2 And he said to them, The harvest indeed [is] great, but the workmen few; supplicate therefore the Lord of the harvest that he may send out workmen into his harvest.
But when he saw the crowds he was moved with compassion for them, because they were harassed, and cast away as sheep not having a shepherd. Then saith he to his disciples, The harvest [is] great and the workmen [are] few; supplicate therefore the Lord of the harvest, that he send forth workmen unto his harvest.
for, for this we labour and suffer reproach, because we hope in a living God, who is preserver of all men, specially of those that believe.
[And] I thank Christ Jesus our Lord, who has given me power, that he has counted me faithful, appointing to ministry him who before was a blasphemer and persecutor, and an insolent overbearing [man]: but mercy was shewn me because I did it ignorantly, in unbelief. But the grace of our Lord surpassingly over-abounded with faith and love, which [is] in Christ Jesus.
For the rest, brethren, pray for us, that the word of the Lord may run and be glorified, even as also with you;
*I* have planted; Apollos watered; but God has given the increase. So that neither the planter is anything, nor the waterer; but God the giver of the increase. But the planter and the waterer are one; but each shall receive his own reward according to his own labour. For we are God's fellow-workmen; ye are God's husbandry, God's building.
And he said to them, Go into all the world, and preach the glad tidings to all the creation.
And I will give you shepherds according to my heart, and they shall feed you with knowledge and understanding.
Son of man, prophesy against the shepherds of Israel, prophesy; and say unto them, unto the shepherds, Thus saith the Lord Jehovah: Woe to the shepherds of Israel that feed themselves! Should not the shepherds feed the flock? Ye eat the fat, and ye clothe you with the wool; ye kill them that are fattened: [but] ye feed not the flock. The weak have ye not strengthened, nor have ye healed the sick, and ye have not bound up [what was] broken, neither have ye brought again that which was driven away, neither have ye sought for that which was lost; but with harshness and with rigour have ye ruled over them. And they were scattered because there was no shepherd; and they became meat to all the beasts of the field, and were scattered. My sheep wandered through all the mountains, and upon every high hill, and my sheep have been scattered upon all the face of the earth, and there was none that searched, or that sought for them.
Do not ye say, that there are yet four months and the harvest comes? Behold, I say to you, Lift up your eyes and behold the fields, for they are already white to harvest. He that reaps receives wages and gathers fruit unto life eternal, that both he that sows and he that reaps may rejoice together. For in this is [verified] the true saying, It is one who sows and another who reaps. I have sent you to reap that on which ye have not laboured; others have laboured, and ye have entered into their labours.
But we beg you, brethren, to know those who labour among you, and take the lead among you in [the] Lord, and admonish you,
And God has set certain in the assembly: first, apostles; secondly, prophets; thirdly, teachers; then miraculous powers; then gifts of healings; helps; governments; kinds of tongues.
But [as] fellow-workmen, we also beseech that ye receive not the grace of God in vain:
But to each one of us has been given grace according to the measure of the gift of the Christ. Wherefore he says, Having ascended up on high, he has led captivity captive, and has given gifts to men. But that he ascended, what is it but that he also descended into the lower parts of the earth? He that descended is the same who has also ascended up above all the heavens, that he might fill all things; and *he* has given some apostles, and some prophets, and some evangelists, and some shepherds and teachers, for the perfecting of the saints; with a view to [the] work of [the] ministry, with a view to the edifying of the body of Christ;
For all seek their own things, not the things of Jesus Christ.
but I have thought it necessary to send to you Epaphroditus, my brother and fellow-workman and fellow-soldier, but your messenger and minister to my need,
Let the elders who take the lead [among the saints] well be esteemed worthy of double honour, specially those labouring in word and teaching; for the scripture says, Thou shalt not muzzle an ox that treadeth out corn, and, The workman [is] worthy of his hire.
