{"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":9,"content":[{"type":"verse","number":7,"content":["HEROD TROUBLED AT WHAT HE HEARS OF CHRIST DESIRES TO SEE HIM. (Luk 9:7-9)\n\nperplexed--at a loss, embarrassed. \n\nsaid of some, that John was risen--Among many opinions, this was the one which Herod himself adopted, for the reason, no doubt, mentioned on Mar 6:14.\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":9,"content":["desired to see him--but did not, till as a prisoner He was sent to him by Pilate just before His death, as we learn from Luk 23:8.\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":24,"content":["PETER'S CONFESSION OF CHRIST--OUR LORD'S FIRST EXPLICIT ANNOUNCEMENT OF HIS APPROACHING DEATH, AND WARNINGS ARISING OUT OF IT. (Luk 9:18-27)\n\nwill save--\"Is minded to save,\" bent on saving. The pith of this maxim depends--as often in such weighty sayings (for example, \"Let the dead bury the dead,\" Mat 8:22) --on the double sense attached to the word \"life,\" a lower and a higher, the natural and the spiritual, temporal and eternal. An entire sacrifice of the lower, or a willingness to make it, is indispensable to the preservation of the higher life; and he who cannot bring himself to surrender the one for the sake of the other shall eventually lose both.\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":26,"content":["ashamed of me, and of my words--The sense of shame is one of the strongest in our nature, one of the social affections founded on our love of reputation, which causes instinctive aversion to what is fitted to lower it, and was given us as a preservative from all that is properly shameful. When one is, in this sense of it, lost to shame, he is nearly past hope (Zac 3:5; Jer 6:15; Jer 3:3). But when Christ and \"His words\"--Christianity, especially in its more spiritual and uncompromising features--are unpopular, the same instinctive desire to stand well with others begets the temptation to be ashamed of Him, which only the 'expulsive power' of a higher affection can effectually counteract. \n\nSon of man be ashamed, when he cometh, &c.--He will render to that man his own treatment; He will disown him before the most august of all assemblies, and put him to \"shame and everlasting contempt\" (Dan 12:2). \"Oh shame, to be put to shame before God, Christ, and angels!\" [BENGEL].\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":27,"content":["not taste of death fill they see the kingdom of God--\"see it come with power\" (Mar 9:1); or see \"the Son of man coming in His kingdom\" (Mat 16:28). The reference, beyond doubt, is to the firm establishment and victorious progress, in the lifetime of some then present, of that new Kingdom of Christ, which was destined to work the greatest of all changes on this earth, and be the grand pledge of His final coming in glory.\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":28,"content":["JESUS TRANSFIGURED. (Luk 9:28-36)\n\nan eight days after these sayings--including the day on which this was spoken and that of the Transfiguration. Matthew and Mark say (Mat 17:1; Mar 9:2) \"after six days,\" excluding these two days. As the \"sayings\" so definitely connected with the transfiguration scene are those announcing His death--at which Peter and all the Twelve were so startled and scandalized--so this scene was designed to show to the eyes as well as the heart how glorious that death was in the view of Heaven. \n\nPeter, James, and John--partners before in secular business; now sole witnesses of the resurrection of Jairus' daughter (Mar 5:37), the transfiguration, and the agony in the garden (Mar 14:33). \n\na mountain--not Tabor, according to long tradition, with which the facts ill comport, but some one near the lake. \n\nto pray--for the period He had now reached was a critical and anxious one. (See on Mat 16:13). But who can adequately translate those \"strong cryings and tears?\" Methinks, as I steal by His side, I hear from Him these plaintive sounds, \"Lord, who hath believed Our report? I am come unto Mine own and Mine own receive Me not; I am become a stranger unto My brethren, an alien to My mother's children: Consider Mine enemies, for they are many, and they hate Me with cruel hatred. Arise, O Lord, let not man prevail. Thou that dwellest between the cherubim, shine forth: Show Me a token for good: Father, glorify Thy name.\"\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":29,"content":["as he prayed, the fashion, &c.