadership failure exhibited, among other things, in an incapacity to acknowledge both prophets and beloved SonMessiah sent by God. Jesus quotes Ps 118:22: “What, then, is this [Scripture] that has been written? ‘[The] stone the builders have rejected—this has become the cornerstone’” (Luke 20:17), the crucial foundation stone that bears the weight of two walls (Fitzmyer 2:1282). He then pounds home the point with a graphic depiction of the unhappy consequences of rejecting the stone: “everyone who falls on that stone will be dashed to pieces. And it will crush whomever it falls upon” (v. 18). As Simeon predicted, Jesus has become a “sign spoken against” and the cause of “the fall and rising of many in Israel” (2:34).

For the third time in the Jerusalem entry narrative that opened in 19:28, Jesus seizes upon a stone image to comment on the meaning of the events that are unfolding and yet to come. If there were need, stones would shout praise of the Messiah-king (19:40; cf. John’s image of stones raised up as children of Abraham in 3:8). But a heap of stones then pictures the total devastation that will befall a city that fails to discern the moment of divine visitation and therefore to receive the peace proffered (19:44). Before Jesus in 21:5–6 reframes the awe-inspiring splendor of the temple’s stones by picturing instead the pile of overturned stones that will mark the temple’s future demise, 20:17 fuses positive and negative connotations of the stone image. On the one hand, builders reject a stone, and anyone who falls down because of it will be crushed. Yet on the other hand, the rejected stone becomes a building’s cornerstone: an image of rejection by builders yields to construction rather than destruction. In tandem with the rejected son of the vineyard owner (20:13–15) and building on the image of the rejected king (19:14, 27), the image of a rejected stone-turned-cornerstone interprets the Messiah’s journey to the center of power in Israel as a journey to rejection. By implication, however, it also images vindication: restored honor and future construction on the far side of that rejection (read retrospectively, proleptic anticipation of Jesus’ exaltation through resurrection and ascension [24:26, 46, 51; Acts 1:9–11; 2:24–36] and of the restoration of God’s people [e.g., Acts 15:14–18]).11

11. Other New Testament writings mine Ps 118:22(–23) in support of christological interpretation that seeks to make sense of the crucifixion of Jesus and anchors both that event and the resurrection in the Scriptures of Israel (e.g., see Matt 21:42; Mark 12:10; Acts 4:11; 1 Pet 2:4, 6–8; cf. Rom 9:33).

But that lies ahead. For the present, there is potent resistance to be faced, though not from the people, despite their negative reaction to the vineyard parable, but from the elite opponents of Jesus who listen from the sidelines. Aware that Jesus has told “this parable”—likely encompassing both vineyard parable and rejected stone metaphor—about them (or perhaps, only slightly less confrontationally, “to them,” pros autous), the chief priests and scribes attempt to seize him, with their fear of the people the only thing standing in their way (Luke 20:19). Jesus is well on his way to experiencing, as he had prophesied, rejection by “elders, chief priests, and scribes” (9:22), leading to his being handed over to “humans” (9:44) or “Gentiles” (18:32) to be killed. First, though, Jesus has more teaching to do and more debating to engage, so as to confront the powers at Jerusalem and at the same time instruct the people, his disciples, and Luke’s readers.

20:20–26 Tribute Tax for Caesar? Jesus Foils an Entrapment Ploy

Intent on seizing Jesus and turning him over to the Roman governor, but so far thwarted by Jesus’ popular appeal, the scribes and chief priests retreat to the shadows and dispatch spies to trick Jesus into a public statement that will provide grounds for arrest. His wit again enables him to best his adversaries; while publicly acknowledging the legitimate claim of the Roman empire, he continues at the same time to affirm the sovereign rule of God.

20 With the purpose of observing [Jesus], [the scribes and chief priests] sent spies—men who maintained the pretense of being righteous—to catch him in something he might say,a so that they might hand him over to the office and authority of the governor. 21 So they asked him, “Teacher, we know that you speak and teach rightly and do not show partialityb but instead teach the way of God in truth. 22 Is it right for us to pay tribute tax to Caesar, or not?” 23 As he had discerned their trickery, however, he said to them,c 24 “Show me a denarius. Whose image and inscription does it have?” And they said, “Caesar’s.” 25 He said to them, “Okay then:d Pay to Caesar what belongs to Caesar—and to God what belongs to God.” 26 So they were unable to catch him in what he said in the presence of the people and, astounded at his answer, they fell silent.

a. Literally, “take hold of [seize] him in a word”; the same idiom (though replacing logos with rhēma) appears in v. 26.

b. Biblical (Septuagintal) idiom: lit., “you do not receive the face [of one person over another]”; see Lev 19:5; Ps 82:2; Lam 4:16; Mal 1:8; Fitzmyer 2:1295; Green 714 n. 65.

c. Most Mss (including A C D W Θ) begin Jesus’ response with the question “Why are you testing me?” This insertion aligns Luke’s text with Mark 12:15; the shorter text, attested by א and B, is to be preferred.

d. In Greek, the particle toinyn (well then), often left untranslated here.

[20–26] Although unable to move against Jesus directly, because of his popular support, and no doubt hoping also to avoid further embarrassment (Green 711), the leadership group of chief priests and scribes continues to monitor Jesus’ activity closely through indirect means (paratēroun signaling hostile observation, as in 6:7 [Pharisees and scribes] and 14:1 [Pharisees]). Turning to the device of entrapment, they deploy a third party to seek basis for legal action against Jesus (20:20). The description of the espionage agents (who engage in “covert surveillance,” in Vinson’s apt phrase [619]) plays off a familiar theme, one that has linked self-appraisal as righteous with status-seeking and contempt for other people (e.g., 16:15; 18:9). This time, however, Jesus’ interlocutors only strike a pose as righteous (hypokrinomenous heautous dikaious einai), with a view to securing from him a statement of sufficient gravity to warrant his arrest. The concentration of political terms—archē, exousia, and hēgemonos (office or jurisdiction, authority, and governor)—is revealing (Grangaard, Conflict 103). Jesus’ adversaries seek to charge Jesus, before the governor, as a rebel against Rome.

The spies preface the question that will set their trap with insincere, ironic flattery (see Green 713–14; Vinson 621; Grangaard, Conflict 104): “Teacher, we know that you speak and teach rightly and do not show partiality but instead teach the way of God in truth” (20:21). The commendation is insincere because they do not believe it, and also ironic because Luke’s readers know it to be true in every respect and (readers will later realize) also because it constitutes testimony that in advance contradicts claims that will figure in the hearing before Pilate (23:2, 14). The question posed to Jesus—“Is it right [permitted or lawful, exestin] for us to pay tribute tax to Caesar, or not?”—is intended to put him in a no-win situation (20:22). If he replies in the affirmative, he stands to lose favor with the people, who chafe under Roman occupation. If he answers in the negative, however, as one might expect from a popular teacher whose message centers on the realm not of Caesar but of God, then he has gone on record as advocating resistance to Roman authority. The case for a charge of sedition would then be greatly strengthened, as 23:2 shows, though only by way of malicious testimony there that distorts the public record in a fashion that is apparent to Luke’s readers. In this exchange the tribute tax in question (phoros, rather than the Latin loanword kēnsos, “poll tax,” that appears in Mark 12:14 and Matt 22:17) was not large (one denarius each year), but it symbolized the unwelcome foreign domination of Palestine under Roman occupation (for the phoros as tribute, see Josephus, J.W. 1.7.7; 2.8.1; cf. Rom 13:6–7). Its payment signaled loyalty to the empire, so public teaching advocating refusal to pay would be tantamount to sedition.

Jesus’ cunning, however, surpasses that of the spies. Seeing right through their ruse (their panourgia, “trickery,” 20:23), he turns the question back to them. Bidding them to display a denarius coin (such as would be used to play the tribute tax), he asks, “Whose image and inscription” does it bear? Caesar’s, of course (v. 24). The coin was stamped with an image of the emperor (Tiberius) and with the inscription “Tiberius Caesar, son of the divine Augustus, Augustus” (Fitzmyer 2:1296). Jesus draws the obvious conclusion: the coin is Caesar’s property, and it is therefore fitting to pay (to give back, apodote) to Caesar what belongs to him (v. 25a). Jesus does not give the spies what they seek, legitimate basis for accusation of treason. He completes his response, however, with a balancing phrase—“and [pay] to God what belongs to God” (v. 25b)—that holds open the key question: What is the relationship between allegiance to the empire and loyal service of God? Jesus has healed and hosted meals and taught, each an expression of the sovereign rule of God; he himself carries the rank of Messiah-king-Lord (kyrios) and has set loyal service of God against service of any other master (16:13). The implication must therefore be that the juxtaposed claims of rendering to Caesar and to God are not equal and symmetrical obligations. The obligation to God surpasses that to the emperor.

Yet while this is clear to those who have heard Jesus teach and seen him in action (including Luke’s audience), it remains an indirect, implicit message. Onto a public stage where competing notions of authority and loyalty are being contested, and addressing spies whose hidden agenda he has detected, Jesus allows a hidden transcript, by which Jews faithful to God may safely negotiate the reality of Roman domination, to peek through—but only for those with eyes to see it (see Excursus: The Reign of God and the Roman Empire, below).

The outcome of the exchange is not the desired arrest of Jesus but silence (v. 26). The spies’ astonishment at his answer (apokrisis) represents a reversal of the teaching scene of 2:46–47, where a youthful Jesus’ “answers” (apokriseis) garnered favorable reaction. The duplicity of his present interlocutors, however, will not stop withmomentary silent defeat. Having failed to entrap Jesus at his word, they will use the exchange anyway to fund distorted testimony that will be serviceable before Roman imperial authority (23:2). Meanwhile, Jesus must confront new participants and topics of debate.

Excursus: The Reign of God and the Roman Empire in Luke’s Gospel

The representation of the Roman empire in Luke’s Gospel and the posture it commends in relation to the empire have been described in diverse ways. To many readers, Luke presents a positive view of the empire, whether to inform an apologia (defense) to the Roman world on behalf of the nascent Christian movement (e.g., Cadbury, Making 308– 16; Conzelmann, Theology 137–49) or to commend the empire, or positive engagement with it, to Christian communities (e.g., Walaskay, “And So”; esler, Community).12 For Robbins, the relation to the empire is marked by alliance and cooperation; the Roman Empire “works symbiotically with Christianity” (“Mixed Population” 202). The goals of the “project started by Jesus” and the goals of the empire and the structures of its laws, properly enforced, are congruent. Luke has also been read, however, as vigorous critic of the empire and the economic-religious-political system it controls (e.g., Cassidy, Jesus; Green, Theology 119–21).13 Yamazaki-Ransom contends that Rome manifests Satan’s control of the world and its political authorities (Roman Empire 82, 97, 200–202). And Walton, seeking to take account of the full range of textual data, locates Luke on both ends of the pro- and anti-Roman spectrum (“State” 35).

In a narrative read in such diverse ways, one would expect to discover textual data marked by complexity, ambiguity, and/or ambivalence, and Luke’s representation of imperial Rome and its agents proves to be all of these. Luke explicitly situates the events narrated within the political, economic, and military framework of imperial Rome. The story begins while Augustus is in power (2:1), and the public careers of John and Jesus occur during the imperial reign of Tiberius and under the local administrations of the prefect-governor Pontius Pilate; three tetrarchs, Herod (Antipas), (Herod) Philip, and Lysanias (3:1–2); and high priests Annas and Caiaphas—indications of the alliance between Rome and its local system of political and military oversight and control in Palestine. elite, priest-dominated Jewish leadership groups in Palestine, along with Herodian rulers, were key components of the apparatus of Roman provincial rule. Augustus directs that a universal census be taken, and the whole world (oikoumenē), including Joseph and Mary, obeys (2:1–5). Left unstated: the census serves taxation and military proscription (for this reason, a census could foment insurrection; see Acts 5:36–37). Census was an instrument of Roman domination. Concerns with the Roman tax system as a contest of allegiances between Caesar and God come to a head in the course of Jesus’ climactic teaching session in the temple (Luke 20:20–26).

Jesus predicts a military siege that will bring destruction to Jerusalem and the temple (19:43–44; 21:5–6, 20–24), the work of Roman armies, Luke’s audience is aware. Moreover, Acts concludes with Paul under Roman custody in Rome, awaiting his hearing before an unnamed emperor (Nero). The course of Paul’s imprisonment and defense follows in the wake of Jesus’ own collision with Roman might in the form of Pontius Pilate, Herod Antipas, and the elite priestly council that closely collaborates with the Roman governor (Luke 22–23). The entire narrative of the two-volume work thus falls under the vast shadow of the empire.

12. esler holds that Luke–Acts is an exercise in legitimation, not apologetics. He pictures the Lukan community as including Roman administrative and military officers, to whom Luke affirms the compatibility of participation in the Christian group and service to the empire (Community 210, 217–19). Bond concurs with this reading based on her analysis of Luke’s depiction of Pilate (Pontius Pilate 162). Maddox (Purpose 91–99) profiles Luke’s generally “optimistic view of the imperial government,” which, together with the emphasis in Luke–Acts on the political innocence of Christians, points to a narrative concern to clarify the “proper business” of Christian readers: “to live at peace with the sovereign power, so far as possible, and not to play the hero” (97). This is the posture commended by 1 Pet 2:13–17 but, in changed circumstances, challenged by Revelation.

13. See also the essays in Rhoads et al., Luke–Acts and Empire.

The narrative depicts interactions with an impressive cast of Roman military and political figures, including centurions, who are typically portrayed favorably (see, e.g., 7:1–10; 23:47; Acts 10:1–48; 13:6–12; 27:1–44) and tribunes (Acts 21:31–40; 22:24–29; 23:16–30); tax agents, whom other characters, except Jesus, view negatively (Luke 5:27–32; 7:29–35; 15:1–2; 19:1–10); and several Roman governors (prefects and proconsuls). The latter set of officials adjudicates disputes centering on the activities of Jesus (examined by Pilate in 23:1–25) and Paul, with his associates (examined by Gallio in Acts 18:12–17; Felix in Acts 24; and Festus in Acts 25–26; cf. the favorable depiction of Sergius Paulus in Acts 13:7–12). Invariably these officials deem Jesus and his followers as posing no threat to Rome and its civil order, and as innocent of crimes for which they stand accused. They do so, however, in a way that exposes their own flaws in moral character, not to mention their being victims of Lukan irony: the universal dominion of the “Lord” God and Messiah Jesus is a real threat, if not in the way imagined by accusers within the narrative. There are also indicators of insurrection against Roman military occupation: probably Barabbas in Luke 23:18–19, and rebels Theudas and Judas in Acts 5:36–37. The characterization of Jesus and his followers in Luke and Acts, however, distinguishes them from such advocates of violent resistance to the Roman system, even as it highlights their allegiance to a counter-Lord and counterdominion.

Not all resistance to colonial domination takes the form of open, violent resistance. James Scott has shown that responses to colonial domination are not limited to the alternatives of resigned submission and open rebellion. Between these options, a dominated group will find “safe” offstage or indirect public ways (a “hidden transcript”) to express resistance to domination.14 Operating with a different theoretical framework, some postcolonial theorists, too, press beyond the binary opposition of colonizing power and colonized people to expose a hybrid culture in which a dominated group identifies, but only in part, with the dominant group—its mimicry is also parody, mockery of those with power. In the circumstances of colonial subjugation, resistance is necessarily indirect, partial, ambivalent, and accompanied by varying levels of cooperation and participation. A “third space” can emerge where alternative discursive practices distinct from those of both dominant and dominated groups may be generated.15

What, then, of the empire in Luke’s Gospel? Because Rome’s is not the only power domain on display, it is necessary to ask how multiple powers—God’s reign, Satan’s dominion, and Roman imperial control—interact in the story Luke tells. How does Luke’s narrative create a third space, for the formation of a community of God’s dominion, in which an alternative discourse and set of social practices can be generated?

Luke 1–2 signals the direction in which the narrative is ushering an audience that inhabits the late first-century Roman world. Mary’s Magnificat celebrates God’s activity of inverting power and position, in praise of God as Savior (sōtēr in 1:47, a descriptor that belongs to emperors in the imperial ideology).16 In the domain over which God is sovereign, not Rome or its emperor, earthly rulers are deposed and those without status and resources are lifted high (1:51–53). None of this is good news for the empire, even if, in the setting within the story, the claim of an “alternative reign” (Carter, “Singing” 42–43; Reid, “Women Prophets”) is articulated in a Judean hill-country household in a private conversation between two women. This revolutionary vision, part of a hidden transcript spoken out of Roman earshot, nevertheless enters public space, at least potentially, in Luke’s literary project.

14. Scott maintains that “in ordinary circumstances subordinates have vested interest in avoiding any explicit display of insubordination,” but that they have “a practical interest in resistance—in minimizing the exactions, labor, and humiliations to which they are subject” (Domination 86).

15. On mimicry as parody, see Bhabha, Location of Culture 85–92, 120–21; for his discussion of indirect, ambivalent resistance, 85–92; and on the notion of a third space, 34–39, 217–23. Ahn presents a detailed analysis of Luke 19:45–23:56 that draws on postcolonial studies (Reign).

Zechariah’s Benedictus, too, envisions a world order that looks fundamentally different from the Roman empire, one that brings relief from Israel’s enemies (1:71, 74). Moreover, not Rome (with its repressive Pax Romana) but Israel’s God, through the agency of the Messiah, effects peace (e.g., 1:79). Simeon’s prophetic oracle then foresees, in connection with the long-promised salvation now embodied in Jesus, glory for Israel and light for the nations (2:32). Roman benefactions to the world have thus been reappropriated and are now ascribed to God. Simeon is speaking privately to Jesus’ parents but does so in the temple, center of local economic and political power.

Luke 1:5 identifies Herod as king of Judea, but Gabriel announces that Judea’s true king is the Son of God, who will sit on David’s throne (1:32–33). Chapter 3 updates the power grid, with its enumeration of rulers (vv. 1–2), but ensuing events amount to a demotion of these rulers, including the emperor Tiberius. Jesus is the divinely authorized kyrios (Lord) and sōtēr (Savior). Jesus places his own activity in line with the Magnificat’s bold prophetic vision of powers (4:18–19; 6:20–26). He wields authority but not in the fashion of rulers sanctioned by Rome; his teaching and his actions subvert social and economic norms concerning primacy of the household, status and honor, benefaction and patronage, reciprocity and principled retaliation. Luke’s narrative thus shows the Roman cultural system falling under sustained critique.

A desert confrontation pits Jesus against Satan, whose offer of universal dominion (4:5–6) carries the implicit claim that all world rulers (chief among them the Roman empire) govern at the behest of Satan and as an expression of idolatrous worship.17 Jesus rebuffs the devil’s offer of world dominion, however, choosing instead to commit his cause to the rule of God. If he is to occupy David’s throne, he will exercise sovereignty in a form that Rome and its collaborators would scarcely recognize. He both models and commends leadership that takes the form of other-serving humility rather than domination (22:24–30).18

With the adoption of the language of empire ( basileia, thronos, exousia) for this movement, there is imperial mimicry but not without parody—perhaps initiated already with (the historical) Jesus’ choice of “God’s reign” as a governing metaphor for his ministry. In this community, as pictured in Luke’s Gospel, it is the young, the poor, and the powerless—outsiders and those low in status—who receive honor. Their swords and thrones are (nearly always) metaphorical; they divest themselves of what wealth and social advantage they possess so as to lift up the needy and downtrodden. Or that is what the community looks like if its commitments, engagements, and practices are shaped by Jesus’ vision of the world-as-ruled-by-God.

16. Luke 2:11 ascribes this title to Jesus as well; see the comment on 22:24–30, esp. n. 15.

17. As framed within the narrative, this expresses a hidden transcript, not open declaration of revolt: it is a private, solitary dialogue—or hermeneutical contest—in the desert; the claim that Rome serves a demonic sovereign remains implicit; and the claim is spoken by the devil and therefore could be dismissed as the false claim of an unreliable speaker.

18. Ahn regards this as a “refutation of the empire” (Reign 168). He observes that the conflict between the two power systems, the reign of God and the Roman empire, will be resolved only with the eschatological coming of the Son of Humanity (157, 220).

Luke’s audience is introduced to, and invited to participate in, a counterreign defined by alternative practices and a fundamentally different notion of power and status, in a third space not dominated by the ideology of Rome, even if this counterrealm does not translate into overt revolution.19 And it is a space liberated from the malevolent, distorting rule of Satan. Yet for all this, and despite Satan’s claim to have conferred power over the nations (4:6), the narrative does not paint Rome in unambiguously negative colors. The centurion in 7:1–10, a generous benefactor of the Jewish community, is depicted in positive terms.20 Procedures of Roman law, while enforced by flawed officials, nevertheless protect the rights of Roman citizens (or have the potential of doing so), and validate rather than condemn accused witness-bearers (e.g., Acts 19:35–41). For Christian communities that face the prospect of public accusation and judicial inquiry (Luke 12:4–12; 21:12–15), both assurance of divine guidance and the precedent of Roman authorities’ exonerating the accused provide some encouragement.21 Moreover, the world mission, carried out with such vigor and success that the activities of the movement can be said not to have occurred “in a corner” (Acts 26:26), moves forward not defensively but with confident expectation.22

19. Bonz argues that Luke–Acts is a “foundational epic” ( Past as Legacy 29, 189–93) undergirding the “formation of a new people” (155), the “reconstituted people of God” (170). Luke’s imitation of the epic form, she suggests, exhibits admiration for Rome but serves “a rival vision of empire, with a rival deity issuing an alternative plan for universal salvation,” implemented through a radically different means of conquest (182). Whether or not the genre identification (epic) is right, Bonz offers a perceptive analysis of the challenge that Luke’s narrative poses to Roman imperial ideology. Sterling, while proposing a different genre identification (apologetic historiography), provides a similar reading of the narrative’s function: to define the emerging group (assigning it a long, venerable history and a place in the larger world [Historiography 378–79, 387]). He adds an apologetic concern to secure “the social and political standing of the group within the empire” (387). Sterling finds an analogue to Luke’s historical project, with its vision of Christian expansion into the whole world, in Polybius (2nd century B.C.E.), who undertook his Histories “after he grasped the worldwide significance of Rome” (388). The Roman Antiquities by Dionysius of Halicarnassus and the Library of History by Diodorus of Sicily likewise chronicle general or universal history in a way that highlights the supremacy of Rome. Luke’s narrative offers an alternative conception of universal history, in which the supreme role of Rome has ceded to that of the reign (and people) of God.

20. This is so even if the narrative subverts the paradigm of benefaction that was pervasive in the Greco-Roman social-political world. The pious centurion Cornelius is portrayed no less positively in Acts 10.

21. The point is not validation of Rome but Roman legitimation of Jesus and his followers.

22. This is true even if Robbins’s description of Luke–Acts as “an aggressive narrative in an environment perceived to be teeming with opportunities” exaggerates (“Mixed Population” 203).

Jesus appears to accept the obligation to pay the tribute tax to the empire, thus in a deft though eventually ineffectual maneuver avoiding public advocacy of a treasonous position (Luke 20:20–26; cf. 23:2). There is ambiguity, however, as the reader must ponder the relative claims of allegiance to Caesar and God. For readers who have followed Luke’s story attentively, there is no confusion: loyal service of God trumps all other claims, even Caesar’s. One cannot serve two masters (16:13). This is an ideology counter to Roman hegemony—though in a form that encodes ambiguity—as part of a hidden transcript that is coming into the open in the public and highly political space of the temple. Yet the message, though ambiguous and susceptible of multiple interpretations (and enactments), is transparent for Luke’s audience.

James Scott sketches a “gradient of radicalism in the interrogation of domination”; least radical is criticism of members of the dominant group “for having violated the norms by which they claim to rule” (Domination 92). A parade example would be Pilate’s failure to implement justice during his judicial examination of Jesus, as the centurion’s verdict after the crucifixion shows (Jesus as dikaios [righteous] in 23:47).23 The “most radical step is to repudiate the very principles by which the dominant stratum justifies its dominance” (Domination 92). This sounds very much like the remapping of social space and the reconfiguring of power in Luke’s vision—or Luke’s account of Jesus’ vision—of God’s realm. Whatever Caesar may be due, the only legitimate sovereign is God.

What are the interrelationships among the reign of God at work in the public ministry of Jesus within Israel, the domain of evil (Satan), and the Roman imperial system? How do these relationships play out in the social world inhabited by Luke’s earliest audience? Caesar’s military and political supremacy is beyond dispute; despite the martial imagery of Mary’s Magnificat and the two swords of the Last Supper, it is difficult to imagine Luke’s first readers hearing in this Gospel any marching orders to rebel against the Roman system. Although Jesus’ followers acknowledge him as sovereign (kyrios), and although he issues a demand for total, uncompromising commitment to the reign of God, he does not draw his followers toward open revolt.

The circumstances of Jesus’ arrival and his programmatic opening message and conduct of ministry—all these challenge and subvert conventional notions of power and authority, of honor-seeking and status maintenance. And the alternative political community and discourse and alternative social practices that come into being around Jesus, symbolically enacted in inclusive, status-blending, boundary-crossing meals, are deeply countercultural. Nevertheless, the movement, its founder, and its adherents can be characterized, not only by the narrator but also by more than one Roman judicial arbiter, as lawful, just, and posing no threat to Roman order (e.g., Pilate in Luke 23; Festus in Acts 25:25, with Agrippa in 26:30–32; cf. 19:35–41). Jesus and his followers, despite radical, visionary rhetoric, actually depose no one from a physical throne; the divine realm of which they speak will reconfigure the powers of the nations—but that world-reconfiguring will extend into the eschatological future. In the meantime, they are charged to continue to proclaim “the Lord Jesus and the reign of God” (AT; cf. Acts 8:12; 28:23, 31) throughout the Roman-dominated oikoumenē, to invite any and all, of whatever status and position, into their communities. As a third space, liberated from Satan’s control, this is a community whose identity is bound up with a crucified and risen Lord and whose character and future are defined in the terms set by the reign not of Caesar but of God (cf. Ahn, Reign 90). Yet the movement that Luke terms “the way” continues to navigate that Roman empire, for the most part peaceably, from within.

23. examples from Acts of failure to govern by norms of justice include the Philippian magistrates’ mishandling of citizen Paul in 16:35–39 and the malicious plotting by the elite priestly circle while Paul is in custody (e.g., 23:12–15; 25:1–4).

The movement serves an alternative kyrios but poses no political threat, even if some accuse it of turning the world upside down (Acts 17:6; cf. Rowe, Upside Down 148–50). To the extent that the movement inaugurated by Jesus and the empire coexist peaceably, the larger story is that God is making use of Roman power to accomplish divine purposes, as has been evident from the beginning of the story (e.g., Luke 2:1–5). The narrative portrayal of Rome and its collaborating agents of local control is thus deeply ironic. Rome can be a destructive force—allied with and serving the “power of darkness” in the case of Jesus’ arrest and crucifixion and again, later, in the devastation of the temple and Jerusalem. Nevertheless, God can make use of imperial power to accomplish purposes of liberation and salvation.

20:27–44 Children of Resurrection and Son of David: More Debates with Religious and Intellectual Leaders

The challenge to Jesus’ authority continues, in another temple scene that features a question about resurrection from high-status Sadducees, Jesus’ answer, and a counterquestion he poses about the Messiah’s connection to David, in rejoinder to a compliment from scribes who overhear the exchange about resurrection.

27 Now some of the Sadducees—who say there is no resurrection—came up and asked [Jesus], 28 “Teacher, Moses gave us the written directive that ‘If someone’s married brother dies, and he happens to be childless, his brother should take [her as his] wife and raise up childrena for his brother.’ 29 Well, there were seven brothers, and after the first had married,b he died childless. 30 So also the second, 31 and then the third as well, took her [as wife]—and in the same way [all] seven [brothers] could not leave children behind, and they died. 32 Finally the woman died also. 33 So then, in the resurrection life, whose wife will she be? For after all, [all] seven had her as wife.”

34 Jesus said to them, “The children of this age marry and are given in marriage; 35 however, the persons considered worthy of attaining that agec and the resurrection from the dead neither marry nor are they given in marriage. 36 Indeed, they are no longer subject to death,d for they are like angelse and—as children of the resurrection—God’s own children. 37 But as for the claim that the dead are raised, even Moses, in the scene at the bush, disclosed [this], when he calls “Lord” the God of Abraham and Isaac and Jacob. 38 Now it is not of the dead but of the living that God is [Lord], for everyone lives for [God].”

39 Some of the scribes responded, “Well said,f Teacher.” 40 Indeed, they no longer dared to ask him anything. 41 He said to them, however: “How [is it that people] say the Christ is David’s son? 42 For David himself, in the book of Psalms, says:

‘The Lord said to my Lord,

“Take a seat at my right hand,

43 until I position your enemies as a footstool for your feet.’”

44 David, then, calls him ‘Lord,’ so how is he also his son?”

a. Literally, “seed,” sperma.

b. Literally, “after the first had taken a wife.”

c. That is, the coming age, the eschatological resurrection (cf. v. 33). d. Literally, “they are unable, still, to die.”

e. Or “equal to,” isangeloi = isa angeloi (the only nt occurrence). f. Literally, “You have said [this] well.”

[27–38] Appearing for the first and only time in the narrative, Sadducees approach Jesus with a question (v. 27); Sadducees reappear in Acts 4:1; 5:17; 23:6–8 as men associated with the high priest and commanding high social prestige. According to Josephus, members of this circle, evidently bearing a name derived from the high priest Zadok from the era of David and Solomon (2 Sam 8:17; 1 Kgs 1:34, 38–39), enjoyed the confidence of the wealthy but not the rest of the populace (Ant. 13.10.6), a picture that squares with the portrait of the Sadducees in Acts.

The narrator’s first introduction of this character group gives them only one identifying badge: they oppose the notion of resurrection (a posture that figures again in Acts 23:6–8; cf. Josephus, Ant. 18.1.4; J.W. 2.8.14). Apparently the Sadducees, who regarded the books of Moses (the Torah) as authoritative texts, rejected postmortem resurrection existence because they could not find this belief in their Scripture. In character, then, the Sadducees question Jesus by appealing to Moses. They set up their question for Jesus by invoking the Mosaic provision of levirate marriage, which was designed to ensure posterity for a childless widow, thus also ensuring the future “life” of her deceased husband in the form of offspring who would perpetuate his name (Deut 25:5–6; cf. Gen 38:8; Ruth 3–4). Verses 29–32 then spin an imagined scenario in which a woman remains childless and without heir after sequentially marrying all seven brothers in a family. The scenario, clearly intended (in the light of the narrator’s characterization of the Sadducees in v. 27) as a reductio (oramplificatio!) ad absurdum to demonstrate resurrection belief as nonsensical, prompts the question: “In the resurrection life, whose wife [among the seven brothers] will she be? For all seven married her” (v. 33).

The presenting question is resurrection faith (denied by the Sadducees, as the narrator has made clear). But the real issue is Jesus’ fidelity and authority in interpretation of Scripture (Green 718; Tyson, Images 89–90). As in 4:1–13, divergent readings of Scripture compete. Part 1 of Jesus’ reply presents a direct response to the hypothetical scenario (20:34–36). He contrasts two ages and the character of existence within them. The present age (cf. 16:8), the one assumed by the Sadducees, is dominated by concerns with household, property, death, and therefore progeny. This is the world in which people get married (20:34), and the Mosaic provision of levirate marriage only makes sense in this age. Yet this mode of life has been radically called into question by Jesus’ praxis of God’s reign and his call to a discipleship defined by its terms (e.g., 14:25–33; 18:18–30).

On the other hand, Jesus depicts the age to come (lit., “that age,” the era of the eschatological resurrection, already mentioned by Jesus in 14:14) in terms of transcendence of marriage and also of death; left behind as well, therefore, are the very conditions that prompted the posterity-ensuring strategy of levirate marriage (20:35–36). As children (lit., sons, huioi) of God, people who “are considered worthy”24 to enter the age to come are also children (again, huioi) of resurrection; death is no longer a concern, for along with angelic beings with whom they now enjoy equal status and a comparable exalted state (isangeloi),25 they participate in a domain not subject to death (v. 36). With ironic wit, Jesus thus answers the scenario of a sonless widow by imaging an eschatological future that, while a marriage-free zone, nevertheless features an expansive family composed of children (sons and therefore heirs) of resurrection, children of God.

Part 2 of Jesus’ reply engages the underlying rhetorical concern of the Sadducees, by way of appeal to another text from the books of Moses, one therefore also regarded by the Sadducees as bearing authority: exod 3:6, 15 (Luke 20:37–38). Verse 37 cites exod 3, and v. 38 then supplies Jesus’ creative interpretation of it as a text supporting the reality of resurrection life beyond death. Jesus delays the premise to the end: God is [Lord] only of the living, because all live for (or to) God (v. 38; cf. Gal 2:19; in 4 Macc 7:19; 16:25, as in Luke 20:38, the image of life lived to or for God is associated with the patriarchs Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob; see Green 722). Therefore (20:37), Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob are not dead but alive, in a postmortem, resurrection life (recall Abraham’s role—in the domain of the dead, yet living and bearing an authoritative voice, not to mention a blessing bosom—in the parable of Lazarus and the rich man [16:22–31]).26 The narrator does not report the reaction of the Sadducees to Jesus’ ironic response affirming resurrection, but the applause of some scribes who have been listening prompts him to probe another element of widely held eschatological hope, a feature associated with the figure of the Messiah, thus resuming a concern raised by his recent entrance into Jerusalem.

24. Considered worthy by God: a theological passive; cf. the affirmation of resurrection for the righteous in 14:14. As to those deemed worthy, present company (Sadducees) is evidently excluded, ironically of their own choosing as persons who repudiate resurrection belief.

25. More irony: according to Acts 23:8, the Sadducees also dismiss the notion of angels (Fitzmyer 2:1305). On depictions of postmortem life in the company of angels or as transformation into angelic existence, see, e.g., 1 En. 39.4–8; 2 En. 22.6–10; 2 Bar. 51.10–12; Jub. 15.27; 31.14; Apoc. Zeph. 8.1–5; 1QH 3.21–23; 11.13; 1QS 11.5–9; cf. Dan 12:3; CD 15.15–17 (the DSS community already united with the angels).

[39–44] Some scribes who have listened to the exchange between Jesus and Sadducees compliment Jesus on his response (v.39), evidently being themselves allied with the Pharisees and their affirmation of resurrection, though this is not stated (the dialogue anticipates the divided Sanhedrin of Pharisees and Sadducees in Acts 23:1–10). This is the last word that Jesus’ opponents speak to him until his arrest, for none of them are audacious enough any longer to question him (Luke 20:40). Having reduced his examiners to silence, Jesus goes on the counterattack, posing a question of his own in the form of a riddle: “How [is it that people] say the Christ is David’s son?” (v. 41; in Mark 12:35 Jesus reports the scribes as affirming the Messiah’s descent from David). Appealing to Ps 110:1 as a text problematizing the view that the Messiah is son of David, Jesus repeats the question:

For David himself, in the book of Psalms, says:

“The Lord said to my Lord,

‘Take a seat at my right hand,

until I position your enemies as a footstool for your feet.’” (Ps 110:1) David, then, calls him “Lord,” so how is he also his son? (Luke 20:42–44)27

Does the question imply that Jesus’ apparent lack of connection to David disqualifies him, in the sight of some, as a candidate for Messiah? Perhaps, although the narrator does not say so. Luke’s audience knows better, in any case, since Jesus’ Davidic ancestry, at least as traced through Joseph, figures prominently in the early chapters of the Gospel (1:32; 2:4; 3:31; cf. the blind man’s address to Jesus in 18:38–39). If Davidic descent is not the real issue, concerns of status may supply the key to the rhetorical question that Jesus poses to these legal scholars. David, assumed to be the author of Ps 110 (109 lxx), in address to “the Lord” (i.e., God), refers to another as his Lord (110:1), implying antecedent existence and superior status. A son of David would have neither of these.

