The Woman Who Was Made Straight And Delivered From Satan (13:10-17).
This story is central to this section of Luke, as is demonstrated by the chiasmus. We may ignore such literary methods, but we can be sure that Theophilus was fully aware of them. In it Jesus sets free a woman who is totally bent double and releases her from Satan's power. It is a picture of what He has come to do for Israel, and for all who will respond to Him, and descriptive of what this section is all about, the making straight of people and their deliverance ‘from the power of Satan to God' (Acts 26:18).
There is an interesting parallel in the passage between the woman who was bent double and the Ruler of the synagogue who could not see past the end of his nose. I remember one day walking in the passageways of the London Underground. Walking towards me was a man who was bent double, so badly that he could not see ahead. He was probably very similar to this woman. I moved to one side to give him room, but from behind me quite unexpectedly came another would be passenger who did not move aside, for he was blind. Before I could give a warning they collided. The doubled up man swore and said angrily, ‘Can't you see that I am unable to see my way ahead.' Quickly I said, ‘He's blind' and to his credit he immediately apologised to the blind man, and expressed his regret.
A similar thing happens in this story, the collision between a woman who was bent double and a blind man. For the Ruler of the Synagogue was as blind as a man could be. He had just seen an amazing miracle of deliverance, and he wrote it off as a piece of everyday work, as though people regularly popped in to the synagogue to be healed because it was a surgery. He was blind to the glorious working of God, a typical representative of the men who opposed Jesus. And glorious working it was for it was symbolic of what God will do for all who come to Jesus.
Analysis of the passage.
a He was teaching in one of the synagogues on the sabbath day (Luke 13:10).
b There was there a woman who had a spirit of infirmity eighteen years, and she was bowed together, and could in no wise lift herself up (Luke 13:11).
c When Jesus saw her, he called her, and said to her, “Woman, you are loosed from your infirmity” (Luke 13:12).
d And he laid his hands on her, and immediately she was made straight, and glorified God (Luke 13:13).
e And the ruler of the synagogue, being moved with indignation because Jesus had healed on the sabbath, answered and said to the gathered crowd, “There are six days in which men ought to work” (Luke 13:14 a)
d “In them therefore come and be healed, and not on the day of the sabbath” (Luke 13:14 b).
c But the Lord answered him, and said, “You hypocrites, does not each one of you on the sabbath loose his ox or his ass from the stall, and lead him away to watering?” (Luke 13:15).
b “And ought not this woman, being a daughter of Abraham, whom Satan had bound, lo, these eighteen years, to have been loosed from this bond on the day of the sabbath?” (Luke 13:16).
a And as he said these things, all his adversaries were put to shame, and the whole crowd rejoiced for all the glorious things that were done by him (Luke 13:17).
Note that in ‘a' he is teaching in the synagogue on the Sabbath day, and in the parallel the crowd rejoice at the glorious things done by Him. In ‘b' the woman is bound, and in the parallel she is loosed. In ‘c' Jesus looses the woman, and in the parallel speaks of the loosing of domestic animals. In ‘d' she is healed, and in the parable the crowd is told not to come to be healed on the Sabbath. In ‘e' in striking contrast to all that happens around him the Ruler of the Synagogue declares his sterile regulation, ‘there are six days in which men ought to work'. The point here is that he was totally blind to the fact that it was God Who was working.