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THE JOURNEYINGS (Luk_4:14 to Luk_9:50)
A. Nazareth.—The First Rejection of the Holy Son of Man by the Sinful Children of Men. Luk_4:14-30
A fame.—Not a “fame of the return of the man that had been so marked out at His baptism and then hidden more than forty days” (Meyer); for it is quite as destitute of proof that the testimony given to the Lord at His baptism took place coram populo congregato as that John should have spoken of the miracle at the baptism to any one. Luk_4:14 plainly anticipates Luk_4:15, in which latter the actual cause of this fame is first stated. The doctrine which He preaches draws astonished attention, and finds at the beginning acceptance. This account of Luke deserves attention the more, from the fact that hitherto he has mentioned no miracles as the cause of this öÞìç . The word of the Saviour in and of itself, independently even of the way in which He afterwards confirmed it, appears at once to have come home to many.
Luk_4:15. And He taught.—Luke in this expression gives only a general account of the earliest activity of the Lord in Galilee, and moreover passes over all that preceded His appearance in Nazareth (Luk_4:16 seq.) in silence. It is not here the place to adventure ourselves in the labyrinth of the New Testament harmony and chronology. If any one, however, wishes to know how we believe that after the forty days’ temptation the different events are to be arranged, they appear to us to have followed one another in the following order:
1. The first friends (Joh_1:35-51);
2. The first miracle (Joh_2:1-12);
3. The first passover (Joh_2:13-22);
4. Jesus and Nicodemus (Joh_2:23 to Joh_3:21);
5. The Messiah in Samaria (Joh_4:1 seq.);
6. The second miracle in Cana (Joh_4:43 seq.);
7. The first sermon in Nazareth (Luk_4:16-30).
Luk_4:14, therefore, according to our opinion, proceeds parallel with Joh_4:43. The first sermon at Nazareth was immediately preceded by the second miracle of Cana, Joh_4:43 seq., and was followed immediately by the removal to Capernaum, Mat_4:13.
Luk_4:16. And He came to Nazareth.—The question is, whether this visit to Nazareth was the same as that related in Mat_13:55-58, and if this is the case, which of the Synoptics has communicated this circumstance in its most exact historic connection. The first question we believe, with others and with Lange (Matthew, p. 255), that we must answer affirmatively; and in respect to the second inquiry, that we must give the preference to Luke. The opinion that the Lord preached twice in this way at Nazareth encounters, according to our view, insurmountable difficulties. That Jesus, after such treatment as is related by Luke, Luk_4:30, should have returned yet again; that He should have preached there again, should again have heard the same reproach, should again have given the same answer, is a supposition that perhaps no one would have defended had not his harmony been guided by doctrinal considerations and interests. Luke, it is true, does not speak of the miracles which are reported Mat_13:58. But nothing hinders us from assuming that He had already performed these before the sermon in the synagogue, since (Luk_4:27-29) immediately after that the attack upon His life followed, although Matthew and Mark end their account respecting Nazareth with the mention of these miracles. It appears that the Lord even before the sermon communicated by Luke had thought in this way to dispose their hearts in His favor,—and let it not be said that this is an artificial interpretation (Stier). Is it not improbable that the Lord should only have remained one day at Nazareth and should only have come into the town on the same Sabbath on which He entered the synagogue? Even the Jewish Sabbath laws, which restricted travelling on this day, forbade this, and, on the supposition that the Lord had already wrought some miracles at Nazareth, His severe discourse acquires double force, and the comparison with the miracles of Elijah and Elisha, moreover, is fully in place. We do not admit the objection that then the words which the Lord puts in their mouths, Luk_4:23, would no longer be applicable. On the contrary, they were not content with the miracles wrought among themselves, but, on the other hand, desired miracles like those at Capernaum (Joh_4:45), miracles such as awaken astonishment at a distance. Why should not the report of that which had been done for the âáóéëéêüò at Capernaum have made its way to Nazareth? and is there indeed anything that is harder to appease than the craving for marvels? If any one, however, believes that all the difficulties are not in this way, either, removed out of the way, he will yet have to acknowledge that the difficulties which spring from the repetition of all these events are at any rate somewhat more numerous.
