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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.comRobertson Word Pictures - Luke 4:16 - 4:16
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Where he had been brought up (hou ēn tethrammenos). Past perfect passive periphrastic indicative, a state of completion in past time, from trephō, a common Greek verb. This visit is before that recorded in Mar 6:1-6; Mat 13:54-58 which was just before the third tour of Galilee. Here Jesus comes back after a year of public ministry elsewhere and with a wide reputation (Luk 4:15). Luke may have in mind Luk 2:51, but for some time now Nazareth had not been his home and that fact may be implied by the past perfect tense.
As his custom was (kata to eiōthos autōi). Second perfect active neuter singular participle of an old ethō (Homer), to be accustomed. Literally according to what was customary to him (autōi, dative case). This is one of the flashlights on the early life of Jesus. He had the habit of going to public worship in the synagogue as a boy, a habit that he kept up when a grown man. If the child does not form the habit of going to church, the man is almost certain not to have it. We have already had in Matthew and Mark frequent instances of the word synagogue which played such a large part in Jewish life after the restoration from Babylon.
Stood up (anestē). Second aorist active indicative and intransitive. Very common verb. It was the custom for the reader to stand except when the Book of Esther was read at the feast of Purim when he might sit. It is not here stated that Jesus had been in the habit of standing up to read here or elsewhere. It was his habit to go to the synagogue for worship. Since he entered upon his Messianic work his habit was to teach in the synagogues (Luk 4:15). This was apparently the first time that he had done so in Nazareth. He may have been asked to read as Paul was in Antioch in Pisidia (Act 13:15). The ruler of the synagogue for that day may have invited Jesus to read and speak because of his now great reputation as a teacher. Jesus could have stood up voluntarily and appropriately because of his interest in his home town.
To read (anagnōnai). Second aorist active infinitive of anaginōskō, to recognize again the written characters and so to read and then to read aloud. It appears first in Pindar in the sense of read and always so in the N.T. This public reading aloud with occasional comments may explain the parenthesis in Mat 24:15 (Let him that readeth understand).