Online Resource Library
Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.com | DownloadCambridge Greek Testament for Schools and Colleges - Luke 7:5 - 7:5
(Show All Books | Show All Chapters)
This Chapter Verse Commentaries:
5. ἀγαπᾷ γὰρ τὸ ἔθνος ἡμῶν. A most unusual thing for a Gentile to do. It shews that the centurion was a Gentile,—probably a proselyte of the gate (though the term was invented later), i.e. one of those who embraced Judaism on the whole, but without becoming a ‘proselyte of righteousness’ by accepting circumcision. It is not impossible that he may have been a Roman, though there is no direct proof that Romans ever held such offices under Herod Antipas. More probably he was some Greek or Syrian, holding a commission under the tetrarch.
τὴν συναγωγὴν αὐτὸς ᾠκοδόμησεν ἡμῖν. ‘Our synagogue he himself built for us.’ The expression, ‘the synagogue,’ does not necessarily imply that there was only one synagogue in Capernaum, but only that he had built the one from which this deputation came, which was probably the chief synagogue of Capernaum. If Capernaum be Tel Hum (as I became convinced on the spot itself), then the ruins of it shew that it probably possessed two synagogues; and this we should have conjectured beforehand, seeing that Jerusalem is said to have had 400. The walls of one of these, built of white marble, are of the age of the Herods, and stand just above the lake. It may be the very building here referred to. This liberality on the part of the Gentiles was by no means unfrequent. Wealthy Gentile proselytes not seldom sent splendid gifts to the Temple itself. The Ptolemies, Jos. Antt. XII. 2, § 5; Sosius, id. XIV. 16, § 4; Fulvia, id. XVIII. 3, § 5, &c. See on Luk 21:5. The αὐτὸς means that the munificent centurion, who must have been very wealthy, had built the synagogue at his own expense.