{"commentary":{"id":"jamieson-fausset-brown","name":"Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary","website":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jamieson-Fausset-Brown_Bible_Commentary","licenseUrl":"https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/mark/1.0/","licenseNotes":null,"licenseNotice":null,"englishName":"Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary","language":"eng","textDirection":"rtl","sha256":"db3d4c8b3c1f32ef9d1430a57392e02bda3a17aac1f9bbe398461de021a3cb13","availableFormats":["json"],"listOfBooksApiLink":"/api/c/jamieson-fausset-brown/books.json","listOfProfilesApiLink":"/api/c/jamieson-fausset-brown/profiles.json","numberOfBooks":66,"totalNumberOfChapters":1187,"totalNumberOfVerses":17056,"totalNumberOfProfiles":0,"languageName":"English","languageEnglishName":"English"},"book":{"id":"LUK","commentaryId":"jamieson-fausset-brown","name":"Luke","commonName":"Luke","introduction":"THE writer of this Gospel is universally allowed to have been Lucas (an abbreviated form of Lucanus, as Silas of Silvanus), though he is not expressly named either in the Gospel or in the Acts. From Col 4:14 we learn that he was a \"physician\"; and by comparing that verse with Col 4:10-11 --in which the apostle enumerates all those of the circumcision who were then with him, but does not mention Luke, though he immediately afterwards sends a salutation from him--we gather that Luke was not a born Jew. Some have thought he was a freed-man (libertinus), as the Romans devolved the healing art on persons of this class and on their slaves, as an occupation beneath themselves. His intimate acquaintance with Jewish customs, and his facility in Hebraic Greek, seem to show that he was an early convert to the Jewish faith; and this is curiously confirmed by Act 21:27-29, where we find the Jews enraged at Paul's supposed introduction of Greeks into the temple, because they had seen \"Trophimus the Ephesian\" with him; and as we know that Luke was with Paul on that occasion, it would seem that they had taken him for a Jew, as they made no mention of him. On the other hand, his fluency in classical Greek confirms his Gentile origin. The time when he joined Paul's company is clearly indicated in the Acts by his changing (at Act 16:10) from the third person singular (\"he\") to the first person plural (\"we\"). From that time he hardly ever left the apostle till near the period of his martyrdom (Ti2 4:11). EUSEBIUS makes him a native of Antioch. If so, he would have every advantage for cultivating the literature of Greece and such medical knowledge as was then possessed. That he died a natural death is generally agreed among the ancients; GREGORY NAZIANZEN alone affirming that he died a martyr.\n\nThe time and place of the publication of his Gospel are alike uncertain. But we can approximate to it. It must at any rate have been issued before the Acts, for there the 'Gospel' is expressly referred to as the same author's \"former treatise\" (Act 1:1). Now the Book of the Acts was not published for two whole years after Paul's arrival as a prisoner at Rome, for it concludes with a reference to this period; but probably it was published soon after that, which would appear to have been early in the year 63. Before that time, then, we have reason to believe that the Gospel of Luke was in circulation, though the majority of critics make it later. If we date it somewhere between A.D. 50 and 60, we shall probably be near the truth; but nearer it we cannot with any certainty come. Conjectures as to the place of publication are too uncertain to be mentioned here.\n\nThat it was addressed, in the first instance, to Gentile readers, is beyond doubt. This is no more, as DAVIDSON remarks [Introduction to the New Testament, p. 186], than was to have been expected from the companion of an \"apostle of the Gentiles,\" who had witnessed marvellous changes in the condition of many heathens by the reception of the Gospel. But the explanations in his Gospel of things known to every Jew, and which could only be intended for Gentile readers, make this quite plain--see Luk 1:26; Luk 4:31; Luk 8:26; Luk 21:37; Luk 22:1; Luk 24:13. A number of other minute particulars, both of things inserted and of things omitted, confirm the conclusion that it was Gentiles whom this Evangelist had in the first instance in view.\n\nWe have already adverted to the classical style of Greek which this Evangelist writes--just what might have been expected from an educated Greek and travelled physician. But we have also observed that along with this he shows a wonderful flexibility of style, so much so, that when he comes to relate transactions wholly Jewish, where the speakers and actors and incidents are all Jewish, he writes in such Jewish Greek as one would do who had never been out of Palestine or mixed with any but Jews. In DA COSTA'S'S Four Witnesses will be found some traces of \"the beloved physician\" in this Gospel. But far more striking and important are the traces in it of his intimate connection with the apostle of the Gentiles. That one who was so long and so constantly in the society of that master mind has in such a work as this shown no traces of that connection, no stamp of that mind, is hardly to