Luke 13:14-17 - Joseph Benson’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

And the ruler of the synagogue Instead of joining in acknowledgments of the divine power and goodness, displayed in this gracious action of our Lord; answered The woman's praises, with indignation As if Christ had committed some heinous crime in healing this poor woman! He endeavoured, however, to disguise his wrath under the form of piety and zeal; as if he was angry only because the cure was wrought on the sabbath day; saying unto the people, There are six days, &c ., in them therefore come and be healed See how light he makes of the miracles which Christ wrought, as if they were things of course, which might be done by any one any day of the week. One would have thought, that the extraordinary miracle now wrought might have been sufficient to convince him that Jesus was a divinely-commissioned teacher, who spoke and acted by authority from God; and that the circumstance of the miracle's being done on the sabbath day could not have served to enable him to evade the conviction. But what light can shine so clearly or strongly against which a spirit of bigotry and enmity to Christ, and his gospel, will not serve to shut men's eyes? Never was such honour done to the synagogue of which he was ruler, as Christ had now done to it; and yet he had indignation at it! The Lord then answered him, Thou hypocrite, &c. Our Lord gives him this appellation, because the real motive of his speaking was envy, not (as he pretended) pure zeal for the glory of God. Ought not this woman Ought not any human creature, which is far better than an ox or an ass: much more this daughter of Abraham Probably in a spiritual as well as a natural sense; to be loosed? Thus the Lord soon put this hypocritical ruler to silence, by placing the action with which he found fault in the light of their own avowed practice. They loosed and led their cattle on the sabbath to water, and thought the mercy of the work justified them in so doing. He, by uttering a word only, had loosed a woman, a reasonable creature, and a daughter of Abraham, that had been bound with an incurable distemper, not for a single day, but so long a time as eighteen years. Without doubt the far greater mercy of this and the other godlike works which Jesus did, justified his performing them on the sabbath day, as the ruler might easily have seen, had he not been wholly blinded by his superstition. When he had said these things, all his adversaries were ashamed, &c. The folly even of the men of learning among the Jews, conspicuous in this and some other instances mentioned in the gospels, shows the malignant nature of superstition. It is capable of extinguishing reason, of banishing compassion, and of eradicating the most essential principles and feelings of the human mind.