1 But Jesus, full of [the] Holy Spirit, returned from the Jordan, and was led by the Spirit in the wilderness
2 forty days, tempted of the devil; and in those days he did not eat anything, and when they were finished he hungered.
3 And the devil said to him, If thou be Son of God, speak to this stone, that it become bread.
4 And Jesus answered unto him saying, It is written, Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word of God.
5 And [the devil], leading him up into a high mountain, shewed him all the kingdoms of the habitable world in a moment of time.
6 And the devil said to him, I will give thee all this power, and their glory; for it is given up to me, and to whomsoever I will I give it.
7 If therefore *thou* wilt do homage before me, all [of it] shall be thine.
8 And Jesus answering him said, It is written, Thou shalt do homage to [the] Lord thy God, and him alone shalt thou serve.
9 And he led him to Jerusalem, and set him on the edge of the temple, and said to him, If thou be Son of God, cast thyself down hence;
10 for it is written, He shall give charge to his angels concerning thee to keep thee;
11 and on [their] hands shall they bear thee, lest in any wise thou strike thy foot against a stone.
12 And Jesus answering said to him, It is said, Thou shalt not tempt [the] Lord thy God.
13 And the devil, having completed every temptation, departed from him for a time.
14 And Jesus returned in the power of the Spirit to Galilee; and a rumour went out into the whole surrounding country about him;
15 and *he* taught in their synagogues, being glorified of all.
16 And he came to Nazareth, where he was brought up; and he entered, according to his custom, into the synagogue on the sabbath day, and stood up to read.
17 And [the] book of the prophet Esaias was given to him; and having unrolled the book he found the place where it was written,
18 [The] Spirit of [the] Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to preach glad tidings to [the] poor; he has sent me to preach to captives deliverance, and to [the] blind sight, to send forth [the] crushed delivered,
19 to preach [the] acceptable year of [the] Lord.
20 And having rolled up the book, when he had delivered it up to the attendant, he sat down; and the eyes of all in the synagogue were fixed upon him.
21 And he began to say to them, To-day this scripture is fulfilled in your ears.
22 And all bore witness to him, and wondered at the words of grace which were coming out of his mouth. And they said, Is not this the son of Joseph?
23 And he said to them, Ye will surely say to me this parable, Physician, heal thyself; whatsoever we have heard has taken place in Capernaum do here also in thine own country.
24 And he said, Verily I say to you, that no prophet is acceptable in his [own] country.
25 But of a truth I say to you, There were many widows in Israel in the days of Elias, when the heaven was shut up for three years and six months, so that a great famine came upon all the land,
26 and to none of them was Elias sent but to Sarepta of Sidonia, to a woman [that was] a widow.
27 And there were many lepers in Israel in the time of Elisha the prophet, and none of them was cleansed but Naaman the Syrian.
28 And they were all filled with rage in the synagogue, hearing these things;
29 and rising up they cast him forth out of the city, and led him up to the brow of the mountain upon which their city was built, so that they might throw him down the precipice;
30 but *he*, passing through the midst of them, went his way,
31 and descended to Capernaum, a city of Galilee, and taught them on the sabbaths.
32 And they were astonished at his doctrine, for his word was with authority.
33 And there was in the synagogue a man having a spirit of an unclean demon, and he cried with a loud voice,
34 saying, Eh! what have we to do with thee, Jesus, Nazarene? hast thou come to destroy us? I know thee who thou art, the Holy [One] of God.
35 And Jesus rebuked him, saying, Hold thy peace, and come out from him. And the demon, having thrown him down into the midst, came out from him without doing him any injury.
36 And astonishment came upon all, and they spoke to one another, saying, What word [is] this? for with authority and power he commands the unclean spirits, and they come out.
37 And a rumour went out into every place of the country round concerning him.
38 And rising up out of the synagogue, he entered into the house of Simon. But Simon's mother-in-law was suffering under a bad fever; and they asked him for her.