Where He had been brought up.—Evidently this account points back to the history of His childhood. A holy moment in the life of the Lord, when He for the first time should teach in the synagogue of the town in which He has spent so many years in silence. Respecting Nazareth, see Lange on Mat_2:23.
As His custom was.—Videmus, quid egerit adolescens Jesus Nazarethœ, ante baptismum. Bengel. Apparently (see above) this Sabbath was the first after His return to Nazareth, where the Lord, before this public appearance, had already wrought some miracles in a smaller circle, and appears to have remarked the first traces of unbelief (Mat_13:58; Mar_6:5), the rebuke of which, in His first discourse, would otherwise not have been immediately necessary.
And stood up to read.—Hitherto He had always been accustomed to sit among the hearers. The public reading in the synagogue consisted of a portion of the Law, which, in regular order, was followed by a section of the Prophets. Besides this, opportunity was sometimes given to respectable strangers to give a free word of exhortation or consolation (Act_13:15), and the Saviour’s rising served as a token that He also wished to make use of this liberty. The public reading of the Law had already taken place, and that of the Prophets was about to begin. He, therefore, receives from the hand of the attendant the roll, out of which on that day, according to the customary sequence, the lesson was to be read. It was that of Isaiah, and after He had unrolled this holy book, He finds, certainly without seeking, yet not without special higher guidance, the prophetic passage referred to.
Luk_4:17. The place where it was written.—Strictly speaking, this passage (Isa_61:1) was the haphthara appointed for the morning of the great Day of Atonement (the 10th Tishri), and on this account Bengel, in his Ordo Temporum, p. 220, believed himself to have here come upon an infallible chronological datum; yet, even if it were assumed that this division of the lessons was already in use in the Saviour’s time, it would then be surprising that Luke has not said a word here of His seeking an appointed prophecy: exactly the opposite.
Luk_4:18. The Spirit of the Lord is upon me.—Isaiah 61, freely quoted after the Septuagint. Jesus probably read the passage aloud in Hebrew, but Luke appears to communicate it from memory according to the Alexandrian version. From this arises the difference between the original text and the citation, which is more particularly stated by De Wette (ad locum). He has even taken the words: ἀðïóôåῖëáé ôåèñáõóìÝí . ἐí ἀö . from Isa_58:6, so that accordingly he gives not so much the letter as the main thought of the text of this sermon. This text appears, however, to have been designedly ended at the words: The acceptable year of the Lord (that is, the definite time in which the Lord is gracious), although commonly not less than 21 verses were read from the Prophets. The freedom was used, according to later authors also, of often deviating from this usage, and then 3, 5, or 7 verses were sometimes read aloud. See Sepp, Leben Jesu, ii. p. 123. As respects the passage in itself, the prophet undoubtedly speaks primarily of his own vocation and dignity, but as the servant of Jehovah he was in his work and destiny the type and image of the Messiah, the perfect servant of the Father. What at the time of Isaiah was only relatively true for himself, could hold good in its full significance only of the Messiah, who had brought in an eternal redemption. Therefore Jesus can with the fullest right begin: ὅôé óÞìåñïí , ê . ô . ë . Comp. Hoffmann, Weissag., and Erf. ii. p. 96.
Luk_4:20. And when He had rolled up the book.—It is, of course, to be understood that the words: “To-day is this Scripture fulfilled,” &c., constituted not properly the contents but the beginning of this discourse. The text chosen gives the Lord occasion to set forth the work to be accomplished by Him on its most amiable side; no wonder, therefore, that the eyes of all are directed upon Him. With this one picturesque stroke, Luke (Pictor) gives to his narrative the greatest distinctness, and places us, as it were, in the midst of the citizens of Nazareth. What here took place he probably learned from Mary, or one of the ἀäåëöïß , who were certainly present at this first discourse of Jesus of Nazareth, and therefore, he is able to go more into detail than Matthew and Mark, and even to communicate the prophetic text. Respecting the fulfilment of a prophecy, comp., moreover, the remark in O. von Gerlach, N. T. on Mat_2:16.