be believed. Writers of Introductions seem not to see it, and take no notice of it. But those who look into the interior of it will soon discover evidences enough in it of a Pauline cast of mind. Referring for a number of details to DA COSTA, we notice here only two examples: In Co1 11:23, Paul ascribes to an express revelation from Christ Himself the account of the Institution of the Lord's Supper which he there gives. Now, if we find this account differing in small yet striking particulars from the accounts given by Matthew and Mark, but agreeing to the letter with Luke's account, it can hardly admit of a doubt that the one had it from the other; and in that case, of course, it was Luke that had it from Paul. Now Matthew and Mark both say of the Cup, \"This is my blood of the New Testament\"; while Paul and Luke say, in identical terms, \"This cup is the New Testament in My blood\" (Co1 11:25; Luk 22:20). Further, Luke says, \"Likewise also the cup after supper, saying,\" &c.; while Paul says, \"After the same manner He took the cup when He had supped, saying,\" &c.; whereas neither Matthew nor Mark mention that this was after supper. But still more striking is another point of coincidence in this case. Matthew and Mark both say of the Bread merely this: \"Take, eat; this is My body\" (Mat 26:26; Mar 14:22); whereas Paul says, \"Take, eat, this is My body, which is broken for you\" (Co1 11:24), and Luke, \"This is My body, which is given for you\" (Luk 22:19). And while Paul adds the precious clause, \"This do in remembrance of Me,\" Luke does the same, in identical terms. How can one who reflects on this resist the conviction of a Pauline stamp in this Gospel? The other proof of this to which we ask the reader's attention is in the fact that Paul, in enumerating the parties by whom Christ was seen after His resurrection, begins, singularly enough, with Peter--\"And that He rose again the third day according to the Scriptures and that He was seen of Cephas, then of the Twelve\" (Co1 15:4-5) --coupled with the remarkable fact, that Luke is the only one of the Evangelists who mentions that Christ appeared to Peter at all. When the disciples had returned from Emmaus to tell their brethren how the Lord had appeared to them in the way, and how He had made Himself known to them in the breaking of bread, they were met, as Luke relates, ere they had time to utter a word, with this wonderful piece of news, \"The Lord is risen indeed, and hath appeared to Simon\" (Luk 24:34).\n\nOther points connected with this Gospel will be adverted to in the Commentary. \n\n\n\nNext: Luke Chapter 1\n\n","order":42,"numberOfChapters":24,"sha256":"204b6ad5a3007ae03d59f0a3f250dc1a4fed154e78ef885292075f6de0b65757","firstChapterNumber":1,"firstChapterApiLink":"/api/c/jamieson-fausset-brown/LUK/1.json","firstChapterReference":{"commentaryId":"jamieson-fausset-brown","book":"LUK","chapter":1},"lastChapterNumber":24,"lastChapterApiLink":"/api/c/jamieson-fausset-brown/LUK/24.json","lastChapterReference":{"commentaryId":"jamieson-fausset-brown","book":"LUK","chapter":24},"totalNumberOfVerses":596},"chapter":{"number":22,"content":[{"type":"verse","number":3,"content":["Then entered Satan, &c.--but not yet in the full sense. The awful stages of it were these: (1) Covetousness being his master--passion, the Lord let it reveal itself and gather strength by entrusting him with \"the bag\" (Joh 12:6), as treasurer to Himself and the Twelve. (2) In the discharge of that most sacred trust he became \"a thief,\" appropriating its contents from time to time to his own use. Satan, seeing this door into his heart standing wide open, determines to enter by it, but cautiously (Co2 2:11); first merely \"putting it into his heart to betray Him\" (Joh 13:2), suggesting the thought to him that by this means he might enrich himself. (3) This thought was probably converted into a settled purpose by what took place in Simon's house at Bethany. (See Mat 26:6, and see on Joh 12:4-8.) (4) Starting back, perhaps, or mercifully held back, for some time, the determination to carry it into immediate effect was not consummated till, sitting at the paschal supper, \"Satan entered into him\" (see on Joh 13:27), and conscience, effectually stifled, only rose again to be his tormentor. What lessons in all this for every one (Eph 4:27; Jam 4:7; Pe1 5:8-9)!\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":5,"content":["money--\"thirty pieces of silver\" (Mat 26:15); thirty shekels, the fine payable for man- or maid-servant accidentally killed (Exo 21:32), and equal to between four and five pounds of our money--\"a goodly price that I was priced at of them\" (Zac 11:13). (See on Joh 19:16.)\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":6,"content":["in the absence, &c.--(See Mat 26:5).\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":7,"content":["LAST PASSOVER--INSTITUTION OF THE SUPPER--DISCOURSE AT THE TABLE. (Luke 22:7-38)\n\nthe day of unleavened bread--strictly the fifteenth Nisan (part of our March and April) after the paschal lamb was killed; but here, the fourteenth (Thursday). Into the difficult questions raised on this we cannot here enter.\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":10,"content":["when ye are entered the city--He Himself probably stayed at Bethany during the day. \n\nthere shall a man, &c.