Luke 6:1

These two passages of story we had both in Matthew and Mark, and they were there laid together (Mat 12:1; Mar 2:23; Mar 3:1), because, though happening at some distance of time from each other, both were designed to rectify the mistakes of the scribes and Pharisees concerning the sabbath day, on the bodily rest of which they laid greater stress and required greater strictness than the Law-giver intended. Here,

I. Christ justifies his disciples in a work of necessity for themselves on that day, and that was plucking the ears of corn, when they were hungry on that day. This story here has a date, which we had not in the other evangelists; it was on the second sabbath after the first (Luk 6:1), that is, as Dr. Whitby thinks is pretty clear, the first sabbath after the second day of unleavened bread, from which day they reckoned the seven weeks to the feast of pentecost; the first of which they called Sabbaton deuteroprōton, the second deuterodeuteron, and so on. Blessed be God we need not be critical in this matter. Whether this circumstance be mentioned to intimate that this sabbath was thought to have some peculiar honour upon it, which aggravated the offence of the disciples, or only to intimate that, being the first sabbath after the offering of the first fruits, it was the time of the year when the corn was nearly ripe, is not material. We may observe, 1. Christ's disciples ought not to be nice and curious in their diet, at any time, especially on sabbath days, but take up with what is easiest got, and be thankful. These disciples plucked the ears of corn, and did eat (Luk 6:1); a little served them, and that which had no delicacy in it. 2. Many that are themselves guilty of the greatest crimes are forward to censure others for the most innocent and inoffensive actions, Luk 6:2. The Pharisees quarrelled with them as doing that which it was not lawful to do on the sabbath days, when it was their own practice to feed deliciously on sabbath days, more than on all other days. 3. Jesus Christ will justify his disciples when they are unjustly censured, and will own and accept of them in many a thing which men tell them it is not lawful for them to do. How well is it for us that men are not to be our judges, and that Christ will be our Advocate! 4. Ceremonial appointments may be dispensed with, in cases of necessity; as the appropriating of the showbread to the priests was dispensed with, when David was by Providence brought into such a strait that he must have either that or none, Luk 6:3, Luk 6:4. And, if God's own appointments might be thus set aside for a greater good, much more may the traditions of men. 5. Works of necessity are particularly allowable on the sabbath day; but we must take heed that we turn not this liberty into licentiousness, and abuse God's favourable concessions and condescensions to the prejudice of the work of the day. 6. Jesus Christ, though he allowed works of necessity on the sabbath day, will notwithstanding have us to know and remember that it is his day, and therefore is to be spent in his service and to his honour (Luk 6:5): The Son of man is Lord also of the sabbath. In the kingdom of the Redeemer, the sabbath day is to be turned into a Lord's day; the property of it is, in some respects, to be altered, and it is to be observed chiefly in honour of the Redeemer, as it had been before in honour of the Creator, Jer 16:14, Jer 16:15. In token of this, it shall not only have a new name, the Lord's day (yet not forgetting the old, for it is a sabbath of rest still) but shall be transferred to a new day, the first day of the week.

II. He justifies himself in doing works of mercy for others on the sabbath day. Observe in this, 1. Christ on the sabbath day entered into the synagogue. Note, It is our duty, as we have opportunity, to sanctify sabbaths in religious assemblies. On the sabbath there ought to be a holy convocation; and our place must not be empty without very good reason. 2. In the synagogue, on the sabbath day, he taught. Giving and receiving instruction from Christ is very proper work for a sabbath day, and for a synagogue. Christ took all opportunities to teach, not only his disciples, but the multitude. 3. Christ's patient was one of his hearers. A man whose right hand was withered came to learn from Christ. Whether he had any expectation to be healed by him does not appear. But those that would be cured by the grace of Christ must be willing to learn the doctrine of Christ. 4. Among those who were the hearers of Christ's excellent doctrine, and the eye-witnesses of his glorious miracles, there were some who came with no other design than to pick quarrels with him, Luk 6:7. The scribes and Pharisees would not, as became generous adversaries, give him fair warning that, if he did heal on the sabbath day, they would construe it into a violation of the fourth commandment, which they ought in honour and justice to have done, because it was a case without precedent (none having ever cured as he did), but they basely watched him, as the lion does his prey, whether he would heal on the sabbath day, that they might find an accusation against him, and surprise him with a prosecution. 5. Jesus Christ was neither ashamed nor afraid to own the purposes of his grace, in the face of those who, he knew, confronted them, Luk 6:8. He knew their faults, and what they designed, and he bade the man rise, and stand forth, hereby to try the patient's faith and boldness. 6. He appealed to his adversaries themselves, and to the convictions of natural conscience, whether it was the design of the fourth commandment to restrain men from doing good on the sabbath day, that good which their hand finds to do, which they have an opportunity for, and which cannot so well be put off to another time (Luk 6:9): Is it lawful to do good, or evil, on the sabbath days? No wicked men are such absurd and unreasonable men as persecutors are, who study to do evil to men for doing good. 7. He healed the poor man, and restored him to the present use of his right hand, with a word's speaking, though he knew that his enemies would not only take offence at it, but take advantage against him for it, Luk 6:10. Let not us be drawn off, either from our duty or usefulness, by the oppression we meet with in it. 8. His adversaries were hereby enraged so much the more against him, Luk 6:11. Instead of being convinced by this miracle, as they ought to have been, that he was a teacher come from God, - instead of being brought to be in love with him as a benefactor to mankind, - they were filled with madness, vexed that they could not frighten him from doing good, or hinder the growth of his interest in the affections of the people. They were mad at Christ, mad at the people, mad at themselves. Anger is a short madness, malice is a long one; impotent malice, especially disappointed malice; such was theirs. When they could not prevent his working this miracle, they communed one with another what they might do to Jesus, what other way they might take to run him down. We may well stand amazed at it that the sons of men should be so wicked as to do thus, and that the Son of God should be so patient as to suffer it.

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

Luk_6:1-5. The Disciples pluck the ears of corn on the Sabbath. (Mat_12:1-8; Mar_2:23-28.)

1. on the second sabbath after the first] Better, on the second-first sabbath. St Luke gives this unique note of time without a word to explain it, and scholars have not—and probably never will—come to an agreement as to its exact meaning. The only analogy to the word is the deuterodekate or second tenth in Jerome on Ezekiel 45. Of the ten or more suggested explanations, omitting those which are wholly arbitrary and impossible, we may mention the following,

a. The first Sabbath of the second month (Wetstein).

b. The first Sabbath after the second day of the Passover (Scaliger, Ewald, De Wette, Neander, Keim, &c.).

c. The first Sabbath of the second year in the Sabbatic cycle of seven years. (Wieseler).

d. The first Sabbath of the Ecclesiastical year. The Jewish year had two beginnings, the civil year began in Tisri (mid-September); the ecclesiastical year in Nisan (mid-March).

The first-first Sabbath may therefore have been a name given to the first Sabbath of the civil year in autumn; and second-first to the first Sabbath of the ecclesiastical year in spring (Cappell, Godet).

d. The Pentecostal Sabbath—the Paschal Sabbath being regarded as the protoproton or first-first (Corn. a Lapide).

These and similar explanations must be left as unsupported conjectures in the absence of any decisive trace of such Sabbatical nomenclature among the Jews. But we may remark that

(1) The reading itself cannot be regarded as absolutely certain, since it is omitted in א, B, L, and in several important versions, including the Syriac and Coptic. Hence of modern editors Tregelles and Meyer omit it; Lachmann and Alford put it in brackets. [Its insertion may then be conceivably accounted for by marginal annotations. Thus if a copyist put ‘first’ in the margin with the reference to the “other” Sabbath of Luk_5:6 it would have been corrected by some succeeding copyist into ‘second’ with reference to Luk_4:31; and the two may have been combined in hopeless perplexity. If it be said that this is unlikely, it seems at least equally unlikely that it should either wilfully or accidentally have been omitted if it formed part of the original text. And why should St Luke writing for Gentiles use without explanation a word to them perfectly meaningless and so highly technical that in all the folio volumes of Jewish literature there is not a single trace of it?]

(2) The exact discovery of what the word means is only important as a matter of archaeology. Happily there can be no question as to the time of year at which the incident took place. The narrative seems to imply that the ears which the disciples plucked and rubbed were ears of wheat not of barley. Now the first ripe sheaf of barley was offered at the Passover (in spring) and the first ripe wheat sheaf at Pentecost (fifty days later). Wheat would ripen earlier in the rich deep hollow of Gennesareth. In any case therefore the time of year was spring or early summer, and the Sabbath (whether the reading be correct or not) was probably some Sabbath in the month Nisan.

he went through the corn fields] Comp. Mat_12:1-8; Mar_2:23-28. St Mark uses the curious expression that ‘He went along through the corn fields’ apparently in a path between two fields—“and His disciples began to make a way by plucking the corn ears.” All that we can infer from this is that Jesus was walking apart from His Apostles, and that He did not Himself pluck the corn.

plucked the ears of corn] This shews their hunger and poverty, especially if the corn was barley. They were permitted by the Law to do this—“When thou comest into the standing-corn of thy neighbour, then thou mayest pluck the ears with thine hand,” Deu_23:25. St Matthew in his “began to pluck” shews how eagerly and instantly the Pharisees clutched at the chance of finding fault.

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.

Second sabbath after the first - See the notes at Mat 12:1. This phrase has given great perplexity to commentators. A “literal” translation would be, “on the Sabbath called “second first,”” or second first Sabbath. The word occurs nowhere else. It is therefore exceedingly difficult of interpretation. The most natural and easy explanation is that proposed by Scaliger. The “second day” of the Passover was a great festival, on which the wave-sheaf was offered, Lev 23:11. From “that day” they reckoned “seven weeks,” or seven “Sabbaths,” to the day of Pentecost. The “first” Sabbath after that “second day” was called the “second first,” or the first from the second day of the feast. The “second” Sabbath was called the “second second,” or the second Sabbath from the second day of the feast; the third the “third second,” etc. This day, therefore, on which the Saviour went through the fields, was the first Sabbath that occurred after the second day of the feast.

Rubbing them in their hands - The word “corn” here means wheat or barley, and not maize, as in America. They rubbed it in their hands to separate the grain from the chaff. This was common and allowable. Dr. Thomson (“The Land and the Book,” vol. ii. p. 510, 511) says: “I have often seen my muleteers, as we passed along the wheat fields, pluck off ears, rub them in their hands, and eat the grains, unroasted, just as the apostles are said to have done. This also is allowable. The Pharisees did not object to the thing itself, only to the time when it was done. They said it was not lawful to do this on the Sabbath-day. It was work forbidden by those who, through their traditions, had made man for the Sabbath, not the Sabbath for man.” So Professor Hackett (“Illustrations of Scripture,” p. 176, 177) says: “The incident of plucking the ears of wheat, rubbing out the kernels in their hands, and eating them Luk 6:1, is one which the traveler sees often at present who is in Palestine at the time of the gathering of the harvest. Dr. Robinson relates the following case: ‘Our Arabs were an hungered, and, going into the fields, they plucked the ears of grain and did eat, rubbing them in their hands. On being questioned, they said this was an old custom, and no one would speak against it; they were supposed to be hungry, and it was allowed as a charity.’ The Pharisees complained of the disciples for violating the Sabbath, and not any rights of property.”

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

Luk_6:1-2

And it came to pass on the second Sabbath after the first, that He went through the corn-fields

The second-first Sabbath

This is a very difficult phrase, and all explanations of it must be conjectural, as there is apparently no Sabbath designated by this name in any Rabbinical writing.

One of the two following explanations seems most likely:

1. Either that it was the Sabbath which occurred during the Octave of Pentecost--the greatest Sabbath of the year being the Passover Sabbath (that Sabbath day was an high day-- Joh_19:31); and the one occurring at the next greatest feast, that of Pentecost, would be the next greatest, or next-first, or second-first, the Passover Sabbath being the first-first, or by far the greatest. The feast of Tabernacles would be the third.

2. But very many take it to be a Sabbath at the Passover, either the first Sabbath after the second day of that festival, from which the Sabbaths to Pentecost are numbered, or the last day of the feast, which was to be observed as a Sabbath. Whichever of these is the true meaning, it appears to me that St. Luke does not designate this day as the second-first, to mark the date when the transaction occurred, but to mark the peculiar holiness of the day. The disciples were, in their estimation, breaking no ordinary Sabbath, but one of the most sacred of all. (M. F. Sadler, M. A.)

Pleaeing Sabbath impressions

That Sunday of my childhood; the marvellous stillness of that day over all Lichfield town hill; that wondrous ringing of the bell; the strange interpretation that my young imagination gave to the crowing of the cock and to the singing of the birds; that wondering look which I used to have into things; that strange lifting halfway up into inspiration, as it were; that sense of the joyful influence that sometimes brooded down like a stormy day, and sometimes opened up like a gala-day in summer on me, made Sunday a more effectually marked day than any other of all my youthful life, and it stands out as clear as crystal until this hour. It might have been made happier and better if there had been a little more adaptation to my disposition and my wants; but, with all its limitations, I would rather have the other six days of the week weeded out of my memory than the Sabbath of my childhood. And this is right. Every child ought to be so brought up in the family, that when he thinks of home the first spot on which his thought rests shall be Sunday, as the culminating joy of the house-hold. (H. W. Beecher.)

Exemplary Sabbath-keeping

The Mayflower a name now immortal, had crossed the ocean. It had borne its hundred passengers over the vast deep, and after a perilous voyage had reached the bleak shores of New England, in the beginning of winter. The spot which was to furnish a home and a burial-place was now to be selected. The shallop was unshipped, but needed repairs, and sixteen weary days elapsed before it was ready for service. Amidst ice and snow it was then sent out, with some half a dozen pilgrims, to find a suitable place where to land. The spray of the sea, says the historian, froze on them, and made their clothes like coats of iron. Five days they wandered about, searching in vain for a suitable landing-place, a storm came on; the snow and the rain fell; the sea swelled; the rudder broke; the mast and the sail fell overboard. In this storm and cold, without a tent, a house, or the shelter of a rock, the Christian Sabbath approached, the day which they regarded as holy unto God; a day on which they were not to do any work. What should be done? As the evening before the Sabbath drew on they pushed over the surf, entered a fair sound, sheltered themselves under the lee of a rise of land, kindled a fire, and on that little island they spent the day in the solemn worship of their Maker. On the next day their feet touched the rock, now sacred as the place of the landing of the pilgrims. Nothing more strikingly marks the character of this people than this act, and I do not know that I could refer to a better illustration, even in their history, showing that theirs was the religion of principle, and that this religion made them what they were. (A. Barnes, D. D.)

The corn-field

There are many lessons that the corn-fields teach. The world, children, is one great cornfield, and you are growing in it. Now a question arises, are you growing there as corn, or as the poppy, the cockle, and the blue-bottle? Whoever passes by, through the corn-fields, sees the purple flower, and admires it. But the farmer loves it not, for its seeds contain a noxious element, which greatly injures the corn around, and fills his flour with black specks. When ripe, the capsule contains black glossy aromatic seeds, and in them is the mischievous saponine. While the wheat has been ripening wholesome grain, the corn-cockle has been maturing poisonous seeds. Both plants drank of the same dew, basked in the same sunlight, were fanned by the same breezes; the wheat made little show of flower, but has produced a precious grain; the cockle blazed with beauty, and ripens an injurious seed. I would have you, children, make up your minds early what you are going to be in Gods field, wheat or poppies; whether you are going to yield grain or blossom; whether you will be profitable or ornamental. I speak first to you girls. You will be called to live in the world, and to be, to some extent, ornaments in it. You will dress more gaily than boys, wear smart gowns, and ribbons, and feathers, whereas boys will clothe themselves in sober colours. There is, therefore, much more danger in your growing up to be cockle, and poppy, and blue-flower. I think that all the most showy flowers are without edible fruit. Dress modestly, becomingly, and prettily, against that there is no law; but as you value all that is holy, all that is eternal, do not let dress occupy your thoughts. There was a Duke of Tyrol, who went by the name of Frederick with the Empty Pockets. He had a little money in the coffer, so he spent it all in gilding the roof of the balcony that overhung the public square in Innsbruck. It is there still, with some of the gold still adhering to the tiles. There are plenty of men who act like Frederick with the Empty Pockets; all they have is laid on as exterior gilding, everything goes in making a great display. If they have money, it is exhibited in the most offensive and vulgar profusion; if they have a little learning, it is lugged in by the ears on all occasions; if they have some position it is made the most of. Gathered in bundles to be burned! Yes, that is the terrible end of the weed. The great lesson that I wish to impress on you, children, to day, is, to live for the future, and not for the present; to be concerned what fruit you shall bring forth, not what show you shall make. (S. Baring-Gould, M. A.)

Christ arguing with the Pharisees

We should naturally wish to know how a Divine Being would argue with men. We should expect that His arguments would be clear, convincing, and unanswerable, and, consequently, of that kind best adapted to the subject. In such expectation we shall not be disappointed.

1. Against the opinions of the Pharisees respecting the Sabbath, our Saviours first argument was taken from the example of David. David, by partaking of the shew-bread, had broken a positive law; but the disciples of Jesus had violated no law.

2. The second argument is still more pointed. The priests in the temple service did not observe rest on the Sabbath; for, according to the strict letter of the law, their duties could not be performed without violating the Sabbath; yet no blame was attached to them.

3. The third argument advances a step higher. God prefers the duties of humanity to positive commandments, when it is impossible to observe both these. Therefore, even if the plucking and eating of ears of corn on the Sabbath had been prohibited, the mercy of God would have overlooked it in a case of necessity.

4. The fourth argument was, that the Sabbath was made for man; therefore it was lawful to do good on the Sabbath. Thus we see that, according to our Saviour, no act of necessity nor of mercy is a breach of the Sabbath. (J. Thomson, D. D.)

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

Luk 6:1-5. On the second sabbath after the first — The original expression here, εν Σαββατω δευτεροπρωτω, says Dr. Whitby, “should have been rendered, In the first sabbath after the second day, namely, of unleavened bread; for, after the first day of the passover, (which was a sabbath, Exo 12:16,) ye shall count unto you (said God) seven sabbaths complete, Lev 23:15, reckoning that day for the first of the week, which was therefore called, δευτεροπρωτον, the first sabbath from this second day of unleavened bread; (the 16th of the month;) the second was called δευτεροδευτερον, the second sabbath from that day; and the third, δευτεροτριτον, the third sabbath from that second day; and so on, till they came to the seventh sabbath from that day; that is, to the forty-ninth day, which was the day of pentecost. The mention of the seven sabbaths, to be numbered with relation to this second day, answers all that Grotius objects against this exposition. Epiphanius expressly says, Our Lord’s disciples did what is here recorded, τω σαββατω, τω μετα την ημεραν των αζυμων, on the sabbath following the [second] day of unleavened bread. And if pentecost was called the feast of harvest, Exo 23:16, (as Bochart, Mr. Mede, Dr. Lightfoot, and the Jews say,) because then their barley and wheat harvest was gathered in, this feast could not be pentecost, as Grotius conjectures, because then the corn must have been gathered in, and therefore could not have been plucked by Christ’s disciples in the field.” There are other expositions of the phrase, but this seems by far the most probable. He went through the corn-fields, &c. This paragraph is largely explained in the notes on Mat 12:1-8; and Mar 2:23-28.

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

§ 33. THE DISCIPLES PLUCKING THE EARS OF CORN, Luk_6:1-5.

Mat_12:1-8; Mar_2:23-28.

1. Second Sabbath after the first—This phrase is in the Greek δευτεροπρωτω, the Latin Vulgate secundum-primum, that is, literally, second-first. The phrase second Sabbath after the first is a very incorrect translation. The phrase second-first assumes that there is a succession of numerical counts, so that there may be a first series of 1, 2, 3, and a second series, and perhaps a third or more. Each first of these successive series would then be a first-first, a second-first, a third-first, and so on; this present instance being the second-first. But as this is the only occurrence of this compound term anywhere in literature, the meaning is very doubtful. In fact the word itself is omitted in some manuscripts, and is quite possibly a marginal insertion incorporated into the text. Perhaps some manuscripts had second, others first, and both were finally conjoined into second-first.

We give different interpretations; the first by Bishop Pearce, as follows: In the opinion of some, the Jews had three first Sabbaths; namely, the first Sabbath after the Passover; that after the feast of the Pentecost; and that after the feast of Tabernacles. According to which opinion, this second-first Sabbath must have been the first Sabbath after the Pentecost. So we have the first Sunday after Epiphany; the first after Easter; the first after Trinity; and the first in Lent.

The next interpretation supposes that the second-first Sabbath is the first Sabbath after the second day of the Passover; which second day of Passover was the day of the wave-sheaf. This day of the wave-sheaf was the ritual beginning of the harvest; previous to which it was unlawful for any Jew to pluck or eat parched corn or green ears. And as the day of the wave-sheaf was the beginning of the harvest, so the Pentecost was the great thanksgiving feast of the completed harvest or ingathering; the ending of the harvest. Between the wave-sheaf and the Pentecost were seven weeks; that is, as seven days are a week of days, so these seven weeks were a week of weeks. Of course this seven weeks included seven Sabbaths. And the first of these Sabbaths being the first after the second day of the Passover, was called the second-first Sabbath; the next Sabbath would be the second-second; the next would be the second-third, and so on through the seven.

Although this is the most prevalent interpretation, it is not obvious how the second after the first would naturally be called the second-first.

The third interpretation is that proposed by Wieseler and adopted by Tischendorf, Van Oosterzee, Ellicott, and other modern scholars. The Mosaic law had not only a week of seven days, and a week of seven weeks, but also a week of seven years; the seventh of which was a sabbatical year. Now according to Wieseler’s chronology the commencement of our Lord’s ministry was in a sabbatical year. The first Sabbath in the first of the seven years would be the first-first Sabbath; the first Sabbath of the second year would be the second-first, and so on through the sabbatic series of years. This would make the Sabbath when the disciples plucked the barley to be the first Sabbath of Nisan, in the year of the building of Rome 782. Wieseler adduces a single passage from Clemens Alexandrinus showing that the first Sabbath of the year was technically called first Sabbath. If his chronological scheme be admitted, it furnishes a very natural meaning to the term.

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_6:1. Second Sabbath after the first.—Or, “second-first Sabbath.” This is an almost unintelligible phrase. It is omitted in some very ancient MSS., and is relegated to the margin in the R.V. The fact that it is a difficult phrase is in favour of its genuineness. It is easy to account for its omission in some MSS., but not easy to account for its insertion in others if it were not in the original text. One of the many suggestions as to the phrase is that it means “the first Sabbath of the second month”: this is the month Iyar, corresponding to our May—a time when the corn in that district of Palestine is ripe. His disciples.—He Himself did not pluck the ears of corn. It was permissible to do this (Deu_23:25): the objection here taken was to its being done on the Sabbath.

Luk_6:2. Not lawful.—As work of all kinds was prohibited, reaping and threshing corn was unlawful: plucking the ears was virtually reaping; rubbing them in the hands was virtually threshing.

Luk_6:3. Have ye not read, etc.—There is a touch of irony in the question. “Are ye who study the Scriptures so devotedly, unacquainted with this?” What David did.—1Sa_21:1-6.

Luk_6:4. The shewbread.—“Lit. ‘loaves of setting-forth’; ‘bread of the Face,’ i.e. set before the presence of God (Lev_24:5-9). They were twelve unleavened loaves sprinkled with frankincense set on a little golden table” (Farrar). They might only be eaten by the priests (Lev_24:9). The plea of necessity justified the action of David and of the high priest in setting aside the ceremonial law; so too the hunger of the disciples justified their plucking and rubbing the ears of corn. Another circumstance in the incident quoted from the Old Testament made it specially appropriate to the present argument, and that was that it took place on the Sabbath. From 1Sa_21:6 it seems that David arrived on the day when the old bread was taken away and the new bread put in its place. This was done on the Sabbath (Lev_24:8).