26. Specifics are lacking regarding the mode of postdeath existence—e.g., whether one is to imagine an interim or ongoing (soulful but not physical) existence before the final judgment (cf. 16:19–31; 23:39–43)—but in the scene Jesus is participating in a live debate among contemporary Palestinian Jews regarding the tenability of belief in resurrection or other forms existence beyond death (see Lehtipuu, Afterlife).

27. Mark 12:36 has David speak with the Holy Spirit; only Luke provides a specific reference to the book of Psalms (cf. Luke 24:44). In Acts, Luke shows heightened interest in David’s prophetic witness, esp. to Jesus’ resurrection or exaltation, in the Psalms (see Acts 2:25–35), which Luke assumes David to have composed. Acts 2:34–35 again quotes Ps 110:1, but as part of a scriptural argument for the resurrection of the Lord and Messiah Jesus. Luke explicitly ties the Holy Spirit to David and Jesus’ legitimate seat on David’s throne, but in connection with the Spirit-initiated conception of Jesus (Luke 1:35), not the interpretation of Ps 110.

The rest of the psalm quotation anchors Jesus’ status as Lord in the wider narrative: “Take a seat at my right hand, until I position your enemies as a footstool for your feet” (Luke 20:42b–43). Enemies of Jesus abound in Jerusalem, yet his vindication—by God, the voice speaking in the psalm text—is sure. God will install him as sovereign ruler, imaged as a “seat at [the] right hand” (i.e., at the divine throne; cf. 22:69), conferring a share in divine power and confirming his status as kyrios, “Lord.” Indeed, it will commence without delay in the “exodus” events (9:31) that will culminate in Jesus’ ascension (Acts 1:9–11; cf. Luke 24:51 and the parabolic confirmation of royal status in 19:12, 15). At present, however, enemies of the Lord-Messiah are still to be vanquished—in fact, they will (temporarily) gain the upper hand (“your hour and the power of darkness,” 22:53).

In Luke, the question of 20:41, 44 is not a rhetorical question anticipating a negative answer (“He’s not the son of David”), but a real question about the “how,” the mode, of Jesus’ Davidic sonship even as the “Lord” whom King David (as the assumed voice) acknowledges in Ps 110:1. He can be both son (David’s royal descendant) and Lord (his sovereign power surpassing David’s) by virtue of the Spirit’s action in Jesus’ conception (1:35) and messianic commissioning (4:18) and, soon enough, through his resurrection and exaltation to God’s right hand. It is as the Son of God (Luke 1:35), with status as Lord (2:11), that the Messiah Jesus is Son of David and outranks his illustrious ancestor.28 Luke presents more detailed exegetical development of this argument in Peter’s (also Spirit-inspired) speech in Acts 2 (see vv. 22–36, esp. the redeployment of Ps 110:1 in Acts 2:34–35). Jesus’ resurrection and exaltation (to God’s right hand) confirm his participation in divine rule already implied by their shared status of Lord.

This exercise in “messianic exegesis” by Jesus (to borrow a phrase from the title of Donald Juel’s 1988 book) receives no answer from his audience of legal scholars, a nonresponse anticipated by the silence in vv. 26, 40, but now with summative force for 19:28–20:44 as a whole. Jesus thus gets the last word in the temple confrontation scene. Without invoking the term “authority,” he has supplied the definitive response to the challenge to his authority that he initially declined to answer (20:8). His authority—as Messiah, Lord, and beloved Son—derives from none other than God, in whose reign he will share. Jesus has not finished teaching the people, however, or his disciples. Prestigious scribes, such as the ones to whom Jesus has just been speaking, supply the fodder for the next round of instruction.

28. In much the way Jesus’ pedigree as son of David is surpassed in significance by his status as Lord, thereby assigning deeper meaning to the title (Davidic) Messiah, Jesus’ divine sonship relativizes his status as son of Joseph (2:48–49).

20:45–21:4 The Poverty of the Powerful and the Power

of a Widow’s Generosity

Jesus continues to build his case against failed leadership among the elite, excoriating the status-seeking, exploitative, and avaricious conduct of those who command social prestige but obtain honor and expand wealth at the expense of the poor (20:45–47). The oppressed poor are poignantly represented in the scene by a destitute widow whose devotion to God translates into a life-sacrificing gift to the temple treasury (21:1–4). In a touch of tragic irony, Jesus will in the ensuing scene mark the temple as poised for total destruction (21:5–6).

45 While all the people were listening, [Jesus] said to his disciples,

46 “Watch out for the scribes, who like to walk around in long robes and love greetings in the marketplaces and the seats of honor in synagogues and the prime seats at banquets— 47 who devour the houses of widows and pray long prayers for show. They will receive greater condemnation.” 21:1 When he looked up, he saw wealthy people putting their gifts into the treasury. 2 But he [also] saw a poor widow putting two small copper coins there, 3 so he said, “I tell you, the truth is that this poor widow has put in more than all [the others]. 4 For they all put in their gifts out of their abundance, but she—out of her poverty—put in all the life she had.”

[45–47] All the people are listening (more expansive than the “large crowd” of Mark 12:37) as Jesus addresses a caution to the disciples, presenting the status-hungry scribes (grammateis), now prominent among Jesus’ enemies in Jerusalem, as a negative model. These specialists in interpretation and application of the Torah have been occasional characters in the narrative and are interchangeable with experts in teaching the law (nomodidaskaloi).29 For all their knowledge of the law and their conspicuous piety (lengthy prayers, Luke 20:47), these legal scholars are the target of Jesus’ stinging rebuke for practices that are contrary to the Torah as well as to the realm of God as advocated by Jesus. He warns disciples against preoccupation with social status and prestige of the kind evidenced by the scribes, who delight in ostentatious robes and public greetings and who covet the prime seats in synagogue gatherings and banquets (v. 46, recalling Jesus’ critique of Pharisee conduct in 11:43, deemed by nomikoi-scribes as addressed also to them in v. 45; and 14:7–11). Public honor and expressions of religious devotion count for little when spoken by persons who oppress the poor. Indeed, treatment of the vulnerable, epitomized by widows whose homes are being “devoured” through exploitative economic practices of the wealthy, supplies the criterion for one’s standing in judgment (20:47). Luke 21:1–4 proceeds to a dramatic enactment of this stark contrast between status-oriented Torah experts and displaced, poverty-stricken widows.

29. The nomodidaskaloi of 5:17 become scribes in v. 21, nomikoi in 11:45–52 become scribes in v. 53, and scribes affiliated with the Pharisees appear in 5:30. Moreover, Acts 5:34 labels the eminent Pharisee Gamaliel a nomodidaskalos.

[21:1–4] The hypothetical scenario of 20:28–33, with its tragic picture of a woman repeatedly widowed, plus v. 47, with its image of a greedy, exploitative elite devouring widows’ houses (a rich biblical theme),30 prepare readers for 21:1–4, a temple scene that spotlights a widow’s gift to the temple treasury and Jesus’ commentary on it. Previously, Jesus has displayed effective compassion for a widow (7:11–17) and in parable pictured a widow’s persistence in seeking justice as exemplary (18:1–8; cf. 2:36–38). While still in the temple, Jesus observes wealthy people putting their gifts into the treasury (21:1).31 However, he then also catches sight of an impoverished (penichran) widow depositing two small copper coins (v. 2; the lepton, as in 12:59, valued at less than 1 percent of a denarius, a day’s wage for a field hand; cf. 12:4–7). Although the scale of the wealthy donors’ gifts is not specified, Luke’s audience would expect, in view of the gain in honor that accompanies generous benefaction, that their donations far surpass in quantity the meager gift of the widow with whom they are juxtaposed. Jesus has characteristically viewed God’s realm as enacting and provoking radical role reversals, and this occasion proves no exception: “I tell you, the truth is that this poor [ptōchē] widow has put in more than all [the others]. For they all put in their gifts out of their abundance, but she—out of her poverty [hysterēmatos]—put in all the life she had” (21:3–4).

Is it Jesus’ rhetorical concern to praise the widow or, quite the contrary, to indict the temple-centered economic system that exploits her generous piety?32 That, at least to some degree, Jesus is commending the woman is suggested by the contrast he draws between a small gift offered out of extreme poverty and gifts made out of extreme prosperity, with the widow’s pennies deemed to surpass the bundles of the wealthy. There is no reason to question that her sacrificial gift expresses genuine piety (cf. the piety of Anna in 2:36–38). However, Jesus’ sobering remark that the two coins represent all her bios, her entire means of sustaining life, gives readers pause. Further, the sandwiching of this scene between a critique of status-seeking scribes who gobble up widows’ houses and a prediction of the total devastation of the temple, recently branded a bandits’ hideout (19:46)—thereby lacing with irony the donations to the temple treasury in this scene—points interpretation beyond, or perhaps through, a widow’s praise toward judgment for others. Jesus delivers a scathing attack on the temple leadership and on an economically powerful but oppressive and exploitative institution that is ripe for judgment.

30. See, e.g., Ps 94:1–7; Isa 1:23; 3:14–15; 10:1–2; Jer 7:6; 22:3; Zech 7:10; Mal 3:5.

31. A more focused and concise narration than Mark 12:41, in which the crowd as well as rich people are spotted depositing their gifts.

32. For the view that the passage commends the widow for her exemplary, sacrificial gift, see, e.g., Johnson 318–19; Grangaard, Conflict 172–77. To be sure, this woman exemplifies the radical generosity and detachment from possessions to which Jesus has summoned disciples and others (see the comments on 16:19–31; 18:18–23; and 19:1–10). This destitute woman’s gift, however, does not express participation in the realm of God nor does it enact good news for the poor—those who relinquish wealth for God’s reign do so to benefit the poor—but instead helps sustain a corrupt system that oppresses her. For the view that the passage condemns the temple system that has victimized her, and that Jesus laments rather than praises her gift, see, e.g., Wright, “Widow’s Mites”; Fitzmyer 2:1320–21; Green 728.

In a recent analysis of the pericope, Seim presses beyond traditional readings that regard the widow as a model of sacrificial giving and feminist readings that perceive her as a victim exploited by an unjust system (“Feminist Criticism” 59–73). Seim proposes an interpretation that finds in the passage an exposé of the exploitative injustice of the powerful elite in Jerusalem, while also preserving the widow’s moral agency. The widow’s allegiance to the system that exploits her, it turns out, provides the criterion of judgment against wealthy scribes and exposes the need for prophetic justice (72–73). Her action supplies “the praiseworthy example by which the Jerusalem elite is exposed to shame and disgrace” (71). She has, it is true, poured out her whole bios (21:4; cf. 15:30), but her (for Jesus, symbolic) act of piety discloses, no doubt contrary to her own intent,33 that it is the “life” and longevity of the temple—for all its concentration of wealth and power—that is actually in jeopardy. Jesus is about to make this point abundantly clear.

21:5–38 Jesus Concludes His Teaching in the Temple

and Gives a Glimpse of the Future

What future awaits the temple complex, whose massive scale, beauty, and impressive operations draw from a treasury filled with gifts that in some cases, in Jesus’ assessment, deprive the faithful poor of the resources needed to sustain life? In his culminating public teaching in the Gospel, Jesus previews the destruction that will befall the temple, and beyond that the falling of the curtain on human history. The full realization of the reign of God on earth will effect decisive judgment and liberation, but not until the completion of a period of testing—and opportunity for public witness—for the faithful, as well as worldshaking crisis that will precede the return in glory of the Son of Humanity. Through it all, Jesus summons listeners to eyes-wide-open vigilance.

33. And perhaps contrary even to Luke’s intent, as Seim argues. She proposes that “a feminist counter-reading” may be discovered “inscribed right into this patriarchal text itself” (“Feminist Criticism” 73).

Close attention to the structure of the passage is especially helpful in interpretation. In vv. 5–6 unidentified speakers comment on the beauty and magnificence of the temple buildings (v. 5), and Jesus counters with a prophecy of its future demolition (v. 6). Then in v. 7 Jesus’ conversation partners query when this will occur and with what advance signals. Verses 8–24 respond to these questions. Jesus delays his specific answer to the question about the timing of the demise of the temple (and Jerusalem) until vv. 20–24. On the way to that answer, vv. 8–11 trace events of world crisis that precede the end—vv. 8–9 caution against mistaking penultimate for final events, and vv. 10–11 give a first preglimpse of the cosmic upheaval that will come just before the close of history. Verses 12–19 then turn the clock back again, describing a period of testing and precarious witness that will happen before the destruction of Jerusalem and also during the period that follows it, until the end time. After vv. 20–24 depict the fall of Jerusalem, vv. 25–28 elaborate on the imagery of vv. 10–11 and sketch the cosmic signs that precede the coming of the Son of Humanity and the decisive liberation of the faithful. In parable and pronouncement, vv. 29–33 picture an imminent harvest, metaphor of a divine realm close at hand when the events imaged in vv. 25–28 unfold, and assert the durability of Jesus’ prophetic word even in the face of the world’s transience. Finally, vv. 34–36 shift to a paraenetic key, urging the audience to remain ever vigilant and faithful, so that they will endure through a prolonged period of crisis and challenge and, in the end, stand tall before the Son of Humanity, as people liberated for participation in the realm of God.

The discourse, built on an opening dialogue centered on concerns about the temple’s fate, thus expands its field of vision, both spatially and temporally, to provide a panoramic perspective on the future that disciples and other listeners will experience. As it does so, it holds in creative tension (1) the motifs of delay and imminence in the completion of the divine purpose (or fulfillment of the prophecy of Jesus); (2) the dangers that await disciples who bear witness to the gospel and the assurance of divine protection; and (3) hope of liberation by God and the specter of judgment upon those aligned against the divine purpose. All of this, in Jesus’ final public teaching in the Gospel, reinforces a moral appeal to the audience of Jesus, and that of Luke as well, for a way of life defined by persevering faithfulness and vigilance.

5 Because some were talking about the temple, [observing] that it was adorned with beautiful stones and votive offerings, [Jesus] said, 6 “As for these things you are looking at, days will come when not one stone here will be left upon another, [not one stone] that will not be demolished.” 7 And they asked him, “Teacher, so when will these things be, and what is the signal when these things are about to happen?” 8 But he said, “Watch that you are not deceived, for many will come in my name, saying, ‘I am [he]’ and ‘The moment has arrived.’ Don’t go after them. 9 And whenever you hear about wars and insurrections, don’t be terrified. For these things must happen first, but the end [won’t arrive] at once.”

10 Then he continued saying to them, “Nation will rise up against nation, and kingdom against kingdom; 11 moreover, there will be massive earthquakes and pervasive famines and plagues,a and there will be prodigious signs—both terrifying and emanating from heaven.

12 “Before all these things, however, they will lay their hands on you and persecute you, handing [you] over to synagogues and prisons, leading [you] off [to appear] before kings and governors because of my name. 13 It will be an occasion for bearing witness for you. 14 Resolve,b therefore, not to fret ahead of time about what you will say in your defense; 15 for I will give you a mouth and wisdom that all your opponents will be unable to oppose or defeat. 16 You will be handed over even by parents and brothers, by relatives and friends—and some of you will be put to death. 17 Indeed, you will be hated by everyone because of my name. 18 Yet not one hair from your headsc will be lost. 19 Through your perseverance, you will gaind your lives.e

20 “But whenever you see Jerusalem surrounded by armies, realize at that moment that its desolation is at hand. 21 Then people who are in Judea should escapef to the mountains, and those in the midst of [Jerusalem] should leave, and those in the fields should not enter [the city], 22 because these are days of retribution, so that everything written may be fulfilled. 23 Woe to women who are pregnant or who are nursing during those days; for there will be great distress upon the land,g and wrath for this people. 24 Indeed, they will fall by the edge of the sword and be taken into captivity among all the nations, and Jerusalem will be trampled by [the] nations,h until the times of [the] nations are fulfilled.

25 “Moreover, there will be signs in sun and moon and stars, and on earth anguish among the nations in anxious confusion at the sound of turbulent sea,i 26 with people fainting from fearful anticipationj of the events that are going to happen in the world;k for the heavenly powers will be shaken. 27 At that time the Son of Humanity will be seenl coming on a cloud with power and great splendor. 28 Now when these things begin to occur, stand tall and lift up your heads, because your deliverance is approaching.”

29 He told them a parable as well: “Consider the fig tree—indeed, all trees. 30 Whenever you see that they have already put out [leaves], you know for yourselves that the harvest will come soon.m 31 So also, whenever you see these things happening, know that God’s realm is near. 32 In truth, I tell you, this generation will not pass awayn until all these things have happened. 33 Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will never pass away.n

34 “It’s in your own interest to keep paying attention,o lest your hearts be weighed down through heavy drinking and drunkenness and anxious concerns of life and [lest], as a result, that day overtake you suddenly, 35 like a trap. For it will come upon everyone who livesp on the face of all the earth. 36 So stay alert at all times,q asking that you may summon strengthr to escape all these things that are about to happen—and to stand in the presence of the Son of Humanity.”

37 Now during the day he was in the temple, teaching, but at night he would go out [of the city] and stay on the mountain called [the Mount] of Olives, 38 and all the people would arise early to listen to him in the temple.

a. Or “famines and outbreaks of pestilence in every place” ( kata topous). Most Mss omit or move the kai (and) before this phrase, thus picturing wide distribution of the preceding phenomenon (earthquakes, seismoi) rather than the following phenomena (famines and plagues: in a nice turn of phrase, limoi and loimoi).

b. Literally, “place in your hearts.”

c. The translation is deliberately left awkward, to emphasize that the danger to be faced—as well as the promised protection—will be the experience of the community of

the faithful (in Greek: collective singular [head], with the second-person plural pronoun

[your]).

d. Reading the future-tense verb ktēsesthe (you will gain), rather than the more

widely attested aorist imperative ktēsasthe, preferred by NA^27. Although the latter is

also the more difficult reading, the future tense does have considerable Ms support (A

B Θ f^13 33) and fits better in the series of future-tense verbs in vv. 12–19 (which is the

reason ktēsasthe is the more difficult reading).

e. Or “souls” or “selves,” psychas.

f. Rendering the first of three third-person imperatives in v. 21: “should escape . . .

should leave . . . should not enter.”

g. Or “upon the earth,” epi tēs gēs.

h. Here, as in the last phrase of v. 24, ethnē may also be rendered “Gentiles” (“trampled by Gentiles,” “times of [the] Gentiles”). The word appears three times in this verse

and once in v. 25.

i. Reading this phrase as hendiadys (i.e., one idea—rough seas—expressed through

a pair of terms [depicting sound and motion]); lit., “[at the] sound of sea and surging

[wave].”

j. Another instance of hendiadys: lit., “from fear and anticipation.”

k. That is, the world of human habitation and culture, oikoumenē, as in 2:1. l. Literally, “they [the people who live in the oikoumenē] will see.” m. Literally, “the harvest is already near [engys].” The adverb engys, repeated in v.

31, is related to the verb engizein, which appears within the discourse of 21:5–36 (in

present and perfect tenses) in vv. 8, 20, 28.

n. Or “will certainly not disappear,” emphatic negation with the negative particles ou

mē. Luke applies the same expression to Jesus’ words in v. 33, though with the future

indicative rather than the (expected) aorist subjunctive, as here.

o. Literally, “Pay attention for yourselves.” My paraphrastic translation gives prominence to the present-tense imperative (“Keep on paying attention”) and what I construe

as a dative of advantage (“for yourselves,” i.e., in your interest or for your advantage). p. Literally, “all who sit,” pantas tous kathēmenous.

q. Or “in every moment [season],” en panti kairō.

r. Reading katischysēte (“that you may summon strength [be strong or able]”) with

א B L f^1, among other Mss, rather than kataxiōthēte (“that you may be deemed worthy”)

with the majority of Mss, including A C D f^13.

[5–11] underwritten by gifts such as those just observed by Jesus, the temple is, as some of his companions in the space point out, a magnificent set of buildings and ornamental decorations (i.e., from votive offerings, anathēmata; lit., “the things set up,” v. 5; cf. 2 Macc 9:16; Fitzmyer 2:1331). To Jesus, however—no surprise after his provocative act and searing comment in 19:45–46— it is just a pile of stones. Or soon will be, in days that are coming (v. 6); “days will come” is a refrain from the ot prophets, often signaling judgment (see the comment on 17:22–37, esp. at v. 22; cf. 19:43; 23:29). This sobering prophecy of the temple’s future demolition, repeating the stone imagery that Jesus has applied, with similar effect, to the entire city of Jerusalem in 19:44, prompts the question “When?” And further, “with what advance warning signs?” (21:7).

The next section of the discourse, running through v. 24, responds to this twofold question, although Jesus saves his explicit answer to the questions of timing and warning signs until vv. 20–24. Verses 25–33 extend the temporal and spatial horizon beyond the fall of Jerusalem and the destruction of its temple, with brief anticipation in vv. 10–11, but the focus of the discourse’s projections in vv. 8–24 is otherwise the time leading up to the Roman siege of Jerusalem, culminating in the temple’s destruction in 70 C.E., events of epochal import for the people of God, but carefully distinguished in Luke’s rendition of the eschatological discourse from the events of the end (detailed analysis in Carroll, Response 107–14). While lying in the future for Jesus’ audience within the temple, the siege and fall of Jerusalem lie in the past for Luke’s readers, who will therefore find in Jesus’ prophetic declaration further confirmation of his prophetic discernment.

The first step in Jesus’ reply applies the brakes to the eschatological train. employing two directional metaphors in v. 8 (“Watch that you are not deceived [led astray, planēthēte]” and “Don’t go after them”), he cautions his auditors not to be misled by claims of any inspired Christian prophet (one coming “in my name”) that “I am [he]”—presumably the (returning) Messiah (explicitly so in Mark 13:21; Matt 24:23)—or that “The moment has arrived [ho kairos ēngiken]” (Luke 21:8; the latter phrasing is distinctively Luke’s; cf. Mark 13:21). Moreover, not even news of wars and revolts (cf. “wars and rumors of wars” in Mark 13:7) should terrify, because while such conflict is inevitable in the days to come, it is not the trigger for a sudden end (Luke 21:9). The delay motif, so prominent in this paragraph of the discourse, is one key to its message, but only in tandem with Jesus’ assertion that deliverance is imminent (engys, near; ēngiken, has drawn near)—though only in its time (vv. 28, 31), not before (v. 8).34

Verses 10–11 paint the coming historical conflicts, including the siege of Jerusalem, onto a wider, indeed cosmic, canvas, the first broad strokes of an eschatological vision given fuller description in vv. 25–28.35 International strife will encompass many nations (v. 10), and beyond the destructive mischief that human-constructed powers will fashion, natural forces will add to the terror, contributing “massive earthquakes [seismoi] and pervasive famines and plagues [limoi kai loimoi]” (v. 11a). Indeed, heaven itself will get into the act, sending prodigious signs that produce terror (v. 11b). Before the discourse has reached its goal, Jesus will seek to move his listeners beyond dread from anticipating the coming turmoil toward a confident, eyes-wide-open trust in the divine deliverance that will preserve those who persevere in their fidelity to God. But the end time will not come right away, certainly not for Jesus’ first listeners. In the meantime, followers of Jesus will meet historical experience that calls for trust and enduring faithfulness, and through it all God’s providential care will sustain them through trial, as Jesus now proceeds to assure his audience (vv. 12–19).

[12–19] Witness, persecution, and protection form the keywords for the second major section of the discourse, in what amounts to an advance glimpse of Luke’s narrative sequel and thus a set of prophetic predictions that Luke’s audience (once it secures access to Acts) will be able to attest as fulfilled, alongside the realized prophecies of Jerusalem’s destruction by the Roman armies (vv. 20–24; cf. 13:34–35; 19:43–44). This confirmation of Jesus’ prophetic discernment builds audience trust that outstanding prophecies awaiting fulfillment (vv. 25–33) will also be fulfilled.

The parable of the pounds pictures the period of a newly crowned king’s absence as an opportunity to turn a profit by investing his money (19:13, 15–26). Luke 21:12–19 offers a quite different metaphor for the activity that will fill that time (i.e., between the Lord’s death and his return): witness (martyrion), often under duress. Disciples will have opportunity to give testimony in synagogue gatherings and before government officials (“kings and governors”), because hostile hands will be laid on them and they will be hauled before these bodies, or off to prison (v. 12)—a prediction that materializes in Acts (see, e.g., 4:3; 5:18, 27–41; 6:12–8:1; 8:3; 12:1, 4; 16:19–40; 22:30–23:11; 24:1–21, 24–26; 25:6–12; 25:23–26:32; cf. 9:15–16). The content of their witness “in [Jesus’] name,” left undefined here (Luke 21:13), becomes clear in the defense speeches and other public testimony in Acts. The apostles and the community they lead will continue Jesus’ proclamation of good news, of forgiveness, or of the reign of God (24:47–48; Acts 13:38–39; 28:23), but they will also attest Jesus as the exalted Lord, killed by human powers but vindicated through resurrection by God (e.g., Acts 2:22–36; 3:13–15; 4:2, 10, 33; 5:30–32; 13:26–37).36

34. For discussion of this aspect of the discourse, tracking Luke’s redaction of Mark 13, see Carroll, Response 103–17.

35. Some also tie vv. 10–11 to the destruction of Jerusalem (e.g., Fitzmyer 2:1334–37; Fusco, “Structure” 81–84; Nolland, “Times” 144), but the unqualified telos (“End”) of v. 9 and the fresh introduction (“then he continued saying [imperfect tense] to them”) in v. 10 together point the ensuing events of vv. 10–11 beyond Jerusalem’s end. In Fusco’s structuring of the discourse, vv. 8–27 sketch a series of future events in chronological sequence (with the exception of the parenthesis of vv. 12–19), and vv. 28–32 present Jesus’ answer to the questions “What sign?” (vv. 28–31) and “When?” (v. 32).

This testimony will occur in the face of intense opposition, sometimes the result of betrayal by family or friends (cf. Luke 12:51–53), and it may have as its outcome death (21:16; cf. Acts 7:60; 12:2). Despite the dangers that lie ahead for those who after Jesus’ death will continue his proclamation of the good news of God’s reign, Jesus gives assurance of divine care and protection (Luke 21:15, 18; cf. 12:4–7), a promise that also finds fulfillment in Acts (see, e.g., 5:19–20; 12:6–11; 16:25–34; 27:23–25, 44; 28:3–5). Hostility toward those loyal to Jesus, and to his cause of God’s reign, will come not only from one’s intimate circle of kin and friends but also from “everyone” else (Luke 21:17; hyperbole, of course). Yet universal hatred will be met by steadfast divine succor. One about to be called to give testimony may be so confident of divine guidance that advance rehearsal of one’s defense speech will be unnecessary (v. 15), renewing the promise of assistance in 12:11–12, though now Jesus, rather than the Holy Spirit, will supply the wisdom needed for testimony (exaggeration, once more, but cf. Acts 6:10). One may enter peril and persecution confident that God will deliver from harm: not a hair from the believer’s head will be lost (Luke 21:18; cf. Acts 27:34). To be sure, danger will bring death to some, but those who persevere in faithful, loyal witness will nevertheless gain (enduring) life (cf. Luke 14:26). This is the keynote of the discourse and of Luke’s eschatological vision as a whole: a call to patient endurance (hypomonē, 21:19, as in 8:15), to persevering faith and faithfulness (see Carroll, Response 115–17, 165–67).

The adversity and persecution befalling Jesus’ followers will sorely test their capacity to endure. On a wider scale, the entire people of God will be overtaken during this same period by catastrophic events. Jesus now turns to describe those events in concrete terms, with focus on the fortunes of Jerusalem.

36. Acts 5:42; 11:20; and 17:18 bind proclamation of good news ( euangelizomai) to the name of Jesus, and 8:12 links both to the realm (basileia) of God. The motif of good news (with the noun euangelion or the verb euangelizomai) appears in Acts 5:42; 8:4, 12, 25, 40; 10:36 (in a recapitulation of Jesus’ ministry); 11:20; 13:32; 14:7, 15, 21; 15:7, 35; 16:10; 17:18; and 20:24 (coupled with grace). The divine reign or realm (basileia) receives mention in Acts 1:3; 8:12; 14:22; 19:8; 20:25; 28:23, 31 (cf. 1:6 with reference to Israel).

[20–28] The next section of the discourse begins and ends on contrasting notes: Jerusalem’s desolation and the audience’s redemption (vv. 20, 28). Near the beginning of the narrative, the prophetic voice of the aged Anna addressed all who were expecting the redemption, the liberation (lytrōsis), of Jerusalem (2:38), but now Jesus distinguishes the liberation (apolytrōsis) of God’s faithful from the fate of Jerusalem. Verses 20–24 finally give the delayed answer to the question posed in v. 7: “But whenever you see Jerusalem surrounded by armies, realize at that moment that its desolation [erēmōsis] is at hand” (v. 20). This is the signal that the temple’s demolition is imminent. The devastation will be severe and unavoidable for all in Jerusalem and environs, so residents of Judea and Jerusalem should leave and not reenter the city (v. 21). It will be a time “of retribution, so that everything written may be fulfilled” (v. 22); the phrase “days of retribution [or vengeance]” echoes prophetic texts such as Jer 46:10 and Hos 9:7 (cf. Jer 5:29). Jerusalem, the city that has, in Jesus’ view, consistently refused and abused the prophets God sends to it (13:34), and that has spurned the divine visitation proffering peace (19:42, 44), will meet destructive judgment after the pattern of sixth-century (B.C.E.) Jerusalem and other proud cities whose demise the prophets have declared (e.g., Jerusalem in Isa 3:25; 37:3; Jer 4:7; 7:34; 20:4–6; ezek 39:23; Zech 12:3; Babylon in Jer 50:3, 29; 51:2, 26; and Tyre in Ezek 26:8; cf. Dodd, “Fall”).

The distress in Jerusalem and Judea will be so severe and the necessity of escape so urgent that pregnant and nursing women will be especially unfortunate (Luke 21:23), as indeed they will be in hundreds of wars to follow. The land and its people (“this people”; i.e., God’s people Israel) will experience great distress and wrath (orgē, v. 23b). Is this orgē Rome’s, or God’s, or (most likely) God’s through the agency of Rome? Not only Jesus’ earlier laments over Jerusalem’s resistance to the divine purpose (13:34–35; 19:41–44) but also the eschatological discourse’s intertextual engagement with prophetic texts that picture Jerusalem’s (and the first temple’s) demise as the working out of divine judgment on a recalcitrant city—both suggest that divine wrath is in evidence.37 Jesus may not spell out whose wrath it is but he does describe the form it takes: the devastation of the city. The instrument of wrath against the people, already mentioned in v. 20 as “armies [of foot soldiers]” who surround Jerusalem, is the sword wielded by “the nations” (or “Gentiles,” ethnē), killing some and taking others into captivity (i.e., as prisoners of war).

Verses 20–24 present the coming fall of Jerusalem as fulfillment of scriptural prophecy and pattern, reframed as Jesus’ own prophetic oracle. These verses also picture the crisis and social disintegration that marked the last years of

37. Nolland points in particular to the pattern set by Jer 25 (“Times” 134).

the rebellion against Rome, up to the temple’s destruction in 70 C.E. (Josephus provides a detailed chronicle in Jewish War). Prophetic prediction in Jesus’ time, then, becomes historical fulfillment in Luke’s lifetime. The temple, its enormous restoration and expansion project launched by Herod the Great in about 20 B.C.E. having only recently been completed (see Josephus, Ant. 20.9.7; cf. John 2:20), would lie in ruins by the year 70.

So will begin another period of exile for the nation while Jerusalem is “trampled by [the] nations” (the phrasing echoes Zech 12:3 lxx; cf. Dan 8:13), though only for a while: “until the times of [the] nations are fulfilled” (v. 24). This ambiguous phrase might refer to the period of Gentile (Roman) domination of Jerusalem (Fitzmyer 2:1346–67; Dodd, “Fall” 79),38 or, in light of the mission “to all nations” prefigured in 24:47 and inaugurated in Acts, it might envisage the Gentile mission “to the farthest extent of the earth” (Acts 1:8 AT; cf. Zmijewski, Eschatologiereden 561–62; Fusco, “Structure” 87). Or perhaps both are in view (Green 739; kaestli, L’eschatologie 50).39 That is, readers of Luke 21 will initially find encouragement from the temporal boundary that Jesus sets to the period of Gentile (i.e., Roman) domination of Jerusalem; however, as they read on (Luke 24:47; Acts), they will come to discern the irony in a phrase that possesses dual meaning potential. The “times of the nations” do turn out, also, to be the era of a fruitful mission to the nations, reaching to the outer limits of the earth. With the temple and city soon to be in ruins, the prophetic vision of the nations’ flocking to Zion as part of Israel’s eschatological restoration (e.g., Isa 2:2–3; 56:6–8; 66:18–20; Mic 4:1–2; Zech 2:10–12; 8:20–23; 14:16) is thereby inverted: salvation will go outward from Jerusalem to the nations (programmatically in Luke 24:47; Acts 1:8; cf. 28:28).

The meaning of the preposition achri (until) in Luke 21:24 has significant implications for the future of Israel in Luke’s historical-theological perspective. Does the close of the period of the nations (Gentiles) imply a later era of Jerusalem’s restoration (e.g., Tannehill, Narrative Unity 1:155–56, 163; Tiede, Prophecy 87–96; Chance, Jerusalem 127–38)? Or is Jerusalem’s day finished, and with it the temple (e.g., Fitzmyer, 2:1347; cf. J. Sanders, Jews 30–35, 348 n. 59)? The discourse of Luke 21 remains ambiguous and indeterminate on this point; attention to the entire two-volume narrative and its construction of Israel’s future role and fortunes is required. However, within this discourse the seamless transition from the prediction of Jerusalem’s fall in vv. 20–24 to the next subunit of the discourse does suggest that no historical epoch for the city’s (and temple’s) reconstruction is imagined between the devastation of Jerusalem and the final events sketched in vv. 25–28.

38. The second temple was never rebuilt; moreover, after a second revolt against the Romans, which had equally disastrous results for Jews at Jerusalem (the uprising associated with Simon bar kosiba [kokhba] in 132–35 C.E.), Jerusalem was made a pagan city, and Jews were banned from entering the city (see, e.g., Dio Cassius, Hist. rom. 69.12–14; eusebius, Hist. eccl. 4.6; on this revolt, note the essays in Schäfer, Bar Kokhba). With regard to Jerusalem’s domination by the nations (i.e., Rome), the “times of the nations [Gentiles]” expanded beyond even Luke’s imagining.

39. Building on the prophetic judgment pattern in Jer 25, Nolland has advocated a fourth option. He paraphrases the last part of Luke 21:24 to read “until the time has passed that reaches to the beginning of the times of the nations”—the period of divine judgment on the nations following their role in the domination and destruction of Jerusalem (“Times” 134, 141, 146–47).

