Luke 17:11

TEN LEPERS CLEANSED. (Luk 17:11-19)

through the midst of Samaria and Galilee--probably on the confines of both.

Jamieson, Fausset & Brown — Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

Luk_17:11-19

Ten men that were lepers

The ten lepers

I.

THEIR ORIGINAL CONDITION. Defiled. Separated.

II. THEIR APPLICATION TO CHRIST.

1. Observe the distance they kept from His person.

2. The earnestness of their prayer.

3. The unanimity of their application.

4. The reverence and faith they evinced.

III. THE CURE WROUGHT.

IV. THE THANKS RENDERED BY THE SAMARITAN AND THE INGRATITUDE OF THE NINE.

1. The willingness and power of Christ to heal.

2. The application to be made.

3. The return He demands of those He saves.

4. The commonness of ingratitude. (J. Burns, D. D.)

The ten lepers

I. THE STORY ENCOURAGES WORK ON FRONTIERS AND BORDERS. Jesus met the lepers in the midst of--that is, probably, along the frontier line between--Samaria and Galilee, on His way east to the Jordan. Their common misery drew these natural enemies, the Jews and the Samaritans, together. The national prejudice of each was destroyed. Under these circumstances the border was a favourable retreat for them. The border population is always freer from prejudice and more open to influence.

II. THE STORY SHOWS THAT THERE IS A SENSE IN WHICH IMPENITENT MEN CAN PRAY. The lepers prayed. That weak, hoarse cry affecting]y expressed their sense of need--one characteristic of true prayer. Their standing afar off further expressed their sense of guilt--another characteristic of acceptable prayer. Their disease was a type of the death of sin. Their isolation expressed the exclusion of the polluted and abominable from the city of God.

III. THE STORY SHOWS THAT THERE IS A SENSE IN WHICH GOD ANSWERS THE PRAYERS OF IMPENITENT MEN.

IV. THE STORY SHOWS NOW THE FORM OF OBEDIENCE MAY EXIST WITHOUT ITS SPIRIT.

V. THE STORY SHOWS US THAT A DEGREE OF FAITH MAY EXIST WITHOUT LOVE, AND SO WITHOUT SAVING POWER. There was a weak beginning of faith in all the ten. It is shown in their setting out without a word, though as yet uncleansed, for Jerusalem. This must have required faith of a high order. If it had worked by love all would have been saved. This was one trouble with the nine, and the radical one--they did not love. Calvin describes their case, and that of many like them. Want and hunger, he says, create a faith which gratification kills. It is real faith, yet hath it no root.

VI. THE STORY SHOWS US THE SIN OF INGRATITUDE, AND THE PLACE WHICH GRATITUDE FILLS WITH GOD. The Samaritan was the only one who returned, and he was the only one saved. Birth did not give the Jew a place in the kingdom of heaven; gratitude gave it to a Samaritan. Blessings are good, but not for themselves. They are to draw us to the Giver, they are tests of character. True gratitude to God involves two things, both of which were found in the leper.

1. He was humble; he fell at Jesus feet. He remembered what he had been when Jesus found him, and the pit whence he was digged. If blessings do not make us humble, they are lost upon us.

2. Gratitude involves, also, the exaltation of God. The leper glorified God. A German, who was converted, expressed himself afterward with a beautiful spirit of humility and praise: My wife is rejoicing, he said, I am rejoicing, my Saviour is rejoicing. On another occasion he said, I went this evening to kiss my little children good-night. As I was standing there my wife said to me, Dear husband, you love these our children very dearly, but it is not a thousandth part as much as the blessed Saviour loves us. What spirit should more characterize Gods creatures than gratitude? What should we more certainly look for as the mark of a Christian? God blesses it. He blessed the leper; He cleansed the leprosy deeper than that in his flesh, the leprosy of sin. The nine went on their way with bodies healed, but with a more loathsome disease still upon them, the leprosy of ingratitude. We classify sins. We may find by and by that in Gods sight ingratitude is the blackest of all. There is an application of this truth to Christians which we should not miss. Gratitude gives continual access to higher and higher blessings. The ungrateful Christian loses spiritual blessings. If we value the gift above the Giver, all that we should receive in returning to Him we lose. (G. R. Leavitt.)

The ten lepers

I. THE BLESSING WHICH THEY ALL RECEIVED.

1. A healthy body.

2. Restoration to society.

3. Re-admission to the sanctuary.

II. THE BEHAVIOUR OF THE NINE.

III. THE LOSS SUSTAINED BY THE NINE IN CONSEQUENCE OF THEIR INGRATITUDE. Lessons--

1. In the bestowment of His grace, God is no respecter of persons.

2. Our Lord regards moral and religious obligations as more important than those which are positive and ceremonial.

3. Answers to prayer should be received with thanksgiving. (F. F. Gee, M. A.)

The lepers

Affliction quickens to prayer; but those who remember God in their distresses often forget Him in their deliverances.

1. Observe the condition in which Jesus found the applicants.

2. Observe the state in which Jesus left them.

3. Their subsequent conduct.

I. THE GREAT EVIL AND PREVALENCY OF INGRATITUDE.

1. It is a sin so very common that not one in ten can be found that is not guilty of it in a very flagrant manner, and not one in ten thousand but what is liable to the charge in some degree. It is a prevailing vice among all ranks and conditions in society.

2. Common as this sin is, it is nevertheless a sin of great magnitude. Should not the patient be thankful for the recovery of his health, especially where the relief has been gratuitously afforded? Should not the debtor or the criminal be thankful to his surety or his prince, who freely gave him his liberty or his life?

(1) It is a sin of which no one can be ignorant; it is a sin against the light of nature, as well as against the law of revelation.

(2) Ingratitude carries in it a degree of injustice towards the Author of all our mercies, in that it denies to Him the glory due unto His name, and is a virtual impeachment of His goodness.

(3) Unthankfulness brings a curse upon the blessings we enjoy, and provokes the Giver to deprive us of them.

II. CONSIDER THE MEANS BY WHICH THIS EVIL MAY BE PREVENTED.

1. Be clothed with humility, and cherish a proper sense of your own meanness and unworthiness.

2. Dive every mercy its full weight. Call no sin small, and no mercy small.

3. Take a collective view of all your mercies, and you will see perpetual cause far thankfulness.

4. Consider your mercies in a comparative view. Compare them with your deserts: put your provocations in one scale, and Divine indulgences in another, and see which preponderates. Compare your afflictions with your mercies.

5. Think how ornamental to religion is a grateful and humble spirit.

6. There is no unthankfulness in heaven. (B. Beddome, M. A.)

The ten lepers

1. The first thing I would have you notice is, that the ten were at first undistinguishable in their misery. That there were differences of character among them we know; that there were differences of race, of education, and training, we know too, for one at least was a Samaritan, and under no other circumstances, perhaps, would his companions have had any dealings with him; but all their differences were obliterated, their natural antipathies were lost, beneath the common pressure of their frightful misery--their very voices were blended in one urgent cry, Jesus, Master, have mercy upon us. One touch of nature, says the great poet, makes the whole world kin: true, and alas I never so true as when that touch of nature is the sense of guilt. This is the great leveller, not only of the highest and lowest, but of the best and worst, effacing all distinctions, even of moral character; for, when one attempts to weigh ones sin and count it up, it seems impossible to establish degrees in ones own favour--one feels as if there were a dreadful equality of guilt for all, and one was no better than another.

2. I would have you notice, in the second place, the apparent tameness of their cure. Our Lord neither lays His finger on them, nor holds any conference, but, merely tells them to go and show themselves to the priests, according to the letter of that now antiquated and perishing law of Moses. Never was so great a cure worked in so tame a fashion since the time of Naaman the Syrian; well for them that they had a humbler spirit and a more confiding faith than he, or they, too, would, have gone away in a rage and been never the better. Now, I think we may see in this a striking parable of how our Lord evermore deals with penitent sinners. He does not, as a rule, make any wonderful revelation of Himself to the soul which He heals; there is no dramatic scene which can be reported to others. There is, indeed, often something very commonplace, and therefore disappointing, about His dealings with penitents. He remits them to their religious duties--to those things which men account as outward and formal, and therefore feeble, which have indeed no power at all in themselves to heal the leprosy of sin, such as the means of grace, the ministry of reconciliation. In these things there is no excitement; they do not carry away the soul with a rush of enthusiasm, or fill it with a trembling awe.

3. And, in the third place, I would have you notice the unexpected way in which He addressed the one who came back to express his heartfelt gratitude. Arise, go thy way, thy faith hath made thee whole. Now, it is obvious that these words were just as applicable to the other nine as to him, for they, too, had been made whole, and made whole by faith; all had believed, all had started off obediently to show themselves to the priests, and all alike had been cleansed through faith as they went. Does it not seem strange that He took no notice of the gratitude which was peculiar to the one to whom He spake, and only made mention of the faith which was common to them all? Did He not do it advisedly? Did He not intend us to learn a lesson thereby? We know that this story sets forth as a parable our own conduct as redeemed and pardoned sinners. We know that the great bulk of Christians are ungrateful; that they are far more concerned in lamenting the petty losses and securing the petty gains of life, than in showing their thankfulness to God for His inestimable love. What about them? Will unthankful Christians also receive the salvation of their souls? I suppose so. I think this story teaches us so, and I think our Lords words to the one that returned are meant to enforce that teaching. All were cleansed, though only one gave glory to God; even so we are all made whole by faith, though scarcely one in ten shows any gratitude for it. The ingratitude of Christian people may indeed mar very grievously the work of grace, but it cannot undo it. Thy faith hath made thee whole is the common formula which includes all the saved, although amongst them be found differences so striking, and deficiencies so painful. There are that use religion itself selfishly, thinking only of the personal advantage it will be to themselves, and of the pleasure it brings within their reach. But these are certainly not the happiest. Vexed with every trifle, worried about every difficulty, entangled with a thousand uncertainties, if all things go well they just acquiesce in it, as if they had a right to expect it; if things go wrong they begin at once to complain, as though they were ill-used; if they become worse, then they are miserable, as though all cause for rejoicing were gone. Now, I need not remind you how fearfully such a temper dishonours God. When He has freely given us an eternal inheritance of joy, a kingdom which cannot be shaken, an immortality beyond the reach of sin or suffering, it is simply monstrous that we should murmur at the shadows of sorrow which fleck our sea of blessing, it should seem simply incredible that we do not continually pour out our very souls in thanksgiving unto Him that loved us and gave Himself for us. But I will say this, that our ingratitude is the secret of our little happiness in this life. Our redeemed lives were meant to be like that summer sea when it dances and sparkles beneath the glorious sun instead of which they are like a sullen, muddy pool upon a cloudy day, which gives back nothing but the changing hues of gloom. It is not outward circumstance, it is the presence or absence of a thankful spirit which makes all the difference to our lives. Gratitude to God is the sunshine of our souls, with which the tamest scene is bright and the wildest beautiful, without which the fairest landscape is but sombre. (R. Winterbotham, M. A.)

Fourteenth Sunday after Trinity

Three impressive and instructive pictures are described in this gospel.

I. A CONGREGATION OF SUFFERERS, whom affliction influenced to much seeming goodness and piety. It is a beautiful and comforting truth, that there is no depth of suffering, or distance from the pure and the good to which sin may banish men in this world, where they are debarred from carrying their sorrows and griefs in prayer to God. A man may be guilty, leprous, cast out, cut off, given up as irretrievably lost; and yet, if he will, he may call on God for help, and the genuine, hearty, earnest, and real cry of his soul will reach the ear of God.

II. A MARVELLOUS INTERFERENCE OF DIVINE POWER AND GRACE for their relief, very unsatisfactorily acknowledged and improved. Dark-day and sick-bed religion is apt to be a religion of mere constraint. Take the pressure off, and it is apt to be like the morning cloud and the early dew, which goeth away. Give me a man who has learned to know and fear God in the daytime, and I shall not be much in doubt of him when the night comes. But the piety which takes its existence in times of cloud and darkness, like the growths common to such seasons, is apt to be as speedy in its decline as it is quick and facile in its rise. There are mushrooms in the field of grace, as well as in the field of nature.

III. AN INSTANCE OF LONELY GRATITUDE, resulting in most precious blessings superadded to the miraculous cure. There was not only a faith to get the bodily cure, but a faith which brought out a complete and practical discipleship; an earnest and abiding willingness, in prosperity as well as in adversity, to wear the Saviours yoke. (J. A. Seiss, D. D.)

Only trust Him

As these men were to start straight away to the priest with all their leprosy white upon them, and to go there as if they felt they were already healed, so are you, with all your sinnership upon you, and your sense of condemnation heavy on your soul, to believe in Jesus Christ just as you are, and you shall find everlasting life upon the spot.

I. First, then, I say that we are to believe in Jesus Christ--to trust Him to heal us of the great disease of sin--though as yet we may have about us no sign or token that He has wrought any good work upon us. We are not to look for signs and evidences within ourselves before we venture our souls upon Jesus. The contrary supposition is a soul-destroying error, and I will try to expose it by showing what are the signs that are commonly looked for by men.

1. One of the most frequent is a consciousness of great sin, and a horrible dread of Divine wrath, leading to despair. If you say, Lord, I cannot trust Thee unless I feel this or that, then you, in effect, say, I can trust my own feelings, but I cannot trust Gods appointed Saviour. What is this but to make a god out of your feelings, and a saviour out of your inward griefs?

2. Many other persons think that they must, before they can trust Christ, experience quite a blaze of joy. Why, you say, must I not be happy before I can believe in Christ? Must you needs have the joy before you exercise the faith? How unreasonable!

3. We have known others who have expected to have a text impressed upon their minds. In old families there are superstitions about white birds coming to a window before a death, and I regard with much the same distrust the more common superstition that if a text continues upon your mind day after clay you may safely conclude that it is an assurance of your salvation. The Spirit of God often does apply Scripture with power to the soul; but this fact is never set forth as the rock for us to build upon.

4. There is another way in which some men try to get off believing in Christ, and that is, they expect an actual conversion to be manifest in them before they will trust the Saviour. Conversion is the manifestation of Christs healing power. But you are not to have this before you trust Him; you are to trust Him for this very thing.

II. And now, secondly, I want to bring forward WHAT THE REASON IS FOR OUR BELIEVING IN JESUS CHRIST. No warrant whatever within ourself need be looked for. The warrant for our believing Christ lies in this--

1. There is Gods witness concerning His Son Jesus Christ. God, the Everlasting Father, has set forth Christ to be the propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only, but also for the sin of the whole world.

2. The next warrant for our believing is Jesus Christ Himself. He bears witness on earth as well as the Father, and His witness is true.

3. I dare say these poor lepers believed in Jesus because they had heard of other lepers whom He had cleansed.

III. WHAT IS THE ISSUE OF THIS KIND OF FAITH THAT I HAVE BEEN PREACHING? This trusting in Jesus without marks, signs, evidences, tokens, what is the result and outcome of it?

1. The first thing that I have to say about it is this--that the very existence of such a faith as that in the soul is evidence that there is already a saving change. Every man by nature kicks against simply trusting in Christ; and when at last he yields to the Divine method of mercy it is a virtual surrender of his own will, the ending of rebellion, the establishment of peace. Faith is obedience.

2. It will be an evidence, also, that you are humble; for it is pride that makes men want to do something, or to be something, in their own salvation, or to be saved in some wonderful way.

3. Again, faith in Jesus will be the best evidence.that you are reconciled to God, for the worst evidence of your enmity to God is that you do not like Gods way of salvation. (C. H. Spurgeon.)

The ten lepers

I. A WRETCHED COMPANY.

II. A SURPRISED COMPANY.

1. The occasion of the surprise.

(1) They suddenly met Jesus.

(a) Life is full of surprises.

(b) To meet Jesus is the-best of all lifes surprises.

2. The effects of this surprise.

(1) Hope was enkindled within them.

(2) Prayer for mercy broke forth from them.

(3) Healing of their dreadful malady was experienced by them.

III. AN UNGRATEFUL COMPANY.

1. Consider the number healed.

2. The cry which brought the healing.

3. The simultaneousness of the healing.

4. The ingratitude of the healed.

(1) Only one returned to acknowledge the mercy.

(2) This one a stranger.

(3) The ungrateful are those of the Masters own household.

(4) Are these representative facts?

5. Consider the special blessing bestowed on the grateful soul.

(1) Not only healed in body, but also in soul.

(2) Soul-healing ever requires personal faith. (D. C. Hughes, M. A.)

The ten lepers

I. THEIR APPLICATION. It was--

1. Unanimous.

2. Earnest.

3. Respectful and humble.

II. THEIR CURE.

1. A wonderful manifestation of Christs power. He is a rich

Saviour, rich in mercy and rich in power.

2. Great faith and obedience exhibited on their part.

III. THE THANKFULNESS MANIFESTED BY ONE OF THESE HEALED MEN.

1. Prompt.

2. Warm, hearty, earnest.

3. Humble and reverential.

More so, observe, than even his prayer. When he cried for mercy, he stood; when he gives thanks for mercy, he falls down on his face, The thankfulness of this man was elevated also. It was accompanied with high thoughts of God, and a setting forth, as far as he was able, of Gods glory. He is said in the text to have glorified God. And observe how he blends together in his thankfulness God and Christ. He glorifies the one, and at the same time he falls down before the other, giving Him thanks. Did he then look on our Lord in His real character, as God? Perhaps he did. The wonderful cure he had received in his body, might have been accompanied with as wonderful an outpouring of grace and light into his mind. God and Christ, Gods glory and Christs mercy, were so blended together in his mind, that he could not separate them. Neither, brethren, can you separate them, if you know anything aright of Christ and His mercy. (C. Bradley, M. A.)

The ten lepers

1. Look at the afflicted objects.

2. Observe the direction of the Divine Physician. The Saviour, by sending the lepers to the priest, not only honoured the law which had prescribed this conduct, but secured to Himself the testimony of the appointed judge and witness of the cure; for, as this disease was considered to be both inflicted and cured by the hand of God Himself, and as He had cured it, He thus left a witness in the conscience of the priest, that He was what He professed to be.

3. Follow these men on the road, and behold the triumphant success of Christs merciful designs. Christs cure was not only effectual, but universal. No one of the ten is excepted as too diseased, or too unworthy; but among all these men there is only one that we look at with pleasure. He was a stranger.

4. Contemplate more closely the grateful Samaritan. What a lovely object is gratitude at the feet of Mercy!

5. But what a contrast is presented by the ungrateful Jews.

6. Yet how gently the Saviour rebukes their unthankfulness. He might have said--What! so absorbed in the enjoyment of health as to forget the Giver! Then the leprosy which I healed shall return to you, and cleave to you for ever. But, no; He only asks--Are there not found any that returned to give glory to God, save this stranger? And, turning to the man prostrate in the dust at His feet, Jesus said, Arise, go to thy house, thy faith hath made thee whole.