Luk_6:5. Lord of the Sabbath.—“The reasoning is as follows: There are laws of eternal obligation for which man was made, and whose authority can never be set aside. There are others of temporary obligation, made for man, designed for his discipline, till Christ should come and the shadow give place to the substance. Christ, as the Son of man, the Messiah, the Author and end of the law, is its Lord, not indeed to destroy, but to make perfect—to change its observance from the letter to the spirit” (Speaker’s Commentary).

Luk_6:6. Right hand.—Evidently a circumstance noted by an eyewitness. Withered.—Not only paralysed, but dried up. An apocryphal gospel, quoted by St. Jerome, says that this man was a stonemason, that his hand had been injured by an accident, and that he appealed to Jesus to heal him, in order that he might be able to work and not have to beg his bread. Though it is not distinctly stated, the narratives in the Gospels seem to imply that he had come to the synagogue expecting to be healed by Jesus.

Luk_6:7. Watched Him.—The question as to whether it was lawful to heal or attend to the sick on the Sabbath was one on which the Jews were divided: the Pharisees held strict views of the Sabbath, and their opinions had great weight with the people, so that Jesus ran the risk of losing popularity as a religious teacher if He differed from them.

Luk_6:9. I will ask you one thing.—This implies that a question had been put to Him. The question is given in Mat_12:10, “Is it lawful to heal on the Sabbath days?” To do good, or to do evil.—“He was intending to work a miracle for good: they were secretly plotting to do harm—their object being, if possible, to put Him to death” (Farrar).

Luk_6:10. Looking round about upon them all.—St. Mark adds the very vivid touch, “with anger, being grieved for the hardness of their hearts” (Luk_3:5).

Luk_6:11. Madness.—Lit. “senselessness, wicked folly.” One with another.—St. Mark says and with the Herodians also (Luk_3:6). They were willing even to ally themselves with their enemies to attain their end of destroying Christ.

MAIN HOMILETICS OF THE PARAGRAPH.—Luk_6:1-11

The Pharisees’ Sabbath and Christ’s.—We have here two Sabbath incidents, in the first of which the disciples are the transgressors of the Sabbatic tradition; in the second, Christ’s own action is brought into question. The scene of the first is in the fields, that of the second is the synagogue. In the one, Sabbath observance is set aside at the call of personal needs; in the other, at the call of another’s calamity. So the two correspond to the old Puritan principle that the Sabbath law allowed of “works of necessity and of mercy.”

I. The Sabbath and personal needs.—The disciples, as they and their Master traversed some field-path through the corn, gathered a few ears, as the merciful provision of the law allowed, and began to eat the rubbed-out grains to relieve their hunger. Moses had not forbidden such gleaning, but casuistry had decided that such action was virtually reaping and winnowing, and was therefore work of a kind that violated the Sabbath. Our Lord does not question the authority of the tradition, nor ask where Moses had forbidden what His disciples were doing. Still less does He touch the sanctity of the Jewish Sabbath. He accepts His questioners’ position, for the time, and gives them a perfect answer on their own ground. He quotes an incident in which ceremonial obligations give way before higher law. It is that of David and his followers eating the shewbread, which was tabooed to all but the priests, and perhaps the incident is chosen with some reference to the parallel between Himself, the true King, now unrecognised and hunted, with His humble followers, and the fugitive outlaw with his band. This shows that even a Divine prohibition which relates to mere ceremonial matter melts, like wax, before even bodily necessities. It may reasonably be doubted whether all Christian communities have learned the sweep of that principle yet, or so judge of the relative importance of keeping up their appointed forms of worship, and of feeding their hungry brother. To this Christ adds an assertion of His power over the Sabbath, as enjoined upon Israel. His is the authority which imposed it. It is plastic in His hands. The whole order of which it is a part has its highest purpose in witnessing of Him. He brings the true “rest.”

II. The Sabbath and works of beneficence.—In His former answer Jesus had appealed to Scripture to bear out His teaching that Sabbath observance must bend to personal necessities. Here He appeals to the natural sense of compassion to confirm the principle that it must give way to the duty of relieving others. The principle is a wide one: the charitable succour of men’s needs, of whatever kind, is congruous with the true design of the day of rest. Have the Churches laid that lesson to heart? On the whole, it is to be observed that our Lord here distinctly recognises the obligation of the Sabbath, that He claims power over it, that He permits the pressure of individual necessities and of others’ need of help to modify the manner of its observance, and that He leaves to the spiritual insight of His followers the application of these principles. The cure which follows is done in a singular fashion. Without a request from the sufferer or any one else, He heals him by a word. His command has a promise in it, and He gives the power to do what He bids the man do. We get strength to obey in the act of obedience. But, also, the manner in which the miracle was wrought had a special reason in the very cavils of the Pharisees. Not even they could accuse Him of breaking any Sabbath law by such a cure. What had He done? Told the man to put out his hand. Surely that was not unlawful. What had the man done? Stretched it forth. Surely that broke no subtle Rabbinical precept. So they were foiled at every turn, driven off the field of argument, and baffled in their attempt to find ground for laying an information against Him. Their hearts were not touched by His gentle wisdom or healing power. All that their contact with Jesus did was to drive them to intenser hostility, and to send them away to plot His death. That is what comes of making religion a round of outward observances. The Pharisee is always blind as an owl to the light of God and true goodness, keen-sighted as a hawk for trivial breaches of his cobweb regulations, and cruel as a vulture to tear with beak and claw. The race is not extinct. We all carry one inside, and need God’s help to cast him out.—Maclaren.

SUGGESTIVE COMMENTS ON Luk_6:1-11

Luk_6:1-11

I. The Sabbath.—How did our Lord spend His Sabbaths? In regular attendance at the synagogue services, public preaching, private ministrations of mercy to the sick and suffering. How different the Sabbaths of the Pharisees! They had added to the fourth commandment many childish and burdensome rules.

II. A Sabbath incident in the cornfields.—

1. The charge of Sabbath-breaking.

2. Our Lord’s reply.

III. A Sabbath incident in the synagogue.—

1. A new charge.

2. A new reply. Christ gives us two simple tests. What is necessary may be done. A work of mercy may be done.—W. Taylor.

Luk_6:1. “Plucked the ears of corn.”—The incidental mention of the hunger of the disciples, which they were seeking to satisfy by plucking and eating the ripe corn, is very affecting (Mat_12:1). It was on the plea of necessity that Jesus justified their so acting on the Sabbath day. Probably to most, if not to all of them, this degree of poverty was a new experience, since they had forsaken all to follow Jesus. Two of them at least, James and John, seem to have belonged to one of the higher strata of society—they had had servants, and were on terms of intimacy with the high priest; Matthew had followed a lucrative calling; and the other apostles had been, though perhaps poor, not in destitute circumstances. But doubtless the sacrifices they made in obeying the command of Jesus were counted but light, and the hardships they occasionally had to endure but trivial, in comparison with the blessedness of association with Him. No life can be called destitute in which there is true fellowship with Christ.

Luk_6:2. “Not lawful to do.”—The strict observance of the Sabbath had become the marked characteristic of the Jews in the time of their exile. After their return it had become interwoven with national feeling; so that the measure of freedom which Jesus took in connection with the observance of the day gave great offence both in Judæa and in Galilee. The vast number of rules and the hair-splitting casuistry associated by the Jews with Sabbath observance are well known: they made life almost intolerable. A devout Jew was afraid to lift his finger, for fear of breaking some Rabbinical precept. “A woman must not go out with any ribbons about her, unless they were sewed to her dress. A false tooth must not be worn. A person with the toothache might not rinse his mouth with vinegar, but he might hold it in his mouth and swallow it. No one might write down two letters of the alphabet. The sick might not send for a physician. A person with lumbago might not rub or foment the affected part. A tailor must not go out with his needle on Friday night, lest he should forget it, and so break the Sabbath by carrying it about. A cock must not wear a piece of ribbon round its leg on the Sabbath, for this would be to carry something! etc., etc.” (Farrar). The very idea of the purpose of the Sabbath had been lost. God had given it as a boon to man, and it had been made into a burden. And upon an observance of these fantastic and self-imposed rules devotees thought they could build up a holiness which would justify them in the sight of God.

Luk_6:3-4. The Authority of the Scriptures.—In all questions of moral and spiritual principles Christ treats the word of God as the supreme authoritative guide for man, and from it now He confutes His opponents, as in the desert He had by its aid overthrown the tempter.

“Have ye not read?”—There are different ways of reading:

(1) that which results merely in acquaintance with the text, and

(2) that which penetrates to the true significance of the record. The Pharisees had read the history of their great national hero, David, but they had not grasped the principle which underlay and justified his action and that of the high priest on this occasion. Jesus does not discuss the petty school question as to whether plucking the ears of corn and rubbing them out were virtually the same as reaping and threshing, but settles the dispute by laying down the great principle that the word of God which prescribed ceremonial laws laid greater stress upon moral duties than upon them, and taught that mercy was better than sacrifice. The bread consecrated to God in the holy tent was not profaned when given to relieve the hunger of His children. He implied, too, that Scripture to be of use must be interpreted by Scripture, in order that its true spirit and teaching might be learned. A single text of God’s word is not therefore necessarily authoritative, but the general strain of Scripture teaches principles that are so. In accordance with the spirit of the history in 1 Samuel 21, which Christ here quotes, was the action of Ethelwold, Bishop of Winchester. “In a time of famine he sold all the rich vessels and ornaments of the church to relieve the poor with bread, and said ‘there was no reason that the dead temples of God should be sumptuously furnished, and the living temples suffer poverty.’ ”

Luk_6:5. “Lord also of the Sabbath.” Jesus vindicates the conduct—of the disciples on two grounds:

(1) that there were occasions when the ordinary rules of Sabbath observance might without blame be set aside; and

(2) that He, as Son of man, had power to modify those very rules. His decisions were to be taken as authoritative, and the same weight attached to them as to the law concerning the Sabbath given through Moses. “Since the Sabbath was an ordinance instituted for the use and benefit of man, the Son of man, who has taken upon Him full and completed manhood, the great representative and head of humanity, has this institution under His own power” (Alford). This teaching is illustrated and expanded in Rom_14:5; Rom_14:17; Col_2:16-17. Christ did not abolish the Sabbath, just as He did not abolish fasting, but He changed it from being an external ordinance observed in a rigid and servile manner, as it had become among the Jews, and made it a means of grace. Not because of a commandment binding us to certain outward conduct, but because of an inward spiritual need, do we, therefore, keep the day holy. To do good upon the Sabbath, and not merely to abstain from work, is the best way of observing the day. An indication of the lordship over the Sabbath which Christ claims is given in the change of the day of rest from the last to the first day of the week. Under the guidance of His Spirit, if not at His command, given on some occasion after His rising from the dead (cf. Act_1:3), His followers made this change.

“Lord of the Sabbath.”—This title teaches us—

I. That there is still a Sabbath day for us to observe.

II. That we should look to our Lord’s teaching and practice for the due observance of the Sabbath.—W. Taylor.

Luk_6:6-11. The Withered Hand.—The man with the withered hand is a silent but steady example of faith. There are two things in his conduct which cast a special lustre upon it—the one more external, the other more internal and spiritual.

I. He obeyed God rather than man.—By his prompt obedience he takes the side of Jesus against the Pharisees, and submits himself entirely to His direction. His readiness to go with Him in a matter of external obedience was the proof of that instinctive and deeplying trust in Christ which made him a fit subject for His healing.

II. He obeyed where obedience was an act of pure trust.—The first command, “Rise up,” tested the courage of his faith; the second command, “Stretch forth thine hand,” tested the inner, deeper faith of the spiritual nature. Had he not been completely reliant upon Christ, he would at this point have doubted. But he implicitly obeyed, and in obeying was healed. It is an impressive illustration of the way of life. There is none that casts a clearer light on the foolish puzzles men make to themselves out of the doctrines of grace. God never bids us of our own strength to believe. It is Jehovah-Jesus who commands. Is it for any one of us to say, “I cannot”?—Laidlaw.

Luk_6:6. Irritation against Jesus.—The incident here related marks the final stage in the irritation of the Pharisees against Jesus: the result of the miracle was that they “communed one with another what they might do to Jesus.” The parallel passage in St. Mark (Mar_3:6) says “they took counsel against Him, how they might destroy Him.” In the section immediately preceding this St. Luke records several stages in the growing enmity of the Pharisees:

1. The accusation of blasphemy (Luk_5:21).

2. The murmuring at favour being shown to publicans and sinners (Luk_5:30).

3. The fault found with the disciples for plucking the ears of corn on a Sabbath (Luk_6:1-6). A sign of increasing intensity of feeling is given in Luk_6:7. Jesus was now watched by His enemies, in order that an accusation might be brought against Him. They were prepared to take undue advantage, and if necessary to lay a trap for Him.

Luk_6:7. “Whether He would heal.”—As mentioned in an earlier note, healing the sick, or even doing anything to alleviate suffering, on the Sabbath, was proscribed by the more rigid of the Pharisees. St. Matthew says that they asked Jesus whether it were lawful or not to heal on the Sabbath. This is not inconsistent with St. Luke’s narrative, which, indeed, implies that Christ spoke in answer to some such question.

Luk_6:8. “He knew their thoughts.”—That He was being exposed to espionage, and that they were beginning to form plans for putting Him to death.

Luk_6:9. “I will ask you one thing.”—Jesus makes His adversaries decide the question they had themselves asked, and He so states it that they could give but one answer, and that in approval of healing on the Sabbath. He identifies omitting to do good with committing evil: not to relieve pain was to prolong or virtually to inflict pain. He states the matter in the most startling manner: “not to heal is to kill” (cf. Pro_24:11-12). And doubtless He implied that their machinations against Himself were known to Him: while He on that Sabbath day was intent upon healing, His adversaries were thinking how best to compass His death. Who could doubt as to which of them was the better employed on that day? The Pharisees were thus caught in the snare they had laid for Him, and were unable to reply. If the question were asked, “Why not postpone the work of healing to tomorrow?” the answer would not be far to seek: “The present only is ours: to-morrow may never come” (cf. Pro_3:27-28).

Luk_6:10. “Looking round about.”—The heart of Jesus, as St. Mark tells us, was filled with grief and anger—with grief because of their unbelief, and with anger because that unbelief sprang from malice and culpable prejudice. These feelings appeared in the glance He cast upon His silenced adversaries.

“Stretch forth.”—With the command the promise of ability to obey it was implied, if there were but faith in the heart of the hearer. In the remarkable command, to stretch forth a withered hand, we have an illustration of such seemingly unreasonable calls as these: “Prophesy upon these bones, and say unto them, O ye dry bones, hear the word of the Lord” (Eze_37:4); “Incline your ear, and come unto Me: hear, and your soul shall live” (Isa_55:3); “Awake, thou that sleepest, and arise from the dead, and Christ shall give thee light” (Eph_5:14). It was by a sheer act of will that Christ healed the man: He did nothing—did not even touch the withered hand. So that His enemies could not fasten upon any outward action of His which could be construed into a breach of the Sabbath. The stretching out of the hand was a proof that the miracle had been already wrought.

Luk_6:11. “Madness.”—The word implies senselessness—the frenzy of obstinate prejudice. It admirably characterises the state of ignorant hatred which is disturbed in the fixed condition of its own infallibility (2Ti_3:9).—Farrar.

Causes of their Hatred.—Various causes contributed to inflame the Pharisees with this blind hatred:

1. Jesus had broken through their traditions.

2. He had put them to silence and shame in the presence of the people.

3. Though they were enraged at His action, He had avoided doing any overt act on which they could found a charge against Him.

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.

c. The Son Of Man, The Lord Of The Sabbath (Luk_6:1-11)

(Parallels: Mat_12:1-14; Mar_2:23 to Mar_3:6.)

1And it came to pass on the second sabbath after the first,1 that he went through the corn fields; and his disciples plucked the ears of corn, and did eat, rubbing them in their hands. 2And certain of the Pharisees said unto them,2 Why do ye that which is not lawfulto do [om., to do3] on the sabbath days? 3And Jesus answering them said, Have ye not read so much as this [lit.: Not even this have ye read?], what David did, when himself was a hungered [he himself hungered], and they which were with him;4How4 he went into the house of God, and did take and eat the shewbread, and gave also to them that were with him; which it is not lawful to eat but for the priests alone? 5And he said unto them, That the Son of man is [a, V. O.] Lord also of the sabbath.6And it came to pass also on another sabbath, that he entered into the synagogue and taught: and there was a man [there, ῆ̓ν ἐκεῖ ἄνθρωπος] whose [lit.: and his] right handwas withered. 7And the scribes and Pharisees watched him, [to see] whether he would heal5 on the sabbath day; that they might find an accusation [or, whereof to accusehim6] against him. 8But he knew their thoughts, and said to the man7 which had the withered hand, Rise up, and stand forth in the midst. And he arose and stoodforth.8 9Then said Jesus unto them, I will ask [I ask9] you one thing; Is it lawful on the sabbath days to do good, or to do evil? to save [a] life, or to destroy it? And10looking round about upon them all, he said unto the man, Stretch forth thy hand.And he did so: and his hand was restored whole10 as the other. 11And they were filled with madness11; and communed [or, consulted] one with another what they might do to Jesus.

EXEGETICAL AND CRITICAL

Δευτεροπρώτῳ.—Without here entering into a statement or criticism of all the different explanations of this designation, we will here only briefly justify the view taken by ourselves. So much appears at once, that this Sabbath was no ordinary but an extraordinary one, and that it must have fallen in the month Nisan, since it was not till this month that the barley was ripe. In the second half of this month fell the passover. But if the miracle of the loaves and fishes took place before the second passover in the public life of the Saviour, Joh_6:4; and if the plucking of the ears, according to all the Synoptics, preceded the miracle, the second-first sabbath must have fallen between the feast of Purim, Joh_5:1, and the passover, Luk_6:4. Since now the word δευτεροπρώτῳ of itself points us to a terminus a quo, it appears that the question what terminus is here meant cannot be answered more naturally than by Wieseler, Chron. Syn. pp. 226–234, that it was the first sabbath after the beginning of the second year in a cycle of seven years. We understand it, therefore, of the first sabbath in Nisan, with which the Jewish church-year began, and believe that in relation to that of the former year, which was the first in the week of years, it is named the second. That such a division of years was known among the Jews is sufficiently plain from Dan_9:24, only it cannot be absolutely demonstrated that they were accustomed also to number the years according to their place in the cycle, and the first sabbath in each year according to the cyclical yearly number. This, however, is so simple and natural that little can be objected against it. But that here, according to the view of Scaliger, which is followed by Kuinoel and De Wette, the first sabbath after the second passover is meant, can only be assumed if with them the feast of the Jews, Joh_5:1, is regarded as a passover. Bengel’s view, that here the sabbath before the new moon in Nisan, 14 days before the passover, is meant, is indeed apparently supported by his reckoning, that on this day 1Sa_20:18-42 had been read, and that, therefore, the Saviour’s answer, when He appealed to 1Sa_21:6, stood in connection with the pericope just heard. But Wieseler justly remarks that the present division of the Parashas and Haphtharas is of later origin. Other views are presented in De Wette and Meyer. For the history of the exegesis, comp. Wolf, in curis; Winer, art. Sabbath, &c. Upon the grammatical signification of the word δευτεροπρώτῳ, see Hitzig, Ostern und Pfingsten, p. 19.

Luk_6:1. He went through the cornfields.—Comp. Lange, Matthew, p. 217. Apparently the Lord had found the morning’s spiritual nourishment in the word of the Scripture in the synagogue, but of earthly bread His disciples have as yet enjoyed nothing, or, at least, so little that they feel the need of instantly allaying their hunger. A striking proof of the πτωχεύειν of the Saviour, 2Co_8:9. They make use of the right which the law, Deu_23:25, gave to the needy. On the position of a pure Mosaism there was certainly no breach of the sabbath, since certainly their act could not be called a daily labor; they followed rather the precept of the later Rabbins, not to fast on the sabbath, but by enjoyment of food and drink to strengthen themselves. See Maimonides, Schabb., Luke 30. But the Pharisees who followed the Saviour, perhaps for the purpose of spying out whether He would go any further than the usual sabbath-day’s journey, saw here, according to their bigoted views, work, and so a criminal breach of the sabbath.

Luk_6:2. Τινὲς δὲ τῶν φαρ.—According to the first two Gospels they address themselves to the Lord, according to Luke more directly to the disciples; they may have done both. It is entirely agreeable to the spirit of the Pharisees to make Jesus Himself answerable for the conduct of His disciples; on the other hand, if there were several present, some may have turned directly to the guilty ones. At all events, the Saviour takes up the cause of His own, and the way in which He does it, at the same time gives us to recognize the holy sabbath-rest of His soul.

Luk_6:3. What David did, 1Sa_21:6.—If we read, Mar_2:26, that this took place at the time of Abiathar the high-priest, this appears to be a lapse of the pen for Abimelech. The example was in the highest degree fitted to show how necessity knows no law, and the more strikingly as the Rabbins themselves said: “In the sanctuary there is no sabbath, the slaughtering expels the sabbath.” See Light-foot on the passage.

Luk_6:5. The Son of Man.—As the sabbath must give way before the temple-service, so must sabbath and temple-service both give way before something greater (μείζων in Matthew), namely, the Son of Man. If the day of rest and glorifying God must yield even to the rational inhabitant of earth, how much more might the Son of Man, the Redeemer and the Ideal of mankind, have dominion over the sabbath-service! The true sabbath-breakers were those who would sacrifice man to save the sabbath. As to the rest, Luk_6:5 appears in Luke very abrupt (De Wette), but this does not warrant us with Cod. D. to place this declaration of the Saviour after Luk_6:10, and still less on this testimony alone to receive the addition: “τῇ αὐτῇ ἡμέρᾳ θεασάμενός τινα ἐργαζόμενον τῷ σαββάτῳ εῖ̓πεν αὐτῷ· ἄνθρωπε, εἰ μὲν οῖ̓δας τί ποιεῖς, μακάριος εἶ· εἰ δὲ μὴ οἶδας, ἐπικατάρατος καὶ παραβάτης εἶ τοῦ νόμου.” In and of itself this utterance is by no means unworthy of the Lord, but it is not probable that at this time any one in the Jewish land would have labored unpunished, and, moreover, with a good conscience [on the sabbath], and quite as little that the Saviour, by such a declaration, exposed to various abuse, would have needlessly angered His enemies. If we do not choose to assume that the narration was invented a Marcionita quodam (Grotius), or that it was suggested by the words of Paul, Rom_14:22-23 (Neander), yet at least it may be supposed that it was inserted by some one who fully agreed with the view commended by the apostle in the above passage.

Luk_6:6. On another sabbath.—In all probability on the one immediately following. Luke, to be sure, does not expressly say this, but all the Synoptics connect this miracle immediately with the foregoing, which could the more easily happen if we assume with Wieseler, p. 237, that the day after the δευτεροπρώτῳwas again a sabbath, and that, therefore, not seven but only one day intervened between the two sabbaths. Then it is also intelligible how Mark and Matthew do not even definitely distinguish the days, and how the Pharisees so shortly after their discomfiture come to renew their attack.

A man.—According to Jerome on Mat_12:10, who takes his account from the Hebrew Gospel of Matthew, quod a plerisque vocatur Matthœi authenticum, it was a mason, who entreated to be healed that he might not have to beg. The allegorical manner in which this father sets forth this person as a type of Judaism, which in the days of Jesus had become quite incapable of building the spiritual temple of God in Israel, does not of itself justify us in doubting the truth of this account, which may actually proceed from a pure tradition.

Luk_6:7. Παρετηροῦντο.—The snare was not laid without cunning. The healing of a sick man by any one who was accustomed to render help to sufferers, might with better title call forth the charge of breaking the sabbath than plucking ears during a walk, as this was at all events no actual work. There even existed a controversy between the schools of Hillel and Shammai, whether even the comforting of the sick on the sabbath was to be regarded as allowed. See Schöttgen, Horœ Hebrews 4, p. 123.