The scope of events expands in this next paragraph. While the fall of Jerusalem does not signal, as some prophetic voices will insist (cf. v. 8), the imminent approach of the end, Jesus does proceed without a break to picture the eschatological signs that will follow sometime afterward. No longer localized in Jerusalem and Judea, the images become fear-inducing cosmic portents that affect the whole world and shake even the “heavenly powers” (vv. 25–26, with phrasing that echoes Isa 34:4; Joel 2:10; Hag 2:6, 21; cf. similar imagery in Acts 2:19–20, part of a quotation from Joel 3:1–5 lxx through which Luke indicates the eschatological significance of the Pentecost-inaugurated mission, but without immediate reference to the end time). Then follows the triumphant coming of the Son of Humanity, by divine transport (“on a cloud,” drawing from Dan 7:13–14, part of which resurfaces in Luke 22:69; cf. Acts 1:9–11), and in the power and splendor that suit one exalted to the position at God’s right hand (Luke 21:27). His enemies presumably now vanquished (cf. 20:43) and thus the “times of the nations” at an end, he comes to bring final liberation of the people of God. So while the rest of the world is stricken by fear and dread at what is occurring (21:26), Jesus bids his auditors to “stand tall and lift [their] heads,” in the confident hope of deliverance (v. 28). The events of vv. 20–24 produce captivity for some, but the coming of the Son of Humanity, imaged as the reign of God in v. 31, means restored freedom for God’s people.

[29–36] Responding to a query about the timing and advance signals of the temple’s destruction, Jesus has spun out a foreboding scenario of events, encompassing both the fall of Jerusalem (past for Luke’s readers) and the later, cosmic-scale events associated with the glorious return of the vindicated Son of Humanity (still future for Luke’s readers). The point of this prophetically imagined future, however, has not been to terrify but to assure Jesus’ (and Luke’s) audience that divine deliverance (liberation) is on the way. Verses 29–36 present parabolic and paraenetic images that pick up the concern with “when?” and “what sign?” yet now in a fashion that emphasizes not delay (as in vv. 8–9) but imminence. With an appeal for vigilance and persevering fidelity, the discourse aims to equip God’s people to navigate troubling times without wavering in faith (cf. 18:8), and therefore to receive vindication when history’s curtain finally falls.

The fig tree, last met in parable as a metaphor of unfruitfulness that tests a landowner’s patience (13:6–9), puts in a cameo appearance, but this time as a positive indicator of the approach of God’s realm (21:29–31). In a curious note, the fig tree is joined by “all trees” (Luke 21:29; contrast Mark 13:28–29), perhaps hinting at the universal scope of the final events being pictured.40 The arrival of leaves is offered as an indicator that the harvest (of fruit) will follow shortly (v. 30). Verse 31 then translates the metaphor: “So also, whenever you see these things happening, know that God’s realm is near.” God’s reign has, to be sure, already been close at hand, indeed present and actively at work in Jesus’ ministry (see 11:20; 17:21), and at least provisionally in that of his followers (see 9:1–2, 6; 10:8–11, 17). Yet its final, complete realization, something for which Jesus himself commended prayer (11:2), still awaits. Still to be overcome are enemies of the divine purpose to effect salvation for Israel and for all peoples, and enemies of the Messiah’s coregency (20:43). But when “these things” are seen happening,41 “you” (Luke’s audience, listening in company with Jesus’ first auditors) will recognize that the realm of God is near in time as well as space.

God’s realm is so near that Jesus is bold enough to offer this assurance to “this generation,” to his own living contemporaries and their generation.42 Everything will be completed (lit., “happen”; again, genētai) before that generation has run its course (21:32).43 Jesus underscores the authority of his prophetic claim with a concluding affirmation that even if “heaven and earth [were to] pass away, . . . my words will never pass away” (v. 33). The security of reliable teaching and confident hope to which Luke has pointed Theophilus at the very start of this Gospel (1:3–4) extends to the entire course of human history and its consummation in the realm of God. ultimately the rhetorical concern is not about timing but confidence that, no matter what the ambiguities and unfulfilled promises of human history, God’s purposes—God’s reign—will be accomplished, with humanity flourishing as God intends. The rhetorical concern also extends to the character of life-in-the-meantime that will suit Jesus’ listeners for participation in that divine realm, imaged here as standing in the presence of the Son of Humanity.

40. In adapting the metaphor toward universal scale, Luke does not have an arborist’s knowledge and interests but is conveying theological conviction.

41. Ginomena (21:31), picking up the thread of genesthai in 21:9 and ginesthai in v. 28, all in response to the original question of v. 7,“What is the signal when these things are about to happen [ginesthai]?”

42. As with other texts articulating an expectation of imminent eschatological completion (e.g., Mark 9:1; 13:30; 1 Thess 4:15), Luke’s rendition of this claim by Jesus has been subjected to various (re)interpretations, including the offense-removing construals that by “this generation” Jesus means humanity in general (Conzelmann, Theology 131) or that the generation that “will not pass away” until all has happened is the generation sometime in the future that actually experiences the beginning of the final events (e.g., Fitzmyer 2:1353; extensive survey of interpretive options in Bock 2:1688–92). Such readings may succeed in calendar calibration but in the process diminish the paraenetic power of a prophetic message aimed at Jesus’ (and Luke’s) contemporaries.

43. Luke has panta (all things) instead of the more restricted tauta panta (all these things) in Mark 13:30.

The final words given to Jesus in his public teaching ministry exhort listeners to live in a manner that will enable them to survive the eschatological ordeals he has just described (vv. 34–36). With emphasis on alert, vigilant readiness for an end that will come swiftly, on its universality, and on responsible conduct that comports with the commitments of God’s realm—these concluding lines of the discourse resume concerns already prominent in 12:35–48 and 17:22–37.44 Anxious preoccupation with the affairs and routines of life work against the kind of alert preparedness that will be needed to navigate eschatological crisis and orient listeners toward the coming reign of God (cf. 8:14; 12:22–32, 35–40; 17:26–30).

[37–38] Jesus continues his daytime teaching sessions in the temple, and “all the people” (pas ho laos, as in 20:45) are coming early each morning to hear him (21:37–38). This concluding narrator’s summary, together with the opening notice in 19:47–48, frames Jesus’ teaching ministry in the temple. Readers who recall the tight connection that Jesus earlier forged between hearing and doing (e.g., 6:46–49; 8:15, 19–21) will withhold judgment on the listening public, despite their keen interest in hearing this teacher. As the narrative moves forward, how will they act on the message they have heard? Will they enact commitments that align them with Jesus and with the realm of God, or instead with the elite and powerful among them (19:47; cf. 22:2; 23:13, 18–23; 23:35, 48)?

each night Jesus sleeps on the Mount of Olives (21:37), from which only days before he has descended, with the triumphant shouts attending his entry into the city mingled with his own tears lamenting its fate. The notice thus prepares for his imminent arrest in this very space (22:39, 47–53). The public ministry of teaching and healing—proclaiming and enacting the reign of God—is over.45 With the approach of Passover (22:1), the Passion Narrative commences.

44. These lines also have numerous points of contact with Paul’s eschatological paraenesis in 1 Thess 5:1–11 (Carroll, Response 116–17). Common to both texts, e.g.: suddenly (aiphnidios: Luke 21:34; 1 Thess 5:3); come upon (ephistēmi: Luke 21:34; 1 Thess 5:3); drunkenness (methyein: Luke 21:34 [cognate noun]; 1 Thess 5:7); escape (ekphygein: Luke 21:36; 1 Thess 5:3) Also, Luke deploys the thief image of 1 Thess 5:2, 4 in 12:39. Both Luke and Paul are drawing imagery from early Christian tradition.

45. Aptly, given its content, the eschatological discourse of 21:5–36 culminates Jesus’ public teaching ministry; the narrator’s general notice that Jesus continued teaching in the temple (vv. 37–38) does not diminish the discourse’s climactic impact. However, Jesus will continue to speak and therefore instruct in public settings during the Passion Narrative: on the way to his arrest (22:47–53), under interrogation (22:66–71; 23:3), en route to crucifixion (23:28–31), and from the cross (23:34, 43, 46).

22:1–23:56 The Death of the Messiah

The public ministry of Jesus in Galilee and Judea—with forays into adjacent territories and a long journey to Jerusalem, and finally within the temple at Jerusalem—is now completed. Jesus’ proclamation and enactment of the reign of God, bearing healing, liberation, and salvation—in a word, aphesis (release; given programmatic force in the exegesis of Isa 58 and 61 in Luke 4:18–19)—has begun to form an alternative community of discursive practice and social interaction, one that poses a radical challenge to conventional notions and practices relating to power and privilege, wealth and status, benefaction and reciprocity. With such a résumé, Jesus’ subversive prophetic word and gesture in the temple (19:45–46)—already sufficient reason to question his authority and deem him a threat to the Roman peace in the region—point ahead to an imminent collision. Confrontation, heretofore in words exchanged in public, will give way to orchestrated plots to arrest Jesus and ultimately to state-sanctioned violence.

The Passion Narrative, long in preparation (cf. 5:35; 9:22, 44; 13:31–33; 17:25; 18:31–33), thus begins, ironically coinciding with the arrival of the great festival of liberation both commemorated and hoped for, the Passover (22:1). As the chief priests and scribes seek a way to seize Jesus without the interference of a crowd sympathetic to him (22:2–6), he makes preparations of his own, choreographing a final meal with his intimate followers (22:7–13, 14–38), one that will seal his formation of them for leadership of an alternative community whose portfolio includes not only the restoration of Israel but also a mission to the nations.

Continuing a spiritual practice that has guided and energized his ministry, Jesus summons strength in prayer to face the ordeal of testing that lies just ahead, but his closest followers, exhausted by their grief, sleep instead (22:39– 46). Arrest by a “crowd” of chief priests, scribes, and soldiers (i.e., the temple police force) led by Judas quickly ensues. eschewing violent resistance, despite a disciple’s swordplay, Jesus heals an enemy and submits to arrest. He calls the moment what it is: it belongs to the power of the forces of darkness (22:47–53).

With Jesus now in custody, Peter finds himself waiting anxiously outside, in the high priest’s courtyard. Pressed to acknowledge his connection to Jesus, he responds with threefold escalating denial, just as Jesus has predicted at their last meal. even so, Jesus maintains unbroken connection to Peter, moving him to anguished tears that anticipate his eventual restoration (22:54–62). Thricedenying Peter provides the foil for Jesus, who boldly faces down his interrogators on the elite council convened by the high priest and, in the face of false accusations and hostile questions, declares his imminent vindication by God (as the Son of Humanity). The outcome, already decided, is condemnation and a set of charges to bring before the Roman governor (22:63–71).

A judicial hearing before the prefect Pilate (23:1–7, 13–25), interrupted by a brief session before Herod Antipas (23:8–12), results in an “official” threefold declaration of Jesus’ innocence, a temporary alliance of the people with their elite leaders in pressing for Jesus’ execution and the release of the murderer Barabbas instead, and Pilate’s decision to deliver Jesus to execution as desired and demanded by the Jewish leaders and public assembled before him.

Jesus’ crucifixion follows (23:26, 32–49) after a brief interlude en route to the site of execution for one last prophetic oracle of judgment, spoken to the mourning “daughters of Jerusalem” (23:27–31). Luke’s narration draws attention to the diverse responses of people to the event, ranging from the derision of soldiers, rulers, and one criminal crucified beside Jesus, through the people’s silent observation leading to remorseful departure from the death scene, to the decisive affirmation of Jesus as just—a vindicated, suffering righteous one—by the centurion overseeing the execution. The divine response, anticipated in three hours of midday darkness and then the tearing of the temple curtain, follows with the Easter narrative in ch. 24. The crucified Messiah receives from God, through resurrection and (eventually, in Acts 1) ascension to heaven, the honor that earthly powers have refused him.

First, however, the body of Jesus is released to Joseph and buried in a new tomb, observed by a group of women (Luke 23:50–56), setting the stage for an easter Day packed with events reminiscent of the ministry: a powerful act of release, journey, meal, revelation through exegesis of Scripture, and preparation for future mission to the world (ch. 24). The ministry in word and acts of liberation turns out not to be over. What Jesus has begun, his followers, empowered by the Spirit, will continue (Acts).

Luke has placed a distinctive stamp on his narrative with the long journey section, spanning 9:51–19:27, that brings Jesus and his band to Jerusalem. Not only the extent of the journey narrative but also its content, especially as delivered in memorable parables unique to Luke (10:30–35; 12:16–20; 15:8–10, 11–32; 16:1–8, 19–31; 18:2–5, 10–13), sets Luke apart from all other early Christian accounts of Jesus’ activity. No less in the Passion Narrative, Luke tells the story in a unique voice, despite a host of shared traditions and the availability of the Markan rendition of the events.1 Themes prominent to this point in the narrative continue to shape the presentation: Jesus’ mission as one proffering salvation, in a fashion that generates provocative status inversions; the divided response of the people to this mission; the integrity of Jesus’ living out his messianic vocation as Son of God, even to the extremity of death by crucifixion; and the death of Jesus as an ironic event that, even as the handiwork of the powerful elite at Jerusalem and of the forces of evil, is the divinely purposed destiny of God’s Messiah. Moreover, materials unique to Luke among the canonical Gospels embellish the account, including an exchange about two swords at the last meal, Jesus’ healing of the high priest’s slave at the arrest scene, a hearing before Herod Antipas, threefold assertion of Jesus’ innocence by Pilate, a petition from Jesus for divine forgiveness of those who are killing him, dialogue with a penitent criminal being crucified beside Jesus, the centurion’s witness validating Jesus as a just man, the remorseful departure of the public observing the spectacle, and the silent witness from a distance on the part of the entire circle of persons known to Jesus. Thus much of the meaning of Jesus’ life and vocation becomes clear, or even clearer, in his death.

22:1–38 Jesus Shares a Last Meal with His Disciples

Jesus’ ministry has driven a wedge between the people and their leaders. As many are flocking to Jerusalem for the Passover festival (22:1), v. 2 identifies fear of the people as a principal motive for the leaders’ actions in the passion drama. By end of the Passion Narrative, however, “all the people” will have aligned themselves, if only momentarily, with their leaders. The story’s pacing slows as Jesus gives directions for one final meal with his apostles and in that setting seeks to prepare them for what is to come, and for their future role and vocation as leaders of God’s people.

22:1–13 Divergent Passover Preparations:

Brewing a Conspiracy and Planning a Meal

With the approach of the Passover feast, preparation for the occasion follows two dramatically different paths. The chief priests, aided by a betrayer from Jesus’ closest circle of followers who is acting on inspiration supplied by Satan, hone a strategy to eliminate Jesus (vv. 1–6). Meanwhile Jesus instructs two of his apostles to make advance arrangements for their celebration of the Passover meal, and their actions exhibit both their faithful service and their Lord’s uncanny prophetic precognition (vv. 7–13).

1. Assuming Luke’s access to (some form of) Mark; for discussion of the question as to whether Luke drew, in addition to Mark, upon other coherent source narratives of the passion, see Soards, Passion; Green, Death of Jesus 102–4; Matera, “Death of Jesus”; Brown, Death 1:64–75. On the distinctive Lukan presentation and interpretation of the death of Jesus in Luke, see Carroll and Green, Death 60–81; Senior, Passion; Neyrey, Passion; Tyson, Death; and the essays collected in Sylva, Reimaging.

1 The Festival of unleavened Bread, which is called Passover, was approaching, 2 and the chief priests and the scribes were looking for a way to do away with [Jesus], for they were afraid of the people. 3 However, Satan entered Judas—the one called Iscariot—who was one of the Twelve.a 4 So he went away and conferred with the chief priests and captains [of the temple police, discussing] how he might deliver him to them. 5 They were delighted and agreed to give him money.b 6 And he accepted [the deal] and began looking for an opportunity to deliver him to them apart from the crowd.

7 The day of unleavened bread arrived, when the Passover [lambs] were to be slaughtered. 8 So [Jesus] sent Peter and John, saying, “Go and make preparations for us, so that we may eat the Passover [meal].” 9 They said to him, though, “Where do you want us to make preparations?” 10 He said to them, “When you have entered the city, see, a man carrying a jar of water will meet you. Follow him into the house he enters, 11 and you will say to the head of the household, ‘The Teacher says to you, “Where is the guest room where I may eat the Passover with my disciples?’” 12 And that man will show you a large, furnished room upstairs. You will make preparations there.” 13 When they went out, they found [things] just the way he had told them, and they prepared the Passover [meal].

a. Literally, “who was from the number of the Twelve.” b. Literally, “silver,” argyrion.

[1–6] According to the Lukan narrator, Jesus has spoken with Moses and Elijah on the Mount of Transfiguration about his approaching exodos (exodus, departure), to be fulfilled in Jerusalem (9:30–31). Peter and John, along with James, were present. It is fitting, therefore, that the exodos of Jesus occur at the time of the Feast of unleavened Bread, with its link to the observance of a Passover meal commemorating the exodus liberation of the people from bondage in Egypt. It is also fitting that Peter and John be the ones singled out by Jesus to prepare the meal for the rest of Jesus’ fictive family of disciples. Before detailing the Passover plans of Jesus and his band (22:7–13), however, the narrator strikes ominous chords, describing the hostile Passover plans of the chief priests and scribes (vv. 1–2). One of the apostles, Judas Iscariot (as distinct from another apostle named Judas; see 6:16), acting in concert with Jesus’ cosmic enemy, Satan (22:3; cf. 4:13), makes a fateful decision to initiate a conference with the chief priests and the captains of the temple police force. The purpose of the meeting is to devise a strategy that will enable Judas to deliver his teacher to them (22:4; a handing over that amounts to betrayal: forms of paradidōmi in vv. 4, 6; cf. 9:44; 18:32; 22:21–22, 48; 23:25). Judas’s inclusion in the “number of the Twelve” (v. 3) receives emphasis, marking his action as betrayal by an intimate friend. The leadership group remains afraid of the people (v. 2), and Judas’s charge is therefore to find a way of handing Jesus over to them “apart from the crowd” (v. 6). Frustrated until now by the people’s attraction to Jesus, the chief priests, now joined by the temple police captains, are delighted at the unexpected boon of a discipletraitor and are more than happy to pay for services he will render (v. 5). Their joy (echarēsan) in a death plot, sealed with a promise to pay silver, exhibits a stunning inversion of the values and commitments that have marked Jesus’ ministry: joy in celebration of lives restored (e.g., 15:6–7, 9–10, 32) and disciples being summoned to divest what they own (e.g., 14:33; 18:28). Such, it appears, is the profile of the evil one’s intervention to resume direct assault on the fidelity of Jesus to his vocation as God’s prophet-Messiah-Son of God (cf. 4:13).

The agreement struck by Judas and the temple authorities creates suspense for Luke’s audience. How will Judas seek to execute his plan? Ironically, when in a few short hours he succeeds in delivering Jesus to the temple leadership group, he will do so with a crowd present, not absent, though it is one composed of the temple authorities themselves and others affiliated with them (22:47; “captains of the temple” also resurface at the arrest scene [v. 52]). After depicting the treachery of Judas, the narrator shifts to a different key, turning to describe very different preparations for celebration of the Passover by Jesus and (the rest of) his disciples.

[7–13] Jesus makes plans to celebrate the Passover with his closest followers, something he later says he has strongly desired to do (v. 15). The account here (v. 7) identifies the seven-day Festival of Unleavened Bread with Passover, as in v. 1, and curiously reduces it to one day. The sense intended may be that this is the first day of the feast (as in Mark 14:12). According to ot texts establishing these feasts, the Passover sacrifice is to occur at dusk on Nisan 14, hence on the evening that begins the fifteenth day of the month (day begins at sunset); the Festival of unleavened Bread then extends through Nisan 21 (Abib = Nisan, the later name; exod 12:1–20; 23:15; 34:18; Lev 23:5–8; Num 28:16–25; Deut 16:1–8). The meal that Peter and John are to prepare is the Passover meal, and it is that observance that draws interest (Luke 22:8, 13; pascha, the word for Passover, may refer to the festival [v. 1], the meal [v. 8], or the lamb [v. 7]). In addition to unleavened bread (and wine), they will buy a lamb certified as blemish-free and sacrifice it at the temple, but the narrative mentions none of those details. Instead, attention focuses on the securing of a house and a room where the meal may be celebrated.

The voice of Jesus dominates a four-verse dialogue in which Peter and John contribute only a question about location for the meal (vv. 8–12). Jesus anticipates an encounter with a man who will be carrying a jar of water to a home in Jerusalem; to accommodate the quarter million or more pilgrims flocking to the city for the festival (doubtless Josephus’s estimate of crowds exceeding 2.5 million is exaggerated; see J.W. 6.9.3), the Passover meal, originally to be celebrated in the temple, was observed at any suitable site within Jerusalem (see Fitzmyer 2:1377). The owner, upon a request from “the Teacher,” will make available an already-furnished, upstairs guest room, katalyma (v. 11), as in 2:7, although on that occasion a hospitable welcome was lacking. Verse 13 concisely reports that the two apostles encounter precisely what Jesus has predicted and prepare the meal as directed.

The account in vv. 10–13 is reminiscent of 19:29–35, in which Jesus dispatched two unnamed disciples to secure a colt for his ride into Jerusalem. Both scenes highlight Jesus’ prophetic foresight^2 and the disciples’ obedience. In this second instance, the contrast to the preceding act of disloyalty by Judas is striking. The repeated mention of the Passover (22:1, 7, 8, 11, 13, 15)—twice in connection with unleavened bread, a feast that Luke also ties to the realm of God (v. 16)—hints that whatever Judas, the temple authorities, and Satan may intend with their death plot, God is preparing to effect the people’s liberation from bondage. The liberation-bearing, Satan-defeating reign of God, already so much in evidence in the course of Jesus’ ministry (as brought into clear focus in 4:18–19; 11:14–20; 13:10–17; 17:20–21), will place the final stamp on Jesus’ ministry, up to and including his death.

22:14–38 Jesus’ Farewell Dinner

The narrative moves from diligent preparation to solemn meal. In Luke’s rendition, the last meal of Jesus with his intimate associates becomes an occasion for a poignant farewell discourse through which Jesus interprets for the Twelve the events about to occur, including his death, and equips them for their future role. In the process Luke displays diverse responses by apostles to the moment and its demands—ranging from enduring loyalty to denial and betrayal—and the particular ways in which Jesus engages each of these responses.

14 When the hour came, [Jesus] reclined at table—and the apostlesa with him. 15 He said to them, “I have keenly desiredb to eat this Passover meal with you before I suffer. 16 For I tell you, I will not [again] eatc it until it has been fulfilled in the realm of God.” 17 And he took a cup, and after offering thanks he said, “Receive this and share it with one another.d 18 For I tell you, from now on I will not drinkc from the fruit of the vine until the realm of God comes.” 19 And when he had taken bread, he offered thanks and broke [it] and gave to them, saying, “This is my body.e

2. Unless readers fill a narrative gap by assuming that Jesus has made advance arrangements with the householder, and earlier with the colt’s owner; even then, encounter with the water bearer would remain a matter of prescient discernment.

21 “Note well, though: the hand of the one who is handing me overf is with me at the table. 22 For the Son of Humanity is departing in the manner already set,g but alas for that human through whom he is being delivered up.” 23 So they began to argue with one another about who among them was going to do this.

24 Moreover, a dispute arose among them about which of them seemed to be the greatest. 25 However, he said to them, “The kings of the nationsh rule over them, and those who are in positions of authority over them are called benefactors. 26 But it’s to be different with you!i Instead, let the one who is greater among you be like one who is younger, and the one who leads like one who serves. 27 For who is greater, the one reclining [at a meal] or the one serving? The one reclining, right? Yet I am among you as one serving.

28 “Still, you have stood by mej during my ordeals of testing. 29 Therefore I confer to you, just as my Father conferred to me, royal authority,k 30 so that you may eat and drink at my table in my royal realmk—and you will sit on thrones judging the twelve tribes of Israel.

31 “Simon, Simon, realize this:l Satan asked for you, to sift [you] like wheat. 32 But I prayed for you, that your faith may not failm—and when you have come back, strengthen your brothers [and sisters].” 33 He said to him, though: “Lord, I am prepared to go even to prison and to death with you.” 34 However, he said, “I tell you, Peter, a cock won’t crow today before you’ve denied knowing me—three times!”

35 And he said to them, “When I sent you without purse and travel bags and sandals, did you lack anything?” They said, “Nothing.” 36 He said to them, “But now, one who has a purse should take [it]—likewise also a travel bag. And one who doesn’t have a sword should sell his coat and buy [a sword].n 37 For I tell you that this [word] that has been written must be fulfilled in me: ‘And he was numbered with lawbreakers.’ Indeed, that [word] about me has [its] fulfillment.”o 38 They said, “Lord, look—here are two swords!” And he said to them, “It’s enough!”

a. Following the text of ∏75 א* (original hand) B D, although most Mss have either “the Twelve” (cf. Matt 26:20; Mark 14:17) or “the twelve apostles.”

b. Literally, “with desire I have desired” (Hebraic [Septuagintal] idiom; see Gen 31:30 lxx; Fitzmyer 1:114; 2:1395).

c. Here, and again in v. 18, the pairing of two negative particles with the aorist subjunctive expresses emphatic denial or negation with regard to the future: “I will assuredly not eat [ou mē phagō]. . . . I will assuredly not drink [ou mē piō].” The implication of the phrasing “I will not eat it” is not that Jesus, instead of partaking with the Twelve in this Passover meal, fasts (though the imagery in 5:34–35 suggests that the shift from feasting to fasting is imminent); rather, after this meal, he will join the feasting only at the table spread in the eschatological realm of God (cf. 13:29; 14:15). It is possible to construe Jesus’ emphatic declaration as a vow to abstain from eating even this Passover (e.g., Jeremias, Eucharistic 207–18); yet in v. 16 one would then expect not an explanatory gar (“for”) but an adversative conjunction to introduce “I tell you” (Vinson 673; cf. Green 759; Fitzmyer 2:1396). It is up to the reader to resolve the text’s ambiguity at this point (cf. Brawley, Text to Text 46).

d. Or “divide [distribute] it among yourselves.”

e. Most textual witnesses add vv. 19b–20: “‘[my body,] which is being given for you. Do this in my memory.’ And likewise, after they had eaten [the meal], he said, ‘This cup is the new covenant in my blood, which is being poured out for you’” (AT). I regard this as a secondary interpolation, though one that was already well established by the middle of the second century, since it is prevalent throughout the Greek Ms tradition. Some Western witnesses (D it) stop the quotation at v. 19a, omitting the rest of vv. 19–20—what Westcott and Hort term a “Western non-interpolation,” an uncharacteristic shortening of the text in a witness that typically presents embellishing expansions (New Testament 175–77; cf. ehrman, Orthodox 198; Metzger 164–66; M. Martin, “Non-interpolations”). Other Mss (in Latin and Syriac versions) alter the order, placing before v. 17 either v. 19 or v. 19 and a portion of v. 20. This rearrangement yields a text that avoids the difficulty of vv. 17–20 as a whole (i.e., when compared to the other accounts of this Supper narrative): the duplication of the cup and the sequence of cup, bread, cup (rather than simply bread, cup). The problem of the various versions (short and long) of Jesus’ words over the bread and the cup at this meal is one of the most debated and interpretively significant text-critical issues in Luke’s Gospel (charted and discussed in Metzger 148–50). See further the comment on vv. 14–20 below.

f. Here, as in v. 22 (cf. also 22:4, 6, 48), Luke is working with the verb paradidōmi, which in this context has the sense of a giving over (handing over or delivering up) that amounts to betrayal.

g. Literally, “in accordance with what has been determined [set].”

h. Or “Gentiles,” ethnōn.

i. Literally, “But you [will] not [be] like this!” Lull, reading the statement as a negative, descriptive comment on the apostles’ present behavior, supplies an elliptical “are [not] called”: “But you are not [called] thus” (though you should be, i.e., generous benefactors); see “Servant-Benefactor” 296.

j. Literally, “you are the ones who have remained with me.”

k. Or simply “[royal] reign” or “kingdom,” the same word (basileia) that appears in v. 30.

l. The Greek word here is the attention-focusing idou favored by Luke (“Look!” or “Behold!”).

m. Or “so that your faith may not give out.” My translation preserves the ambiguity of the Greek phrasing, in which the hina-clause (“that . . .”) may either express purpose or (as an object clause) supply the content of Jesus’ petition on behalf of Simon. The parallel with the infinitive of purpose in the preceding verse (“to sift you”) suggests the nuance of purpose also in v. 32.

n. My translation, repeating the word “sword,” emphasizes that word (machairan), which the syntax of the verse highlights. However, the Greek word order springs a surprise on the hearer, which the translation here conceals: “And let the one who does not have sell his coat and buy—a sword!”

o. Or “has an end [i.e., its appointed end or completion].” With this noun (telos), Luke reinforces the point that the Scripture cited from Isa 53:12 finds it fulfillment (note the use of the cognate verb teleō earlier in v. 37) in relation to Jesus (cf. Luke 13:32).

[14–23] The “hour” (i.e., the time for the meal) arrives, and the narrator’s phrasing indicates that Jesus is the Passover meal host: “He reclined at table— and the apostles with him” (v. 14). The solidarity of the apostles with Jesus is a prominent motif in the farewell discourse-with-dialogue in vv. 14–38: “the apostles with him” (v. 14); “eat this Passover meal with you” (v. 15); “[hand of the betrayer] with me at the table” (v. 21); “I am among you as one serving” (v. 27); “you have stood by me” (v. 28); “that you may eat and drink at my table in my royal realm” (v. 30).3 The apostles have indeed been “with” Jesus through thick and thin (22:28), even if they may have seemed to vanish during the Jerusalem ministry of Jesus (Green 759; the apostles explicitly appear only in 6:13; 9:10; 17:5; 22:14; 24:10; cf. 11:49). The Twelve are present at this meal not as individuals privileged to enjoy association with Jesus but in their representative role as commissioned leaders of the community that Jesus is gathering around himself, as the nucleus of an Israel undergoing restoration (cf. 22:28–30), and in preparation for their future vocation as witnesses (e.g., 24:48; Acts 1:8, 21–22; 5:32; 10:41; 13:31).

Jesus’ discourse, interspersed with elements of dialogue (see 22:23, 24, 33, 35b, 38a), begins in v. 15 and concludes in v. 38. Luke alone among the Synoptics presents an extended farewell speech (though not as extensive as John 13–17) and aptly, for the occasion, deploys with some adaptation the testamentary genre. Thus, on the verge of death, Jesus “gathers his people to bid them farewell, and his words to them include exhortations, recollections and predictions” (Nelson, Leadership 109–10; a more complete sketch of the testament genre in Kurz, “Luke 22:14–38”). There is also genre bending, however, especially in the discourse’s emphasis on future reconnection with the one whose death is imminent but will be followed by resurrection and eschatological accession to royal power (vv. 16, 18, 30; cf. Nelson, Leadership 118).

Verse 15 is rhetorically (aurally) elegant, with the series of words pascha phagein .. . pathein: “[this] Passover to eat . . . [before I] suffer.” By “suffer” here, Jesus means “die,” as in 24:26, 46; the suffering of death is the necessary path the Messiah must take to glory, or resurrection life. It has been Jesus’ passionate desire to eat this Passover meal with his apostles before he dies. The Septuagintal idiom (lit., “with desire I have desired”; cf. Gen 31:30 lxx) accents the deep emotion Jesus is expressing. He is now hosting a fervently awaited first-and-last Passover with his intimate associates, specially chosen agents of mission.4

3. Also, the textually uncertain “[my body], which is being given for you” (v. 19); “my blood, which is being poured out for you” (v. 20; see translation note e).

Verses 14–23 present a coherent design, with vv. 19b–20 excluded, and that is the form of the text (attested in Codex Bezae [D]) on which I am basing the interpretation in this comment.5 One could make a similar claim, to be sure, when vv. 19b–20 are included, although the literary pattern would then be more complex, stitching together disparate traditions (see, e.g., Bovon 4:237–42; Fitzmyer 2:1389).6 The longer version contains words of Jesus that speak of vicarious benefit deriving from the bread-as-body (“given for you”) and wine-as-covenantal-blood (“poured out for you”). This textual variation has the advantage of aligning Luke more closely to the developing liturgical tradition and to the interpretation of the soteriological import of Jesus’ sacrificial death associated with it, which has shaped the Markan and Matthean accounts, but especially the Pauline form of the tradition (see Mark 14:22–25; Matt 26:26–29; 1 Cor 11:23–25).7 It does so, however, at a cost: it runs counter to an otherwise coherent Lukan theological interpretation of Jesus’ death that— apart from the remaining apparent aberration of Acts 20:28—avoids imaging the death of Jesus as vicarious, atoning sacrifice.8

4. Whatever the complexities and complications of early Christian traditions and their long history of interpretation (e.g., the differing chronology assumed in John 19:14, which has Jesus die on the day of preparation for the Passover), in Luke this final meal of Jesus with the Twelve is the Passover (see Fitzmyer 2:1378–82).

5. In excluding 22:19b–20, the commentary departs from a consensus of opinion evident in commentaries of the last three decades; for a sample, see Fitzmyer 2:1387–89; Green 761 n. 59; Johnson 377; Vinson 668–71; Wolter 699; Bovon 4:239–41; cf. Metzger 148–50; Green, Death of Jesus 37–42. For the benefit of commentary readers who do seek to make sense of 22:19b–20 as well, I will provide brief discussion of these verses below.

6. Bovon suggests that 22:15–18 stems from a biographically and eschatologically oriented tradition, while vv. 19–20 come from a liturgically oriented tradition (4:242, 244).

7. Luke 22:19b–20 shares several details with 1 Cor 11:23–25 that depart from the tradition as related by Mark and Matthew: hyper hymōn, “[my body] for you”; “do this for my memory [anamnēsin]”; potērion hōsautōs meta to deipnēsai, “the cup likewise after supper” (word order differs); “this cup is the new covenant in my blood” (also note eucharistēsas eklasen, “having given thanks, he broke [bread],” in Luke 22:19a); see the helpful chart in Wolter 703; cf. Fitzmyer 2:1392–93; Vinson 674–76).

8. As seen, e.g., in Luke’s omission of Mark 10:45 (“give his life a ransom for many”). For a trenchant statement, see ehrman, Orthodox 199–203; cf. Tannehill, Narrative Unity 1:286–87. Ehrman argues for a reading of Acts 20:28 that squares that affirmation, as well, with the dominant Lukan presentation of the significance of Jesus’ death: by “God obtains the church through blood,” Luke means that “the blood of Jesus produces the church because it brings the cognizance of guilt that leads to repentance” (202).

The incorporation of the material in Luke 22:19b–20 has also produced an unusual sequence of cup (vv. 17–18) → bread (v. 19) → (second) cup (v. 20). Some of the (weakly attested) alternative variations of the longer text attempted transpositions^9 to yield the expected bread and (one) cup sequence familiar from Mark 14, Matt 26, and 1 Cor 11. The longer version also contains several words and phrases that are unusual for Luke and are pivotal in this passage (notably hyper hymōn [for you]; anamnēsis [remembrance]; and kainē diathēkē [new covenant]—all occurring only here in Luke–Acts; cf. kilpatrick, “Luke 22.19b–20”). The unusual vocabulary is possibly a sign of later interpolation, although it might instead be explained as the result of tapping vocabulary from the tradition (perhaps Antiochene liturgical tradition? [so Bovon 4:239]; cf. Petzer, “Style” 115–22).

The longer form of the text, in addition to being the reading enjoying the widest attestation by extant Mss, might be regarded as the more difficult reading, because of the unexpected cup, bread, cup sequence noted above, and therefore preferred (so, e.g., Fitzmyer 2:1388). The fact that the inclusion of vv. 19b–20 results in an effective rhetorical design for the larger subunit of vv. 15–20 then (for some scholars) clinches the case for the longer reading (e.g., Petzer, “Luke 22:19b–20”). Nevertheless, the shorter form of the text not only best accounts for the appearance of the other variations but also exhibits the strongest thematic coherence with the rest of Luke’s narrative. It is therefore probably the earliest form of the text that can be reconstructed (cf. ehrman, Orthodox 197–209). I propose the following scenario (cf. kilpatrick, “Luke 22.19b–20”). Luke 22:14–23 originally contained vv. 14–19a, 21–23. Probably early in the second century, under the influence of widely dispersed liturgical traditions, particularly the tradition in 1 Cor 11:23–25 as tapped by Paul, Luke 22:19b–20 was inserted to fill out the seemingly incomplete words of institution of the Lord’s Supper.10 The longer text’s awkward features then led some copyists to alter the sequence of the verses (see n. 9 and translation note e above; cf. Fitzmyer 2:1388; ehrman, Orthodox 198, 250–51 n. 72).