Concluding lessons--

1. This subject shows the compassion of the Saviour.

2. Let each ask himself, Am I a leper?

3. See the hatefulness of ingratitude. (T. Gibson, M. A.)

Gratitude for Divine favours

I. WE ARE CONTINUALLY RECEIVING FAVOURS FROM GOD. No creature is independent. All are daily receiving from the Father of lights, from whom cometh every good and perfect gift, and with whom there is no variableness, nor shadow of turning. Our bodies, with all their powers; and our souls, with all their capacities, are derived from Him. But whilst the beneficence of the Supreme Being is, in one sense, general; it is, in another, restricted. Some are more highly favoured than others. Some have experienced remarkable interpositions of Divine providence. Some have been raised up from dangerous illness. Some have been advanced in worldly possessions. Some are the partakers of distinguished privileges. Such are those who are favoured with the dispensation of the gospel.

II. THAT THESE FAVOURS SHOULD INDUCE A SUITABLE RETURN.

1. Gratitude will not be regarded as unsuitable. We always expect this from our fellow-creatures who participate in our bounty.

2. Commendation is another suitable return. Make known the lovely character of your merciful Redeemer to others.

3. Service is another suitable return. Wherefore, we receiving a kingdom which cannot be moved, let us have grace whereby we may serve God acceptably, with reverence and with godly fear.

4. Humiliation is a suitable return. This Samaritan prostrated himself before his Divine Healer. How unspeakable is the felicity of that man, who, deeply humbled under a sense of the manifold mercies of God, can lift up his eyes to the great Judge of quick and dead, and say in sincerity, Lord, my heart is not haughty, nor my soul lofty, neither do I exercise myself in great matters, nor in things too high for me; I have surely behaved and quieted myself as a child that is weaned of its mother: my soul is even u a weaned child!

5. Honour is a suitable return. This Samaritan was not, perhaps, acquainted with our Lords divinity; but he regarded Him as some extraordinary personage, and, as was customary in such cases, he prostrated himself before Him, as a token of great respect and veneration. Entertain the most exalted conceptions of Him; you cannot raise your thoughts too high: He is God over all, blessed for ever.

III. THAT THIS RETURN IS TOO COMMONLY NEGLECTED. The cause of this forgetfulness is to be traced, in general, to the influence of inward depravity; and nothing is a clearer proof of the corruption of our nature; but there are other causes, co-operating with this, of which we may mention two. First: Worldly prosperity. Honey does not more powerfully attract bees than affluence generates danger. Secondly: Worldly anxiety is another cause of this forgetfulness.

IV. WE MAY OBSERVE, THAT TO NEGLECT A RETURN OF GRATITUDE TO GOD IS HIGHLY REPREHENSIBLE. Nay, it is exceedingly sinful. What insensibility does it argue, and what criminality does it involve! It is a virtual denial of the Divine providence. (T. Gibson, M. A.)

The earnestness of personal necessity

One fact is brought most powerfully before us here, and that is--

1. The personal necessity of these ten men. So strong was it that it gained a victory over national prejudices of the fiercest kind, and we find the Samaritan in company with the Jew. Amongst men not conscious of a common misery, such a union might have been looked for but in vain; the Jew would have loathed the Samaritan and the Samaritan would have scorned the Jew. And there is too much reason for supposing that a want of personal religion is tile cause of much of that fierce estrangement which characterizes the different parties and denominations of the religious world in the present day. Did men realize their common sinfulness, the deep necessity which enfolds them all, we can well believe that much of the energy which is now wasted in profitless controversy and angry recrimination, would be spent in united supplication to the One, who alone can do ought for the sinner in his need.

2. Again we see how personal necessity triumphs over national prejudice, in the fact that the Samaritan is willing to call upon a Jew for safety and for help. Under ordinary circumstances he would have held no communion with Him at all, but the fact that he was a leper, and that Jesus could cure him, overcame the national antipathy and he joins his voice with that of all the rest. And surely thus also is it with the leper of the spiritual world; when he has been brought truly to know his state, truly to smart under its degradation and its pain, truly to believe that there is One at hand by whom he can be healed, the power of the former pride and prejudice becomes broken down, and he cries out in earnest to the long-despised Jesus for the needed help.

3. We have now seen the power of personal necessity in overcoming strongly-rooted prejudice; let us next proceed to consider it as productive of great earnestness in supplication. The supplication of these men was loud and personal; they lifted up their voices, and fixed on one alone of Jesus company as able to deliver them, and that one was Jesus Christ

Himself. And we can well understand how this plague-stricken family united their energies in a long, earnest cry to attract the attention of the One that alone could make them whole. Theirs was no feeble whisper, no dull and muffled sound, but a piteous, an agonizing call which almost startled the very air as it rushed along. Nor can we marvel if God refuse to hear the cold, dull prayers which for the most part fall upon His ear; they are not the expressions of need, and therefore find little favour at His hands; they come to Him like the compliments which men pay to their fellow-men, and meaning nothing, they are taken for exactly what they are worth.

4. And mark, how by the loudness of their cry these unhappy men expose their miserable state to Christ--the one absorbing point which they wished to press upon His notice was the fact that they were all lepers, ten diseased and almost despairing men. In their case there was no hiding of their woe, they wished the Lord to see the worst. (P. B. Power, M. A.)

He was a Samaritan

The Samaritans gratitude

It is necessary to notice the saving element in this mans gratitude. We can imagine the other nine saying to him as he turned back, We are as grateful to God as you are, but we will return our thanks in the temple of God. There are certain acts of worship, certain sacrifices ordained in the law by God Himself. In the due performance of these we will thank God in His own appointed way. He who healed us is a great Prophet, but it is the great power of God alone which has cleansed us. Now the Samaritan was not content with this. His faith worked by love, taking the form of thankfulness. He at once left the nine to their journey, and, without delay, threw himself at the feet of the Lord. He felt that his was not a common healing--not a healing in the way of nature, by the disease exhausting itself in time. It was a supernatural healing, through the intervention of a particular servant of God; and this servant (or, perhaps, he had heard that Jesus claimed to be more than a servant, even the Son of God) must be thanked and glorified. If God had healed him in the ordinary course, the sacrifices prescribed for such healing would have sufficed. But God had healed him in an extraordinary way--by His Son, by One who was far greater than any prophet; and so, if God was to be glorified, it must be in connection with this extraordinary channel of blessing, this Mediator. (M. F. Sadler.)

Gratitude heightens the power of enjoyment

Mans gratitude is, I have often thought and said, a sixth sense; for it always heightens the power of enjoyment. Suppose a man to walk through the world with every sense excited to its utmost nerve: let there be a world of dainties spread before him and around him, and the aromas of all precious fragrances steeping his senses in delicious and exquisite enjoyment; let the eye be gladdened and brighten over: the knowledge, and the hand tighten over the grasp of present and actual possession, yet let him be a man in whose nature there wakes no keen sensation of grateful remembrance, and I say that yet the most delightful sensation is denied him. Grateful-thankfulness is allied to--nay, forms an ingredient in--the very chief of our deepest enjoyments,and purest springs of blessedness. Gratitude gives all the sweet spice to the cup of contentment, and the cup of discontent derives all its acid from an ungrateful heart. (E. P. Hood.)

Unexpected piety

And he was a Samaritan. Thus frequently, in like manner, have we been surprised at the the finding of gratitude to God in most unexpected places and persons. We have often seen that it is by no means in proportion to the apparent munificence of the Divine bounty. It is proverbial that the hymn of praise rises more frequently from the peasants fireside than from palace gates--more frequently from straitened than from abounding circumstances. Wherefore let us ourselves adore the exalting graces of the Divine goodness, which makes the smallest measure of Gods grace to outweigh the mightiest measure of circumstantial happiness. As long as God merely gives the gilded shell--the scaffolding of the palace--He gives but little; and it has been frequently said that He shows His disregard of riches by giving them to the worst of men frequently; but to possess a sense of His mercy and goodness, that exceeds them all. (E. P. Hood.)

Ingratitude for Divine favours

The Staubach is a fail of remarkable magnificence, seeming to leap from heaven; its glorious stream reminds one of the abounding mercy which in a mighty torrent descends from above. In the winter, when the cold is severe, the water freezes at the foot of the fall, and rises up in huge icicles like stalagmites, until it reaches the fall itself, as though it sought to bind it in the same icy fetters. How like this is to the common ingratitude of men! Earths ingratitude rises up to meet heavens mercy; as though the very goodness of God helped us to defy Him. Divine favours, frozen by human ingratitude, are proudly lifted in rebellion against the God who gave them. (C. H. Spurgeon.)

Where are the nine?--

Ingratitude towards God

I. THE IGNOMINY OF INGRATITUDE.

1. The ungrateful Christian acts against the voice of his conscience.

(1) Natural reason acknowledges the duty of gratitude.

(2) The general consent of mankind brands with infamy the ungrateful.

2. Ingratitude sinks the human being below the level of the brute creation.

3. Ingratitude is infinitely ignominious, because directed against God.

(1) God exhorts us so often to be grateful.

(2) His beneficence is unlimited.

(3) All His benefits are gratuities.

(4) The ungrateful man denies, in fact, the existence of God.

II. THE PERNICIOUS CONSEQUENCES OF INGRATITUDE.

1. Temporal consequences.

(1) God threatens to deprive the ungrateful of the blessings received Luk_9:26). God has ever been the absolute owner of whatever He gives; and He gives and takes according to His good pleasure.

(a) He threatens so to direct events that His gift shall become a curse instead of a blessing to the ungrateful receiver.

(b) To refuse whatever he may ask for in future.

(c) To send chastisements upon him so as to convince him that He is the Lord.

(2) God fulfilled His threatenings

(a) on our first parents;

(b) on Israel;

(c) on Nebuchadnezzar.

(d) Your own life and the life of your acquaintances will bear similar testimony.

2. Everlasting consequences. If the sinner remain ungrateful to the end of his earthly life, he will be deprived of all Divine gifts for all eternity. He will be deprived--

(1) Of the Word of God, instead of which he will incessantly hear only the words of Satan.

(2) Of the celestial light against which he closed his eyes; in punishment of which he will be buried in everlasting darkness.

(3) Of the Beatific Vision, instead of which he will behold only the vision of devilish deformity.

(4) Of the sacramental means of salvation.

(5) Of heavenly peace and joy. (Horar.)

The causes of ingratitude

The nine, where? Thus Christ with censure, sadness, surprise inquires. There are more than nine sources of ingratitude. But there are nine, and each of these men may represent some one.

I. One is CALLOUS. He did not feel his misery as much as some, nor is he much stirred now by his return to health. Sullen, torpid, stony men are thankless. Callousness is a common cause of ingratitude.

II. One is THOUGHTLESS. He is more like shifting sand than hard stone, but he never reflects, never introspects, never recollects. The unreflecting are ungrateful.

III. One is PROUD. He has not had more than his merit in being healed. Why should he be thankful for what his respectability, his station, deserved? Only the humble-hearted are truly grateful.

IV. One is ENVIOUS. Though healed he has not all that some others have. They are younger, or stronger, or have more friends to welcome them. He is envious. Envy turns sour the milk of thankfulness.

V. One is COWARDLY. The Healer is scorned, persecuted, hated. The expression of gratitude may bring some of such hatred on himself. The craven is always a mean ingrate.

VI. One is CALCULATING the result of acknowledging the benefit received. Perhaps some claim may arise of discipleship, or gift.

VII. One is WORLDLY. Already he has purpose of business in Jerusalem, or plan of pleasures there, that fascinates him from returning to give thanks.

VIII. One is GREGARIOUS. He would have expressed gratitude if the other eight would, but he has no independence, no individuality.

IX. One is PROCRASTINATING. By and by. Meanwhile Christ asks, Where are the nine? (Urijah R. Thomas.)

The sin of ingratitude

There are, speaking broadly, three chief reasons for unthankfulness on the part of man towards God. First, an indistinct idea or an under-estimate of the service that He renders us; secondly, a disposition, whether voluntary or not, to lose sight of our benefactor; thirdly, the notion that it does not matter much to Him whether we acknowledge His benefits or not. Let us take these in order.

I. There is, first of all, THE DISPOSITION TO MAKE LIGHT OF A BLESSING OR BENEFIT RECEIVED. Of this the nine lepers in the gospel could hardly have been guilty--at any rate, at the moment of their cure. To the Jews especially, as in a lesser degree to the Eastern world at large, this disease, or group of diseases, appeared in their own language to be as a living death. The nine lepers were more probably like children with a new toy, too delighted with their restored health and honour to think of the gracious friend to whom they owed it. In the case of some temporal blessings it is thus sometimes with us: the gift obscures the giver by its very wealth and profusion. But in spiritual things we are more likely to think chiefly of the gift. At bottom of their want of thankfulness there lies a radically imperfect estimate of the blessings of redemption, and until this is reversed they cannot seriously look into the face of Christ and thank Him for His inestimable love.

II. Thanklessness is due, secondly, TO LOSING SIGHT OF OUR BENEFACTOR, AND OF THIS THE NINE LEPERS WERE NO DOUBT GUILTY. Such a thanklessness as this may arise from carelessness, or it may be partly deliberate. The former was probably the case with the nine lepers. The powerful and benevolent stranger who had told them to go to the priests to be inspected had fallen already into the background of their thought, and if they reasoned upon the causes of their cure they probably thought of some natural cause, or of the inherent virtue of the Mosaic ordinances. For a sample of thanklessness arising from a careless forgetfulness o! kindness received, look at the bearing of many children in the present day towards their parents. How often in place of a loving and reverent bearing do young men and women assume with their parents a footing of perfect equality, if not of something more, as if, forsooth, they had conferred a great benefit upon their fathers and mothers by becoming their children, and giving them the opportunity of working for their support and education. This does not--I fully believe it does not--in nine cases out of ten imply a bad heart inthe son or daughter. It is simply a form of that thanklessness which is due to want of reflection on the real obligations which they owe to the human authors of their life.

III. Thanklessness is due, thirdly, TO THE UTILITARIAN SPIRIT. If prayer be efficacious the use of it is obvious; but where, men ask, is the use of thankfulness? What is the good of thankfulness, they say, at any rate when addressed to such a being as God? If man does us a service and we repay him, that is intelligible: he needs our repayment. We repay him in kind if we can, or if we cannot, we repay him with our thanks, which gratify his sense of active benevolence--perhaps his lower sense of self-importance. But what benefit can God get by receiving the thanks of creatures whom He has made and whom He supports? Now, if the lepers did think thus, our Lords remark shows that they were mistaken--not in supposing that a Divine Benefactor is not dependent for His happiness on the return which His creatures may make to Him--not in thinking that it was out of their power to make Him any adequate return at all--but at least in imagining that it was a matter of indifference to Him whether He was thanked or not. If not for His own sake, yet for theirs, He would be thanked. To thank the author of a blessing is for the receiver of the blessing to place himself voluntarily under the law of truth by acknowledging the fact that he has been blest. To do this is a matter of hard moral obligation; it is also a condition of moral force. It is very meet, right, and our bounden duty, that we should at all times, and in all places, give thanks unto Thee, O Lord, Holy Father, Almighty Everlasting God. Why meet? Why right? Because it is the acknowledgment of a hard fact--the fact that all things some of God, the fact that we are utterly dependent upon Him, the fact that all existence, all life, is but an outflow of His love; because to blink this fact is to fall back into the darkness and to forfeit that strength which comes always and everywhere with the energetic acknowledgment of truth. Morally speaking, the nine lepers were not the men they would have been if, at the cost of some trouble, they had accompanied the one who, when he saw that he was healed, turned back, and with a loud voice glorified God, giving Him thanks. (Canon Liddon.)

I. THE SINGULARITY OF THANKFULNESS.

Praise neglected

1. Here note--there are more who receive benefits than ever give praise for them. Nine persons healed, one person glorifying God; nine persons healed of leprosy, mark you, and only one person kneeling down at Jesus feet, and thanking Him for it!

2. But there is something more remarkable than this--the number of those who pray is greater than the number of those who praise. For these ten men that were lepers all prayed. But when they came to the Te Deum, magnifying and praising God, only one of them took up the note. One would have thought that all who prayed would praise, but it is not so. Cases have been where a whole ships crew in time of storm has prayed, and yet none of that crew have sung the praise of God when the storm has become a calm.

3. Most of us pray more than we praise. Yet prayer is not so heavenly an exercise as praise. Prayer is for time; but praise is for eternity.

4. There are more that believe than there are that praise. It is real faith, I trust--it is not for me to judge it, but it is faulty in result. So also among ourselves, there are men who get benefits from Christ, who even hope that they are saved, but they do not praise Him. Their lives are spent in examining their own skins to see whether their leprosy is gone. Their religious life reveals itself in a constant searching of themselves to see if they are really healed. This is a poor way of spending ones energies.

II. THE CHARACTERISTICS OF TRUE THANKFULNESS.

1. Living praise is marked by individuality.

2. Promptness. Go at once, and praise the Saviour.

3. Spirituality.

4. Intensity. With a loud voice.

5. Humility.

6. Worship.

7. One thing more about this man I want to notice as to his thankfulness, and that is, his silence as to censuring others.

When the Saviour said, Where are the nine? I notice that this man did not reply. But the adoring stranger did not stand up, and say, O Lord, they are all gone off to the priests: I am astonished at them that they did not return to praise Thee! O brothers, we have enough to do to mind our own business, when we feel the grace of God in our own hearts!

III. THE BLESSEDNESS OF THANKFULNESS. This man was more blessed by far than the nine. They were healed, but they were not blessed as he was. There is a great blessedness in thankfulness.

1. Because it is right. Should not Christ be praised?

2. It is a manifestation of personal love.

3. It has clear views.

4. It is acceptable to Christ.

5. It receives the largest blessing.

In conclusion:

1. Let us learn from all this to put praise in a high place. Let us think it as great a sin to neglect praise as to restrain prayer.

2. Next, let us pay our praise to Christ Himself.

3. Lastly, if we work for Jesus, and we see converts, and they do not turn out as we expected, do not let us be cast down about it. If others do not praise our Lord, let us be sorrowful, but let us not be disappointed. The Saviour had to say, Where are the nine? Ten lepers were healed, but only one praised Him. (C. H. Spurgeon.)

God looks after the nine

I. CHRIST HAS A PERFECT KNOWLEDGE OF ALL UPON WHOM HE CONFERS SPECIAL GRACE AND BLESSING, AND A PERFECT RECOLLECTION OF THE KIND AND MEASURE OF HIS BESTOWMENTS.

II. WHILE THE SOLITARY GRATEFUL SOUL WILL BE AMPLY REWARDED BY JESUS, THE MULTITUDE OF INGRATES WILL BE INQUIRED AFTER AND DEALT WITH BY HIM. (J. M. Sherwood, D. D.)

But where are the nine?

