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Luk_4:25-26. In order, however, to quote to you historical examples, in which the miraculous power of the prophets was put forth, not for countrymen, but for strangers, nay, for Gentiles, I assure you, etc. Jesus knew that here this sternness and open decisiveness on His part were not at all out of place, and that He need not hope to win His hearers; this is only confirmed by the later similar incident in Mat_13:54 ff.
ἐπὶ ἔτη τρία κ . μῆνας ἕξ ] so also Jam_5:17. But according to 1Ki_17:1; 1Ki_18:1, the rain returned in the third year. Jesus, as also James (see Huther in loc.), follows, according to Luke, the Jewish tradition (Jalkut Schimoni on 1 Kings 16 in Surenhusius, καταλλ . p. 681), in which in general the number 3½ (= ½ of 7) in the measurement of time (especially a time of misfortune, according to Dan_12:7) had become time-honoured (Lightfoot, p. 756, 950; Otto, Spicileg. p. 142). It was arbitrary and unsatisfactory to reckon (before 1Ki_17:1), in addition to the three years, the naturally rainless six months preceding the rainy season (Benson on Jam_5:17; Wetstein, Wiesinger, and others; comp. also Lange, II. p. 547 f.), or to date the third year (Beza, Olshausen, Schegg) from the flight of Elias to Sarepta (1Ki_17:9).
πᾶσαν τ . γῆν ] not the whole region (Beza), but the whole earth; popularly hyperbolical.
On Sarepta, situated between Tyre and Sidon, and belonging to the territory of the latter, now the village of Surafend, see Robinson, Palestine, III. p. 690 ff.
Σιδῶνος ] the name of the town of Sidon, as that in whose territory Sarepta lay.
μέγας ] in Luk_15:14 λιμός is feminine, as it passed over from the Doric into the κοινή (Lobeck, ad Phryn. p. 188). But in this place the reading μεγάλη , approved by Valckenaer, is so weakly attested that it cannot be thought of.
εἰ μή ] not sed (Beza, Kuinoel), but nisi; see on Mat_12:4