Luk_6:9. I ask you.—One must enter fully into the spirit of the embittered enemies in order to feel the crushing force of the question. It contains a searching antithesis (intelligible, however, to them alone) between the beneficent plan of the Saviour and the murderous intent of the assailants. He says in other words: “Which really breaks the sabbath, I, who am preparing myself for a work of beneficent healing, or you, who in secret cherish a purpose of murder against Me, the innocent one?” He will thus not only impress upon them that not to do good is of itself to do evil, but at the same time show that they cannot conceal themselves before Him. This whole address of the Saviour, moreover, united with His searching look (Mar_3:5) is a practical commentary on Paul’s word (Eph_4:26). The word which Matthew (Luk_6:14) alone has in addition, appears by Luke to be more correctly used on another occasion. See Luk_13:10; Luk_14:5.

Luk_6:11. Ἀνοίας.—Rage made them mad; comp. 2Ti_3:9 and the passage in proof from the classic literature in Meyer.—The Æolic optative form expresses in a striking way the uncertainty and wavering of their deliberations. See Winer, N. T. Gram. 6th ed. p. Luke 275: “What they might perchance do with Jesus,” quid forte faciendum videretur (balancing the different possibilities in a wavering frame of mind).

DOCTRINAL AND ETHICAL

1. The first sabbath miracles which we here see the Lord perform, spontaneously suggest the question in what relation He placed Himself to the Law and the Old Covenant. On one hand it must be acknowledged that He actually held Himself bound to the law of Moses, and from His first visit to the temple even to His last passover, showed that in this respect also He wished to fulfil all righteousness. The words of the Sermon on the Mount, Mat_5:17, remained His principle of life, so that He could composedly leave it to time for the new spirit awakened by Himself to destroy also the old form. But as little as He freed Himself or His own from obedience to the commandments of God, just as little could He endure to have this weakened by human ordinances. And this was actually done when the Pharisees and others explained and enjoined the commandment of the sabbath in such a way, that it must often appear as if man had been made for the sabbath. The thirty-nine different activities which they regarded as forbidden on the sabbath, were an invention of trivial narrowness, not commanded by the letter of the law, and in manifold ways at variance with its spirit. The Saviour maintains the spirit of the law precisely when He incurs in their eyes the guilt of a formal breach of the sabbath.

2. As the Lord of the sabbath He shows, on the one hand, the obligation, and, on the other hand, the freedom, of His disciples in reference to the sacred day of rest. The Lord, in visibly distinguishing the sabbath from other days, and on this day visiting the synagogue, gives us plainly to see that His disciple is also enduringly under obligation to hallow to God a weekly day of rest. But, on the other hand, He also passes through the corn, performs labors of love, and powerfully vindicates the maxim: “Necessity knows no law.” A mechanical Judaistical celebration of Sunday is, therefore, by His example as little favored as a reckless contempt of Sunday. The Christian also, the one anointed by the Holy Spirit, is a lord of the sabbath, and where the spirit of the Lord is there is liberty, but also order, obedience, glory given to God, and fear of offending a weak brother.

3. When the Lord, appealing to Scripture, asks: “Have ye never read?” this is not only an accommodation to the prejudices of the Jews, but also an expression of His principle to remain in all things faithful to the standard here established. David’s son mirrors Himself in the history of His illustrious ancestor. While He with compassionate care vindicates the interests of His own, He shows here at the same time the most exalted self-consciousness. He feels that in Him yet more than in the temple the Father’s glory dwells. And if He does not at once give it to be understood that He will make use of this His exalted dignity and abrogate the law of the sabbath and the temple-service, He actually did at least here what He says in the fourth Gospel, Joh_5:17 : “My Father worketh hitherto, and I work.”

4. In the Saviour’s sabbath miracles also His exalted character reveals itself. When once a prophet was despised by Jeroboam, the hand of the presumptuous king was dried up (1Ki_13:4). Jesus heals a withered hand, and is far from punishing the hands recklessly lifting themselves against Him. His miracles are no punishments but benefits, and even though the enemies of God’s kingdom think to destroy life, the King’s delight is to preserve it.

HOMILETICAL AND PRACTICAL

General point of view for both narratives: the Son of Man, the Lord of the sabbath, who as such 1. rules in unrestricted might, 2. serves in love.

Special:—Luk_6:1. The celebration of the sabbath in the bosom of nature.—Enjoyment of nature on the sabbath: 1. Tasted, 2. embittered, 3. vindicated.—The Divine harmony of the sabbath disturbed by the discord of sin.—The hostile looks which beset even the most innocent movements of the disciples of the Lord.—The Scripture, authority in every point of religious controversy.—David, a prophetic type of evangelical freedom, in the midst of legal servitude.—The Scripture, no shew-bread in the sanctuary, for the priests alone.—Our Lord, His position towards a twofold view of the sabbath, that of freedom and that of servitude.—The dry morsel, with quietness, is better than, &c. (Pro_17:1.)—The Son of Man, the true Son of David, the true Lord of David.—How the sabbath may be disturbed even without working.—Luk_6:6 seq. No corruption in the Israelitish worship keeps Jesus back from visiting the synagogue.—The hostility of the Pharisees augmented by every discomfiture.—The afflicted one in the house of the Lord: 1. What he seeks, 2. how much more he finds.—Healing of the sick man, furthered: 1. By the malice of enemies, 2. by the compassion of the Lord, 3. by his own faith.—Evil thoughts in the house of the Lord: 1. Entertained, 2. penetrated, 3. frustrated.—Jesus overcoming His enemies by 1. the questioning of righteousness, 2. the powerful word of love.—It is permitted to do good on the sabbath.—Holy anger and compassionate love united in one look of the Lord.—The greater Jesus’ love the deeper the hate of His enemies.—The madness of enmity: 1. It thinks that it can destroy Jesus; 2. it does not once see how deeply it condemns itself.—No faith is demanded that is not also crowned.—The synagogue the theatre of the glory of our Lord: 1. His impartial judgment, 2. His heavenly knowledge of hearts, 3. His compassionate sympathy, 4. His delivering might, 5. His forbearing long-suffering.

Both together:—Two sabbath-works in the life of the Lord; difference and agreement between these two: 1. Difference of acts but oneness of end; 2. difference of enjoyment but oneness of consecration; 3. difference of strife but oneness of triumph.—The Christian sabbath celebration: a. Negatively: 1. no absolute equalizing of all days, 2. no slothful inactivity; b. positively: 1. glorifying of God in the house of prayer and in the temple of Creation, 2. labor of love for others.—The sabbath-rest of the Saviour like that of the Father: a. An active, b. a holy, c. a blessed sabbath-rest.—The Lord of the sabbath and the slaves of the law.—The sabbath a day on which the Saviour: 1. Refreshes His friends, 2. vanquishes His foes, 3. helps His afflicted ones, and by all this 4. advances the coming of the kingdom of God.

Starke:—Love and need know no law.—Majus:—It is a shame to those who will be masters of the Scripture when they do not know what is written in the law.—Quesnel:—The use of holy things, when it takes place through love, can never desecrate them, because God’s love sanctifies all things.—Nova Bibl. Tub.:—Those must be of evil disposition to whom even benefits can be an occasion of persecution, and even good an inducement to evil.—Canstein:—The solicitousness of Christ’s enemies to hinder His kingdom shames the sluggishness of the children of God.—Osiander:—The papistical corner-miracles (Winkel-wunder) are mere cheatery; Jesus did His miracles publicly before the world.—We are not to mind the blasphemy of the godless when we do what our vocation brings with it.—When the truth shines brightest hardened ones nevertheless are thereby not amended, but only made worse and more venomous, 2Ti_3:13.—With despisers of the truth, even miracles will accomplish nothing.

Heubner:—The excessively anxious care of the Jews in the old temple for the sabbath is a reproof to Christians.—Zeal for religion without love is an abomination.—Arndt:—Jesus the Friend of the church, since He 1. uses the means of the church, 2. furthers the ends of the church.

Calvin:—“Monemur etiam, cavendum esse, ne cœrimoniis tribuendo plus quam par est, quœ longe pluris sunt coram Deo, et quœ prœcipua legis Christus alibi vocat (Mat_23:23), effluere sinamus.”

Footnotes:

[1]Luk_6:1.—If our critical conscience allowed us to expunge entirely the puzzling δευτεροπρώτῳ from the text, we should certainly have disburdened ourselves in the most convenient way of one of the most desperate cruces interpretum. However, although a not inconsiderable number of testimonies is for the omission, and, therefore, the possibility that we have here before us only an old marginal gloss, must be conceded, yet we cannot avoid supposing that this ἅπαξ λεγόμενον has been expunged by some only out of exegetical perplexity, ignoratione rei, as Bengel expresses himself. Respecting the presumable sense, see Exegetical and Critical remarks. [Ins., A., C., D., R.; om., B., L. Cod. Sin. has ἐν ἑτέρῳ σαββάτῳ. Meyer regards it as spurious. Tischendorf inserts it; Lachmann and Alford put it in brackets; Tregelles omits it.—C. C. S.]

[2]Luk_6:2.—Rec.: αὐτοῖς. Critically too weakly supported. [Om., Sin.]

[3]Luk_6:2.—Rec.: ποιεῖν, as interpretamentum correct, but as reading suspicious. [Supported, however, by Sin.—C. C. S.]

[4]Luk_6:4.—Rec.: πῶς εἰσῆλθεν. Πῶς rightly, as it appears, omitted by Tischendorf, according to B., D., Cantabrig., and some cursives. It is more intelligible how πῶς should have been interpolated from Matthew, than why it should have been omitted, if it had actually stood here originally.

[5]Luk_6:7.—With Lachmann and Tischendorf we give the preference to θεραπεύει over θεραπεύσει. The latter appears borrowed from Mar_3:2. [Cod. Sin. has θεραπευει.—C. C. S.]

[6]Luk_6:7.—Rec.: κατηγοριαν αυτου with A., R. D. has κατηγορησαι. B., S., R., Cod. Sin.: κατηγορειν.—C. C. S.]

[7]Luk_6:8.—Ἀνδρὶ. Rec.: ἀνθρώπῳ. Meyer’s remarks ad loc. are entirely correct. “Τῷ ἀνδρί was omitted in consequence of the following τῷ (as in D., Cant.), and then the hiatus supplied by τῷ ἀνθώπῳ according to Luk_6:6 and Mar_3:3.”

[8]Luk_6:8.—Entirely without reason are the last words: ὁ δὲ ἀναστὰς ἔστη, omitted in De Wette’s translation of this passage.

[9]Luk_6:9.—Rec.: ἐπερωτήσω. With Tischendorf, [Alford, Tregelles,] we prefer the present ἐπερωτῶ, which is supported by B., L., [Sin.,] 157, and five ancient versions, and heightens the vividness of the whole scene. By the same authorities, [including Sin.,] the reading εἰ, instead of τί, is strongly supported.

[10]Luk_6:10.—The ὑγιής which the Rec. subjoins to ἡ χεῖρ αὐτοῦ, is doubtless only an interpolation from the similar passage in Mark. [But Tischendorf and Lachmann, and Alford, following them, omit the whole clause, ὑγιὴς ὡς ἡ ἄλλη, in Mar_3:5, supported by A., B., C., D., [Sin.], and 3 other uncials. It seems more likely to have been introduced from Matthew, where its genuineness is undoubted. In Luke it is omitted by A., B., D., Sin., and 6 other uncials.—C. C. S.]

[11]Luk_6:11.—“It does not appear that this word can ever mean, as in the former editions, ‘madness,’ rage of a senseless kind. … The proper meaning, ‘senselessness,’ ‘wicked folly,’ must be kept to. See Ellicott’s note on 2Ti_3:9.” Alford. I give this note, although I am not persuaded that the not difficult transition from “utter senselessness” to “madness” has not been made in this passage. It is hard to see how they could have been “filled” with “senselessness,” “unwisdom,” as Wiclif has it, otherwise than through rage.—C. C. S.]

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.

CHAPTER 6

1. The Son of Man the Lord of the Sabbath. (Luk 6:1-5)

2. The Man with the Withered Hand Healed. (Luk 6:6-11)

3. The Twelve Apostles Chosen. (Luk 6:12-19)

4. Blessing and Woe. (Luk 6:20-26)

5. Good for Evil. (Luk 6:27-31)

6. Instructions to Disciples. (Luk 6:32-38)

7. Warnings. (Luk 6:39-45.)

Luk 6:1-11

The opening verses of the chapter are nearly alike in the three Gospels. The arrangement in Matthew is different. It is used there to bring out the consummation Of the rejection of the King. (Mat 12:1-8). Then He healed the man with the withered hand. The healing was done in their midst; it was a miracle done before their eyes. How different from the pretended healings of Christian Science and other Cults. They were filled with madness and began their plotting.

Luk 6:12-19

Before He chose the twelve Apostles He spent the whole night in prayer. It was “in those days,” the days when they were rejecting Him. The refuge of the perfect Man was then in God. He sought His presence and cast Himself upon Him for guidance. The Gospel of Luke has much to say about the prayers of the Lord Jesus. His prayers are the expression of dependence of His perfect humanity. Among the twelve is Judas the traitor. He was called to be an apostle that the Scriptures might be fulfilled. The Lord knew him from the beginning. He was not a believer in the Deity of our Lord; Judas never called Him, Lord. A very old commentary gives the following suggestion: “Judas is chosen that the Lord might have an enemy among His attendants, for that man is perfect who has no cause to shrink from observation of a wicked man, conversant with all his ways.”--Anselim, who lived from 1033-1109.

Luk 6:20-45

Certain parts of the Sermon on the Mount. In Matthew it occupies the most prominent place, for in the Gospel of the King it is the great proclamation He utters in the beginning of His ministry. See the Study pamphlet on Matthew. Luke reports only a part of the great discourse. A comparison will show that Luke gives a number of additions, which are all in line with the purpose of the Gospel. There is no allusion made as in the Gospel of Matthew to the Law, nor is there given in Luke the expansion of the Law. The instructions concerning alms and prayer are likewise omitted. In Luke’s Gospel the words are reported which touch upon the wants of the disciples as men, who are in the world. Their separation from the world, their conduct, besides warnings are fully given. In Matthew we read, “Be ye therefore perfect as your Father in heaven is perfect.” Luke changes by divine guidance the word perfect to “merciful.” The correct rendering is “Become ye merciful.” The Son of Man came to this earth in mercy to meet man; the disciple is to manifest the same mercy. The word “perfect” given by Matthew is the larger description; it includes “mercifulness,” which Luke is led by the Spirit of God to emphasize.

Arno C. Gaebelein, The Annotated Bible (1913–1922) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Disputes Concerning Sabbath Observance. Luk 6:1-12

The Lord of the Sabbath:

v. 1. And it came to pass on the second Sabbath after the first that He went through the cornfields; and His disciples plucked the ears of corn, and did eat, rubbing them in their hands.

v. 2. And certain of the Pharisees said unto them, Why do ye that which is not lawful to do on the Sabbath-days?

v. 3. And Jesus, answering them, said, Have ye not read so much as this what David did when himself was an hungered, and they which were with him,

v. 4. how he went into the house of God, and did take and eat the showbread, and gave also to them that were with him, which it is not lawful to eat but for the priests alone?

v. 5. And He said unto them, That the Son of Man is Lord also of the Sabbath.

It was on the first Sabbath after the second day of Passover that this happened. For on that day the sheaves of the first fruits of the field were offered to the Lord, and the Jews reckoned the Sabbaths until Pentecost from this day, for which reason the latter festival was known also as the Feast of Weeks. Jesus was walking through the crop, which was now in full ear and ready for cutting. The ancient paths were usually in the nature of short cuts, and were apt to lead across some man’s land. But according to ancient custom, no man thought of plowing these up. The field was tilled on either side of the path, and the grain sometimes encroached on the path, but the path itself belonged to the public. As the Lord was walking along with His disciples, the latter began to pull out spikes of the ripe grain and to rub the ears between the palms of their hands to extract the kernels. This was permitted according to the Law, Deu 23:25. But the Pharisees, some of whom were present as usual in order to spy on the Lord, made this innocent act a sin against the Third Commandment, looking upon the pulling of stalks as harvesting and upon the removing of the hulls as threshing and cooking. Note: This attitude is characteristic also of modern sticklers for the so-called sanctity of the Sabbath, or Sunday. Instead of teaching the proper observance of the New Testament holiday according to the sense of the Bible, which Luther has so beautifully expressed in the explanation of the Third Commandment, they suspect base motives and objects in matters which are left absolutely to the decision of Christian liberty. The Pharisees at once attacked the disciples, but always with the point directed against Jesus. They accused them of profaning the Sabbath. Nothing would have pleased them more than if Jesus would have taken up the challenge and argued concerning the fine points of distinction between the various forms of work permitted on the Sabbath. Instead of that, the Lord turns the tables on them by challenging their knowledge of Scriptures. His words, not unmixed with irony, contain a sharp rebuke: Not even this have ye read what David did; have you so little understanding of the Old Testament? His reference is to 1Sa 21:6. There it is related of David that he did indeed go into the house of the Lord, into the tabernacle, which probably stood on the hill between Gibeon and Nobe, and accepted some of the showbread, the bread of the Lord’s countenance, which he then ate with his men, although this bread belonged to the priests only. That was a case of emergency, in which the law of love is always the highest law. The Pharisees should now draw the conclusion from the smaller to the greater. If David had this right and did not sin in taking and eating this bread, then David’s Lord must have the right with much greater authority. And if this argument would not be sufficiently strong for them, they should remember that the Son of Man, Christ, the Prophet of Nazareth, is Lord also of the Sabbath. If He chooses to dispense with, or to change, the law with reference to this holiday, it is a matter entirely in His right and power, Col 2:16-17; Rom 14:5.

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

CHAPTER 14

JESUS RETURNS TO GALILEE

Mat 12:1-18; Mar 2:23-28, and Luk 6:1-5. We find that our Lord spent but two weeks at Jerusalem during this tour, preaching and working miracles all the time, of which we have no record; but the fifth chapter of John giving us one notable miracle and one powerful sermon. Luke informs us that the incident, here recorded by Matthew, Mark, and Luke, took place on the Sabbath following the Passover, which began on the Sabbath, ran through the intervening week, and closed on the ensuing Sabbath; thus, according to Luke’s testimony, giving our Savior two-weeks’ evangelistic tour in Jerusalem. Inquiry naturally rises why He returns to Galilee so soon, when He had spent about ten months of the preceding year in that country. Our Lord gives the reason (Joh 4:44). Jerusalem and Judea were the regions of great population, while Galilee was the more thinly settled. Again, as He was a native Galilean, His ministry would not attract the amount of popular attention there as at Jerusalem, and especially on occasions of the great festivals, thus augmenting the probability of their cutting short His ministry by crowning Him King. Therefore He did most of His preaching and performed most of His mighty works in the comparatively thinly populated regions of Galilee.

Mark: “And it came to pass that He was journeying on the Sabbath, through the corn-fields, and His disciples began to pursue the journey, plucking the ears [i.e., the wheat-heads]. And the Pharisees continued to say to Him, Behold what they are doing on the Sabbath, which is not lawful. And He said to them, Have you not read what David did when he had need, and he and those who were with him were hungry? How he entered into the house of God, in the days of Abiathar the high priest, and did eat the shewbread, which it is not lawful to eat except for the priests, and he gave it to those who were with him? And He said to them, The Sabbath was made for man, and not man for the Sabbath. The Son of man is Lord also of the Sabbath.” Matthew: “Have you not read in the law that the priests on the Sabbath in the ’temple do profane the Sabbath, and are blameless? But I

say unto you, There is One here greater than the temple. If you had known what that is, I wish mercy and not sacrifice, you would not have condemned the innocent.” Matthew, Mark, and Luke all relate this incident, which transpired on the Sabbath following the Passover, while our Lord and His disciples were prosecuting their pedestrian journey back to Galilee. Remember that we are now in the beginning of the second year of our Savior’s ministry, two more years and two Passovers yet to come. We see our Lord’s critics raise no objection to their plucking the wheat-heads, rubbing them out in their hands and eating them (it is more probable it was barley, as this occurred about the first of May, the beginning of the barley harvest, the wheat coming on about a month later), as this privilege was granted in the law of Moses (Deu 21:2); but they arraign Him for violating the Sabbath, as this happened to take place on that day, showing how very fanatical they were, that they wouldn’t allow them to get a little something to eat on the Sabbath. Excessive zeal on non- essentials has characterized the fallen Churches of every age. At this point they murdered the martyrs, too blind to see their holy lives, and actually massacring them because they did not conform to the non-essential human regulations of a fallen ecclesiasticism. Our Savior here gives them the case of the priests, who offer the sacrifices, and work hard in the temple on the Sabbath, and are blameless. He also corroborates it by the case of David (1Sa 21:1-7), who, in his flight from Saul, came to Nob, in the days of Abiathar, the priest, he and his men, in their extremity and destitution, eating the shewbread in the temple, which was lawful only for the priests to eat. “I wish mercy and not sacrifice” is the key to this entire problem. God wants a broken heart and a contrite spirit, a penitent soul, on whom He can have mercy, free and unlimited — i.e., save him for nothing, except the vicarious work of Christ — instead of a great sacrifice, offered in pomp and demonstration by some rich person, whose heart is far from Him, vainly flattering himself that he can pay his way to heaven. In this way millions of wealthy Church members make their bed in hell, depending on their offerings to the Lord, instead of falling, a miserable, bankrupt suppliant, at the feet of Jesus, and there crying for mercy till the heavens bow, and God comes down and answers the prayer of the broken-hearted penitent in the mighty uplift of His omnipotent hand.

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

Luke Chapter 6

The circumstances related in chapter 6:1-10 have reference to the same truth, and in an important aspect. The sabbath was the sign of the covenant between Israel and God-rest after finished works. The Pharisees blame the disciples of Christ, because they rub out the ears of corn in their hands. Now a rejected David had overleapt the barrier of the law when his need required it. For when God’s Anointed was rejected and cast out, everything became in a manner common. The Son of man (Son of David, rejected like the son of Jesse, the elect and anointed king) was Lord of the sabbath; God, who established this ordinance, was above the ordinances He had established, and present in grace the obligation of man yielded to the sovereignty of God; and the Son of man was there with the rights and the power of God. Marvellous fact! Moreover the power of God present in grace did not allow misery to exist, because it was the day of grace. But this was setting aside Judaism. That was the obligation of man to God, Christ was the manifestation of God in grace to men. [18]

Availing Himself of the rights of supreme goodness, and displaying a power that authorised His pretension to assert those rights, He heals, in a full synagogue, the man with the withered hand. They are filled with madness at this manifestation of power, which overflows and carries away the dykes of their pride and self-righteousness. We may observe that all these circumstances are gathered together with an order and mutual connection that are perfect. [19] The Lord had shewn that this grace-which had visited Israel according to all that could be expected from the Lord Almighty, faithful to His promises-could, nevertheless, not be confined to the narrow limits of that people, nor be adapted to the ordinances of the law; that men desiredthe old things, but that the power of God acted according to its own nature. He had shewn that the most sacred, the most obligatory, sign of the old covenant, must bow to His title superior to all ordinance, and give place to the rights of His divine love which was in action. But the old thing was thus judged, and passing away. He had shewn Himself in everything-in the calling of Peter especially-to be the new centre, around which all that sought God and blessing must gather; for He was the living manifestation of God and of blessing in men. Thus God was manifested, the old order of things was worn out and unable to contain this grace, and the remnant were separated-around the Lord-from a world that saw no beauty in Him that they should desire Him. He now acted on this basis; and if faith sought Him in Israel, this power of grace manifested God in a new way. God surrounds Himself with men, as the centre of blessing in Christ as man. But He is love, and in the activity of that love He seeks the lost. None but one, and one who was God and revealed Him, could surround Himself with His followers. No prophet ever did (see Joh 1:1-51). None could send out with the authority and power of a divine message but God. Christ had been sent; He now sends. The name of “apostle” (sent), for He so names them, contains this deep and marvellous truth-God is acting in grace. He surrounds Himself with blessed ones. He seeks miserable sinners. If Christ, the we centre of grace and happiness, surrounds Himself with followers, yet He sends also His chosen ones to bear testimony of the love which He came to manifest. God has manifested Himself in man. In man He seeks sinners. Man has part in the most immediate display of the divine nature in both ways. He is with Christ as man; and he is sent by Christ. Christ Himself does this as man. It is man full of the Holy Ghost. Thus we see Him again manifested in dependence on His Father before choosing the apostles; He retired to pray, He passes the night in prayer.