I. There are many men even now who, like the nine thankless lepers, have FAITH ENOUGH FOR THE HEALTH OF THE BODY, or even for all the conditions of outward comfort and success, but have not faith enough to secure the health and prosperity of the soul. That is to say, there are many who believe in so much of the will of God as can be expressed in sanitary laws and in the conditions of commercial success, but who do not believe in that Will as it is expressed in the laws and aims of the spiritual life. St. Johns wish for his friend Gains (3Jn_1:2) is a mystery to them; and it may be doubted whether they would care to have even St. John for a friend if he were constantly beseeching God to give them health of body only in proportion to their health of soul, and prosperity in business only in proportion to their growth in faith and righteousness and charity.

II. If we look at the case of these nine lepers a little more closely, we shall find only too much in ourselves and our neighbours TO EXPLAIN THEIR INGRATITUDE, or, at least, to make it both credible and admonitory to us.

1. They may have thought that they had done nothing to deserve their horrible fate, or nothing more than many of their neighbours, who yet passed them by as men accursed of God; and that therefore, it was only just that they should be restored to health.

2. They may have thought that they would at least make sure of their restoration to health before they gave thanks to Him who had healed them.

3. They may have put obedience before love. Yet nothing but love can save.

4. The nine were Jews, the tenth a Samaritan; and it may be that they would not go back just because he did. No sooner is the misery which had brought them together removed, than the old enmity flames out again, and the Jews take one road, the Samaritan another. When the Stuarts were on the throne, and a stedfast endeavour was made to impose the yoke of Rome on the English conscience, Churchmen and Nonconformists forgot their differences; and as they laboured in a common cause, and fought against a common foe, they confessed that they were brethren, and vowed that they would never be parted more. But when the danger was past these vows were forgotten, and once more they drew apart, and remain apart to this day.

5. Finally, the nine ungrateful, because unloving, lepers may have said within themselves, We had better go on our way and do as we are bid, for we can be just as thankful to the kind Master in our hearts without saying so to Him; and we can thank God anywhere--thank Him just as well while we are on our way to the priests, or out here on the road and among the fields, as if we turned back. The Master has other work to do, and would not care to be troubled with our thanks; and as for God--God is everywhere, here as well as there. Now it would not become us, who also believe that God is everywhere, and that He may be most truly worshipped both in the silence of the heart and amid the noise and bustle of the world, to deny that He may be worshipped in the fair temple of nature, where all His works praise Him. It would not become us to deny even that some men may find Him in wood and field as they do not find Him in a congregation or a crowd. But, surely, it does become us to suggest to those who take this tone that, just as we ourselves love to be loved and to know that we are loved, so God loves our love to become vocal, loves that we should acknowledge our love for Him; and that, not merely because He cares for our praise, but because our love grows as we show and confess it, and because we can only become perfect as we become perfect in love. It surely does not become us to remind them that no man can truly love God unless he love his brother also; and that, therefore, the true lover of God should and must find in the worship of brethren whom he loves his best aid to the worship of their common Father. He who finds woods and fields more helpful to him than man is not himself fully a man; he is not perfect in the love of his brother; and is not, therefore, perfect in the love of God. (S. Cox, D. D.)

Impediments to gratitude

The moment when a man gets what he wants is a testing one, it carries a trial and probation with it; or if, for the instant, his feeling is excited, the after-time is a trial. There is a sudden reversion, a reaction in the posture of his mind, when from needing something greatly, he gets it. Immediately his mind can receive thoughts which it could not entertain before; which the pressure of urgent want kept out altogether. In the first place, his benefactor is no longer necessary to him; that makes a great difference. In a certain way peoples hearts are warmed by a state of vehement desire and longing, and anybody who can relieve it appears like an angel to them. But when the necessity is past, then they can judge their benefactor--if not altogether as an indifferent person, if they would feel ashamed of this--still in a way very different from what they did before. The delivery from great need of him is also the removal of a strong bias for him. Again, they can think of themselves immediately, and their rights, and what they ought to have, till even a sense of ill-usage, arises that the good conferred has been withheld so long. All this class of thoughts springs up in a mans heart as soon as he is relieved from some great want. While he was suffering the want, any supplier of it was as a messenger from heaven. Now he is only one through whom he has what rightfully belongs to him; his benefactor has been a convenience to him, but no more. The complaining spirit, or sense of grievance, which is so common in the world, is a potent obstacle to the growth of the spirit of gratitude in the heart. So long as a man thinks that every loss and misfortune he has suffered was an ill-usage, so long he will never be properly impressed by the kindness which relieves him from it. He will regard this as only a late amends made to him, and by no means a perfect one then. And this querulous temper, which chafes at all the calamities and deprivations of life, as if living under an unjust dispensation in being under the rule of Providence, is much too prevalent a one. Where it is not openly expressed it is often secretly fostered, and affects the habit of a mans mind. Men of this temper, then, are not grateful; they think of their own deserts, not of others kindness. They are jealous of any claim on their gratitude, because, to own themselves grateful would be, they think, to acknowledge that this or that is not their right. Nor is a sullen temper the only unthankful recipient of benefits. There is a complacency resulting from too high a self-estimate, which equally prevents a man from entertaining the idea of gratitude. Those who arc possessed with the notion of their own importance take everything as if it was their due. Gratitude is essentially the characteristic of the humble-minded, of those who are not prepossessed with the notion that they deserve more than any one can give them; who are capable of regarding a service done them as a free gift, not a payment or tribute which their own claims have extorted. I will mention another failing much connected with the last-named ones, which prevents the growth of a grateful spirit. The habit of taking offence at trifles is an extreme enemy to gratitude. There is no amount of benefits received, no length of time that a person has been a benefactor, which is not forgotten in a moment by one under the influence of this habit. The slightest apparent offence, though it may succeed ever so long a course of good and kind acts from another, obliterates in a moment the kindnesses of years. The mind broods over some passing inadvertence or fancied neglect till it assumes gigantic dimensions, obscuring the past. Nothing is seen but the act which has displeased. Everything else is put aside. Again, how does the mere activity of life and business, in many people, oust almost immediately the impression of any kind service done them. They have no room in their minds for such recollections. (Canon Mozley.)

Gratitude is a self-rewarding virtue

How superior, how much stronger his delight in Gods gift, to that of the other nine who slunk away. We see that he was transported, and that he was filled to overflowing with joy of heart, and that he triumphed in the sense of the Divine goodness. It was the exultation of faith; he felt there was a God in the world, and that God was good. What greater joy can be imparted to the heart of man than that which this truth, thoroughly embraced, imparts? Gratitude is thus specially a self-rewarding virtue; it makes those who have it so far happier than those who have it not. It inspires the mind with lively impressions, and when it is habitual, with an habitual cheerfulness and content, of which those who are without it have no experience or idea. Can the sullen and torpid and jealous mind have feelings at all equal to these? Can those who excuse themselves the sense of gratitude upon ever so plausible considerations, and find ever such good reasons why they never encounter an occasion which calls for the exercise of it, hope to rise to anything like this genuine height of inward happiness and exultation of spirit? They cannot; their lower nature depresses them and keeps them down; they lie under a weight which makes their hearts stagnate and spirit sink. They cannot feel true joy. They are under the dominion of vexatious and petty thoughts, which do not let them rise to any large and inspiriting view of God, or their neighbour, or themselves. They can feel, indeed, the eagerness and urgency of the wish, the longing for a deliverer when they are in grief, of a healer when they are sick; but how great the pity I how deep the perversity! that these men, as it were, can only be good when they are miserable, and can only feel when they are crushed. (Canon Mozley.)

Instances of ingratitude

What then, brethren, is the conclusion from the whole subject? Why, that the man who contents himself with one act of dedication to Gods service, however sincere, and there stops; one who is content with a few proofs of obedience and faith, however genuine, with a few tears of godly sorrow, however penitent--content with such things, I say, and there stops; such an one will neither have the approval of his Saviour while he lives, nor the comforts of his religion when he comes to die. Time will not allow me to enlarge on the signs of this spiritual declension, too often, it is to be feared, the forerunner of a final falling away from God. Of such perilous condition of soul, however, I could not point out a surer sign than ingratitude. Every day we live gives back to activity and life some who had been walking on the confines of the eternal world, who had well-nigh closed their account with this present scene; and here and there we behold one resolving to perform his vows, coming back to glorify God, and determined henceforth to live no more unto himself, but unto Him that died and rose again. But why are these instances of a holy dedication to Gods service after a recovery from sickness so few? Were there not ten cleansed? but where are the nine? Again, sometimes we witness the spectacle of a highly privileged Christian family. In the life of the parents is seen a holy and consistent exhibition of Christian character; the incense of prayer and praise burns brightly and purely on the family altar, and every arrangement of the household seems designed to remind us that God is there. We look for the fruits of this. The parents are gone to rest; they are safe and happy, and at home with God; and of the children, perhaps, there are one or two that follow their steps, viewing religion as their chief concern, making the glory of God the aim of all they say or do, and the promises of God more than their necessary food. But why are the rest of the children living, as it were, on their parents reputation, content with reaching a certain point in the Christian race, and that point not a safe one--one which leaves them to be saved only by fire, only rescued as brands from the burning--ten indeed were cleansed; but where are the nine? Again, we look upon an assembly of Christian worshippers. They listen with interested and sustained attention; the breath from heaven seems to inspire their worship; and wings from heaven seem to carry the message home: here and there is a heart touched, a reed bruised, a torpid conscience quickened into sensibility and life, but the others remain as before, dead to all spiritual animation, immortal statues, souls on canvas, having a name to live but are dead. Whence this difference? They confessed to the same leprosy, they cried for the same mercy, they met with the same Saviour, and were directed to the same cure, and yet how few returned to their benefactor. One, two, or three in a congregation may come and fall at the feet of Jesus, but there were thousands to be cleansed; where are the ninety times nine? But take a more particular illustration. Once a month, at least, in every church, passing before our eyes, we look upon a goodly company of worshippers; they have been bowing with reverence before the footstool of the Redeemer; they have been singing their loud anthems to the praise of the great Mediator; they have been listening to the word of life with all the earnestness of men who were ignorant, seeking knowledge; guilty, desiring pardon; hungry, wanting food; dying, imploring life; but, mark you, v/hen the invitations of the dying Saviour are recited in their ears, when the commemorative sacrifice of Christian faith and hope is offered to them, when mercy in tenderest accents proclaims to every penitent worshipper, Come unto Me all ye that are weary and heavy laden, and I will give you rest, then many who seemed to be in earnest are in earnest no longer; the memorials of the Saviours death and passion are spread before them in vain, and all we can do is to look with sorrow on the retiring throng and exclaim, There were ten that seemed to be cleansed, but where are the nine? (D. Moore, M. A.)

Thanksgiving

Ingratitude!--there is a fault we all of us easily recognize and heartily condemn. And even in a matter where it would seem almost incredible, even in a matter such as that brought before us by the miracle of the ten lepers, even in the matter of recovered health, there is strange room for ingratitude. Who can believe it, even of himself? who can believe the quickness with which the memory of sickness, and of all its prayerful longings, can be wiped out of our hearts when once the tide of returning strength has swept up again into our veins? It is the natural that so beguiles us. Health is our natural condition, and there is a strange sway exercised over our imagination and our mind by all that is natural. The natural satisfies and calms us by its very regularity. Its response to our expectations seems to give it some rational validity. It is right, for it is customary; and its evenness and sequence smother all need of inquiry. It was this which bewildered us in sickness--that it had wrenched us out of our known-and habitual environment; it had thrown us into uncertainty; we could not tell what the next minute might bring; we had lost standard, and measure, and cue; we had no custom on which to rely. And then, in our distress and in our impotence, we learned how our very life hung on the breath of the Most High, in whose hands it lay to kill or to make alive; then we knew it, in that awful hour of withdrawal. But, with health, the normal solidity returns to the fabric of life; the all-familiar walls range themselves around us; the all-familiar ways stretch themselves out in front of our feet; we can be sure of to-morrow, and can count and can calculate, not because the usual is the less wonderful, hut simply because it is the usual. We move in it unalarmed, unsurprised, and God seems again to fade away. There are other matters which occupy their attention: the wonder of the feeling of new life; the sense of delicious surprise; the desire to see whether it is all true, and to experiment, and to test it. And, then, their friends are about them, their friends from whom they have been parted for so many bitter years; they are being welcomed back into the brotherhood of men, into the warmth and glow of companionship. Oh, come with us, many voices are crying; we are so glad to have you once more among us! It is not said in the story that they did not feel grateful: grateful, no doubt, with that vague, general gratitude to God the good Father, with which we, too, pass out of the shadows of sickness into the recovered life, under the sun; among our fellows. They may well have felt genial, grateful; only they did nothing with their gratitude, only it laid no burden of duty upon them; it was not in them as a mastering compulsion which would suffer nothing to arrest its passionate will to get back to the feet of Him before whom it had once stood and cried, Jesu, Master--for Thou alone canst--do Thou have mercy on me. When He smote them they sought Him. It all happens, we know, over and over again with us. We are, most of us, eager to find God when we are sick, when the normal round of life deserts us, and by its desertion frightens and bewilders us; but so very few of us can retain any hold on God in health, in work, in the daily life of the natural and the constant. And by this we bring our faith under some dangerous taunts. Who does not know them? The taunt of the young and the strong: I feel the blood running free, and my heart leaps, and my brain is alive with hope; what have you to tell me, you Christians, with your message for the sick and for the dying? I have in me powers, capacities, gifts; and before me lies an earth God given and God blessed; and you bring me the religion of the maimed, and the halt, and the blind, a religion of the outcast and the disgraced, a religion of hospitals and gaols; what is all this to me? And the taunt of the worker: I have will, patience, endurance, vigour; by this I can win myself bread, can build myself a house, can make my way. Those taunts are very real, and living, and pressing: how shall we face them? First, we will be perfectly clear that for no taunts from the young, the successful, and the strong, and for no demands either from the workers or the wise, can we for one moment forget or forego the memory of Him who was sent to heal the broken-hearted, and to comfort the weary and the heavy-laden; and who laid His blessing upon the poor, and the hungry, and the unhappy. No, we will withdraw nothing. But have we no living message for the strong and the young, for the happy and the wise? In what form, let us ask, ought religion to offer itself to these? Thanksgiving! That is the note of faith by which it employs and sanctifies not only the poverty and the penitence of sinners, but also the gladness of work and the glory of wisdom. And has our Christian faith, then, no voice of thanksgiving? Nay, our faith is thanksgiving. Thanksgiving!--this is our worship, and in the form of thanksgiving our religion embraces everything that life on earth can bring before it. Here is the religion of youth, the religion of all the hope that is in us. Let it, in the name of Christ, give thanks. Union with Christ empowers it to make a thank-offering of itself; to bring into its worship all its force, its hope, its youth, and its vigour. Youth and hope--they need religion just as much as weakness needs consolation, and as sin needs grace; they need it to forestall their own defeat, that they may be caught in their beauty and in their strength before they pass and perish, and so be offered as a living thank-offering; that they may be laid up as treasures, eternal in the heaven, where rust can never bite, nor moth corrupt, nor any thieves creep in to steal. Thanksgiving! It is the religion for wealth, and for work, and for the present hour. It redeems wealth by ridding it of that terrible complacency which so stiffens and chokes the spiritual channels that, at last, it becomes easier for a camel to get through a needles eye than for a rich man to find his way into the kingdom of heaven. And it redeems work by purging it of pride and of selfishness, and by rescuing it from dulness and harshness. And, again, it is by thanksgiving that religion closes with the natural and the normal, and the necessary. Thanksgiving asks for no change, it looks for no surprises, it takes the fact just as it stands, as law has fashioned it, and as custom has fixed it. That and no other offering is what it brings. Are you fast bound in misery and iron? Give thanks to God, and you are free. The very iron of necessity is transfigured by this strange alchemy of thanks into the gold of freedom and gladness. Nothing is impossible to the spirit of praise, nothing is so hard that Christ cannot uplift it for us before God, nothing so common that He will think it unworthy of His glory. (Canon Scott Holland, M. A.)

Words of encouragement to disappointed workers

Oh, says one, I have had so little success; I have had only one soul saved! That is more than you deserve. If I were to fish for a week, and only catch one fish, I should be sorry; but if that happened to be a sturgeon, a royal fish, I should feel that the quality made up for lack of quantity. When you win a soul it is a great prize. One soul brought to Christ--can you estimate its value? If one be saved, you should be grateful to your Lord, and persevere. Though you wish for more conversions yet, you will not despond so long as even a few are saved; and, above all, you will not be angry if some of them do not thank you personally, nor join in Church-fellowship with you. Ingratitude is common towards soul-winners. (C. H. Spurgeon.)

Health more than sickness a reason for gratitude

Ungrateful to God? I fear so; and more ungrateful, I fear, than those ten lepers. For which of the two is better off, the man who loses a good thing, and then gets it back again, or the man who never loses it at all, but enjoys it all his life? Surely the man who never loses it at all. And which of the two has more cause to thank God? Those lepers had been through a very miserable time; they had had great affliction; and that, they might feel, was a set-off against their good fortune in recovering their health. They had bad years to balance their good ones. But we--how many of us have had nothing but good years? In health, safety, and prosperity most of us grow up; forced, it is true, to work hard: but that, too, is a blessing; for what better thing for a man, soul and body, than to be forced to work hard? In health, safety, and prosperity; leaving children behind us, to prosper as we have done. And how many of us give God the glory or Christ the thanks? (C. Kingsley, M. A.)

Human ingratitude

A pious clergyman, for more than twenty years, kept an account of the sick persons he visited during that period. The parish was thickly peopled, and, of course, many of his parishioners, during his residence, were carried to their graves. A considerable number, however, recovered; and, amongst these, two thousand, who, in immediate prospect of death, gave those evidences of a change of heart, which, in the judgment of charity, were connected with everlasting salvation supposing them to have died under the circumstances referred to. As, however, the tree is best known by its fruits, the sincerity of the professed repentance was yet to be tried, and all the promises and vows thus made, to be fulfilled. Out of these two thou sand persons (who were evidently at the point of death, and had professed true repentance)--out of these two thousand persons who recovered, two, only two; allow me to repeat it--two, only two--by their future lives, proved that their repentance was sincere, and their conversion genuine. One thousand nine hundred and ninety-eight returned to their former carelessness, indifference, and sinfulness; and thus showed how little that repentance is to be depended upon, which is merely extorted by the rack of conscience and the fear of death. Were there not ten cleansed? but where are the nine?

