CRITICAL NOTES
Luke 6:1. Second Sabbath after the first.—Or, “second-first Sabbath.” This is an almost unintelligible phrase. It is omitted in some very ancient MSS., and is relegated to the margin in the R.V. The fact that it is a difficult phrase is in favour of its genuineness. It is easy to account for its omission in some MSS., but not easy to account for its insertion in others if it were not in the original text. One of the many suggestions as to the phrase is that it means “the first Sabbath of the second month”: this is the month Iyar, corresponding to our May—a time when the corn in that district of Palestine is ripe. His disciples.—He Himself did not pluck the ears of corn. It was permissible to do this (Deuteronomy 23:25): the objection here taken was to its being done on the Sabbath.
Luke 6:2. Not lawful.—As work of all kinds was prohibited, reaping and threshing corn was unlawful: plucking the ears was virtually reaping; rubbing them in the hands was virtually threshing.
Luke 6:3. Have ye not read, etc.—There is a touch of irony in the question. “Are ye who study the Scriptures so devotedly, unacquainted with this?” What David did.— 1 Samuel 21:1-6.
Luke 6:4. The shewbread.—“Lit. ‘loaves of setting-forth’; ‘bread of the Face,’ i.e. set before the presence of God (Leviticus 24:5-9). They were twelve unleavened loaves sprinkled with frankincense set on a little golden table” (Farrar). They might only be eaten by the priests (Leviticus 24:9). The plea of necessity justified the action of David and of the high priest in setting aside the ceremonial law; so too the hunger of the disciples justified their plucking and rubbing the ears of corn. Another circumstance in the incident quoted from the Old Testament made it specially appropriate to the present argument, and that was that it took place on the Sabbath. From 1 Samuel 21:6 it seems that David arrived on the day when the old bread was taken away and the new bread put in its place. This was done on the Sabbath (Leviticus 24:8).
Luke 6:5. Lord of the Sabbath.—“The reasoning is as follows: There are laws of eternal obligation for which man was made, and whose authority can never be set aside. There are others of temporary obligation, made for man, designed for his discipline, till Christ should come and the shadow give place to the substance. Christ, as the Son of man, the Messiah, the Author and end of the law, is its Lord, not indeed to destroy, but to make perfect—to change its observance from the letter to the spirit” (Speaker’s Commentary).
Luke 6:6. Right hand.—Evidently a circumstance noted by an eyewitness. Withered.—Not only paralysed, but dried up. An apocryphal gospel, quoted by St. Jerome, says that this man was a stonemason, that his hand had been injured by an accident, and that he appealed to Jesus to heal him, in order that he might be able to work and not have to beg his bread. Though it is not distinctly stated, the narratives in the Gospels seem to imply that he had come to the synagogue expecting to be healed by Jesus.
Luke 6:7. Watched Him.—The question as to whether it was lawful to heal or attend to the sick on the Sabbath was one on which the Jews were divided: the Pharisees held strict views of the Sabbath, and their opinions had great weight with the people, so that Jesus ran the risk of losing popularity as a religious teacher if He differed from them.
Luke 6:9. I will ask you one thing.—This implies that a question had been put to Him. The question is given in Matthew 12:10, “Is it lawful to heal on the Sabbath days?” To do good, or to do evil.—“He was intending to work a miracle for good: they were secretly plotting to do harm—their object being, if possible, to put Him to death” (Farrar).
Luke 6:10. Looking round about upon them all.—St. Mark adds the very vivid touch, “with anger, being grieved for the hardness of their hearts” (Luke 3:5).
Luke 6:11. Madness.—Lit. “senselessness, wicked folly.” One with another.—St. Mark says and with the Herodians also (Luke 3:6). They were willing even to ally themselves with their enemies to attain their end of destroying Christ.
MAIN HOMILETICS OF THE PARAGRAPH.— Luke 6:1-11
The Pharisees’ Sabbath and Christ’s.—We have here two Sabbath incidents, in the first of which the disciples are the transgressors of the Sabbatic tradition; in the second, Christ’s own action is brought into question. The scene of the first is in the fields, that of the second is the synagogue. In the one, Sabbath observance is set aside at the call of personal needs; in the other, at the call of another’s calamity. So the two correspond to the old Puritan principle that the Sabbath law allowed of “works of necessity and of mercy.”
