Lange Commentary - Luke 22:7 - 22:13

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Lange Commentary - Luke 22:7 - 22:13


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This Chapter Verse Commentaries:

2. The Preparation of the Passover (Luk_22:7-13)

(Parallel to Mat_26:17-19; Mar_14:12-16.)

7Then came the day of unleavened bread, when the passover must be [had to be] killed. 8And he sent Peter and John, saying, Go and prepare us the passover, that we 9may eat. And they said unto him, Where wilt thou that we prepare? 10And he said unto them, Behold, when ye are entered into the city, there shall a man meet you, bearing a pitcher of water; follow him into the house where he entereth in. 11And ye shall say unto the goodman [master] of the house, The Master [Teacher] saith unto thee, Where is the guestchamber [ êáôÜëõìá ], where I shall [may] eat the passover with my disciples? 12And he shall shew you a large upper room furnished: there make ready [prepare the passover]. 13And they went, and found as he had said unto them: and they made ready the passover.

EXEGETICAL AND CRITICAL

Luk_22:7. When the Passover had to be killed, Ý ̓ äåé èýåóèáé .—It is really an enigma how one could ever have found in this chronological datum of Luke, and in the words of our Lord, Mat_26:18, a ground for the entirely unprovable conjecture that our Savior ate the Passover a day earlier than other Israelites. Upon every impartial person the beginning of this Pericope makes far more the impression that Luke speaks here of the definite day on which, according to the appointment of the law, the Passover lamb had to be slaughtered. Only on this day was the question of the disciples, Mat_26:17, perfectly natural; moreover, the beginning of the discourse at table, preserved by Luke alone, Luk_22:15, shows that our Lord attributes to this very Passover an especially high significance. As to the rest, it is not here the place to enter into detailed discussion as to the actual day of our Lord’s death. Be it only granted to us to express our conviction—the result of special and repeated investigation—that as well according to the Synoptics as according to John, our Lord, on the 14th Nisan, at the same time with the other Jews, and at the time appointed by the law, ate the Passover, and on the 15th suffered the death on the Cross. We believe that the grounds for this view in Wieseler’s Chronolog. Synopse, p. 339 seq., have been, it is true, controverted by Bleek, Tischendorf, and others, but not refuted; and that, moreover, there is just as little reason for placing the meal, John 13, on Wednesday evening (Wichelhaus), as (Krafft, Chronologie und Harmonie der 4 Evangelien, Erlangen, 1848, p. 125) to speak of two meals, and to transfer this evening to the 12th and 13th Nisan. The objections, which even after the powerful demonstration of Wieseler, may be raised from an entirely different stand-point against the view accepted by us, are not unknown to us; but we believe that these, at all events, are of infinitely less importance than the difficulties in which one involves himself if he assumes in this particular an irreconcilable discrepancy between John and the Synoptics. Respecting the Passover controversy of the ancient church, and its relation to the chronology of the Passion Week, comp. Riggenbach, l.c., p. 635 seq., where at the same time the most recent literature on this question is given. See also: Der Tag des letzten Paschamahles Jesu Christi, ein harmonistischer Versuch, by Serno, Berlin, 1859.

Luk_22:8. And He sent Peter and John.—According to the more detailed account of Matthew and Mark, the disciples themselves first began to speak to our Lord of the Passover meal, apparently on Thursday morning, at Bethany. Perhaps the Master was now more silent than of old; of the feast, without doubt, He did not speak, and this mysterious fact, as well as also the sight of numerous pilgrims to the feast, very naturally occasioned the disciples to ask the question: ðïῦ èÝëåéò , ê . ô . ë . That our Lord would eat the Passover on that day on which it must be slaughtered they tacitly presuppose, and perhaps had not spoken even earlier of it only because the prophecy of death, Mat_26:2, has filled their hearts more than the thoughts of the feast, or because they already have a dark presentiment that this Passover would be something entirely different for them from what any earlier one had ever been; or because they were expecting a direct intimation from Jesus Himself before they betook themselves to the capital, whither He Himself yesterday, for the first time, had no longer gone. If we compare Luke with the other Synoptics, we may then unite the accounts thus: that at a preliminary inquiry of the ìáèçôáß as to the ðïῦ , our Lord gives Peter and John a definite command to go away to prepare the Passover; whereupon then they now repeat with more definiteness the natural inquiry as to the ðïì ͂, and now receive the mysterious direction in reference to the man with the pitcher of water, which Matthew does not give account of. It is still simpler, if we, with Tischendorf, and others, read åἶðáí , and explain the fact thus: that, Luk_22:9, the question is really brought up afterwards, which, strictly speaking, ought to have been stated before the command, Luk_22:8.