Take thy share in suffering as a good soldier of Jesus Christ. No one going as a soldier entangles himself with the affairs of life, that he may please him who has enlisted him as a soldier. And if also any one contend [in the games], he is not crowned unless he contend lawfully. The husbandman must labour before partaking of the fruits.
Paul, prisoner of Christ Jesus, and Timotheus the brother, to Philemon the beloved and our fellow-workman,
but Christ, as Son over his house, whose house are *we*, if indeed we hold fast the boldness and the boast of hope firm to the end.
And I said, Who art thou, Lord? And the Lord said, *I* am Jesus whom *thou* persecutest: but rise up and stand on thy feet; for, for this purpose have I appeared to thee, to appoint thee to be a servant and a witness both of what thou hast seen, and of what I shall appear to thee in, taking thee out from among the people, and the nations, to whom *I* send thee, to open their eyes, that they may turn from darkness to light, and from the power of Satan to God, that they may receive remission of sins and inheritance among them that are sanctified by faith in me.
And I will come down and talk with thee there; and I will take of the Spirit which is upon thee, and will put it upon them; and they shall bear the burden of the people with thee, and thou shalt not bear it alone.
And Elijah said to the people, I, only I, remain a prophet of Jehovah; and Baal's prophets are four hundred and fifty men.
And the king of Israel assembled the prophets, about four hundred men, and said to them, Shall I go against Ramoth-Gilead to battle, or shall I forbear? And they said, Go up, and the Lord will give it into the king's hand. But Jehoshaphat said, Is there not here a prophet of Jehovah besides, that we might inquire of him? And the king of Israel said to Jehoshaphat, There is yet one man by whom we may inquire of Jehovah; but I hate him, for he prophesies no good concerning me, but evil: [it is] Micah the son of Imlah. And Jehoshaphat said, Let not the king say so.
All ye beasts of the field, come to devour, all ye beasts in the forest. His watchmen are all of them blind, they are without knowledge; they are all dumb dogs that cannot bark, dreaming, lying down, loving to slumber: and the dogs are greedy, they know not to be satisfied, and these are shepherds that know not how to discern: they all turn to their own way, every one for his gain, even to the last of them: Come, [say they,] I will fetch wine, and we will fill ourselves with strong drink; and to-morrow shall be as this day, [and] much more abundant.
whose possessors slay them without being held guilty; and they that sell them say, Blessed be Jehovah! for I am become rich; and their own shepherds pity them not.
For the kingdom of the heavens is like a householder who went out with the early morn to hire workmen for his vineyard.
[it is] as a man gone out of the country, having left his house and given to his bondmen the authority, and to each one his work, and commanded the doorkeeper that he should watch.
And having called together the twelve, he gave them power and authority over all demons, and to heal diseases,
Those then that had been scattered went through [the countries] announcing the glad tidings of the word.
And as they were ministering to the Lord and fasting, the Holy Spirit said, Separate me now Barnabas and Saul for the work to which I have called them.
They therefore, having been sent forth by the Holy Spirit, went down to Seleucia, and thence sailed away to Cyprus.
And a vision appeared to Paul in the night: There was a certain Macedonian man, standing and beseeching him, and saying, Pass over into Macedonia and help us. And when he had seen the vision, immediately we sought to go forth to Macedonia, concluding that the Lord had called us to announce to them the glad tidings.
Take heed therefore to yourselves, and to all the flock, wherein the Holy Spirit has set you as overseers, to shepherd the assembly of God, which he has purchased with the blood of his own.
And he said to me, Go, for *I* will send thee to the nations afar off.
And the court which [is] without the temple cast out, and measure it not; because it has been given [up] to the nations, and the holy city shall they tread under foot forty-two months. And I will give [power] to my two witnesses, and they shall prophesy a thousand two hundred [and] sixty days, clothed in sackcloth.
Epaphras, who is [one] of you, [the] bondman of Christ Jesus, salutes you, always combating earnestly for you in prayers, to the end that ye may stand perfect and complete in all [the] will of God.