The Biblical Illustrator, edited by Joseph S. Exell (c. 1880s–1900s) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Luk 17:11-14. He passed through the midst of Samaria and Galilee — As Samaria lay between Galilee and Judea, and therefore our Lord, taking his journey to Jerusalem, must go first through Galilee, and then through Samaria, it is inquired why it is here said that he passed through the midst of Samaria and Galilee. To this Grotius, Whitby, Campbell, and some others, answer, that the original expression, δια μεσου Σαμαριας και Γαλιλαιας, means, between Samaria and Galilee, or through those parts in which the two countries bordered on each other; or through the confines of them. There met him ten men that were lepers, which stood afar off — As lepers were banished from the towns, they were likewise obliged to keep at a distance from the roads which led to them. Curiosity, however, to see the travellers who passed, or, it may be, an inclination to beg, having brought these ten as nigh to the public road as they were permitted to come, they espied Jesus, and cried to him, beseeching him to take pity on them, and cure them. They had heard of some of the great miracles which he had performed, and either knew him personally, having seen him before, or guessed that it might be he by the crowds which followed him. And he said, Go show yourselves to the priests — Intimating that the cure they desired should be performed by the way. And as they went — In obedience to his word; they were cleansed — Namely, by his wonder-working power; the efficacy of which was often exerted on objects at a distance, as well as on such as were near.

Joseph Benson's Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1811–1818) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

§ 96.—THE CLEANSING OF THE TEN LEPERS, Luk_17:11-19.

11. As he went to Jerusalem—From Ephraim, where he had resided for some weeks in retirement, being thither driven after his raising of Lazarus.

Midst of Samaria and Galilee—Jesus journeyed along the intermediate territory or boundary line of Samaria and Galilee, having the former on the right and the latter on the left, proceeding eastward until he should reach the Jordan at Scythopolis, (Bethshan or Beisan,) where was a bridge upon which he would pass over the Jordan into Peraea; (the Greek name for the territory east of or beyond the Jordan;) and there in the valley of the Jordan he would find the caravans of Galileans on their way to the Passover at Jerusalem, whom he would join on his way to the closing Passover of his ministry. With them he would, near Bethabara, recross the Jordan westward, and pass through Jericho and Bethany to his destination.

Daniel D. Whedon (gen. ed.), Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1874–1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

CRITICAL NOTES

Luk_17:11. Samaria and Galilee.—This mention of Samaria before Galilee is perplexing, being the opposite direction to a journey to Jerusalem. Probably “through the midst” is to be understood as meaning “along the frontiers of.” Probably the incident here recorded occurred about the time and place referred to in Luk_9:56.

Luk_17:12. Ten men.—If this miracle took place near a border village, we can understand how a Samaritan and Jews should be in the same company—all outcasts from society because of their leprosy. Afar off.—See Lev_13:46; Num_5:2.

Luk_17:13. And they.—The word is emphatic; their faith in Jesus led them to take the initiative.

Luk_17:14. Go, show yourselves.—According to the Law (Lev_14:2-32), Jesus did not, as on a former occasion, touch the lepers (Luk_17:13); His purpose seems to have been to test their love for Him as Healer. Faith they had; love leading to gratitude was only found in one of them. As they went.—Evidently they had not gone far.

Luk_17:16. A Samaritan.—Probably he was on his way to the priests in his own temple at Mount Gerizim.

Luk_17:17. Were there not ten cleansed?—Rather, “Were not the ten cleansed?” (R.V.) I.e., did not the cure operate on all alike? A sadness of tone is perceptible in this question. The ingratitude of his own countrymen was revealed in this want of love for benefit received by the nine lepers.

Luk_17:18. Give glory to God.—Not mere personal ingratitude to Jesus, but insensibility to the compassion of God manifested through Him. This stranger.—Rather, “alien.” The Samaritans were Gentiles, and not a mixed race. Their religion was a mixture of Judaism and idolatry. See 2Ki_17:24-41.

Luk_17:19. Made thee whole.—Rather, “Hath saved thee” (R.V. margin). “In a higher sense than the mere cleansing of his leprosy. Theirs was merely the beholding of the brazen serpent with the outward eyes, but his, with the eye of inward faith; and this faith saved him—not only healed his body, but his soul” (Alford).

MAIN HOMILETICS OF THE PARAGRAPH.—Luk_17:11-19

The Lord’s treatment of this case is entirely different from that with which He met the leper of an earlier narrative. When that first subject of His cleansing power came kneeling to Him, Jesus put His hand on him, effected his cure on the spot, and then sent him to the priest for confirmation. Here the procedure is almost reversed. Without cleansing them, without so much as telling them that they were to be cleansed, He bids them take the cure on trust, and proceed to show themselves to the constituted authorities, as persons who were lepers no more.

I. Thus was their faith tested.—It was a strong test, but their perfect confidence in Jesus was equal to it. They instantly set out. They had seen no charm used, had heard no words of cleansing; they felt, as yet, no change wrought upon their diseased bodies; but they went, in the firm faith that the thing would be done. They acted out their faith. Every step they took away from the presence of Jesus was a proof that they trusted Him. And their confidence was soon rewarded. The cure came: every man saw before his eyes in his follows the wonderful transformation which he felt in himself. “It came to pass, that, as they went, they were cleansed.” Could there be a better illustration of faith, from one point of view, than the conduct of these ten men? They took Jesus at His word, and they soon realised the blessedness of so doing. This is faith. Constantly we stumble at the plainness and simplicity of this act of faith—trusting the bare word of God. We so often say, “If I could only feel something, see some improvement, experience some joy, have evidence in myself, then I would believe.” Such language, transferred to these patients of Jesus, would run, “Let us first see some signs of the leprosy removing, feel some pulse of recovered health, then we shall believe, and go to the priests for a certificate.” Put thus, it would be recognised at once as the language of downright unbelief. Yet how often we mock the message of salvation with just such treatment in our hearts, if not in speech!

II. This treatment was further intended to test their love.—I.e., it was intended to bring out whether their faith was fruitful trust in Him as God’s representative to them, or whether it was a mere formal faith in His office as a healer, so well-known that He could not be disbelieved. For these reasons He did the cure only after they had left Him. He sent them away out of His presence, and on the road to the priests, and then healed them. Thus an entirely new situation arose. When diseased folks were healed instantly by Jesus, and were still before Him, they could not withhold their acknowledgment. In a case like this it might be very different; and so it proved, for only one of the ten stood the test. No doubt the nine had a confidence in Jesus’ power which carried them through the test set them. They had that outside faith which sufficed to trust His word for healing. But they had no regard either to the Divine glory or the redeeming might of Jesus. They took His cleansing of them as a mere common thing. At first the miracles of Christ had been fresh and startling. But now, as His love repeated them, men did with Christ’s miracles as they do with His Father’s bounties—see nothing Divine in them because they are so common. This their unbelief, their seeing no glory of God in what Jesus did to them, is proved by their unthankfulness. Jesus Himself, who knew what was in man, was astonished at this instance of ingratitude and irreligion. Unbelief, with its baneful blight, counterworks the works of God at every point. Times and places there were when Jesus could do no miracle because of men’s unbelief. Then, again, when He wrought them abundantly, there were men who saw His miracles and did not believe. Now it has come even to this: there are men experiencing the miracle in themselves, and yielding no homage to their Healer. Thus unbelief brings forth its bitter fruit of ingratitude. Even in Christians it makes melancholy havoc, blinding them to the Divine hand in their deliverances, leading them to cheapen God’s marvellous grace, and coldly trace to second causes the change that once they rejoiced over as life from the dead. Of men at large unbelief and ingratitude make heathens. For it is pronounced to be the very sin of the heathen that “when they knew God, they glorified Him not as God, neither were thankful; but became vain in their imaginations, and their foolish heart was darkened” (Rom_1:21).—Laidlaw.

SUGGESTIVE COMMENTS ON Luk_17:11-19

Luk_17:11-19. Gratitude and Ingratitude.

I. The forlorn company and their cry.

II. The command which is a promise.

III. The unthankful nine and the grateful one.

IV. The wonder, pain, and patience of Jesus.

V The larger blessings given to the thankful heart.—Maclaren.

A Remarkable Scene.

I. A gracious mission.

II. A loathsome sight.

III. Merciful interposition.

IV. Religious observance.

V. Sinful ingratitude.

VI. Joyful praise.

One in Ten.

I. What these men were before seeing Jesus.

II. What the interview did for them.

III. What it failed to do with nine of the ten.—Dingley.

Luk_17:11. Samaria and Galilee.—The notice of the scene of this miracle explains the presence of a Samaritan in the company of lepers. The same rule for the exclusion of lepers from society obtained in Samaria as in Israel and the common affliction drew these poor outcasts together.

Luk_17:12. “Ten lepers.”—Differences among them of race and religion had been overcome by their common misery. A similar company is spoken of in 2Ki_7:3.

Luk_17:13. “Lifted up their voices.”—They were less bold than the leper in chap. 5, who came to kneel at Jesus’ feet; but as they saw Him entering the village from which they were excluded, they called upon Him for mercy and healing.

“Have mercy.”—The incident illustrates the human side of the work of salvation. There is

(1) a sense of mercy and helplessness;

(2) faith in Jesus;

(3) an appeal to His compassion.

Luk_17:14. “Go, shew yourselves.”—In many different ways did the Great Physician deal with the needs of those He healed: sometimes He seemed to resist a strong faith, that He might make it stronger yet (Mat_15:23-26); sometimes He met a weak faith, lest it might prove too weak in the trial (Mar_5:36); in one case He forgave first and healed after (Mat_9:2; Mat_9:6), in another case He healed first and only then forgave (Joh_5:8; Joh_5:14). Some adequate reason moved Him, doubtless, to adopt His present course of procedure.

Luk_17:15. “Turned back.”—This man is sent with the rest to the priests. He well knew this duty was a branch of the law of ceremonies, which he meant not to neglect; but his heart told him there was a moral duty of professing thankfulness to his Benefactor, which called for his first attendance. First, therefore, he turns back, ere he will stir forward. Reason taught this Samaritan, and us in him, that ceremony must yield to substance, and that main points of obedience must take place of all ritual complements.—Hall.

“With a loud voice.”—He had been loud in prayer (Luk_17:13), so now he is loud in praise. His impurity had kept him at a distance from Christ, but now that he is cleansed he falls at the Saviour’s feet.

Luk_17:16. “Fell down.”—A. token—

1. of love for the Saviour, and

2. of willingness to submit entirely to Him.

“Giving Him thanks.”—Every miracle has its lesson, and in that lesson lies the reason why it has been recorded. There were many lepers cleansed of whose healing no record is given: but the story of these ten is told because one of them came back. “Giving Him thanks”—in these words the lesson lies.

I. It is the beautiful story of the gratitude of a “stranger.”—The story is made more beautiful by the contrast with the ingratitude of “His own.” It recalls the parable of the Good Samaritan: the two narratives are parallel in more respects than one.

II. And both illustrate in a remarkable way the great lesson of the previous series of discourses.—It was the despised Samaritan who returned: the privileged Jews held on their legal and selfish way. Legal way; for observe that the nine had ample excuse. Christ had ordered it, and the Law demanded it. But the letter killeth. Love overrules Acts of Parliament. The nine held by the Law, but the one got the grace.

III. By grace he was saved through faith.—“Thy faith hath saved thee.” Physically, he was made whole already; so were His companions. But now he gets the nobler and only noble blessing. This the others lost, through their ingratitude.—Hastings.

Christ’s Bearing in Relation to In gratitude.—To ungrateful treatment the Saviour was no stranger. Neither can we hope to be. The sting of ingratitude may be felt by all. But how do we comport ourselves under it?

I. This will test character.—In Christ’s example there is both reproof and inspiration. He was not insensible to ingratitude. Nay, He was more sensitive than we. His feelings were keener. He never became less sensitive to sin in any form by contact with it. We do. To Him it never became more endurable. To us it may. Sin within responds to sin without. We carry with us the body of sin. By this relation we are less sensitive to it than Jesus. But Christ remained ever keenly sensitive. How, then, would He feel ingratitude! One of those polar currents is sweeping over Him now.

II. His conduct in the face of ingratitude challenges admiration and imitation.—He is not made sour, misanthropical, self-contained. There is no recoil to the opposite extreme of indifference and hate. What a halo of unsullied glory is about the Christ of God! Delicate sensibility on the one hand; base ingratitude on the other. Yet the streams of good-will and blessing kept flowing perennially with undiminished volumes. The “milk of human kindness” never soured in Him. He never contracted a tinge of moroseness. He never grew weary in well-doing. Only with His life did such ministry cease. From the cross we hear “Father, forgive them.”—Campbell.

“Where are the nine!”—The question is the turning-point of the story. The nine received the gift of healing and forgot the Giver. There was only one grateful patient.

I. In the Saviour’s question we may perceive much of the mind that is in Christ Jesus toward sinful men.—He went about doing good. His whole life was beneficent. No human being did he ever hurt. Even fruitless human lives He spared. But while men cared only for the curing of bodily ailments, the Great Physician looked to both the disease of the body and the sin of the soul; and mainly to the latter.

II. He tries the lepers by sending them out of His sight to be healed.—He desired that they should return to Himself with thanks. He loves a cheerful comer as well as a cheerful giver. All were glad; only one was grateful.

III. How wistfully Jesus looks after the nine as they go away!—They took greedily the temporal benefit; they despised the more precious gift which the Lord was waiting to bestow. They snatched the lesser, and missed the greater. What would He have said to them if they had returned?

IV. We know what He said to the one who did return.—He had another faith and obtained another cure. He believed to the saving of his soul. In him the Redeemer sees of the travail of His soul, and is satisfied. In the others He sees no fruit, and therefore complains. He expects healed and delivered men to come back to Him with praise. Is He to be disappointed?—Arnot.

One of Ten.—

I. Lesson from the ten.—All need cleansing.

II. Lesson from the nine.—The sin of unthankfulness.

III. Lesson from the one.—The duty and beauty of gratitude.—W. Taylor.

I. Why men are unthankful.

II. Why we ought to be thankful.

III. How we ought to show our thankfulness.—Watson.

Unthankfulness.

I. In many cases the reason is that we do not see our Benefactor.—Just as these lepers were at a distance from Christ when healing took place.

II. A second cause is an imperfect appreciation of God’s gifts.—Health is coveted by the sick, but lightly valued when they gain it.

III. A third reason is the utilitarian one.—Men do not see the good of it.

Three results of gratitude:

1. It stimulates powerfully to active well-doing.

2. It makes worship—especially public worship—real and sincere.

3. Thankfulness here on earth is the best possible preparation for the spirit and life of heaven.—Liddon.

Why the Nine Acted as They Did.—

1. They may have thought that they had done nothing to deserve their horrible fate, and that, therefore, it was only just that they should be restored to health.

2. They may have thought that they would at least make sure of their restoration to health, before they gave thanks to Him who had healed them.

3. They may have put obedience before love.

4. It may be that the nine Jews would not go back just because the Samaritan did: misery had broken down enmity, but when the pressure of misery is removed, the Jews take one road, the Samaritan another.

5. They may have said within themselves that they could be just as thankful to the kind Master in their hearts without saying so to Him.—Cox.

Luk_17:18. “There are not found.”—The nine others were already healed and hastening to the priest, that they might be restored to the society of men and their life in the world; but the first thoughts of the Samaritan are turned to his Deliverer. He had forgotten all in the sense of God’s mercy and of His own unworthiness.—Williams.

“This stranger.”—The gratitude of the Samaritan overcame the prejudices which his race cherished against that to which the Saviour belonged; while his companions were wanting in gratitude to their countryman who had healed them.

Luk_17:19. “Thy faith.”—The true nature of faith is here very clearly displayed as consisting principally in moral qualities of obedience and love. Confidence in the Saviour’s power had led to the healing of the ten; but “this stranger” manifested a faith which secured for him higher blessings than that of bodily healing.

“Saved thee.”—The Samaritan was saved by his faith, not because he was cured of his leprosy (for this was likewise obtained by the rest), but because he was admitted into the number of the children of God, and received from His hand a pledge of fatherly kindness.

The Preacher's Complete Homiletical Commentary (gen. ed. Joseph S. Exell; Funk & Wagnalls, c. 1892) — public domain (pre-1929). A full-Bible homiletical/sermon-outline anthology covering 65 of 66 books (2 John is absent from the source module). Text from a community e-Sword module.

I. The Journeyings through the Boundaries between Samaria and Galilee, and the noticeable Events during the same. Luk_17:11 to Luk_18:14

1. The Ten Lepers (Luk_17:11-19)

11And it came to pass, as he went to Jerusalem, that he passed through the midst of Samaria and Galilee. 12And as he entered into a certain village, there met him ten men that were lepers, which stood afar off: 13And they lifted up their voices [the voice, or, a cry], and said, Jesus, Master, have mercy on us. 14And when he saw them, he said unto them, Go shew yourselves unto the priests. And it came to pass, that, as they went, they were cleansed. 15And one of them, when he saw that he was healed, turned back, and with a loud voice glorified God, 16And fell down on his face at his feet, giving him thanks: and he was a Samaritan. 17And Jesus answering said, Were there not ten cleansed? [Have not the ten (οἱ δέκα) been cleansed?] but where are the nine? 18There are not found that returned to give glory to God [Are there none found returning, &c.?], save this stranger [foreigner, ἀλλογενής]. 19And he said unto him, Arise, go thy way: thy faith hath made thee whole [lit., saved thee].

EXEGETICAL AND CRITICAL

Luk_17:11. And it came to pass.—An exact harmonistics would have, after Luk_17:10, to insert the account of the raising of Lazarus, and the deliberation of the hostile Sanhedrim held in consequence of this, Joh_11:1-53. After these events the Saviour tarries some time in the small town of Ephraim, till the approaching Passover calls Him again to Jerusalem, Joh_11:54-55. In the beginning of this last journey to the feast follow the occurrences related by Luk_17:11 seq. The healing of the ten lepers did not, therefore, take place during an excursion of our Lord from Ephraim (Olshausen, Von Gerlach), but at the very beginning of the journey to the feast, which Luke alone gives an account of. Once more before He takes leave of His public life, the Saviour will in part wander through the regions which had been the theatre of His earlier activity, and so by words and deeds show that He does not avoid His mighty enemies.

Διὰ μέσου.—There is no ground for altering the reading either into μέσον, διὰ μέσον, or ἀνὰ μέσον. See Meyer, ad loc. The expression intimates, not that He was travelling through the midst of the two here-named lands—for in this case not Samaria but Galilee would have to be first named—but that He was travelling in the midst between these two lands, so that He kept on the borders without penetrating into the interior of the country, in confinio, Bengel. So also Lange, L. J. 2. p. 1065. The opinion that the mention of Samaria took place only in consequence of the appearance of a Samaritan in this narrative, Luk_17:16 (Strauss), is one of the frivolities of the negative criticism, which contribute not a little to throw suspicion upon its moral character.

Luk_17:12. Ten lepers.—Upon the leprosy see on Luk_5:12-16, and Lightfoot on Mat_8:2. In 2Ki_7:3 we find an example of leprous men, driven by need, having united themselves with one another in a company. As unclean, they were obliged to remain at least 4 ells distant from the untainted. See Lev_13:46; Num_5:2. That even to them in their isolation the report of Jesus had made its way, is a striking proof of the greatness of His fame.