9. Altering the sequence to vv. 19a, 17, 18 (Old Latin Mss b e); vv. 19, 17, 18 (Syriac Curetonian Ms); or vv. 19, 20a, 17, 20b (Syriac Sinaitic Ms). The Syriac Peshitta and some Bohairic (Coptic) Mss commend a tidier solution, removing vv. 17–18 and including vv. 19–20 instead. See the chart in Metzger 149.

10. ehrman plausibly argues that the insertion was the product of antidocetic polemic in the second century, precisely of the kind seen in Irenaeus, Haer. 4.33.2; 5.2.2; Tertullian, Marc. 4.40: the expanded text strengthens the affirmation that “Christ experienced a real passion in which his body was broken and his blood was shed for the sins of the world” (Orthodox 209). Seeking to explain the emergence of the shorter text, if the longer form was original, Vinson (670–71) inverts ehrman’s argument and suggests that if copyists abbreviated the text by removing vv. 19b–20, their motive was not to harmonize Luke’s odd sequence (cup-bread-cup) with the other accounts—the change fails to achieve it (so also ehrman, Orthodox 207)—but instead to create a version of the tradition acceptable to docetic christological sensibilities.

The earliest account would then have run something like this (formatted to suggest the underlying coherent literary design, with bracketed text to elucidate the meaning being conveyed):

When the hour came, he reclined at table—and the apostles with him. [Jesus hosts the meal: solidarity at table with the apostles (v. 14).]

He said to them, “I have keenly desired to eat this Passover meal with you before I suffer.” [Impending adversity—and death—alters the meaning of the shared meal (v. 15).]

“ For I tell you, I will not [again] eat it until it has been fulfilled in the realm of God.” [Jesus will not again eat the meal until the deliverance it signifies is fully realized, until the liberation it promises has been fulfilled, in God’s dominion (v. 16).]

And he took a cup, and after offering thanks he said, “Receive this and share it with one another. [The apostles are given a shared cup to drink (v. 17).]

“ For I tell you, from now on I will not drink from the fruit of the vine until the realm of God comes.” [Jesus, though, refrains from drinking wine until the reign of God has come in its fullness (v. 18).]

And when he had taken bread, he offered thanks and broke [it] and gave to them, saying, “This is my body.” [Now Jesus gives the apostles the unleavened Passover bread, refiguring it as his soon-to-be-broken body (v. 19).]

“Note well, though [ plēn]: the hand of the one who is handing me over is with me at the table. For the Son of Humanity is departing in the manner already set,” [Jesus informs the apostles that the suffering of which he has spoken is already in process, not only divinely purposed but also the result of an act of betrayal by one of them (v. 22a).]

“but [ plēn] alas for that human through whom he is being delivered up.” [Divine appointment of Jesus’ impending death does not diminish the betrayer’s culpability (v. 22b).]

So they began to argue with one another about who among them was going to do this. [The apostles accept Jesus’ announcement but debate which of them is a traitor, the first of two arguments among them at the meal, thus displaying their failure to grasp and enact the values of God’s realm (v. 23).]

Verses 15–18 work with the imagery of the Passover meal that Jesus is hosting, including both eating (vv. 15–16) and drinking (i.e., one of the four Passover meal cups, the one offering a blessing of God for the “fruit of the vine”; vv. 17–18; cf. m. Ber. 6:1; the idiom is biblical, as in Deut 22:9; Isa 32:12). In each case, Jesus moves from his present solidarity with the Twelve (vv. 15, 17) to an emphatic declaration that he will not eat the Passover or drink wine until the divine reign has been consummated (vv. 16, 18).11 That realm’s present operation in his ministry (17:20–21), evident in acts of healing (e.g., 13:10–21), exorcism (11:20), and hospitality at table (14:15–24)—though powerful, restorative, and liberating—has not brought to human society or to Israel’s historical experience the full manifestation of God’s sovereign rule, for which Jesus has commended fervent prayer (11:2). Only when the liberation that the meal celebrates and anticipates is a reality will Jesus again partake (cf. 13:29; 14:15). But this is more than a vow of abstinence. Because of the death that looms, Jesus will not again have opportunity to celebrate the Passover meal with his friends. They will continue, however, to gather to eat and drink, and will do so in a way that recalls both this meal and the many that have preceded it (e.g., 9:15–17; cf. 24:30–32, 42–43; Acts 1:4 niv; 2:46; 10:41).

Whether original to the passage or (as I think probable) an early expansion, vv. 19b–20 explicitly turn those future meals toward memory of Jesus— anamnēsis—and in so doing offer an interpretation of his approaching death that is at the same time a refiguring of the gestures and symbolism of the Passover meal ritual (cf. Green 761–62). The Passover meal’s call to remembrance of God’s liberation of the people from slavery in egypt (e.g., exod 12:14) is merged with memory of Jesus, whose body and blood constitute a renewed covenant people for whom the experience of God’s Spirit will work the obedience to God and God’s Torah that participation in the covenant entails (echoing Jer 31:31–34; cf. exod 24:8, which more clearly underlies the phrase “blood of the covenant” in Mark 14:24). The expansion of 22:19b, “given for you,” makes explicit what the preceding line, present in the shorter text of the Supper, already implies (v. 19a, “gave to them [the bread]. . . . This is my body”).

Verse 20 then links the cup, evocative of both judgment, or suffering (e.g., Ps 75:8; Isa 51:17, 22; Jer 25:15–16; ezek 23:31–34), and deliverance (e.g., Pss 23:5; 116:13), to the establishing of a new covenant. Integral to the creation of that renewed covenantal relationship between people and their God is the blood of Jesus, which is about to be “poured out for you,”12 phrasing that suggests violent death (e.g., Gen 9:6; Isa 59:7; Ezek 18:10) but also a sacrificial offering that is vicariously beneficial (ekcheō [pour out] is used of the blood of sacrificed animals in sin offerings in Lev 4:18, 25, 30), and symbolized in the wine being drained from the one shared cup at the meal. The intertext that is echoed here (Jer 31:31–34) concludes with the image of forgiveness of sins, which will no longer be remembered by God (31:34). The (longer) Lukan text leaves this aspect of the new covenant implicit, unlike the Matthean parallel (Matt 26:28).

11. For the view that Jesus is making a pledge of abstinence from eating and drinking, see, e.g., Vinson 668, 673–74; cf. Nolland 3:1050. Readers may indeed respond to the text’s indeterminacy in this way. However, Luke is likely presenting Jesus, once again, in the role of prescient prophet. Jesus’ imminent death will intervene before any more of the disciples’ feasting can occur.

Returning to exegesis of the shorter form of the Supper text, one may observe that forgiveness of sins is a pervasive concern in Luke (introduced already in 1:77; 3:3), a prominent activity in which Jesus has continuously engaged (5:20, 24, 32; 7:34, 47–50; 11:4; 15:1–32; 17:3–4; cf. 23:34, 43), and an integral dimension of salvation (e.g., 1:77; 7:48, 50). Nevertheless, elsewhere in Luke’s Gospel it flows not from Jesus’ death, imaged as vicarious sacrifice or as instituting a covenant, but from his vocation as the Son of Humanity, who in boundary-crossing, status-inverting ways conveys the gracious, welcoming hospitality of God. To the end of his life, he will continue this activity.13

In a solemn, poignant word over one of the Passover cups and (unleavened) bread, Jesus situates the apostles, and with them later readers, in a liminal space between promised liberation and its full realization, where gestures of solidarity and loyalty are fragile. It is a private space (upper room) in which the intimate fellowship of the moment is under threat, not only by a disciple’s betrayal but also by the contentiousness of the rest of the group, belying the shared cup and the bread Jesus gives them. The broken bread is a potent symbol of the body of Jesus, about to be subjected to the torture of crucifixion. But it is now given to them as well (“he gave them” in v. 19a, even without the “given for you” of v. 19b). They will need the memory of their connection to him, and the ongoing experience of his presence with them, if they are to avoid becoming a broken body, unraveling in the face of shattered hopes and external pressures.

12. There is a grammatical anomaly in the participial phrase that concludes 22:20 (“that is being poured out for you”): the case of the participle ekchynnomenon, “being poured out,” agrees not with (the dative case of) its antecedent (in sense) “blood” but, unexpectedly, with (the nominative case of) “cup.” The identical nominative participial construction appears in the Markan parallel, where it is grammatically appropriate (“This is my blood of the covenant, which [i.e., blood] is being poured out,” 14:24 [AT]; similarly in Matt 26:28). Luke shares with 1 Cor 11:25 the tweaked phrasing, “new covenant in my blood,” that has generated the syntactical difficulty in Luke 22:20. The grammar may reflect the reworking of the original (shorter) Lukan text with interference from the liturgical tradition as known in Pauline circles, but whatever its derivation, it hints at the metonymy that is in play: as the cup is poured out (to be drunk by the apostles and effecting a renewal of covenantal community), Jesus’ blood will be poured out in a violent death.

13. As in 23:34, 39–43. See the comments on those verses below; note further the discussion in Carroll and Green, Death 70–72.

It is therefore (even more clearly and explicitly, of course, with the addition of vv. 19b–20) a space enlivened by memory—remembering (in retrospect) Jesus’ death but also his ministry and its enactment-at-table of the gracious hospitality of God’s realm—and by anticipation of a future completion of divine purposes, centering, as the Passover setting Luke emphasizes makes clear, on liberation as yet unfulfilled. In the meantime the community will continue to gather to break bread together (e.g., Acts 2:46), in thankfulness that will recall Jesus’ words of thanks to God (eucharistēsas in Luke 22:17, 19a) for the blessings of wine and bread, remembering and hoping. They will remember Jesus’ integrity and his fidelity to his divinely given vocation, not disconfirmed but validated by his brokenness symbolized by the torn bread. But they will also remember their own failure, their susceptibility to betrayal, a point Jesus will now vividly illustrate.

Without a pause, vv. 21–23 shift dramatically to an interpretation of Jesus’ death viewed through the lens of betrayal. Jesus is about to die, and although the evil enemy of God’s purposes is engineering it (22:3; cf. v. 53), it is, first and last, the expression of the divine will. It occurs “in accordance with what has been appointed” for the Son of Humanity, a theological passive (v. 22), one of the Lukan formulas identifying the suffering and death of Jesus as divinely purposed (note also dei, “must,” in 9:22; 17:25; 24:26; and fulfillment of scriptural prophecy in 18:31; 22:37; 24:27, 46; the two merge in 24:44). But Jesus goes to death, as well, because he is delivered over to that fate, handed over (paradidonai in 22:21, 22) by a human being. It will not go well for that man, if Jesus’ terse “woe” oracle in v. 22b materializes, although he does not specify any outcome. (Luke has Peter narrate the tragic end of Judas in Acts 1:16–20.) Jesus conceals the betrayer’s identity from the Twelve here, though Luke’s audience knows it (Luke 22:3–6), but does reveal that the one who hands him over is betraying the intimacy and trust symbolized by this meal shared with the apostles. The “hand” of the traitor is not only present to receive the shared cup and the distributed bread but also as metonym for an enemy’s “power” (cf. 1:71, 74) that, allied with the power of darkness (22:53), is strong enough to effect Jesus’ death.

Verses 24–38 then depict other reactions on the part of Jesus’ followers to the events now underway, together with his responses to them: competition for status and privilege (vv. 24–27); persevering loyalty, which equips the apostles for a future leadership role in Israel (vv. 28–30)—but a steadfast loyalty and future leadership that are placed in jeopardy not only by Judas’s disloyalty but also by prediction of Peter’s imminent failure (vv. 31–34) and by the group’s confusion about appropriate response to the impending crisis (vv. 35–38).

[24–30] Luke now reports the second of two disputes among the apostles turning on the question “Which of them?” After debating the identity of the betrayer (v.23), they venture to the opposite end of the spectrum of public repute, engaging in verbal sparring (philoneikia) about “which of them seemed [enjoyed the reputation of being] the greatest [the comparative meizōn having superlative force]” (v. 24). The shocking contrast between the point at issue in these two quarrels highlights, with dark humor, the disciples’ failure—despite Jesus’ attempts to educate and prepare them, and despite their steadfast loyalty to Jesus heretofore (as he will underscore in v. 28)—to grasp what is happening, what Jesus’ destiny is, and what his messianic vocation means for their common life. Jesus’ response to the dispute about greatness replays a lesson the disciples have heard before, but one that evidently did not take (vv. 25–27; cf. 9:46–48). The character of God’s reign, as Jesus has taught and practiced it, redefines conventional notions of power and status (see also, e.g., 14:7–14; 16:15; 18:14, 15–17). The community of disciples needs to live by this countercultural vision, as Jesus prepares to depart the scene.

Verses 24–27 and vv. 28–30 hold in creative tension contrasting aspects of leadership in the community that Jesus is forming.14 Jesus is grooming the Twelve for leadership of a peculiar, countercultural kind: they will exercise impressive authority, as divine agents receiving royal prerogatives, sitting on (metaphorical) thrones, judging Israel—a powerful coalescence of political imagery (vv. 29–30). As leaders whose authority derives from the kyrios Jesus, and therefore ultimately from the sovereign God, however, they will lead in a manner that runs counter to typical ways of construing power and practicing governance (vv. 25–27).

“Kings of the nations” exert a lord’s power ( kyrieuousin) over them (v. 25a); Luke’s verb lacks the intensifying prefix kata- of Mark 10:42 (katakyrieuousin, “lord it over”), perhaps tempering somewhat the harshness of the critique, but the image of royal power carries negative valence here too, as part of an argument that culminates in the paradigm-for-emulation of the humble servant Jesus (Luke 22:27).

The same is true of the paired epithet, benefactor: “those who are in a position of [or who exercise] authority over them are called benefactors [euergetai]” (v. 25b). Read as a middle-voice verb, kalountai (I have translated it as a passive verb, “are called”) would accent the concern of authority-bearing leaders to enhance their own status by claiming to be doers of good who benefit others (namely, their subjects): “[they] call themselves benefactors” (see Lull, “Servant-Benefactor” 293). Either way, Jesus is drawing attention to a prominent feature of ideology and social practice in the Greco-Roman world, whereby the (social, political, and economic) elite reinforced their position of privilege and enhanced their access to, or consolidated their hold on, power through generous benefactions. Jesus has already sought to subvert this paradigm of social relations, instead advocating generous giving (benefaction) that expects nothing in return, that does not seek to enhance the giver’s status—patronage that does not seek to turn others into lower-status clients (see the comments on 6:27–38 and 14:12–14; cf. Moxnes, Economy 133–34; Green 273–74, 767–68; Vinson 681–82).

14. See the arguments for taking vv. 24–30 as a coherent unit in Nelson, Leadership 3–4, 94–95, 236–39; Lull, “Servant-Benefactor” 299–301.

In this meal setting, Jesus again commends an alternative pattern of leadership to be exercised by the apostles, and by other members of the community in which they will exercise authority. With the images of radical status inversion in vv. 26–27, Jesus rewrites the cultural scripts relating to power, benefaction, and status. unlike Rome’s emperors^15 and their client local rulers, those who lead within the community of Jesus’ followers will not grant benefactions so as to gain anything in return (honor, power, loyal service, even gratitude; recall 6:27–35; 14:12–14). They will not use acts of benefit to others to consolidate power or enhance status (“it’s to be different with you,” v. 26a).16 Moreover, the young and conventionally low in social status will become the new paradigm of greatness to be emulated. And those who govern will do so by serving (diakonōn, v. 26b). The paradigm-shifting model for authentic leadership is Jesus himself (v. 27). Although, as Jesus concedes, all the rules of social interaction define the person reclining on the dinner couch as the “greater one” (meizōn, returning to the image in v. 24) and the one waiting on him (diakonōn) as the lesser, Jesus is among the apostles as the one who serves (ho diakonōn).

It is to leadership in this mode that the apostles are called as they prepare to sit on thrones and “judge the twelve tribes of Israel” (v. 30). They have remained with Jesus through his (unspecified) ordeals of testing (peirasmois in v. 28, as in 4:13; and more on the way: 22:40, 46); thus they will be privileged to participate in the royal rule that God, as Father, has conveyed to Jesus (v. 29), and to continue the feasting with Jesus (“eat and drink at my table”) that they have experienced during his ministry, as he makes the transition to eschatological dominion (“in my royal realm,” v. 30; cf. 23:42). The chiastic structuring of 22:29–30 emphasizes that the leadership of the apostles, already given a particular cast with Jesus the servant (ho diakonōn) as its exemplar, is derivative. Their authority derives from the sovereignty of God, to which it is subordinate, and participates in Jesus’ own messianic rule of Israel—and in the festive, eschatological meal celebration that is symbolic of it:

15. Inscriptional and literary evidence for the application to Roman emperors (including Augustus, Tiberius, Claudius, Nero, Vespasian, Domitian, and Trajan) of the related honorific titles of sōtēr (savior; salus in Latin) and euergetēs (benefactor) has wide geographic distribution. See Gilbert, “Roman Propaganda” 237–42; Taylor, Divinity 267–83; Danker, Benefactor (e.g., 213–14, 217).

16. Lull reads 22:26a as a descriptive statement, assuming an elliptical present indicative (see translation note i above): the apostles are not being called benefactors, but they should be (“ServantBenefactor”). The rhetorical shaping of vv. 24–27 (and of vv. 24–30 as a whole), however, in concert with Luke’s earlier critique of the conventional practice of patronage and benefaction, instead suggests an assumed future indicative that holds imperatival force: “It’s not to be like this for you!” kings-as-benefactors do not provide a positive model to be emulated, as Lull contends, but a negative model to be eschewed (with Nelson, Leadership 131–36; Green 767–69; Ahn, Reign 164–65).

A Jesus grants a share in royal authority to the apostles (v. 29a) B as God granted this to Jesus (v. 29b)

B′ so that the apostles may eat and drink at “my table in my royal realm” (v. 30a)

A′ and they will sit on thrones judging an Israel-being-restored [by God]. (v. 30b)

In their other-serving leadership of the people of God, the apostles will be agents of divine rule, even as Jesus, prophet and Messiah, has exercised dominion on behalf of God during his ministry.

Correlated with Jesus’ earlier symbolic commissioning of twelve apostles (6:13), Jesus projects a future leadership for them that encompasses the whole of Israel, twelve tribes (even if Luke lacks the detail twelve thrones, likely with a nod to Judas’s impending forfeiture of a seat on one; cf. Matt 19:28). The future indicative verb kathēsesthe (“you will sit”), rather than the subjunctive, indicates that this accession to royal authority does not extend the preceding purpose clause (“so that you may eat and drink”) but issues a bold prophetic promise. The apostles will exercise their leadership (the image of judging accenting a judicial function) in the future, even if Jesus is conferring this authority to them in this very moment (present tense diatithemai, “I confer,” in v. 29a). Will this exercise of leadership in Israel occur in the eschatological future (e.g., Nelson, Leadership 224–30), or already within the next phase of Israel’s history, as narrated in Acts (e.g., L. Johnson, Possessions 120; “Kingship” 152). Readers of the Gospel who are or become acquainted with the continuation of the story in Acts (esp. chs. 1–5) will have reason to see at least partial fulfillment of this promise in that account of exchange in leadership roles between the Twelve and the temple elite in Jerusalem (with Gamaliel himself delivering ironic comment on this authority transfer in Acts 5:38–39). Nevertheless, readers may also anticipate participation in the eschatological banquet and dominion of God as an extension of this leadership of Israel-undergoing-restoration as narrated in Acts (see further Neyrey, Passion 27–28; Senior, Passion 74–76; Matera, Passion 165).

The Twelve (though with Judas’s status in doubt), however, are not yet fully prepared or qualified for the leadership role that awaits them, as their debates about betrayal and greatness have just shown (Luke 22:23–24). For the present, Satan has resumed an all-out attack on Jesus’ fidelity to his vocation, and he has turned attention to the disciples as well. In the balance of this farewell discourse, Jesus will address this sobering reality and the dramatically altered circumstance that has resulted.

[31–38] The ministry of Jesus has subjected Satan and his demonic army to defeat after defeat, with the followers of Jesus as exuberant participants (10:17– 18)—the mighty reign of God in action (11:20). But times have changed. Satan, rebuffed in his first attempt to lure Jesus off course (4:1–13), is gaining the upper hand: witness his successful recruitment of Judas to the cause of Jesus’ powerful enemies (22:3). The hour will soon belong to the forces of evil (the ominous image of the “power of darkness” in 22:53). The apostles will therefore immediately step from the upper room into dangerous terrain, a severe test of their persevering faithfulness under duress, which Jesus has just affirmed (v. 28). Jesus scores that point in two steps. He first highlights the threat to Peter’s loyalty that is already in process (vv. 31–34), then warns the whole band about the peril they will soon face (vv. 35–38). Neither Peter, for all his bravado, nor the rest, with their two swords, will exhibit the preparedness needed.

Jesus begins by delivering a wake-up call to the apostle who, more than any other and from the beginning of Jesus’ public ministry, has commanded attention in the narrative (see 4:38; 5:1–11; 6:14 [heading the list of the Twelve]; 8:51; 9:28, 32–33; 12:41; 18:28; and most recently, together with John, in 22:8). The double address “Simon, Simon” deepens the pathos of Jesus’ comment to this preeminent apostle (v. 31). In a manner reminiscent of Job 1–2, Jesus avers that Satan has requested to “sift [you] like wheat,” to put Peter and his fidelity to God to the test, separating, as the metaphor has it, the (faithful) wheat from the (unfaithful) chaff (cf. Luke 3:17). Satan, then, does not coerce but provides the occasion for human failure (cf. Green 772). But not just Peter: the second-person pronoun identifying the object of Satan’s designs is plural; the loyal commitment of all the apostles is at risk. Jesus singles out Simon (Peter) specifically, however, having appealed (implicitly to God) on Peter’s behalf so as to thwart Satan’s scheme to undermine Peter’s faith, to cause it to fail (cf. 8:12; 17:5; 18:8). He adds, “When you come [or turn] back [i.e., repent, epistrepsas], strengthen your brothers [and sisters]” (22:32). The implication is clear: Satan’s efforts with the rest of the disciples will indeed be effective; they will lose strength and resolve (as is evident already in vv. 45–46). Moreover, Peter too will fail and will need to be restored. The persistent loyalty and solidarity for which Jesus commends the apostles (v. 28) will be sorely tested, and at least for a time they will be overmatched by the ordeals to come. As the Passion Narrative unfolds, Luke’s audience will discover that Jesus’ intervention on Simon’s behalf is not limited to prayer; his investment in Peter as future leader of the group is persistent, intensely personal, and ultimately effective (see vv. 61–62; cf. 24:34).

Peter, however, is not yet convinced that his loyalty to his Lord is at risk. He confidently pledges that he will accompany Jesus, if he must, to prison and even death (22:33). In reply, Jesus makes his prediction of Peter’s failure vivid and precise; before daylight comes (the next cock’s crow, at dawn of the day that has begun this evening), Peter will have denied knowing Jesus—not once, but three times (v. 34). Luke’s audience will not have to wait long to learn (if Jesus’ track record as prescient prophet has left any doubt) whether Jesus’ sobering prophecy or Peter’s bold assertion of unshakable loyalty will be fulfilled (vv. 54–62).

Satan is resolved to sift Jesus’ intimate associates like wheat, to test the strength of their character and the vigor of their faith. Thus they venture into a world of threat; not only the integrity of their faith and the persistence of their commitment but also their very lives are now in danger. Hence the sobering message of vv. 35–38, with which Jesus concludes his farewell discourse. He reverses his earlier directions for mission, which commended trusting reliance on hospitality and generous provision from strangers among whom his disciples teach and heal (9:1–6; 10:1–12, though note 10:3 [“lambs among wolves”]). The Twelve, responding to a query from Jesus, acknowledge that when he dispatched them without “purse and travel bags and sandals” (22:35, recalling 10:4; cf. 9:3), they had every need provided for them. It will be different in a future hour that belongs to the “power of darkness” (22:53). So the revised mission directions place in the apostles’ hands both purse and travel bag, and, replacing sandals in the list, a sword (v. 36). Not only the unexpected substitution of sword for sandals but also the word order gives prominence to the surprise Jesus is springing on the Twelve, as well as on Luke’s audience: “And let the one who does not have sell his coat and buy—a sword” (see translation note n).

Jesus explains, with appeal to a prophecy that “must be fulfilled [ telesthēnai] in me” (v. 37a). Accented, in the center of a chiasm—fulfillment (telos) of this saying “about me” is asserted also in v. 37c—is a compact (in Greek, four-word) quotation from Isa 53:12 (part of the Servant Song also cited in Acts 8:32–33): “He was numbered with lawbreakers [anomōn]” (Luke 22:37b). Readers are left to puzzle over the precise application of this enigmatic saying and will be alert to its actualization in the ensuing narrative: Will not only Jesus but also the apostolic band he has assembled come to be perceived as outlaws (cf. vv. 49–52; 23:1–5), hence their need for defensive weapons? Or perhaps their possession of swords will itself confirm others’ impression that they are lawless? Or will Jesus face execution in the company of others who are criminals (note the two kakourgoi, “evildoers,” crucified with Jesus in 23:32; cf. Büchele, Tod 44)? Or is this simply a continuation of Jesus’ perceived law-violating association with the sinful (as in 7:34, 39; 15:1–2; 19:7; cf. Green 775–76)? The intertextual connections with Isa 52:13–53:12 are intriguing here, since Jesus has just claimed for himself the role of servant (ho diakonōn, Luke 22:27; cf. the identification of Jesus as pais, “servant,” in Acts 3:13, 26; 4:27). Like Isaiah’s servant, Jesus, though considered as a man among lawbreakers and thus one himself, is truly righteous (Luke 23:47; cf. Isa 53:9, 11) and will receive divine vindication (Luke 22:69; cf. Isa 52:13; 53:10–12).

The apostles struggle to understand the yoked sword-command and explanatory prophecy regarding law-transgressors. They are able to produce two swords and ask if they will suffice (Luke 22:38a). Jesus replies tersely, in a fashion suggesting that he is dismissing the question as misguided and uncomprehending: “It’s enough!” (v. 38b). He bids his followers, that is, to wield a metaphorical sword: they must now navigate a path dramatically different from what they have known, one marked by danger and hostile opposition. Or perhaps Jesus is giving a straightforward answer to a sincere question, in which case he signals—two swords suffice—that he is not advocating violent action against Roman soldiers or temple police, or seeking violent resistance to his impending arrest. either way, the two swords prepare for the brief skirmish in the arrest scene that looms (vv. 49–51), and Luke emphasizes yet again the motif of prophecy fulfilled, even in events that appear to implicate Jesus as a criminal deserving of the most severe punishment. Jesus is about to die the death of a righteous servant of God. Fulfillment of the divine purpose, which encompasses suffering and death—and only then vindication and exaltation—attends the vocation of God’s prophet-Messiah-servant. Jesus has spoken “enough”; with the farewell meal and discourse concluded, the events of the passion lie just ahead.

22:39–53 Prayer, Sleep, and Arrest on the Mount of Olives

As Jesus summons strength, through prayer, to face the ordeal that lies ahead, the grief-overwhelmed disciples sleep (22:39–46). Meanwhile the conspiracy to seize Jesus and deliver him to the Roman governor brings Judas, at the head of an armed crowd, to the Mount of Olives. Throughout the arrest scene, Jesus and his words dominate, providing the interpretive lens through which readers experience the event as an act of betrayal and the momentary triumph of the power of evil, but also the working out of the divine purpose and confirmation of Jesus’ fidelity, under duress, to his vocation and commitments (vv. 47–53).

22:39–46 Jesus Prays as the Ordeal of Testing Reaches Its Climax

Jesus as host of a meal with friends, words of nurture and admonition, and now prayer on a mountain—these are all familiar images by this stage of Luke’s narrative. But though long in preparation, this is a moment of unprecedented urgency and crisis. In the light (i.e., darkness) of Satan’s renewed and more successful assault on Jesus and also his band of disciples, and with Roman might approaching in the shadows of night, part 1 of the scene on the Mount of Olives presents a severe test of character and of faithful endurance. Jesus, in character, prays so as to embrace the divine purpose, while his followers struggle with sorrow-induced sleep.

39 When [Jesus] left, he went to the Mount of Olives, as he was accustomed to do, and his disciples, too, followed him. 40 When he arrived at the place, he said to them, “Pray that you not enter an ordeal of testing.” 41 He withdrew from them about a stone’s throw, and after bending his knees he began to pray: 42 “Father, if it is what you will,a take this cup away from me. Nevertheless, may your desire—not mine—be done.”b 45 When he arose from prayer, he came to the disciples and found them sleeping because of sorrow, 46 so he said to them, “Why are you sleeping? Arise and pray, so that you may not enter an ordeal of testing.”c

a. Literally, “if you will [want].”

b. Some textual witnesses add vv. 43–44: “Then an angel from heaven appeared to him, strengthening him. Because he was in anguish, he began to pray even more intently,

and his sweat became like drops of blood falling onto the ground” (AT). I regard this

as a secondary interpolation, though one that was already well established by the midsecond century, as indicated by the weighty attestation for both shorter and longer forms

of the text, as well as by Justin Martyr’s knowledge of this tradition (Dial. 103.8; cf. Heb

5:7; see the fuller enumeration of witnesses in Fitzmyer 2:1443; ehrman and Plunkett,

“Angel” 401–3; Ehrman, Orthodox 188; Bovon 4:300–2; Clivaz points out that the

fragmentary Ms 0171, from about 300 C.E., also contains the last part of v. 44 [“Angel”

422]). Important textual witnesses (including ∏75 A B, as well as א^1 [the first correcting

hand of א]) omit these verses, which appear only in Luke (with the exception of f^13 Mss,

some of which place them after Matt 26:39).17 It is possible that the depiction of Jesus’

agitation in these verses troubled some early Christians (and copyists), resulting in the

removal of the offending section (cf., in the 4th century, epiphanius, Ancoratus 31.4–5;

see Fitzmyer 2:1443). However, several observations suggest later interpolation: the

presence of vocabulary atypical of Luke (including the key words agōnia [anguish or

struggle], hidrōs [sweat], and thrombos [drop]), the material’s disruption of a coherent

literary pattern in the unit, the depiction of an emotional and struggling Jesus that differs

from his characterization in the Gospel otherwise, and the plausibility of the section’s

interpolation in service of polemic against docetic christological teaching (cf. the use to

which this tradition is put by Justin, Dial. 103.8; Irenaeus, Haer. 3.22.2; and Hippolytus,

Noet. 18; see ehrman, Orthodox 193–94). See further the comment on 22:39–46 below. c. Reading this hina-clause as a purpose clause, not as an object clause stating the

content of the prayer that Jesus urges his disciples to say. Note, however, the parallel

with v. 40, where an infinitive clause does express the content of the prayer: “Pray that

you not enter an ordeal of testing.”

[39–46] The Passover meal within the city and Jesus’ farewell words for his apostles now concluded, he returns to his customary nighttime abode on the Mount of Olives (21:37), with the disciples continuing to do what they have been doing: “they followed” (22:39). Yet they bring with them the confusion, lack of comprehension, and disarray that were on display at the meal. In an artfully crafted scene, Luke presents a chiasm that begins and ends with Jesus’ command to the disciples to pray so as not to “enter an ordeal of testing” (eiselthein [in v. 46, eiselthēte] eis peirasmon; vv. 40, 46). At the center stands Jesus’ prayer asking that the Father^18 take away “this cup,” but qualifying that request, twice, with an important “nevertheless”: “if it is what you will, . . . may your desire [or will, thelēma]—not mine—be done” (v. 42). The shaping of the story thus casts a late-evening spotlight on both Jesus’ prayer and the urgent need for his disciples—all of them, not just Peter, James, and John (as in Mark 14:33)—to pray as well, so as not to enter a test that they will not have strength to endure, left to their own resources:

17. Note the critical caution regarding the evaluation of the f13evidence here in Clivaz, “Angel” 432–36; Clivaz hypothesizes that the verses’ transfer from Luke to Matthew was motivated by liturgical concerns in the course of early Christian use of Matthew’s Gospel.

A Jesus arrives “at the place” and says to the disciples, “Pray that you not enter an ordeal of testing.” (v. 40)

B He withdraws, and after bending his knees he prays: (v. 41)

C “Father, if it is what you will, take this cup away from me. Nevertheless, may your desire—not mine—be done.” (v. 42)

B′ Jesus arises from prayer, returns to the disciples, and finds them sleeping because of sorrow. (v. 45)

A′ Jesus again addresses them: “Why are you sleeping? Arise and pray, so that you may not enter an ordeal of testing.” (v. 46)19

Confronted by life-threatening peril, Jesus models for his followers, and for Luke’s audience, authentic prayer that petitions honestly but also, in sustained communion with the God who is a gracious, providing Father (cf. 11:1–13; 12:22–32), seeks alignment with the divine purpose. The cup that Jesus prefers not to drink is metaphorical, an evocative image for the destiny that awaits; in the ot the cup is an image of deliverance (Ps 116:13) but more often of judgment (e.g., Ps 75:8; Isa 51:17, 22; cf. Vinson 693). Jesus’ prayer will not alter the course of events, which he has seen coming for a long time (Luke 9:22, 44; 13:31–33; 17:25; 18:31–34; 22:21–23), but it will strengthen his resolve to endure faithfully. His repeated instruction to the disciples to pray directs them to the same source of encouragement and strength. Yet because of their sorrow, as the narrator comments, they sleep instead (v. 45).20 Neither the sleep nor the grief that precipitates it is a positive element in the disciples’ characterization: lypē (grief, sorrow) was often associated with guilt and with paralyzing control by evil passions (e.g., Gen 3:16–17; Isa 1:5; 50:11; 1 Macc 6:8, 9, 13; Sir 30:21, 23; 38:18; Philo, Mos. 1.139; see Neyrey, Passion 50–68, with a catalog of pertinent texts).

18. As elsewhere in the Gospel, Luke does not include Mark’s Aramaic words; here the term for father, Abba (Mark 14:36; cf. Mark 5:41 and Luke 8:54; Mark 15:34 and Luke 23:45–46).

19. On this chiastic pattern, see ehrman, Orthodox 191; Vinson 691–92. unlike the chiastic structure proposed by Bovon (4:295), which includes the textually uncertain vv. 43–44, this design places a thematic focus fitting for Luke at the center of the passage: Jesus’ prayer (see 3:21–22; 6:12; 9:18, 28; 10:21–22; 11:1–4; 23:34, 46; cf. Crump, Intercessor; Plymale, Prayer).

Verses 43–44, which I judge to be a later interpolation,21 would relocate intense emotion from the grieving disciples to Jesus. In tension with Luke’s portrait of a composed Jesus facing martyrdom (cf. Brown, Death 1:192), these verses show Jesus engaged in a fierce struggle, one that despite the intervention of sustaining angels (v. 43) manifests itself graphically in profuse sweat that resembles drops of blood falling to the ground (not bloody sweat; v. 44).22 But in Luke’s presentation, Jesus has no need for angels to intervene any more than he did in his vocation-testing battle with the chief power of darkness (4:1–13). The ministering angels of Mark 1:13 disappeared from Luke’s rendition of the desert ordeal; indeed, Jesus then rejected even the suggestion that he appeal for angelic intervention to rescue him from danger, thereby putting God to the test (4:10–12).23 Jesus, righteous prophet-Messiah-servant, draws upon the resource of prayer as, in sustained communion with God, he prepares for his martyrdom.

