“But woe to you who are rich! for you have received your consolation.
Woe to you, you who are full now! for you shall hunger.
Woe to you, you who laugh now! for you shall mourn and weep.
Woe to you, when all men shall speak well of you! for in the same manner did their fathers to the false prophets.”
Jesus then turned His attention to the group of wealthy onlookers. Any who are sitting there who are rich and complacent should note that they have already received their reward in this life. They may be simply supercilious, or they may be sneering, but they should recognise that they have nothing to look forward to. Those who are rich have already had their consolation (contrast Luke 2:25 which describes the consolation that they have lost). Those who are full and satisfied with themselves now, will one day be hungry as they see the good things that they will miss out on (compare Isaiah 65:13). Those who are laughing and having an easy time now, with little regard for others, should ask themselves why times are so easy for them. It is because they have little regard for God. Thus when they are called to account they will mourn and weep (compare Isaiah 65:14). And if all speak well of them it reveals that they are satisfied with the falsity and dishonesty of the religion around them, and are conforming with it, following the false prophets because it suits them. They have nothing to rejoice in or for which to jump for joy. For a commentary on this passage we only have to turn to Revelation 3:15-20). ‘You say, “I am rich, and increased with goods, and have need of nothing”, and do not realise that you are the one who is wretched; miserable, and poor, and blind, and naked.'
‘The false prophets.' These are those who are popular because their message suits people's tastes. They soothe people's consciences by saying, ‘peace, peace, where there is no peace' (Jeremiah 6:14; Jeremiah 8:11). They are loved by all for they say nothing disturbing (see Jeremiah 5:31).
It may well be that there were few such people as he has described here in his audience, and that these words were on the whole spoken mainly of those not present, as an encouragement to the godly that God does see how men behave towards them, and that He also had in mind future generations. He knew well enough that His words would be recorded and passed on into the future. But our knowledge of human beings tells us that His wonder-working must have drawn a number of such people, while such was the work of the Spirit that we would expect that a good number of such people, hungry of soul and seeking something more than they had, would have come to hear Him in order to try to find what all their wealth had not given them. For them the message would be very significant, as they recognised the change of direction that their lives must take if they were to be His disciples, and it would provide them with a warning of how seriously they must take the matter.
In the end the whole point here is that He is assessing the response of all who are present with Him and listening to His teaching. Those who walk humbly with God and acknowledge Him, will be blessed, those who allow the pleasures of the world, the deceitfulness of riches and the desire for other things to take their minds off responding to Him will in the end face woe. A stark choice lies before them. The Question is, will they respond to the new teaching that He has brought and recognise Him for what He is, or will they remain in the old ways, and perish?
‘Woe.' This could be translated ‘alas', but that would not be a good contrast with ‘Blessed'. The comparison of blessings and woes ties in with Isaiah 3:10-11. ‘Tell the righteous that it will be well with them, for they will eat the fruit of their deeds. Woe to the wicked it shall be ill with him, for what his hands have done will be done to him.' This could well have been a summary of these words of Jesus. ‘Woes' already occur fairly regularly in the Old Testament (Isaiah 3:9-11; Isaiah 5:8-23; Isaiah 10:1; Isaiah 33:1; Amos 5:18 to Amos 6:7; Habakkuk 2:6-19), and even blessings in comparison with woes, and their equivalent (Ecclesiastes 10:16-17; Isaiah 3:9-11; compare Deuteronomy 28:3-19). Thus Jesus is speaking as the prophets of old of the fact that a man must choose between blessing and woe (see Matthew 7:13-14). But the point is that they each choose the way for themselves.
So He will now lay out His new ways, and He calls on them to consider them and respond to them. For they are dynamic and demanding and call for a totally new approach to life, and a new attitude towards God and towards others. They speak of total self-giving, as against self-receiving.
They must, however, be seen in the light of the environment of His hearers. They are not speaking of how to deal with scoundrels and rogues who try to fleece them, and of outsiders who come with violence to attack them, but of how to respond to the people who live within their environment, who they rub shoulders with every day. Nor are they describing how the country must be run. A Christian will support his country's laws and its police force, where these are behaving justly. He supports the punishment of evildoers (even though he may sometimes recommend mercy). The instructions here are personal not judicial. A country could not be run in this way, for there justice and punishment are necessary. He is rather speaking of how individual Christians should respond to others in their daily lives, of how we should treat all men, and especially our ‘neighbours'.