--(See on Luk 19:29-32).\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":14,"content":["the hour--about six P.M. Between three and this hour the lamb was killed (Exo 12:6, Margin)\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":15,"content":["With desire . . . desired--\"earnestly have I longed\" (as Gen 31:30, \"sore longedst\"). Why? It was to be His last \"before He suffered\"--and so became \"Christ our Passover sacrificed for us\" (Co1 5:7), when it was \"fulfilled in the Kingdom of God,\" the typical ordinance thenceforth disappearing.\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":17,"content":["took the cup--the first of several partaken of in this service. \n\ndivide it among, &c.--that is, It is to be your last as well as Mine, \"until the Kingdom of God come,\" or as it is beautifully given in Mat 26:29, \"until that day when I shall drink it new with you in my Father's kingdom.\" It was the point of transition between two economies and their two great festivals, the one about to close for ever, the other immediately to open and run its majestic career until from earth it be transferred to heaven.\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":21,"content":["(See on Joh 13:21, &c.).\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":24,"content":["there was--or \"had been,\" referring probably to some symptoms of the former strife which had reappeared, perhaps on seeing the whole paschal arrangements committed to two of the Twelve. (See on Mar 10:42-45.)\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":25,"content":["benefactors--a title which the vanity of princes eagerly coveted.\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":26,"content":["But ye . . . not--Of how little avail has this condemnation of \"lordship\" and vain titles been against the vanity of Christian ecclesiastics?\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":28,"content":["continued, &c.--affecting evidence of Christ's tender susceptibility to human sympathy and support! (See on Joh 6:66-67; see Joh 16:32.)\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":29,"content":["I appoint, &c.--Who is this that dispenses kingdoms, nay, the Kingdom of kingdoms, within an hour or two of His apprehension, and less than a day of His shameful death? These sublime contrasts, however, perpetually meet and entrance us in this matchless history.\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":30,"content":["eat and drink, &c.--(See Luk 22:16 and see on Luk 18:28, &c.).\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":31,"content":["Simon, Simon--(See on Luk 10:41). \n\ndesired to have--rather, \"hath obtained you,\" properly \"asked and obtained\"; alluding to Job (Job 1:6-12; Job 2:1-6), whom he solicited and obtained that he might sift him as wheat, insinuating as \"the accuser of the brethren\" (Rev 12:10), that he would find chaff enough in his religion, if indeed there was any wheat at all. \n\nyou--not Peter only, but them all.\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":32,"content":["But I have prayed--have been doing it already. \n\nfor thee--as most in danger. (See on Luk 22:61-62.) \n\nfail not--that is, entirely; for partially it did fail. \n\nconverted--brought back afresh as a penitent disciple. \n\nstrengthen, &c.--that is, make use of thy bitter experience for the fortifying of thy tempted brethren.\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":33,"content":["I am ready, &c.--honest-hearted, warmly-attached disciple, thinking thy present feelings immovable as a rock, thou shalt find them in the hour of temptation unstable as water: \"I have been praying for thee,\" therefore thy faith shall not perish; but thinking this superfluous, thou shalt find that \"he that trusteth in his own heart is a fool\" (Pro 28:26).\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":34,"content":["cock . . . crow--\"twice\" (Mar 14:30).\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":35,"content":["But now--that you are going forth not as before on a temporary mission, provided for without purse or scrip, but into scenes of continued and severe trial, your methods must be different; for purse and scrip will now be needed for support, and the usual means of defense.\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":37,"content":["the things concerning me--decreed and written. \n\nhave an end--are rapidly drawing to a close.\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":38,"content":["two swords . . . enough--they thinking He referred to present defense, while His answer showed He meant something else.\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":39,"content":["AGONY IN THE GARDEN. (Luk 22:39-46)\n\nas . . . wont--(See Joh 18:2).\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":40,"content":["the place--the Garden of Gethsemane, on the west or city side of the mount. Comparing all the accounts of this mysterious scene, the facts appear to be these: (1) He bade nine of the Twelve remain \"here\" while He went and prayed \"yonder.