Luke 14:15 - Joseph Benson’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

When one of them that sat at meat heard these things, being touched therewith, he said, Blessed is he that shall eat bread in the kingdom of God Blessed is the man who shall live in the time of the Messiah, and share the entertainments he will prepare for his people, when these virtues of humility, condescension, and charity shall flourish in all their glory. To eat bread, is a well-known Hebrew phrase for sharing in a repast, whether it be at a common meal or at a sumptuous feast. The word bread is not understood as suggesting either the scantiness or the meanness of the fare. “The kingdom of God, here, does not signify the kingdom of heaven in the highest sense, but only the kingdom of the Messiah, of which the carnal Jew here speaks, according to the received sense of his nation, as of a glorious temporal kingdom, in which the Jews should lord it over the Gentile world, enjoy their wealth and be provided with all temporal blessings and delights, in which they placed their happiness.” Whitby. Thus also Dr. Campbell, who assigns the following reasons for understanding the expression in the same light: “1st, This way of speaking of the happiness of the Messiah's administration suits entirely the hopes and wishes which seem to have been long entertained by the nation concerning it. 2d, The parable which, in answer to the remark, was spoken by our Lord, is on all hands understood to represent the Christian dispensation. 3d, The obvious intention of that parable is, to suggest the prejudices which, from notions of secular felicity and grandeur, the nation in general entertained on that subject; in consequence of which prejudices, what in prospect they fancied so blessed a period, would, when present, be exceedingly neglected and despised; and, in this view, nothing could be more apposite, whereas there appears no appositeness in the parable on the other interpretation;” that is, on understanding the kingdom of God, in the preceding remark, as signifying the kingdom of future glory.