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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.com | DownloadCambridge Greek Testament for Schools and Colleges - Luke 7:39 - 7:39
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This Chapter Verse Commentaries:
39. οὗτος. ‘This person.’ The word expresses the supercilious scorn which is discernible throughout in the bearing of the speaker.
τίς καὶ ποταπή. ‘Who, and what kind of character’—viz. one personally known, and of a shameful class. “Who,” because the particular offender was notorious for her beauty and her shame. This rather strengthens the inference that the woman was Mary of Magdala, for the legends of the Jewish Talmud respecting her shew that she was well known.
ἥτις ἅπτεται αὐτοῦ. ‘Who is clinging to him.’ Simon makes a double assumption—first that a prophet would have known the character of the woman, and next that he would certainly have repelled her. The bearing and tone of the Rabbis towards women closely resembled that of some mediaeval monks. They said that no one should stand nearer them than four cubits. But Jesus knew more of the woman than Simon did, and was glad that she should shed on His feet the tears of penitence. A great prophet had declared long before that those which say, “Stand by thyself, come not near to me, for I am holier than thou,” were “a smoke in my nose.” Isa 65:5.
ὅτι ἁμαρτωλός ἐστιν. (He would have recognised) ‘that she is a sinner.’