22:47–53 The Arrest

Thanks to Judas as a knowledgeable guide, the temple-based religious-political elite locate Jesus on the Mount of Olives and prepare to capture him. Amid betrayal, confusion, and flashing swords, Jesus’ voice controls the stage. The darkness of night is not the only darkness in play; Jesus’ scene-closing word of capitulation brands the event as the work of an evil power.

20. The notice of grief as motive for the disciples’ sleep appears only in Luke, which abbreviates the scene in a manner that shifts the accent from the disciples’ (threefold) sleepy failure to pray (Mark 14:37, 40, 41) to Jesus’ exemplary prayer in the face of testing. Comparative analysis with Mark 14:32–42 reveals that, with the exception of the textually suspect 22:43–44, Luke has transferred strong emotional reaction to the events from Jesus to the disciples (though in drastically abbreviated form; see esp. Mark 14:33–34, omitted in Luke’s account); cf. Neyrey, Passion 50–68.

21. See translation note b; also Ehrman and Plunkett, “Angel”; Fitzmyer 2:1443–44; Ehrman, Orthodox 187–94; preferring the longer text are Neyrey, Passion 55–57; Brown, Death 1:180–84; Bovon 4:300–302; Tuckett, “Luke 22,43–44.” Clivaz argues that P69 attests a third textual tradition that omits 22:42–45a, not just vv. 43–44, and proposes an intentional Marcionite removal of the offending material (“Angel” 425–32).

22. Neyrey describes Jesus’ agōnia in this scene as a “victorious combat,” not an emotional outburst (Passion 58–62).

23. Angels do play a significant role in Luke’s infancy narrative as bearers of divine revelation (1:8–20, 26–38; 2:8–14) and return in Acts to embody divine direction, protection, and deliverance (e.g., Acts 5:19–20; 10:3–7; 12:6–11; 27:23–24).

47 While [Jesus] was still speaking, a crowd appeared,a and the man called Judas—one of the Twelve—was going before them. He approached Jesus to kiss him, 48 but Jesus said to him, “Judas, are you going to betray the Son of Humanity with a kiss?”b 49 However, when those around him saw what was going to happen, they said, “Lord, shall we strike with the sword?” 50 And one of them struck the high priest’s slave and cut off his right ear. 51 Jesus, though, said in response, “Stop!”c And he touched the ear and healed him. 52 To the men who had come out against him—chief priests and captains of the temple [police] and elders—Jesus said, “Did you come out with swords and clubs, as if against a bandit? 53 When I was with you in the temple day after day, you did not lay your hands upon me.d But this is your hour—and the power of darkness.”

a. Literally, “Look, a crowd!”

b. Or “Are you handing over the Son of Humanity with a kiss?”

c. Literally, “Let [it be just] until this,” eate heōs toutou (i.e., “Leave it at this!”). d. Or “You did not stretch out your hands against me.”

[47–53] The sudden arrival of a large crowd (ochlos) interrupts Jesus midsentence, as the genitive absolute construction (“while he was still speaking”) beginning v. 47 indicates. The words he has just spoken, “Pray that you may not enter an ordeal of testing [peirasmon],” leave little doubt that the scene that now unfolds is precisely the test of faithfulness for which the disciples’ inability to pray will put them at great risk (cf. vv. 31–34). The presence of an ochlos is ironic since the powerful enemies of Jesus have been seeking a way of isolating him from the ochlos (22:6, to capture him away from the throngs of people drawn to him (19:47–48; 20:19; 22:2). This crowd, however, does not come from the people (laos) but, the narrator later discloses (v. 52), from the local, temple-based power elite: chief priests, elders, and temple (security force) officers. In front is Judas, “one of the Twelve” (cf. 22:3), and he approaches Jesus with the intent of kissing him (v. 47). The narration thus highlights the act of betrayal by an intimate friend and supporter, and also heightens it by displaying, once more, Jesus’ prophetic insight. At Judas’s approach, Jesus halts him with the withering, disarming words, “Are you going to betray [or hand over] the Son of Humanity with a kiss?” (v. 48). Judas does kiss Jesus in Mark 14:45, but in Luke’s rendition, Jesus appears to prevent the kiss. Jesus’ discernment, composure, and initiative trump Judas’s act of treachery.

Unidentified persons “around [Jesus]”—certainly disciples, since they address him as “Lord”—see what is about to happen and ask whether they should resist with force (the sword, v. 49). Without waiting for a reply, and with swords drawn (both of them! [recall v. 38]), one of them wounds the high priest’s slave, cutting off his right ear (v. 50; the right ear only in Luke and in John 18:10, which has Peter inflict the blow). Jesus, advocate of love of enemies (6:27, 35), is given opportunity to enact that message and does so by healing the man’s ear (a uniquely Lukan touch) and halting the violence: “Stop! [Leave it at this!]” (22:51). Whatever readers may have made of Jesus’ instruction to apostles to procure a sword and the exchange over the two swords in 22:36–38, his actions immediately before his arrest demonstrate that he did and does not intend to resist with violence.

Jesus will, however, continue to resist his powerful enemies with confrontational words. He poses a question-with-observation that carries with it an implied reproach of this crowd of eminent enemies (only now does the narrator unmask the crowd that has come to seize Jesus): why have they now brought weapons, as if to capture a dangerous bandit (lēstēs), when he has been accessible every day as he has taught in the temple (vv. 52–53a)? Luke’s audience knows why they did not act then: they were immobilized by fear of the people who were filling the temple precincts to hear Jesus’ teaching (21:38; cf. 19:47– 48; 20:19; 22:2, 6). Jesus prepares to submit to his capture with a parting shot that makes clear whose power is calling the shots here: evil has the upper hand in this hour that is “yours.” The implication is that the “power of darkness” is in charge only for the time being, an “hour” (v. 53b).

Jesus will go to his death because he discerns that this is God’s purpose: this is what invariably happens to God’s prophets, and it is the vocation of God’s Messiah. And so he will be arrested, interrogated, and executed. But— unlike Mark, which ends the scene with the disciples’ panic and flight (Mark 14:50–52), very different from Luke’s characterization of the disciples—Jesus has the last word here. He names what is happening as, also, the achievement of powerful forces arrayed with evil. Powerful, but their victory (lasting a figurative “hour”) will be fleeting.

22:54–23:25 Interrogations: The Failure of a Chief Apostle and a Death Sentence for the Messiah

The arrest and detainment of Jesus (22:54) set the stage for two series of multiple interrogations. The first series, featuring Simon Peter in the courtyard of the high priest, exhibits fearful failure, a denial of connection to Jesus that amounts to a renouncing of his own identity (vv. 55–62). In the second series, by contrast, Jesus exemplifies courageous witness that confronts temple-system and Roman power, affirming vindication by God that Roman-sponsored judicial processes will deny him (22:63–23:25).

22:54–62 Peter Fails the Test of His Faithfulness

The Passover meal exchange between Jesus and Simon Peter pitted prediction of disciple failure against pledge of undying loyalty (22:31–34). With the arrest of Jesus as backdrop, this scene now shows which view of Peter’s future was right. The prophecy of Jesus finds precise fulfillment, but despite the eminent apostle’s threefold denial of association with Jesus, his Lord sustains active connection with him, nurturing conditions for Peter’s return and restoration.

54 When they had seized [Jesus], they led him away and brought him into the house of the high priest. Peter was following at a distance. 55 After they lit a fire in the middle of the courtyard and sat down together, Peter was sitting among them. 56 A slave-woman noticed him sitting near the light, and after staring at him she said, “This man, too, was with him.” 57 But he denied [it], saying, “I don’t know him, woman.” 58 After a short time, another person saw him and said, “You, too, are [one] of them.” Peter said, “Man, I am not.” 59 After about an hour had passed, another person began to say insistently, “Surely this man, too, was with him, for he is a Galilean also.” 60 Peter, though, said, “Man, I don’t know what you’re saying.” At once—while he was still speaking—a cock crowed. 61 And the Lord, turning, looked at Peter, and Peter remembered the Lord’s word, how he had told him, “Before a cock crows today, you will have denied me three times.” 62 So he went outside and wept bitterly.

[54–62] In his farewell remarks to the apostles, Jesus commended them for their persevering loyalty and solidarity with him (22:28). In part due to his sustained care and prayer for them (v. 32), they will emerge on the far side of the Passion Narrative as qualified witnesses to his entire ministry, right through to death and beyond (see 24:48; Acts 1:8, 21–22; 5:32; 10:41; 13:31). Although the Twelve’s failure is not as stark as in Mark (esp. Mark 14:50–52), here too Peter adds to Judas’s treachery his own profound failure. under pressure, he denies not just once but three times his tie to Jesus, just as “the Lord” predicted. Thus Peter’s opportunity for bold witness turns out, instead, to validate Jesus’ prophetic discernment.

Like Mark, Luke juxtaposes Peter’s failure and Jesus’ model witness; however, a significant transposition creates a different dramatic effect in Luke’s narrative. In Mark the high priest and Sanhedrin examine and mock Jesus before Peter’s denial is reported (14:55–65, then 14:66–72). In Luke’s rendition, however, only the notice of Jesus’ arrest and detainment in the high priest’s house (22:54) precedes the account of Peter’s threefold denial (vv. 55–62). The denial scene buys time for the high priest to assemble his council, which convenes in the morning to examine Jesus (v. 66, a more plausible scenario than Mark’s rushed night assembly; see Matera, “Luke 22,66–71” 48–50). Also, thereby, suspense builds toward Jesus’ climactic confrontation with the temple-based elite (vv. 66–71) and the Roman governor (23:1–25, with a brief interlude for interrogation by Herod Antipas in 23:8–12).

In disciple mode, and true (thus far) to his promise (22:33), Peter is “following” Jesus after the arrest, but from a distance (makrothen, as will be the case for all Jesus’ acquaintances at the crucifixion site in 23:49). With a fire blazing in the courtyard of the high priest’s palatial home to provide both warmth and light for an early spring night, Peter takes his place among the persons seated (22:55). In quick succession, a slave woman and two anonymous men try to place Peter in Jesus’ circle, on the basis of either sight (vv. 56, 58) or possibly voice (v. 59: “He is a Galilean also”; mode of speech is the clue in Matt 26:73). With varying phrasing, each associates Peter with Jesus: “This man, too, was with [syn] him” (v. 56). “You, too, are [one] of them” (v. 58). “This man was with [meta] him” (v. 59). Peter’s denial of association with Jesus, also in varying phrasing (“I don’t know him, woman,” v. 57; “Man, I am not [one of them],” v. 58; “Man, I don’t know what you’re saying,” v. 60), amounts to a refutation of Jesus’ earlier commendation (v. 28).

Nevertheless, the narrative is less harsh on Peter than is Mark’s; in Mark 14:71 Peter severely intensifies the language with his third denial, but the Lukan narrator assigns a more tempered escalation to the third challenger instead (“began to say insistently,” 22:59). Moreover, without pause a cockcrow interrupts Peter’s third denial (v. 60b), and “the Lord” turns and looks at him (v. 61a), a notice given only in Luke; readers are left to visualize the space in a way that permits this visual contact between the two. It is at this reaffirmation of connection, just denied three times by Peter, that the apostle remembers Jesus’ prediction.24 The combination of memory and his Lord’s gaze drives Peter out of the courtyard and produces bitter weeping (v. 62), the first step in Peter’s return, his restoration to strengthen the rest of the disciples (cf. v. 32). Luke 12:8–9 notwithstanding, Peter’s denial of Jesus and of his own identity as a disciple will not leave him without hope. Meanwhile the narrative now shifts to pick up the story of Jesus in custody.

22:63–71 Jesus Confronts the Elite Council of His People

After Peter’s threefold denial confirms, for readers, Jesus’ prophetic foresight, ridicule of Jesus’ prophetic credentials forms the centerpiece of guards’ mockery and physical abuse of Jesus (vv. 63–65). His status, role, and relation to God continue to give focus to the proceedings when he is brought before a morning session of the Sanhedrin (vv. 66–71). No witnesses are produced and no formal verdict is pronounced, but Jesus’ responses to interrogation are deemed sufficient to warrant the prisoner’s transfer to the Roman governor for formal judicial investigation, during which members of the council will lodge additional accusations against Jesus (23:1–2, 5).

24. Luke 22:61b rehearses v. 34 with some variation in wording, the sort of redundancy-withvariation that aids the audience’s recall yet at the same time maintains interest in the story; cf. the threefold account of Saul’s Damascus encounter with the risen Jesus in Acts 9, 22, and 26.

63 The men who were guarding [Jesus]a were mocking him as they beat [him], 64 and after covering [his eyes]b they would ask, “Prophesy! Who hit you?” 65 They kept saying many other things against him as well, revilingc [him].

66 When day came, the council of the elders of the people—both chief priests and scribes—assembled, and they had him brought into their Sanhedrin. 67 They said, “If you are the Christ, tell us.” But he said to them, “If I tell you, you will certainly not believe, 68 and if I ask, you will certainly not answer. 69 From now on, though, the Son of Humanity will be seated at the right hand of the power of God.” 70 So they all said, “Are you, then, God’s Son?” And he said to them, “You say I am.” 71 They said, “Why do we still have need for testimony? For we have heard it for ourselves—out of his own mouth!”

a. “Him” ( auton) in Greek; the narrator refers to Jesus with the personal pronoun though the nearest referent is not “the Lord” but Peter (22:61, and as “he” in v. 62).

b. Literally, “after putting a covering around him” (cf. Mark 14:65: “some began . . . to cover his face” [kJv]).

c. From the same verb used in 12:10, blasphēmeō (revile, slander, speak with disrespect); cf. also 23:39. The main verb in each sentence in 22:63–65 is cast in the imperfect tense: “were mocking . . . would ask . . . kept saying.”

[63–65] The narrative transition is awkward: the antecedent of the pronoun “him” in v. 63 is ambiguous (see translation note a), perhaps the result of Luke’s transposition of Peter’s denial to precede Jesus’ hearing before the Sanhedrin (rather than follow it, as in Mark 14:53–72). everything else about Luke 22:63–65 is clear, however. The men guarding Jesus mock him and beat him, and their abuse of the prisoner, while it includes all manner of derogatory speech (blasphēmeō, revile [insult or slander], as in 12:10), centers on his reputation as a prophet. The use of the verb blasphēmeō, moreover, hints at the gravity of the verbal abuse, which amounts to speech against God, whose prophet Jesus truly is (cf. Green 789–90). Sporting with him, no doubt to amuse themselves, they cover his eyes, strike him, and taunt him: “Prophesy! Who hit you?” (22:64). For Luke’s audience, the irony is thick since Peter’s denials have just displayed Jesus’ prophetic prowess. The torture session—its string of imperfect-tense verbs indicative of sustained activity—also fills narrative time until morning, when the council will meet to deal with the man being popularly acclaimed as Messiah.

[66–71] Notice of a shift in time and location marks the opening of a new scene at v. 66. It is now day (i.e., the morning of Nisan 15), and the body of elders (presbyterion) of the people, comprising (in Luke’s phrasing) both chief priests and scribes (i.e., experts in law), convene in the Sanhedrin, and Jesus is escorted there.25 I have placed vv. 63–65 with vv. 66–71, not the preceding unit (Green [785–90] and Bovon [4:338–60] treat vv. 54–65 as a unit), because, following a scene centering on the fortunes of Peter (vv. 54–62), the next two scenes highlight the treatment of Jesus, with particular interest in his role and identity in relation to God (as prophet, Messiah, Son of Humanity, and Son of God).

The inquiry pursued by the council is brief and focuses on Jesus’ status and identity. No witnesses are summoned; speaking collectively (“they said,” vv. 67, 71; “they all said,” v. 70), the council seeks damaging self-testimony from Jesus himself. They probe, “If you are the Christ [Messiah], tell us” (v. 67a). He gives an ambiguous reply that, in a manner reminiscent of 20:1–8, withholds a direct answer and at the same time exposes the recalcitrance of his opponents: “If I tell you, you will certainly not believe, and if I ask, you will certainly not answer” (22:67b–68). But Jesus follows with a statement that, while still ambiguous, escalates the confrontation and implies—the claim is transparent to Luke’s readers, for whom Jesus’ identity as Son of Humanity is familiar—his future vindication and exaltation by God: “From now on, though, the Son of Humanity will be seated at the right hand of the power of God” (v. 69). Drawing imagery spliced from Dan 7:13 and Ps 110:1 (the latter already the subject of Jesus’ hermeneutical reflection in Luke 20:41–44), Jesus lays bold claim to divine vindication and a share, beginning even now, in the divine rule.

unlike Mark 14:62, Luke does not have Jesus speak of a future exaltation his council listeners “will see” but of an installation in a position of power “from now on” (Luke 22:69),26 whether Jesus’ examiners realize it or not (“[he] will be” rather than “you will see”). The “power [dynamis] of God,” in which Jesus shares (cf. 22:29) and which has energized his ministry, trumps the “power [exousia]” of the forces of evil (darkness, 22:53), as will become clear on easter day (24:50–51). In the present narrative context of Jesus’ rejection by the leaders of his people, the image conveys both divine vindication and exaltation, which will overrule the human “trial” of Jesus, culminating in the extreme dishonor of crucifixion (for the kerygmatic expression of this reversal pattern, see, e.g., Acts 2:36; 3:13; 4:11; 5:30–31).

In view of the bold, though implicit, claim of Luke 22:69, the follow-up question voiced by the whole council is therefore understandable: “Are you, then, God’s Son?” (v. 70a). Luke separates into two questions the query of Mark 14:61, “Are you the Messiah, the Son of the Blessed One?” (nrsv). The exalted Son of Humanity of Luke 22:69 thus constructs a bridge from Messiah/ Christ (v. 67) to Son of God (v. 70). In Luke’s narrative Jesus is both Messiah and Son of God, but readers know that his status as Son of God, while determinative of his identity (e.g., 1:32, 35; 2:49; 3:22; 4:3, 9; 9:35), is not public knowledge. The image of divine exaltation/enthronement in 22:69, though borrowed from a Psalter text (Ps 110:1) that speaks of the exaltation by the Lord (God) of “my Lord [the king]” rather than the Son of God, may call to mind for council auditors Ps 2 (a text from which Luke will quote in Acts 4:25–26), which draws together the images of the Lord’s anointed (Messiah), kingship over the nations, the divine throne, right hand, and Son of God (esp. Ps 2:2, 4, 6–7). The question posed to Jesus thus fits well both with the Messiah probe and, by inference, with Jesus’ affirmation in Luke 22:69.

25. In Luke’s idiom synedrion, the Sanhedrin, apparently can be either the assembly of Jewish leaders or the place where their council meets (see Acts 4:15; 5:27, 34; 6:12, 15; 23:6, 20, 28; Matera, “Luke 22,66–71” 46 n. 15). This is an unsual usage; ordinarily the word refers to the assembly or council itself, whether convening in Jerusalem or elsewhere (on the Sanhedrin, see further Saldarini, “Sanhedrin”). Occasionally, however, synedrion designates a council chamber or court (e.g., Herodotus, Hist. 8.79.2; Xenophon, Hell. 2.4.23; POxy 717.8).

26. This temporal phrase appears in 1:48; 5:10; 12:52; Acts 18:6.

In 20:22–25 Jesus responded to a question in a way that avoided implicating him as a rebel. Now he refuses to answer the council’s questions (Messiah? Son of God?) in a way that would provide unambiguous evidence against him. Luke 22:70b “throws the implied accusation back on his interrogators,” who “are actually saying it, even if they do not believe it” (Fitzmyer 2:1463; cf. the similar oblique answer to Pilate in 23:3). Despite the ambiguity of Jesus’ reply, the council, acting as one, hear him as giving an affirmative answer, thus obviating any need for other testimony (v. 71).27 The one whom they unanimously reject as Messiah and Son of God,28 thereby realizing Jesus’ prediction in 9:22, is ready to be transferred to Pilate.

Luke’s account of the interrogation of Jesus by the council is compact and sharply focused on questions of Jesus’ identity and relation to God. Important elements of Mark’s account are missing from Luke’s: witnesses who give false testimony (Mark 14:55–59), including allegations of speech against the temple (14:58); an unambiguous “I am” in response to a query about Jesus’ status as Messiah, divine Son (14:61–62); and the high priest’s robe-rending declaration that Jesus is a blasphemer, culminating in consensus judgment against him (14:63–64).29 The inquiry conducted by the temple-based Jewish elite is important in Luke, both for its spotlight on Jesus’ status and identity in relation to God and for its depiction of the leaders’ refusal to believe this about him. Yet Luke’s narrative throws the weight to the judicial process directed by the Roman governor (as, indeed, the formulation in 18:32, “will be handed over to the Gentiles [or nations],” leads readers to expect), embellished with a cameo appearance by the tetrarch Herod Antipas. In those interrogations, the elite Jewish leaders will continue to play an active role as accusers (23:2, 5, 10).

27. Indeed, this is how Brown understands Jesus’ reply: “You yourselves say that I am” ( Death 1:493).

28. “You say I am,” Jesus asserts, but he and Luke’s readers know they do not believe it to be true.

29. The only occurrences of blasphēmeō or a cognate form in Luke’s Passion Narrative are in the narrator’s description of Jesus’ guards in 22:65 and of a mocking criminal in 23:39; antitemple charges are leveled not against Jesus but, in Acts 6:13–14, against Stephen.

23:1–25 Jesus Confronts Roman Governor and Tetrarch

and Receives a Death Sentence

The local elite, convened by the high priest, have found what they consider sufficient cause for handing Jesus over to the Roman governor, their goal all along (20:20). Although the information did not figure in the cursory interrogation of Jesus by the council of elders, which focused on claims relating to messianic status and divine sonship (22:67, 70), accusations against Jesus before Pilate will highlight order-subverting, seditious activities—just the sort of charge that should trouble a prefect responsible for maintaining peace and order in his region. Yet the governor three times asserts Jesus’ innocence (23:4, 14, 22), and not even inquiry by the tetrarch of Galilee, Herod Antipas, produces any basis for action against him, despite further mocking of the prisoner (vv. 8–12, 15). Nevertheless, giving in to relentless demands from the local Jerusalem elite, together with other people assembled for the occasion, Pilate delivers Jesus to be crucified (vv. 24–25).

1 The whole assemblya arose and led [Jesus] to Pilate, 2 and they began to accuse him: “We found this man corrupting our nation and obstructing payment of tribute to Caesar and claiming himself to be Christ—a king!” 3 Pilate asked him, “Are you the king of the Jews?” He said to him in reply, “You say [so].” 4 Then Pilate said to the chief priests and the crowds, “I find in this man no basis [for your charge].” 5 However, they continued pressing insistently: “He is inciting the people as he teaches throughout Judea, beginning from Galilee [and extending] to this place.” 6 When Pilate heard [this], he asked if the man was a Galilean. 7 After determining that he was from Herod’s jurisdiction, [Pilate] sent him on to Herod, who was also himself in Jerusalem at this time.b

8 Now when Herod saw Jesus, he was overjoyed, for he had been wanting to see him for a long time, because he had heard about him and was hoping to see a miraclec performed by him. 9 So [Herod] asked him at great length,d but he did not give him any reply. 10 Then the chief priests and the scribes stood up, vehemently accusing him. 11 Herod, too, along with his soldiers, treated [Jesus] with contempt and, mocking [him], put bright clothing on [him] and sent him back to Pilate. 12 Now Pilate and Herod became friends with each other that very day—for previously their relationship had been marked by enmity.e

13 After convening the chief priests and the rulers and the people, Pilate 14 said to them, “You brought this man to me as one misleading the people, and you see,f I have conducted an examination in your presence and found in this man no basis at all for the charges you are bringing against him. 15 And neither did Herod, for he sent him back to us. You see,f nothing deserving death has been done by him. 16 Therefore, I will have him whippedg and release him.”h

18 However, they continued shouting out all together: “Take this man away and release Barabbas for us.” 19 He had been thrown into prison because of a riot that had occurred in the city, and [the charge of] murder. 20 Once again Pilate called out to them, wanting to release Jesus. 21 But they continued to cry out, “Crucify, crucify him!” 22 For a third time he said to them, “Why? What evil has this man done? I have found no basis for [a] death [sentence] in him. Therefore I will have him whippedg and release him.” 23 With loud voices, however, they kept urgently demanding that he be crucified, and their voices prevailed.

24 So Pilate decided that their demand should be carried out. 25 He released the man they had asked for, who had been thrown into prison because of rioting and murder. Jesus, though, he handed over to their desires.i

a. Literally, “The whole assembly of them [or, their assembly].”

b. Literally, “during [in] these days.” One might also translate: “[Pilate] sent him on to Herod, because [Herod], too, was in Jerusalem at this time” (construing onta as an

adverbial participle).

c. Or “sign,” sēmeion.

d. Literally, “in [with] many words.”

e. Literally, “for they were previously existing [as] being in enmity toward themselves [i.e., each other].”

f. Here, as in v. 14, the phrase “you see” renders the Greek word idou (see! or

behold!).

g. Literally, “having disciplined [educated—here, in the sense of physical punishment] him, I will release him” (similarly in v. 22).

h. Verse 17 (“He would have pressure [necessity] at each festival to release someone

to them” [AT]) does not appear in important early Mss, including ∏75 A B k L, and its

secondary addition is explicable both as the result of harmonization of Luke’s text with

that of Matthew and Mark (cf. Matt 27:15; Mark 15:6) and as a literary “enhancement”

that prepares for the crowd’s demand for the release of Barabbas (Luke 23:18). i. Or “will,” the (collective) singular noun thelēmati.

[1–7] The next, and decisive, stage of the proceedings against Jesus begins with the transfer of Jesus to the Roman governor Pontius Pilate. “The whole assembly [plēthos] of them,” that is, the entire council that has just interrogated Jesus, leads him to Pilate. They lodge a specific, politically charged complaint that is calculated to garner the serious attention of the Roman prefect: Jesus is “corrupting our nation,” an accusation they proceed to elaborate in two further points, as they charge him with opposing payment of the tribute tax to the emperor and with claiming to be the Messiah, a king (vv. 1–2). Their complaint against Jesus is repeated in vv. 5 and 14: he is corrupting our nation (diastrephonta to ethnos hēmōn, v. 2) → stirring up the people (anaseiei ton laon) with his teaching (v. 5) → misleading the people (apostrephonta ton laon, v. 14).30

The repeated core accusation against Jesus, that he is a dangerous teacher who has corrupted the nation (or people), is ironic; Luke’s audience will recall Jesus’ own earlier lament that his whole generation is already corrupted (9:41, using a perfect-tense participle, diestrammenē, of the same verb occurring as a present participle in 23:2). The first amplification of the charge before Pilate picks up the intelligence gathered by spies in 20:20–26, but converts Jesus’ carefully hedged, ambiguous response—one should pay to both Caesar and God what they are owed (20:25)—into an explicit, revolutionary obstruction of payment of the tribute tax to Rome (23:2).

The second amplification raises a charge no less political and seditious: Jesus is a royal pretender. This claim does not dominate the narrative in Luke as it does in Mark (see Mark 15:2, 9, 12, 18, 26, 32), and it, too, distorts the record (nowhere does Jesus make a public claim of this kind, instead speaking regularly of the dominion of God). Yet Jesus has indeed recently been heralded as king in a public display (Luke 19:38) and has spoken of his own royal rule in a private setting (22:29–30). Precisely how Jesus’ royal authority relates to the reign of God and the empire of Rome, and the manner in which his own conception and practice of power subvert fundamental values and practices of the Roman imperial system—these are matters for some reflection on the part of Luke’s audience (see Excursus: The Reign of God and the Roman Empire, at 20:26). The charge as formulated in 23:2, therefore, appears to distort the record but also contains a considerable measure of truth, even if Pilate proceeds to dismiss it abruptly as unfounded, after perfunctory questioning of Jesus: “Are you king of the Jews?” . . . [Jesus replied,] “You say so.”31 . . . [Pilate said to the accusers,] “I find . . . no basis for your charge” (vv. 3–4). Both of these accusations (tax and royal authority) highlight Jesus’ stance as allegedly anti-Roman. The subtlety of the counterimperial empire of God, as the alternative kyrios (Lord) Jesus has advocated it, is lost in translation, but ironically Jesus’ accusers—Jewish local elite who are heavily invested in the Roman system—have articulated the threat his vision poses to Rome in a way that the one holding Roman imperium should immediately perceive but does not.32 They have ears attuned to hear the dangerous potential of the hidden transcript they are seeking to force into public space (see the comment on 20:20–26). Pilate’s exoneration of Jesus, emphasized through repetition (23:4, 14, 22), is striking, particularly in the light of his earlier characterization by Jesus as a brutal ruler not reluctant to resort to bloody reprisal (13:1–2).

30. Green (800) emphasizes that this basic charge amounts to an indictment of Jesus as a false prophet, as described in Deut 13.

31. Jesus’ ambiguous reply to Pilate employs the same rhetorical strategy as in 22:70, but with opposite results. The council has heard Jesus’ reply as “Yes” (22:71), Pilate evidently as “No” (23:4).

Refusing to relent at Pilate’s first declaration of the innocence of Jesus, the chief priests and crowds (the groups Pilate addresses in 23:4), presumably the same large gathering of Sanhedrin members termed a plēthos in v. 1, recapitulate their charge against Jesus: he has been inciting the people in his activity “throughout Judea, . . . from Galilee to this place” (v. 5).33 If Pilate is looking for a convenient way to sidestep the confrontation with the Jerusalem leadership group that appears to be swiftly escalating, the geographical details in their response provide just such an exit strategy. Probing the prisoner’s place of origin, he learns that the man is a Galilean and thus comes from the region over which Herod Antipas has jurisdiction (or authority, exousia); he is therefore pleased to send Jesus to the Herodian ruler (vv. 6–7).34

[8–12] Only Luke among the nt Gospels draws Herod Antipas into the Passion Narrative. (He plays a prominent role in the version in the extracanonical Gospel of Peter.) Antipas, also present in Jerusalem at the occasion of Passover, is “overjoyed” to have the opportunity finally to meet Jesus, having long desired to see him, having heard so much about him, and now hoping also to see an extraordinary “sign,” a miracle (v. 8). Here a narrative plotline whose ambivalence has lent suspenseful intrigue to the story comes to closure. Initial curiosity (9:9) morphed into hostility (13:31, if the Pharisees’ report of Herod’s intent to kill Jesus is taken as credible; see the comment on 13:31–33; cf. Matera, “Luke 23,1–25” 543). And now this climactic scene displays both curiosity, expressed in sign-seeking (23:8), and hostility, expressed in mocking in which Herod indulges along with his soldiers (v. 11, a far cry from the brutality of Antipas’s execution of John the Baptizer [9:9]). His questioning of Jesus is protracted, although the narrator reports none of its content. Yet Jesus remains silent (23:9).35

32. For brief discussion of the literary profile of Pilate in relation to historical sources for Pilate’s tenure as prefect, see the comment on 13:1–5; see further Bond, Pilate; Brown, Death 1:693–705.

33. Luke evidently views Judea as a region that encompasses both Galilee and Jerusalem; see the comment on 4:40–44 and translation note i for 4:31–44.

34. This is the first of three uses of the verb anepempsen, “he sent up [or back],” in 23:7, 11, 15, evidence of Luke’s artistic composition of the unit (Matera, “Luke 23,1–25” 543). Pilate sends Jesus to Herod not because he is obligated to do so but for prudential reasons that remain unstated. Recalling the act of violence that Pilate sanctioned against Galilean pilgrims (13:1–2), and anticipating the notice of a newly kindled friendship between tetrarch and prefect (23:12), readers may interpret the gesture as one of conciliation and respect toward Antipas, in addition to an interest on Pilate’s part in avoiding a complicated situation with the Jerusalem council (see further Matera, “Luke 23,1–25” 543 n. 25; Brown, Death 1:761–68).

Jesus’ antagonists in the proceedings, the chief priests and scribes, appear onstage again to supply the words that Jesus refrains from speaking; they vehemently accuse him once more (Luke 23:10). Actually, no words are reported, but their gist may be easily supplied from vv. 2, 5. The scene ends with mockery, the second occurrence of such abuse of Jesus (cf. 22:63–65). To whatever verbal insults Antipas and his soldiers level at Jesus (the content again remains unspecified), they add the parodic, symbolic-visual honor of clothing him with dazzling apparel, and the Herodian tetrarch then returns Jesus to Pilate (23:11).

In Luke’s sequel volume, the apostolic company, dealing with intense opposition from the Jerusalem elite, will weave into prayer a reflection on the episode in Luke 23, illuminating the roles of Herod (Antipas) and Pontius Pilate in Jesus’ death by engaging intertextually Ps 2:1–2 (Acts 4:25–28). In so doing, however, Acts 4 depicts them as enemies of the Lord’s anointed (Christ), consistent with the psalm’s portrait of “the kings of the earth . . . and the rulers” (represented by Herod Antipas and Pilate, respectively) as adversaries of the Lord and his anointed, thus going beyond their characterization in the Gospel narrative.36 especially in view of the posture of enemy that Acts 4 assigns to Antipas and Pilate in relation to God’s Messiah, the last note in the scene before Antipas adds still more irony to the narrative. The two powerful men, the narrator observes, have heretofore been enemies, but after their encounter with Jesus they become friends (philoi) “that very day” (Luke 23:12). This is the stuff of theater of the absurd, a carnivalesque “representation of established values [here, judicial inquiry and justice, friendship and reconciliation] that undermines established values” (Brawley, Text to Text 43, drawing from Mikhail Bakhtin)—a fitting close to a scene in which the Herodian ruler returns Jesus to the Roman governor in the garb of “carnival king” (53).37 Jesus is again (or still) Pilate’s problem; the governor is not off the hook but will need to reach a judicial decision, and that means once more confronting the temple-based local elite.

35. Matera observes that Luke relocates to this scene details from the exchange between Pilate and Jesus in Mark 15:3–5 (“Luke 23,1–25” 543).

36. The interrogation of Paul by Festus with Agrippa and Bernice, narrated in Acts 26:1–32, resembles the judicial process faced by Jesus: in each case a duo of Roman governor and Herodian ruler determine the prisoner’s innocence, but that does not result in his release—scarcely a ringing endorsement of Roman justice. My interest here is not historical construction of the actual proceedings, or their effects (e.g., the picture of enemies-turned-friends in Luke 23:12), but Luke’s literary presentation and the manner in which Luke’s audience will respond to it and make sense of it.

37. Brawley also identifies Jesus’ replies to the Sanhedrin (22:70) and Pilate (23:3) as carnivalesque; “he is whatever they say” (Text to Text 52–53). I read Luke 23:12 as parody, an odd example of encounter with Jesus generating reconciliation and friendship, but not one that readers will be inclined to view positively as illustrative of the work of deliverance (salvation) in the realm of God (a differing interpretation in Matera, Passion 178; Brown, Death 1:777–78). Brawley is indebted to Bakhtin’s discussion of the carnivalesque in literature in, e.g., Rabelais; for more extensive discussion, see Nadella, Dialogue 88–110.

[13–25] Pilate takes the initiative to summon the complainants, the “chief priests and the rulers [the latter taking the place of scribes],” but he also includes the laos, the people, in the resumed judicial hearing (v. 13). The prefect’s opening remark indicates that the people are present in the capacity of witnesses. The leading priests and their associates in leadership have accused Jesus of “misleading the people,” hence the invitation to the latter group (size unspecified, presumably a representative sample of the Jewish public) to attend as “material witnesses” (v. 14a). So far, Pilate, after his initial (perfunctory) examination of Jesus, has discovered no basis for the charges (v. 14b), nor, he claims, did Antipas (v. 15a; Pilate thus fills for readers the gap left by the narrator in vv. 8–12). The accused has done nothing deserving death—the first clear indication that this is being treated as a capital case (v. 15b). Pilate therefore proposes to have the prisoner beaten and then release him (v. 16)—more carnivalesque theater of the absurd, a subversion of Roman standards of justice being proposed by none other than the Roman arbiter in the case. If Jesus is innocent, why have him beaten (corporal discipline, paideusas)?