Luk_22:10. There shall a man meet you.—In Mark and Luke we have the more special account of the condition in which they would find the furnished upper room, without however their statement being in conflict with the general one of Matthew. Our Saviour gives His disciples a similar token to that which Samuel once gave Saul, 1Sa_10:2-5.—A man.—Although he is here represented as occupied in a menial service, comp. Deu_29:11; Jos_9:21, we have not necessarily to understand a slave (Sepp even knows that it was a slave of Nicodemus), but in general only a person of the lower classes; the pitcher, the carrying of water, point possibly to domestic preparation for the coming Passover; and would in this case in a certain measure concur as a proof that we have here to do with the ordinary Passover day. Luke has óõíáíôÞóåé more exactly for the ἀðáíôÞóåé of Mark: He will so meet you, so come together with you, that you will go one way with him.

Luk_22:11. Ye shall say to the master of the house.—Not a prophetic but an imperative future.— Ïἰêïäåóðüôçò ôῆò ïἰê . a pleonastic expression not unusual with the Greeks, especially in the more familiar style.—The Teachersaith.—The remarkable words, Mat_26:18 : “My time is at hand,” are omitted in Mark and Luke, while they on the other hand render the address to the master of the house in the form of a question.— Ôὸ êáôÜëõìá , diversorium (Luk_2:7), then also cœnaculum. See the LXX, in 1Sa_9:22. Ìïí is here, at all events, spurious, and might also be very well dispensed with in the parallel passage in Matthew.

Luk_22:12. And he, ἐêåῖíïò , according to Mark áὐôüò .—The man with the pitcher of water has now accomplished his service, and the master of the house now comes in his place. The direction which the disciples receive is so precise that it does not leave them one uncertainty remaining. They will find an upper room, ἀíÜãáéïí (which reading appears to deserve the preference above that of the Recepta, ἀíþãåïí , and even above that commended by Tischendorf after B., M., S., ἀíþãáéïí )= ὑðåñῷïí , an upper chamber, used often as a place of prayer and assembling. Comp. Act_1:13. This great hall ( ìÝãá ) is moreover ἐóôñùìÝíïí , furnished with pillows, stratis tricliniis, and so, according to Mark, already Ý ̓ ôïéìïí , so that there would need no further loss of time for the purpose of putting the hall in good order.

Luk_22:13.And they went.—We may assume that the way of the apostles led through the water-gate (Neh_8:1), past the Pool of Siloam, which as is known furnished almost the whole city with water, and that they there also met the man with the pitcher of water. Yet there was a spring also in the neighborhood of Cedron; therefore it is remarkable that our Lord does not give them the least specification as to the way which they had to take, but only tells them what should meet them on the way. From Mar_14:17, it seems to be the fact that the two, after having punctually fulfilled the duty enjoined on them, returned back to the Master, and that He entered the Passover hall with all the Twelve.

DOCTRINAL AND ETHICAL

1. It belongs to the Divine decorum of the history of the Passion, that our Lord celebrates the Passover at Jerusalem, at the time appointed by the law. Had not to-day been the legally-appointed evening of the feast, on which every Israelite was under obligation to eat the Passover lamb, there would have been properly no ground for at this particular time entering the capital, in which, as was well known to Him, His enemies were watching for Him. But now literally the way of obedience has led Him to death, and the last Passover celebration of the Old Covenant coalesces with the institution of the Holy Communion. Inasmuch as He celebrates it in this way, He does away forever with the old Passover, as He did away with circumcision, when it was accomplished on Himself on the eighth day, Luk_2:21.

2. As to the question, how we have to understand the prediction concerning the man who should meet them with the water-pitcher, we have the choice between five possible opinions:—Invention, accident, previous concert, revelation, supernatural knowledge. That it is an invention (De Wette, Strauss, Meyer), is wholly unproved. The analogy with Samuel proves nothing. It would, moreover, have been incomprehensible to what purpose a trait apparently so insignificant should have been invented for the history of the Passion. To understand accident is forbidden, as well by the precision of the prediction as by its exact accomplishment. Previous concert (not only Paulus, but also Olshausen, Kern, Krabbe, Neander, Braune, in a certain measure, also Lange) is certainly in itself not impossible. It is unquestionably conceivable that our Lord had already arranged this matter with a secret friend in the city. However, the tone of the command, the analogy with 1Sa_10:2-5, and the similarity to what happened at His public entry with respect to the ass-colt, appear to indicate that we have here rather to understand something supernatural. With the ordinary prophet we should be able here to assume a momentary revelation, by means of which before his enlightened view the limits of time and space vanished; with the Lord, however, we can here see nothing less than the activity of the same Divinely human knowledge by which He was rendered capable of discovering all which He must fathom for the accomplishment of His holy intent. To find even in this case a manifestation of such knowledge can have nothing strange, if we bear in mind the entirely unique importance which just this Passover celebration had for our Lord as well as for His disciples. Without doubt, our Lord made the acquaintance of the designated host in a natural way, but by His Divine knowledge He is assured that this friend will be immediately ready and in a condition to receive Him, and that his servant has just now to-day gone out to the spring before the city in order to bring water. Thus, in the manner in which our Lord, as the Good Shepherd, prepares for His own a table in the presence of their enemies, there is displayed an admirable knowledge of the human heart, of a definite locality, of an apparently casual arrangement.