\" (2) He \"took the other three, Peter, James, and John, and began to be sore amazed [appalled], sorrowful, and very heavy [oppressed], and said, My soul is exceeding sorrowful even unto death\"--\"I feel as if nature would sink under this load, as if life were ebbing out, and death coming before its time\"--\"tarry ye here, and watch with Me\"; not, \"Witness for Me,\" but, \"Bear Me company.\" It did Him good, it seems, to have them beside Him. (3) But soon even they were too much for Him: He must be alone. \"He was withdrawn from them about a stone's-cast\"--though near enough for them to be competent witnesses and kneeled down, uttering that most affecting prayer (Mar 14:36), that if possible \"the cup,\" of His approaching death, \"might pass from Him, but if not, His Father's will be done\": implying that in itself it was so purely revolting that only its being the Father's will would induce Him to taste it, but that in that view of it He was perfectly prepared to drink it. It is no struggle between a reluctant and a compliant will, but between two views of one event--an abstract and a relative view of it, in the one of which it was revolting, in the other welcome. By signifying how it felt in the one view, He shows His beautiful oneness with ourselves in nature and feeling; by expressing how He regarded it in the other light, He reveals His absolute obediential subjection to His Father. (4) On this, having a momentary relief, for it came upon Him, we imagine, by surges, He returns to the three, and finding them sleeping, He addresses them affectingly, particularly Peter, as in Mar 14:37-38. He then (5) goes back, not now to kneel, but fell on His face on the ground, saying the same words, but with this turn, \"If this cup may not pass,\" &c. (Mat 26:42) --that is, 'Yes, I understand this mysterious silence (Psa 22:1-6); it may not pass; I am to drink it, and I will'--\"Thy will be done!\" (6) Again, for a moment relieved, He returns and finds them \"sleeping for sorrow,\" warns them as before, but puts a loving construction upon it, separating between the \"willing spirit\" and the \"weak flesh.\" (7) Once more, returning to His solitary spot, the surges rise higher, beat more tempestuously, and seem ready to overwhelm Him. To fortify Him for this, \"there appeared an angel unto Him from heaven strengthening Him\"--not to minister light or comfort (He was to have none of that, and they were not needed nor fitted to convey it), but purely to sustain and brace up sinking nature for a yet hotter and fiercer struggle. And now, He is \"in an agony, and prays more earnestly\"--even Christ's prayer, it seems, admitted of and now demanded such increase--\"and His sweat was as it were great drops [literally, 'clots'] of blood falling down to the ground.\" What was this? Not His proper sacrificial offering, though essential to it. It was just the internal struggle, apparently hushing itself before, but now swelling up again, convulsing His whole inner man, and this so affecting His animal nature that the sweat oozed out from every pore in thick drops of blood, falling to the ground. It was just shuddering nature and indomitable will struggling together. But again the cry, If it must be, Thy will be done, issues from His lips, and all is over. \"The bitterness of death is past.\" He has anticipated and rehearsed His final conflict, and won the victory--now on the theater of an invincible will, as then on the arena of the Cross. \"I will suffer,\" is the grand result of Gethsemane: \"It is finished\" is the shout that bursts from the Cross. The Will without the Deed had been all in vain; but His work was consummated when He carried the now manifested Will into the palpable Deed, \"by the which WILL we are sanctified THROUGH THE OFFERING OF THE BODY OF JESUS CHRIST ONCE FOR ALL\" (Heb 10:10). (8) At the close of the whole scene, finding them still sleeping (worn out with continued sorrow and racking anxiety), He bids them, with an irony of deep emotion, \"sleep on now and take their rest, the hour is come, the Son of man is betrayed into the hands of sinners, rise, let us be going, the traitor is at hand.\" And while He spoke, Judas approached with his armed band. Thus they proved \"miserable comforters,\" broken reeds; and thus in His whole work He was alone, and \"of the people there was none with Him.\"\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":61,"content":["JESUS BEFORE CAIAPHAS--FALL OF PETER. (Luk 22:55-62)\n\nAnd the Lord turned, and looked upon Peter--(Also see on Mar 14:72.)\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":62,"content":["And Peter went out, and wept bitterly--(Also see on Mar 14:72.)\n\n\n\n\nNext: Luke Chapter 23\n\n"]}],"introduction":"CONSPIRACY OF THE JEWISH AUTHORITIES TO PUT JESUS TO DEATH--COMPACT WITH JUDAS. (Luk 22:1-6)\n\n(See on Mat 26:1-5.)\n\n"},"thisChapterLink":"/api/c/jamieson-fausset-brown/LUK/22.json","thisChapterReference":{"commentaryId":"jamieson-fausset-brown","book":"LUK","chapter":22},"nextChapterApiLink":"/api/c/jamieson-fausset-brown/LUK/23.json","nextChapterReference":{"commentaryId":"jamieson-fausset-brown","book":"LUK","chapter":23},"previousChapterApiLink":"/api/c/jamieson-fausset-brown/LUK/21.json","previousChapterReference":{"commentaryId":"jamieson-fausset-brown","book":"LUK","chapter":21},"numberOfVerses":26}