Luk_17:13. Jesus, Master, ἐπιστάτα, not κύριε.—Although they do not yet know the Saviour’s Messianic dignity, yet they account Him a prophet, mighty in deed and word; their faith is sincere without being perfect, on which account also the Saviour does not repel them. But in order to show to the disciples that He in the manner in which He accomplishes His benefits is bound to no form whatever, as well as at the same time to try the faith of the lepers, He this time effects the cure in an entirely peculiar way. Full of leprosy as they yet are, they must go to the priests, in order to have themselves declared clean by these. In this, it is true, there is implied the indirect promise that they would actually become clean even before they came to their priests, but yet it was no easy requirement that they should, yet unhealed, begin their journey thither. It appears that the Saviour in this way would not only try them, but also avoid any occasion whatever for scandal, and give the representatives of the Theocracy their due honor, comp. Lev_13:2; Lev_14:2. Probably the Israelitish lepers now go towards the village lying in the vicinity (the whole scene we have to conceive as yet outside of the κώμη), while the Samaritan went probably to his own priests, who, without doubt, observed the same laws of purification. In the midst of their believing journey the healing at once comes to pass.

Luk_17:15. Turned back.—Not after he had reall been declared clean by the Samaritan priests (Calvin, Luther, Lange); for in this case the Saviour would not have been able to wonder that the nine others had not returned, since these certainly had to make a much longer journey to their priests. No, ἐν τῷ ὑπάγειν all were healed, and all ought to have returned at once, in order to thank their Deliverer. That the nine had allowed themselves to be kept back by the influence of hostilely disposed priests (Berl. Bibl.), is an entirely arbitrary conjecture. Not hours, but only moments had intervened between the command and the healing, between the healing and the thanksgiving. Or are we to suppose our Lord to have tarried inactive a half day at the entrance of the κώμη, in order to see whether one would perchance return?

A Samaritan.—The other lepers, without doubt, after the priest had declared them clean, returned joyfully to their dwelling; but the Samaritan does not content himself with having received the benefit, he will also praise the Benefactor. His thankfulness is of the right kind, for it displays itself as a glorifying of God, Luk_17:15, and that is well-pleasing to the Saviour, Luk_17:18. But the praise of Him who was the first cause of the benefit brings no prejudice to the honor to which the Mediator of this healing may make claim. With loud voice he praises God, and falls down at Jesus’ feet, ready, as is of course understood, after that to obey His command, and now to go to the priests.

Luk_17:17. Where are the nine?—In order to understand the full melancholy earnestness of this inquiry, we must consider this event in its historical connection. The Saviour here also is not concerned for honor from man, but He who knows well what is in man knows also that gratitude towards God could not be very heartfelt, where one did not feel himself obliged even to a word of thanks towards his human benefactor. His complaint, in and of itself a just one, if we regard the extraordinariness, the undeservedness, and the magnitude of the benefit bestowed, becomes the mote affecting, if we consider the time in which it was uttered. Well acquainted with the plans which had already been forged in Judæa for His destruction, the Saviour yet once again makes this boundary-tract of Galilee the theatre of His saving love, and even at the first miracle on this journey it is manifested how very much the prevailing tone of feeling is now altered. For formerly a miracle performed on one, animated many hundred tongues to His praise; now, on the other hand, the healing of ten unhappy ones does not even elicit from the majority of the healed, still less from the inhabitants of the village, even a single word of thanks. He has this time rather concealed than made conspicuous the brilliant character of the miracle by its form, but He experiences at the same time how the Doer of the miracles is at once forgotten, and while He on His part, even in this last period, displays His respect for the law and the priesthood, He is rewarded therefor with a mean slight. The observation of this fact goes to the Saviour’s heart; and as He had just shown Himself the compassionate High-priest, He feels Himself now the deeply contemned Messiah. Yet the complaint to which His sadness gives utterance, is at the same time a eulogy for the one thankful one who had appeared before Him, and with the words: “Rise up, go thy way, thy faith hath saved thee;” the benefit is for this one heightened, confirmed, sanctified.

It was perhaps the learning of this distinction between the Samaritan and the Jews, which occasioned Luke, from his broad Pauline point of view, to note down this occurrence, which, we know not from what special reasons, the other Synoptics pass over. Not improbable is the view that he here by a speaking example wished to place in a clear light the unthankfulness of the Jews towards the Saviour, which showed itself throughout His course. Comp. Schleiermacher, l. c. 215. But that Luke does not for all this show any unwarranted, unhistorical preference for the Samaritans (Schwegler, a. o.) appears sufficiently from Luk_9:53.

DOCTRINAL AND ETHICAL

1. The essence of faith manifests itself in the ten lepers. Faith recognizes in Jesus the only willing and all-sufficient Helper, and allows itself to be impelled by life’s necessity to take refuge in Him. It is observed by the Saviour with pleasure, exercised by trial, and never put to shame, so far as the heart is upright before Him, even when the conceptions of the understanding, respecting the Redeemer, are as yet extremely defective. It is the only way to salvation, not only in a natural, but also in a spiritual, respect, and must, if it is of the right kind, reveal itself in sincere thankfulness towards God and towards the Saviour.

2. No less appears here the nature of true thankfulness. It can only be required and attested when one knows himself to be healed and redeemed by Christ; but then it can and may not possibly fail to appear. Like love, so also is thankfulness towards God most intimately connected with thankfulness towards man, comp. 1Jn_4:20. “Deo ingratus, non erit hominibus gratus.” Melanchthon. It reveals itself with irresistible force, as in the case of this Samaritan, who, after he had first with hoarse voice [i. e., husky with leprosy.—C. C. S.] called on the Redeemer, returns again immediately after his healing, in order with loud voice to give God the glory. And as unthankfulness does not only deny the Saviour, but also perturbs Him, so, on the other hand, genuine gratitude is rewarded by augmented gifts of grace, Luk_17:19, so that the declaration: “He that has, to him shall be given,” finds here also its full application.

3. The ingratitude of the nine, in contrast with the one Samaritan, bears so far as this a symbolical character, that it gives an example of the unfavorable reception which the Saviour ever found in Israel, in opposition to the higher esteem which was accorded Him in the heathen world.

4. The love which the Saviour here also, as often, exhibits for the Samaritans, was for the apostles a pædagogic lesson, which, as appeared from the extended commission that was given them, Act_1:8, was doubly necessary, and afterwards also bore its fruits in the zeal with which they preached the Gospel to Samaria too. Acts 8.

HOMILETICAL AND PRACTICAL

Augmenting hostility hinders not the Saviour from working so long as it is day.—Leprosy, the image of the defilement and the misery of sin.—How life’s necessity brings together and unites men.—Misery’s cry of distress: 1. Unanimously raised; 2. graciously answered.—Jesus, a Master who takes compassion on those who call on Him in distress.—Jesus, in the healing of the ten lepers, revealing Himself as the image of the invisible God, comp. Psa_50:15.—Perplexing requirements and ways of the Lord have no other purpose than to strengthen the yet weak faith.—The Divine institutions of the Old Testament are by the Saviour in the days of His flesh honored and practised.—What is adventured in faith on Jesus’ word is never resultless.—Not always are good and evil found just where we should expect them a priori.—The great contrasts which present themselves in the history of the ten lepers: 1. Great misery on the one hand, great grace on the other hand; 2. great unthankfulness from many, thankful recognition from one; 3. Israel blessed with benefits, but rejected by its own fault—the stranger praised and accepted.—Human thankfulness and unthankfulness in relation to the Lord, and the Lord in relation to them.—How true thankfulness towards God reveals itself in the glorifying of Jesus.—The sad inquiry, Where are the nine? 1. What were they once? 2. where are they now? 3. What do they afterwards become?—The thankful stranger a true citizen of the kingdom of God.—He that honors grace received is worthy of greater grace!—What is the faith that has any true saving power? A faith which is: 1. Humble in entreaty; 2. courageous in approaching; 3. joyful in thanksgiving.

Starke:—Nova Bibl. Tub.:—The world is a hospital full of infirm and sick.—J. Hall:—Like and like agree well; pure to pure, impure to impure.—O Jesus, give us grace to seek Thee and strength to wait on Thee.—Nova Bibl. Tub.:—From the leprosy of sin there can no one heal us but He that is called Jesus, Mat_1:21.—Nothing agrees better together than human misery and Christ’s compassion.—Hedinger:—Whoever will spiritually recover, let him show himself to experienced people and Christians.—Christ is indeed a Physician of all men, but He does not heal all in one way.—O man, if God hath graciously heard thy Eleison, forget not then to bring Him thy Hallelujah.—Quesnel:—With genuine thanksgiving there is true humility.—Bibl. Wirt.:—Shameful is unthankfulness towards our neighbor, but much shamefuller towards God and His many benefits.—Learn to suffer and shun ingratitude.—Follow not the multitude; better be with the one than with the nine.—Nova Bibl. Tub.:—On humiliation follows exaltation, on repentance departure in peace.—Canstein:—So great and glorious is faith, that that is attributed to it which yet is only God’s grace and benefit.

Lavater:—Even the thanks that are most His due, Christ rewards with new manifestations of grace.—Heubner:—The true penitent goes towards Christ indeed, but remains in humility, nevertheless, standing afar off.—The spiritually sick also, when he needs comfort, should show himself to the priest.—The priests cannot make clean but declare clean.—Those of erroneous belief put to shame very often the confessors of the true religion.—The multitude of evil and the rareness of good examples in human society.—Christ now, as then, experiences the unthankfulness of men.—Unthankfulness so frequent a phenomenon because humility is lacking.—He that prays without giving thanks, closes to himself the door of acceptance of his prayer.

On the Pericope.—Couard:—Our life must be a continued praying and giving thanks: 1. Praying in relation to our necessities; 2. giving thanks in relation to the Divine benefits of grace.—Ahlfeld:—Where are the nine?—How is it as to thy thanksgiving prayers towards God?—Rautenberg:—The intent of the Divine help: 1. That we may recognize the Divine help; 2. receive it with thanksgiving; 3. through it grow in holiness.—Westermeyer:—Comp. Psa_50:15; Psalms 1. The commended call; 2. the promised help; 3. the owing thanks.—W. Otto:—Unthankfulness is the world’s reward; this Isaiah 1. An experience gained in the world; 2. an accusation preferred against the world; 3. a shame lying upon the world. 4. a harm arising for the world.—Fuchs:—Christ makes us clean: 1. From what? 2. whereby? 3. Whereto?—Souchon:—Insincere and sincere faith.—Stier:—How the Lord here to our shame complains of the unthankfulness of men.—J. J. Miville:—Compelled piety.

Lange's Commentary on the Holy Scriptures (Critical, Doctrinal, and Homiletical), ed. John Peter Lange, English translation edited by Philip Schaff (1864–1880) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Luke

WHERE ARE THE NINE?

Luk 17:11 - Luk 17:19.

The melancholy group of lepers, met with in one of the villages on the borders of Samaria and Galilee, was made up of Samaritans and Jews, in what proportion we do not know. The common misery drove them together, in spite of racial hatred, as, in a flood, wolves and sheep will huddle close on a bit of high ground. Perhaps they had met in order to appeal to Jesus, thinking to move Him by their aggregated wretchedness; or possibly they were permanently segregated from others, and united in a hideous fellowship.

I. We note the lepers’ cry and the Lord’s strange reply.

Of course they had to stand afar off, and the distance prescribed by law obliged them to cry aloud, though it must have been an effort, for one symptom of leprosy is a hoarse whisper. Sore need can momentarily give strange physical power. Their cry indicates some knowledge. They knew the Lord’s name, and had dim notions of His authority, for He is addressed as Jesus and as Master. They knew that He had power to heal, and they hoped that He had ‘mercy,’ which they might win for themselves by entreaty. There was the germ of trust in the cry forced from them by desperate need. But their conceptions of Him, and their consciousness of their own necessities, did not rise above the purely physical region, and He was nothing to them but a healer.

Still, low and rude as their notions were, they did present a point of contact for Christ’s ‘mercy,’ which is ever ready to flow into every heart that is lowly, as water will into all low levels. Jesus seems to have gone near to the lepers, for it was ‘when He saw,’ not when He heard, them that He spoke. It did not become Him to ‘cry, nor cause His voice to be heard in the street,’ nor would He cure as from afar, but He approaches those whom He heals, that they may see His face, and learn by it His compassion and love. His command recognised and honoured the law, but its main purpose, no doubt, was to test, and thereby to strengthen, the leper’s trust. To set out to the priest while they felt themselves full of leprosy would seem absurd, unless they believed that Jesus could and would heal them. He gives no promise to heal, but asks for reliance on an implied promise. He has not a syllable of sympathy; His tender compassion is carefully covered up. He shuts down, as it were, the lantern-slide, and not a ray gets through. But the light was behind the screen all the while. We, too, have sometimes to act on the assumption that Jesus has granted our desires, even while we are not conscious that it is so. We, too, have sometimes to set out, as it were, for the priests, while we still feel the leprosy.

II. We note the healing granted to obedient faith.

The whole ten set off at once. They had got all they wanted from the Lord, and had no more thought about Him. So they turned their backs on Him. How strange it must have been to feel, as they went along, the gradual creeping of soundness into their bones! How much more confidently they must have stepped out, as the glow of returning health asserted itself more and more! The cure is a transcendent, though veiled, manifestation of Christ’s power; for it is wrought at a distance, without even a word, and with no vehicle. It is simply the silent forth-putting of His power. ‘He spake, and it was done’ is much, for only a word which is divine can affect matter. But ‘He willed, and it was done,’ is even more.

III. We note the solitary instance of thankfulness.

The nine might have said, ‘We are doing what the Healer bade us do; to go back to Him would be disobedience.’ But a grateful heart knows that to express its gratitude is the highest duty, and is necessary for its own relief. How like us all it is to hurry away clutching our blessings, and never cast back a thought to the giver! This leper’s voice had returned to Him, and his ‘loud’ acknowledgments were very different from the strained croak of his petition for healing. He knew that he had two to thank-God and Jesus; he did not know that these two were one. His healing has brought him much nearer Jesus than before, and now he can fall at His feet. Thankfulness knits us to Jesus with a blessed bond. Nothing is so sweet to a loving heart as to pour itself out in thanks to Him.

‘And he was a Samaritan.’ That may be Luke’s main reason for telling the story, for it corresponds to the universalistic tendency of his Gospel. But may we not learn the lesson that the common human virtues are often found abundantly in nations and individuals against whom we are apt to be deeply prejudiced? And may we not learn another lesson-that heretics and heathen may often teach orthodox believers lessons, not only of courtesy and gratitude, but of higher things? A heathen is not seldom more sensitive to the beauty of Christ, and more touched by the story of His sacrifice, than we who have heard of Him all our days.

IV. We note Christ’s sad wonder at man’s ingratitude and joyful recognition of ‘this stranger’s’ thankfulness.

A tone of surprise as well as of sadness can be detected in the pathetic double questions. ‘Were not the ten’-all of them, the ten who stood there but a minute since-’cleansed? but where are the nine?’ Gone off with their gift, and with no spark of thankfulness in their selfish hearts. ‘Were there none found that returned to give glory to God, save this stranger?’ The numbers of the thankless far surpass those of the thankful. The fewness of the latter surprises and saddens Jesus still. Even a dog knows and will lick the hand that feeds it, but ‘Israel doth not know, My people doth not consider.’ We increase the sweetness of our gifts by thankfulness for them. We taste them twice when we ruminate on them in gratitude. They live after their death when we bless God and thank Jesus for them all. We impoverish ourselves still more than we dishonour Him by the ingratitude which is so crying a fault. One sorrow hides many joys. A single crumpled rose-leaf made the fairy princess’s bed uncomfortable. Some of us can see no blue in our sky if one small cloud is there. Both in regard to earthly and spiritual blessings we are all sinners by unthankfulness, and we all lose much thereby.

Jesus rejoiced over ‘this stranger,’ and gave him a greater gift at last than he had received when the leprosy was cleared from his flesh. Christ’s raising of him up, and sending him on his way to resume his interrupted journey to the priest, was but a prelude to ‘Thy faith hath made thee whole,’ or, as the Revised Version margin reads, ‘saved thee.’ Surely we may take that word in its deepest meaning, and believe that a more fatal leprosy melted out of this man’s spirit, and that the faith which had begun in a confidence that Jesus could heal, and had been increased by obedience to the command which tried it, and had become more awed and enlightened by experience of bodily healing, and been deepened by finding a tongue to express itself in thankfulness, rose at last to such apprehension of Jesus, and such clinging to Him in grateful love, as availed to save ‘this stranger’ with a salvation that healed his spirit, and was perfected when the once leprous body was left behind, to crumble into dust.

Alexander MacLaren, Expositions of Holy Scripture (1904–1910) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

CHAPTER 1

THE TEN LEPERS

Luk 17:11-19. “And it came to pass, while He was journeying to Jerusalem, and He was going through the midst of Samaria and Galilee.” These two countries lie side by side. I traveled that same route from the, Sea of Galilee, through Samaria and Judea, to Jerusalem. “And He, coming into a certain village, ten leprous men met Him, who stood far away; and they lifted up their voice saying, Jesus, Master, have mercy on us.” The lepers are still in that country. I saw them, and contributed a little to their temporal support. The city of Sychem — or Shechem, O. T.; and Sychar, N. T. — and now called Nablus, contains a leprous quarter. These lepers stood a long way off and called to Him; for two reasons doubtless:

(a) Their loathsome and embarrassing condition; and

(b) Their faith in Jesus to heal them even at that distance. “And seeing them, He said, Going, show yourselves to the priests. And while they were going, they were cleansed.”

a. No leper was allowed to show himself to the priest till he had already been cleansed (Leviticus 14), as neither the priest nor any human being had the power to cleanse a leper. The matter was understood by everybody that the cleansing of a leper could only come about by the miraculous intervention of the Almighty.

b. A great popular mistake is entertained with reference to the contagion of leprosy. It is neither contagious nor epidemic, as you see in that case the priest, whose office brings him in constant contact with it, would have no chance whatever to escape the contagion.

c. The separation of the lepers from the people, instituted in the days of Moses and perpetuated to the present, is simply because of its awful loathsomeness.

d. How strikingly is the Scripture corroborated in that country in every respect, customs remaining unchanged from the patriarchal ages, so the traveler sees his Bible verified when he looks out on all sides, even the leprosy, in separate quarters, to be seen now as in the days of Christ!

e. We never read about the healing of the leper, but always his “cleansing,” that word being used indicative of the dismal and awful impurity characteristic of leprosy, which is the very synonym of loathsome, living death, its poor victim living on like well people, and dying all the time — a finger dropping off, then another and another, till the hand drops off at the wrist, and finally the arm at the elbow, and then at the shoulder, all this time the decaying flesh emitting a most intolerable carrion odor. Hence the O. T. requirement of seclusion, which is perpetuated to the present day, the lepers themselves, conscious of their obnoxious repellency, preferring seclusion all the time.

f. The solution of the whole problem is, that leprosy is the most vivid symbol of sin in all the world; and consequently always incurable by all human remedies. Therefore in all ages it was always understood that none but God could cleanse the leper.

g. While leprosy is not contagious, it is intensely hereditary, being a blood trouble, and always transmitted from sire to son through the generations indefinitely, and in that respect most vividly emblematizing inbred sin.

h. Of course, the leprous eruptions and running sores typify actual sins, which are the unhappy fruits of original sin, just as the awful cancerous sores of the leper all originate from contaminated blood.

i. Leprous infants are bright, beautiful, and sprightly, exhibiting not a solitary symptom of the disease which, erelong, is sure to develop somewhere on the body, and cling to them through life, unless miraculously healed. In a similar manner, the infantile rattlesnake has no poison in his bite, the narcotic glands having not yet sufficiently developed to concentrate the poisonous virus from his blood and transmit it to another. Yet the poison is there, and as the snake grows, it becomes transmissible by his bite.

j. In a similar manner, the virus of inbred sin in the blood of humanity is transmissible indefinitely, like the infant leper, originally bright and fair, but in due time the occult virus making its appearance and intensifying to the end.

k. The outward manifestations of the devouring leprosy symbolize evil habits, whose natural tendency is to accumulate impetuosity and dimension, culminating in hopeless ruin.

l. Study the Oriental leprosy in all its phases, from its latency in the blood of the beautiful infant, its gradual and progressive development in the organism till it traverses the whole body, transforming it into a fetid, loathsome, living death, and how vividly does it symbolize sin, transmitted in the blood, but unseen in the beautiful, innocent babe, but sure ill due time to develop, making its manifestation on some part of the organism, and if not taken away by Omnipotent grace, spreading on indefinitely, culminating in irremediable ruin!