And now He goes beyond the manifestation of Himself, as personally full of the Holy Ghost to bring in the knowledge of God among men. He becomes the centre, around which all must come who sought God, and a source of mission for the accomplishment of His love-the centre of the manifestation of divine power in grace. And, therefore, He called around Him the remnant who should be saved. His position, in every respect, is summed up in that which is said after He came down from the mountain. He comes down with the apostles from His communion with God. In the plain [20] He is surrounded by the company of His disciples, and then by a great multitude, drawn together by His word and works. There was the attraction of the word of God, and He healed the diseases of men, and cast out the power of Satan. This power dwelt in His Person; the virtue that went out of Him gave these outward testimonies to the power of God present in grace. The attention of the people was drawn to Him by these means. Nevertheless we have seen that the old things, to which the multitude were attached, were passing away He surrounded Himself with hearts faithful to God, the called of His grace. Here therefore He does not, as in Matthew, announce strictly the character of the kingdom, to shew that of the dispensation which was at hand, saying, “Blessed are the poor in spirit, etc.; but, distinguishing the remnant, by their attachment to Himself, He declares to the disciples who followed Him that they were these blessed ones. They were poor and despised, but they were blessed. They should have the kingdom. This is important, because it separates the remnant, and puts them in relationship with Himself to receive the blessing. He describes, in a remarkable manner, the character of those who were thus blessed of God.

The Lord’s discourse is divided into several branches.

Luk 6:20-26 The contrast between the remnant, manifested as His disciples, and the multitude who were satisfied with the world, adding a warning to those who stood in the place of disciples, and in that gained the favour of the world. Woe be to such! Remark also here, that it is not a question of persecution for righteousness’ sake, as in Matthew, but only for His name’s sake. All was marked by attachment to His Person.

Luk 6:27-36. The character of God their Father in the manifestation of grace in Christ, which they were to imitate. He reveals, note, the Father’s name and puts them in the place of children.

Luk 6:37-38. This character particularly developed in the position of Christ, as He was on earth at that time, Christ fulfilling His service on earth. This implied government and recompense on God’s part, as was the case with regard to Christ Himself.

Luk 6:39. The condition of the leaders in Israel, and the connection between them and the multitude.

Luk 6:40. That of the disciples in relation to Christ.

Luk 6:41-42. The way to attain it, and to see clearly in the midst of evil, is to put evil away from oneself.

Afterwards, in general, its own fruit characterised every tree. Coming around Christ to hear Him was not the question, but that He should be so precious to their hearts that they would put aside every obstacle and practically obey Him.

Let us sum up these things which we have been considering. He acts in a power which dispels evil, because He finds it there, and He is good; and God alone is good. He reaches the conscience, and calls souls to Himself. He acts in connection with the hope of Israel and the power of God to cleanse, pardon and give them strength. But it is a grace which we all need; and the goodness of God, the energy of His love, did not confine itself to that people. Its exercise did not agree with the forms on which the Jews lived (or, rather, could not live); and the new wine must be put into new bottles. The question of the sabbath settled the question of the introduction of this power; the sign of the covenant gave way to it: He who exercised it was Lord of the sabbath. The lovingkindness of the God of the sabbath was not stayed, as if having His hands tied by that which He had established in connection with the covenant. Jesus then assembles the vessels of His grace and power, according to the will of God, around Himself. They were the blessed ones, the heirs of the kingdom. The Lord describes their character. It was not the indifference and pride that arose from ignorance of God, justly alienated from Israel, who had sinned against Him, and despised the glorious manifestation of His grace in Christ. They share the distress and pain which such a condition of God’s people must cause in those who had the mind of God. Hated, proscribed, put to shame for the sake of the Son of man, who had come to bear their sorrows, it was their glory. They should share His glory when the nature of God was glorified in doing all things according to His own will. They would not be put to shame in heaven; they should have their reward there, not in Israel. “In like manner had their fathers done unto the prophets.” Woe unto those that were at ease in Zion, during the sinful condition of Israel, and their rejection and ill-treatment of their Messiah! It is the contrast between the character of the true remnant and that of the proud among the people.

We then find the conduct that is suitable to the former conduct which, to express it in one word, comprises in its essential elements, the character of God in grace, as manifested in Jesus on the earth. But Jesus had His own character of service as the Son of man; the application of this to their particular circumstances is added in Luk 6:37-38. In Luk 6:39 the leaders of Israel are set before us, and in Luk 6:40 the portion of the disciples. Rejected like Himself, they should have His portion; but, assuming that they followed Him perfectly, they should have it in blessing, in grace, in character, in position also. What a favour! [21] Moreover, the judgment of self, and not of one’s brother, was the means of attaining clear moral sight. The tree good, the fruit would be good. Self-judgment applies to the trees. This is always true. In self-judgment, it is not only the fruit that is corrected; it is oneself. And the tree is known by its fruit-not only by good fruit, but by its own. The Christian bears the fruit of the nature of Christ. Also it is the heart itself, and real practical obedience, that are in question.

Here then the great principles of the new life, in its full practical development in Christ, are set before us. It is the new thing morally, the savour and character of the new wine-the remnant made like unto Christ whom they followed, unto Christ the new centre of the movement of the Spirit of God, and of the calling of His grace. Christ has come out of the walled court of Judaism, in the power of a new life and by the authority of the Most High, who had brought blessing into this enclosure, which it was unable to acknowledge. He had come out from it, according to the principles of the life itself which He announced; historically, He was still in it.

Footnotes for Luke Chapter 6

18: This is an important point. A part in the rest of God is the distinctive privilege of saints-of God’s people. Man had it not at the fall, still God’s rest remained the special portion of His people. He did not get it under the law. But every distinct institution under the law is accompanied by an enforcement of the sabbath, the formal expression of the rest of the first Adam, and this Israel will enjoy at the end of this world’s history. Till then, as the Lord said so blessedly, My Father worketh hitherto and I work. For us, the day of rest is not the seventh day, the end of this world’s week; but the first day, the day after the sabbath, the beginning of a new week, a new creation, the day of Christ’s resurrection, the commencement of a new state for man, for the accomplishment of which all creation round us waits, only we are before God in Spirit as Christ is. Hence the Sabbath, the seventh day, the rest of the first creation on human and legal ground, is always treated with rejection in the New Testament, though not set aside till judgment came, but as an ordinance it died with Christ in the grave, where He passed it-only it was made for man as a mercy. The Lord’s day is our day, and precious external earnest of the heavenly rest.

19: I may remark here that, where chronological order is followed in Luke, it is the same as in Mark and that of the events, not as in Matthew put together to bring out the object of the Gospel; only he occasionally introduces a circumstance which may have happened at another time illustrative of the subject historically related. But in chapter 9 Luke arrives at the last journey up to Jerusalem (Luk 9:51), and, from this on, a series of moral instruction follows to chapter 18: 31, chiefly, if not all, during the period of this journey, but which for the most part has little to say to dates.

20: Properly ‘a level place’ on the mountain. (topou pedinou)

21: This however does not speak of nature intrinsically, for in Christ was no sin. Nor has the word used for “perfect” that sense. It is one completely thoroughly instructed, formed completely by the teaching of his master He will be like him, as his master, in all in which he was formed by him. Christ was the perfection; we grow up unto Him in all things unto the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ (see Col 1:28).

John Nelson Darby — Synopsis of the Books of the Bible: the New Testament (c. 1857–1862) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

6:1-11 Jesus’ conflicts with the religious leaders continued with two controversies over the Sabbath. The law of Moses required Jews to rest on the Sabbath (Exod 20:8-11; Deut 5:13-14), but the Pharisees had forgotten that the real reason for the Sabbath was to benefit human beings.

6:1 his disciples broke off heads of grain: The law allowed this kind of grazing while walking through someone else’s field (Deut 23:24-25).

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

Luk 6:1. Ἐν Σαββάτῳ δευτεροπρώτῳ, on the second Sabbath after the first) See the Ordo Temporum, p. 255, etc. [Ed. ii., p. 222, etc.] The Sabbath called πρῶτον was that one which combined the Sabbath and New Moon on one and the same day: the δευτερόπρωτον Sabbath was the day before the New Moon, and that too, in the present instance, the Sabbath on the last day of the month Ve-adar, in the 29th year of the common era.[58] On every ΔΕΥΤΕΡΌΠΡΩΤΟΝ Sabbath there was read, as the Haphtara or public lesson, 1Sa 20:18-42, concerning David. Appositely therefore, in Luk 6:3, our Lord quotes the case of what David did, from 1Sa 21:6.—Not. Crit. That year was with the Jews an intercalary one, and therefore the beginning of the month Nisan was late. Therefore already at that time they were having the ears ripe, namely, those of the barley crop.—V. g.

[58] Most scholars now explain δευτερόπρωτον “the first of the seven numbered Sabbaths after the morrow of the Sabbath in the Passover feast.” By the way, the reckoning from the morrow of the Sabbath in the Passover feast is a remarkable anticipation of the Resurection Lord’s-day Sabbath, under the law. This δευτερόπρωτον Σάββατον here marks the second main division of the Gospel History, and the opening of the second year in our Lord’s ministry.—ED. and TRANSL.

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Luk_6:1-5. See on Mat_12:1-8; Mar_2:23-28, whom Luke, with some omission, however, follows (see especially Luk_6:5). Between the foregoing and the present narrative Matthew interposes a series of other incidents.

ἐν σαββ. δευτεροπρώτῳ] all explanations are destitute of proof, because δευτερόπρωτος never occurs elsewhere. According to the analogy of δευτερογάμος, δευτεροβόλος, δευτεροτόκος, etc., it might be: a Sabbath which for the second time is the first. Comp. δευτεροδεκάτη, the second tenth, in Jerome, ad Ezekiel 45. According to the analogy of δευτερέσχατος, penultimus, Heliodorus in Soran. Chirurg. vet. p. 94, it mightsince from ἔσχατος the reckoning must be backwards, while from πρῶτος it must be forwards, in order to get a δεύτεροςbe the second first, i.e. the second of two firsts. All accurate grammatical information is wanting. As, however, if any definite Sabbaths at all had borne the name of σάββατον δευτερόπωτον (and this must be assumed, as Luke took for granted that the expression was a familiar one), this name would doubtless occur elsewhere (in the Old Testament, in the LXX., in Philo, Josephus, in the Talmud, etc.); but this is not the case, as the whole Greek literature has not even one instance of the peculiar word in itself to show;[95] as among the Synoptics it was precisely Luke that could least of all impute to his reader a knowledge of the name; and as, finally, very ancient and important authorities have not got ΔΕΥΤΕΡΟΠΡΏΤῼ at all in the passage before us (see the critical remarks), just as even so early an authority as Syrp. remarks in the margin: non est in omni exemplari,

I regard ΔΕΥΤΕΡΟΠΡΏΤῼ as not being genuine, although, moreover, the suspicion suggests itself that it was omitted ignoratione rei (Bengel, Appar. Crit.), and because the parallel places have nothing similar to it. In consideration of ἐν ἑτέρῳ σαββ., Luk_6:6, probably the note ΠΡΏΤῼ was written at the side, but a comparison with Luk_4:31 occasioned the corrective note ΔΕΥΤΈΡῼ to be added, which found its way into the text, partly without (so still Arro. and Arer.), partly with ΠΡΏΤῼ (thus ΔΕΥΤΈΡῼ ΠΡΏΤῼ, so still R Γ, min.), so that in the next place, seeing that the two words in juxtaposition were meaningless, the one word ΔΕΥΤΕΡΟΠΡΏΤῼ was coined. Wilke also and Hofmann, according to Lichtenstein; and Lichtenstein himself, as well as Bleek and Holtzmann (comp. Schulz on Griesbach), reject the word; Hilgenfeld regards it as not being altogether certain.[96] Of the several attempts at explanation, I note historically only the following: (1) Chrysostom, Hom. 40 in Matth.: ὅταν διπλῆ ἡ ἀργία ᾖ καὶ τοῦ σαββάτου τοῦ κυρίου καὶ ἑτέρας ἑορτῆς διαδεχομένης, so that thus is understood a feast-day immediately following the Sabbath. Comp. Epiphanius, Haer. 30, 31. So also Beza, Paulus, and Olshausen. (2) Theophylact understands a Sabbath, the day before which (παρασκευή) had been a feast-day.[97] (3) Isidore of Pelusium, Ep. iii. 110 (comp. Euthymius Zigabenus, Calvin, Surenhusius, Wolf), thinks that the πρώτη τῶν ἀζύμων is meant, and was called ΔΕΥΤΕΡΟΠΡΏΤΗ: ἘΠΕΙΔῊ ΔΕΎΤΕΡΟΝ ΜῈΝ ἮΝ ΤΟῦ ΠΆΣΧΑ, ΠΡῶΤΟΝ ΔῈ ΤῶΝ ἈΖΎΜΩΝ· ἙΣΠΈΡΑς ΓᾺΡ ΘΎΟΝΤΕς ΤῸ ΠΆΣΧΑ Τῇ ἙΞῆς ΤῊΝ ΤῶΝ ἈΖΎΜΩΝ ἘΠΑΝΗΓΎΡΙΖΟΝ ἙΟΡΤῊΝ, ἫΝ ΚΑῚ ΔΕΥΤΕΡΌΠΡΩΤΟΝ ἘΚΆΛΟΥΝ,that every festival was called a Sabbath. Comp. Saalschütz: the second day of the first feast (Passover). (4) Most prevalent has become the view of Scaliger (Emend. tempor. VI. p. 557) and Petavius, that it is the first Sabbath after the second day of the Passover.[98] Comp. already Epiphanius, Haer. xxx. 31. From the second Easter day (on which the first ripe ears of corn were offered on the altar, Lev_23:10 ff.; Lightfoot, p. 340) were numbered seven Sabbaths down to Pentecost, Lev_23:15. Comp. also Winer, Realwörterb. II. p. 348 ff.; Ewald, Jahrb. I. p. 72, and Gesch. Chr. p. 304. (5) According to the same reckoning, distinguishing the three first Sabbaths of the season between Easter and Pentecost from the rest, Redslob in the Intell. Bl. der allgem. Lit. Zeit., Dec. 1847, p. 570 f., says that it was the second Sabbath after the second Easter day, δευτερόπρωτος being equivalent to ΔΕΎΤΕΤΟς ΤῶΝ ΠΡΏΤΩΝ, therefore about fourteen days after Easter. Comp. Ewald, Jahrb. XI. p. 254: that it was the second of the two first Sabbaths of the Passover month. (6) Von Til and Wetstein: that it was the first Sabbath of the second month (Igar). So also Storr and others. (7) Credner, Beitr. I. p. 357, concludes that according to the κήρυγμα τοῦ Πέτρου (in Clem. Strom. vi. 5, p. 760, Pott) the Sabbath at the full moon was called πρῶτον (a mistaken explanation of the words, see Wieseler, p. 232 f.), and hence that a Sabbath at the new moon was to be understood. (8) Hitzig, Ostern und Pfingst. p. 19 ff. (agreeing with Theophylact as to the idea conveyed by the word), conceives that it was the fifteenth Nisan, which, according to Lev_23:11, had been called a Sabbath, and was named δευτερόπρ., because (but see, on the other hand, Wieseler, p. 353 ff.) the fourteenth Nisan always fell on a Saturday. (9) Wieseler, l.c. p. 231 ff.,[99] thinks that it was the second-first Sabbath of the year in a cycle of seven years, i.e. the first Sabbath of the second year in a week of years. Already L. Capellus, Rhenferd, and Lampe (ad Joh. II. p. 5) understood it to be the first month in the year (Nisan), but explained the name from the fact that the year had two first Sabbaths, namely, in Tisri, when the civil year began, and in Nisan, when the ecclesiastical year began. (10) Ebrard, p. 414 f., following Krafft (Chron. und Harm. d. vier Evang. p. 18 f.), regards it as the weekly Sabbath that occurs between the first and last Easter days (feast-Sabbaths). For yet other interpretations (Grotius and Valckenaer: that the Sabbath before Easter was called the first great one πρωτὸπρωτον, the Sabbath before Pentecost the second great one δευτερόπρωτον, the Sabbath before the feast of Tabernacles ΤΡΙΤΌΠΡΩΤΟΝ[100]), see in Calovius, Bibl. Ill., and Lübkert, l.c.

τοὺς στάχυας] the ears of corn that offered themselves on the way.

ἬΣΘΙΟΝ ΨΏΧΟΝΤΕς Κ.Τ.Λ.] they ate (the contents), rubbing them out. The two things happened at the same time, so that they continually conveyed to their mouths the grains set free by this rubbing.

Luk_6:3. οὐδὲ τοῦτο] have you never so much as read this? etc.

ὁπότε] quandoquidem, since, Plato, Legg. x. p. 895 B; Euthyd. p. 297 D; Xen. Anab. iii. 2. 2; not elsewhere in the New Testament. Comp. Hermann, ad Soph. O. C. 1696.

Luk_6:4. ἔξεστι] with an accusative and infinitive, occurring only here in the New Testament, frequently in the classical writers, Plat. Polit. p. 290 D; Xen. Mem. i. 1. 9, iii. 12. 8, and elsewhere; also after a preceding dative (Kühner, ad Xen. Mem. p. 57, ed. 2).

Luk_6:5. ἔλεγεν αὐτ.] as Mark, but without the auxiliary thought found in Mark which introduces the conclusion.

[95] In Eustathius in Vita Eutych. n. 95, the Sunday after Easter is called δευτεροπρώτη κυριακή; but this epithet manifestly originated from the passage before us.

[96] Tischendorf had deleted it in his edition of 1849, but in ed. 7 (1859) [also in ed. 8 (1869)] had restored and defended it; now [1867] (in the Synops. ed. 2) he has, with Lachmann, bracketed it.

[97] Comp. Luthers obscure gloss: the second day after the high Sabbath. Schegg explains the expression even as a Christian designation, namely, of the Saturday after Good Friday. In opposition to Serno (Tag des letzt. Passahmahls, 1859, p. 48 ff.), who, according to his mistaken supposition of the doubling of the first and last feast-days, brings out the sixteenth Nissan, see Wieseler in Reuters Repert. 1860, p. 138.

[98] The explanation of Scaliger is followed by Casaubon, Drusius, Lightfoot, Schoettgen, Kuinoel, Neander, de Wette, and many more; and is defended, especially against Paulus, by Lübkert in the Stud. u. Krit. 1835, p. 671 ff. Opposed to Scaliger are Wieseler, Synopse, p. 230; Saalschütz, Mos. R. p. 394 f.; and aptly Grotius in loc. Lange, L. J. II. 2, p. 813, tries to improve the explanation of Scaliger by assuming that preceding the cycle between Easter and Pentecost there is a shorter cycle from 1 Nisan to Easter; that the first Sabbath of this first cycle is therefore the first-first, while the first Sabbath of that second cycle (from Easter to Pentecost) is the second-first.

[99] Tischendorf, Synopse, ed. 2, now opposes the explanation of Wieseler, with which in ed. 1 he agreed.

[100] V. Gumpach also (üb. d. altjüd. Kalend., Brüssel 1848) understands a Sabbath of the second rank. Very peculiarly Weizsäcker, p. 59, says: that Luk_4:16; Luk_4:31 recounts two Sabbath narratives, and now Luk_6:1; Luk_6:6 recounts other two, and that the Sabbath in the passage before us is therefore the first of this second series of narratives, consequently the second-first. But what reader would hare been able to discover this reference, especially as between Luk_4:31 and Luk_6:1 so many other narratives intervened? Weizsäcker, moreover, pertinently observes, in opposition to every hypothesis of an explanation in accordance with the calculation of the divine services, that our Gospel stands much too remote from things of this kind.

REMARK.

In D, which does not read Luk_6:5 till after Luk_6:10, the following passage occurs after Luk_6:4 : τῇ αὐτῇ ἡμέρᾳ θεασάμενός τινα ἐργαζόμενον τῷ σαββάτῳ εἶπεν αὐτῷ· ἄνθρωπε, εἰ μὲν οἶδας τί ποιεῖς, μακάριος εἶ· εἰ δὲ μὴ οἶδας, ἐπικατάρατος καὶ παραβάτης εἶ τοῦ νόμου. In substance it certainly bears the stamp of genius, and is sufficiently liberal-minded to admit of its being original, even although it is not genuine. I regard it as an interpolated fragment of a true tradition.

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 6:1-5 . The ears of corn (Mat 12:1-8 , Mar 2:23-28 ). ἐν σαββάτῳ : Mk. makes no attempt to locate this incident in his history beyond indicating that it happened on Sabbath . Mt. uses a phrase which naturally suggests temporal sequence, but to which in view of what goes before one can attach no definite meaning. Lk. on the other hand would seem to be aiming at very great precision if the adjective qualifying σαββάτῳ δευτεροπρώτῳ , were genuine. But it is omitted in the important group [58] [59] [60] , and in other good documents, and this fact, combined with the extreme unlikelihood of Lk.’s using a word to which it is now, and must always have been, impossible to attach any definite sense, makes it highly probable that this word is simply a marginal gloss, which found its way, like many others, into the text. How the gloss arose, and what it meant for its author or authors, it is really not worth while trying to conjecture, though such attempts have been made. Vide Tischendorf, N. T., ed. viii., for the critical history of the word. ἤσθιον , ate, indicating the purpose of the plucking, with Mt. Mk. omits this, vide notes there. ψώχοντες τ . χ ., rubbing with their hands; peculiar to Lk., indicating his idea of the fault (or that of the tradition he followed); rubbing was threshing on a small scale, an offence against one of the many minor rules for Sabbath observance. This word occurs here only in N. T., and is not classical.

[58] Codex Sinaiticus (sæc. iv.), now at St. Petersburg, published in facsimile type by its discoverer, Tischendorf, in 1862.

[59] Codex Vaticanus (sæc. iv.), published in photographic facsimile in 1889 under the care of the Abbate Cozza-Luzi.

[60] Codex Regius--eighth century, represents an ancient text, and is often in agreement with א and B.

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Luk 6:1-5. THE DISCIPLES PLUCK THE EARS OF CORN ON THE SABBATH. (Mat 12:1-8; Mar 2:23-28.)

1. ἐν σαββάτῳ δευτεροπρώτῳ ACD, La[125] Ti[126] δευτεροπρώτῳ is omitted by אBL, W.H[127] See the note.

[125] La. Lachmann.

[126] Ti. Tischendorf.

[127] W.H. Westcott and Hort.

1. ἐγένετο … καὶ ἔτιλλον. This is a Hebraism. The ἐγένετο is really pleonastic (comp. Luk 5:1; Luk 5:12, Luk 9:51, and for the construction without καί, Luk 1:8; Luk 1:41, Luk 2:1). The idiom is specially common in St Luke owing to the Aramaic documents which he used. In Classic Greek we should have had simply διεπορεύετο and ἔτυχε διαπορευόμενος.

ἐν σαββάτῳ δευτεροπρώτῳ. ‘On the second-first sabbath.’ St Luke gives this unique note of time without a word to explain it, and scholars have not—and probably never will—come to an agreement as to its exact meaning. The only analogy to the word is the δευτεροδεκάτη or second tenth in Jerome on Ezekiel 45 and δευτερέσχατος last but one in Heliodorus. Of the ten or more suggested explanations, omitting those which are wholly arbitrary and impossible, we may mention the following.

α. The first Sabbath of the second month (Wetstein).

β. The first Sabbath after the second day of the Passover (Scaliger, Ewald, De Wette, Neander, Keim, &c.).

γ. The first Sabbath of the second year in the Sabbatic cycle of seven years (Wieseler).

δ. The first Sabbath of the Ecclesiastical year. The Jewish year had two beginnings, the civil year began in Tisri (mid-September); the ecclesiastical year in Nisan (mid-March).

The first-first Sabbath may therefore have been a name given to the first Sabbath of the civil year in autumn; and second-first to the first Sabbath of the ecclesiastical year in spring (Godet).