--Before He cried He was answered, and while He was yet speaking He was heard. Blessed interruption to prayer this! Thanks to God, transfiguring manifestations are not quite strangers here. Ofttimes in the deepest depths, out of groanings which cannot be uttered, God's dear children are suddenly transported to a kind of heaven upon earth, and their soul is made as the chariots of Amminadab. Their prayers fetch down such light, strength, holy gladness, as make their face to shine, putting a kind of celestial radiance upon it (Co2 3:18, with Exo 34:29-35). \n\nraiment white, &c.--Matthew says, \"His face did shine as the sun\" (Mat 17:2), and Mark says (Mar 9:3), \"His raiment became shining, exceeding white as snow, so as no fuller on earth can white them\" (Mar 9:3). The light, then, it would seem, shone not upon Him from without, but out of Him from within; He was all irradiated, was in one blaze of celestial glory. What a contrast to that \"visage more marred than men, and His form than the sons of men!\" (Isa 52:14).\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":30,"content":["there talked with him two men . . . Moses and Elias . . . appeared in glory--\"Who would have believed these were not angels had not their human names been subjoined?\" [BENGEL]. (Compare Act 1:10; Mar 16:5). Moses represented \"the law,\" Elijah \"the prophets,\" and both together the whole testimony of the Old Testament Scriptures, and the Old Testament saints, to Christ; now not borne in a book, but by living men, not to a coming, but a come Messiah, visibly, for they \"appeared,\" and audibly, for they \"spake.\"\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":31,"content":["spake--\"were speaking.\" \n\nof his decease--\"departure\"; beautiful euphemism (softened term) for death, which Peter, who witnessed the scene, uses to express his own expected death, and the use of which single term seems to have recalled the whole by a sudden rush of recollection, and occasioned that delightful allusion to this scene which we find in Pe2 1:15-18. \n\nwhich he should accomplish--\"was to fulfil.\" \n\nat Jerusalem--Mark the historical character and local features which Christ's death assumed to these glorified men--as important as it is charming--and see on Luk 2:11. What now may be gathered from this statement? (1) That a dying Messiah is the great article of the true Jewish theology. For a long time the Church had fallen clean away from the faith of this article, and even from a preparedness to receive it. But here we have that jewel raked out of the dunghill of Jewish traditions, and by the true representatives of the Church of old made the one subject of talk with Christ Himself. (2) The adoring gratitude of glorified men for His undertaking to accomplish such a decease; their felt dependence upon it for the glory in which they appeared; their profound interest in the progress of it, their humble solaces and encouragements to go through with it; and their sense of its peerless and overwhelming glory. \"Go, matchless, adored One, a Lamb to the slaughter! rejected of men, but chosen of God and precious; dishonored, abhorred, and soon to be slain by men, but worshipped by cherubim, ready to be greeted by all heaven. In virtue of that decease we are here; our all is suspended on it and wrapped up in it. Thine every step is watched by us with ineffable interest; and though it were too high an honor to us to be permitted to drop a word of cheer into that precious but now clouded spirit, yet, as the first-fruits of harvest; the very joy set before Him, we cannot choose but tell Him that what is the depth of shame to Him is covered with glory in the eyes of Heaven, that the Cross to Him is the Crown to us, that that 'decease' is all our salvation and all our desire.\" And who can doubt that such a scene did minister deep cheer to that spirit? It is said they \"talked\" not to Him, but \"with Him\"; and if they told Him how glorious His decease was, might He not fitly reply, \"I know it, but your voice, as messengers from heaven come down to tell it Me, is music in Mine ears.\"\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":32,"content":["and when they were awake--so, certainly, the most commentators: but if we translate literally, it should be \"but having kept awake\" [MEYER, ALFORD]. Perhaps \"having roused themselves up\" [OLSHAUSEN] may come near enough to the literal sense; but from the word used we can gather no more than that they shook off their drowsiness. It was night, and the Lord seems to have spent the whole night on the mountain (Luk 9:37). \n\nsaw his glory, &c.--The emphasis lies on \"saw,\" qualifying them to become \"eye-witnesses of His majesty\" (Pe2 1:16).\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":33,"content":["they departed--Ah! bright manifestations in this vale of tears are always \"departing\" manifestations.