“And one of them, seeing that he was healed, turned back, with a great voice glorifying God, and fell on his face at His feet, giving thanks to Him; and he was a Samaritan.” Here we see a case where sheer misery had triumphed over all the inveterate race prejudices which for ages had alienated the Jews and Samaritans, so that there was no intercommunication; and thus these poor lepers, both Jews and Samaritans, amid their awful sufferings and forlorn alienation from society, forgetting race antipathies, are all living together. “And Jesus responding, said, Were not the ten cleansed? Where are the nine? They were not found returning to give glory to God, except this foreigner.” When the Israelites were carried into captivity by Shalmaneser, B. C. 721, a few poor people were left in the country, who in after years proved insufficient to so occupy it as to prevent the wild beasts, especially the lions, from multiplying among them to their serious detriment. Consequently, Esarhaddon, the Chaldean monarch, sent to that country inhabitants from some of the heathen nations of the great North, who, with the few surviving Hebrews, eventually became the Samaritan nation, having predominantly the foreign, heathen blood, so that here, Jesus calls them “a foreign nation;” i. e., not Jews, but heathens. “And He said to him, Arising, go; thy faith hath saved thee.” Here our Savior, as constantly and uniformly in His preaching, recognizes faith as the human condition of salvation, a truth so prominent in the Scripture that the most superficial Bible reader can not fail incessantly to recognize it. We see here salvation affirmed of this Samaritan, who returned to give glory to Jesus, our Lord remaining reticent in reference to the other nine, involving the conclusion that they did not get saved, but only healed. Hence you see it is quite an ill omen of salvation for people not to confess it to the honor and glory of God.

William B. Godbey, Commentary on the New Testament (1896–1900) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

17:11-19 This healing reveals Jesus’ compassion and power; in Luke, the blessings of salvation are joyfully received by many outside Israel.

17:11 As Jesus continued on toward Jerusalem: See study note on 9:51–19:44.

Tyndale Open Study Notes — © Tyndale Open Resources, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

Luk 17:11. Διὰ μέσου, through the midst) On the confines of both Samaria and Galilee. [The remembrance of the Saviour in His journey from Galilee through Samaria to Judea, was deeply engraven on men’s minds by the following miracle.—Harm., p. 416.]

Bengel's Gnomon of the New Testament — English translation (T&T Clark, Edinburgh, 1860) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Luk_17:11-19. The great discussion from Luk_15:1 onwards is now concluded. Now, before proceeding with his narration, Luke first gives into the readers hands again the thread of the account of the journey (comp. Luk_9:51, Luk_13:22). According to de Wette, indeed, this is a confused reminiscence of the journey, and according to Schleiermacher an original introductory formula left standing by the compiler.

καὶ αὐτός] As to καί, see on Luk_5:12. αὐτός: he on his part, independently of other travellers to the festival who were wont to travel direct through Samaria, Joseph. Antt. xx. 6. 1.

διὰ μέσου Σαμαρ. κ. Γαλιλ.] According to the usage of μέσον (with or without an article, see Sturz, Lex. Xen. III. p. 120) with a genitive, this may mean either through the midst of Samaria and Galilee (Luk_4:30; Jer_37:4; Amo_5:17; Bornemann, ad Xen. Anab. i. 2. 23), or through the strip of country forming the common boundary of Samaria and Galilee, i.e. between the two countries on the borders. So Xen., Anab. i. 4. 4 : διὰ μέσου (in the midst through between the two walls) δὲ ῥεῖ τούτων ποταμός; Plat. Leg. vii. p. 805 E. Comp. ἀνὰ μέσον, Eze_22:26; Jdg_15:4; 1Ki_5:12. The former (Vulg. and many others, including de Wette) is opposed to the context, since Samaria is named first, but the πορεύεσθαι εἰς Ἱερουσαλήμ led first through Galilee.[216] No; according to Luke, Jesus Himself journeyed in the midst, between (in confinio, Bengel), through the two countries, so that He kept on the boundary, having before Him on the south Samaria, on the north Galilee. See also Wetstein, Schleiermacher, Bleek, Hofmann, Weissag. u. Erfüll. II. p. 113; Lange, L. J. II. 2, p. 1065. His direction is to be regarded as from west to east, as in Luk_18:35 He comes into the neighbourhood of Jericho. Now as Jericho is situated not far from the Jordan, but Luke says nothing of any passing over to Peraea (nevertheless Wetstein assumes this crossing over, which is said to have occurred at Scythopolis, so also Lichtenstein, p. 318), it is thus, according to Luke, to be assumed that Jesus journeyed across on the boundary of Samaria and Galilee eastward as far as the Jordan, and then passing downwards on the Jordan reached Jericho. A disagreement with Matthew and Mark, who make Him journey through Peraea. See on Mat_19:1.

That Σαμαρείας is named first, has its natural reason in the previous statement of the direction εἰς Ἱερους., in accordance with which, in mentioning the borders, Luke has first of all in view the forward movement corresponding to this direction. The narrative contained in Luk_17:12 ff. Luke has not constructed out of tradition (Holtzmann), but has borrowed it from his source of the journey.

δέκα] οἱ ἐννέα μὲν Ἰουδαῖοι ἦσαν, ὁ δὲ εἷς Σαμαρείτης· ἡ κοινωνία δὲ τῆς νόσου τότε συνήθροισεν αὐτοὺς ἀκούσαντας, ὅτι διέρχεται ὁ Χριστός, Euthymius Zigabenus.

πόῤῥωθεν] μὴ τολμῶντες ἐγγίσαι (Theophylact)to wit, as being unclean, to whom closer intercourse with others was forbidden (Lev_13:46; Num_5:2 f.). See on Mar_1:43, and the relative Rabbinical regulations in Lightfoot, Schoettgen, and Wetstein.

Luk_17:13. αὐτοί] they on their part took the initiative.

Luk_17:14. ἰδών] when He had looked upon them, had His attention first directed to them by their cry for help.

πορευθέντες κ.τ.λ.] for on the road their leprosy was to disappear; see what follows, where indeed Paulus, in spite of the ἐν τῷ ὑπάγειν (which is made to mean: when they agreed to go!), interprets ἐκαθαρίσθ., they were declared to be not infectious!

τοῖς ἱερεῦσι] the Samaritan to be inspected and declared clean must go to a Samaritan priest.

Luk_17:15. ἰδών, ὅτι ἰάθη] even before his coming to the priest,[217] who had therefore communicated to him no remedy (in opposition to Paulus).

Luk_17:16. κ. αὐτὸς ἦν Σαμαρείτ.] and as for him, he was a Samaritan (by way of distinction from the rest). This is made use of (Strauss, II. p. 53 f.) for the view that the entire narrative is woven together from traditions of the healings of leprosy and from parables which recorded Samaritan examples. This audacious scepticism is emulated by Eichthal, II. p. 285 f.

Luk_17:17. οἱ δέκα] all the ten; οἱ ἐννέα, the remaining nine. See Kühner, II. p. 135 f.

Luk_17:18. οὐχ εὑρέθ. κ.τ.λ.] have they not been found as returning, etc. Comp. on Mat_1:18.

τῷ θεῷ] who through me has accomplished their cure. Comp. Luk_17:15. Proper gratitude to God does not detract from him who is the medium of the benefit. Comp. Luk_17:16.

ὁ ἀλλογενής] heightens the guilt of the nine. The word does not occur in classical Greek; often in the LXX. and the Apocrypha, especially of Gentiles. The Greeks use ἀλλόφυλος, ἀλλοεθνής. The Samaritans were of foreign descent, on account of their Cuthaic blood. Comp. on Mat_10:5; 2Ki_17:24.

Luk_17:19. Jesus dismisses the thankful one, giving him, however, to understand what was the cause of his deliverancea germ for the further development of his inner life! Thy faith (in my divine power, Luk_17:15) hath delivered thee. This faith had not yet the specific Messianic substance; as yet, Jesus to him was only a divine, miraculously powerful teacher. See Luk_17:13.

[216] According to this understanding Jesus must have journeyed, not southwards, but northwards, which Paulus and Olshausen actually suppose, understanding it of a subordinate journey from Ephraim (Joh_11:54). But this is totally opposed to the direction (εἰς Ἱερουσ.) specified in the context, in respect of which Jesus is wrongly transferred already at Luk_10:38 to Bethany. See on Luk_9:51. Schleiermachers view of this passage is altogether untenable, as well as that of de Wette, according to whom (comp. Strauss, II. p. 202) the notice is only intended to explain the presence of a Samaritan, and therefore Σαμαρείας is put first. As though Luke would have written in such a thoughtless mechanical fashion!

[217] If the Samaritan had first been to the priest (Calvin, Schleiermacher), Jesus could not have put the question which He asks at ver. 17 f., since the nine Jews had a much farther journey to the priests. The return of the Samaritan is to be conceived of as very soon after the departure, so that the whole scene took place while still in the village.

Meyer — Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the New Testament — English translation by Peter Christie, edited by Frederick Crombie (T&T Clark, 1880) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Luk 17:11-19 . The ten lepers .

Luk 17:11 . εἰς Ἱερ .: the note of time seems to take us back to Luk 9:51 . No possibility of introducing historic sequence into the section of Lk. lying between Luk 9:51 and Luk 18:15 . αὐτὸς , He without emphasis; not He, as opposed to other pilgrims taking another route, directly through Samaria (so Meyer and Godet). διὰ μέσον = διὰ μέσου (T.R.), μέσον being used adverbially as in Philip. Luk 2:15 = through between the two provinces named, on the confines of both, which explains the mixture of Jews and Samaritans in the crowd of lepers.

The Expositor's Greek Testament, edited by W. Robertson Nicoll (1897–1910) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Third Cycle: The Last Scenes of the Journey, Luk 17:11 to Luk 19:27.

This third section brings us to Bethany, to the gates of Jerusalem, and to the morning of Palm Day. It seems to me evident that Luke, in Luk 17:11, intends simply to indicate the continuation of the journey begun Luk 9:51, and not, as Wieseler will have it, the beginning of a different journey. In consequence of the multiplicity of events related, Luke reminds us from time to time of the general situation. It is in the course of this third section that his narrative rejoins that of the two other Syn. (Luk 18:15 et seq.), at the time when children are brought to Jesus that He may bless them. This event being expressly placed in Peraea by Matthew and Mark, it is clear that the following events must have taken place at the time when Jesus was about to cross the Jordan, or had just passed it.

1. The Ten Lepers: Luk 17:11-19.

Vers. 11-19. Luk 17:11, even in its construction, reminds us of Luk 9:51. The καὶ αὐτός has here, as well as there, peculiar force. The caravans of Galilee took either the Samaritan route or the Peraean. Jesus follows neither; He makes one for Himself, the result of His deliberate wish, which is intermediate between the two,—a fact which seems to be expressed by the so marked resuming of the subject (καὶ αὐτός).

The phrase διὰ μεσοῦ may signify in Greek: while travelling through both of those provinces, or while passing between them. Olshausen takes the first sense: he alleges that from Ephraim, whither Jesus retired after the resurrection of Lazarus (Joh 11:54), He visited Galilee once more, thus traversing from south to north, first Samaria, and then Galilee. Gess (p. 74) also regards this return from Ephraim to Capernaum as probable. But the governed clause to Jerusalem would in this sense be real irony. The second sense is therefore the only possible one: Jesus was passing along the confines of the two provinces. This meaning is confirmed by the absence of the article before the two proper names: Samaria and Galilee. He directed His steps from west to east, toward the Jordan, which He must cross to enter Peraea,—a fact which harmonizes, as we have seen, with Mat 19:1, Mar 10:1, and even Joh 10:40-42.

Luke probably recalls here this general situation in view of the following narrative, in which we find a Samaritan leper mingling with Jewish lepers. Community of suffering had, in their case, broken down the national barrier.

Less bold than the leper of chap. 6, those unhappy men kept at a distance, according to the law, Lev 13:46. The space which a leper was bound to keep between him and every other person is estimated by some at 4, by others at 100 cubits. The cry which they uttered with one voice on perceiving Jesus, draws His attention to the pitiable sight. Without even telling them of their cure, He bids them go and give thanks for it. There is a dash, as it were, of triumphant joy in this unexpected order. As they go (ἐν τῷ ὑπάγειν), they observe the first symptoms of the cure which has been wrought. Immediately one of them, seized with an irresistible emotion of gratitude, turns back, uttering aloud cries of joy and adoration; and arrived in the presence of Jesus, he prostrates himself at His feet in thanksgiving. The difference is to be observed between δοξάζειν, glorifying, applied to God, and εὐχαριστεῖν, giving thanks, applied to Jesus. As He recognises him to be a Samaritan, Jesus feels to the quick the difference between those simple hearts, within which there yet vibrates the natural feeling of gratitude, and Jewish hearts, encrusted all over with pharisaic pride and ingratitude; and immediately, no doubt, the lot of His gospel in the world is presented to His mind. But He contents Himself with bringing into view the present contrast.—Εὑρέθησαν has not for its subject the participle ὑποστρέψαντες, taken substantively, but ἄλλοι understood. Bleek refers the last words: thy faith hath saved thee, to the physical cure which Jesus would confirm to the sufferer by leading him to develope that disposition of faith which has procured it for him. But have we not here rather a new blessing, of which Jesus gives special assurance to this leper? The faith of which Jesus speaks is not merely that which brought him at the first, but more still that which has brought him back. By this return he has sealed for ever the previous transitory connection which his cure had formed between Jesus and him; he recognises His word as the instrument of the miracle; he unites himself closely to the entire person of Him whose power only he had sought at the first. And thereby his physical cure is transformed into a moral cure, into salvation.

Criticism suspects this narrative on account of its universalistic tendency. But if it had been invented with a didactic aim, would the lesson to be drawn from it have been so completely passed over in silence? We must in this case also suspect the healing of the Gentile centurion’s servant in Matthew; and that with more reason still, because Jesus insists on the general lesson to be derived from the event.

Frédéric Louis Godet — Commentaries on Luke, John, Romans, and 1 Corinthians — English translation (T&T Clark, Edinburgh, 1870s–1890s) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Christ doeth well even unto such, as will be unthankful, but the benefits of God profit them only to salvation, which are thankful.

Geneva Bible (1599) marginal notes — public domain. Text via Bolls.life.

We have here an account of the cure of ten lepers, which we had not in any other of the evangelists. The leprosy was a disease which the Jews supposed to be inflicted for the punishment of some particular sin, and to be, more than other diseases, a mark of God's displeasure; and therefore Christ, who came to take away sin, and turn away wrath, took particular care to cleanse the lepers that fell in his way. Christ was now in his way to Jerusalem, about the mid-way, where he had little acquaintance in comparison with what he had either at Jerusalem or in Galilee. He was now in the frontier-country, the marches that lay between Samaria and Galilee. He went that road to find out these lepers, and to cure them; for he is found of them that sought him not. Observe,

I. The address of these lepers to Christ. They were ten in a company; for, though they were shut out from society with others, yet those that were infected were at liberty to converse with one another, which would be some comfort to them, as giving them an opportunity to compare notes, and to condole with one another. Now observe, 1. They met Christ as he entered into a certain village. They did not stay till he had refreshed himself for some time after the fatigue of his journey, but met him as he entered the town, weary as he was; and yet he did not put them off, nor adjourn their cause. 2. They stood afar off, knowing that by the law their disease obliged them to keep their distance. A sense of our spiritual leprosy should make us very humble in all our approaches to Christ. Who are we, that we should draw near to him that is infinitely pure? We are impure. 3. Their request was unanimous, and very importunate (Luk 17:13): They lifted up their voices, being at a distance, and cried, Jesus, Master, have mercy on us. those that expect help from Christ must take him for their Master, and be at his command. If he be Master, he will be Jesus, a Saviour, and not otherwise. They ask not in particular to be cured of their leprosy, but, Have mercy on us; and it is enough to refer ourselves to the compassions of Christ, for they fail not. They heard the fame of this Jesus (though he had not been much conversant in that country), and that was such as encouraged them to make application to him; and, if but one of them began in so cheap and easy an address, they would all join.

II. Christ sent them to the priest, to be inspected by him, who was the judge of the leprosy. He did not tell them positively that they should be cured, but bade them go show themselves to the priests, Luk 17:14. This was a trial of their obedience, and it was fit that it should be so tried, as Naaman's in a like case: Go wash in Jordan. Note, Those that expect Christ's favours must take them in his way and method. Some of these lepers perhaps would be ready to quarrel with the prescription: "Let him either cure or say that he will not, and not send us to the priests on a fool's errand;" but, over-ruled by the rest, they all went to the priest. As the ceremonial law was yet in force, Christ took care that it should be observed, and the reputation of it kept up, and due honour paid to the priests in things pertaining to their function; but, probably, he had here a further design, which was to have the priest's judgment of, and testimony to, the perfectness of the cure; and that the priest might be awakened, and others by him, to enquire after one that had such a commanding power over bodily diseases.

III. As they went, they were cleansed, and so became fit to be looked upon by the priest, and to have a certificate from him that they were clean. Observe, Then we may expect God to meet us with mercy when we are found in the way of duty. If we do what we can, God will not be wanting to do that for us which we cannot. Go, attend upon instituted ordinances; go and pray, and read the scriptures: Go show thyself to the priests; go and open thy case to a faithful minister, and, though the means will not heal thee of themselves, God will heal thee in the diligent use of those means.