Whereunto also I toil, combating according to his working, which works in me in power.
Worthy.Bible » Commentaries » Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible » Commentary on Luke 10
Commentary on Luke 10 Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible
CHAPTER 10
Lu 10:1-24. Mission of the Seventy Disciples, and Their Return.
As our Lord's end approaches, the preparations for the establishment of the coming Kingdom are quickened and extended.
1. the Lord—a becoming title here, as this appointment was an act truly lordly [Bengel].
other seventy also—rather, "others (also in number), seventy"; probably with allusion to the seventy elders of Israel on whom the Spirit descended in the wilderness (Nu 11:24, 25). The mission, unlike that of the Twelve, was evidently quite temporary. All the instructions are in keeping with a brief and hasty pioneering mission, intended to supply what of general preparation for coming events the Lord's own visit afterwards to the same "cities and places" (Lu 10:1) would not, from want of time, now suffice to accomplish; whereas the instructions to the Twelve, besides embracing all those to the Seventy, contemplate world-wide and permanent effects. Accordingly, after their return from this single missionary tour, we never again read of the Seventy.
2. The harvest, &c.—(See on Mt 9:37).
pray ye therefore the Lord of the harvest, that he would send forth labourers into his harvest—(See on Mt 9:38).
3-12. (See on Mt 10:7-16).
10. son of peace—inwardly prepared to embrace your message of peace. See note on "worthy," (see on Mt 10:13).
12-15. (See on Mt 11:20-24).
for Sodom—Tyre and Sidon were ruined by commercial prosperity; Sodom sank through its vile pollutions: but the doom of otherwise correct persons who, amidst a blaze of light, reject the Saviour, shall be less endurable than that of any of these.
16. He that, &c.—(See on Mt 10:40).
17. returned—evidently not long away.
Lord, &c.—"Thou hast exceeded Thy promise, for 'even the devils,'" &c. The possession of such power, not being expressly in their commission, as in that to the Twelve (Lu 9:1), filled them with more astonishment and joy than all else.
through thy name—taking no credit to themselves, but feeling lifted into a region of unimagined superiority to the powers of evil simply through their connection with Christ.
18. I beheld—As much of the force of this glorious statement depends on the nice shade of sense indicated by the imperfect tense in the original, it should be brought out in the translation: "I was beholding Satan as lightning falling from heaven"; that is, "I followed you on your mission, and watched its triumphs; while you were wondering at the subjection to you of devils in My name, a grander spectacle was opening to My view; sudden as the darting of lightning from heaven to earth, lo! Satan was beheld falling from heaven!" How remarkable is this, that by that law of association which connects a part with the whole, those feeble triumphs of the Seventy seem to have not only brought vividly before the Redeemer the whole ultimate result of His mission, but compressed it into a moment and quickened it into the rapidity of lightning! Note.—The word rendered "devils," is always used for those spiritual agents employed in demoniacal possessions—never for the ordinary agency of Satan in rational men. When therefore the Seventy say, "the devils [demons] are subject to us," and Jesus replies, "Mine eye was beholding Satan falling," it is plain that He meant to raise their minds not only from the particular to the general, but from a very temporary form of satanic operation to the entire kingdom of evil. (See Joh 12:31; and compare Isa 14:12).
19. Behold, I give you, &c.—not for any renewal of their mission, though probably many of them afterwards became ministers of Christ; but simply as disciples.
serpents and scorpions—the latter more venomous than the former: literally, in the first instance (Mr 16:17, 18; Ac 28:5); but the next words, "and over all the power of the enemy, and nothing shall by any means hurt you," show that the glorious power of faith to "overcome the world" and "quench all the fiery darts of the wicked one," by the communication and maintenance of which to His people He makes them innocuous, is what is meant (1Jo 5:4; Eph 6:16).