The response of Jesus’ detractors is immediate, animated—and unanimous: “Take this man away and release Barabbas for us” (v. 18).38 They shout all together (pamplēthei), the first obvious signal that the people, at least those present, have now come over to the side of Jesus’ adversaries. The narrator identifies Barabbas, but not in a way that explains the request for his release. Imprisoned because of a riot in the city, he has been charged with murder (v. 19). The charge of murder will stick: witness Peter’s recital of the story in Acts 3:14, capitalizing on a Jerusalem audience’s request for release of a murderer (Barabbas) in exchange for the crucifixion of “the Holy and Righteous One” (Jesus); Peter is thereby appealing for Jerusalemites to repent for their participation in the event. The demand to release Barabbas is the counter to Pilate’s declaration of his intent to release Jesus. The verb apolyein (release) appears five times in this scene, focusing the contrast between the two prisoners, whose résumés are so different yet whose fortunes are bound up together (cf. Green 807; Senior, Passion 117–18). One man is guilty of murder in the course of his participation in rioting (stasis), while the other has been charged with seditious activity but is repeatedly deemed by the Roman governor to be innocent, despite the label of “king” that has been attached to him. Pilate three times voices a resolve to release Jesus (Luke 23:16, 20, 22), but the Jerusalem elite, apparently now joined by members of the wider public, insist on the release of Barabbas (v. 18), and eventually Pilate reluctantly releases him (v. 25).

38. unlike Matt 27:15–17, in Luke 23:18 the accusers of Jesus, rather than Pilate himself, introduce Barabbas into the scene; in Mark 15 the narrator first mentions the prisoner Barabbas (v. 17), then the chief priests incite the crowd to press for his release (v. 11).

Reacting to Pilate’s second declaration of his desire to release Jesus (v. 20, this time not in direct discourse but in a narrator’s summary report), “they” (evidently the chief priests, rulers, and people from v. 13) escalate the confrontation, demanding with a double imperative, “Crucify! Crucify!” (v. 21). Pilate refuses to relent, asking what evil Jesus has done and insisting yet again that he finds no reason for a death sentence. For a second time Pilate announces his decision to have Jesus beaten (paideusas) before releasing him (v. 22). Jesus’ opponents, however, refuse to back down and continue to apply pressure on the prefect, shouting even more insistently their demand that Jesus be crucified (v. 23a, reported by the narrator in indirect discourse).

After such a tumultuous and complicated scene, the narrative delivers the outcome of the proceeding concisely and matter-of-factly, but with telling repetition of the key point: “Their voices prevailed. So Pilate decided that their demand should be carried out. He released the man they had asked for, who had been thrown into prison because of rioting and murder. Jesus, though, he handed over [paredōken] to their desires” (vv. 23b–25, emphasis added). The judicial decision is Pilate’s, but for its content he yields to the demanding crowd of Jerusalem elite, now joined by the people. Avoidance of social unrest trumps justice (cf. Green 811), but the scene’s irony is biting. The prefect frees a murderer—the name Barabbas receding behind his alleged crimes as his identity—and delivers the righteous man Jesus to the fate demanded by his adversaries among his own people.

At the decisive moment in the “trial” of Jesus, the general public has allied itself with the Jerusalem leadership group, for reasons that are not explained by the narrator and remain a mystery. The elite leaders of the people appear, finally, to have recruited the people (laos) to their side, though offstage. That we are dealing with a theological construct and not a straightforward historical account becomes even clearer in Acts, when the active participation of the whole people in the move to execute Jesus becomes a crucial feature of the apostolic kerygma, with its call for repentance. The culpability of the populace of Jerusalem and especially their leaders is underscored repeatedly (Acts 2:23, 36; 3:13–15, 17; 4:10–11, 27; 5:30; 10:39; 13:27–28). Just as the parable of the pounds and throne claimant visualizes the clash over royal authority, Jesus’ own citizens reject his kingship (cf. 19:14). This is far from the last word about the people, however; on the way to their role in the book of Acts, they will pivot once again in the very next scene, the crucifixion (see 23:35, 48). The alliance with the Jerusalem elite proves to be fleeting.39

39. On the role of the people in Luke’s Passion Narrative, see further Carroll, “Crucifixion Scene” 108–13; Carroll and Green, Death 194–98; Tyson, Death 37–38; Brown, Death 1:389–90; Weatherly, Jewish Responsibility.

The outcome of the multiple interrogations of Jesus is that he is handed over—paredōken in 23:25 completing a narrative line featuring forms of paradidōmi in 20:20; 22:4, 6, 21, 22, 48; 23:25 (cf. 24:7, 20), and thus fulfilling Jesus’ prediction (9:44; 18:32)—to the desire of the people and their leaders. Israel’s Messiah is repudiated by his nation. And in all of this Satan’s conniving interference is evident (22:3), as well as Judas’s disloyal plotting (22:4, 6; cf. vv. 47–48). Yet at the same time Luke’s audience perceives that this flurry of human—and demonic—desire and activity allied in opposition to God’s Anointed is all subsumed under God’s sovereign will (thelēma, 22:42),40 a theological affirmation that Luke will explicitly present in his narrative sequel, within the setting of the early community’s prayer under duress (Acts 4:27–28).

Pilate’s role now concluded, it remains only to carry out his capital sentence, and for Luke’s audience to process his remarkable performance in this scene. He is perceptive about Jesus, who has been wrongly accused. But is Jesus really innocent and no threat to Rome, when he has advocated and practiced a subversive alternative reign (of God)? Pilate is decisive, reaching a judicial opinion after a one-line exchange with the man in custody (23:3), and then (twice) announcing his intention of having Jesus beaten and released (vv. 16, 22). But then he surrenders his judicial finding to the insistent demands of Jesus’ accusers (vv. 23–25). None of this paints a noble picture of the prefect (cf. Vinson 722). His role is to underscore dramatically, with emphatic repetition, that Jesus does not go to death because he deserves this fate. The one holding Roman imperium knows better. Luke’s audience witnesses a miscarriage of Roman justice that realizes a theological agenda, one that centrally involves the fortunes of God’s people Israel in its response to the prophet-Messiah-righteous servant whom God has sent. A gracious divine visitation to offer peace to Jerusalem (19:42, 44) does not receive a graceful welcome.

23:26–56 The Crucifixion and Its Aftermath

Jesus, with two other men, is escorted to the crucifixion site, along with his own personal crossbearer, but on the way he pauses to address women along the route who are mourning his fate (vv. 26–32). The account of the crucifixion (vv. 33–46) and of an array of responses to it (vv. 47–56) advances several prominent narrative interests: Jesus as Savior and as righteous martyr who, remaining in intimate communion with God, continues to live what he has taught and continues, even from the cross, to offer forgiveness; the relation of the temple to Jesus’ messianic vocation and destiny; the turning of the people toward their eventual repentance; and the persistent presence, though at a distance, of persons close to Jesus.

40. See 18:31; 22:22, 37; 24:27, 44–46; also dei (it is necessary) in 9:22; 13:33; 17:25; 24:26.

23:26–32 The Way to the Cross

The path to execution is crowded with people, including a man conscripted to bear Jesus’ cross and women mourners. Jesus’ voice as prophet, however, dominates the scene. He points beyond this event to a future for Jerusalem that will be marked by intense suffering.

26 As they led [Jesus] away, they laid hold of a man, Simon of Cyrene, who was coming from the field,a and they placed the cross on him, to carry [it] behind Jesus. 27 A large crowd of the people was following him, as well as women who were beating [their chests] and mourning for him. 28 Jesus turned toward them, however, and said, “Daughters of Jerusalem, don’t weep for me; weep instead for yourselves and for your children— 29 because days are coming when people will say, ‘Favored are the infertile, and wombs that have not given birth, and breasts that have not nursed.’ 30 At that time they will begin to say to the mountains, ‘Fall on us!’ And to the hills, ‘Cover us!’ 31 For if they do this when the tree is green, what will happen when it is dry?” 32 And along with him they also led two other criminals [away] to be killed.

a. Or the “countryside” (agros); i.e., the rural environs of Jerusalem.

[26–32] An unspecified “they” lead Jesus out to the place of crucifixion (v. 26). The nearest antecedent available to supply the implied subject of the verb is the “chief priests, rulers, and people” of v. 13, to which the host of personal pronouns (“they” and “their”) in the intervening verses refers. Especially in view of the claim advanced in the speeches in Acts that the people of Jerusalem shared with their leaders collective responsibility for seeking Jesus’ death (Acts 2:23, 36; 3:13–15, 17; 4:10–11, 27; 5:30; 10:39; 13:27–28), it is possible that Luke has crafted the scene to paint precisely that picture.41 On the other hand, close attention to the redactional moves Luke has made to create this scene suggests that the anonymous “they” who lead Jesus to crucifixion are the Roman soldiers, although they remain unmentioned until 23:36–38 (for detailed argument, see Brown, Death 1:855–59). The ambiguity may have resulted from Luke’s transposition of the mocking of Jesus: not Roman soldiers after Pilate’s sentencing (Mark 15:16–20a) but Herodian soldiers in the earlier session before Antipas engage in this humiliation of Jesus (Luke 23:11). Luke picks up the phrase “they led him out” of Mark 15:20b,42 but the verb no longer has the soldiers of Mark 15:16 as its implied subject (see Soards, “Tradition” 226–27).

41. Fitzmyer 2:1496; Carroll, “Crucifixion Scene” 109–10, 196 n. 15; Neyrey, Passion 120; Matera, Passion 181.

42. Though tweaking Mark’s historical-present verb exagousin ([they] lead out), replacing it with the synonymous, aorist-tense apēgagon ([they] led out) that Mark used in 15:16.

Luke’s earliest readers encountered this literary detail without synopsis in hand yet aware that crucifixion was a Roman mode of capital punishment, one they would expect to be carried out by Roman soldiers. The text’s indeterminacy at this point may foster readers’ impression of the “concord of Rome, Jewish leaders, and Jewish people” (Green 814); it will also pique audience curiosity to see how the narrative (or its sequel) develops the role of the Jewish people and their leaders in the death of Jesus. In the immediate aftermath of the crucifixion, already the summary report by two disciples in 24:20 will remove a wider Jewish public from the group that has handed Jesus over to death but still leaves the impression that elite priests and rulers “crucified him.”

A large throng ( plēthos, as in 23:1) of people (laos) and women also “follow” Jesus to the cross (v. 27). Unlike Simon of Cyrene, they have chosen their location and movement, but in each case this spatial representation of discipleship is only symbolic (14:27 names as a condition of discipleship that one “carry [one’s] own cross and come after me”; cf. 9:23). Where are the apostles and other disciples? Although not mentioned here, they did not flee from the arrest (22:47–53; unlike Mark 14:50–52), and they must be present among the persons observing (“all those known to him”) from a distance (Luke 23:49). Their future role as witnesses to Jesus (24:48; Acts 1:8, 21–22; 5:32; 10:41; 13:31) depends on their presence now. Nevertheless it is not the Simon who has pledged to accompany Jesus to prison and death (i.e., Peter, 22:33) but an otherwise unknown Simon from the North African coastal city of Cyrene who carries Jesus’ cross behind him—specifically, the horizontal crossbeam to which Jesus’ extended arms will be bound or nailed at the execution site (and then lifted with the vertical beam after his legs have been affixed to it; see Green 810). His direction of movement (from outside the city) separates him from the proceedings against Jesus (Green 814–15).

Crucifixion was a mode of capital punishment applied by the Romans almost exclusively to slaves, bandits, and rebels, or in waging war.43 The crucified were typically left suspended on the cross to be derided by soldiers and passersby and, after death by asphyxiation, to be consumed by carrion birds. It was a particularly brutal mode of execution and entailed humiliating public spectacle— all calculated to maximize deterrent effect: this is the outcome of resistance to Roman authority! Like the other nt Gospels, Luke dwells on none of the gruesome details; the restrained, matter-of-fact description should not, however, conceal from a contemporary reader what Luke’s first audiences surely knew.

43. Chapman, Ancient 44; Hengel, Crucifixion 46–63. For a description of the crucifixion of thousands of people in connection with the siege of Jerusalem during the Jewish War of 66–70 C.E., see Josephus, J.W. 5.11.1.

Jesus turns to face the women who are following along and, beating their chests, wailing. He admonishes them to cease their weeping (the imperative “Don’t cry [weep]” also appears in 7:13; 8:52), or rather to redirect it from him to themselves and their children (23:28). He explains: “Days are coming” when suffering will be so intense that people will consider fortunate women who have never given birth, never nourished an infant, and never will (v. 29). The phrase “days are coming” anticipates a coming period of adversity, as in 5:35; 17:22; 19:43; 21:6 (cf. 21:22; see the comment on 17:22–37 at v. 22). The address to the mourning women as “daughters of Jerusalem,” representative of residents of the city (e.g., Mic 4:8; Zeph 3:14; Zech 9:9; cf. Green 815), casts the prophetic oracle as another preview of the coming destruction of Jerusalem and its temple, the consequence of the city’s refusal of the divine visitation and of the prophet-Messiah-servant of God (13:34–35; 19:41–44; 21:20–24). The future suffering of Jerusalem will far surpass that of Jesus in this moment. Imagery drawn from Hos 10:8 (though inverting the sequence) elaborates: conditions will be so terrible that people will call out to the mountains to fall on them and the hills to cover them, whether as ironic shelter or preemptive deliverance through death from an even worse fate (Luke 23:30).

A proverbial saying adds a clinching explanation that despite its enigmatic character clearly links the future (mis)fortune of Jerusalem to that of Jesus in the present: “For if they do this when the tree [such as the one on which Jesus will be suspended] is green [hence less combustible], what will happen when it is dry? [Firestorm!]” (v. 31). Jesus’ haunting rhetorical question exposing what is at stake in the events now unfolding clears the path for his own death. Joining him in crucifixion are two other men, bona fide criminals (kakourgoi, evildoers). Rather than persevering apostles, they will be “with him” (cf. the “with me” and “with you” of 22:28, 33, though with the preposition meta, not syn as in 23:32).

23:33–46 The Scene at the Cross

The one who would be “numbered with lawbreakers” (22:37) finds himself on a cross with evildoers on either side (23:33, 39), but despite scathing ridicule from the powerful—“rulers” (v. 35) and soldiers (vv. 36–37)—the scene offers a vivid display of a righteous man facing death with equanimity, courage, and integrity. Although he will ultimately be a “saved Savior” (Neyrey, Passion 129–55), Jesus faithfully lives out a vocation that will bring him no deliverance from death, while also continuing on the cross the work of saving the lost, which has been the focus of his mission (19:10; cf. 5:32; 15:1–32). He asks for mercy for his enemies who are killing him (23:34), and he promises a merciful future to one of the criminals killed beside him (vv. 39–43). Moreover, his intimate, prayerful connection to God remains unbroken in his worst hour (vv. 34, 46). No wonder the centurion in charge will be moved to praise God and trumpet Jesus’ innocence as a righteous man (v. 47). Ironically, therefore, the capital charge inscribed on the wood above Jesus, “The king of the Jews,” speaks the truth about him, although Luke’s audience by now recognizes how strange and countercultural a royal authority he possesses.

33 When they came to the place that was called “Skull,” they crucified [Jesus] there, as well as the criminals, one on his right and one on his left. 34 Jesus, though, was saying, “Father, forgive them, for they don’t know what they are doing.”a And they cast lots so as to divide his clothes.

35 The people stood, looking on. The rulers, though, were also ridiculing him: “He saved others; let him save himself if this man is God’s Christ, the Chosen One.” 36 The soldiers, too, came up and mocked him, offering him sour wine 37 and saying, “If you are the king of the Jews, save yourself.” 38 There was an inscription above him: “The king of the Jews.”

39 Now one of the criminals who had been hanged [on crosses] began to revile him: “Aren’t you the Christ? Save yourself—and us!” 40 The other, however, chastizing him in reply, said, “Don’t you even fear God? After all,b you are under the same judgment— 41 and rightly so, in our case. For we are receiving what we deserve for the things we did. But this man did nothing wrong.”c 42 And he continued, “Jesus, remember me when you come into your rule as king.” 43 [Jesus] said to him, “Today, I assure you, you will be with me in Paradise.”d

44 It was already about the sixth hour,e and darkness fell upon the whole land until the ninth hour, 45 because the [light of the] sun failed. Moreover, the temple curtain was torn in the middle. 46 Then Jesus, calling out with a loud voice, said, “Father, into your hands I entrust my spirit,” and when he had said this, he died.f

a. Verse 34a does not appear in important early Mss, among them ∏75 א^1 [first correcting hand] B D* [original hand] W Θ. Jesus’ petition for divine forgiveness for the people responsible for killing him is present, however, in most Mss, including א* [original hand] C D^2 [second correcting hand] L Ψ. The textual tradition obviously reflects considerable uncertainty about the authenticity of this contested prayer of the dying Jesus. See further the comment below.

b. Or “because,” hoti.

c. Or “out of place,” atopon.

d. The “today” (sēmeron) appears in emphatic first position in its clause (cf. 4:21;

19:9). The expression “I assure you” might also be rendered “Truly, I tell you [ amēn soi legō].”

e. That is, about noon; darkness extended until three o’clock in the afternoon.

f. Literally, “breathed out [his life, his spirit],” i.e., “expired.”

[33–38] The narrator reports the act of Jesus’ crucifixion without fanfare, in three words, simply “They crucified him there [ekei estaurōsan auton].” More space is given to the place of execution, the “Skull” (without the Aramaic term Golgotha, translated as “the place of a skull” in Mark 15:22)—perhaps so named as a hill overlooking the city that resembled the shape of a human skull, or as the well-known site for executions—and to Jesus’ associates in death, a criminal on his left and one on his right (v. 33). Their character, in contrast to Jesus’ character as a just man, is emphasized by repetition throughout the account (vv. 32, 33, 39, 41, 47).

As one would expect, derisive speech will quickly follow the hoisting of the crosses, but as Luke’s readers would also expect, the first word belongs to Jesus. In prayer to his Father, he asks for forgiveness for them, “for they don’t know what they are doing” (v. 34a)—that is, in putting him to death, they are rejecting the prophet-Messiah-righteous servant whom God has sent. Although v. 34a is missing in several manuscripts (see translation note a), a compelling case has been made for its authenticity (so, e.g., Brown, Death 2:975–81; Senior, Passion 128–29; Green, Death of Jesus 91–92; Crump, Intercessor 79–85; Culpepper 455; Bovon 4:461–62). It provides the template for Stephen’s later petition for mercy for those about to make him a martyr (Acts 7:60) and also anticipates, in an early speech in Acts, the motif of ignorance attributed to those responsible for putting Jesus to death (Acts 3:17; see also 13:27). And the prayer’s appeal for clemency for the persons who killed Jesus, when understood to include Jewish leaders and people (the textual indeterminacy of the “they” in Luke 23:26 notwithstanding), was troubling for some early copyists who, in a period when vigorous anti-Judaism was common, would have been motivated to remove it. Perhaps most telling, the petition is completely in character for Jesus, who has advocated love of enemies (6:27, 35) and practiced forgiveness and restoration of the sinful throughout his ministry (5:20, 24, 32; 7:34, 47–50; 11:4; 15:1–32; 17:3–4). Jesus faces martyrdom with integrity, staying on message and living it out to his dying breath (cf. 23:43, 46).

The tone set by gracious words from Jesus does not carry through, however, as the narrative moves forward. “They” (still unspecified, as the soldiers carrying out the execution receive explicit mention only in v. 36) cast lots for his clothing (v. 34b)—is this the dazzling robe with which Herod fitted him (v. 11)? The image is borrowed from the psalm of the righteous sufferer that was so formative in early Christian interpretation of the death of Jesus, Ps 22 (for this line, see v. 18 [21:19 lxx).44 It is an element of the disgracing of the crucified man, who is suspended naked (a detail the narrator leaves unstated) on the cross.

44. Unlike Mark 15:34 (and Matt 27:46), Luke does not have Jesus pray the first lines of Ps 22, which voice distress at the experience of abandonment by God. In Luke’s account of the crucifixion, Jesus does not experience God as distant (23:34, 46). The righteous sufferer’s solace and vindication, of which the psalmist confidently goes on to speak (e.g., Pss 22:22–31; 31:19–24), is enacted in the ensuing narrative (the resurrection and exaltation of Jesus in Luke 24), but the intertextual appeal for that vindication has worked instead with Dan 7:13 and Ps 110:1 (see Luke 22:69).

The parting of the ways between people ( laos) and leaders (archontes, rulers), probably including the chief priests, with whom the rulers were last paired in 23:13 (cf. 24:20), begins now. Once drawn to Jesus’ teaching like a magnet, and thus an obstacle to the leaders’ wishes to act against Jesus (19:47–48; 21:38; 22:2), the people only briefly—though at the decisive moment, before Pilate (23:13–25)—allied themselves with the rulers. They stand near Jesus’ cross, observing, apparently speechless (v. 35a).45 Before the day is over, the crowds who have watched will be moved to gestures signaling regret and remorse (Luke 23:48).

The rulers do more than observe, however, as they begin the chorus of insult: “He saved others; let him save himself, if this man is God’s Christ, the Chosen One” (v. 35b). Misperceptions of Jesus’ role(s) as divinely sent agent have appeared before. Simon the Pharisee, for example, assumed that if Jesus were a prophet, he would refuse touch by a sinful woman (7:39). Now the leaders of the Jewish people assume that if Jesus were truly the Messiah they heard him affirm himself to be (22:67–71; 23:2), the basis for accusation to the Romans and now for execution, he would possess and exert the power to save himself. They do not realize what Luke’s readers will remember, that saving and preserving of life are not what they appear to be (9:24).

On cue, soldiers step forward and join in the mockery. With the offer of sour wine (echoing Ps 69:21), far from responding in compassion to an anguished man’s thirst, they insult a royal pretender with cheap wine (again, carnivalesque theater of the absurd).46 Along with the gesture, the soldiers repeat the ridicule from Jewish rulers, though borrowing the cross’s inscription (v. 38) to translate the title Christ (Messiah) into one with which they would be more familiar (and one more intelligible to pagans): “If you are the king of the Jews, save yourself” (v. 37).

There is a great deal here to forgive, but Jesus has framed it all in advance as the result of ignorance. On the basis of this appraisal, Luke, in his narrative sequel, will have Peter, himself a prime candidate for mercy and reformation, construct an appeal for repentance and a place in the renewed people of God (see esp. Acts 3:12–26; cf. 13:27).

[39–43] Ridicule of Jesus as a powerless Messiah spills over (or extends upward) to one of the crosses next to him. As in Mark 15:32 (also Matt 27:44), a man being crucified alongside Jesus insults him, but only Luke provides the content of the “blasphemy” (eblasphēmei): “Aren’t you the Christ? Save yourself—and us” (23:39). With the refrain “Save yourself [or himself],” the scorn echoes that voiced by rulers and soldiers (vv. 35, 37); however, the man on the cross aptly embellishes the refrain out of an interest in self-preservation (“Save us, too!”). In a remarkable twist that is unique to Luke’s narrative, the third man being crucified comes to Jesus’ defense with a three-verse response (two addressed to the mocking criminal, one to Jesus) that represents by far the longest reported speech of anyone in the scene (vv. 40–42). He begins by acknowledging that the two of them are getting exactly what they deserve as guilty men (whatever their crimes, which Luke does not indicate; they are bandits, lēstai, in Mark 15:27; Matt 27:44; cf. Luke 22:52). He adds his assessment of Jesus, which chimes with Pilate’s judgment: “This man did nothing wrong” (Luke 23:41b). A guilty man recognizes one who is not.

45. This is in stark contrast to the profile of the public spectators in Mark 15:29, where people passing by join everyone else in heaping insults upon Jesus (echoing Ps 21:8 lxx [22:7e]).

46. See the comment on 23:8–12; cf. Green 821; Brawley, Text to Text 54; Brown, Death 2:997.

The man then addresses Jesus, also speaking in a way that expresses selfinterest: “Jesus, remember me when you come into your rule as king” (v. 42). Jesus has been derided by the soldiers as a “king of the Jews” (v. 37) divested of office, authority, and life. He is a king rejected by those for whom he would rule within the dominion of God (23:2; cf. 19:14), the placard over his head ironically revealing his royal status even as it publicly displays the basis for his death sentence (23:38). Jesus’ basileia (royal realm) now finds its first willing subject, the shouts of 19:38 having swiftly faded. “When you reign as king,” one man pleads—the plea implies an affirmation of Jesus’ kingship and of its death-transcending capacity—“remember me.” The reply promises more than the penitent evildoer has requested: “Today, I assure you, you will be with me in Paradise” (v. 43). This is not the first “today” in Luke’s story that has opened up access to salvation (cf. sēmeron [today] in 2:11; 4:21; 19:9), here pictured as a place in Jesus’ company in Paradise, the realm-beyond-death for the righteous, the eschatological garden where the promise of the initial creation can be realized.47

While the criminal speaks of a future basileia, Jesus removes the temporal restrictions, even as he previously declared the present operation of God’s reign in his activity (see 11:20; 17:20–21; 22:29). Beyond the death of Jesus, God’s realm will come in its fullness (see 11:2; 13:29; 21:31; 22:30), but it is already reshaping and redefining human social reality “today.” Case in point: the restoration of a self-confessed evildoer on the verge of death on a cross, brutal instrument of Roman justice and Roman imperial domination. The mission of the Son of Humanity to seek and save the lost, to forgive and restore the sinful, continues even from his own cross, emblem of a counterempire, an alternative system of power and social relations.

[44–46] events of cosmic scale and import now intrude. Darkness descends on the whole land (or possibly the entire earth, holēn tēn gēn) for three hours (roughly noon until 3:00 p.m.), owing to the sun’s failing (eklipontos; vv. 44–45a). This is an evocative symbol of eschatological, divine judgment in prophetic literature (e.g., Amos 8:9; Joel 2:30–31; Zeph 1:15) and also reminiscent of the portents attending the deaths of other figures (e.g., solar eclipses in connection with the death of Julius Caesar, according to Pliny, Nat. 2.30; see Brown, Death 2:1043). The hour controlled by the “power of darkness” (i.e., evil, 22:53) has yielded to three hours that exhibit the divine, judging presence even amid the darkness (cf. Green 824–25).

47. Paradise ( paradeisos), a word derived from Persian, has the sense in Greek of a garden or park (e.g., Xenophon, Anab. 1.2.7; 2.4.14; Gen 2:8 and 13:10 lxx), and acquires the eschatological meaning of a place of good fortune and delight for the righteous (T. Levi 18.10–11; Pss. Sol. 14.3; 1 En. 17–19; 60.8; 61.12), appearing also in 2 Cor 12:4 and Rev 2:7. See Fitzmyer 2:1510–11.

An accompanying sign reinforces the impression that God’s decisive judgment is coming into play, the tearing of the temple curtain (Luke 23:45b), one of the curtains of the sanctuary (naos), not the larger temple complex (hieron).48 The passive-voice verb “was torn” implies divine agency in the portent, even if the directional detail “from above” in Mark 15:38 (AT) is missing in Luke. The meaning of the curtain’s rending is ambiguous (stressed by Johnson 379) and therefore, unsurprisingly, contested. Does this signify divine judgment, whether in that moment or in prospect, on a temple that no longer faithfully performs its intended purpose, as Jesus himself has apparently claimed in 19:45–46 (cf. the opinion registered by Stephen, distancing divine presence from the temple, in Acts 7:47–50)?49 Yet Jesus has proceeded to make the temple courts his classroom (Luke 19:47–21:38), even as many years earlier he felt it necessary to venture there to engage the “things of [his] Father” (2:49). And after easter his followers will continue to gather there to worship and to teach (24:53; Acts 2:46–47). Is the rending of the curtain, then, a positive sign, implying the opening up of access to the divine presence for all people?50 After all, the apostles will spearhead a mission to all peoples, beginning from Jerusalem (Luke 24:47; Acts 1:8).

In view of Jesus’ earlier emphatic critique of the temple system (19:45–46 but also 21:1–4) and his prediction of its future destruction (21:5–6), and also the pairing in the crucifixion scene of the temple-curtain portent and the judgment-darkness accompanying the “day of the Lord,” Luke’s readers would likely process the rending of the curtain as symbol of the divine judgment on temple and city that would eventually come. That judgment is bound up with the negative response of city and temple system to the Messiah Jesus when, impelled by the divine necessity of his prophetic vocation, he came to the place where prophets experience rejection and death (13:33).

48. It is unclear whether the curtain is located at the entrance to the sanctuary, or to the Holy of Holies within it. Josephus describes several temple veils in J.W. 5.5.4–5; see Fitzmyer 2:1518.

49. Argued with varying nuances by, e.g., Brown, Death 2:1102–6; and Green 825–26 (the temple’s role as means of salvation is now superseded). Culpepper merges the symbolization of judgment (divine vindication of Jesus’ judgment on the temple) and the symbolization of access to God’s presence (now open to all), both showing divine validation of Jesus’ cleansing of the temple (460–61).

50. So, e.g., Sylva, “Temple Curtain.” He interprets Luke’s crucifixion scene as the final moment in Jesus’ communion with the God who is present in the temple (243, 250).

Luke has structured the narrative so that both cosmic signs of judgment— not only the darkness but also the rending of the temple curtain—precede the death of Jesus (the latter follows the death in Mark 15:38). In Luke’s rendition, only human responses, and positive responses at that, are narrated after Jesus dies. In keeping with Luke’s characterization of Jesus throughout the narrative, his dying breath is a prayer, and one that draws from Scripture: “Father, into your hands I entrust my spirit” (23:46, quoting Ps 31:5 [30:6 lxx). The spirit (pneuma) that Jesus now returns to God bears dual meaning here. It is his life-sustaining breath, hence his dying is described simply as an exhaling (exepneusen). But it is also his spirit, which has received empowerment and commissioning to prophetic-messianic vocation from the divine Spirit (Luke 3:22; 4:1, 14, 18). Jesus dies as he has lived, connected to God through prayer, fully entrusting his life and his future to the One he knows as Father. To the extent that Luke is here presenting, for readers’ enlightenment and inspiration, a model for dying (even for a martyr’s dying witness; cf. Stephen in Acts 7:59–60) as also for living, this final image of Jesus on the cross is powerfully formative. Moreover, as he commits his spirit to God, Jesus is also entrusting to God the future of his Spirit-empowered, Spirit-directed, Spirit-authorized mission. Now he must leave that work to others. According to Luke, God will honor the dying prayer of Jesus, as the mission inaugurated on Pentecost will show (Acts 2).

23:47–56 Responses to the Death of Jesus

Luke displays an array of responses to the death of Jesus. A Roman centurion honors God and affirms Jesus’ innocence (v. 47). The people (“all the crowds”), assembled to view a spectacle, leave shaken and remorseful (v. 48). Meanwhile Jesus’ own circle of friends and supporters (“all those known to him”) observe from a safe distance (v. 49). Then a member of the elite steps forward to ask for Jesus’ body and gives him the dignity in death of an honorable burial. Only now does the narrator reveal that the ruling council’s decision was not unanimous (vv. 50–54). And women supporters of Jesus prepare to complete the rites of burial when the Sabbath has ended (vv. 55–56).

47 Now when the centurion saw what had happened, he began to praise God:a “This man really was just.” 48 Moreover, when all the crowds that had come together for this spectacle saw what had happened, they returned, beating their chests. 49 But all those known to [Jesus] stood at a distance—as did the women who had together followed him from Galilee—so as to see these things.

50 A man was thereb by the name of Joseph, a member of the council

who was also a good and just man. 51 (He had not agreed with the [council’s] decision and action.) He was from Arimathea, a city of the Jews, and was ready to welcome the reign of God. 52 This man went to Pilate and requested the body of Jesus, 53 and when he had taken it down, he wrapped it in a linen cloth and laid him in a tomb that had [already] been cut, where no one had yet been laid. 54 It was the day of preparation, and the Sabbath was dawning.

55 The women who had accompanied [Jesus] from Galilee, having followed [Joseph of Arimathea], saw the tomb and how his body had been laid. 56 When they had returned, they prepared spices and perfumes, and they rested that Sabbath day according to the commandment.

a. Literally, “he began to praise [glorify] God, saying.” That is, by Luke’s customary technique for introducing direct discourse, the participle legōn here should be read as pleonastic (redundant) and the following quotation expresses the content of the centurion’s praise of God, rather than giving an affirmation about Jesus in addition to the words of glory addressed to God. I have translated edoxazen as an inceptive imperfect, “he began to praise”; an alternative rendering would be “he was praising.”

b. In Greek, the attention-focusing particle idou, “See!” “Behold!”

[47–49] The Roman governor, who was responsible for giving the execution order, has repeatedly asserted Jesus’ innocence (23:4, 14–15, 22). Now Rome’s soldier-in-charge at the crucifixion, an unnamed centurion, having seen despite and through the darkness “what had happened,” lends his endorsement to that appraisal of Jesus’ character: “This man really was just [or righteous, dikaios]” (v. 49). The public vindication of the suffering righteous one (as in Ps 22) begins from the moment of his death, in a Gentile soldier’s affirmation of God’s glory (edoxazen ton theon),51 praise of God attuned to recognition of Jesus’ honorable character (dikaios, righteous [just]).52 So this centurion takes his place in a line of impressive, God-honoring centurions in Luke’s two volumes (see esp. 7:1–10; Acts 10:1–48).

Next Luke’s audience tracks the movement and body language of “all the crowds” that have gathered to view the crucifixion (Luke 23:48). The motif of visual perception becomes increasingly prominent as the narrator depicts responses to Jesus’ death. The centurion “saw,” and praise of God coheres with recognition of the truth about Jesus’ character. The crowds have come for a spectacle (something to view, theōria), and when they “saw [theōrēsantes] what had happened,” they returned (to the city), “beating their chests.” This strongly emotive physical gesture, the same as that displayed by the parabolic, mercy-seeking tax collector in 18:13, suggests that the Jewish public, momentarily diverted from their attraction to Jesus and his message into an alliance with the powerful elite among them, are now experiencing regret after watching Jesus die. Their returning (hypestrepson), therefore, while not already the restorative return of repentance (epistrephein as, e.g., prophesied for Peter in 22:32), is spatial representation of movement in that direction. Peter and his apostle colleagues will appeal for the next step in the mission speeches of Acts.53

51. Typically spoken in response to a miracle of healing in Luke, as in 5:25–26; 7:16; 13:13; 17:15; 18:43; see also 2:20.

52. Luke’s dikaios (23:47) replaces “God’s son” in the centurion’s acclamation, whether sincere or ironically sarcastic, in Mark 15:39 (AT).

Standing at a distance “to see these things” are “all those known [ gnōstoi] to [Jesus] . . . [and] women who had together followed him from Galilee” (23:49). The disciples and apostles must be present in this company, but only the women—described in discipleship language (lit., followed-with [synakolouthousai] him)—are singled out, preparing for the role some of them will play in 23:55–24:10.54 The safe, at-a-distance visual witness of the apostles, implied by 23:49 (makrothen, from a distance; used also of Peter in 22:54), will, by way of their experience of the risen Jesus (ch. 24; Acts 1:1–11) and the empowerment of the Holy Spirit (Acts 2), be transformed into bold speaking witness to their Lord, crucified and risen.