ε. The Pentecostal Sabbath—the Paschal Sabbath being regarded as the protoproton or first-first (Corn. à Lapide).

These and similar explanations must be left as unsupported conjectures in the absence of any decisive trace of such Sabbatical nomenclature among the Jews. It is idle to attempt an explanation of a word so obscure that not a single datum for its use is furnished by the LX[131], by Philo, by Josephus or even in that enormous cyclopaedia of micrology, the Talmud. It is still more idle when the word is almost demonstrably spurious. We can see how it may have found its way into the MSS., and it must be regarded as certain that St Luke writing for Gentiles would either not have used such a word at all, or at any rate not have used it without an explanation. Even Chrysostom and Theophylact have nothing but untenable suggestions to offer. But we may remark that

[131] LXX Septuagint.

(1) The reading itself cannot be regarded as probable, much less certain, since it is omitted in אBL, and in several important versions, including the Syriac and Coptic. Hence of modern editors Tregelles and Meyer omit it; Lachmann and Alford put it in brackets. Its insertion may be conceivably accounted for by marginal annotations. Thus if a copyist put ‘first’ in the margin with reference to the “other” Sabbath of Luk 6:6 it would have been corrected by some succeeding copyist into ‘second’ with reference to Luk 4:31; and the two may have been combined in hopeless perplexity. If it be said that this is unlikely, it seems at least equally unlikely that it should either wilfully or accidentally have been omitted if it formed part of the original text. And why should St Luke writing for Gentiles use without explanation a word to them perfectly meaningless and so highly technical that in all the folio volumes of Jewish Literature there is not a single trace of it?

(2) The exact discovery of what the word means is only important as a matter of archaeology. Happily there can be no question as to the time of year at which the incident took place. The narrative seems to imply that the ears which the disciples plucked and rubbed were ears of wheat not of barley. Now the first ripe sheaf of barley was offered at the Passover (in spring) and the first ripe wheat sheaf at Pentecost (fifty days later). Wheat would ripen earlier in the rich deep hollow of Gennesareth. In any case therefore the time of year was spring or early summer, and the Sabbath (whether the reading be correct or not) was probably some Sabbath in the month Nisan.

διαπορεύεσθαι αὐτὸν διὰ σπορίμων. Comp. Mat 12:1-8; Mar 2:23-28. St Mark uses the curious expression that “He went along through the corn fields” apparently in a path between two fields—“and His disciples began to make a way by plucking the corn ears.” All that we can infer from this is that Jesus was walking apart from His Apostles, and that He did not Himself pluck the corn.

ἔτιλλον … τοὺς στάχυας. This shews their hunger and poverty, especially if the corn was barley. They were permitted by the Law to do this—“When thou comest into the standing-corn of thy neighbour, then thou mayest pluck the ears with thine hand,” Deu 23:25. St Matthew in his “began to pluck” shews how eagerly and instantly the Pharisees clutched at the chance of finding fault.

ψώχοντες ταῖς χερσίν. It was this act which constituted the gravamen of their offence.

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.

Chap.

6:1-5.] The disciples pluck ears of corn on the Sabbath. Mat 12:1-8. Mar 2:23-28. Between the discourse just related here and in Mark, and this incident, Matthew interposes the raising of Jaeirus’s daughter, the healing of the two blind and one dumb, the mission of the twelve, and the message of John. I need not insist on these obvious proofs of independence in the construction of our Gospels.

On the question of the arrangements, see on Matt.

1. δευτεροπρώτῳ] This word presents much difficulty. None of the interpretations have any certainty, as the word is found no where else, and can be only judged of by analogy. (1) It is not altogether clear that the word ought to be here at all:—see var. readd. Schulz supposes it to have arisen from putting together two separate glosses, in the margin of some mss., one δευτέρῳ, the other πρώτῳ:—originally inserted,—the first, to distinguish this sabbath from that in ch. 4:31,—the latter, from that in ver. 6. (2) Chrysostom, Hom. xxxix. on Matt., vol. vii. p. 431, says, ὁ δὲ Λουκᾶς φησιν Ἐν σαββάτῳ δευτεροπρώτῳ. τί δέ ἐστιν, ἐν δευτεροπρώτῳ; ὅταν διπλῆ ἡ ἀργία ᾖ, καὶ τοῦ σαββάτου τοῦ κυρίου, καὶ ἑτέρας ἑορτῆς διαδεχομένης. Paulus and Olsh. also take this interpretation.

(3) Theophylact understands,—a sabbath, the day before which (παρασκευή) had been a Feast-day.

(4) Isidore of Pelusium, , and others, think that the first day of unleavened bread is meant, and is called δευτερόπ., because it is δευτέρα τοῦ πάσχα, which had been slain on the evening before.

(5) Scaliger and Petavius interpret it to mean the sabbath following the second day of the Passover, from which the seven weeks to Pentecost were reckoned. This has been commonly followed; but is liable to the objection that the assumption, σάββ. δευτερόπρ. = σάββ. τῆς ἑβδομάδος δευτεροπρώτου = σάββ. τῆς ἑβδ. πρώτης μετὰ τὴν δευτέραν τῶν ἀζύμων, is an unjustifiable one.

(6) To omit many other conjectures, I may mention that Wieseler (Chron. Synop. Deu_4 Evv., p. 231 ff.) suggests that it may mean the first sabbath in the second of the cycle of seven years, which completed the sabbatical period. He shews, by a passage from the κήρυγμα Πέτρου (Alex., Strom. vi. 5, p. 760 .), that the Jews did call the first sabbath of the year πρῶτον—and that the years were reckoned as the first, second, &c., of the septennial cycle (see a decree of Jul. Cæsar in Jos. Antt. xiv. 10. 6). Thus the first sabbath of the first year would be πρωτόπρωτον or πρῶτον, that of the second δευτερόπρωτον, &c. And according to his chronology, which fixes this in a.u.c. 782, this year was the second of the sabbatical cycle. If we follow this conjecture, this day was the first sabbath in the month Nisan.

The point so much insisted on, that this must have been after the presentation of the first-fruits which took place on the 16th of Nisan,—on account of the prohibition in Lev 23:14,—is of no weight, as it is very uncertain whether the action mentioned here is included in the prohibition.

As regards the analogy of the word, δευτεροδεκάτη, sometimes cited from Jerome on Eze_45, is not to the point: for that word represents the fact that “rursus ex ipsis decimis Levitæ, hoc est inferior ministrorum gradus, decimas dabant sacerdotibus:” so that it was not “the second-tenth,” as Wordsw., but a tenth of a tenth,—a second tithing of a tithe.

ψώχ. τ. χ. is a detail peculiar to Luke: rubbing them and blowing away the chaff.

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

6:1-5. The first Incident on the Sabbath (see Maurice, Lectures an St. Luke, pp. 82, 83 ed. 1879). The Call of Peter was followed by two healings which provoked opposition to Christ: and now the Call of Levi is followed by two incidents on the sabbath, which lead to similar opposition. Mk. agrees with Lk. in placing these two immediately after the call of Levi; Mt. has them much later (12:1-14). On the connexion here see Schanz, ad loc.

1. ἐν σαββάτως δευτεροπρώτως. This passage is a well-known crux in textual criticism and exegesis. Is δευτεροπρώτως part of the true text? If so, what does it mean? The two questions to some extent overlap, but it is possible to treat them separately.

1. The external evidence is very much divided, but the balance is against the words being original.1 The reading is Western and Syrian, and “has no other clean pre-Syrian authority than that of D a ff.” The internal evidence is also divided. On the one hand, “The very obscurity of the expression, which does not occur in the parallel Gospels or elsewhere, attests strongly to its genuine. ness” (Scriv.), for “there is no reason which can explain the insertion of this word, while the reason for omitting it is obvious” (Tisch.) On the other hand, “all known cases of probable omission on account of difficulty are limited to single documents or groups of restricted ancestry, bearing no resemblance to the attestation of text in either variety or excellence” (WH.). Moreover, if any sabbath had really borne this strange name, which is introduced without explanation as familiar to the readers, it would almost certainly have been found elsewhere, either in LXX, Philo, Josephus, or the Talmud. In the life of Eutychius (512-582) by his chaplain Eustathius δευτεροπρώτη κυριακή is used of the first Sunday after Easter, but the expression is obviously borrowed from this passage, and throws no light. In the whole of Greek literature, classical, Jewish, or Christian, no such word is found independently of this text. The often quoted δευτεροδεκάτη, “second tenth” (Hieron. ad Ez. xlv. 13), gives no help. The analogy of δευτερογάμος, δευτεροτόκος, κ.τ.λ., suggests the meaning of “a sabbath which for a second time is first”; that of δευτερέσχατος, which Heliodorus (apud Soran. Med. vet.) uses for “last but one,” suggests the meaning “first but one” i.e. “second of two firsts.” But what sense, suitable to the passage, can be obtained from either of these? The more probable conclusion is that the word is spurious.

How then did it get into the text and become so widely diffused? The conjecture of Meyer is reasonable. An early copyist inserted πρώτως to explain ἐν έτέρως σαββάτως in ver. 6; this was corrected to δευτέρως because of 4:31; and the next copyist, not understanding the correction, combined the two words. A few MSS. have the reading δευτέρως πρώτως, among them R (Cod. Nitriensis). a paümpsest of the sixth cent. in the British Museum. See Knight’s Field.

1. οἱ πτωχοὶ τῷ πνεύματι, ὄτι αὐτῶν ἐστὶν ἡ βασιλεία τῶν οὐρανῶν. 1. οἱ πτωχοί, ὄτι ὑμετέρα ἐστὶν ἡ βασιλεία τοῦ Θεοῦ. 1. ὑμῖν τοῖς πλουσίας, ὄτι ἀπέχετε τὴν παράκλησιν ὑμῶν.

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

5. A Sabbath Scene: Luk 6:1-5.

The two Sabbath scenes which follow, provoke, at last, the outbreak of the conflict, which, as we have seen, has long been gathering strength. We have already noted several symptoms of the hostility which was beginning to be entertained towards Jesus: Luk 6:14 (for a testimony unto them); Luk 6:21 (he blasphemeth); Luk 6:30-33 (the censure implied in both questions). It is the apparent contempt of Jesus for the ordinance of the Sabbath, which in Luke as well as in John (chap. 5 and 9), alike in Galilee and in Judaea, provokes the outbreak of this latent irritation, and an open rupture between Jesus and the dominant party. Is there not something in this complete parallelism that abundantly compensates for the superficial differences between the synoptical narrative and John’s?

Vers. 1-5.

The term second-first is omitted by the Alex. But this omission is condemned by Tischendorf himself. Matthew and Mark presented nothing at all like it, and they did not know what meaning to give to the word, which is found nowhere else in the whole compass of sacred and profane literature. There are half a score explanations of it. Chrysostom supposed that when two festival and Sabbath days followed each other, the first received the name of second-first: the first of the two. This meaning does not give a natural explanation of the expression.

Wetstein and Storr say that the first Sabbath of the first, second, and third months of the year were called first, second, and third; the second-first Sabbath would thus be the first Sabbath of the second month. This meaning, although not very natural, is less forced.

Scaliger thought that, as they reckoned seven Sabbaths from the 16th Nisan, the second day of the Passover feast, to Pentecost, the second-first Sabbath denoted the first of these seven Sabbaths: the first Sabbath after the second day of the Passover. This explanation, received by De Wette, Neander, and other moderns, agrees very well with the season when the following scene must have taken place. But the term does not correspond naturally with the idea.

Wieseler supposes that the first Sabbath of each of the seven years which formed a Sabbatic cycle was called first, second, third Sabbath: thus the second-first Sabbath would denote the first Sabbath of the second year of the septenary cycle. This explanation has been favourably received by modern exegesis.

It appears to us, however, less probable than that which Louis Cappel was the first to offer: The civil year of the Israelites commencing in autumn, in the month Tizri (about mid-September to mid-October), and the ecclesiastical year in the month Nisan (about mid-March to mid-April), there were thus every year two first Sabbaths: one at the commencement of the civil year, of which the name would have been first-first; the other at the beginning of the religious year, which would be called second-first. This explanation is very simple in itself, and the form of the Greek term favours it: second-first signifies naturally a first doubled or twice over (bissé).

But there is yet another explanation which appears to us still more probable. Proposed by Selden, it has been reproduced quite lately by Andreae in his excellent article on the day of Jesus’ death. When the observers entrusted with the duty of ascertaining the appearance of the new moon, with a view to fixing the first day of the month, did not present themselves before the commission of the Sanhedrim assembled to receive their deposition until after the sacrifice, this day was indeed declared the first of the month, or monthly Sabbath (σάββατον πρῶτον, first Sabbath); but as the time of offering the sacrifice of the new moon was passed, they sanctified the following day, or second of the month (σάββατον δευτεροπρῶτον, second-first Sabbath), as well. This meaning perfectly agrees with the idea naturally expressed by this term (a first twice over), and with the impression it gives of having been taken from the subtleties of the Jewish calendar.

Bleek, ill-satisfied with these various explanations, supposes an interpolation. But why should it have occurred in Luke rather than in Matthew and Mark? Meyer thinks that a copyist had written in the margin πρώτῳ, first, in opposition to ἑτέρῳ, the other (Sabbath), Luk 6:6; that the next copyist, wishing, in consideration of the Sabbath indicated Luk 4:31, to correct this gloss, wrote δευτέρῳ, second, in place of πρώτῳ, first; and that, lastly, from these two glosses together came the word second-first, which has made its way into the text. What a tissue of improbabilities! Holtzmann thinks that Luke had written πρώτῳ, the first, dating from the journey recorded in Luk 4:44, and that in consideration of Luk 4:31 some over-careful corrector added the second; whence our reading. But is not the interval which separates our narrative from Luk 4:44 too great for Luke to have employed the word first in reference to this journey? And what object could he have had in expressing so particularly this quality of first? Lastly, how did the gloss of this copyist find its way into such a large number of documents? Weizsäcker (Unters. p. 59) opposes the two first Sabbaths mentioned in Luk 4:16; Luk 4:33 to the two mentioned here (Luk 6:1; Luk 6:6), and thinks that the name second-first means here the first of the second group. How can any one attribute such absurd trifling to a serious writer! This strange term cannot have been invented by Luke; neither could it have been introduced accidentally by the copyists. Taken evidently from the Jewish vocabulary, it holds its place in Luke, as a witness attesting the originality and antiquity of his sources of information. Further, this precise designation of the Sabbath when the incident took place points to a narrator who witnessed the scene.

From Mark’s expression παραπορεύεσθαι, to pass by the side of, it would seem to follow that Jesus was passing along the side of, and not, as Luke says, across the field (διαπορεύεσθαι). But as Mark adds: through the corn, it is clear that he describes two adjacent fields, separated by a path.

The act of the disciples was expressly authorized by the law (Deu 23:25). But it was done on the Sabbath day; there was the grievance. To gather and rub out the ears was to harvest, to grind, to labour! It was an infraction of the thirty-nine articles which the Pharisees had framed into a Sabbatic code. Ψώχοντες, rubbing out, is designedly put at the end of the phrase: this is the labour!

Meyer, pressing the letter of Mark’s text, ὅδον ποιεῖν, to make a way, maintains that the disciples were not thinking of eating, but simply wanted to make themselves a passage across the field by plucking the ears of corn. According to him, the middle ποιεῖσθαι, not the active ποιεῖν, would have been necessary for the ordinary sense. He translates, therefore: they cleared a way by plucking (τίλλοντες) the ears of corn (Mark omits ψώχοντες, rubbing them out). He concludes from this that Mark alone has preserved the exact form of the incident, which has been altered in the other two through the influence of the next example, which refers to food. Holtzmann takes advantage of this idea to support the hypothesis of a proto-Mark. But, 1. What traveller would ever think of clearing a passage through a field of wheat by plucking ear after ear? 2. If we were to lay stress on the active ποιεῖν, as Meyer does, it would signify that the disciples made a road for the public, and not for themselves alone; for in this case also the middle would be necessary! The ordinary sense is therefore the only one possible even in Mark, and the critical conclusions in favour of the proto-Mark are without foundation.

The Hebraistic form of Luke’s phrase (ἐγένετο...καὶ ἔτιλλον) which is not found in the other two proves that he has a particular document. As to who these accusers were, comp. Luk 5:17-21; Luk 5:30-33.

The word αὐτοῖς, which the Alex. omits, has perhaps been added on account of the plural that follows: Why do ye...?

It follows from this incident that Jesus passed a spring, and consequently a Passover also, in Galilee before His passion. A remarkable coincidence also with the narrative of John (Joh 6:4).

The illustration taken from 1 Samuel 21 cited in Luk 6:3-4 is very appropriately chosen. Jesus would certainly have had no difficulty in showing that the act of the disciples, although opposed perhaps to the Pharisaic code, was in perfect agreement with the Mosaic commandment. But the discussion, if placed on this ground, might have degenerated into a mere casuistical question; He therefore transfers it to a sphere in which He feels Himself master of the position. The conduct of David rests upon this principle, that in exceptional cases, when a moral obligation clashes with a ceremonial law, the latter ought to yield. And for this reason. The rite is a means, but the moral duty is an end; now, in case of conflict, the end has priority over the means. The absurdity of Pharisaism is just this, that it subordinates the end to the means. It was the duty of the high priest to preserve the life of David and his companions, having regard to their mission, even at the expense of the ritual commandment; for the rite exists for the theocracy, not the theocracy for the rite. Besides, Jesus means to clinch the nail, to show His adversaries—and this is the sting of His reply—that when it is a question of their own particular advantage (saving a head of cattle for instance), they are ready enough to act in a similar way, sacrificing the rite to what they deem a higher interest (Luk 13:11 et seq.).

De Wette understands οὐδέ in the sense of not even: “Do you not even know the history of your great king?” This sense would come very near to the somewhat ironical turn of Mark: “Have you never read...—never once, in the course of your profound biblical studies?” But it appears more simple to explain it as Bleek does: “Have you not also read...? Does not this fact appear in your Bible as well as the ordinance of the Sabbath?” The detail: and to those who were with him, is not distinctly expressed in the O. T.; but whatever Bleek may say, it is implied; David would not have asked for five loaves for himself alone. Jesus mentions it because He wishes to institute a parallel between His apostles and David’s followers.

The pron. οὕς does not refer to τοῖς μετ᾿ αὐτοῦ, as in Matthew (the present ἔξεστι does not permit of it), but to ἄρτους, as the object of φαγεῖν… εἰ μή is therefore taken here in its regular sense. It is not so in Matthew, where εἰ μή is used as in Luk 4:26-27. Mark gives the name of the high priest as Abiathar, while according to 1 Sam. it was Ahimelech, his son (comp. 2Sa 8:17; 1Ch 18:16), or his father (according to Josephus, Antiq. 6.12. 6). The question is obscure.

In Matthew, Jesus gives a second instance of transgression of the Sabbath, the labour of the priests in the temple on the Sabbath day, in connection with the burnt-offerings and other religious services. If the work of God in the temple liberates man from the law of the Sabbath rest, how much more must the service of Him who is Lord even of the temple raise him to the same liberty!

The Cod. D. and one Mn. here add the following narrative: “The same day, Jesus, seeing a man who was working on the Sabbath, saith to him: O man, if thou knowest what thou art doing, blessed art thou; but if thou knowest not, thou art cursed, and a transgressor of the law.” This narrative is an interpolation similar to that of the story in John of the woman taken in adultery, but with this difference, that the latter is probably the record of a real fact, while the former can only be an invention or a perversion. Nobody could have laboured publicly in Israel on the Sabbath day without being instantly punished; and Jesus, who never permitted Himself the slightest infraction of a true commandment of Moses (whatever interpreters may say about it), certainly would not have authorized this premature emancipation in any one else.

After having treated the question from a legal point of view, Jesus rises to the principle. Even had the apostles broken the Sabbath rest, they would not have sinned; for the Son of man has the disposal of the Sabbath, and they are in His service. We find again here the well-known expression, καὶ ἔλεγεν, and He said to them, the force of which is (see at Luk 6:36): “Besides, I have something more important to tell you.” The Sabbath, as an educational institution, is only to remain until the moral development of mankind, for the sake of which it was instituted, is accomplished. When this end is attained, the means naturally fall into disuse. Now, this moment is reached in the appearance of the Son of man. The normal representative of the race, He is Himself the realization of this end; He is therefore raised above the Sabbath as a means of education; He may consequently modify the form of it, and even, if He think fit, abolish it altogether.—Καί: even of the Sabbath, this peculiar property of Jehovah; with how much greater reason, of all the rest of the law!

How can any one maintain, in the face of such a saying as this, that Jesus only assumed the part of the Messiah after the conversation at Caesarea-Philippi (Luk 9:18), and when moved to do so by Peter?

Mark inserts before this declaration one of those short and weighty sayings (he has preserved several of them), which he cannot have invented or added of his own authority, and which the other two Syn. would never have left out, had they made use of his book or of the document of which he availed himself (the proto-Mark): “The Sabbath is made for man, and not man for the Sabbath.” God did not create man for the greater glory of the Sabbath, but He ordained the Sabbath for the greater welfare of man. Consequently, whenever the welfare of man and the rest of the Sabbath happen to clash, the Sabbath must yield. So that (ὥστε, Mar 2:28) the Son of man, inasmuch as He is head of the race, has a right to dispose of this institution. This thought, distinctly expressed in Mark, is just what we have had to supply in order to explain the argument in Luke.

Are we authorized to infer from this saying the immediate abolition of every Sabbatic institution in the Christian Church? By no means. Just as, in His declaration, Luk 6:34-35, Jesus announced not the abolition of fasting, but the substitution of a more spiritual for the legal fast, so this saying respecting the Sabbath foreshadows important modifications of the form of this institution, but not its entire abolition. It will cease to be a slavish observance, as in Judaism, and will become the satisfaction of an inward need. Its complete abolition will come to pass only when redeemed mankind shall all have reached the perfect stature of the Son of man. The principle: The Sabbath is made for man, will retain a certain measure of its force as long as this earthly economy shall endure, for which the Sabbath was first established, and to the nature of which it is so thoroughly fitted.

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 showeth against the superstitious, who stick in every trifle, that the Law of the very Sabbath, was not given to be kept without exception: much less that the salvation of man should consist in the outward keeping of it.

Epiphanius noteth well in his treatise, where he confuteth Ebion, that the time, when the disciples plucked the ears of the corn, was in the feast of unleavened bread: Now, whereas in these feasts which were kept many days together, as the feast of Tabernacles, and the Passover, their first day and their last were of like solemnity, Lev. 23. Luke fitly calleth the last day the second Sabbath, though Theophylact understandeth it of any other of them, that followed the first.

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

CHAPTER VI.

The disciples pluck and eat the ears of corn on the Sabbath

day, and the Pharisees find fault, 1, 2.

Our Lord shows the true use of the Sabbath, 3-5.

He heals the man with the withered hand, 6-11.

He goes into a mountain to pray, and calls twelve disciples,

12-16.

Multitudes are instructed and healed, 17-19.

Pronounces four blessings, 20-23,

and four woes, 24-26.

Gives various instructions about loving our enemies, being

patient, gentle, kind, grateful, and merciful, 27-36.

Harsh judgments censured, and charity recommended, 37, 38.

The parable of the blind leading the blind, 39.

Of the mote in a brother's eye, 40-42.

Of the good and corrupt tree, 43, 44.

The good and evil treasure of the heart, 45.

The parable of the two houses, one builded on the rock, and the

other on the sand, 46-49.

NOTES ON CHAP. VI.

Verse 1. On the second Sabbath after the first] εν σαββατω δευτεροπρωτω, In the first Sabbath after the second. What does this mean? In answering this question, commentators are greatly divided. Dr. Whitby speaks thus: "After the first day of the passover, (which was a Sabbath, Ex 12:16,) ye shall count unto you seven Sabbaths complete, Le 23:15, reckoning that day for the first of the first week, which was therefore called δευτεροπρωτον, the first Sabbath from the second day of unleavened bread; (the 16th of the month;) the second was called δευτεροδευτερον, the second Sabbath from that day; and the third, δευτεροτριτον, the third Sabbath from the second day; and so on, till they came to the seventh Sabbath from that day, i.e. to the 49th day, which was the day of pentecost. The mention of the seven Sabbaths, to be numbered with relation to this second day, answers all that Grotius objects against this exposition." WHITBY'S Notes.