The view that our Saviour designedly gave this command in so mysterious a form, that the place of the celebration might remain unknown to Judas, and that He might therefore be able to spend the evening entirely unobserved with His own (Theophylact, Neander), cannot indeed be mathematically proved, but yet is by all means probable on internal grounds; the result, moreover, showed that in consequence of this arrangement the traitor was not able to carry out his plan until later in the night. At all events, this embassy was for John and Peter an exercise in faith and in obedience; they had to learn therefrom to follow our Lord even blindly, even when they did not see the purpose of His command, and in the future also to leave the care of their earthly interests unconditionally to Him, under whose high guidance they should never lack for anything, Luk_22:35. At the same time, such revelations of the hidden greatness of our Lord might be for them a counterpoise against the depth of humiliation into which He was soon to sink. Without doubt they, afterwards, in dark hours of life, may sometimes have still thought upon this mysterious errand, and looked back to its satisfactory issue.

3. This whole occurrence is a speaking proof of the greatness of our Lord, even in that which is small and seemingly insignificant. This preparatory measure shows us His immovable composure, which He preserved even in spite of the most certain prospect of death; His holy presence of mind over against the secret plotting of the traitors; but, above all, His wisdom, love, and faithfulness, with which He cares, even to the end, for the training of His disciples, and gives them, even in a slight command, a great lesson for the future. Thus does He remain even to the end in silence, and in speech, in temper, and action, perfectly consistent with Himself, and goes undaunted and quiet as a lamb to the slaughter, at about the same hour in which the Paschal lambs were bought and slaughtered.

4. Allegorical interpretation of this narrative among the ancients: The water-pitcher, an image of the insipid and burdensome law which the Jews bore; the roomy upper chamber, an image of the abundant room for all whom the Saviour has invited to His spiritual supper, Luk_14:21-23; Rev_3:20, &c. Juster is the remark of John Gerhard: Christus hac sua prœdictione fidem discipulorum confirmare et contra crucis scandalum eos munire voluit, ut magis ac magis intelligerent, nihil temere in urbe magistro eventurum. Even because our Lord, like any common Israelite, observes the Passover and voluntarily humbles Himself, does He will that His glory shall shine out in the manner in which He makes ready for this meal.

HOMILETICAL AND PRACTICAL

The worth of trifles in general and in sacred history, particularly in the history of the Passion.—We men are often little in great things, the Saviour is great in little things. Even by His greatness in little things, He shows Himself: 1. The image of the invisible God; 2. the perfect Redeemer of the world; 3. the best Guide of His people; 4. the noblest example for imitation.—Our Lord is, even on His last day of earth, faithful to the high principle which He uttered at His first appearance, Mat_3:15.—Peter and John here also, as often, united. Joh_20:1; Act_3:1; Act_4:19.—In every perplexity the disciple may turn to Jesus.—Even the man with a pitcher of water must have his place in the history of the Passion.—The significance of apparently insignificant and subordinate persons for the carrying out of the counsel of God, for example, 2Ki_5:2; Act_12:13; Act_23:16.—There exists more evil but also more good than shows itself to the superficial view.—Even in the most corrupted city, Jesus finds hidden friends and knows them.—“I will come unto him and sup with him.”—The best in the house of His friends is for the Lord not too good.—The obedience of faith is never put to shame.—The true disciple of Jesus is faithful not only in the great, but also in the small.—He loved His own even to the end, Joh_13:1.

Starke:—Nova Bibl. Tub.:—How shall we prepare and address ourselves to worthy enjoyment of the Paschal lamb of the New Covenant in His feast of love? 1Co_11:28.—Not our will but Thine, O Lord, be done. Act_21:14.—God provides His own with habitation and shelter, even though they have nothing of their own in the world. 1Ki_17:9.—That we find everything in the world as God’s word has said, is an irrefutable proof of the truth and divinity of the Scriptures.—Heubner:—Notwithstanding His high vocation, Jesus thinks also on the little concerns of love.—The disciples obey willingly, without making objections that were very obvious.—Besser:—In wonderfully beautiful simplicity they did as the Lord had commanded them; that was a true communion temper.—Fr. Arndt:—1. The signification of the Paschal lamb; 2. the preparation for the same.

Footnotes:

Luk_22:4.—Revised Version of the American Bible Union.—C. C. S.

Luk_22:4.— Ðñïäßäùìé , which properly means “to betray,” is only used in the Gospels once of Judas, in the form of its derivative ðñïäüôçò , Luk_6:16. Elsewhere the Evangelists speak of him as “delivering up” the Saviour, leaving the character of the act to speak for itself.—C. C. S.]