20. rejoice not, &c.—that is, not so much. So far from forbidding it, He takes occasion from it to tell them what had been passing in His own mind. But as power over demons was after all intoxicating, He gives them a higher joy to balance it, the joy of having their names in Heaven's register (Php 4:3).
21, 22. Jesus … said, &c.—The very same sublime words were uttered by our Lord on a former similar occasion (see on Mt 11:25-27); but (1) There we are merely told that He "answered and said" thus; here, He "rejoiced in spirit and said," &c. (2) There it was merely "at that time" (or season) that He spoke thus, meaning with a general reference to the rejection of His gospel by the self-sufficient; here, "In that hour Jesus said," with express reference probably to the humble class from which He had to draw the Seventy, and the similar class that had chiefly welcomed their message. "Rejoice" is too weak a word. It is "exulted in spirit"—evidently giving visible expression to His unusual emotions; while, at the same time, the words "in spirit" are meant to convey to the reader the depth of them. This is one of those rare cases in which the veil is lifted from off the Redeemer's inner man, that, angel-like, we may "look into it" for a moment (1Pe 1:12). Let us gaze on it with reverential wonder, and as we perceive what it was that produced that mysterious ecstasy, we shall find rising in our hearts a still rapture—"Oh, the depths!"
23, 24. (See on Mt 13:16, 17).
Lu 10:25-37. Question of a Lawyer and Parable of the Good Samaritan.
25. tempted him—"tested him"; in no hostile spirit, yet with no tender anxiety for light on that question of questions, but just to see what insight this great Galilean teacher had.
26. What is written in the law—apposite question to a doctor of the law, and putting him in turn to the test [Bengel].
27. Thou shalt, &c.—the answer Christ Himself gave to another lawyer. (See on Mr 12:29-33).
28. he said, &c.—"Right; This do, and life is thine"—laying such emphasis on "this" as to indicate, without expressing it, where the real difficulty to a sinner lay, and thus nonplussing the questioner himself.
29. willing—"wishing," to get himself out of the difficulty, by throwing on Jesus the definition of "neighbor," which the Jews interpreted very narrowly and technically, as excluding Samaritans and Gentiles [Alford].
30. A certain man—a Jew.
from Jerusalem to Jericho—a distance of nineteen miles northeast, a deep and very fertile hollow—"the Temple of Judea" [Trench].
thieves—"robbers." The road, being rocky and desolate, was a notorious haunt of robbers, then and for ages after, and even to this day.
31, 32. came down a … priest … and a Levite—Jericho, the second city of Judea, was a city of the priests and Levites, and thousands of them lived there. The two here mentioned are supposed, apparently, to be returning from temple duties, but they had not learnt what that meaneth, 'I will have mercy and not sacrifice' [Trench].
saw him—It was not inadvertently that he acted.
came and looked—a further aggravation.
passed by—although the law expressly required the opposite treatment even of the beast not only of their brethren, but of their enemy (De 22:4; Ex 23:4, 5; compare Isa 58:7).
33. Samaritan—one excommunicated by the Jews, a byword among them, synonymous with heretic and devil (Joh 8:48; see on Lu 17:18).
had compassion—His best is mentioned first; for "He who gives outward things gives something external to himself, but he who imparts compassion and tears gives him something from his very self" [Gregory The Great, in Trench]. No doubt the priest and Levite had their excuses—It is not safe to be lingering here; besides, he's past recovery; and then, may not suspicion rest upon ourselves? So might the Samaritan have reasoned, but did not [Trench]. Nor did he say, He's a Jew, who would have had no dealings with me (Joh 4:9), and why should I with him?
34. oil and wine—the remedies used in such cases all over the East (Isa 1:6), and elsewhere; the wine to cleanse the wounds, the oil to assuage their smartings.
on his own beast—himself going on foot.
35. two pence—equal to two day's wages of a laborer, and enough for several days' support.