\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":34,"content":["a cloud--not one of our watery clouds, but the Shekinah-cloud (see on Mat 23:39), the pavilion of the manifested presence of God with His people, what Peter calls \"the excellent\" of \"magnificent glory\" (Pe2 1:17). \n\na voice--\"such a voice,\" says Peter emphatically; \"and this voice [he adds] we heard, when we were with Him in the holy mount\" (Pe2 1:17-18).\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":35,"content":["my beloved Son . . . hear him--reverentially, implicitly, alone.\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":36,"content":["Jesus was found alone--Moses and Elias are gone. Their work is done, and they have disappeared from the scene, feeling no doubt with their fellow servant the Baptist, \"He must increase, but I must decrease.\" The cloud too is gone, and the naked majestic Christ, braced in spirit, and enshrined in the reverent affection of His disciples, is left--to suffer! \n\nkept it close--feeling, for once at least, that such things were unmeet as yet for the general gaze.\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":43,"content":["DEMONIAC AND LUNATIC BOY HEALED--CHRIST'S SECOND EXPLICIT ANNOUNCEMENT OF HIS DEATH AND RESURRECTION. (Luk 9:37-45)\n\nthe mighty power of God--\"the majesty\" or \"mightiness\" of God in this last miracle, the transfiguration, &c.: the divine grandeur of Christ rising upon them daily. By comparing Mat 17:22, and Mar 9:30, we gather that this had been the subject of conversation between the Twelve and their Master as they journeyed along.\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":44,"content":["these sayings--not what was passing between them about His grandeur [MEYER, &c.], but what He was now to repeat for the second time about His sufferings [DE WETTE, STIER, ALFORD, &c.]; that is, \"Be not carried off your feet by all this grandeur of Mine, but bear in mind what I have already told you, and now distinctly repeat, that that Sun in whose beams ye now rejoice is soon to set in midnight gloom.\" \"The Son of man,\" says Christ, \"into the hands of men\"--a remarkable antithesis (also in Mat 17:22, and Mar 9:31).\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":45,"content":["and they feared--\"insomuch that they feared.\" Their most cherished ideas were so completely dashed by such announcements, that they were afraid of laying themselves open to rebuke by asking Him any questions.\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":46,"content":["STRIFE AMONG THE TWELVE WHO SHOULD BE GREATEST--JOHN REBUKED FOR EXCLUSIVENESS. (Luk 9:46-48)\n\n(See on Mat 18:1-5).\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":49,"content":["John answered, &c.--The link of connection here with the foregoing context lies in the words \"in My name\" (Luk 9:48). \"Oh, as to that,\" said John, young, warm, but not sufficiently apprehending Christ's teaching in these things, \"we saw one casting out devils in Thy name, and we forbade him: Were we wrong?\" \"Ye were wrong.\" \"But we did because he followeth not us,'\" \"No matter. For (1) There is no man which shall do a miracle in My name that can lightly [soon] speak evil of Me' [Mar 9:39]. And (2) If such a person cannot be supposed to be 'against us,' you are to consider him 'for us.'\" Two principles of immense importance. Christ does not say this man should not have followed \"with them,\" but simply teaches how he was to be regarded though he did not--as a reverer of His name and a promoter of His cause. Surely this condemns not only those horrible attempts by force to shut up all within one visible pale of discipleship, which have deluged Christendom with blood in Christ's name, but the same spirit in its milder form of proud ecclesiastic scowl upon all who \"after the form which they call a sect (as the word signifies, Act 24:14), do so worship the God of their fathers.\" Visible unity in Christ's Church is devoutly to be sought, but this is not the way to it. See the noble spirit of Moses (Num 11:24-29).\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":51,"content":["THE PERIOD OF HIS ASSUMPTION APPROACHING CHRIST TAKES HIS LAST LEAVE OF GALILEE--THE SAMARITANS REFUSE TO RECEIVE HIM. (Luk 9:51-56)\n\nthe time was come--rather, \"the days were being fulfilled,\" or approaching their fulfilment. \n\nthat he should be received up--\"of His assumption,\" meaning His exaltation to the Father; a sublime expression, taking the sweep of His whole career, as if at one bound He was about to vault into glory. The work of Christ in the flesh is here divided into two great stages; all that preceded this belonging to the one, and all that follows it to the other. During the one, He formally \"came to His own,\" and \"would have gathered them\"; during the other, the awful consequences of \"His own receiving Him not\" rapidly revealed themselves. \n\nhe steadfastly set his face--the \"He\" here is emphatic--\"He Himself then.