By this Sabbath seems meant that which immediately followed the two great feasts, the first and last day of the passover, and was therefore the second after the proper passover day. The words in the Greek seem to signify, the second first Sabbath; and, in the opinion of some, the Jews had three first Sabbaths: viz. the first Sabbath after the passover; that after the feast of pentecost; and that after the feast of tabernacles. According to which opinion, this second first Sabbath must have been the first Sabbath after the pentecost. So we have the first Sunday after Epiphany; the first after Easter; the first after Trinity; and the first in Lent. Bp. PEARCE.

This was the next day after the passover, the day in which they were forbidden to labour, Le 23:6, and for this reason was termed Sabbath, Le 23:15; but here it is marked by the name, second first Sabbath, because, being the day after the passover, it was in this respect the second; and it was also the first, because it was the first day of unleavened bread, Ex 12:15-16. MARTIN.

I think, with many commentators, that this transaction happened on the first Sabbath of the month Nisan; that is, after the second day of the feast of unleavened bread. We may well suppose that our Lord and his disciples were on their way from Jerusalem to Galilee, after having kept the passover. Bp. NEWCOME.

The Vulgar Latin renders δευτεροπρωτον, secundoprimum, which is literal and right. We translate it, the second Sabbath after the first, which is directly wrong; for it should have been the first Sabbath after the second day of the passover. On the 14th of Nisan, the passover was killed; the next day (the 15th) was the first day of the feast of unleavened bread; the day following (the 16th) the wave sheaf was offered, pursuant to the law, on the morrow after the Sabbath: Le 18:11. The Sabbath, here, is not the seventh day of the week, but the first day of the feast of unleavened bread, let it fall on what day of the week it would. That and the seventh day of that feast were holy convocations, and therefore are here called Sabbaths. The morrow, therefore, after the Sabbath, i.e. after the 16th day of Nisan, was the day in which the wave sheaf was offered; and after that seven Sabbaths were counted, and fifty days completed, and the fiftieth day inclusively was the day of pentecost. Now these Sabbaths, between the passover and pentecost, were called the first, second, c., Sabbaths after the second day of the feast of unleavened bread. This Sabbath, then, on which the disciples plucked the ears of corn, was the first Sabbath after that second day. Dr. Lightfoot, has demonstrably proved this to be the meaning of this σαββατον δευτεροπρωτον, (Hor. Hebraic. in locum,) and from him F. Lamy and Dr. Whitby have so explained it. This Sabbath could not fall before the passover, because, till the second day of that feast, no Jew might eat either bread or parched corn, or green ears, (Le 23:14.) Had the disciples then gathered these ears of corn on any Sabbath before the passover, they would have broken two laws instead of one: and for the breach of these two laws they would infallibly have been accused whereas now they broke only one, (plucking the ears of standing corn with one's hand, being expressly allowed in the law, De 23:25), which was that of the Sabbath. They took a liberty which the law gave them upon any other day; and our Lord vindicated them in what they did now, in the manner we see. Nor can this fact be laid after pentecost; because then the harvest was fully in. Within that interval, therefore, this Sabbath happened; and this is a plain determination of the time, according to the Jewish ways of reckoning, founded upon the text of Moses's law itself. Dr. WOTTON'S Miscellaneous Discourses, &c., vol. i. p. 269.

The word δευτεροπρωτω, the second first, is omitted by BL, four others, Syriac, later Arabic, all the Persic, Coptic, AEthiopic, and three of the Itala. A note in the margin of the later Syriac says, This is not in all copies. The above MSS. read the verse thus: It came to pass, that he walked through the corn fields on a Sabbath day. I suppose they omitted the above word, because they found it difficult to fix the meaning, which has been too much the case in other instances.

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

VI.

(1) On the second sabbath after the first.—Literally, the second-first Sabbath. There is nothing like the phrase in any other author, and its meaning is therefore to a great extent conjectural. Its employment by St. Luke may be noted as indicating his wish to be accurate as an historian. He sought to gather, as far as he could, definite dates; and hearing, in the course of his inquiries, of this, as fixing the time of what followed, inserted it in his record.

It may be noted that the facts of the case fix limits on either side. The corn was ripe enough to be rubbed in the hands, and yield its grain. It had not yet been gathered. It could not therefore be much earlier than the Passover, when the barley harvest began, and not much later than the Pentecost, when the wheat was ripe. If it preceded, as it appears to have done (see Luk_9:12), the feeding of the Five Thousand, it must have been before the Passover (Joh_6:4). The conjectures, such as they are, are as follows:—

(1.) The first Sabbath of the second month of the year, taking Nisan (in which the Passover occurred) as the first month.

(2.) The first Sabbath after the second day of the Passover, that day being itself kept as a supplementary feast.

(3.) The first Sabbath in the second year of the sabbatic cycle of seven years.

(4.) As the Jewish year had two beginnings, one (the civil) reckoning from the month Tisri (including part of September and October); the other (the ecclesiastical) from Nisan, it has been supposed that the first Sabbath in Tisri was called first-first, the first in Nisan second-first.

(5.) The Sabbath in the Pentecostal week, the second chief or first Sabbath, as that in the Passover week was the first.

(6.) The day after the new moon, when, through some accident, its appearance had not been reported to the Sanhedrin in time for the sacrifice connected with it. In such a case the second day was kept as the monthly feast, i.e., received the honours of the first, and so might come to be known technically as the second-first. If it coincided, as often it must have done, with the actual Sabbath, such a day might naturally be called a second-first Sabbath.

In the total dearth of information it is impossible to speak decisively in favour of any one of these views. The last has the merit of at least suggesting the way in which St. Luke may have become acquainted with so peculiar a term. We know from Jewish writers in the Mishna that the new-moon feast was determined by the personal observation of watchmen appointed by the Sanhedrin, and not by astronomical calculation, and it was when they failed to observe or report it in time that the rule stated above came into play. We know from Col_2:16, that the observance of that feast had risen into a new prominence in the ritual of a sect which there is every reason to identify with that of the Essenes. (See Note on Col_2:16.) Among those whom St. Luke seems to have known at Antioch we find the name of Manaen, or Menahem, the foster-brother of Herod the Tetrarch (Act_13:1), presumably, as many commentators have suggested, the son or grandson of Menahem, an Essene prophet, who had predicted the future sovereignty of Herod the Great. (See Introduction.) In this way, accordingly, if such a technical nomenclature were in use, as it was likely to be among the Essenes, St. Luke was likely to hear it. We may add further, that Manaen, from his position, was likely to have been brought into contact with the Baptist; that he could scarcely fail to have been impressed with a life which was so entirely moulded, outwardly at least, on the Essene type; and must have passed through the teaching of John to that of Christ. We find this incident following in immediate sequence upon one in which the disciples of John were prominent (Luk_5:33). May we not think therefore, with some reason, of Manaen having been among them, and of his having supplied St. Luke with the technical term that fixed the very day of the journey through the corn-fields? Combining this view with the fact that if this were a new-moon Sabbath it must have been the beginning of the moon of Nisan, possibly coinciding with an actual Sabbath, we have the interesting fact that the lesson for the first Sabbath in that month, in the modern Jewish calendar, is from 1 Samuel 21, and so contained the history of the shewbread to which our Lord refers. This coincidence, corresponding with what we find in the synagogue discourses of Luk_4:17, and of Act_13:15 (where see Note), is another confirmation of the view now maintained.

It remains to add that one group of MSS. of high authority omit the perplexing word, and that some critics hold it to have grown out of an original “on the first Sabbath,” as contrasted with the “other Sabbath” of Luk_6:6; and suppose that an ignorant scribe corrected this in the margin to “second,” and that one still more ignorant combined the two readings. These arbitrary conjectures are, however, eminently unscholarly; and the very difficulty presented by the word must, on all usual laws of textual criticism, be admitted as an argument for its genuineness.

He went through the corn-fields.—See for the narrative that follows Notes on Mat_12:1-8, Mar_2:23-28.

Plucked the ears of corn, and did eat.—Better, were plucking, and were eating.

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

1 And it came to pass on the second sabbath after the first, that he went through the corn fields; and his disciples plucked the ears of corn, and did eat, rubbing them in their hands.

Ver. 1. On the second sabbath after the first] Jerome saith that he asked Nazianzen what this second sabbath after the first was. Nazianzen answered, I’ll tell you that when I come next into the pulpit, for there you cannot contradict me. Ita per iocum dixit (saith Melancthon) quod hodie serio multi imitantur. {See Trapp on "Mat 12:1"}

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.

As this chapter is almost verbally like to the 5th, 7th, and 12th of St. Matthew, and the 3d of St. Mark, the reader is referred to these for further explanation. --- on the second-first sabbath. An obscure passage, on which St. Jerome says to Nepotianus,[1] that he consulted his master, St. Gregory of Nazianzus, but in vain. St. John Chrysostom, Hom. xl. in Matt., takes it for a double feast, or a double rest: by which we may either understand a sabbath, and another feast concurring on the same day; or a sabbath and a feast immediately succeeding to each other. Theophylactus says the same; and that then the latter day, on which they were to rest, was called the second-first. Others say that when the Jews kept their solemn paschal feast for seven days, the last day was called the second-first, because it was kept with equal solemnity as the first day had been. See Maldonatus. Later interpreters have found out other expositions, of which the most plausible seems to be, that by the second-first sabbath may be understood the feast of Pentecost (which also happened when corn was ripe in Palestine). To understand this we must take notice, that the Jews had three great and solemn feasts: 1. That of the Pasch, or the great paschal feast, with the seven days of unleavened bread; the 2d. was the great feast of Pentecost; and the 3d. was the feast, called of tabernacles. It is supposed then that the paschal feast was called the first-first sabbath, that Pentecost was called the second-first sabbath, and that of tabernacles the third-first, or great sabbath. (Witham)

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[BIBLIOGRAPHY]

In Sabbato secundo-primo Greek: en sabbato deuteroproto. See St. John Chrysostom, Hom. xl. in Matt. in the Latin edition, in the Greek of Savil Greek: om lth p. 262, tom. ii. Greek: otan e argia e, kai tou sabbatou tou kuriou, kai eteras eortes diadechomenes. See St. Hieron.[St. Jerome,] ad Nepotianum. tom. iv, part 2, p. 262. Ed. Ben.

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George Leo Haydock (1774–1849), Haydock's Catholic Family Bible and Commentary, 1859 edition — public domain. Excludes Psalms (Douay-Rheims chapter numbering differs from Protestant) and Deuterocanonical books (Catholic canon only).

See Poole on "Mat 12:1", and following verses to Mat 12:8, and See Poole on "Mar 2:23", and following verses to Mar 2:28. There are several guesses what day is here meant, by

the second sabbath after the first. The Jews had several sabbaths; besides the seventh day sabbath, which was weekly, all their festival days were called sabbaths. On the fourteenth day of the first month, at evening, began the passover; on the fifteenth day began their feast of unleavened bread, which held seven days, every one of which was called a sabbath; but the first day and the seventh day were to be days of holy convocation, in which no work was to be done that was servile, Lev 23:7. Then they had their feast of first fruits. Fifty days after that they had their feast of pentecost. Some understand by the second sabbath after the first, the seventh day of the feast of unleavened bread. Others, their second great festival. It is very hard to resolve, and not material for us to know. For the history itself: See Poole on "Mat 12:1", and following verses to Mat 12:8.

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

Choice of the Twelve. Sermon in the Plain

1-5. Plucking the ears of corn (Mat_12:1; Mar_2:23). See on Mt and Mk.

1. On the second sabbath after the first] Gk. deuteroprôton, lit. 'second-first.' There is considerable ground for omitting this obscure expression as interpolated, and reading simply, 'on a sabbath,' with the RV. If, however, it is genuine, it probably means, 'on the second sabbath after the waving of the sheaf on the second day of the Passover festival' (see Lev_23:1-15). It was the custom to number the sabbaths from Passover to Pentecost from this day. Of the numerous other interpretations the best are, 'the second chief sabbath of the year' (i.e. Pentecost), and 'the first sabbath of the second month of the year.' The 'Jewish Encycl' conjectures that the disciples were blamed for plucking the ears before the sheaf was waved, which was forbidden (Lev_23:15).

5. In one important MS, the Codex Bezæ, this v. is placed after Luk_6:10, and in its place is inserted this remarkable incident and saying of Jesus: 'On the same day He saw a man working on the sabbath, and said to him: “O man, if thou knowest what thou doest, blessed art thou. But if thou knowest not, cursed art thou, and a transgressor of the law.” 'The utterance is perhaps authentic. 'In substance it certainly bears the mark of genius. I regard it as an interpolated fragment of a true tradition' (Meyer). 'We may believe that this traditional story is true' (Plummer). 'Its form and contents speak for its originality, and, I am disposed to believe, its authenticity' (Alford). On the contrary, Godet says, 'This can only be an invention or a perversion.'

6-11. The man with the withered hand (Mat_12:9; Mar_3:1). See on Mt.

12-19. Choice of the Twelve (Mat_10:2; Mar_3:13). See on Mt and Mk.

16. Judas the brother of James] So AV and RM. But RV 'Judas the son of James.'

17. In the plain] RV 'on a level place.' This may have been a plateau, high up the mountains, but see on Mat_5:1.

20-49. Great sermon to the disciples and in part to the multitudes. It forms here the ordination address of the Twelve. In what sense it is identical with the Sermon on the Mount is explained on Mat_5:1. That it is for all practical purposes the same sermon, but abridged, is shown by the fact that it contains only five verses (Luk_6:24-26, Luk_6:39-40) which are not in St. Matthew's version, and that it follows St. Matthew's order.

Analysis: (1) Four beatitudes, on the poor, the hungry, weepers, and the hated (Luk_6:20-23).

(2) Four woes, on the rich, the full, laughers, and the well spoken of (Luk_6:24-26).

(3) Exhortation to love, as shown in returning good for evil, not resisting evil, loving enemies, not judging rashly (Luk_6:27-38).

(4) Exhortation to stringent self-examination on the part of those who presume to guide others, lest they be found to be hypocrites (Luk_6:39-45).

(5) Exhortation to obedience. The strong foundation upon which obedient Christians build (Luk_6:46-49).

St. Luke's sermon is much less striking than St. Matthew's. It omits the whole question of the relation of the Gospel to the Law, and all those passages in which Christ claims to be the supreme Legislator, Judge, and Ruler of the human race; it has only four beatitudes instead of eight, and in general gives the impression of an abridged and imperfect report, in which some of the sayings, owing to extensive omissions, do not appear in their true context. Some, but not all, of St. Luke's omissions can be accounted for by the fact that his Gospel was intended for Gentiles.

Some critics profess to find in St. Luke's sermon an Ebionitic, or as we should now say, a socialistic or communistic tendency. Probably wrongly, for by 'the poor' and 'the hungry,' St. Luke does not mean the literally such, any more than St. Matthew, who expressly speaks of 'the poor in spirit,' and of those who 'hunger and thirst after righteousness.' So also St. Luke's rich, well-fed, and prosperous persons, are not simply the well-to-do, but those who have the vices of their station. Our Lord never approves poverty or condemns riches simply as such. See on Mt.

20-23. Four Beatitudes. See on Mat_5:3-12.

22. Separate you] viz. by excommunication. The usual sentence was for thirty days, during which the excommunicated might not come within four cubits of any one.

24-26. Four woes (peculiar to Lk). The 'woes' refer chiefly to future punishment in the world to come, but not exclusively, for in the siege of Jerusalem they received a literal fulfilment.

24. You that are rich] i.e. those who, possessing wealth, trust in it (Mar_10:24), or spend it in selfish luxury like Dives (Luk_16:19), and despise the poor (Jam_2:6), and oppress them (Jam_5:4). Ye have received your consolation] cp. Abraham's words to Dives (Luk_16:25), 'Son, remember that thou in thy lifetime receivedst (in full) thy good things.'

25. You that are full] and careless of your poorer brethren's needs, like the rich man 'who fared sumptuously every day' (Luk_16:19). Shall hunger] Spiritual destitution is meant, in this world and the next. That laugh] The godless, contemptuous laughter of the wicked (Sir_19:30) is meant. Innocent mirth is approved by Christ (Luk_15:24). Mourn and weep] viz. in the world to come.

26. A warning to all Christian ministers and teachers not to court popularity by speaking smooth words, and saying 'Peace, when there is no peace.' Plutarch relates of Phocion the Athenian, 'Once while he was delivering a public speech and making a good impression, and saw that all his hearers were equally pleased with what he said, he turned to his friends and said, “Surely I must have forgotten myself, and said something wrong.” 'Similarly Diogenes Laertius relates of a certain philosopher, that when some one announced to him that all men were praising him, he replied,' Why, what evil have I done?'

The false prophets] cp. Jer_5:31; Jer_6:14; Jer_8:11; Eze_13:10.

27-38. Exhortations to love, forgiveness of injuries, and avoiding of rash judgments.

27-30. See on Mat_5:30-42.

31. See on Mat_7:12.

32-36. See on Mat_5:42-48.

37, 38. See on Mat_7:1, Mat_7:2.

39. St. Matthew gives this saying in a much more suitable connexion (Mat_15:14), where it is applied to the Pharisees. Here it appears to mean that before judging others we must judge ourselves, otherwise we shall be blind leaders of the blind. The ditch] RY 'a pit.' Palestine is full of unfenced wells, quarries, etc.

40. Another saying which occurs in a more natural context in Mat_10:24, q.v.

41-45. Exhortation to stringent self-examination on the part of religious guides.

41, 42. See on Mat_7:3-5.

43-45. See on Mat_7:16-20, and Mat_12:33, Mat_12:35.

46-49. Obedient hearing. See on Mat_7:21-27.

J. R. Dummelow, A Commentary on the Holy Bible (Macmillan, 1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Vers. 1-11. The Lord"s teaching on the question of the observance of the sabbath.

And it came to pass on the second sabbath after the first. The expression accompanying this note of time of St. Luke, "the second sabbath after the first," more literally, "the second-first sabbath," has always been a difficulty with expositors of this Gospel. The word is absolutely unique, and is found in no other Greek author. Recent investigations in the text of the New Testament have proved that this word is not found in the majority of the more ancient authorities. Of the modern critical editors, Alford and Lachmann enclose the disputed word in brackets; Tregelles and Meyer omit it altogether; but the Revisers of the English Version relegate it to the margin in its literal form, "second-first;" Tischendorf alone admits it in his text. The question is of interest to the antiquarian, but scarcely of any to the theologian. It was, perhaps, introduced at an early date into many of the manuscripts of St. Luke, owing to some copyist writing n the margin of his parchment in this place "first" to distinguish this sabbath and its scene from the other sabbath alluded to four verses further on; "second" was not unlikely to have been written in correction of "first" by some other copyist using the manuscript, thinking it better thus to distinguish this from the sabbath alluded to in Luk_4:31; and thus the two corrections may have got confused in many of the primitive copies. It can scarcely be imagined, if it really formed part of the original work of St. Luke, that so remarkable a word could ever have dropped out of the text of the most ancient and trustworthy authorities. Supposing it to have been a part of the original writing, scholars have suggested many explanations. Of these the simplest and most satisfactory are:

(1) The first sabbath of each of the seven years which made a sabbatic cycle was called first, second, third, etc., sabbath. Thus the "second-first" sabbath would signify the first sabbath of the second year of the seven-years" cycle. This is Wieseler"s theory.

(2) The civil year of the Jews began in autumn about mid-September to mid-October (month Tisri), and the ecclesiastical year in spring, about mid-March to mid-April (month Nisan). Thus there were every year two first sabbaths one at the commencement of the civil year, which would be called first-first;" the other at the beginning of the ecclesiastical year, which would be called second-first. "The period here alluded to by St. Luke would perfectly agree with either of these explanations. The latter theory was suggested by Louis Cappel, and is quoted with approval by Godet. And his disciples plucked the ears of corn, and did eat, rubbing them in their hands. St. Matthew adds here that they "were an hungred." This they might well have been in following the Master in his teaching in different places, even though some of their homes were nigh at hand. We have no need to introduce the question of their poverty which, in the case of several of them at least, we know did not exist here leading them to this method of satisfying their hunger. They had probably been out for some hours with Jesus without breaking their fast, and, finding themselves in a field of ripe corn, took this easy, present means of gratifying a natural want. The Law expressly permitted them to do this: "When thou comest into the standing corn of thy neighbour, then thou mayest pluck the ears with thine hand". (Deu_23:25)

Vers. 1-11. Christ and the sabbath day.

No feature of Christ"s ministry is more striking than his attitude towards the sabbath of Israel. His first conflict with the Jewish authorities was associated with the sabbath. St. John tells us the story of this conflict in the fifth chapter of his Gospel. A man, paralyzed for thirty-eight years, had heard the voice, "Rise, take up thy bed, and walk;" and, made instantly whole, he had gathered up the pallet which for so long had been stretched by the Pool of Bethesda, and had walked. "It is the sabbath day!" cried the narrow pedants who sat in Moses" chair; "it is not lawful for thee to carry thy bed." From that hour one of the things which spies and emissaries were instructed specially to watch was the conduct of Jesus on the sabbath. Behold the opportunity of accusation that is supplied in the incidents here related two incidents, if not on the same sabbath, at least on sabbaths separated by a very short interval from each other. In these incidents the plucking and rubbing of the ears of corn, and the healing of the man with the withered hand there are presented lessons of permanent value. Two points in particular may be noticed.

I The question IS THE SABBATH OF THE FOURTH COMMANDMENT CONTINUED IN THE NEW TESTAMENT OF OUR LORD AND SAVIOUR? In the light of Christ"s teaching we can distinguish between what was dispensational and temporary and what is abiding because rooted in the fitness of things. The Christian sabbath is not merely the Jewish sabbath continued. It is a new day, reminding us of a new state of things, conjoining with the remembrance of the creation in the beginning the witness for the new creation, the new making of things in heaven and earth, through the resurrection of the Lord, calling us to acts of worship and praise and to offerings of love as the Israelitish sabbath did not. Ours is not the seventh, but the first day, and this first day is the Lord"s day. To surround it with vexing and irksome restrictions is to take us back from the substance into the dim land of shadows. But, this said, the balancing and completing truth must not be omitted. It is urged by some that the fourth commandment is no longer our authority. But why is that commandment one of the ten great words? Is it not because it is the expression of something essentially and therefore permanently right? because behind it there is the original commandment of the Creator that which is written in our human nature? The sabbath this is the testimony of Jesus was no mere dispensational ordinance, no mere local or tribal arrangement. Grand and solemn is the word, "The sabbath was made for man." It is not by doing away with it, but by bringing into view its right proportions and its highest benefits, that he proves himself the Lord of the sabbath. What is the truth of the supremacy thus claimed? Some persons take the sentence of the fifth verse, "The Son of man is Lord also of the sabbath," as implying that any one born of woman has authority to subordinate to the sense of his own need the sabbath which was made for man. Even supposing that this use of the word "Son of man" were allowable, is the conclusion drawn permissible? Would the idea for an instant be tolerated that, because laws are imposed by the ruler for the benefit of his subjects, each subject might change them or dispense with them at his own convenience? But there can be no doubt that the "Son of man" spoken of is Christ himself, the second Adam, the representative Man. He realizing, on the one hand, the true purpose of the sabbath, and discriminating, on the other, between such a use as shall keep the institution subordinate to the end, the good of man, and such an abuse as practically inverts this order, making man a mere creature of the institution gives the true note of the blessed sabbath-keeping.

