The Enmity of Herod. Peræ a was part of Herod Antipas's territory. It is possible that the Pharisees wished to get Jesus into Judæ a and so nearer the arm of the Sanhedrin. The reference of Jesus to His death in Jerusalem (Luke 13:33) may point this way. If so they, more than Herod, were the fox. There were, however, Pharisees that were friendly to Jesus, cf. Luke 14:1 ff. As applied to Herod the epithet sums up the tyranny, timidity, and insolence of the Idumæ an character of the Herods. Jesus asserts that His work of exorcising and healing is only a preliminary to the coming of the Kingdom and His entry into glory. I am perfected need not mean death, though it is usually so interpreted.
Luke 13:33 may be an addition meant to lead up to Luke 13:34 f.; the word for howbeit is often used by Lk. in such cases. Wellhausen also finds Luke 13:33 difficult after Luke 13:32, and emends the two verses so as to read I cast out devils and perform cures to-day and to-morrow. Howbeit I must go on my way the day following, for it cannot be, etc. He takes I am perfected (prediction of death) to be an early interpolation, after which a reference to journeying on the third day was out of place and called for the further interpolation of to-day and to-morrow in Luke 13:33 a.