Cambridge Greek Testament for Schools and Colleges - Luke 9:53 - 9:53

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Cambridge Greek Testament for Schools and Colleges - Luke 9:53 - 9:53


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53. οὐκ ἐδέξαντο αὐτόν. The aorist implies that they at once rejected Him. The Samaritans had shewn themselves heretofore not ill-disposed (Joh 4:39), and St Luke himself delights to record favourable notices of them (Luk 10:33, Luk 17:18). But (i) there was always a recrudescence of hatred between the Jews and the Samaritans at the recurrence of the annual feasts. (ii) Their national jealousy would not allow them to receive a Messiah whose goal was not Gerizim, but Jerusalem. (iii) They would not sanction the passage of a multitude of Jews through their territory, since the Jews frequently (though not always, Jos. Antt. xx. 6, § 1) chose the other route on the East of the Jordan.

τὸ πρόσωπον αὐτοῦ ἦν πορευόμενον. This again is a strange Hebraic form of expression, taken from the LXX[208] 2Sa 17:11.

[208] LXX. Septuagint.

εἰς Ἱερουσαλήμ. This national hatred between Jews and Samaritans (Joh 4:9) still continues, and at the present day it is mainly due to the fanaticism of the Jews. In our Lord’s day the Jews called the Samaritans ‘Cuthites’ (2Ki 17:24), aliens (Luk 17:18), ‘that foolish people that dwell in Sichem’ (Sir 50:25-26), and other opprobrious names. They accused them of continuous idolatry (2 Kings 17), and charged them with false fire-signals, and with having polluted the Temple by scattering it with dead men’s bones (Jos. Antt. XX. 6, § 1, XVIII. 2, § 2; B. J. II. 12, § 3). No doubt originally their Monotheism was very hybrid, being mixed up with five heathen religions (2Ki 17:33; 2Ki 19:37); but they had gradually laid aside idolatry, and it was as much a calumny of the ancient Jews to charge them with the worship of Rachel’s amulets (Gen 35:4) as for modern Jews to call them ‘worshippers of the pigeon’ (Frankl. Jews in the East, II. 334). But the deadly exacerbation between the two nations, which began after the Exile (Ezr 4:1-10; Neh 4:1-16; Neh 4:6), had gone on increasing by perpetual collision since the building of the Temple on Gerizim by Sanballat and the renegade priest Manasseh (Neh 13:28; Jos. Antt. XI. 7, XII. 5, § 5), which was destroyed by John Hyrcanus B.C. 129.