\" See His own prophetic language, \"I have set my face like a flint\" (Isa 50:7). \n\ngo to Jerusalem--as His goal, but including His preparatory visits to it at the feasts of tabernacles and of dedication (Joh 7:2, Joh 7:10; Joh 10:22-23), and all the intermediate movements and events.\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":52,"content":["messengers before his face . . . to make ready for him--He had not done this before; but now, instead of avoiding, He seems to court publicity--all now hastening to maturity.\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":53,"content":["did not receive him, because, &c.--The Galileans, in going to the festivals at Jerusalem, usually took the Samaritan route [JOSEPHUS, Antiquities, 20.6.1], and yet seem to have met with no such inhospitality. But if they were asked to prepare quarters for the Messiah, in the person of one whose \"face was as though He would go to Jerusalem,\" their national prejudices would be raised at so marked a slight upon their claims. (See on Joh 4:20).\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":54,"content":["James and John--not Peter, as we should have expected, but those \"sons of thunder\" (Mar 3:17), who afterwards wanted to have all the highest honors of the Kingdom to themselves, and the younger of whom had been rebuked already for his exclusiveness (Luk 9:49-50). Yet this was \"the disciple whom Jesus loved,\" while the other willingly drank of His Lord's bitter cup. (See on Mar 10:38-40; and Act 12:2). That same fiery zeal, in a mellowed and hallowed form, in the beloved disciple, we find in Jo1 5:10; Jo3 1:10. \n\nfire . . . as Elias--a plausible case, occurring also in Samaria (Kg2 1:10-12).\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":55,"content":["know not what . . . spirit--The thing ye demand, though in keeping with the legal, is unsuited to the genius of the evangelical dispensation. The sparks of unholy indignation would seize readily enough on this example of Elias, though our Lord's rebuke (as is plain from Luk 9:56) is directed to the principle involved rather than the animal heat which doubtless prompted the reference. \"It is a golden sentence of Tillotson, Let us never do anything for religion which is contrary to religion\" [WEBSTER and WILKINSON].\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":56,"content":["For the Son of man, &c.--a saying truly divine, of which all His miracles--for salvation, never destruction--were one continued illustration. \n\nwent to another--illustrating His own precept (Mat 10:23).\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":61,"content":["INCIDENTS ILLUSTRATIVE OF DISCIPLESHIP. (Luk 9:57-62)\n\nI will follow . . . but--The second disciple had a \"but\" too--a difficulty in the way just then. Yet the different treatment of the two cases shows how different was the spirit of the two, and to that our Lord addressed Himself. The case of Elisha (Kg1 19:19-21), though apparently similar to this, will be found quite different from the \"looking back\" of this case, the best illustration of which is that of those Hindu converts of our day who, when once persuaded to leave their spiritual fathers in order to \"bid them farewell which are at home at their house,\" very rarely return to them. (Also see on Mat 8:21.)\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":62,"content":["No man, &c.--As ploughing requires an eye intent on the furrow to be made, and is marred the instant one turns about, so will they come short of salvation who prosecute the work of God with a distracted attention, a divided heart. Though the reference seems chiefly to ministers, the application is general. The expression \"looking back\" has a manifest reference to \"Lot's wife\" (Gen 19:26; and see on Luk 17:32). It is not actual return to the world, but a reluctance to break with it. (Also see on Mat 8:21.)\n\n\n\n\nNext: Luke Chapter 10\n\n"]}],"introduction":"MISSION OF THE TWELVE APOSTLES. (Luk 9:1-6)\n\npower and authority--He both qualified and authorized them.\n\n"},"thisChapterLink":"/api/c/jamieson-fausset-brown/LUK/9.json","thisChapterReference":{"commentaryId":"jamieson-fausset-brown","book":"LUK","chapter":9},"nextChapterApiLink":"/api/c/jamieson-fausset-brown/LUK/10.json","nextChapterReference":{"commentaryId":"jamieson-fausset-brown","book":"LUK","chapter":10},"previousChapterApiLink":"/api/c/jamieson-fausset-brown/LUK/8.json","previousChapterReference":{"commentaryId":"jamieson-fausset-brown","book":"LUK","chapter":8},"numberOfVerses":27}