[50–56] The narrator now springs a surprise on readers with the intervention of a member of the elite council at Jerusalem, Joseph from Arimathea (apparently a city of Judea for which the precise location is uncertain; see Fitzmyer 2:1526). This is an unexpected development within the story world of this narrative; the tradition before Luke, of course, is well acquainted with Joseph’s action (Mark 15:42–46). On the heels of the council’s interrogation of Jesus (Luke 22:66–71) and its members’ role in the ensuing narrative (23:2–5, 10, 13, 18, 21, 23, 35), v. 50 presents “an astounding incongruity” (Green 829). Only now do readers discover that the “unanimous” judgment of the council (see 22:70–23:1) was actually not unanimous. Joseph, member of council, was a “good and just man”—dikaios, just like Jesus (23:47, 50)—and his character was in evidence in his dissent from the “decision [or purpose, boulē] and action” of the council convened by the high priest.

With this retrospective glimpse of disagreement within the council in responding to Jesus, the narrative reveals that the division between leaders and people, and between rulers and the band of Jesus, is more complicated than the preceding account has intimated. Moreover, Joseph is also “ready to welcome the reign of God,” which is to say, open to precisely the message and activity of Jesus (v. 51). Thus, although Luke does not further develop his virtuous character by portraying him as a disciple of Jesus, this member of the Jerusalem elite does belong to a larger company of Jewish people who have been expecting God’s saving initiative in Israel’s history (2:25, 38; 3:15; 7:19–20). So it is that a prominent Jewish leader boldly steps forward to request the body of Jesus from Pilate and, after dressing him in linen clothing, bestows on the crucified man the dignity and honor of burial (unusual for victims of crucifixion), indeed burial in a tomb not yet used (vv. 52–53). Swift action is required, the temporal notice in v. 54 shows, as it is the day of preparation for the Sabbath and the Sabbath is about to begin. This mention of Sabbath, repeated in v. 56 and 24:1, underscores the fidelity to Jewish custom and Mosaic law of the circle of persons seeking to honor Jesus after his death.

53. Acts 3:19 merges the synonyms for repent, metanoeō and epistrephō. Acts 2:38; 5:31; and 17:30 favor metanoeō or its cognate noun metanoia.

54. Bovon, on the basis of 2:44, which distinguishes between relatives and acquaintances, holds that the gnōstoi in 23:49 do not include Jesus’ kin (4:495). This is possible but far from certain.

Following ( katakolouthēsasai) so as to see (once more, visual perception) the tomb where Jesus’ body is laid to rest and the condition of the body (“how [it] was laid”) are “women who had accompanied [synelēlythuiai] him from Galilee” (v. 55), presumably from the larger group of women mentioned in v. 49; the narrator delays naming them until 24:10. The absence of a direct object for the participle katakolouthēsasai creates ambiguity; readers may infer that by tracing the steps of Joseph, they are actually (still) following Jesus (cf. v. 49). They turn back, however, to prepare fragrant burial spices (arōmata) and perfumes (myra, as in 7:38) for the body and to keep the Sabbath. Aptly, in a narrative that begins on the note of faithful Torah observance (1:6; 2:22), the last word of the Passion Narrative is one of fidelity to the Torah’s command (23:56). But it will not be the last word of the story. When the women return to the tomb after the Sabbath is over, they will encounter another surprise, though one that Luke’s audience is expecting (9:22; 18:33; cf. 22:69). Their presence at the site of Jesus’ burial ensures the continuity—and therefore the trustworthiness and credibility—in the witness of and to the resurrection of Jesus. The burial scene provides the hinge between the accounts of Jesus’ death and resurrection.

Luke 24:1–53 The Resurrection of the Messiah

Jerusalem and environs provide the spatial setting for a dramatic reversal that answers rejection of Jesus by the powerful elite at Jerusalem. Coming with divine affirmation and exaltation, this reversal begins the rehabilitation of the disciples for their future mission to the nations. The Jerusalem focus completes, together with 1:8–23; 2:41–50, a frame around the entire narrative, in contrast to the Galilee orientation of Mark (14:28; 16:7; cf. Matt 28:10, 16).

The easter narrative—all the events in Luke 24 occur on the Sunday after Jesus’ death^1—continues or brings closure to several important motifs in Luke’s story. These include (1) the disciples’ misperception and lack of understanding, which (2) is overcome by Jesus’ interpreting Scripture in the light of the (apparently disconfirming) events of the passion, and interpreting those events in the light of the Scriptures; (3) revelation-bearing hospitality at table; and (4) the inauguration of a Scripture-mandated mission to the nations, (5) continuing Jesus’ activity of granting forgiveness and enabling reordered lives. Scripture provides the warrant and mandate, and Jesus’ own ministry of word and action provides the model and content for that world mission.

The concluding chapter of the Gospel thus brings closure to the narrative of Jesus’ life and ministry, not least by making sense—via a fresh reading of Scripture through the lens of the passion—of his messianic vocation culminating in suffering and death. even more prominently, in a way that is unique among the nt Gospels, the easter story in Luke prepares for the continuation of the story in a narrative sequel (Acts). As the Gospel closes, significant narrative threads and expectations remain unrealized, especially (1) the full rehabilitation and Spiritempowerment of the apostles, including the restoring of the full complement of the Twelve; (2) the response of Jewish people and leaders to their witness; (3) their mission to the nations and the opening up of God’s realm to Gentiles; and beyond the Acts narrative, also (4) the fall of Jerusalem and the temple’s destruction and (5) the eschatological return of Jesus.

1. Following the Greco-Roman reckoning of time, in which evening concludes the day rather than beginning the next day, as in Jewish temporal figuring (see vanTilborg and Counet, Appearances 31–32); the narrator provides specific time markers in 24:1, 13, 29, 33 that locate the events narrated on the same day, the “third day” of Jesus’ prophecy (9:22; 18:33; see Dillon, Eye-Witnesses 181); specific time indicators are lacking, however, in vv. 50–53.

In tandem with Acts 1, then, Luke 24 builds a bridge from the mission of Jesus to that of the disciple-witnesses, which will extend the work of Jesus—as with Jesus’ ministry, under the direction and empowerment of the Spirit—to the farthest reaches of the earth (cf. Green 832). This momentous transition begins with the return of women disciples to the tomb, to complete the burial rites that will honor their deceased Lord.

24:1–12 The Easter Witness of Women Disciples

Luke 24 chronicles the transformation of Jesus’ followers as, in fits and starts, they are led from uncomprehending discouragement to perceptive faith. The journey to Easter faith, however, is difficult. The project begins at the tomb with faithful women followers from Galilee who have observed Jesus’ burial and then return after the Sabbath to perform funerary rites to honor him. After unexpectedly encountering two men in dazzling attire who invoke the memory of Jesus’ teaching about death and resurrection, they report their experience without delay to the apostles, who prove to be resistant hearers.

1 On the first day after the Sabbath, very early in the morning, [the women] came to the tomb, carrying the spices they had prepared. 2 They found the stone rolled away from the tomb, 3 and when they went in, they did not find the body.a 4 While they were perplexed about this, two men in brilliant clothing were there, standing near them.b 5And as they were terrified and bowing their faces to the ground, [the men] said to them, “Why are you looking for one who is alive among the dead? 6 c Remember the way he spoke to you when he was still in Galilee: 7 ‘The Son of Humanity must be handed over into the hands of sinful humans, and crucified, and on the third day rise.’” 8 And they did remember his words.

9 When they had returned from the tomb, they reported all these things to the eleven and to all the rest. 10 Now Mary Magdalene, Joanna, Mary [the mother] of James, and the rest of the women with them were telling this to the apostles, 11 yet in their view these words seemed to be utter nonsense, so they would not believe the women. [12 Peter, however, got up and ran to the tomb, and when he looked in he sawd only the cloths. So he went away, marveling to himself at what had happened.]e

a. Many textual witnesses add “of the Lord Jesus.” The honorific title “Lord” ( kyrios) is omitted in a few Mss (e.g., 579 1241), and the phrase “of the Lord Jesus” does not appear in some Western witnesses (Codex Bezae [D] and a group of Old Latin Mss [it]) and is the form of the text adopted here by nrsv. This is the first of a set of textual variations in Luke 24 in which Codex Bezae atypically contains a shorter text (see the discussion of “Western non-interpolations” in translation note e on 22:14–38; cf. Parsons, Departure 29–52; M. Martin, “Non-interpolations”). Parsons, arguing for the shorter, Western text in 24:3, 6, 12, 36, 40, 51, 52, contends that the Bodmer papyrus (∏75) has expanded the text to enhance its christological presentation (Departure 44–50). M. Martin refines the argument, attributing the entire set of “Western Non-interpolations” in Luke 24, as well as 22:19b–20 (and Matt 27:49b), to a scribe who in these instances was expanding the text to oppose not docetic but “separationist” notions that the divine spirit in Jesus departed from him before his death (cf. Irenaeus, Haer. 1.30.12–13). In this instance, the interpolation emphasizes that it is the Lord whose body lay in the tomb (and has now been raised), not a Jesus bereft of his status as Lord and Son of God. Still, the Lukan narrator has frequently referred to Jesus as Lord (kyrios; see translation note a on 7:18–35), and the phrase “Lord Jesus” recurs in Acts (1:21; 4:33; 8:16), so the christological understanding presupposed by the longer text of Luke 24:3 is congruent with what one finds elsewhere in the narrative.

b. Literally (Septuagintal idiom), “And it came to pass, while they were perplexed about this, behold, two men stood near them. . . .”

c. Most Mss begin v. 6 with the sentence “He is not here but has been raised up” (AT). This clause is missing in some Western witnesses (D it). Copyists may have inserted it under the inspiration of Matt 28:6, though substituting the adversative conjunction alla (but) for Matthew’s gar (for); cf. Mark 16:6. See further the comment on v. 6 and n. 2 below.

d. This verb appears in the (historical) present tense, lending immediacy and vividness to the narration—“he sees [blepei]”—although the combination with an aorist participle (“when he looked in”) is unusual; this syntactical pattern does occur, however, in 11:45; 13:8; 16:23; 17:37; Acts 19:35 (see Neirynck, “Once More” 326).

e. Verse 12, present in ∏75, is lacking in D it. This is another in the series of Western text readings that Parsons prefers instead of the Bodmer Ms’s expansion (Departure 29–52; also ehrman, Orthodox 212–17); for defense of the longer text, see Dillon, EyeWitnesses 59–62; Fitzmyer 2:1542; Bovon 4:531–32; Neirynck, “Once More” (the latter responding to Dauer, “Authentizität”). See further the comment on vv. 9–12 below.

[1–8] The same as-yet-unnamed women who observed Joseph’s placing of the body of the crucified Jesus in an unused tomb return there early in the morning after the Sabbath has ended (v. 1), to complete the rites of mourning and burial that began with the wailing laments en route to the place of the Skull (23:27; see vanTilborg and Counet, Appearances 154). The narrator withholds the names of the women until they have discharged their task of proclamation (24:10). Arriving at the tomb with aromatic spices for the body, they make two unanticipated and perplexing discoveries: they “found [heuron]” the stone covering the tomb entrance rolled away (v. 2), and then “did not find [heuron]” the body on which to place their perfumes (v. 3). On cue, at their confusion (aporeisthai) two men appear in brilliant white clothing (v. 4), reminiscent of the two men who appeared “in glory” with Jesus at the transfiguration, discussing with him—in the immediate aftermath of Jesus’ first passion-and-resurrection prediction (9:22)—the departure (exodos) he would fulfill in Jerusalem (9:30– 31). The verbal linkage intimates that this anticipated exodos, or the “days for his being taken up,” as the narrator puts it in 9:51, is now underway (though not completed until 24:50–53; see Parsons, Departure 90). It also prepares for the summons to remember in 24:6.

The women visitors to the tomb are terrified by the unexpected appearance of these two men and fall prostrate to the ground (v. 5), evidently responding to them as heavenly messengers (called a “vision of angels” in the Emmaus disciples’ summary, v. 23; cf. the description of angels as men in Acts 1:10; 10:3, 30). The two men double Mark’s solitary “young man” (16:5) and Matthew’s singular “angel” (28:2, 5), thereby strengthening the credibility of their witness (cf. Deut 19:15) but also forging a tight link to Luke 9:30–31 and its two men (Moses and elijah). Bypassing any words of assurance (such as those provided in Mark 16:6; Matt 28:5), the men immediately commence the women’s reeducation with a query that implies the need for corrected perception: “Why are you looking for one who is alive among the dead?” (Luke 24:5b). God is, after all, God of the living (20:38). Then follows a rekindling of forgotten or suppressed memory: “Remember the way he spoke to you when he was still in Galilee: ‘The Son of Humanity must be handed over into the hands of sinful humans, and crucified, and on the third day rise’” (24:6b–7). In a chapter that with emphatic repetition interprets the events of Jesus’ passion and resurrection as fulfillment of scriptural prophecy and expectation (24:25–27, 44–46), the first note of fulfillment is struck with appeal to Jesus’ own prophetic announcement (v. 6; the two, Scripture and Jesus’ word, merge in v. 44).2

The phrasing is not identical to any of Jesus’ passion predictions but does draw from 9:44 (“Son of Humanity . . . handed over into human hands”) and 9:22 (“Son of Humanity must [dei] . . . be raised [though with egerthēnai rather than anastēnai; cf.anastēsetai, “he will rise,”in 18:33] on the third day”). Both these sayings come from the end of the Galilean ministry. The men at the tomb enrich the memory with two new details: the human hands belong to “sinners,” and the death suffered was by crucifixion. Recently narrated events thus color and make more precise the prophecy being remembered, but in a manner that corroborates rather than calls into question the prophetic foresight of Jesus. This is typical Lukan style of narration, liberally employing repetition but with variation in detail that sustains audience interest (on the device of repetitionwith-variation, see Cadbury, “Four Features” 88–97; Dillon, Eye-Witnesses 38 n. 110).

2. On the role played by prophecy (or promise) and fulfillment in Luke 24, capping its use throughout the narrative, see Schubert, “Structure”; Johnson 390–91, 405–6; Talbert, “Promise”; Parsons, Departure 83–91. If present in the earliest text, v. 6a (“He is not here but has been raised up”), which enjoys strong, early attestation (e.g., P75 א A B C3), would add concrete demonstration of the fulfillment of Jesus’ prediction that the two men bid the women to recall. If it is a secondary expansion influenced by Mark 16:6 or Matt 28:6 (though one well established in the textual tradition by the mid-second century), the emphasis falls not on the (implied) demonstration of fulfillment but on the prophetic word of Jesus while “still in Galilee.” See translation note c on 24:1–12.

In a brief notice to conclude the empty tomb scene—actually, it is far from empty, with the flurry of activity there; the only thing missing is the body of the one who is not dead but living—the narrator relates that the women did remember the words of Jesus (v. 8).

[9–12] Rekindled memories prompt journey (“they . . . returned”) and then speech, undertaken at their own initiative (contrast the directive in Mark 16:7; Matt 28:7): “They reported all these things to the Eleven and to all the rest” (Luke 24:9). This first mention of “the Eleven” (cf. v. 33) paints into the story of the regathering community of Jesus’ followers the permanent loss-by-defection of Judas Iscariot, a recognition left implicit here but later made explicit in the narrative sequel and interpreted with the aid of Scripture (Acts 1:16–20, drawing from Pss 69:28; 109:8).

Only now does the narrator identify the women who have been diverted from funerary rites to proclamation. Balancing the eleven and a wider circle of “all the rest” are “Mary Magdalene, Joanna, Mary [the mother] of James,” and a wider circle of “the rest of the women with them” (Luke 24:10).3 In tandem with the message of the men at the tomb (“when he was still in Galilee”), the mention of Mary Magdalene and Joanna recalls the Galilean phase of Jesus’ activity (cf. also the repeated notice of the women followers’ rootedness in Galilee in 23:49, 55), reinforcing the connection in Luke 24 between promise remembered and its fulfillment enacted. Mary Magdalene and Joanna were among the women who received from Jesus the benefaction of healing and reciprocated by funding his itinerant group’s travels (8:2–3); Susanna’s place in that (also partial) listing is assumed in 24:10 by Mary, James’s mother. Their report to the Eleven-with-others concerning “all these things” is now summarized (again, narrative redundancy with variation) as their saying “this” to only “the apostles.” However, when v. 13 opens the next scene with reference to “two of them,” who turn out to be Cleopas and an unnamed companion (v. 18), it becomes clear that the reduction in the women’s audience from the elevenwith-others (v. 9) to “the apostles” (v. 10) does not remove a wider circle of disciples from the scene (cf. Johnson 392).

The effect of the phrasing employed by the narrator is to focus on the unbelieving response of the apostolic leaders of the group: “In their view these words seemed to be utter nonsense, so they would not believe the women” (v. 11). The imperfect-tense verb ēpistoun (“they would not believe”) suggests an ongoing refusal to believe the women (the feminine plural autais [them] is the dative-case object of the verb), and the basis for incredulity is the (male) apostles’ condescending assessment of the women’s words as lēros (“utter nonsense”).4 easter faith does not emerge immediately or easily in Luke’s account but must overcome formidable obstacles, no less for the apostles than for others. Whether the women believe the message they have now conveyed to the rest of the group is a textual indeterminacy left to readers’ sense-making appraisal, but it is clear that the men have a long way to go. Not memory alone, even of Jesus’ prophetic words now plainly fulfilled this very day, but a fresh interpretation of Scripture viewed through the lens of recent events, and of recent events viewed through the lens of Scripture, together with renewed experience of Jesus’ presence—all these will be necessary to elicit perceptive faith in his followers and to equip them for the mission to the nations that is their prophetic vocation and destiny (see further Dillon, Eye-Witnesses).

3. Mary is conventionally understood to be the mother (lit., “the one”) of James, but could be his wife or daughter (cf. Mark 15:40 [“of James the younger,” nrsv]; 16:1; see Fitzmyer 2:1546–47).

In most of the textual tradition, before “two of them” leave Jerusalem (v. 13), Peter responds to the women’s report from the tomb in a manner less negative than that of the rest of the band (v. 12). Racing to the tomb, he sees there “only the cloths,” then leaves “marveling [thaumazōn] to himself at what had happened.” The presence of this verse is textually uncertain, despite its strong attestation, since it is lacking in Codex Bezae and some Old Latin witnesses (see translation note e on 24:1–12). For readers whose copy of the Gospel includes v. 12, Peter’s attempt to verify the women’s story, dismissed out of hand by apostolic colleagues, leaves him still shy of belief. Nevertheless, his amazement (“marveling,” thaumazōn), typical observer response to remarkable events or speech (e.g., 2:18; 4:22; 8:25; 11:38; 20:26; see Green 840), does suggest an openness to the further experience that will generate faith. Thus 24:12 anticipates the resurrection appearance “to Simon” mentioned in v. 34, without having been narrated. It also prepares for the reprise by emmaus disciples of a tale-verification trip to the tomb by “some of the group with us” (not just Peter) in v. 24.

In my judgment, however, the earliest version of the Gospel did not include v. 12; it disrupts the narrative transition from the incredulity of the apostolic band (v. 11) to the departure of “two of them” (i.e., of the Eleven and the rest, as in v. 9) from Jerusalem (v. 13). Moreover, while it does contain some indicators of Lukan phrasing,5 it also presents stylistic features atypical of Luke.6 It is plausible that a précis of the Johannine account of the footrace to the tomb by Peter and the beloved disciple (20:3–10), though omitting the latter character, made its way into the Lukan textual tradition as an early second-century expansion to prepare for the notice in v. 24 (“Some of us went to the tomb”) and also to enhance Peter’s role in the account; yet in light of the private appearance Peter is granted (v. 34), he needs no further legitimation. It is more likely that the verse was interpolated than that it was deliberately removed because of its ambiguous representation of Peter, or from other, less transparent motives, although certainty is not attainable. With or without Peter’s trip to the tomb, the first scene of the Easter narrative builds reader suspense. Jesus’ prophetic prediction encompassing both the suffering of rejection and death and the divine vindication of resurrection “on the third day” has been fulfilled, but will his intimate followers and loyal apostles come to perceive it so?

4. If the male auditors’ refusal to take the women’s report seriously is the product, at least in part, of gender bias (cf. 1 Tim 2:11–12; 2 Tim 3:6, e.g.), and not solely the result of the extraordinary character of their claims, the narrative’s final chapter highlights even more emphatically, through the retrospective rereading of Luke 1:39–56 that it invites, the narrator’s extraordinary rhetorical strategy of entrusting core prophetic testimony to two women at the outset of the narrative—esp. one that aims to deliver secure, trustworthy (asphaleia) teaching (1:4).

5. Thus, e.g., to gegonos (what had happened) appears eight times in Luke–Acts; see M. Martin, “Non-interpolations” 280; Dauer, “Authentizität” 300.

24:13–35 Revelation on the Journey to Emmaus

At the center of Luke 24, and dominating Luke’s easter narrative, is a lengthy account, found only in Luke, of two disciples’ encounter with the risen Jesus on a journey to emmaus. The passage sews together important narrative threads as it recapitulates the events of the Jerusalem ministry and passion, relates them to the hope of a people’s (and city’s) liberation, and through interpretation of Scripture and solidarity at table brings followers of Jesus from lack of sight and insight to deepened perception. even in the recent hope-shattering events, they come to see the fulfillment of God’s purposes for the Messiah and his people. Luke thus tells the story of the postcrucifixion community gathered around Jesus as it discovers the resources to deal with the “cognitive dissonance between their experience and their convictions” (Johnson 399).

13 On that same day, two of them were going to a village called emmaus, which was seven milesa from Jerusalem. 14 They were talking with each other about all these things that had occurred. 15 It so happened, while they were talking and debating, that Jesus himself approached and began to walk along with them— 16 their eyes, though, were kept from recognizing him. 17 He said to them, “What are these words that you are tossing back and forth as you walk?” And they stood, [looking] gloomy. 18 In reply, [the] one named Cleopas said to him, “Are you the only one staying in Jerusalem who does not know what has happened there these last few days?”b 19 He said to them, “What sorts of things?” They said to him, “The things having to do with Jesus the Nazarene, who was a prophet powerful in act and word before God and all the people: 20 how the chief priests and our rulers handed him over to a judgment of death and crucified him. 21 Yet we had been hopingc that he was the one who was about to liberate Israel. Still more: beyond all this, it is the third day since these things happened. 22 But also this: some women from our group astonished us—after being at the tomb early in the morning 23 and not finding his body, they came saying they’d even seen a vision of angels, who claimed that he was alive. 24 And some of the group with us went to the tomb and discovered [it] just as the women had said, but they did not see him.”

6. In 24:7, e.g., the pleonastic adverbial participle anastas (got up) after rather than before the noun it modifies (only here in Luke–Acts; see Ehrman, Orthodox 213); the pairing of a historical present verb and an aorist participle, parakypsas blepei (lit., “stooped and looked in and sees”), phrasing identical to that in John 20:5. This is likely an import from John into the developing Lukan textual tradition, although Matson (In Dialogue 189–207, 223) and Shellard (New Light 254–57) appeal to this verse as evidence of Luke’s knowledge of John’s Gospel.

25 [Jesus] said to them, “O [people] foolish and slow in heart to believe everything the prophets spoke. 26 Wasn’t it necessary that the Christ suffer these things and [then] enter his glory?” 27 Beginning with Moses and all the prophets, he interpreted for them the things about him in all the Scriptures.

28 They approached the village to which they were traveling, and he gave indication that he was going to travel farther. 29 They urged him, though, saying, “Stay with us, because it’s nearly evening, and the day is already almost over.” So he went in to stay with them. 30 When he reclined at table with them, it so happened that he took bread and blessed [it], and when he had broken it, he began to give it to them, 31 and their eyes were opened, and they recognized him. And he vanished from them. 32 They said to each other, “Weren’t our hearts burning within us as he spoke to us on the road, as he opened up the Scriptures for us?” 33 So they got up that very hour and returned to Jerusalem. They found the eleven assembled, and the others with them, 34 [who were] saying, “The Lord has really been raised up, and he has appeared to Simon!” 35 Then they described what had happened on the road, and how he had become known to them in the breaking of the bread.

a. In Greek, sixty stadia, each being just under two hundred meters in length, hence about 11.5 kilometers (see BDAG 940).

b. Literally, “Do you alone reside [live, live as a visitor] in Jerusalem and not know the things that have happened within it in these days?”

c. Reading the imperfect tense ēlpizomen (“we had been [were] hoping”), with A B* [original hand] D and the majority of texts, although some Mss have the perfect tense (“we have come to hope [i.e., we still do],” in ∏75) or the present tense (“we [still possess] hope,” inא Δ Θ). The imperfect tense is to be preferred as the more difficult reading, with its implication that the two disciples no longer hold the hope they once possessed, due to the evidently disconfirming events of the Passion Narrative.

[13–27] Jesus, no longer dead but living (v. 5), does not leave the disciples, both women and men, in disarray, confusion, and disbelief (also wonder, if v. 12 is read in[to] the story). In the first of two dramatic appearances to his followers (vv. 13–33, 36–51), not to mention an apparently decisive one to Simon Peter that Luke does not narrate (v. 34), the risen Lord rejoins his followers long enough to resume his teaching role, feast with them again at table, and interpret the recent, hope-deflating events in the light of the Jewish Scriptures. Thereby he restores their faith (cf. 18:8; 22:32) and prepares them for the further empowerment that will enable them to convert their transformed understanding into a world mission (in Acts).

The architecture of the story displays Luke’s literary artistry. A concentric structure opens and closes with travel away from Jerusalem and the apostolic company (24:13–14) and the return there to rejoin them (vv. 33–35). Closed eyes that are prevented from recognizing Jesus (vv. 15–16) are later opened to discern his presence (vv. 31–32). Verbal exchanges between Jesus and the emmaus disciples, in word on the road and then in gesture and word at table in emmaus, occur in vv. 17–19a and 28–30. At the center of the account stands a lengthy dialogue in which the disciple pair recite the recent events (vv. 19b–24) and Jesus responds by assigning the events new meaning, interpreting them through the Jewish Scriptures (vv. 25–27).7 While this concentric pattern highlights the dialogue at the heart of the story, the narrative also moves forward from initial lack of perception to a climax of recognition and understanding, by way of the combination of teaching and meal that supplies the instrument of transformation.

The narrative strategy pursues an intriguing indirection: having highlighted the apostles’ resistance to belief (v. 11), the narrator presents Jesus as first turning the tide of resistant perception not with the eleven but with an otherwise unknown Cleopas (though cf. the similar name Clopas in John 19:25) and his nameless companion (vv. 13–33). Only later does the story address the circumstance of the Eleven (vv. 36–49, 50–53)—and then, in the first instance, by springing on readers the surprise of a reported encounter with the chief apostle that was not narrated (v. 34).

On the same day (Sunday) as the events related in vv. 1–12, two disciples from the group gathered around the apostles (v.9) travel toward emmaus, “away from” Jerusalem (v. 13). Emmaus was a small village about a dozen kilometers from Jerusalem, according to Luke. Its precise location remains uncertain (see Fitzmyer 2:1561–62; Just, Ongoing Feast 51; Bovon 4:555– 57), but what matters in Luke’s story is that the village is near Jerusalem (vv. 13, 33; cf. Green 844 n. 12), so that the walk there and back can be completed in the same day, but also that it is not Jerusalem. The spatial movement away from Jerusalem bears symbolic meaning: the disciples’ hopes, pinned on Jesus the liberator, have been crushed (v. 21). As in the center of Jesus’ ministry (9:51–19:27), he teaches the disciples as he travels with them, but it will not be until they share a meal with their guest-turned-host that they will realize Jesus himself has been accompanying them. Luke thus narrates an artful reversal-and-recognition scene that builds audience suspense as characters come to transformed perception that permits recognition of identity previously undetected. The literary pattern, classically presented in Homer’s Odyssey in the story of the heroic Odysseus’s return home (16.172–212) and commended as a dramatic technique by Aristotle (Poet. 11.20–30; cf. Vinson 745–46), would itself kindle recognition (of genre) on the part of the Lukan audience.

7. Compare the sketch of an “inverted parallelism” in Green 842, and the simpler structuring in Bovon 4:549–51.

The emmaus-bound travelers are engaged in sustained conversation (the nuance conveyed by the imperfect-tense verb hōmiloun [were talking]) about all the recent events (v. 14), including not only the arrest and crucifixion of Jesus but also the perplexing easter-morning developments (as vv. 22–24 indicate). In the course of their conversation—the narrator’s reinforcement of homilein with syzētein (debating) may hint at a spirited exchange of differing opinions—Jesus approaches and begins to accompany them (v. 15). The narrator immediately clarifies, however, that he is incognito: “Their eyes . . . were kept from recognizing him” (v. 16), the first of a set of passive-voice verbs in which readers may discern God’s agency in the activities of concealment and disclosure alike (also vv. 31, 35).8 Not until Jesus, the apparent stranger-guest detained from a journey by an offer of hospitality, hosts a meal and breaks bread, will the emmaus disciples have their eyes opened to recognize him (v. 31). And not until Jesus has “opened” the Scriptures (vv. 32, 45) will the disciples be able to make sense of the crucifixion and resurrection, and through new insight into the meaning of those events come to understand the Scriptures. The construction of easter faith is a divine project, one that must overcome human incapacity to perceive.

Jesus inquires about the subject under discussion in what he has observed to be a vigorous exchange (antiballete, “[words] you are tossing back and forth,” v. 17). Stopping, the two disciples strike a disheartened, downcast pose (v. 17b) before calling their mood into speech (vv. 18–24). Cleopas—his name delayed until now (and his identity otherwise unknown in early Christian literature)9—is the one to reply, and he does so in a way that exposes him as a victim of humorous, dramatic irony: “Are you the only one staying in Jerusalem who does not know what has happened there these last few days?” (v. 18). This character does not know who is speaking to him and will soon show himself to lack understanding more comprehensively, yet addresses Jesus as if only he, assumed to be an outsider staying (paroikeis) in Jerusalem, lacks knowledge of the topic under discussion. The entire scene, though, builds toward the disclosure of understanding that only Jesus, the “uninformed stranger,” can provide.10

8. See Dillon, Eye-Witnesses 104–5, 146; Heil, Meal Scenes 200, 209; and note the comment on 9:43b–45 above.

When Jesus, to all appearances playing the part of uninformed outsider, asks the two disciples what sorts of things Cleopas is referring to (v. 19a), “they” respond with a detailed recital of Jesus’ prophetic ministry, its violent end in Jerusalem, and its mysterious aftermath. The one they were convinced was the sign-attested prophet sent by God (v. 19; cf. 7:16) to bring liberation (the release of redemption, lytrousthai) to Israel (v. 21; cf. 1:68; 2:38 [in Anna’s witness, Jerusalem as synecdoche for Israel as a whole]) has been condemned to death and crucified by “the chief priests and our rulers” (v. 20; cf. their role in 23:13–25). The emmaus disciples articulate the massive cognitive dissonance generated by the crucifixion of Jesus; their hopes connected with Jesus as divine agent of deliverance have been shown to be baseless. These shattered hopes have not been restored even by the astonishing report of women from the group, confirmed by other group members (v. 24), that the tomb is empty, that a “vision of angels” delivered the message that he was alive (vv. 22–23). Thus the last word in their summary of events is that “they did not see him” (v. 24), resuming the theme of visual perception as metaphor for understanding (see the comments on 11:29–36 and 18:35–43): no body seen, no presence of Jesus, and therefore no restored hope, no easter faith.

In response to the disheartened disciple duo, Jesus begins by stating the obvious: they lack understanding (they are anoētoi, “foolish”), and their hearts^11 are slow to believe—to place confidence in (pisteuein)—“everything the prophets spoke” (v. 25). Jesus, in his role as interpreter of the Jewish Scriptures, begins to forge connections between Scripture and his own vocation and destiny, a hermeneutical activity that will expand in scope until the whole sweep of Scripture is seen to illumine Jesus’ mission, and vice versa: “everything the prophets spoke” (v. 25) → “Moses and all the prophets” and “all the Scriptures” (v. 27) → everything written “about me” in Moses, the prophets, and Psalter (v. 44). Without mentioning any specific passages, Jesus focuses the message that the prophets, in concert with Moses (i.e., the Torah, or Pentateuch), deliver, insofar as they speak “about him” (v. 27): “Wasn’t it necessary that the Christ suffer these things and [then] enter his glory?” (v. 26). These texts do not offer self-evident connections to Jesus’ role and ministry, for he must interpret (diermēneuein) them in such a way that the connections can be discerned and hidden meanings opened up (dianoigein, vv. 32, 45) so as to be seen and understood (v. 45).

9. Cleopas is an abbreviated form of the Greek name Cleopatros. Any in Luke’s audience inclined to play with sounds of the Greek language’s vocalization may find instructive entertainment in the name: pas (rather than patros, “of the father”), one of Luke’s favorite words, means “all” or “every,” hinting that Cleopas, just like his anonymous companion, is a representative disciple (cf. Theophilus, “beloved [or friend, or lover] of God,” in 1:3). Cleo- (in Greek kleo) falls on the ear in a way suggesting two words that bear significant meaning in this narrative setting: klaō (“break”; cf. the bread-breaking, klasis, that opens Cleopas’s eyes in 24:30–31) and kleiō (“shut [barring entrance],” the condition of Cleopas’s eyes and therefore mind that the risen Lord must counter as he “opens” the Scripture, vv. 32, 45). This note is not intended to explain the derivation of Cleopas’s name but to suggest a playful response to the name that may “open up” to a pun-minded listener as the story unfolds.

10. On the dramatic irony here, see, e.g., Dillon, Eye-Witnesses 111; Green 845; Tannehill, Narrative Unity 1:282; Nolland 3:1202; Gillman, “Emmaus” 179.

11. Here, kardia (heart) in both cognitive and affective dimensions, as the locus of thinking, attitude, and life-orienting commitment (Green 848).

In v. 26 the compact crystallization of the Mosaic and prophetic insight into Jesus’ vocation reframes Jesus’ earlier passion-and-resurrection predictions, repeated with some variation by the men at the tomb (v.7). He now inflects his role as Son of Humanity, speaking plainly of himself as “the Messiah [Christ]” (ho christos; cf. the injunction to silence in 9:20–21), and with the single word pathein (suffer) summing up his experience of rejection and death-by-crucifixion. Similarly the phrase “enter his glory” (anticipated in the transfiguration account at 9:32 and, with eschatological reference, in 9:26) in one image captures the narrative complex in Luke 24–Acts 2 of resurrection, ascension, and exaltation. The divine answer to the human (and demonic) powers’ repudiation of the Messiah is a vindication that restores honor (doxa in its nuance of repute) but also Jesus’ authority as one who shares in the splendor of God’s royal sovereignty (cf. the seat at the right hand of God, with all enemies vanquished, in 20:42–43).

Jesus’ articulation of the focal message of Scripture about himself does not directly address the emmaus disciples’ shattered hopes for the deliverance of Israel (24:21). Yet the glorious vindication of the Messiah carries implications for the fortunes and future of the Messiah’s people.12 In the chapter’s final Scripture-interpreting exercise Jesus adds a Scripture-mandated world mission bearing the opportunity for repentance and the gift of forgiveness (release, aphesis, in v. 47). In light of Jesus’ teaching ministry in the temple (19:45–21:38) and the ensuing events of the passion (chs. 22–23), the meaning of hope of Israel’s (cf. 2:38, Jerusalem’s) liberation has, to be sure, undergone significant revision. Not rescue from enemies (1:71, 74), visualized as an end to Roman occupation, but deliverance into the dominion of God, which passes through the devastation of Jerusalem and temple by Roman armies (19:41–44; 21:20–24); this is a liberation that centers on the life-preserving release of forgiveness, within a community whose social practices of inclusion, hospitality, and healing will continue the commitments of Jesus (as narrated in the early chapters in Acts). Jesus is indeed the liberator, though not in the fashion expected.