Luk_4:22. And all bare Him witness.—To the gracious words of the Saviour is this testimony given, and from this it becomes very soon evident that it does not respect the contents but the form of the discourse of the Lord. They admired not what but the way in which the Saviour spoke, especially when they remembered His humble origin, which would have given occasion to no such expectation; for it is, of course, certain that the inhabitants of Nazareth could not have known of the mystery of His conception by the Holy Ghost. This passage, as well as Joh_7:46, is noteworthy, since it gives an unimpeachable evidence of the irresistible impression which the graciousness of the manner of Jesus in His discourse and preaching, produced even in the case of imperfectly developed or hostilely disposed persons.
Luk_4:23. Surely, ðÜíôùò .—The Lord has the certain expectation of that which they will allege against Him, since He sees the captiousness of prejudice arising already in their hearts, and He makes use of the proverbial expression: “Physician, heal thyself,” not only in order to express His meaning more plainly, but also to give them an intimation in respect to the blessed purpose of His appearance as Israel’s physician. From comparison of Mat_13:57 and Mar_6:4 with Luk_4:24 it appears that the Synoptics deviate in some measure from each other in the report of the words in which the Lord expressed the idea that a prophet usually has nowhere less authority than in his own country. It is very possible that He used this apophthegm often, and that with slight variations; the most original and simple form of the proverb, however, we believe that we find in this passage of Luke. As to the causes why the prophet in his own immediate circle receives less honor than elsewhere, Neander deserves to be compared in his Leben Jesu, at this passage.—Heal thyself, not: “Undertake the remedy of thine own poverty before the world,” or, “Take better care than hitherto of thy prophetic dignity;” but: “Help thine own countrymen, who are naturally the nearest to thee.” The figurative words are sufficiently explained by the literal words immediately following them: “What we have heard,” &c. To the craving for the marvellous, which of itself, indeed, knows no bounds, there is added now, moreover, the reckoning how great a fame their despised village would attain if He should make it the centre of a brilliant miraculous activity. On this account they indirectly reproach Him with having already bestowed an honor on Capernaum, to which they properly had the nearest claim. Of the many miracles which the Lord had already at an earlier point of time performed in Jerusalem (Joh_2:23), they appear as yet to have learned nothing.
Luk_4:25. Many widows were in Israel.—With the greatest humility He, who was so much more than a prophet, places Himself so far on an equality with the prophets in the Old Testament as this, that He together with them must be content to suffer an unbelieving rejection, which, it is true, is most severely requited by God. This we see from two examples taken from the life of Elijah and Elisha, which are doubly noteworthy for this reason, that here at the beginning of the public life of Jesus in somewhat covert wise the same thing is announced which the Saviour at the end with explicit words threatens the Jews with, as punishment for their unbelief. See Mat_21:43.
As repects now the first of these examples, comp. 1Ki_17:18. There has some difficulty arisen, from the fact that the duration of the drought here (as well as in Jam_5:17) is stated as three years and six months, while from 1 Kings 18 it appears to result that Elijah in the 3d year returned to Ahab, and very soon after his return the rain commenced. We cannot agree with De Wette, who here, by comparison with Dan_12:7, maintains that he has deduced the fact, that it was a Jewish custom to give to a period of calamity the average duration of three and a half years, and as little can we assume with others (e.g., Gebser, Commentary on James), that in the New Testament another reckoning of time has been followed from that in the Old. We prefer supposing, with Olshausen, that the third year, 1Ki_18:1, must be reckoned from the arrival of Elijah at Sarepta, 1Ki_17:9, which, however, had been already preceded by a year of drought, during which the prophet had abode at the brook Cherith, Luk_4:7.—That Elijah was actually sent only to this one and to no one of the many widows in Israel besides, we should not be absolutely obliged to conclude from the Old Testament, but we assume it upon the infallible word of the Saviour. [As our Lord here evidently proceeds upon the common ground of the history, which both parties were alike acquainted with, this last remark appears superfluous.—C. C. S.]