I. The Sabbath and personal needs.—The disciples, as they and their Master traversed some field-path through the corn, gathered a few ears, as the merciful provision of the law allowed, and began to eat the rubbed-out grains to relieve their hunger. Moses had not forbidden such gleaning, but casuistry had decided that such action was virtually reaping and winnowing, and was therefore work of a kind that violated the Sabbath. Our Lord does not question the authority of the tradition, nor ask where Moses had forbidden what His disciples were doing. Still less does He touch the sanctity of the Jewish Sabbath. He accepts His questioners’ position, for the time, and gives them a perfect answer on their own ground. He quotes an incident in which ceremonial obligations give way before higher law. It is that of David and his followers eating the shewbread, which was tabooed to all but the priests, and perhaps the incident is chosen with some reference to the parallel between Himself, the true King, now unrecognised and hunted, with His humble followers, and the fugitive outlaw with his band. This shows that even a Divine prohibition which relates to mere ceremonial matter melts, like wax, before even bodily necessities. It may reasonably be doubted whether all Christian communities have learned the sweep of that principle yet, or so judge of the relative importance of keeping up their appointed forms of worship, and of feeding their hungry brother. To this Christ adds an assertion of His power over the Sabbath, as enjoined upon Israel. His is the authority which imposed it. It is plastic in His hands. The whole order of which it is a part has its highest purpose in witnessing of Him. He brings the true “rest.”
II. The Sabbath and works of beneficence.—In His former answer Jesus had appealed to Scripture to bear out His teaching that Sabbath observance must bend to personal necessities. Here He appeals to the natural sense of compassion to confirm the principle that it must give way to the duty of relieving others. The principle is a wide one: the charitable succour of men’s needs, of whatever kind, is congruous with the true design of the day of rest. Have the Churches laid that lesson to heart? On the whole, it is to be observed that our Lord here distinctly recognises the obligation of the Sabbath, that He claims power over it, that He permits the pressure of individual necessities and of others’ need of help to modify the manner of its observance, and that He leaves to the spiritual insight of His followers the application of these principles. The cure which follows is done in a singular fashion. Without a request from the sufferer or any one else, He heals him by a word. His command has a promise in it, and He gives the power to do what He bids the man do. We get strength to obey in the act of obedience. But, also, the manner in which the miracle was wrought had a special reason in the very cavils of the Pharisees. Not even they could accuse Him of breaking any Sabbath law by such a cure. What had He done? Told the man to put out his hand. Surely that was not unlawful. What had the man done? Stretched it forth. Surely that broke no subtle Rabbinical precept. So they were foiled at every turn, driven off the field of argument, and baffled in their attempt to find ground for laying an information against Him. Their hearts were not touched by His gentle wisdom or healing power. All that their contact with Jesus did was to drive them to intenser hostility, and to send them away to plot His death. That is what comes of making religion a round of outward observances. The Pharisee is always blind as an owl to the light of God and true goodness, keen-sighted as a hawk for trivial breaches of his cobweb regulations, and cruel as a vulture to tear with beak and claw. The race is not extinct. We all carry one inside, and need God’s help to cast him out.—Maclaren.
SUGGESTIVE COMMENTS ON Luke 6:1-11
I. The Sabbath.—How did our Lord spend His Sabbaths? In regular attendance at the synagogue services, public preaching, private ministrations of mercy to the sick and suffering. How different the Sabbaths of the Pharisees! They had added to the fourth commandment many childish and burdensome rules.
II. A Sabbath incident in the cornfields.—
1. The charge of Sabbath-breaking.
2. Our Lord’s reply.
III. A Sabbath incident in the synagogue.—
1. A new charge.
2. A new reply. Christ gives us two simple tests. What is necessary may be done. A work of mercy may be done.—W. Taylor.
Luke 6:1. “Plucked the ears of corn.”—The incidental mention of the hunger of the disciples, which they were seeking to satisfy by plucking and eating the ripe corn, is very affecting (Matthew 12:1). It was on the plea of necessity that Jesus justified their so acting on the Sabbath day. Probably to most, if not to all of them, this degree of poverty was a new experience, since they had forsaken all to follow Jesus. Two of them at least, James and John, seem to have belonged to one of the higher strata of society—they had had servants, and were on terms of intimacy with the high priest; Matthew had followed a lucrative calling; and the other apostles had been, though perhaps poor, not in destitute circumstances. But doubtless the sacrifices they made in obeying the command of Jesus were counted but light, and the hardships they occasionally had to endure but trivial, in comparison with the blessedness of association with Him. No life can be called destitute in which there is true fellowship with Christ.