39 And standing over her, he rebuked the fever, and it left her; and forthwith standing up she served them.
40 And when the sun went down, all, as many as had persons sick with divers diseases, brought them to him, and having laid his hands on every one of them, he healed them;
41 and demons also went out from many, crying out and saying, *Thou* art the Son of God. And rebuking them, he suffered them not to speak, because they knew him to be the Christ.
42 And when it was day he went out, and went into a desert place, and the crowds sought after him, and came up to him, and [would have] kept him back that he should not go from them.
43 But he said to them, I must needs announce the glad tidings of the kingdom of God to the other cities also, for for this I have been sent forth.
44 And he was preaching in the synagogues of Galilee.
Worthy.Bible » Commentaries » Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible » Commentary on Luke 4
Commentary on Luke 4 Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible
CHAPTER 4
Lu 4:1-13. Temptation of Christ.
(See on Mt 4:1-11.)
Lu 4:14-32. Jesus Entering on His Public Ministry, Makes a Circuit of Galilee—Rejection at Nazareth.
Note.—A large gap here occurs, embracing the important transactions in Galilee and Jerusalem which are recorded in Joh 1:29-4:54, and which occurred before John's imprisonment (Joh 3:24); whereas the transactions here recorded occurred (as appears from Mt 4:12, 13) after that event. The visit to Nazareth recorded in Mt 13:54-58 (and Mr 6:1-6) we take to be not a later visit, but the same with this first one; because we cannot think that the Nazarenes, after being so enraged at His first display of wisdom as to attempt His destruction, should, on a second display of the same, wonder at it and ask how He came by it, as if they had never witnessed it before.
16. as his custom was—Compare Ac 17:2.
stood up for to read—Others besides rabbins were allowed to address the congregation. (See Ac 13:15.)
18, 19. To have fixed on any passage announcing His sufferings (as Isa 53:1-12), would have been unsuitable at that early stage of His ministry. But He selects a passage announcing the sublime object of His whole mission, its divine character, and His special endowments for it; expressed in the first person, and so singularly adapted to the first opening of the mouth in His prophetic capacity, that it seems as if made expressly for this occasion. It is from the well-known section of Isaiah's prophecies whose burden is that mysterious "Servant of the Lord," despised of man, abhorred of the nation, but before whom kings on seeing Him are to arise, and princes to worship; in visage more marred than any man and His form than the sons of men, yet sprinkling many nations; laboring seemingly in vain, and spending His strength for naught and in vain, yet Jehovah's Servant to raise up the tribes of Jacob and be His Salvation to the ends of the earth (Isa 49:1-26, &c.). The quotation is chiefly from the Septuagint version, used in the synagogues.
19. acceptable year—an allusion to the jubilee year (Le 25:10), a year of universal release for person and property. (See also Isa 49:8; 2Co 6:2.) As the maladies under which humanity groans are here set forth under the names of poverty, broken-heartedness, bondage, blindness, bruisedness (or crushedness), so, as the glorious Healer of all these maladies, Christ announces Himself in the act of reading it, stopping the quotation just before it comes to "the day of vengeance," which was only to come on the rejecters of His message (Joh 3:17). The first words, "The Spirit of the Lord is upon Me," have been noted since the days of the Church Fathers, as an illustrious example of Father, Son, and Holy Ghost being exhibited as in distinct yet harmonious action in the scheme of salvation.
20. the minister—the chazan, or synagogue-officer.
all eyes … fastened on Him—astounded at His putting in such claims.
21. began to say, &c.—His whole address was just a detailed application to Himself of this and perhaps other like prophecies.
22. gracious words—"the words of grace," referring both to the richness of His matter and the sweetness of His manner (Ps 45:2).
Is not this, &c.—(See on Mt 13:54-56). They knew He had received no rabbinical education, and anything supernatural they seemed incapable of conceiving.