Luk_4:27. Many lepers.—Comp. 2Ki_7:3.—In the time of Elijah, ἐðß . Comp. Luk_3:2; Mar_2:26; Act_11:28.—Naaman. See 2, Kings 6:1–19. “Then might,” the Lord means to say, “the Jews also have been able to say to Elijah and Elisha: Do the same also here in your country.” But it was not possible, because the Jews did not seek the help which they had at the door, and closed their hearts against the Lord. “Theophilus, doubtless, when he read this, rejoiced in the God who is truly also the God of the Gentiles.” Besser. The mention of the history of Naaman was the more humiliating since he had first been unbelieving, but afterwards, on the representations of his simple-minded servants, had become believing.
It would be most unjust to accuse this turn, which the Saviour gave His discourse, of excessive harshness (Hase, De Wette), since we must not forget what an unloving judgment (Luk_4:22-23), respecting His person and His work had preceded it, and how here everything depends on the tone and the voice of the speaker. Moreover, since Luke communicates to us only the main substance of the whole address, we must be very careful of rendering here a precipitate judgment; we have rather here to admire the wise Physician who does not shrink from heroic methods in order to attack the very heart of the chief moral disease of His contemporaries, namely, sensuousness and earthly-minded expectations, and who will rather set at stake His own safety than spare their perverseness. And ought not He who had spent so many years of retirement at Nazareth, and had carefully observed the moral condition of its inhabitants, to have been better able to judge how sternly and severely He was obliged to rebuke, than modern criticism, which here also is very far from being without pre-suppositions?
Luk_4:28. And all they in the synagogue … were filled with wrath.—The veritas odium parit never belied itself less than in respect to the Saviour, in whom the ἀëÞèåéá itself was personally manifested upon earth. How little do the embittered hearers apprehend that precisely by this they give the proof of the justice of the rebuke which they had heard! The reception which Jesus here found, agrees remarkably with that which afterwards Stephen found (Act_7:51). And if this rise of bitterness is compared with the earlier enthusiasm, Luk_4:22, it shows in a striking manner the inconstancy of human honor as well as the untrustworthiness of human passions. Not at Rome alone did the Capitoline border hard on the Tarpeian rock.
Luk_4:29. A cliff of the hill.—Nazareth still lies at the present day on a mountain precipice of from 400 to 500 ft. high, which lifts itself above a valley of about a half a league in circumference; see Röhr, Palestine, pp. 126–129, and the other eminent narratives of travel. Near the Maronite church they still show the rocky wall on the west side of the town, from 40 to 50 ft. high, where the event of the text is said to have happened, and from which He could easily escape them through the narrow and crowded streets of the town (Robinson, p. 423). That the monks show at a distance of two English miles from Nazareth another Mount of Precipitation, where there are yet two stones against which (they say) the Lord leaned in defending Himself, and which yet show traces of His hands and feet, is doubtless one of the grossest errors which tradition has committed in the sphere of the Saviour’s life.