II WHAT IS THIS BLESSED SABBATH-KEEPING? Observe:

1. There is no disturbance of the primary conception rest. That is implied in the very word "sabbath." Rest, undoubtedly, is the need to which the ordinance immediately refers. "Six days shalt thou labour" is part of the Divine injunction. "But on the seventh day thou shalt not do any work." What a blessing is the weekly cessation from weary toil! The experiment of a tenth-day rest has been tried, and has failed. The septennial period seems to be the proportion adapted to the human system. In our complex social life individuals must suffer for the general good; some must work that the greater number may rest. But can we too jealously guard the rights of the poorest, ay, of beast as well as man? Can we too earnestly demand that there shall be no causeless multiplication of labour on the day of the Lord? Yes; God"s sabbath is for repose of body, brain, mind, spirit. What promotes a healthy rest is in harmony with it; what hinders is alien to it. A day of pleasure-seeking and excitement is not a help. Take two men-one spending his Sunday in search of mere enjoyment; the other spending it quietly in the midst of his family, at church, taking the quiet walk, doing some little service for Christ: which of the two is the more rested, soothed, fitted for the labour of the Monday morning? Rest but not torpor, repose but not inaction, is a want for which the sabbath was made.

2. But with this comes into view what is distinctive in Christ"s theory of sabbath-keeping. Negatively, in the reply about the rubbing of the ears of corn. He reminds us that no dull uniformity must overbear pressing human necessities. These are not to be met by a categorical "It is not lawful." The consideration of human well-being must allow for a certain flexibility in all enactments. But, positively, remark what is shown in the case of the man with a withered hand. This that a beneficent activity is the highest fulfilment of the sabbath. Therefore the activity of worship and instruction; therefore also the activity of kindness-doing, of seeking the good of our fellows, of having a part with God the Healer. The ideal of the rest-day is a day in which a due proportion of these two forms of well-doing is maintained the assembly for the service of God in prayer and praise and mutual edification, and room for doing good in the home and in the world. Do we realize, or even attempt to realize, this ideal as we should? How listless, how wanting in brightness and usefulness, is the observance of Sunday by even religiously minded persons! Ah! the most lawful of lawful things is to do well on the sabbath day, and the holier and more refreshing will the day be the more that in it the opportunity is realized of doing good and saving life, and thus proving ourselves his brethren who, being the Son of man, is Lord also of the sabbath.

HOMILIES BY R.M. EDGAR Vers. 1-19. The Lord of the sabbath, and his work.

We have just seen how Jesus treated with deserved dishonour the tradition of the elders about fasting. He showed his disciples a more excellent way. Fasting is not an end, but only a means to an end, and this is the restoration of the soul to fellowship with its Saviour. In this way should Christians use fasting. And now we pass on to notice how on sabbath-keeping tradition again intruded itself and made cumbrous additions to the Mosaic commandment. Our Lord once more, as we shall see, set at nought the tradition, while he held firmly by the Mosaic Law. The evangelist groups two sabbath-scenes for us in the history here the first in the corn-fields, the second in the synagogue, but both illustrating our Lord"s sabbatic principle and practice. As the most interesting method of considering the subject, let us notice

I THE PHARISAIC PRINCIPLE ABOUT SABBATH-KEEPING WAS THAT MAN WAS MADE FOR THE DAY, NOT THE DAY FOR THE MAN. (Vers. 2, 7) These reputedly religious men had a certain idea about the day. They must have a holy day, and so it must be so sacred that all work shall be deemed unlawful, lest it should be secularized. What they objected to in the first case was not the plucking of the ears of corn, but the rubbing of them in the hands. This was a violation of their tradition. In the second case they objected to work on the sabbath day, even though it took the form of healing. Their ideal was, therefore, a day of such physical inactivity as would refuse to minister to man"s hunger or to man"s healing. The fallacy underlying this idea was that work is in its essence a secular thing, and that idleness is somehow sacred. To declare this emphatically, they were ready to rebuke hungry men for satisfying themselves in the corn-fields, and to deny healing to the man with the withered arm because he presented himself for it on the sabbath day. The day above the man, then, was the Pharisees" notion. Hunger and helplessness must be endured in order that a day of pretentious idleness may be presented to mankind. Healthy desire must he stifled, longing for power and self-help must be denied, that a sufficiently idle sabbath may be secured. The apotheosis of idleness, the vindication of indifference, man this and more is involved in the Pharisaic criticism of Christ and of his disciples. Now, it is important to bring out clearly how contrary to God"s idea all this is. Work is not secularizing in itself. The infinite Father never ceases working, but his work is sacred all through the year. Of course, men may secularize themselves by the selfishness of their work, but they may secularize themselves as really by the selfishness of their idleness. An idle day is not likely to be a holy one; a busy day may be most holy if the glory of God and the good of souls be kept steadily in view.

II CHRIST"S BETTER PRINCIPLE OF SABBATH-KEEPING IS THAT THE DAY IS MADE FOR MAN. (Vers. 3-5, 9) Hence necessity must be recognized as a law for the sabbath. Even the ceremonial rite should give way before the needs of human nature, as the case of David"s hungry men being saved from famishing by a meal of shewbread indicates. Hence the hungry disciples, in rubbing the corn in their hands, were vindicated by that sublime necessity which recognizes no higher law. Again, in the case of the helpless fellow-man whose right hand was withered, our Lord is clear that the sabbath should be a day for saving life, and not for allowing it to perish. In other words, Christ would devote the day to man"s salvation, while the Pharisees were prepared to sacrifice the man to the peculiar sacredness which they thought "belonged to an idle day. But if the day is thus a means towards man"s good, is he to employ it as he pleases? Is every man to be lord of the sabbath by doing as he likes upon it? This would be a dangerous prerogative to give to men. Not every one is fit to exercise it. The Pharisees, in fact, had taken the sabbath under their control and spoiled it altogether. Hence the sovereignty of the sabbath must be left in the hands of him who is called the Son of man. Christ is the Lord who can so order the sabbath that it shall be truly sanctified. It is, consequently, from Christ"s sabbath-keeping that we learn what it ought to be. And we see from his life that he made the sabbaths his special opportunities for philanthropic effort. Most of his miracles were sabbath-day performances. He seems to have been busier on the sabbath than on any day of the week. We are safe in following along the lines of his most intelligent philanthropy. The sabbath is made for man. It Christ would have the hungry fed and the helpless healed, he would also have the souls fed with the bread of life and all spiritual helplessness removed. This is the purpose, therefore, of those means of grace which are presented with special earnestness on the Lord"s day!

III CHRIST DEMONSTRATED THE TRUTH OF HIS PRINCIPLE BY THE MIRACLE. (Ver. 10) Now, this miracle, like the healing of the paralytic, was the test of a principle. In the former case Christ claimed the prerogative of absolution, and he demonstrated that he possessed the prerogative by telling the paralytic to rise and walk, and healing him. In the present case he has taken issue with the Pharisees as to the sabbath being a day for philanthropy. Healing is to be performed on it, if it is required. And now he singles out the patient with the withered hand, and by a word cures him. Thus he put their ideas on sabbath-observance to confusion. Instead, however, of rejoicing in the poor man"s cure, they are filled with madness at their own discomfiture. Misanthropy in them is the contrast to the philanthropy of Jesus. But is not the miracle a sign of those miracles which are performed from sabbath to sabbath? Man comes in his weakness, his hand is withered, he can do nothing; but through the power of God he is enabled to stretch forth his hand, and enter into the sphere of spiritual power.

IV THE SELECTION OF THE TWELVE WAS MADE BY CHRIST A MATTER OF VERY SPECIAL PRAYER. (Ver. 12-16) We are told that he spent a whole night in prayer to God. This showed how important in his view the selection of the disciples was, and the establishment of his kingdom among men. He chose them in the morning after the prayerful view of the whole case before the Father. If Jesus realized the need of long-continued prayer before selecting them, how prayerfully should we go about our work for him! It is no easy matter to act wisely in our dealings with men and in our use of them. The persons selected were such as only Divine wisdom, as distinguished from worldly prudence, would have chosen. There was not an "influential" person among them; and it was not till after the Pentecost that any of them became what we should now call reliable. Into the analysis of the persons selected we do not enter. They have been divided into three groups: the first, containing the names of Peter and Andrew, James and John, gives us the chiefs of the apostolic band, the men of insight; the second, containing the names of Philip, Bartholomew, Thomas, and Matthew, are reflective, and, at first, sceptical, men; and the third and last contains the names of James the son of Alphaeus, Jude, Simon the Zealot, and Judas Iscariot, all practical men.Our Lord has thus use in his Church for all grades of men, and can even make use of traitors to serve his purpose.

V THE HEALER IN THE MIDST OF THE MULTITUDE. (Vers. 17-19) From the mountain-top of prayer he descends to the valley of opportunity, and there finds a vast multitude from the heathen parts of Tyre and Sidon, as well as from the Jewish districts of Judaea and Jerusalem, who have come to hear and to be healed of their diseases. Here were the two spheres the sphere of mind, to which the ear is the great entrance; and the sphere of body, where disease may be checked and healing given. The mission of Jesus was to save men. Miracles were part of his message to mankind. The healing of the diseases of men was to tell how he can heal their souls and save them everlastingly. Moreover, they connected the cure with his Person. From him virtue or healing power radiated. His Person is the centre of healing influence. And for salvation this also holds good. It is to the Person of the Saviour we must come if we are to get really healed, It is surely well to have the source of all healing defined it is the Person of our Saviour. To him, therefore, let us all come! R.M.E.

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

The first Sabbath - So the Jews reckoned their Sabbaths, from the passover to pentecost; the first, second, third, and so on, till the seventh Sabbath (after the second day.) This immediately preceded pentecost, which was the fiftieth day after the second day of unleavened bread. Matt. xii, 1; Mark ii, 23.

John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the Whole Bible (1754–1765) — public domain. Text via the GEBible commentary corpus.

Luk 6:10

Note:—

I. That spiritual powerlessness, of which the withered hand is a just and appropriate symbol. (1) The organ was a hand—the organ of touch. (2) Not both this man’s hands were withered, but the better and more serviceable of the two. Faith is the spiritual faculty, corresponding to the bodily faculty of touch. (3) It was the design of Nature that the man should use his hand, but disease had thwarted this design. So, in the Fall, the spirit of man sustained a wreck.

II. What Christ requires us to do in order to the removal of this infirmity. He demands exertion and energy on our parts before He will consent to put forth that healing power which alone can recover us from our soul’s infirmity.

E. M. Goulburn, Sermons in the Parish Church of Holywell, p. 313.

References: Luk 6:10.—Christian World Pulpit, vol. xii., p. 57. Luk 6:11-18.—Homilist, new series, vol. iv., p. 627.

Luk 11:12

Short devotions a hindrance to prayer.

I. Our Lord’s nights of prayer were not simple exercises of His exceeding spiritual strength; they were also the earnest cleaving of man to God. And if the infirmities of a sinless being drew him so mightily to God, how much more ought the sin that is in us to drive us to the Divine Presence for healing and for strength! The contrast of our weakness with His perfection gives us no discharge from His example; rather, it adds a greater force. It brings out a further and deeper reason which makes the law of prayer to us the very condition of life. If we do not pray we perish. It is no answer to say we are weak and cannot continue in prayer as He. That very weakness is in itself the necessity which forces us to pray.

II. Again, it is said, "It is impossible for those who live an active and busy life to find time for long private devotions." From the tone in which some people speak one would think that our blessed Master had lived a leisurely and unimpeded life; that He had nothing else to do but to live alone in retirement and solitude, in contemplation and prayer; and this of One whose whole life was toil amid crowds and multitudes, hungry and wayworn, full of calls and interruptions. It were rather true to say that no man’s life was ever yet so broken in upon, and taken from him by labour and care, and the importunity of others, as His; and yet He is to us the perfect Example of devotion. It was the toil of the day that turned His night into a vigil. Alas for the man that is too busy to pray! for he is too busy to be saved.

III. But once more. It may be said, "All this proves too much, for if it prove anything it proves that we ought to give up our natural rest and our night’s sleep, and to break the common habits of a regular life in a way that health and sound discretion would equally forbid." Is it not true that people who would without a word, travel many nights together for business or amusement, would positively resent the notion of spending even a few hours of Christmas or Easter Eve in prayer and self-examination? However, it is enough for the present purpose to say that whosoever would live a life of prayer, must spend no small part of every day in praying.

H. E. Manning, Sermons, vol. ii., p. 342.

We are not told the exact time or the particular spot where this prayer was made. Of the spot, we know only that it was a mountain; it must have been a mountain near Capernaum. Twice we read of Jesus Christ going out into a wilderness or solitary place to pray, and twice into a mountain.

I. It is clear that the place was selected as helpful. He could not do what He has told us to do, for how could He, who never had a house, "go into His closet, and shut the door"? Therefore He made the mountain His closet, and the rocks shut the door about Him. And there was a grandeur and a fitness when the Incarnate Creator of this world found His secret place in the stillness of the fastnesses of nature. It may not be given to us ever to find the aid of these sublimities, but this is a good rule—Choose for prayer whatever most quiets and most raises the mind.

II. Of the time of Christ’s prayer we only read that it was "in those days," those Capernaum days. But whenever it was, it was on the eve of the election of the Twelve. The eves of all events are solemn calls to prayer. How many days would have been saved their bitter, bitter regrets, if there had been more praying yesterdays. Life is full of eves. All life is an eve. Few great events have no eve. And we cannot be too thankful to God for those hushes given us for probation. The secret of a happy life—the secret of eternity—is a well-spent eve.

III. Our blessed Lord did not always pray the livelong night. The manner in which the fact is mentioned here shows that it was quite exceptional, and He had the Spirit without measure. The general rule is, Pray according to the condition of your heart. Do not let the prayer strain the thoughts, but let the thoughts determine and regulate the prayer. Pray as you feel drawn in prayer, or, in other words, as the Spirit of God in you leads and dictates. The great thing is to have something really to say to God. Whatever you do, do not pray on for words’ sake, or for length’s sake. You honour God in prayer by saying and leaving, more than by saying and repeating. And be sure that you carry into prayer the principle which you are to carry into conversation, and never talk, either to man or to God Himself, above and beyond your real level.

J. Vaughan, Sermons, 1868, p. 101.

References: Luk 6:12.—W. H. Jellie, Christian World Pulpit, vol. vi., p. 196; Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. xiv., No. 798; Homiletic Quarterly, vol. i., p. 289, vol. vi., p. 270; G. Salmon, Sermons in Trinity College, Dublin, p. 171. Luk 6:12, Luk 6:13.—Homiletic Magazine, vol. vi., p. 129; Spurgeon, Evening by Evening, p. 319. Luk 6:12-16.—A. B. Bruce, The Training of the Twelve, p. 30. Luk 6:13.—Christian World Pulpit, vol. xi., p. 344; H. P. Liddon, Ibid., vol. xxvi., p. 129. Luk 6:13-16.—Preacher’s Monthly, vol. x., p. 223; Homilist, 4th series, vol. i., p. 88. Luk 6:13-17.—F. D. Maurice, The Gospel of the Kingdom of Heaven, p. 97. Luk 6:15.—Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. xi., No. 639. Luk 6:15, Luk 6:16.—Preacher’s Monthly, vol. xii., p. 43. Luk 6:17-49.—A. B. Bruce, The Training of the Twelve, p. 41; F. D. Maurice, The Gospel of the Kingdom of Heaven, p. 110.

Luk 6:19

Outward pains and calamities are so many tokens and types of inward and spiritual evils, and Christ curing them by His touch gives us His own sure token of His will and power to cure all the diseases of our souls.

I. Blindness, for example—we perceive at once what evil condition of the heart that represents. "Every one that doeth evil hateth the light," and shutteth his eyes against it, until at last he loses even the power of seeing. Such was the condition outwardly of the blind man, who sat and begged at the Temple gate, when Jesus passed by and made clay of the spittle, and anointed his eyes with the clay, and bade him wash in the pool of Siloam, and he went and washed and came seeing. In like manner, when heathens, blind and ignorant persons, are wandering in the darkness of this world, our blessed Redeemer applies Himself to their souls by ways which seem to the unbelieving mean and ordinary, as He made clay of the spittle, and anointed the man’s eyes with the clay; and He sends them to the pool of Siloam, the laver of regeneration in baptism, and they receive inward sight, grace to see and to choose their duty.

II. So the sad helplessness, the inward palsy, of habitual and even deadly sin, is to be cured in one way, and in one way only. The man must be brought to Jesus Christ by the charitable prayers and help of kind friends, or Christ of His own mercy must come in His power where the man lies; and he not hindering the gracious work by unbelief, the Lord will say unto him, "Thy sins be forgiven thee: take up thy bed and walk." He will justify the sinner by His grace, begun in baptism or renewed in penitence, and the sinner forgiven will do the works of one in spiritual health.

III. As, then, oppressed, diseased persons in those days might know that our Lord was really come, by the healing which He bestowed on the bodies of the afflicted, so are we now to assure ourselves more and more that He is our only Saviour, our only way to happiness, by the help and comfort which He is sure to give us, if we draw nearer to Him continually in the keeping of His commandments. As faith was the condition of healing then, so is it the condition of grace now.

Plain Sermons by Contributors to "Tracts for the Times," vol. viii., p. 262.

Reference: Luk 6:20-49.—W. Hanna, Our Lord’s Life on Earth, p. 161.

Luk 6:26

The Dangers of Praise.

I. It is more than probable that, if men speak well of you, their judgment of you is fallacious; you do not deserve it. "In the like manner did their fathers unto the false prophets." Men are fallible judges of one another’s real character.

II. However fallacious the popular estimate, it has a direct tendency to carry us along with it. We naturally adopt other men’s judgments, as upon other subjects, so also upon this, our own character.

III. And then follow certain practical consequences, all of them, in a Christian point of view, serious and even disastrous. (1) The first of these is the loss of humility. How can he, of whom all men men speak well, know what true humility is? He may, and he probably will, wear a mask over his pride, for that is a condition of being well spoken of; but the pride itself will be only hidden, not unmoved; and where pride is enthroned, there cannot be the mind meet for God’s kingdom. (2) With the decay of humility comes the loss of watchfulness. If we are not conscious, and painfully conscious, of infirmity and of sinfulness, how can we watch? Why should we watch? (3) And with the loss of humility and the loss of watchfulness comes, as a natural consequence, the loss of strength. Praise is an essentially enfeebling and enervating thing. It relaxes the sinews of the mind as sultry weather those of the body. Praise promotes repose; self-satisfaction first, and as its natural result the intermission of effort. (4) Again, it is an effect of being well spoken of, to make a man covet that approbation, and at last live for it. It is a pleasant thing to be popular; human nature loves it, and finds it very hard either to sit loose to it when gained, or to do anything which may endanger it. (5) The praise of men has a direct tendency to attach us to earth, and make us forget heaven. To be a Christian is to have your heart in heaven, where Christ sitteth. What a distracting effect must the sound of earthly applause have upon one whose ear is attentively listening for the still small voice from heaven!

C. J. Vaughan, Memorials of Harrow Sundays, p. 175.

References: Luk 6:26.—F. W. Aveling, Christian World Pulpit, vol. xiv., p. 4. Luk 6:31.—Preacher’s Monthly, vol. i., p. 260; Homiletic Magazine, vol. xiii., p. 244; J. B. Walton, Christian World Pulpit, vol. xxix., p. 43. Luk 6:32, Luk 6:34.—Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. xxvii., No. 1584.

Luk 6:36-38

The Gospel Teaching.

I. "Be ye merciful, as your Father also is merciful." And how merciful God is! It is the attribute, the quality, by which He is distinguished. And that mercy of God is proposed for our imitation. Remember that mercy, pity, compassion, a readiness to be appeased, a wish to take a more favourable view of our neighbours’ faults, that this is the teaching of the Master—a teaching enforced by His own example.

II. "Judge not, and ye shall not be judged." Well did our Lord know what was in man when He gave us this commandment. For what is there so common as this very fault of judging and condemning our neighbour? We all are too apt to set up for judges; we all have our eyes too open to see the faults of our neighbour; and we all shut our eyes too close upon our own failings. Be sure that as followers of Jesus Christ, as men who look to Him for guidance as well as for salvation, we are bound to be especially careful, not hastily, not without the strongest cause, to take upon ourselves to be judges and condemners of our brethren.

III. "Give, and it shall be given unto you." There is the golden rule of God. As you deal by others, so shall you be dealt with by Him. Be kind, be liberal, be ready to make allowance, easy to be appeased, be ready to do good with what means you have, and by this same measure it shall be measured to you again in the day of necessity. "The liberal soul shall be made fat, and he that watereth shall be watered also himself."

R. D. B. Rawnsley, Village Sermons, 4th series, p. 1.

I. "Be ye merciful." These words were spoken to an age in which mercy was poorly esteemed. Among the old Roman virtues mercy held an insignificant place. The gods themselves were unmerciful. Prometheus bound to his rock through centuries bore witness to the implacable resentment of Jews. The savage instinct by which the sick and feeble are left to perish by the wayside, while the strong hurry on unheeding, survived even among the comparatively tender-hearted Hebrews. There was a wounded traveller on many a high road, and priest and Levite preferred to let him perish. Hospitals, infirmaries, homes for the aged and the sick, were undreamed of by the most enlightened statesmanship of the age, the extraordinary efforts which men made to secure the survival of the fittest froze their hearts, and the fittest became themselves the most unworthy. It was the age, too, of slavery. No one can look into the ghastly history of Roman slavery without realising how much Christ’s words have done for men. Every cross set up on the Appian way was the landmark of the decaying civilisation. How strangely such words as these must have sounded to the early Christians even after they were enlightened "Paul, the slave of Jesus Christ," "Peter a slave and an Apostle!"

II. We sometimes hear it said that our age is too merciful. The reason is, that some who use words loosely confuse mercy with lack of moral fibre. We must be so merciful, that we be not too remiss. The mercy of God has nothing inconsistent with the sternest justice. Mercy in man is not the lazy acquiescence with things as they are, an idle benevolence that finds it comfortable to hold that "whatever is is right." It demands effort, energy, the concentration of the will. In its highest form it is found only in company with strong matured graces of the Christian life.

III. Few realise the marvellous influence of mercy. It calls out all that is noblest in its object. By giving him new hope it restores his belief in goodness. Nothing can be truly great but gentleness. In its highest form it is the charity which is the bond of perfectness, and which lasts when tongues have ceased, and even prophecies have vanished.

[Original.]

References: Luk 6:36.—H. J. Wilmot-Buxton, The Life of Duty, vol. i., p. 35; Homiletic Magazine, vol. vi., p. 193. Luk 6:36, Luk 6:37.—Clergyman’s Magazine, vol. iv., p. 225. Luk 6:36-42.—Ibid., vol. ii., p. 348; Homiletic Quarterly, vol. i., p. 202.

Luk 6:37

Christian Judgment of Others.

I. When we read, "Judge not," "Condemn not," I believe we must approach the prohibition with some such thoughts as these: "Judge and condemn I must. I cannot go through life as a good Christian, or as a useful citizen, or as a worthy filler of any of the relations of life, without repeatedly, and even daily, doing both these things. But what my Master commands seems to be: that I should not make this, which is a duty and a necessity, to be my constant habit and propensity. I must judge, true, but I need not always be judging; I must condemn, true, but my judgment must not always come to that result. 1 must judge of all men, at one time or another, but let my judgment, where it is an approving one, issue in confidence, so that I may sympathise with, and love and trust, others—not in an unsatisfactory habit of ever breaking up the grounds of charity, in want of confidence, withholding of sympathy, absence of trust, refusal of love. I must judge, but I may never pre-judge."

II. How are we to understand the promises by which these commands, "Judge not and condemn not," are followed? "Ye shall not be judged," and "Ye shall not be condemned." Two meanings at once occur to us, both, I believe, included. The first regards the judgment of men, "Ye shall not be judged, if ye judge not others." Men are accustomed to deal easily with one who deals easily with them. But we should be falling short of our Lord’s intention in both cases were we to stop with this reference. This appears both à priori, from its unsatisfactory nature, as furnishing a Christian motive, and by the concluding words of this verse: "Forgive, and ye shall be forgiven." For this same saying occurs in another form at the end of the Lord’s Prayer, in Matt. vi., where Christ says: "For if ye forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you." The persons addressed are Christians—persons justified by faith, and waging the Christian conflict in the power of the spirit. In each case the command is one enjoining a mind or an act suitable to their high calling of God in Christ; the promise is one belonging to God’s covenant in Christ. Everyone who endures in that covenant shall be forgiven; not because he has forgiven others, but because he has appropriated the blood of Jesus Christ by faith, and that blood cleanseth from all sin.