Luke 6:2. “Not lawful to do.”—The strict observance of the Sabbath had become the marked characteristic of the Jews in the time of their exile. After their return it had become interwoven with national feeling; so that the measure of freedom which Jesus took in connection with the observance of the day gave great offence both in Judæa and in Galilee. The vast number of rules and the hair-splitting casuistry associated by the Jews with Sabbath observance are well known: they made life almost intolerable. A devout Jew was afraid to lift his finger, for fear of breaking some Rabbinical precept. “A woman must not go out with any ribbons about her, unless they were sewed to her dress. A false tooth must not be worn. A person with the toothache might not rinse his mouth with vinegar, but he might hold it in his mouth and swallow it. No one might write down two letters of the alphabet. The sick might not send for a physician. A person with lumbago might not rub or foment the affected part. A tailor must not go out with his needle on Friday night, lest he should forget it, and so break the Sabbath by carrying it about. A cock must not wear a piece of ribbon round its leg on the Sabbath, for this would be to carry something! etc., etc.” (Farrar). The very idea of the purpose of the Sabbath had been lost. God had given it as a boon to man, and it had been made into a burden. And upon an observance of these fantastic and self-imposed rules devotees thought they could build up a holiness which would justify them in the sight of God.
Luke 6:3-4. The Authority of the Scriptures.—In all questions of moral and spiritual principles Christ treats the word of God as the supreme authoritative guide for man, and from it now He confutes His opponents, as in the desert He had by its aid overthrown the tempter.
“Have ye not read?”—There are different ways of reading:
(1) that which results merely in acquaintance with the text, and
(2) that which penetrates to the true significance of the record. The Pharisees had read the history of their great national hero, David, but they had not grasped the principle which underlay and justified his action and that of the high priest on this occasion. Jesus does not discuss the petty school question as to whether plucking the ears of corn and rubbing them out were virtually the same as reaping and threshing, but settles the dispute by laying down the great principle that the word of God which prescribed ceremonial laws laid greater stress upon moral duties than upon them, and taught that mercy was better than sacrifice. The bread consecrated to God in the holy tent was not profaned when given to relieve the hunger of His children. He implied, too, that Scripture to be of use must be interpreted by Scripture, in order that its true spirit and teaching might be learned. A single text of God’s word is not therefore necessarily authoritative, but the general strain of Scripture teaches principles that are so. In accordance with the spirit of the history in 1 Samuel 21, which Christ here quotes, was the action of Ethelwold, Bishop of Winchester. “In a time of famine he sold all the rich vessels and ornaments of the church to relieve the poor with bread, and said ‘there was no reason that the dead temples of God should be sumptuously furnished, and the living temples suffer poverty.’ ”
Luke 6:5. “Lord also of the Sabbath.” Jesus vindicates the conduct—of the disciples on two grounds:
(1) that there were occasions when the ordinary rules of Sabbath observance might without blame be set aside; and
(2) that He, as Son of man, had power to modify those very rules. His decisions were to be taken as authoritative, and the same weight attached to them as to the law concerning the Sabbath given through Moses. “Since the Sabbath was an ordinance instituted for the use and benefit of man, the Son of man, who has taken upon Him full and completed manhood, the great representative and head of humanity, has this institution under His own power” (Alford). This teaching is illustrated and expanded in Romans 14:5; Romans 14:17; Colossians 2:16-17. Christ did not abolish the Sabbath, just as He did not abolish fasting, but He changed it from being an external ordinance observed in a rigid and servile manner, as it had become among the Jews, and made it a means of grace. Not because of a commandment binding us to certain outward conduct, but because of an inward spiritual need, do we, therefore, keep the day holy. To do good upon the Sabbath, and not merely to abstain from work, is the best way of observing the day. An indication of the lordship over the Sabbath which Christ claims is given in the change of the day of rest from the last to the first day of the week. Under the guidance of His Spirit, if not at His command, given on some occasion after His rising from the dead (cf. Acts 1:3), His followers made this change.
“Lord of the Sabbath.”—This title teaches us—
I. That there is still a Sabbath day for us to observe.
II. That we should look to our Lord’s teaching and practice for the due observance of the Sabbath.—W. Taylor.
Luke 6:6-11. The Withered Hand.—The man with the withered hand is a silent but steady example of faith. There are two things in his conduct which cast a special lustre upon it—the one more external, the other more internal and spiritual.
I. He obeyed God rather than man.—By his prompt obedience he takes the side of Jesus against the Pharisees, and submits himself entirely to His direction. His readiness to go with Him in a matter of external obedience was the proof of that instinctive and deeplying trust in Christ which made him a fit subject for His healing.