Luk_4:30. But He.—It will hardly be necessary to vindicate the historic reality of this fact against critics who are throughout disposed to place the Jews somewhat higher, and the Lord, indeed, somewhat lower than the Gospel does. Proofs of the turbulence, the cruelty, and the revengefulness of the Galileans can be found in abundance in Josephus, even in the history of his own life. As respects the escape of the Lord, we can here no more assume, with Olshausen, De Wette, and Strauss, something mysterious, than we can subscribe to the prosaic explanation: That He owed His deliverance only to the courage and the resoluteness with which He warded them off from Him (!!) and voluntarily expelled Himself from the synagogue, Joh_16:2 (Von Ammon). With Hase, Stier, and Lange, we ascribe Jesus’ escape to the composure with which He made a way for Himself, strong in the consciousness that His hour was not yet come. He goes thus, not in order to escape His Passion, but in order actively to await the agony of His Passion appointed for Him hereafter. Examples of the daunting influence which composure and self-control have often exercised, on raging crowds are too numerous to be all mentioned here. Let the reader only call to mind the effect of the crushing word: “Slave, wilt thou slay Marius?” and better than this, Joh_18:6. It is, then, unnecessary also to understand here a particular protection of God (in the sense of a miracle, Meyer), but it is better to bring all mirabilia of the kind, in the wider sense of the word, into connection with the elevated and wholly unique personality of the Lord—the absolute miraculum—to which, in a certain sense, it was innate to make such an impression on the rude rabble surrounding Him. “Not in any such sense as that they were struck with blindness does He go forth, invisible and with an outward miracle, for this is precisely what the Evangelist by äéåëèὼí äéὰ ìÝóïõ means to deny; but He only beholds them with a look of His hitherto restrained majesty, reserved for this last need, and they, receiving yet another sign of His spiritual might as a parting token, are bound and incapable of touching Him. Nay, they are compelled on the right and left to make place reverently for His going forth. They stood, stumbled, sought, grew ashamed, fled, and went apart, as Pfenninger with striking pencil paints the close of the scene.” R. Stier.
2. Jesus’ discourse at Nazareth may be named at the same time an opening sermon of His whole activity in Galilee. Impossible, indeed, would it be to find a more admirable text than the Saviour found in turning over the prophetic roll; it is a gospel in brief, the best description of the Christus Consolator. The poor, the prisoners, the blind are indeed the best representatives of the whole mass of suffering mankind. Their names present before our eyes misery and sin in their whole compass. Freedom, light, healing—what noble images of the salvation given in Christ! “Christ finds all those to whom He comes blind, without knowledge of God, bound of Satan, and kept prisoners under death, sin, and the law. For out of the Gospel there is nothing but utter darkness and captivity, so that even if we have some little knowledge, yet can we not follow the same, because we are bound.” Luther.
3. This sermon is of moment, because from it it appears in what relation Christ as Prophet placed Himself to the Old Testament. He grounds His proclamation of the Gospel upon the Scripture, cleaves not merely to its letter, but presses through to its spirit and proclaims Himself as the end of the Law and the Prophets. The Prophetic Scripture is the mirror in which He beholds His own image and shows it to His contemporaries. The genuine evangelical spirit comes to manifestation in an Old Testament form. Even the parallelismus membrorum, to be observed in the diction of the Old Testament, is not wanting in the way in which He opposes the widows in Israel in the days of Elijah, to the lepers in those of Elisha, and repeatedly declares: “To none of them,” &c. After such remarks the inquiry may well be called superfluous whether the Saviour, in the place where He was brought up, received into His soul the inmost spirit of the Scriptures of the Old Testament.
4. The Saviour at Nazareth reveals at once His double character as Physician and Prophet: as physician, who is treated with scorn when he wishes to prepare help for others and at once is bidden to heal himself; as prophet, who deserves the highest honor and does not receive the least. Upon the miracles wrought by the Lord in Nazareth, see Lange, Matthew, p. 255.
5. The first discourse of the Saviour at Nazareth bears so far as this a typico-symbolic character, that, on the one hand, it serves as a prototype of every true preaching of the gospel as to substance, ground, and tenor, and, on the other hand, as in a mirror brings to sight the cliffs on which the effects of a discourse commonly suffer shipwreck—earthly-mindedness, prejudice, pride. Of the four classes of persons who are designated in the parable of the Sower, we find here particularly the second and the third.
6. The manner in which the Saviour begins His sermon at Nazareth deserves, in form as well as matter, to be called a model for every true preacher of the gospel. Comp. the chapter: “Jésus Christ, modèle du prédicateur,” in the admirable tractate of Nap. Roussel, Comment il ne faut pas prêcher, Paris and London, 1857.
7. Nazareth’s synagogue is an image of unbelieving Israel, Nazareth’s rock an image of the unshakable composure and inward tranquillity of Jesus.