12. Similarly, in Acts the framing of Paul’s affirmation of the “hope of Israel” in terms of the resurrection of Jesus (Acts 23:6; 26:6–8; cf. 28:20) does not reduce the corporate hope for a people to just the individual resurrection of Jesus, as 15:14–18 shows.

The Jerusalem that the emmaus disciples left behind was a place bereft of Jesus’ presence and therefore, after the crucifixion, bereft of hope. The Jerusalem to which they will return at nightfall, however, is the site of renewed connection to Jesus (Luke 24:34, 36–49), the place where his followers will receive “power from on high” (v. 49), the launching pad for a liberating mission that will extend to the ends of the earth (v. 47; Acts 1:8; cf. Parsons, Departure 106). The long-anticipated salvation of the people, though now separable from the particular destiny of Jerusalem and its temple, for which devastation awaits, is not a dream forfeited after all, but a promise—reinterpreted—that is fulfilled and still in process of fulfillment, as the Gospel narrative leaves the audience poised for the mission to bear repentance and forgiveness that will commence in Jerusalem in Acts 2 (cf. Luke 24:47).

[28–35 ] But Jesus’ Scripture-opening teaching session on the road does not take the emmaus disciples that far, or not yet. Much will become clear, in retrospect, but as the village of emmaus appears just ahead with evening’s approach, the disciple duo still do not know who is accompanying them. Not until they offer the traveling stranger the hospitality of lodging and a shared meal and experience the presence of the risen Lord at table, in the familiar role of bread-breaking host, will they come to perceive.

The unknown fellow traveler prepares to part from Cleopas and his companion as they reach their destination (v. 28), a narrative detail that does at least two things: it builds suspense as Luke’s audience wonders if these disciples will recognize Jesus, and it also forces the duo into the role of hosts extending hospitality to Jesus, whom the disciples have experienced during his ministry as the host (9:10–17; 22:14–38).13 urged by the two disciples to “stay with us,” Jesus does so (24:29). The meal scene, however, immediately inverts the roles of hospitality-providing host and guest (Robinson, “Emmaus” 486; Green 849; Heil, Meal Scenes 208). In gesture and accompanying word—“He took bread and blessed [it], and when he had broken it, he began to give it to them” (v. 30)—Jesus the guest-become-host resumes his customary practice during his ministry:

13. He is also meal guest of Pharisees in 7:36–50; 11:37–54; and 14:1–24; of Levi in 5:27–39; and of Zacchaeus in 19:1–10.

[The Twelve] had everyone sit down [ kateklinan]. Taking [labōn] the five loaves [artous] and two fish, [Jesus] looked up toward heaven and blessed [eulogēsen] them and broke [kateklasen] them into pieces, and he began to give [edidou] them to the disciples. (9:15–16)

He reclined at table [ anepesen]. . . . And when he had taken bread [labōn arton], he offered thanks [eucharistēsas] and broke [eklasen] [it] and gave [edōken] to them. (22:14, 19)

When he reclined at table [ kataklithēnai] with them, it so happened that he took bread [labōn ton arton] and blessed [eulogēsen] [it], and when he had broken [klasas] it, he began to give [epedidou] it to them. (24:30)

Their memories activated by Jesus’ reenactment of his meal practice, Cleopas and his codisciple now recognize Jesus. The passive-verb formulation “[their eyes] were opened” thus merges divine agency (theological passive) and its mediation through the hospitality of Jesus (24:31a). Inability to recognize Jesus (v. 16) yields to recognition (forms of epiginōskein in vv. 16, 31).

The easter presence of Jesus is elusive, however; as soon as his presence is known, he is gone, no longer visible (aphantos) to the disciples (v. 31b).14 Ironically, the disciple duo, though they can no longer see Jesus, now have eyes wide open: they know. Retrospective insight permits recall of the intense emotional experience of the journey, when, as they now realize, Jesus was “opening” the Scriptures to them. under the hermeneutical tutelage of the not-yet-recognized teacher, untrusting hearts (v. 25)—disheartened (v. 17) and devoid of hope (v. 21)—had become “hearts ablaze” (v. 32). New understanding of Scripture in terms of the passion and resurrection events, and new understanding of these events in terms of Scripture— could only emerge, however, through renewed experience of the presence (albeit elusive) of Jesus. Thus the emmaus meal is a proleptic anticipation of the bread-breaking meals of the community in Acts (programmatically, e.g., in the narrative summary of Acts 2:46) and of the eschatological banquet also to be hosted by Jesus (Luke 22:30).15

Without delay revelation and recognition lead them to return (to Jerusalem), and the Emmaus disciples find (heuron, as in 24:2, 3, 24; cf. v. 23) the eleven^16 assembled—and everyone else “with them,” strong images of communal solidarity and cohesion (v. 33). As expected, the two returning disciples report their encounter with the risen Jesus, via a compact narrator’s summary of its two movements in indirect discourse: “what had happened on the road” (i.e., the hermeneutical instruction) and the recognition of Jesus “in the breaking of the bread” (v. 35). Unexpectedly, however, the narrator delays this report until after the returning disciples have heard the apostles say “The Lord has really [ontōs] been raised up” (v. 34a). How do they know? What has taken them from confusion and distrusting incredulity to easter faith? evidently the catalyst of transformation was an individual appearance to Simon (Peter; v. 34b; cf. Mark 16:7; 1 Cor 15:5), one that Luke did not previously relate (whether or not v. 12 belongs in the narrative). The risen Lord, who has appeared to Cleopas and his companion, only to disappear from the table, has been encountering others as well.

14. “The unrecognised appearance becomes a recognised disappearance” (vanTilborg and Counet, Appearances 84).

15. Just argues that Emmaus is already the first meal after Jesus has assumed his kingship (Ongoing Feast 232–33; similarly, Robinson, “Emmaus” 486), but in my view the meal anticipates the eschatological feasting in the future realm of God (cf. also 13:29).

16. As in 24:9, here v. 33 acknowledges Judas’s defection and prepares for Acts 1:15–26.

The narrative strategy of indirection, which answered the apostles’ resistant faith by moving first to obscure disciples outside the circle of the apostles and away from Jerusalem, is now reversed. At the farewell meal Jesus spoke of his fervent prayer on behalf of Peter and his perseverance in faith (22:32; the use of the name Simon in 24:34 recalls Jesus’ poignant double address “Simon, Simon” in 22:31), and his knowing gaze at Peter in the denial scene triggered both memory and remorse (22:61–62).Now Jesus has beyond the grave continued an intimate, personal connection to Peter that will enable him to turn back and strengthen the rest of the group (22:32). If the cohesion of the ensemble gathered in 24:33 is any indication, that project of restoration and strengthening has already begun.

Despite the effective closure given a scene that possesses such dramatic power and artistry, Luke will once more (in vv. 36–49) repeat the pattern of divine activity, expressed through Jesus’ revelatory presence and teaching, in overcoming obstacles to the disciples’ understanding and secure faith.17 Faced with this redundant scene, Luke’s audience will be alert to hear any variations on the now-familiar theme of disciple resistance and lack of perceptive faith yielding to Jesus’ presence and interpretation of Scripture. The narrator will not disappoint.

24:36–53 A Final Easter Appearance: Jesus Teaches from Scripture and Gives a Preview of the Disciples’ Mission to the World

A concluding scene in two parts brings closure to the Gospel narrative, even as it prepares for future developments beyond the story. First, Jesus interrupts conversation at a gathering of his followers (vv. 33–35) and ushers them, one more time, from fear and doubt toward confident, perceptive faith, informed by a rereading of recent events in the light of Scripture and of Scripture in the light of recent events, and previewing their future role (vv. 36–49). Then, finally accomplishing the exodos (departure) to which 9:31 has pointed, Jesus leads his disciples out and parts from them. Returning full circle to the narrative’s beginning, the Gospel ends in the setting of the temple, on a note of continual worship and praise of God (vv. 50–53).

17. A point emphasized by Dillon, who observes that Luke presents “every Easter encounter” as “a summons out of confusion and blindness, personally bestowed by the risen Lord sola gratia” (Eye-Witnesses 155). Hence the third episode of Luke 24 can open as if nothing has changed as a result of the first two.

36 While they were speaking these things, [Jesus] himself stood in their midst.a 37 Frightened and terrified, however, they supposed they were looking at a spirit. 38 He said to them, “Why are you troubled, and why do conflicting thoughts spring up in your hearts? 39 See my hands and my feet, that it’s [really] me!b Touch me and see, because a spirit doesn’t have flesh and bones as you see that I do have.”c 41 While they were still in disbelief because of joy and [still] marveling, he said to them, “Do you have anything to eat here?” 42 They gave him a piece of broiled fish, 43 and he took [it] and ate in their presence.

44 And he said to them, “These are the words I spoke to you while I was still with you, that all the things written about me in the law of Moses and the prophets and the psalms must be fulfilled.” 45 Then he opened their minds to understand the Scriptures, 46 and he said to them, “This is what the Scriptures teach:d ‘The Christ must suffer and be raised from the dead on the third day, 47 and repentance for the forgiveness of sins must be preached in my name to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem.’ 48 You are witnesses to these things. 49 Also, I am going to send you what my Father promised.e But you are to stay in the city until you are clothed with power from on high.”

50 Then he led them out as far as the vicinity of Bethany, and lifting up his hands, he blessed them. 51 As he was blessing them, he parted from them.f 52 Andg they returned to Jerusalem with great joy, 53 and they were constantly in the temple blessing God.

a. At the end of v. 36, most Mss add, “and he said [historical present legei] to them, ‘Peace [be] to you’” (AT). This material is missing in some Western witnesses (D it); copyists may have inserted it under the influence of John 20:19, 26. This is another of the Western-text omissions in Luke 24 (Parsons, Departure 29–52; ehrman, Orthodox 220–21; M. Martin, “Non-interpolations”; see translation note a on 24:1–12). It is more difficult to explain the deletion of the words, if original, than their later insertion; hence they are likely a later expansion of the text.

b. Literally, “I am he,” egō eimi autos.

c. Most Mss add v. 40: “When he had said this, he showed them his hands and feet” (AT). This verse is missing in some Western witnesses (D it; see translation note a on

v. 36), as well as the Syriac-version Mss Sinaiticus and Curetonianus (sys and syc). A copyist may have inserted it under the influence of John 20:20, although with adaptation suiting the Lukan context, as John 20:20 substitutes “side” (pleuran) for “feet” (podas). Again, it is more difficult to explain the verse’s deletion than its insertion, which would in this case likely have been motivated by antidocetic, or more precisely antiseparationist, concerns in the second century C.E. (M. Martin, “Non-interpolations” 288–93; for extensive discussion of the impact on the nt textual tradition of conflict over separationist christological views, see ehrman, Orthodox 119–80). The verse reinforces the physicality of Jesus’ resurrection appearance, already asserted by Jesus (Luke 24:39),

but now by adding demonstration in gesture to the words.

d. Literally, “Thus it is written.”

e. Reading a subjective genitive here; lit., “I am sending the promise of [or from]

my Father upon you.”

f. Most witnesses in the Greek textual tradition add as a concluding phrase in v. 51

“and was carried up into heaven,” but it is missing from some Western witnesses (D

it), as well as א* (its original hand) and the Syriac Sinaiticus Ms. See the comment on

vv. 50–53 below.

g. At this point in v. 52, most Greek Mss add the phrase “when they had expressed

reverence for him” (AT). This phrase, too, is omitted in the Western witnesses D it and

the Syriac Sinaiticus Ms, and I regard it as a later embellishment. See the comment on

vv. 50–53.

[36–43] The genitive absolute construction that opens v. 36 (“while they were speaking these things”) links the scene closely to the preceding gathering of disciples. The appearing-and-disappearing Jesus suddenly joins the group and interrupts their speeches detailing encounters with him. They react with fear and questioning: are they seeing a disembodied spirit (vv. 36–37)? The terrified confusion of the disciples makes better sense if the story lacks Jesus’ preemptive verbal offer of peace (v. 36a), which may have leaked into this account through later scribal activity that attempted to conform Luke’s presentation to that of the Fourth Gospel (John 20:19, 26).18

Jesus draws upon his familiar powers of prophetic discernment, reading both affective state (“troubled,” in emotional turmoil, tetargmenoi) and cognitive confusion (“hearts [with] conflicting thoughts”) within his followers (Luke 24:38). Despite his repeated “Why?” query, he knows what has precipitated their fear and offers reassurance. He bids disciples who think they are seeing a ghost to look again: “See my hands and my feet, that it’s [really] me! Touch me and see, because a spirit doesn’t have flesh and bones as you see that I do have” (v. 39). Verse 40, added in most extant manuscripts (in my judgment, as a secondary expansion influenced by John 20:20 and advancing antidocetic or antiseparationist concerns), follows Jesus’ words with a narrator’s notice that he proceeds to provide this tangible demonstration: “He showed them his hands and feet”—presumably bearing the wounds inflicted during crucifixion, although this is not stated.19 Without the verse, the full force of legitimating “proof” rests on the authoritative word of the risen Lord, including his invitation to “touch me and see” (Luke 24:40).

18. On the omission of Jesus’ greeting in some Western textual witnesses, see translation note a. This wish for “communal well-being” (Green 854) is, however, congruent with one of the central motifs of the Lukan narrative (e.g., 1:79; 2:14, 29; 7:50; 8:48; 10:5–6; 19:38; but note also 12:51; 19:42).

The point being scored is twofold and emphatically pressed: the full (albeit resurrected) embodiment of the living Jesus, and therefore assurance of the continuity of person, self, and identity between the risen one and the Jesus of the ministry (and cross): “It’s me!” To the extent that Jesus appears here as an exemplar of the resurrection life (cf. Luke 14:14; 20:34–38),20 life in the future realm of God, commencing already in the “today” of the penitent criminal’s Paradise (23:43), is a resurrection life that, while free of at least some prior constraints of time, space, and movement, is embodied. As such, it is an existence that continues the life, self, and identity that preceded death. This is no disembodied spirit, for as Luke’s audience knows, Jesus has committed his spirit to God with his dying breath (23:46), only in resurrection to receive his body back, no longer susceptible to corrupting decay—as the apostolic kerygma will put it in Acts (2:27, 31; 13:34–37, drawing from Ps 16:10 [15:10 lxx, diaphthora, corruption]).

In this appearance of the risen Jesus to the whole band of disciples, the pattern of resistance to faith overcome only by Jesus’ presence and interpreting word is repeated once more. Not even the sight of him and the hearing of his assurance, “See, . . . it’s me!” (24:39), is sufficient to elicit faith. The gathered company react with joy, to be sure, but it is an exuberance still wedded to distrust of what their eyes and ears are disclosing to them (v. 41a). The reality they are encountering is “too good to be true” (Green 855), and so, just as in v. 11 but now in the very presence of Jesus, there is disbelief—and wonder as well (thaumazontōn; cf. thaumazōn in v. 12, if that verse is included; see the comment on 24:1–12). The transition from disbelief-because-of-joy to the obedient, worshipful joy of the last scene (vv. 50–53) will not be complete until Jesus again interprets experienced events in the light of Scripture (and vice versa), for the benefit of all his band (vv. 44–49).

First, though, in a curious exchange that reinforces readers’ impression of the scene’s physicality and also links eye-opening teaching again to food, Jesus asks if there is something to eat and, offered a piece of cooked fish, eats “in their presence” (vv. 41b–43). For the first and only time, in a Gospel replete with meal scenes, Jesus’ actual eating of food is the primary focus; he has now unambiguously assumed the role of guest and recipient of the disciples’ hospitality (Heil, Meal Scenes 225–26). Henceforth they will be hosts and providers of hospitality and benefaction in his name.

19. Cf. Ignatius, Smyrn. 3.1: “I know and believe that [Jesus] was in the flesh even after the Resurrection (Lake, LCL); see M. Martin, “Non-interpolations” 290. Ignatius goes on to claim that the apostles then touched Jesus as he had urged them to do (3.2).

20. Though uniquely the prophet-Messiah raised by God and uniquely to be exalted through ascension and installation as coregent with God (see the comment on 20:39–44).

[44–49] Jesus proceeds to offer not new teaching but a reminder of what he has already taught, although it did not produce insight at the time: “These are the words I spoke to you while I was still with you, that all the things written about me in the law of Moses and the prophets and the psalms must be fulfilled” (v. 44; cf. the message at the tomb, vv. 6–7; and see esp. 18:31–34). This backward look (or audition) to words spoken “while I was still with you” underscores again the continuity of identity between the precrucifixion Jesus and the risen Lord (cf. Dillon, Eye-Witnesses 193). Yet there is one new detail: the link between the meaning of Jesus’ messianic vocation and the Scriptures has become truly comprehensive, with the addition of “the psalms” to “Moses and the prophets.” The claim of intertextual connection remains general and global (as in 18:31–34; 24:25–27), mentioning no particular texts, but the inclusion of the Psalter is especially instructive. As authoritative tradition legitimating the status of the crucified-and-risen Jesus as Messiah and Lord, Psalms will figure prominently in the christological exegesis of Scripture, as presented in the mission speeches of Acts (e.g., 2:25–28, 34–35; 4:25–28; 13:33–37).

The eye-opening and mind-opening insight that Jesus has effected for Cleopas and his companion at emmaus (Luke 24:31–32) he now accomplishes for the rest of the assembled disciples (v. 45). Their rehabilitation and equipping for their future mission to Israel and the nations takes a large step forward. Crucial to their preparation is fresh understanding of the meaning of Scripture, in the light of recent Scripture-fulfilling events that provide the focusing hermeneutical lens. “This is what the Scriptures teach,” he says: “The Christ must suffer [i.e., die] and be raised from the dead on the third day” (v. 46). So far, this is familiar teaching for Luke’s audience. But now Luke has Jesus add a line that portends future developments in which the disciples will play an integral role, thereby linking their own future mission, too, to Scripture: “. . . and repentance for the forgiveness of sins must be preached in my name to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem” (v. 47).

The disciples will therefore continue Jesus’ own ministry of release ( aphesis), which was anticipated already in the ministry of John the baptizing prophet (3:3), as his father Zechariah hadforeseen (1:77), and which Jesus programmatically announced in his hometown synagogue (4:18–19). It was then carried through in Jesus’ mission, which again and again delivered “release” from oppression, debt, and sin—extending a gracious welcome and forgiveness that then opened a reordered life built on transformed perception and understanding (metanoia, repentance; see the comments on, e.g., 5:17–20, 21–26, 27–32; 7:41–50; 15:25–32).

The formulaic expression “repentance for [or leading to, eis] forgiveness of sins” (24:47, echoing the phrasing that described the focus of John’s ministry in 3:3) appears to suggest that repentance is a prior condition for forgiveness. That view of the sequential and causal connection between forgiveness and repentance is not borne out, however, by the preceding narrative of Jesus’ ministry (e.g., 5:17–26; 7:36–50), or by its culminating images of forgiveness and salvation in the crucifixion scene (23:34, 39–43). Repentance, return to the One who graciously extends forgiveness, may indeed open up access to (divine) mercy; however, Jesus’ ceaseless seeking out of the lost in his ministry suggests the priority of gracious acceptance, inclusion, and mercy. Nevertheless, the reordering of perception, commitment and practice (repentance), and the gracious offer and liberating, peace-granting experience of forgiveness—all these do consistently cohere in Luke’s Gospel (concisely framed in 5:32). Or, to shift the descriptive categories, hearing (the message of forgiveness, with all its performative force) and doing (the actualizing of the life to which the gift of forgiveness has opened access) belong together (e.g., 6:43–49; 8:21). Readers of Luke’s second book will look and listen for the ways in which the followers of Jesus bring this mission of repentance-with-forgiveness to “all nations” (see Acts 2:38 and esp. 5:31–32, which, like Luke 24:47–48, immediately follows language of repentance and “forgiveness of sins” with mention of the apostles’ role as witnesses; cf. Acts 3:19, 26; 10:43; 13:38; 17:30; 26:18).

The Scripture-mandated universal mission to “all nations,” calling to reordered life and conveying forgiveness and thus continuing Jesus’ mission of aphesis (release), will begin at Jerusalem.21 The geographical notice “beginning from Jerusalem” anchors the continuing story of Jesus’ followers in the story of Israel yet at the same time reorients the cartography. Jerusalem is no longer center and goal of the nations’ movement but the point of departure for a centrifugal mission to the whole world (Green 857). In keeping with this remapping of the world, the Acts narrative will begin where the Gospel narrative ends, in Jerusalem, but will proceed outward in ever-expanding circles to Rome, and from there to the rest of the earth (Acts 1:8; 28:28).

In an arresting declaration that, without syntactical connection (asyndeton), stands apart from the preceding string of Scripture-fulfilling events (the Messiah’s suffering and resurrection and the world mission bringing repentance and forgiveness), Jesus now gives the apostles the primary label for their missionary role: “You are [or will be; the verb must be supplied] witnesses to these things” (Luke 24:48). The Twelve (temporarily minus one) in particular have loyally persevered “with [Jesus]” throughout the successes and ordeals of his ministry (see, e.g., 10:17–20, 23–24; 22:28) and were present (the narrator implies) until the end, observing the crucifixion (23:49). Now they have all experienced an appearance of the risen Jesus; they are witnesses to the resurrection. A Gospel that began with a preface tracing its edifying lineage to those “who from the beginning were eyewitnesses and ministers of the word” (1:2)22 ends on the note of universal witness to “these things [concerning Jesus].” Acts will tell their story,23 beginning with the reconstitution of the Twelve to include a replacement for Judas, drawn from the ranks of those who are faithful “witness[es] to his resurrection,” participant-observers of Jesus’ entire ministry, from the baptism of John until he was taken up (Acts 1:22 AT).

21. Construing the participial phrase “beginning from Jerusalem” with the preceding clause of 24:47 (i.e., the proclamation to all nations of repentance-for-forgiveness), rather than with the following clause, “You [are, or will be] witnesses to these things” (v. 48). See the discussion in Dillon, Eye-Witnesses 214.

To take Luke at his word, the basis for his narrative’s asphaleia, the reliability of the teaching it presents to Theophilus and others who read alongside and after him (Luke 1:4), is not the author’s painstaking research or the elegance of a well-ordered narrative (1:3), much as these contribute to the rhetorical and edifying power of the narrative. Instead, the narrative’s reliability is the trustworthy witness it presents (1:1) to, and the interpretation it provides of, events fulfilled “among us” (1:2), that is, witness to the accomplishment of the divine purpose in this story. It is surely worth acknowledging that this trustworthy witness does not afford a glimpse of historical occurrences independently accessible somehow apart from the act—multiple acts—of interpretation. Rather, Luke invites readers to discern a patterned, meaningful history through the theologically and ethically committed perspective his telling of the story provides, to view the story of Jesus, and its intertextually rich embeddedness in the story of God-with-Israel (and now with the nations), through the interpretive lens that Luke supplies.

The apostolic company, in solidarity with the wider circle of disciples, now possesses the qualifications to be credible witnesses. They lack only one thing: empowerment by the same Spirit that has guided and energized Jesus’ own ministry. The remedy will soon be supplied, if the disciples heed Jesus’ parting directions: “I am going to send you what my Father promised. But you are to stay in the city until you are clothed with power from on high” (24:49). The Greek word order accents the motif of empowerment: dynamin (power) comes last in the sentence (Fitzmyer 2:1585), in this final direct speech by Jesus reported in the Gospel. This proleptic command-with-promise strains forward to the fulfillment—empowerment by the Holy Spirit—delayed until Acts 2. As the narrative reaches closure in the final scene, therefore (Luke 24:50–53), the story in significant measure remains open.

22. Or, in Dillon’s phrasing, emphasized throughout his monograph, those who from the vantage of eyewitnesses became ministers of the word by the grace and revelatory words of Jesus (Eye-Witnesses, e.g., 110–11, 155, 181, 200, 217).

23. Passages in Acts previewed in the comments, e.g., on Luke 22:14–23; 23:26–32; 23:47–49.

[50–53] The Gospel narrative achieves satisfying closure with this final scene, employing compositional-rhetorical strategies of circularity, parallelism, and prophecy/promise-and-fulfillment to produce a sense of completion, yet at the same time creating a sense of openness through linkage (esp., i.e., to events narrated in Acts) and incompletion (i.e., external prolepses that still await fulfillment beyond the narrative).24

Verse 50 picks up three narrative threads and completes them. First, Jesus “led [the gathered company of disciples from vv. 34–35, 36–49] out [exēgagen],” an action leading readers to expect that they are finally witnessing the fulfillment of the promise of an exodus-departure that was the focus of conversation among Jesus, Moses, and Elijah on the Mount of Transfiguration (9:31; cf. “days for his being taken up” in 9:51; see Parsons, Departure 90). In view of the narrative nexus encompassing cross, resurrection, and ascension/exaltation, the resumption of the leading-out image at the end of the story provides retrospective clarity to the earlier presentation of the motifs of exodos (departure, 9:31) and analēmpsis (lifting up, or assumption-ascension, 9:51). The death and resurrection of the Messiah, together with the ascension, are included in the events of exodos andanalēmpsis (Parsons, Departure 107–10). Jesus’ exit is not his to experience alone. Rather, like Moses, whose sandals he fills for a new day (see Acts 3:22; 7:37; cf. Luke 9:35 [“Listen to him,” echoing Deut 18:15 lxx]), he is leading a whole company—the nucleus of the being-liberated, restored Israel—out with him.

Second, the leave-taking at Bethany recalls a significant earlier event that occurred in the same location on the Mount of Olives, the start of Jesus’ triumphal entry into Jerusalem (Luke 19:29). The parallel in spatial location intimates that the event now underway is a triumphant exit (Parsons, Departure 104–5) or, to reframe the point, an entrance into the royal installation, authority, and honor that did not materialize in Jerusalem (cf. 19:12, 14–15, 38–44; 20:42–43; 22:29–30, 67–69; 23:2–3, 35, 37–38, 42).

Third, Jesus imparts a final blessing: “Lifting up his hands, he blessed [eulogēsen] them.” Although not a priest and therefore not bestowing a priestly blessing,25 Jesus nevertheless offers his followers a gesture that brings completion to an intended act of blessing the people that the priest Zechariah was (implicitly) unable to pronounce, after he was rendered speechless by the angel Gabriel (1:21–22). The father of the prophet John did eventually launch into praise of God, whom he declared “blessed” (eulogētos, 1:68). The disciples will sound that chord, too, in the Gospel’s final words (“blessing God [eulogountes ton theon],” 24:53), but only after having first received the performative speechact of Jesus’ blessing of them.26 The narrative closes as it began, in worshipful praise of God.

24. See the discussion of these litrary techniques in Parsons, Departure 72–113.

25. Luke 24:50–53 may show intertextual engagement with a passage near the close of Sirach (50:20–24) in which the high priest Simon is depicted lifting his hands to bless God before all the assembly of the people and to impart the divine blessing to them, evoking joyfulness in worship. The verbal parallels between these two passages notwithstanding, Green points to Gen 49 (note Jacob’s blessing of his twelve sons in v. 28) and Deut 33 (Moses’ blessing of the people in v. 1, e.g.) as a more likely model (860–61; cf. Lohfink, Himmelfahrt 167–74). Jacob and Moses spoke their final words of blessing, however, before death rather than preceding a postmortem departure.

Verse 51 repeats the image of blessing, one of three uses of the verb in the space of just four verses. While Jesus is still blessing his disciples, “he parted from [diestē] them.” Most manuscripts add the phrase “and was carried up into heaven [anephereto eis ton ouranon],” with the imagery of ascension yielding a more dramatic and (seemingly) less anticlimactic conclusion to the narrative about Jesus.27 Precisely for that reason, the shorter form of the text omitting this phrase can be regarded as the earlier text, which was deemed in need of enhancement. On the other hand, one might argue that the longer text is the more difficult text since it creates an apparent contradiction in Luke 24 to the chronology of the ascension narrative in Acts 1:9–11, which places the event forty days after easter (1:3), rather than on easter evening, as in Luke 24 (apparently: there is no specific temporal notice in vv. 50–53). Early copyists might, then, have removed the offending phrase, so that the departure of Jesus in v. 51 is not the final one.28

My reading of the narrative is informed by the judgment that the phrase “and was taken up into heaven” is a later expansion of Luke’s text, but certainty is unattainable. For readers ancient and modern (the majority of readers, in fact), the image of assumption-into-heaven advances and brings to completion a central motif complex of Luke’s story. Jesus, vindicated by God after repudiation by human powers, is to be exalted to a seat at God’s right hand, confirmed as Messiah and Lord (recall the various images in, e.g., 1:32–33; 2:11; 9:31, 51; 19:12, 14–15, 38; 20:42–43; 22:29–30, 67–69; 23:42). If the assumption image is lacking at the end of Luke 24, however, Jesus’ exaltation-clinching ascension remains a still-awaited expectation at the close of the Gospel, luring Luke’s audience to listen intently to the narrative sequel and its completion of the story of Jesus.29 In any case, the apparent conflict in the respective chronologies of the two Lukan narratives need not detain the reader long. The compact third-day narration of all the events of Luke 24 well suits the narrative function of a story ending, while the forty-day period of Acts 1 is an apt story opener that resumes and briefly recapitulates book 1 (Luke) and emphasizes Jesus’ equipping the apostles for their mission, which will claim readers’ attention in the rest of Acts.

26. That is, the spoken word brings into being what has been declared (see Austin, Do Things with Words).

27. The verb anapherein (in the passive, lit., “to be carried up”), often employed in Hellenistic depictions of heavenly assumptions or heavenly journeys (Lohfink, Himmelfahrt 42, 171; Nolland 3:1228), is from the same semantic domain as analambanein (receive or take up), employed in Acts 1:11 (and used of enoch in Sir 49:14), along with the cognate noun analēmpsis (ascension, assumption) in Luke 9:51. With either word, the image is of a journey upward into heaven, the passive voice indicating divine agency, God’s exaltation of Jesus.

28. On this text-critical problem, see Fitzmyer 2:1590; Bovon 4:614–15; Epp, “Ascension” 135–36, 140–44; again here Parsons defends the shorter text (Departure 36–52); similarly ehrman (Orthodox 227–32) and, with somewhat differing argumentation, M. Martin (“Non-interpolations”).

The final notes sounded are joy, worship, and praise. There is return to Jerusalem once more (v. 52; cf. v. 33). The culminating setting there, bringing the story full circle, is the temple (hieron, v. 53), the space of worship and expectation at the outset of Luke (1:8–23; 2:27–35, 37–38) and reclaimed by Jesus as the site for his teaching ministry in Jerusalem (19:45–21:38; cf. 2:46–49). The early chapters of Acts will pick up where Luke’s Gospel leaves the disciples (e.g., Acts 2:46–47). Most manuscripts have the disciples addressing reverential worship (proskynēsantes, Luke 24:52a) to the exalted Jesus, who has just been carried up to heaven. However, in the shorter form of the text adopted for the interpretation in this commentary, Luke presents worship as being directed not to Jesus but to God. The narrative thus ends, in this respect too, as it began, with joyful words of praise declaring God blessed (cf. 1:68).

Readers of Luke 24 experience closure but at the same time are oriented to a future still to be narrated. Promises whose fulfillment has been awaited have been realized in Jesus’ life and ministry. But the story of Israel’s redemption, as expressed in Luke 1–2 by Simeon and Anna, and by Mary and Zechariah, has not yet been completed, although its meaning has undergone significant redefinition along the way. Now a new promise—and mandate for mission—has been added to it, creating the need for another narrative, a sequel. So the closing lines of the Gospel close on a satisfying final note, but one of anticipation as well. Joyful praise of God will ring out to the ends of the earth, when the successors whom Jesus has appointed, and whom the Spirit will authorize and empower, take the message of repentance and forgiveness, and the good news of God’s rule, to the whole world.

29. Readers in the Greco-Roman world, acquainted with traditions of assumption for heroic figures and political leaders on the path to deification, will be at home in a story that narrates Jesus’ ascension into the divine world (heaven), whether placed in Luke 24 or delayed until Acts 1. See, e.g., Dio Cassius, Hist. rom. 56.46.2; Plutarch, Rom. 27–28; idem, Num. 2.2–3; PseudoApollodorus, Bibliotheca 2.7.7; Dionysius, Ant. rom. 1.77.2; 1 Macc 2:58; Sir 48:9, 12; 1 En. 93.8; 2 En. 56.1; 67.2–3; Josephus, Ant. 4.8.47–48; 9.2.2. For the association between assumption of a heroic individual and worship, see, e.g., Plutarch, Rom. 27.7–8; Lucian, Peregr. 39; 2 En. 67.2–3.

Table of Contents

Introduction 1

Author and Audience 1

Genre and Purpose 5

An Approach to Reading Luke’s Gospel 7

Previewing Central Theological and ethical Concerns

Text 14

Design of the Narrative 15

1:1–4 Formal Preface to the Gospel 17

1:5–2:52 The Birth and Childhood of Jesus 23

1:5–25 Announcement of the Coming Birth of John 24

1:5–7 Introducing Zechariah and elizabeth 24

1:8–20 The Angel Gabriel Brings a Surprising Message to Zechariah 26

1:21–23 A Silent Priest and an expectant People 34

1:24–25 elizabeth’s Secret 35

1:26–38 Announcement of the Coming Birth of Jesus 37

Excursus: Parallel Birth Announcements— Mary and Zechariah 43

1:39–56 Connecting the Two Stories: Mary Visits elizabeth 44

1:39–45 Double Welcome and Blessing: Mary Comes to elizabeth’s Home 45

1:46–55 Response of Praise: Mary’s Song 47

1:56 Mary Returns to Her Home 52

1:57–80 John’s Birth and Response of Praise and Prophecy 53

1:57–66 Responses to John’s Birth 53

1:67–79 Praise and Prophecy: Zechariah’s Song 56

1:80 Waiting in the Wings: John Grows up 63

2:1–20 The Birth of Jesus 64

2:1–7 From Caesar to Manger: The Census and Jesus’ Birth 64

2:8–14 Heaven Declares Good News to Shepherds 67

2:15–20 From Flock to Manger: Responses to the Birth of a Savior 71

2:21–40 Law, Temple, and Prophetic Witness to God’s Salvation 73

2:21 Jesus Is Circumcised and Receives a Name 73

2:22–24 As the Law Prescribes: Purification and Presentation 74

2:25–35 Prophecy in Prayer and Oracle: Simeon’s Witness to the Savior 75

2:36–38 The Prophet Anna Adds Her Witness 80

2:39–40 Jesus Grows up in Nazareth 81

2:41–52 A Son and His Father(s): Jesus among the Teachers in the Temple 82

3:1–4:13 Preparing the Way of the Lord: The Vocation of a People and Their Messiah 88

3:1–20 The Prophetic Ministry of John the Baptizer 88

3:21–22 The Baptism of Jesus 96

3:23–38 Jesus’ Roots 98

4:1–13 Jesus’ Fidelity to His Vocation as Son of God undergoes a First Test 100

4:14–9:50 Jesus’ Ministry in Galilee 106

4:14–44 Jesus Inaugurates His Ministry 106

4:14–15 The Galilean Ministry Begins: Narrative Summary 107

4:16–30 Jesus in the Synagogue at Nazareth: A Prophet’s Welcome 108

4:31–44 Words and Deeds of Power in Capernaum 117

5:1–6:11 Jesus Calls Followers and Addresses Critics 123

5:1–11 The Call of Simon Peter 123

5:12–16 A Leper Is Restored to Purity 126

5:17–26 Healing and Forgiveness of Sin for a Man unable to Walk 128

5:27–39 The Call of the Tax Agent Levi and a Clash of Views at a Celebratory Banquet 132