II. He obeyed where obedience was an act of pure trust.—The first command, “Rise up,” tested the courage of his faith; the second command, “Stretch forth thine hand,” tested the inner, deeper faith of the spiritual nature. Had he not been completely reliant upon Christ, he would at this point have doubted. But he implicitly obeyed, and in obeying was healed. It is an impressive illustration of the way of life. There is none that casts a clearer light on the foolish puzzles men make to themselves out of the doctrines of grace. God never bids us of our own strength to believe. It is Jehovah-Jesus who commands. Is it for any one of us to say, “I cannot”?—Laidlaw.
Luke 6:6. Irritation against Jesus.—The incident here related marks the final stage in the irritation of the Pharisees against Jesus: the result of the miracle was that they “communed one with another what they might do to Jesus.” The parallel passage in St. Mark (Mark 3:6) says “they took counsel against Him, how they might destroy Him.” In the section immediately preceding this St. Luke records several stages in the growing enmity of the Pharisees:
1. The accusation of blasphemy (Luke 5:21).
2. The murmuring at favour being shown to publicans and sinners (Luke 5:30).
3. The fault found with the disciples for plucking the ears of corn on a Sabbath (Luke 6:1-6). A sign of increasing intensity of feeling is given in Luke 6:7. Jesus was now watched by His enemies, in order that an accusation might be brought against Him. They were prepared to take undue advantage, and if necessary to lay a trap for Him.
Luke 6:7. “Whether He would heal.”—As mentioned in an earlier note, healing the sick, or even doing anything to alleviate suffering, on the Sabbath, was proscribed by the more rigid of the Pharisees. St. Matthew says that they asked Jesus whether it were lawful or not to heal on the Sabbath. This is not inconsistent with St. Luke’s narrative, which, indeed, implies that Christ spoke in answer to some such question.
Luke 6:8. “He knew their thoughts.”—That He was being exposed to espionage, and that they were beginning to form plans for putting Him to death.
Luke 6:9. “I will ask you one thing.”—Jesus makes His adversaries decide the question they had themselves asked, and He so states it that they could give but one answer, and that in approval of healing on the Sabbath. He identifies omitting to do good with committing evil: not to relieve pain was to prolong or virtually to inflict pain. He states the matter in the most startling manner: “not to heal is to kill” (cf. Proverbs 24:11-12). And doubtless He implied that their machinations against Himself were known to Him: while He on that Sabbath day was intent upon healing, His adversaries were thinking how best to compass His death. Who could doubt as to which of them was the better employed on that day? The Pharisees were thus caught in the snare they had laid for Him, and were unable to reply. If the question were asked, “Why not postpone the work of healing to tomorrow?” the answer would not be far to seek: “The present only is ours: to-morrow may never come” (cf. Proverbs 3:27-28).
Luke 6:10. “Looking round about.”—The heart of Jesus, as St. Mark tells us, was filled with grief and anger—with grief because of their unbelief, and with anger because that unbelief sprang from malice and culpable prejudice. These feelings appeared in the glance He cast upon His silenced adversaries.
“Stretch forth.”—With the command the promise of ability to obey it was implied, if there were but faith in the heart of the hearer. In the remarkable command, to stretch forth a withered hand, we have an illustration of such seemingly unreasonable calls as these: “Prophesy upon these bones, and say unto them, O ye dry bones, hear the word of the Lord” (Ezekiel 37:4); “Incline your ear, and come unto Me: hear, and your soul shall live” (Isaiah 55:3); “Awake, thou that sleepest, and arise from the dead, and Christ shall give thee light” (Ephesians 5:14). It was by a sheer act of will that Christ healed the man: He did nothing—did not even touch the withered hand. So that His enemies could not fasten upon any outward action of His which could be construed into a breach of the Sabbath. The stretching out of the hand was a proof that the miracle had been already wrought.
Luke 6:11. “Madness.”—The word implies senselessness—the frenzy of obstinate prejudice. It admirably characterises the state of ignorant hatred which is disturbed in the fixed condition of its own infallibility (2 Timothy 3:9).—Farrar.
Causes of their Hatred.—Various causes contributed to inflame the Pharisees with this blind hatred:
1. Jesus had broken through their traditions.
2. He had put them to silence and shame in the presence of the people.
3. Though they were enraged at His action, He had avoided doing any overt act on which they could found a charge against Him.