Starke:—True preachers have to go through good and evil report, 2Co_6:8.—New preachers of the gospel are wont to be praised, but not long, for the people get tired and their ears itch again for new doctrines, 2Ti_4:3.—To visit the public assembly on the Sabbath is all Christians’ duty, Heb_10:25.—Hedinger:—The ground of all divine truth and its means of proof must be Scripture.—When men first begin with despising the person of a teacher, they are wont also commonly to despise his words and office.—Zeisius:—So long as the gospel is preached with sweet words, the godless also put up with it, but so soon as the application is made, the best appearing are often ready to burst with anger.—Osiander:—It is a folly of men to esteem highly what is strange, but to account as nothing what has come up among themselves.—Quesnel:—Truth embitters those whom it does not enlighten and convert (the gospel a cause of tumult, Luther).—Men are often worse than the devil, who did not do what the Jews wanted to do, Luk_4:29.—Canstein:—There is no might nor counsel against the Lord.—It is often prudence and magnanimity to give way to inflamed dispositions.
Heubner on Luk_4:18-19 :—The order of salvation is given in these verses as in 1Co_1:30 : 1. Wisdom =to preach the gospel to the poor; 2. righteousness =to heal the broken hearts (these words are, however, spurious. See above); 3. sanctification =to proclaim deliverance to the captive, &c.; 4. redemption =preaching the acceptable year of the Lord; in other words: 1. The prophetical, 2. the high-priestly, 3. and 4. the kingly office of the Lord. (Ingeniose magis quam vere! Van Oosterzee.)—Arndt:—The first sermon of Jesus at Nazareth: 1. How rich in matter it must have been; 2. what an impression must have been made!—Palmer:—How the people are astonished at the speech of the Lord! [Vere sed insipidissime.—C. C. S.]—Dræseke:—The acceptable year of the Lord.—Van Oosterzee (inaugural discourse in his native town Rotterdam upon Luk_4:16-22):—The first sermon of Jesus at Nazareth a standard for the minister of the gospel at the beginning of his work. The narrative imparts to the minister of the gospel pregnant suggestions: 1. In reference to the point of view from which he is to consider his work: a. origin, b. matter, c. object, of preaching (Luk_4:18-19). 2. In relation to the manner in which he must perform his work: as here the preaching must be: a. Grounded on Scripture, b. accommodated to the necessity of the hearers, c. presented in an attractive manner. 3. In relation to the fruit upon which he can reckon in this labor. Nazareth shows us: a. That blossoms are as yet no certain sign of fruit; b. that this fruit may be blasted by the most unhappy causes; c. that the harvest may turn out yet better than at the beginning it appears (there in the synagogue were Mary, and also the ἀäåëöïß , who afterwards believed, and if the Saviour did not work many miracles at Nazareth, He yet wrought some, Mat_13:58). 4. In relation to the temper in which he is to begin a new work: a. With thankful recollections of the past (Luk_4:16); b. with holy spiritual might for the present (Luk_4:18); c. with joyful hope for the future (Luk_4:21). Happy the teacher who is permitted to begin his preaching under more favorable presages than Jesus began His in the city where He was brought up.
Footnotes:
Luk_4:16.—From the position of this clause it might appear as if His custom had been not only to visit the synagogue on the Sabbath, but also to read in the public service, but the position of êáôὰ ôὸ åἰùèὸò in the Greek, makes it best to confine the reference to His habitual attendance in the synagogue.—C. C. S.]
Luk_4:18.—The Rec. inserts ἰÜóáóèáé ôïὺò óõíôåôñéììÝíïõò ôὴí êáñäßáí , which, however, appears to be an interpolation from the LXX., Isa_61:1, rightly put in brackets by Lachmann, and rejected by De Wette and Meyer. [Wanting in B., D., L., and Sin.—C. C. S.]
Luk_4:22.— ×Üñéôïò does not refer to the ethical character of His words, but to their persuasive beauty. Anmuth, not Gnade.—C. C. S.]