23. this proverb—like our "Charity begins at home."
whatsoever, &c.—"Strange rumors have reached our ears of Thy doings at Capernaum; but if such power resides in Thee to cure the ills of humanity, why has none of it yet come nearer home, and why is all this alleged power reserved for strangers?" His choice of Capernaum as a place of residence since entering on public life was, it seems, already well known at Nazareth; and when He did come thither, to give no displays of His power when distant places were ringing with His fame, wounded their pride. He had indeed "laid his hands on a few sick folk and healed them" (Mr 6:5); but this seems to have been done quite privately the general unbelief precluding anything more open.
24. And he said, &c.—He replies to the one proverb by another, equally familiar, which we express in a rougher form—"Too much familiarity breeds contempt." Our Lord's long residence in Nazareth merely as a townsman had made Him too common, incapacitating them for appreciating Him as others did who were less familiar with His everyday demeanor in private life. A most important principle, to which the wise will pay due regard. (See also Mt 7:6, on which our Lord Himself ever acted.)
25-27. But I tell you, &c.—falling back for support on the well-known examples of Elijah and Elisha (Eliseus), whose miraculous power, passing by those who were near, expended itself on those at a distance, yea on heathens, "the two great prophets who stand at the commencement of prophetic antiquity, and whose miracles strikingly prefigured those of our Lord. As He intended like them to feed the poor and cleanse the lepers, He points to these miracles of mercy, and not to the fire from heaven and the bears that tore the mockers" [Stier].
three years and six months—So Jas 5:17, including perhaps the six months after the last fall of rain, when there would be little or none at any rate; whereas in 1Ki 18:1, which says the rain returned "in the third year," that period is probably not reckoned.
26, 27. save … saving—"but only." (Compare Mr 13:32, Greek.)
Sarepta—"Zarephath" (1Ki 17:9), a heathen village between Tyre and Sidon. (See Mr 7:24.)
28, 29. when they heard these things—these allusions to the heathen, just as afterwards with Paul (Ac 22:21, 22).
29. rose up—broke up the service irreverently and rushed forth.
thrust him—with violence, as a prisoner in their hands.
brow, &c.—Nazareth, though not built on the ridge of a hill, is in part surrounded by one to the west, having several such precipices. (See 2Ch 25:12; 2Ki 9:33.) It was a mode of capital punishment not unusual among the Romans and others. This was the first insult which the Son of God received, and it came from "them of His own household!" (Mt 10:36).
30. passing through the midst, &c.—evidently in a miraculous way, though perhaps quite noiselessly, leading them to wonder afterwards what spell could have come over them, that they allowed Him to escape. (Similar escapes, however, in times of persecution, are not unexampled.)
31. down to Capernaum—It lay on the Sea of Galilee (Mt 4:13), whereas Nazareth lay high.
Lu 4:33-37. Demoniac Healed.
33. unclean—The frequency with which this character of impurity is applied to evil spirits is worthy of notice.
cried out, &c.—(See Mt 8:29; Mr 3:11).
35. rebuked them, &c.—(See on Lu 4:41).
thrown him, &c.—See on Mr 9:20.
36. What a word—a word from the Lord of spirits.
Lu 4:38-41. Peter's Mother-in-law and Many Others, Healed.
(See on Mt 8:14-17.)
41. suffered them not to speak—The marginal reading ("to say that they knew him to be Christ") here is wrong. Our Lord ever refused testimony from devils, for the very reason why they were eager to give it, because He and they would thus seem to be one interest, as His enemies actually alleged. (See on Mt 12:24, &c.; see also Ac 16:16-18.)
Lu 4:42-44. Jesus Sought Out at Morning Prayer, and Entreated to Stay, Declines from the Urgency of His Work.
See on Mr 1:35-39, where we learn how early He retired, and how He was engaged in solitude when they came seeking Him.
42. stayed him—"were staying Him," or sought to do it. What a contrast to the Gadarenes! The nature of His mission required Him to keep moving, that all might hear the glad tidings (Mt 8:34).
43. I must, &c.—but duty only could move Him to deny entreaties so grateful to His spirit.