36. Which … was neighbour?—a most dexterous way of putting the question: (1) Turning the question from, "Whom am I to love as my neighbour?" to "Who is the man that shows that love?" (2) Compelling the lawyer to give a reply very different from what he would like—not only condemning his own nation, but those of them who should be the most exemplary. (3) Making him commend one of a deeply hated race. And he does it, but it is almost extorted. For he does not answer, "The Samaritan"—that would have sounded heterodox, heretical—but "He that showed mercy on him." It comes to the same thing, no doubt, but the circumlocution is significant.
37. Go, &c.—O exquisite, matchless teaching! What new fountains of charity has not this opened up in the human spirit—rivers in the wilderness, streams in the desert! What noble Christian institutions have not such words founded, all undreamed of till that wondrous One came to bless this heartless world of ours with His incomparable love—first in words, and then in deeds which have translated His words into flesh and blood, and poured the life of them through that humanity which He made His own! Was this parable, now, designed to magnify the law of love, and to show who fulfils it and who not? And who did this as never man did it, as our Brother Man, "our Neighbor?" The priests and Levites had not strengthened the diseased, nor bound up the broken (Eze 34:4), while He bound up the brokenhearted (Isa 61:1), and poured into all wounded spirits the balm of sweetest consolation. All the Fathers saw through the thin veil of this noblest of stories, the Story of love, and never wearied of tracing the analogy (though sometimes fancifully enough) [Trench]. Exclaims Gregory Nazianzen (in the fourth century), "He hungered, but He fed thousands; He was weary, but He is the Rest of the weary; He is saluted 'Samaritan' and 'Demoniac,' but He saves him that went down from Jerusalem and fell among thieves," &c.
Lu 10:38-42. Martha and Mary.
38. certain village—Bethany (Joh 11:1), which Luke so speaks of, having no farther occasion to notice it.
received him … her house—The house belonged to her, and she appears throughout to be the older sister.
39. which also—"who for her part," in contrast with Martha.
sat—"seated herself." From the custom of sitting beneath an instructor, the phrase "sitting at one's feet" came to mean being a disciple of any one (Ac 22:3).
heard—rather, "kept listening" to His word.
40. cumbered—"distracted."
came to him—"presented herself before Him," as from another apartment, in which her sister had "left her to serve (or make preparation) alone."
carest thou not … my sister, &c.—"Lord, here am I with everything to do, and this sister of mine will not lay a hand to anything; thus I miss something from Thy lips, and Thou from our hands."
bid her, &c.—She presumes not to stop Christ's teaching by calling her sister away, and thus leaving Him without His one auditor, nor did she hope perhaps to succeed if she had tried.
41. Martha, Martha—emphatically redoubling upon the name.
careful and cumbered—the one word expressing the inward worrying anxiety that her preparations should be worthy of her Lord; the other, the outward bustle of those preparations.
many things—"much service" (Lu 10:40); too elaborate preparation, which so engrossed her attention that she missed her Lord's teaching.
42. one thing, &c.—The idea of "Short work and little of it suffices for Me" is not so much the lower sense of these weighty words, as supposed in them, as the basis of something far loftier than any precept on economy. Underneath that idea is couched another, as to the littleness both of elaborate preparation for the present life and of that life itself, compared with another.
chosen the good part—not in the general sense of Moses' choice (Heb 11:25), and Joshua's (Jos 24:15), and David's (Ps 119:30); that is, of good in opposition to bad; but, of two good ways of serving and pleasing the Lord, choosing the better. Wherein, then, was Mary's better than Martha's? Hear what follows.
not be taken away—Martha's choice would be taken from her, for her services would die with her; Mary's never, being spiritual and eternal. Both were true-hearted disciples, but the one was absorbed in the higher, the other in the lower of two ways of honoring their common Lord. Yet neither despised, or would willingly neglect, the other's occupation. The one represents the contemplative, the other the active style of the Christian character. A Church full of Marys would perhaps be as great an evil as a Church full of Marthas. Both are needed, each to be the complement of the other.