Luke 13:1-3 - Joseph Benson’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

There were present at that season When Christ spake the foregoing words; some that told him of the Galileans The followers of Judas Gaulonites, whose story Josephus has given us at large, Antiq., Luke 18:1. It appears he was the head of a sect who asserted God to be their only sovereign, and were so utterly averse to a submission to the Roman power, that they accounted it unlawful to pay tribute unto Cesar, and would rather endure the greatest torments than give any man the title of lord. Perhaps this story of the Galileans might now be mentioned to Christ with a design of leading him into a snare, whether he should justify or condemn the persons that were slain. Be this as it may, the scope and connection of the passage, as well as Christ's answer, show, that the persons who mentioned the case of these Galileans thought God had permitted them to be massacred at their devotions for some extraordinary wickedness; thus insinuating a very wrong idea of divine providence. And Jesus said, Suppose ye, &c. Christ “not only condemned the notion now mentioned, but told them expressly that these Galileans were not to be reckoned greater sinners than others, because they had been overtaken by so severe a calamity, and exhorted them, instead of forming harsh judgments of others from such examples of sufferings, to improve them as inducements unto themselves to repent, assuring them that if they did not they should all likewise perish;” or, perish in a similar manner, as the word ωσαυτως implies. And, as a general and national repentance did not take place, Christ's threatening was most awfully verified. For there was a remarkable resemblance between the fate of these Galileans, and that of the main body of the Jewish nation; the flower of which was slain at Jerusalem by the Roman sword, or by the falling of walls and towers, while they were assembled at one of their great festivals: and many thousands of them perished in the temple itself, and, as their own historian relates, were literally buried under its ruins. Many, who came from far to attend the passover, fell before their sacrifices; and when Titus took the city a multitude of dead bodies lay round the altar.