Luke 10:30 - Coke's Commentary on the Holy Bible

And Jesus, answering, said, A certain man, &c.— Our Lord, who well knew how to convince and persuade, answered the scribe in such a manner as to make the feelings of his heart overcome the prejudices of his understanding. He convinced him of the mistake that he had imbibed, by a parable; an ancient, agreeable, and inoffensive method of conveying instruction, very fit to be used in teaching persons who were prejudiced against the truth; and certainly nothing could be more amiable in the manner, and more pertinent to the purpose, than the parable which our Lord here delivers. Jericho was seated in a valley; whence we perceive the propriety of the phrase went down from Jerusalem, &c. This circumstance is finely chosen; for so many robberies and murders were committed on this road, which lay through a kind of wilderness, that Jerome tells us it was called הדמים Edmim—The bloody way. As Jesus was on his way to Jerusalem when he uttered this parable, it is not improbable that he was nigh to the place where the scene of it is laid; a circumstance which could not fail of making a strong impression on the audience, and which sets the whole parable in a very beautiful light. The phrase πληγας επιθεντες, which we render wounded him, strongly implies that these robbers [λησταις] did so with great barbarity, laying on stroke upon stroke, and wound upon wound.