IV. One of them, and but one, returned, to give thanks, Luk 17:15. When he saw that he was healed, instead of going forward to the priest, to be by him declared clean, and so discharged from his confinement, which was all that the rest aimed at, he turned back towards him who was the Author of his cure, whom he wished to have the glory of it, before he received the benefit of it. He appears to have been very hearty and affectionate in his thanksgivings: With a loud voice he glorified God, acknowledging it to come originally from him; and he lifted up his voice in his praises, as he had done in his prayers, Luk 17:13. Those that have received mercy from God should publish it to others, that they may praise God too, and may be encouraged by their experiences to trust in him. But he also made a particular address of thanks to Christ (Luk 17:16): He fell down at his feet, put himself into the most humble reverent posture he could, and gave him thanks. Note, We ought to give thanks for the favours Christ bestows upon us, and particularly for recoveries from sickness; and we ought to be speedy in our returns of praise, and not defer them, lest time wear out the sense of the mercy. It becomes us also to be very humble in our thanksgivings, as well as in our prayers. It becomes the seed of Jacob, like him, to own themselves less than the least of God's mercies, when they have received them, as well as when they are in pursuit of them.

V. Christ took notice of this one that had thus distinguished himself; for, it seems, he was a Samaritan, whereas the rest were Jews, Luk 17:16. The Samaritans were separatists from the Jewish church, and had not the pure knowledge and worship of God among them that the Jews had, and yet it was one of them that glorified God, when the Jews forgot, or, when it was moved to them, refused, to do it. Now observe here,

1. The particular notice Christ took of him, of the grateful return he made, and the ingratitude of those that were sharers with him in the mercy - that he who was a stranger to the commonwealth of Israel was the only one that returned to give glory to God, Luk 17:17, Luk 17:18. See here, (1.) How rich Christ is in doing good: Were there not ten cleansed? Here was a cure by wholesale, a whole hospital healed with one word's speaking. Note, There is an abundance of healing cleansing virtue in the blood of Christ, sufficient for all his patients, though ever so many. Here are ten at a time cleansed; we shall have never the less grace for others sharing it. (2.) How poor we are in our returns: "Where are the nine? Why did not they return to give thanks?" This intimates that ingratitude is a very common sin. Of the many that receive mercy from God, there are but few, very few, that return to give thanks in a right manner (scarcely one in ten), that render according to the benefit done to them. (3.) How those often prove most grateful from whom it was least expected. A Samaritan gives thanks, and a Jew does not. Thus many who profess revealed religion are out-done, and quite shamed, by some that are governed only by natural religion, not only in moral value, but in piety and devotion. This serves here to aggravate the ingratitude of those Jews of whom Christ speaks, as taking it very ill that his kindness was so slighted. And it intimates how justly he resents the ingratitude of the world of mankind, for whom he had done so much, and from whom he has received so little.

2. The great encouragement Christ gave him, Luk 17:19. The rest had their cure, and had it not revoked, as justly it might have been, for their ingratitude, though they had such a good example of gratitude set before them; but he had his cure confirmed particularly with an encomium: Thy faith hath made thee whole. The rest were made whole by the power of Christ, in compassion to their distress, and in answer to their prayer; but he was made whole by his faith, by which Christ saw him distinguished from the rest. Note, Temporal mercies are then doubled and sweetened to us when they are fetched in by the prayers of faith, and returned by the praises of faith.

Matthew Henry's Commentary on the Whole Bible (1708–1710) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

Verse 11. He passed through the midst of Samaria and Galilee] He first went through Galilee, whence he set out on his journey; and then through Samaria, of which mention is made, Lu 9:51-52. All who went from Galilee to Jerusalem must have necessarily passed through Samaria, unless they had gone to the westward, a very great way about. Therefore John tells us, Joh 4:4, that when Jesus left Judea to go into Galilee, it was necessary for him to pass through Samaria; for this plain reason, because it was the only proper road. "It is likely that our Lord set out from Capernaum, traversed the remaining villages of Galilee as far as Samaria, and then passed through the small country of Samaria, preaching and teaching every where, and curing the diseased, as usual." Calmet.

Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

(11) And it came to pass, as he went to Jerusalem.—This is the first distinct note of time in St. Luke’s narrative since Luk_9:51. It appears to coincide with the journey of which we read in Mat_19:1, Mar_10:1, and is the commencement of the last progress through the regions in which our Lord had already carried on His ministry. The fact, peculiar to St. Luke, that it led Him through Samaria, apparently through that part of it which lay on the borders of Galilee, is obviously reported in connection with the miracle that follows, the other Gospels dwelling on the departure from Galilee, and the continuance of the journey to Jerusalem by the route on the east of the Jordan valley.

A Bible Commentary for English Readers, edited by Charles John Ellicott (1878–1897) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

11-19. The Cleansed Ten; the Thankless Nine.

11. as he went to Jerusalem] Rather, as they were on their way. The most natural place chronologically, for this incident would have been after Luk_9:56. St Luke places it here to contrast man’s thanklessness to God with the sort of claim to thanks from God which is asserted by spiritual pride.

he passed through the midst of Samaria and Galilee] The most natural meaning of these words is that our Lord, when rejected at the frontier village of En Gannim (see on Luk_9:52; Luk_9:56), altered His route, and determined to pass towards Jerusalem through Peraea. In order to reach Peraea He would have to pass down the Wady of Bethshean, — which lies between the borders of Galilee and Samaria,—and there to cross the bridge over Jordan.

The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

And as he entered into a certain village,.... Whether in Samaria or Galilee, is not certain; perhaps it bordered on both, since there were both Jews and Samaritans in it, as appears by what follows; and since Christ was passing between both places:

there met ten men that were lepers; who either were confined to this place, this village, for they might not be in the larger cities, and walled towns; See Gill on Mat 8:2 or else having heard that Jesus of Nazareth was going to such a place, got together, and met him as he entered in it, in hope of being cured by him:

which stood afar off; from Christ, by reason of their uncleanness, as they were obliged to by the law, in Lev 13:46.

John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

11 And it came to pass, as he went to Jerusalem, that he passed through the midst of Samaria and Galilee.

Ver. 11. He passed through Samaria and Galilee] Albeit he had forbidden his apostles to pass into those parts till after his death; yet he manifested by many arguments that the gospel belonged, and should shortly be preached, to those poor pagans, that as yet sat in darkness and in the shadow of death.

John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

The midst of Samaria and Galilee - He went from Galilee, and probably traveled through the chief villages and towns in it and then left it; and as Samaria was situated “between” Galilee and Jerusalem, it was necessary to pass through it; or it may mean that he passed along on the borders of each toward the river Jordan, and so passed in the midst, “i. e. between” Galilee and Samaria. This is rendered more probable from the circumstance that as he went from Galilee, there would have been no occasion for saying that he passed “through it,” unless it be meant through the “confines” or borders of it, or at least it would have been mentioned before Samaria.

Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible (1834–1885) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

Christ’s nearest way from Galilee to Jerusalem was through Samaria. In a certain town ten lepers met him, for though the law forbade them any other society, yet it did not restrain them from the society of each other; probably they were got together that they might at once come to this great Physician. The leprosy was a sore disease, not so much known in our countries. We shall observe it was the disease which God made to come upon some persons, to testify His displeasure for some sin committed by them. It was threatened as the mark of God upon men for sin, Deu 28:27 —with the scab, whereof thou canst not be healed. God sent it upon Miriam, Num 12:10, for her contempt of Moses. David curseth Joab’s house with it, 2Sa 3:29. Gehazi suffereth by it, for his lying and going after Naaman for a bribe, 2Ki 5:27. King Uzziah, for usurping the priest’s office, 2Ki 15:5. These ten lepers cry to Christ for mercy, mercy with respect to their afflictions.

Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

And it came to pass, as he went to Jerusalem. Just a note of time and place inserted by St. Luke to remind the reader that all these incidents took place, this important teaching and the momentous revelations concerning man"s present and future were spoken, during those last few months preceding the Crucifixion, and generally in that long, slow progress from the north of Palestine through Galilee and Samaria to the holy city.

Vers. 11-19. The ten lepers.

Our minds have been so occupied by the fulness of teaching contained in the three last chapters, that we have almost lost sight of the progress of our Lord to the capital. Now the evangelist recalls our attention. He presents the little party, followed no doubt by many who were attracted from one motive or from another, as "passing through the midst of," or rather "between Samaria and Galilee Samaria on the right, Galilee on the left, and before them the river Jordan. It is in the immediate neighbourhood of a certain village, no name given, that the company are met by the fellowship of misery. A sad spectacle indeed, but one not unfrequent in the sunny isles of Southern seas, and in Eastern cities and thoroughfares. "Sauntering down the Jaffa road," says Dr. Thomson, "on my approach to the holy city, in a kind of dreamy maze, with, as I remember, scarcely one distinct idea in my head, I was startled out of my reverie by the sudden apparition of a crowd of beggars, without eyes, nose, hair. They held up to me their handless arms, unearthly sounds gurgled through throats without palates; in a word, I was horrified." It is a group of these miserables which clamours to Jesus as he nears the village walls. Those with him had heard the wild "Tame, tame! Unclean, unclean!" when suddenly the cry was exchanged for "Jesus, Master, have mercy on us!" These ten, each a homeless man; some with the recollection, perhaps, of happy homes, of other days, of the solaces of human love, all drawn together by virtue of that gregarious instinct which acts on even the wretched. Class distinctions, even the estrangement of opposite nationalities, are forgotten in the one uniting circumstance a common woe. No man would have allowed the dust of the Jew to have the same place of sepulture as the dust of the Samaritan; but these men, dead while they live, may herd as they please. Oh, what a sight to that heart in whose consciousness there survived the feeling of the morning stars and the triumph of the sons of God over the creation on which God had pronounced his "Very good"! What resistless eloquence in the cry, "Jesus, Master, have mercy"! He hears, and he answers in his own way; for in the Gospels there is a striking variety in the dealings of the Lord with those who call on him. Each person is a specialty to him. His way with these ten is not to respond as he did to the leper who knelt to him, beseeching, "If thou wilt, thou canst." To them he gives no direct answer; he bids them at once go and show themselves to the priests. This was the trial of their faith. The priests could only pronounce a person cured; for the ten to obey was equivalent to a trust that the power of the cure lay with Jesus the Master. They go; and shortly the limbs no longer drag, the sensations of health, as of new fresh currents coursing through the frame, tell them that they are cleansed. And now for the point of the incident. One, and only one, turns back, and he a Samaritan; and with a loud voice he gives God the glory, and, falling down before his Benefactor, renders thanks and praise. "Were there not the ten cleansed? Where are the nine? There are not found that returned to give glory to God, save this stranger." It is the old story of the thankless heart. Note some of the lights and shadows of the picture of ingratitude.

I ALL HAD BEEN EARNEST UNDER THE PRESSURE OF THE GREAT WANT AND IN THE PRESENCE OF THE DELIVERER. There was faith enough for prayer, not for praise. Is this uncommon? We have heard that, overtaken by unexpected calamity fire, shipwreck, etc. knees which for long years refused to bow, have bowed, and lips that uttered the adorable Name only in blasphemy have uttered the most fervent pleadings for mercy. The record of the great plague in London is a most graphic description of a new earnestness which nearly the whole population manifested, so that there were not clergy enough, services enough, to meet the demand for prayer. Have we not the tokens of this same state of feeling in ourselves? Oh, there is no difficulty in a cry when the life hangs in doubt, when the shadow of death creeps up the wall of the home and lies across the bed of the dearly beloved. The heart needs no book then to teach to pray; it will cling to any plank; somehow, anyhow, the voice must rise like a fountain, "Jesus, Master, have mercy!

II WHERE ARE THE NINE WHO WERE EARNEST

"Even he who reads the heart Knows what he gave and what we lost, Sin"s forfeit, and redemption"s cost By a short pang of wonder crost, Seems at the sight to start.

They are cleansed. The need is relieved. They are so far on their way. Perhaps there had been some discussion between the one and the nine, and they may have argued, "Let us get to our homes. Grateful to him? Certainly; but he will never miss us." Have we not all illustrated the reasoning? How did the writing of Hezekiah when he was sick condemn him when he was well! "I will go softly all my days" was part of the writing which contained the reflections and purposes of the recovery. How did that harmonize with his pride and ostentation to the messengers of Baladan? Alas! how quickly is the love which special moments originate overborne by the return of the old things, or the influence of new scenes and circumstances? "Not showers across an April sky Drift when the storm is o"er, Faster than those false drops and few Fleet from the heart, a worthless dew.

Most of all is this true when the record borne is of blessings bestowed, when the prayer which brought to the feet of Jesus has been answered even in a manner which can be traced. What healings are received! and yet there is no turning back of the soul to glorify the Healer! What plenteousness of redemption! and yet there is no loud voice to confess the Redeemer! The proportion is the nine thankless to the one thankful. And is not ingratitude among the most common of vices? the Aaron"s rod which swallows up and comprises in itself all the baser vices? Archdeacon Farter quotes the lines of Wordsworth"I"ve heard of hearts unkind Kind deeds with coldness still returning: Alas I the gratitude of men Hath left me oftener mourning.

And he adds, "If Wordsworth found gratitude a common virtue, his experience must have been exceptional." "Give thanks unto the Lord at the remembrance of his holiness. Give unto the Lord the glory due unto his Name. Bring an offering, and come into his courts:

Vers. 11-19. The commonness of ingratitude, etc.

Under the guidance of this narrative, we think of

I THE COMMONNESS OF INGRATITUDE. Only one of these ten men had a sufficient sense of indebtedness to return to Christ to offer thanks. The ingratitude of the remaining nine touched, smote, wounded our Lord, and he used the reproachful words of the text (ver. 17). This ingratitude was not a remarkably exceptional illustration of our nature; it is one of those things in respect of which "he that increaseth knowledge increaseth sorrow." For that which youth refuses to believe, experience obliges us to acknowledge, viz. that to accept a great boon from the hand of love, and to show no proper sense of gratitude, is not a rare but a common thing. It is likely enough that we may go much out of our way to do a man a kindness, and that when we look for his response we shall be disappointed. What then? Shall we be diverted from the path of beneficence by this unlovely fact? Shall we say, "Since it is very likely that my services will not be appreciated, they shall not be rendered"? Certainly not. For:

1. There is gratitude to be gained and to be enjoyed. This proportion is not representative. It is not the case that nine men out of ten are insensible to kindnesses shown them. It is as likely as not, perhaps more likely than not, that if we do help out brother in his hour of need, if we do sustain him in sorrow, succour him in distress, stand by him in temptation, lead him into the kingdom of God, we shall win his gratitude, and we may secure the profound, prayerful, lifelong affection of a human heart. And what better reward, short of the favour and friendship of God, can we gain than that?

2. If we fail to obtain this, we shall stand by the side of our Divine Master; we shall share his experience; we shall have "fellowship with the sufferings of Christ." He knew well what it was to serve and be unappreciated, to serve and be disparaged. To be where he stood, to "Tread the path our Master trod, To bear the cross he bore, this is an honour not to be declined.

3. If man our brother does not bless us, Christ our Saviour will. The most heroic deed of love may go, has gone, unrewarded of man. But the smallest act of kindness rendered to the humblest child will not go unrewarded of him. "Whosoever shall give to drink unto one of these little ones a cup of cold water only... shall in no wise lose his reward.

II THE UNCOUNTED DEBT DUE TO JESUS CHRIST. These nine men having received the greatest good one man could receive from another deliverance from a living death failed to recognize their obligation, did not stop to consider it. They were not the last to be guilty in this respect.

1. How much more do many owe to Christ than they think they do! They say, "We do not choose to range ourselves under him and call him "Master;" we can construct our own character, can build up rectitude and purity and benevolence of spirit apart from his truths or his will; we can do without Christ." But suppose we subtract from the elevating and purifying influences which have made these men what they are all those elements which are due to Christ, how much is left? How little is left? The influences that come from him are in the air these men are breathing, in the laws under which they are living, in the literature they are reading, in the lives they are witnessing; they touch and tell upon them at every point, they act silently and subtly but mightily upon them; they owe to Jesus Christ the best they are and have; they ought to come into direct, living, personal relations with the Lord himself.

2. How much more do some men owe to Christ than they stay to consider! These nine men would not have disputed their obligation had they been challenged, but they were so anxious to get home to their friends and back to their business that they did not stay to consider it. Have we stayed to consider what we owe to him who, though he has not indeed cured us of leprosy, has at infinite cost to himself prepared for us a way of recovery from that which is immeasurably worse from sin and death? to him who, "though he was rich, for our sakes became poor, that we through his poverty might be rich?

III THE PERIL OF EARLY PRIVILEGE. It is significant enough that the tenth leper who did return to give glory to God was a Samaritan was "this stranger." Taking this fact with that concerning the Roman soldier whose faith surprised our Lord, and that of the Syro-Phoenician woman whose importunity prevailed over every obstacle, we may conclude that the Hebrew mind was so familiarized with "signs and wonders," that those outside the sacred circle were far more impressed by what they witnessed than the people of God themselves. It is well to he the children of privilege; but there is one grave peril connected with it. We may become so familiar with the greatest of all facts as to become insensible to their greatness. The Swiss peasant who lives on the Alpine slopes sees no grandeur in those snow-clad summits on which his eyes are always resting; the sailor who lives by the sea hears no music in "old ocean"s roar." We may become so familiar even with the story of the cross that our minds are unaffected by its moral grandeur, by its surpassing grace. It behoves us to take earnest heed that we fall not into this fatal snare; lest many should come "from the north, and the south, and the east, and the west, and sit down in the kingdom of God," and we, the children of the kingdom, be excluded. We must do our utmost to realize the great truths which have so long been uttered in our hearing. C.

The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

The Ten Lepers.

The cleansing:

v. 11. And it came to pass, as He went to Jerusalem, that He passed through the midst of Samaria and Galilee.

v. 12. And as He entered into a certain village, there met Him ten men that were lepers, which stood afar off;

v. 13. and they lifted up their voices, and said, Jesus, Master, have mercy on us.

v. 14. And when He saw them, He said unto them, Go show yourselves unto the priests. And it came to pass that, as they went, they were cleansed.