H. Alford, Quebec Chapel Sermons, vol. v., p. 49.

I. How are we to understand these words? Does the Saviour mean that we are to form no opinion whatever about the character and conduct of persons with whom we come into contact? Or that, if we form an opinion, it must always be a favourable one? Obviously not. In the first place, to do so were simply impossible. The same faculty in us which inclines us to approve of a noble deed, inclines us also to disapprove of an ignoble one. We like the one; we dislike the other. Instinctively and gradually, by fine and almost imperceptible accretions, an estimate of our neighbour grows up in our mind, which is most truly and really a judgment which we pass upon him. Our Saviour here means that there can be no legitimate judging of others, except where there has been previously a severe and thorough-going judging of oneself. He means that the only man to form a proper estimate of the conduct of his neighbours is the man who lies humbly before God as a sinner himself; and who, conscious of his own deep need of forgiveness, is continually coming to the fountain opened for sin and uncleanness. Such a man will indeed—for he must—form opinions about others. Sometimes he may even be constrained to blame and to rebuke; but when he does so, he will do it with reluctance, and not with satisfaction—with moderation, and not with exaggeration—with love, and not with harshness. Such a spirit would show itself (1) in our putting the best possible construction we can on the behaviour of others; (2) another result would be that we should never dare to pronounce upon the final doom of a fellow-creature.

II. "Forgive, and ye shall be forgiven." God will mete out to us the severity with which we deal with others. Christianity does not forbid us to discern sin in others; nay, it enjoins upon us occasionally to rebuke sin, but always in a tender, loving spirit, and as those who, being conscious of the evil in themselves, desire their brother’s real and lasting benefit. But Christianity also says: "If you take pleasure in condemnation, and condemn others in a censorious and self-exalting spirit, beware of the consequences which you are bringing down upon yourself. You are dictating to God the method in which He shall deal with you at the great day of judgment; you are for giving others justice without mercy, and you shall have justice without mercy yourself."

G. Calthrop, Words Spoken to My Friends, p. 284.

Reference: Luk 6:37.—H. J. Wilmot-Buxton, Sunday Sermonettes for a Year, p. 142.

Luk 6:38

This is one of those keen-edged, far-reaching sayings of our Lord’s which make us understand the testimony of the Apostle who knew Him best: "He needed not that any should testify of man, for He knew what was in man"—one of those sayings which sum up in a few words the experience of all lives and of many sides of life. Our consciousness witnesses to its truth, and in doing so witnesses to the justice of the world of what has been called God’s "natural government."

I. It is true as between man and man. Such as we are to others, such in the long-run will others be to us. Generosity calls out generosity; confidence wins confidence; love is answered to by love. We know all this very well, though we sometimes forget it. Men are to us what we are to them. The disposition that hoards, that grudges, that counts up its own rights, and is extreme to mark any omission or slight on the part of another, seals up men’s hearts against itself. "Give, and it shall be given," even in money; but in things far beyond money—in love, trust, loyalty, hearty and affectionate service.

II. It is true, again, as between ourselves and life. Life, too, is what we make it, deals with us as we deal with it. To the selfish it is as a churl. To the generous it opens its fountains of beauty and happiness. Give your best, and you shall receive its best. Stinted and measured labour, half-hearted devotion, lukewarm interest—what mutilated results, what poor inadequate returns do they always bring, in youth and in age, in work and in play. Lose yourself, forget yourself in healthy work, in true love, in a noble cause, and you will find yourself again in a larger, freer, happier life.

III. Once more, the saying is verified as between ourselves and God, "With what measure ye mete." Even He is, in a sense, to us what we are to Him. Pray, and your prayers shall be heard. Believe, and God will be real to you. Trust and obey, and you shall know that you have not trusted in vain. Shut yourself up from Him, and He will shut Himself up from you.

E. C. Wickham, Wellington College Sermons, p. 146.

The first word to be said on this subject—and one which must come before the word which we are specially to consider—is "Get." Fill the basket and the store. The desire of possessing is one of the springs of many a noble character and of many a noble career. It is one of the root principles of the manifold and wonderful activity and enterprise and resource of our industrial life. That principle builds our cities, wings our ships, extends our empire over all the world. A great part of Christian virtue and goodness consists in harmonising this principle with others; but without it nothing could be done. And now comes the second word, "Give." Begin to give as soon as you begin to get. That, and that only, will prevent the danger of a growing covetousness.

I. The giving should be in some proportion to the income. I do not presume to fix the proportion with arithmetical exactness. There are insuperable difficulties in the way of fixing or naming any numerical proportions for Christian liberality. But we insist on the principle of a fair and just proportion, and on the consequent duty of the individual to turn the principle into practice, and to find out for himself how much his own proportion ought to be.

II. This proportion will never be reached, or, at any rate, will hardly for any long time be continued, except in connection with another principle of far deeper hold and wider sway: the principle that what is left is given top—that all we have belongs to God—that we ourselves are not our own. This principle penetrates to the very centre of our being, and sweeps round the widest circumference of our life. It is becoming more and more evident that the religion of Christ is such that we cannot touch the spirit and essence of it by anything less than wholeness of consecration. But when we give the whole—ourselves, our endowments, our possessions—then the giving of each part in fit time and place cannot be less than a blessedness and a joy.

III. It is also true that we shall never understand really what Christian giving is until we get beyond and above what is called the "duty" of it—to this higher ground, where only the blessedness of it will be felt, and where we shall hear very clearly the Master’s words, standing as we shall do in His nearer presence, "It is more blessed to give than to receive."

A. Raleigh, From Dawn to the Perfect Day, p. 204.

References: Luk 6:38.—H. Whitehead, Christian World Pulpit, vol. xiv., p. 19; Church of England Pulpit, vol. viii., p. 89; F. O. Morris, Ibid., vol. xvii., p. 49; Preacher’s Monthly, vol. v., p. 346; E. H. Abbott, Church of England Pulpit, vol. iv., p. 278. Luk 6:39, Luk 6:40.—Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. xxi., No. 1248.

Luk 6:40

Life, the School for Eternity.

I. Look at the Great Teacher. Let anyone, that ever has been taught by anyone, say what are the requisites to make pleasant and effective teaching. Even a child will answer, "Two things: a thorough knowledge of his subject, and a power of sympathising with the mind which he is instructing." What must it be, then, to be taught by omniscience? by Him who can say, of all knowledge, in a sense no other could pretend unto, "I speak that I have seen"? How easy to learn the most difficult thing in the universe, when He makes it like a sunbeam. And yet, all the while, of all the things Jesus knows, there is nothing He knows so well as He knows man—his capability, his weakness, his slowness, his perplexities. So that His omniscience is not greater than His compassion and consideration.

II. From the Master look at the lesson-book. A book with a precept, and an example, and an illustration upon every point: deep principles carried out rightly to their lofty conclusions—close reasoning with exquisite imagery—appeals to the affections always running equal with the convictions of the understanding. Now in this school, where Christ teaches the Bible, it is unnecessary for me to remark that no scholar can ever be greater than his Master.

III. "Every one that is perfect shall be as his master." The word does not convey equality, but similarity. The reflection is not equal to the original ray, but it is "as it." The picture is not like the original, but it is "as it." The inferior intellect is as the loftier mind from which it has taken its tone and sentiments. Therefore the true sense is this: "Every one whom God has furnished"—that is the original word—"shall resemble his master." As the well-taught pupil takes the colour from his preceptor, so shall you, by little and by little, take the mind of Jesus. You shall see things from the same standpoint. Your thoughts, your ideas, your modes of action, your inner man, shall gradually assimilate to Him. There shall be similarity.

J. Vaughan, Fifty Sermons, 2nd series, p. 368.

References: Luk 6:40.—Expositor, 1st series, vol. xi., p. 178; C. C. Bartholomew, Sermons Chiefly Practical, p. 231. Luk 6:41.—J. Baines, Sermons, p. 73; J. Keble, Sermons for Sundays after Trinity, part i., p. 118. Luk 6:41, Luk 6:42.—D. Fraser, Metaphors of the Gospels, p. 38. Luk 6:43, Luk 6:44.—Ibid., p. 76. Luk 6:44.—Homilist, vol. vi., p. 361. Luk 6:45.—J. Martineau, Endeavours after the Christian Life, p. 487. Luk 6:46-49.—Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. xxix., No. 1702.

Luk 6:47-48

The Fortress Home.

There are here two great periods set before us: one, when the builders are occupied in working, themselves and their work being all in all; the other, when they and their work together are being tested by forces from without, and no additions can be made of importance. It is too late then. You cannot build in a storm.

I. All doing of right and duty in a Christian land is hearing Christ’s words and doing them. Christ’s words have touched everything we do with holy power. Every one of you is playing the part of one or other of the two builders mentioned. You are building your character by thoughts, words, and actions, daily; and the true building is to be a fortress against coming storms. The storm will not come yet, but it shall come in time. But mark this: how strong, how earnest, how uninviting the beginning is! Digging deep, and building underground. What forethought, what labour, what collecting of materials, and for a long time nothing to show for it; nothing above ground, no beauty. Whilst the building without foundations begins at once to make a show, to give shelter, to excite admiration, to please the eye, and to answer every purpose of summer enjoyment.

II. When the flood does come, and beats upon the principles and character formed in earlier years of toil, one feels the rocks, and wonders how all good work has been secretly framed so as to save at last in the hour of need. Nothing honestly done for good ever is lost. It is a stone in the building, and nobody can ever tell beforehand on which stone or stones the flood shall beat most violently. You ought all to be building fortress homes for the coming hour, when there will be no time, when it will be too late to think about protecting yourselves from the flood. Dig deep to find the rock. Be not contented with less; find Christ, be true, build on His truth. It is a glorious thing day by day to become more and more sure that your life is on the rock, your work eternal, to find happiness, rest and peace, the fruit of faithful honest work, to have heard Christ, to have trusted Him, and built your fortress home on Him.

E. Thring, Uppingham Sermons, vol. i., p. 10.

References: Luk 6:47-49.—Expositor, 1st series, vol. ix., p. 90. Luk 6:49.—H. J. Wilmot-Buxton, Sunday Sermonettes for a Year, p. 91. Luk 7:1-10.—G. Macdonald, Miracles of Our Lord, p. 138; W. Hanna, Our Lord’s Life on Earth, p. 108; T. Birkett Dover, The Ministry of Mercy, p. 47; T. R. Stevenson, Christian World Pulpit, vol. xiii., p. 59; Preacher’s Monthly, vol. iii., p. 27. Luk 7:2-9.—C. Kingsley, Town and Country Sermons, p. 213. Luk 7:3-5.—Homiletic Quarterly, vol. ii., p. 751. Luk 7:4-9.—Ibid., vol. iii., p. 90; Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. x., No. 600. Luk 7:5.—J. C. Galloway, Christian World Pulpit, vol. xiv., p. 40. Luk 7:6.—Expositor, 1st series, vol. iv., p. 31. Luk 7:6-8.—Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. xiv., No. 800. Luk 7:9.—Bishop Moorhouse, Christian World Pulpit, vol. xxix., p. 296. Luk 7:11.—J. H. Evans, Thursday Penny Pulpit, p. 325. Luk 7:11-15.—A. Mackennal, Christ’s Healing Touch, p. 142; Clerical Library: Expository Sermons on the New Testament, p. 72; A. Macleod, Talking to the Children, p. 81; S. A. Brooke, Christian World Pulpit, vol. xvi., p. 305. Luk 7:11-16.—T. R. Stevenson, Ibid., vol. xvii., p. 197. Luk 7:11-17.—Homiletic Quarterly, vol. i., p. 350; Clergyman’s Magazine, vol. iii., p. 153; T. Birkett Dover, The Ministry of Mercy, p. 54; W. Hanna, Our Lord’s Life on Earth, p. 109. 169. 12.—J. Vaughan, Fifty Sermons, 2nd series, p. 319. Luk 7:12-16.—Homilist, vol. v., p. 361. Luk 7:12-17.—G. Macdonald, The Miracles of Our Lord, p. 190.

The Sermon Bible, ed. William Robertson Nicoll (1888–1900) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

In the former part of this chapter we find our blessed Saviour defending his disciples from the clamorous accusations of the Pharisees for breaking the sabbath day, because they plucked the ears of corn, and rubbed them in their hands, in order to the satisfying of their hunger.

Where note, 1. The great poverty, the low estate and condition, of Christ’s own disciples in the world. They wanted bread, and were forced to pluck the ears of corn to satisfy their hunger. God may, and sometimes does suffer his dearest children to fall into straits, and to taste of want, for the trial of their faith and dependence upon his power and goodness.

Note, 2. How the hypocritical Pharisees blame this action of the disciples, namely, their plucking off the ears of corn; yet did they not charge them with theft for so doing; because to take in our great necessity so much of our neighbor’s goods as we may reasonably suppose, that, if he were present and knew our circumstances, he would not deny us, is no theft. But it was the servile labor on the sabbath, in gathering the ears of corn which the Pharisees scruple and object against.

Where note, how hypocrites expend their zeal in and about the lesser things of the law, while they neglect the greater; placing all holiness in the observation of outward ceremonies, while they neglect moral duties.

Note, 3. The argument with which our Saviour defends this action of his disciples; it is taken from the example of David: necessity freed him from fault and blame in eating the consecrated bread, which none but the priests might lawfully eat; for in case of necessity, a ceremonial precept must give place to a moral duty. Works of mercy for the preserving our lives, and the better fitting us for sabbath services, are certainly lawful on the sabbath day.

Note, lastly, the argument which our Saviour uses to prove the sabbath’s observation may be dispensed with in a case of absolute necessity, and that is drawn from that authority which Christ, the institutor and Lord of the sabbath, had over it: The Son of man is Lord also of the sabbath; that is, he has authority and power as God and as Mediator, to institute and appoint a sabbath, to alter and change it, to dispense with a breach of it upon a just and great occasion; and consequently, acts of mercy, which tend to fit us for works of piety, not only may, but ought, to be done on the sabbath day.

This action of the disciples being of that nature, is without just cause censured and condemned by the Pharisees; a sort of men who were resolved to cavil at, and quarrel with, whatever our Saviour or his disciples either did or said.

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 [XXXVIII. Jesus Defends Disciples].

XXXVIII. JESUS DEFENDS DISCIPLES WHO PLUCK GRAIN ON THE SABBATH. (Probably while on the way from Jerusalem to Galilee.) aMATT. XII. 1-8; bMARK II. 23-28; cLUKE VI. 1-5.

b23 And c1 Now it came to pass a1 At that season bthat he aJesus went bwas going on the ca bsabbath day through the grainfields; aand his disciples were hungry and began bas they went, to pluck the ears. aand to eat, cand his disciples plucked the ears, and did eat, rubbing them in their hands. [This lesson fits in chronological order with the last, if the Bethesda events took place at Passover. The paschal lamb was eaten on the fourteenth Nisan, or about the first of April. Clark fixes the exact date as the 29th of March, in A. D. 28, which is the beginning of the harvest season. Barley ripens in the Jordan valley about the 1st of April, but on the uplands it is reaped as late as May. Wheat ripens from one to three weeks later than barley, and upland wheat (and Palestine has many [209] mountain plateaus) is often harvested in June. If Scaliger is right, as most critics think he is, in fixing this sabbath as the first after the Passover, it is probable that it was barley which the disciples ate. Barley bread was and is a common food, and it is common to chew the grains of both it and wheat.] c2 But b24 And ccertain of the Pharisees awhen they saw it, said unto him, Behold, thy disciples do that which is not lawful to do upon the sabbath. bwhy do they on the sabbath day that which is not lawful? cWhy do ye that which it is not lawful to do on the sabbath day? [The Pharisees did not object to the act of taking the grain. Such plucking of the grain was allowed by the law ( Deu_23:25) and is still practiced by hungry travelers in Palestine, which is, and has always been, an unfenced land, the roads, or rather narrow paths, of which lead through the grainfields, so that the grain is in easy reach of the passer-by. The Pharisees objected to the plucking of grain because they considered it a kind of reaping, and therefore working on the sabbath day. The scene shows the sinlessness of Jesus in strong light. Every slightest act of his was submitted to a microscopic scrutiny.] a3 But b25 And cJesus answering them asaid unto them, Have ye not read bDid ye never read ceven this [There is a touch of irony here. The Pharisees prided themselves upon their knowledge of Scriptures, but they had not read (so as to understand them) even its most common incidents], what David did, bwhen he had need, and was hungry, he, and they that were with him? 26 How he entered into the house of God when Abiathar was high priest, cand took and ate the showbread, and gave also to them that were with him; which it is not lawful to eat awhich it was not lawful for him to eat, neither for them that were with him, but only csave for the priests alone? [Jesus here refers to the incident recorded at 1Sa_21:1-6. Ahimelech and Abiathar have been confused by transcribers. It should read Ahimelech. However, we are not referred to the actions of Abiathar, but to those of [210] David. He went with his followers to the tabernacle at Nob near Jerusalem, and being hungry, asked bread of the priests. There was no bread at hand save the showbread. This bread was called showbread because it was "set out" or "exhibited" before Jehovah. It consisted of twelve loaves, which were baked upon the sabbath, and were placed, hot, in two rows upon the showbread table every sabbath day. The twelve old loaves which were then removed were to be eaten by the priests and no one else ( Lev_24:5-9). It was these twelve old loaves which were given to David ( 1Sa_21:6). Since the showbread was baked on the sabbath, the law itself ordered work on that day. The vast majority of commentators look upon this passage as teaching that necessity abrogates what they are pleased to call the ceremonial laws of God. Disregarding the so-called ceremonial laws of God is a very dangerous business, as is witnessed by the case of Uzzah ( 2Sa_6:6, 2Sa_6:7), and Uzziah ( 2Ch_26:16-23). Christ never did it, and strenuously warned those who followed the example of the scribes and Pharisees in teaching such a doctrine ( Mat_5:17-20). The law of necessity was not urged by him as a justifiable excuse for making bread during the forty days' fast of the temptation. Life is not higher than law. "All that a man hath will he give for his life," is Satan's doctrine, not Christ's ( Job_2:4). The real meaning, as we understand it, will be developed below in our treatment of Num_28:9), and two lambs were killed on the sabbath in addition to the daily [211] sacrifice. This involved the killing, skinning, and cleaning of the animals, and the building of the fire to consume the sacrifice. They also trimmed the gold lamps, burned incense, and performed various other duties. The profanation of the Sabbath, however, was not real, but merely apparent. Jesus cites this priestly work to prove that the Sabbath prohibition was not universal, and hence might not include what the disciples had done. The fourth commandment did not forbid work absolutely, but labor for worldly gain. Activity in the work of God was both allowed and commanded.] 6 But I say [asserting his own authority] unto you, that one greater than the temple is here. [The word "greater" is in the neuter gender, and the literal meaning is therefore "a greater thing than the temple." The contrast may be between the service of the temple and the service of Christ, or it may be a contrast between the divinity, sacredness, or divine atmosphere which hallowed the temple, and the divinity or Godhead of Christ. But, however we take it, the meaning is ultimately a contrast between Christ and the temple, similar to the contrast between himself and Solomon, etc. ( Mat_12:41, Mat_12:42). It was a startling saying as it fell on Jewish ears, for to them the temple at Jerusalem was the place honored by the very Shekinah of the unseen God, and the only place of effective worship and atonement. If the temple service justified the priests in working upon the Sabbath day, much more did the service of Jesus, who was not only the God of the temple, but was himself the true temple, of which the other was merely the symbol, justify these disciples in doing that which was not legally, but merely traditionally, unlawful. Jesus here indirectly anticipates the priesthood of his disciples-- 1Pe_2:5.] 7 But if ye had known what this meaneth, I desire mercy, and not sacrifice, ye would not have condemned the guiltless. [This passage is quoted from Hos_6:6, and is reiterated at Mat_9:13. It is an assertion of the superiority of inward life over outward form, for the form is nothing if the heart is wrong. The saying is first suggested by David himself ( Psa_51:16, Psa_51:17), [212] after which it is stated by Hosea and amplified by Paul ( 1Co_13:3). The quotation has a double reference both to David and the disciples as above indicated. Having given the incident in the life of David, Jesus passes on from it without comment, that he may lay down by another example the principle which justified it. This principle we have just treated, and we may state it thus: A higher law, where it conflicts with a lower one, suspends or limits the lower one at the point of conflict. Thus the higher laws of worship in the temple suspended the lower law of sabbath observance, and thus also the higher law of mercy suspended the lower law as to the showbread when David took it and mercifully gave it to his hungry followers, and when God in mercy permitted this to be done. And thus, had they done what was otherwise unlawful, the disciples would have been justified in eating by the higher law of Christ's service. And thus also would Christ have been justified in permitting them to eat by the law of mercy, which was superior to that which rendered the seventh day to God as a sacrifice.] 8 For the Son of man is Lord of the sabbath. b27 And he said unto them, The sabbath was made for man, and not man for the sabbath: 28 so that the Son of man is Lord even of the sabbath. [The expression "Son of man" is used eighty-eight times in the New Testament, and always means the Messiah, and not man generally. The Sabbath was made for man's convenience and blessing, and so Jesus, who was complete and perfect manhood, was Lord of it. But men who were incomplete and imperfect in their manhood, can not trust their fallible judgment to tamper with it. Though the day was made for man, this fact would not entitle man to use it contrary to the laws under which it was granted. As Lord of the day Jesus had a right to interpret it and to apply it, and to substitute the Lord's day for it. In asserting his Lordship over it, Jesus takes the question outside the range of argument and brings it within the range of authority.] [213]

[FFG 209-213]

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.

1–5. It came to pass on a sabbath. Such is the reading of the Revision. The common text, the second-first in the Greek, is referred by Godet to second-first Sunday of the year. The first first Sabbath was the first Sabbath of the civil year; the second first was the first sabbath of the religious year. It came in the spring. For notes on the controversy caused by the Lord's disciples plucking the ears of wheat on the Sabbath, see Matt. 12:1–14. Compare also Mark 2:23–28 and 3:1–5. Ears of corn. Of wheat or barley.

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.

Connecting Statement:

While Jesus and his disciples are walking through grainfields, some Pharisees begin to question the disciples about what they are doing on the Sabbath, which, in God's law, has been set aside for God.

General Information:

The word "you" here is plural, and refers to the disciples. (See: Forms of You)

Now it happened

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

grainfields

In this case, these are large sections of land where the people had scattered wheat seed to grow more wheat.

heads of grain

This is the topmost part of the grain plant, which is a kind of large grass. It holds the mature, edible seeds of the plant.

rubbing them between their hands

They did this to separate the grain seeds. This can be stated clearly. AT: "They rubbed them in their hands to separate the grains from the husks" (See: Assumed Knowledge and Implicit Information)

Why are you doing something that is not lawful to do on the Sabbath day?

They asked this question to accuse the disciples of breaking the law. It can be written as a statement. AT: "Picking grain on the Sabbath is against God's law!" (See: Rhetorical Question)

doing something

The Pharisees considered even the small action of rubbing a handful of grain to be unlawful work. This can be stated clearly. AT: "doing work" (See: Assumed Knowledge and Implicit Information)

translationWords

Sabbath

Jesus

grain

disciple

Pharisee

lawful

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

The second after the first [δευτεροπρωτω] . Only here in New Testament. Many high authorities omit it, and its exact meaning cannot be determined. Rev. omits.

Went through [διαπορευεσθαι] . Rev., was going. Compare paraporeuesqai, went along beside - Mr 2:23.

Cornfields. See on Mt 12:1.

Plucked [ετιλλον] . Imperfect; were plucking, as they walked. In classical Greek the word is used mostly of pulling out hair or feathers. See on Mr 2:23.

Did eat [ησθιον] . Imperfect, were eating.

Rubbing [ψωχοντες] . The verb means to rub small.

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