Jesus did not travel to Jerusalem by the shortest route, but journeyed by easy stages along the boundary between Galilee and Samaria, now in the one, then again in the other province, as occasion offered, and He found villages which had not yet heard the Gospel of the Kingdom. Now when He was about to enter into a village in that region, ten leprous men came out to meet Him. Observing the strict rule concerning infection, they did not come all the way to Christ, but stood at some distance, near enough, however, that their hoarse voice might be heard. And they called in unison, to increase the carrying power of their prayer: Jesus, Lord, have mercy on us! That was a prayer of faith. They knew Jesus through the medium of the wonderful stories that had been told about Him. The message concerning Christ had worked faith in their hearts. Their plea for mercy was an expression of this faith. "This is testified to by their words, when they say: Have mercy on us! He that seeks mercy will surely not buy and barter it, but seeks only grace and mercy, as one that is unworthy of it and most assuredly merits something entirely different. " And Jesus, seeing them, and fully aware of their miserable plight, ordered them to show themselves to the priests. It was commanded in the Law of Moses that such persons as supposed themselves to be cured of the dreadful disease of leprosy or had actually been cured, must present themselves to one of the priests on duty at the sanctuary, in order that their condition might be established. For if they had been cured of their sickness, they were required to bring certain prescribed sacrifices connected with their cleansing, Lev 13:2; Lev 14:2. Jesus did not heal the sick men outright, in order not to arouse the opposition of the priests unduly, for they would have had the power, if they so choose for enmity toward Him, to declare that the men were still leprous. Jesus combined tact and discretion with kindness and mercy. Therefore it happened that the men became clean after they had left His presence, while on their way to the sanctuary. Mark that their going, in these circumstances, was an act of faith. Without seeing the miracle, they believed that it would happen to them. And so it came about.

Paul E. Kretzmann, Popular Commentary of the Bible (1921–1924) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Observe here, 1. Though the Samaritans were bitter enemies to the Jews, and had been guilty of great incivility towards our Saviour, yet our Saviour in his journey to Jerusalem balks them not, but bestows the favor of a miracle upon them. Civil courtesy and respect may and ought to be paid to those that are the professed enemies of us and our holy religion.

Observe, 2. Though the leper by the law of God was to be separated from all other society, (God thereby signifying to his people, that the society of those that are spiritually contagious ought to be avoided,) yet the law of God did not restrain them from conversing with one another: accordingly these ten lepers get together, and are company for themselves. Fellowship is that we all naturally affect, though even in leprosy; lepers will flock together; where shall we find one spiritual leper alone? Drunkards and profane persons will be sure to consort with one another. Why should not God’s children delight in an holy communion, when the wicked join hand in hand?

Observe, 3. Though Jews and Samaritans could not abide one another, yet here in leprosy they accord; here was one Samaritan leper with the Jewish: common sufferings had made them friends, whom relgion had disjoined. Oh what virtue is there in affliction to unite the most alienated and estranged hearts?

Observe, 4. These lepers apply themselves to Christ the great Physician; they cry unto him for mercy, with respect to their afflictions; they jointly cry, they all lifted up their voice with fervent importunity.

Teaching us our duty to join our spiritual forces together, and set upon God by troops. Oh holy and happy violence that is thus offered to heaven! How can we want blessings, when so many cords draw them down upon our heads?

William Burkitt's Expository Notes on the New Testament (1700–1703) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

J. W. McGarvey's The Fourfold Gospel [XCV. Journey to Jerusalem].

XCV. JOURNEY TO JERUSALEM. TEN LEPERS. CONCERNING THE KINGDOM. (Borders of Samaria and Galilee.) cLUKE XVII. 11-37.

c11 And it came to pass, as they were on their way to Jerusalem, that he was passing along the borders of Samaria and Galilee. [If our chronology is correct, Jesus passed northward from Ephraim about forty miles, crossing Samaria (here mentioned first), and coming to the border of Galilee. He then turned eastward along that border down the wady Bethshean which separates the two provinces, and crossed the Jordan into Peræa, where we soon find him moving on toward Jericho in the midst of the caravan of pilgrims on the way to the passover.] 12 And as he entered into a certain village, there met him ten men that were lepers, who stood afar off. [One may still meet such groups of lepers outside the villages. They do not stand directly in the road so as to make an actual meeting, but are off to one side and near enough to beg. The law required lepers to keep away from the rest of the people ( Lev_13:45, Lev_13:46). The rabbis are said to have prescribed a fixed distance at which lepers must keep, but authority varies as to this distance, some giving it as [529] a rod, and others as high as a hundred paces]: 13 and they lifted up their voices [such as they had, for the leper's bronchial tubes are dry, and the voice is harsh and squeaky], saying, Jesus, Master, have mercy on us. [Considering their condition, their prayer was definite enough.] 14 And when he saw them [the disciples about him probably at first obstructed the Lord's view], he said unto them, Go and show yourselves unto the priests. [See 2Ki_5:15], with a loud voice [made strong by health and gratitude] glorifying God; 16 and he fell down on his face at his feet, giving him thanks: and he was a Samaritan. [On his way to the priests at Mt. Gerizim the Samaritan turned back to express his thanks. Apparently nine of the lepers were Jews. A Samaritan was among them because they were along the border of his country, and because the fellowship of affliction and disease obliterated the distinctions of race, as it does to this day. In the leper-houses at Jerusalem Mohammedans and Jews now live together despite the rancor existing between the healthy representatives of these two religions.] 17 And Jesus answering said, Were there not the ten cleansed? but where are the nine? [The Lord publicly noted the indifference and ingratitude of the nine and the thanksgiving of the tenth. As we look around to-day and see how many are ungrateful for the blessings which they receive, the words ring like an echo in our ears.] 18 Were there none found that returned to give glory to God, save this stranger? [It sometimes happens that we receive most where we expect least. Though the Samaritan's religion was partly Jewish, yet by blood he was a foreigner, as the word "stranger" means.] 19 And he said unto him, Arise, and go thy way: thy faith hath made thee whole. [Thus Jesus emphasized the fact that the blessing came through faith, encouraging the man to seek [530] higher blessings by the same means.] 20 And being asked by the Pharisees, when the kingdom of God cometh, he answered them and said, The kingdom of God cometh not with observation: 21 neither shall they say, Lo here! or, There! for, lo, the kingdom of God is within you. [ Rom_14:17. The question of the Pharisees was doubtless a covert criticism. More than three years before this Jesus had begun to say that the kingdom of heaven was at hand; and they thought that after all this preparation it was high time that the kingdom should commence. They were looking for some manifestation of the sovereignty of God in the realm of the civil and the external, which would raise the Jewish nation to conspicuous supremacy, but they are told that the work of the kingdom is internal and spiritual ( Joh_3:8, Joh_18:36, Rom_10:8, Col_1:27), and that its effects are not such as can be located in space. They were seeking honors and joys, and would find contempt and sorrow ( Amo_5:18-20). Some have thought it strange than Jesus should say "within you" when addressing the Pharisees, but the word "you" is used generally and indefinitely.] 22 And he said unto his disciples [giving them instructions suggested by the question of the Pharisees], The days will come, when ye shall desire to see one of the days of the Son of man, and ye shall not see it. 23 And they shall say to you, Lo, there! Lo, here! go not away, nor follow after i them: 24 for as the lightning, when it lighteneth out of the one part under the heaven, shineth unto the other part under heaven; so shall the Son of man be in his day. [ Act_26:13, 2Th_2:8. If the Pharisees looked eagerly for a sensuous external Messianic kingdom, so also would the disciples be tempted in the days to come to cherish a somewhat similar yearning. Knowing that Jesus was to come again to rule in power and in great glory, they would, under the stress of persecution, hunger to see one of the days of his rule. This longing for the coming of the Christ is frequently expressed ( Phi_4:5, Tit_2:13, Jam_5:7-9, Rev_22:20). In their restless eagerness the [531] unwary disciples would be tempted to follow the false Messiahs who excited widespread admiration and attention. Against all this Jesus warns them, telling them that when the kingdom of heaven does at last assume a visible shape in the manifestation of its King, that manifestation will be so glorious, universal and pronounced as to be absolutely unmistakable.] 25 But first must he suffer many things and be rejected of this generation. [Thus when he speaks of his glory Jesus is careful to mention the humiliation and suffering which precedes it, that the faith of his disciples may not be weakened by false expectations and misunderstandings. The day of glory was not for that generation, since it would reject him.] 26 And as it came to pass in the days of Noah [ Gen_7:11-23], 27 They ate, they drank, they married, they were given in marriage, until the day that Noah entered into the ark, and the flood came, and destroyed them all. 28 Likewise even as it came to pass in the days of Lot [ Gen_19:15-28, Eze_16:46-56, Jud_1:7]; they ate, they drank, they bought, they sold, they planted, they builded; 29 but in the day that Lot went out from Sodom it rained fire and brimstone from heaven, and destroyed them all: 30 after the same manner shall it be in the day that the Son of man is revealed. [Our Lord here gives us two historical incidents of the false security of the ungodly, and in doing so he endorses them as real history. The antediluvians and the citizens of Sodom discharged the business of the day and laid their plans for to-morrow and had no thought of evil or anticipation of trouble down to the very moment that the bowls of wrath were poured upon them. Despite all warnings, they were taken by surprise when completely off their guard. The coming of Christ shall be a like surprise to the people of the last day ( Mat_24:44, Luk_12:39, 1Th_5:2, 2Pe_3:10, Rev_3:3, Rev_16:15), and it shall be a day of like punishment-- 2Th_1:6-10.] 31 In that day, he that shall be on the housetop. [the flat roofs of Oriental houses [532] are used much the same as we use porches], and his goods in the house, let him not go down to take them away: and let him that is in the field likewise not return back. 32 Remember Lot's wife. [ Gen_19:26, Luk_9:62.] 33 Whosoever shall seek to gain his life shall lose it: but whosoever shall lose i his life shall preserve it. [See Rev_22:10-12). If in that hour we be found seeking to save our carnal treasures, it will be a sign that we have lost the spiritual from our lives and have no heavenly treasures.] 34 I say unto you, In that night there shall be two men on one bed; the one shall be taken, and the other shall be left. 35 There shall be two women grinding together [making meal or flour with the little stone hand-mills, as they still do in the East]; the one shall be taken, and the other shall be left. [Day and night exist simultaneously upon the earth, and the Lord's coming will be at noon to some and at midnight to others. His saints will be found mingled with the rest of the people and engaged in duties befitting the hour. But the Lord will receive them to himself as his own ( Joh_14:3, 1Th_4:17), and they will be ready to be detached from their worldly ties that they may go to meet and welcome the bridegroom at his coming-- Mat_25:6, Mat_25:7.] 37 And they answering say unto him, Where, Lord? And he said unto them, Where the body i is, thither will the eagles also be gathered together. [The disciples desired to know where this manifestation and division would take place, looking upon it as a local prediction. Jesus gave a proverbial answer, the meaning of which is that sin courts and draws to itself punishment and destruction just as a carcass draws winged [533] scavengers. Applying his words, we may say that as the corruption of the antediluvians drew upon them, the devastation of the flood, and as the crimes of the Sodomites called down upon them, the fires from heaven, and as the unbelief of the Jews of Christ's day caused the destruction of Jerusalem and the death of the nation, so the wickedness of the men of the last times will result in the ending of the world. The word translated eagles is generic, and included the vultures also (Pliny Nat. His. ix. 3). It is likely that the Revision Committee retained the word "eagles" instead of vultures because of the mistaken notion of Lightfoot and others that our Lord here makes a covert allusion to the eagles which were borne upon the Roman standards. A passage similar to the latter part of this section is found at Mat_24:17-41.]

[FFG 529-534]

J. W. McGarvey (with Philip Y. Pendleton), Commentaries on the New Testament (The Fourfold Gospel, 1914; Acts; and the epistles) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

11–19. As he went to Jerusalem. When is uncertain. If on his last journey, it was when the Lord first departed from Galilee, before his teaching in Perea. Through the midst of Samaria and Galilee. From the west to the east, so as to cross the Jordan.

There met him ten men that were lepers. For account of the leprosy, and the laws of Moses concerning it, see notes on Matt. 8:2. These lepers, excluded from other society, grouped together for company. Stood afar off. As required by the law of Moses (Lev. 13:46).

Go and shew yourselves. To be officially pronounced clean, a certificate had to be obtained from the priests (see notes, Matt. 8:4). They were cleansed. As they went, an act of faith, they were healed. Not one would have been healed if he had disobeyed.

One of them … turned back. To give glory to God, and thanks to Jesus for his salvation.

A Samaritan. The nine were Jews; one belonged to the hated race.

Where are the nine? What a striking illustration of the ingratitude of men! One returns, the alien; the other, saved from a living death, are heard no more.

Thy faith hath saved thee. Saved him by leading him to obedience. His faith had added to it another grace, that of love. His faith had not only saved his body, but he had been born to the new life, his soul was saved.

B. W. Johnson's The People's New Testament with Notes (1889–1891) — public domain. Electronic text from the Christian Classics Ethereal Library (CCEL) ThML edition.

General Information:

Jesus heals 10 men of leprosy. Verses 11 and 12 give background information and the setting of the event. (See: Background Information)

It came about that

This phrase is used here to mark the beginning of a new event. If your language has a way for doing this, you could consider using it here. (See: Introduction of a New Event)

as he traveled to Jerusalem

"as Jesus and the disciples were traveling to Jerusalem"

a certain village

This phrase does not identify the village.

there he was met by ten men who were lepers

This can be stated in active form. AT: "ten men who were lepers met him" or "ten men who had leprosy met him" (See: Active or Passive)

They stood far away from him

This was a respectful gesture, because lepers were not allowed to approach other people. (See: Assumed Knowledge and Implicit Information)

they lifted up their voices

The idiom "to lift up one's voice" means to speak loudly. AT: "they called with loud voices" or "they called aloud" (See: Idiom)

have mercy on us

They were specifically asking to be healed. AT: "please show us mercy by healing us" (See: Assumed Knowledge and Implicit Information)

translationWords

Jerusalem

Samaria

Galilee

leper

voice

Jesus

lord

mercy

unfoldingWord translationNotes — © Distant Shores Media and the Door43 World Missions Community, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Source: git.door43.org/Door43/en_tn.

11–19. THE CLEANSED TEN; THE THANKLESS NINE

11. διὰ μέσον. אBL. The phrase is not found in N.T. D reads μέσον, and some MSS. διὰ μέσου.

11. ἐν τῷ πορεύεσθαι εἰς Ἱερουσαλήμ. ‘As they were on their way.’ The most natural place chronologically, for this incident would have been after Luk 9:57. St Luke places it here to contrast man’s thanklessness to God with the sort of claim to thanks from God which is asserted by spiritual pride.

διὰ μέσον Σαμαρίας καὶ Γαλιλαίας. The most natural meaning of these words is that our Lord, when rejected at the frontier village of En Gannim (see on Luk 9:52; Luk 9:56), altered His route, and determined to pass towards Jerusalem through Peraea. In order to reach Peraea He would have to pass down the Wady of Bethshean,—which lies between the borders of Galilee and Samaria,—and there to cross the bridge over Jordan.

Cambridge Greek Testament for Schools and Colleges (Cambridge University Press, 1896; 21 vols, various authors incl. Carr, Maclear, Plummer, Farrar, Lumby, Moule, M. R. James, Simcox) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

11-19.] Healing of ten lepers. It does not appear to what part of the last journey this is to be referred. There is no reason for supposing it to have been subsequent to what has just been related:—this is not implied. It may have been at the very beginning of the journey. From the circumstance that these lepers were a mixed company of Jews and Samaritans, διὰ μέσον Σ. κ. Γ. probably means ‘between Samaria and Galilee,’ on the frontiers of both. Meyer supposes αὐτός to mean ‘He for his part’—separate from the others going up to the feast, who would go direct through Samaria. Xen. has διὰ μέσου δὲ ῥεῖ τούτων ποταμός, i.e. ‘between these walls.’ Anab. i. 4. 4.

This seems to be with Mat 19:1. The journey mentioned there would lead Him διὰ μέσ. Σ. κ. Γ.

Henry Alford, The Greek Testament (1849–1861) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

11-19. Here begins the last portion of the long section (9:51-19:28), for the most part peculiar to Lk., which we have called “the Journeyings towards Jerusalem”: see on 9:51. For the third time (9:51, 52, 13:22) Lk. tells us that Jerusalem is the goal, but we have no means of knowing whether this represents the beginning of a third journey distinct from two previous journeys. Marked breaks may be made at the end of 13:35 and 17:10. But we have no data for determining what the chronology of the different divisions is; and the geography is almost as indistinct as the chronology. This last portion, however, brings us once more (10:38) to Bethany, and to the time which preceded the triumphal entry into Jerusalem.

11-19. § The Healing of the Ten Lepers. The gratitude of the Samaritan leper illustrates the special theme of this Gospel. The opening of the narrative indicates an Aramaic source: but that it is placed here “to contrast man’s thanklessness to God with the sort of claim to thanks from God, which is asserted by spiritual pride,” is not probable.

11. ἐν τῷ πορεύεσθαι . “As He was on His way.” See on 3:21 and comp. 9:51, the beginning of this main portion, where the construction is similar. The αὐτόν is probably a gloss (om. א B L), but a correct gloss. As no one else is mentioned it is arbitrary to translate “as they were on their way.” Latin texts all take it as singular: dum iret, cum iret, dum vadit, dum iter faceret. So also Syr-Sin., which omits ἐγένετο.

καὶ αὐτὸς διήρχετο. The apodosis of ἐγένετο: see on 5:12, 14, 6:20; also on 2:15. There is no emphasis on αὐτός.

διὰ μέσον. This is the reading of א B D L, accepted by Tisch. Treg. WH. and RV. It means “through what lies between,” i.e. along the frontier, or simply, “between.” This is the only passage in N.T. in which διά c. acc. has its original local signification. Even if διὰ μέσου were the right reading, we ought to translate it “between” and not “through the midst of.” This use is found in Xenophon: διὰ μέσου δὲ ῥεῖ τούτων ποταμός (Anab. 1:4, 4), of a river flowing between two walls; and in Plato: ἢ τὸ τούτων δὴ διὰ μέσου φῶμεν (Leg. 7. p. 805 D), of an intermediate course. “Through midst of Samaria and Galilee” wouldimply that Jesus was moving from Jerusalem, whereas we are expressly told that He was journeying towards it. Samaria, as being on the right would naturally be mentioned first if He was going eastward along the frontier between Samaria and Galilee possibly by the route which ends at Bethshean, near the Jordan. In order to avoid Samaritan territory (9:52-55), He seems to have been making for Peræa, as Jews often did in going from Galilee to Jerusalem. On the frontier He would be likely to meet with a mixed company of lepers, their dreadful malady having broken down the barrier between Jew and Samaritan. See Conder, Handbk. of B. p. 311; Tristram, Bible Places, p. 222; Eastern Customs, pp. 19, 21. In the leper-houses at Jerusalem Jews and Mahometans will live together at the present time.

There is no doubt that ver. 11 forms a complete sentence. To make from καὶ αὐτός to Γαλιλαίας a parenthesis, and take ἀπήντησαν as the apodosis of ἐγένετο, is quite gratuitous clumsiness.

International Critical Commentary — older volumes (1896–1929), various authors — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Through the midst of. It may also mean between or on the borders of. The Am. Rev. insists on the latter.

Marvin R. Vincent, Word Studies in the New Testament (1887–1900) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.