Luke 6:9 - Coke's Commentary on the Holy Bible

To save life, or to destroy it?— That our Lord might expose the malice and superstition of the Pharisees, he appealed to the dictates of their own minds, whether it was not more lawful to do good on the sabbath-day than to do evil; to save than to kill? He meant—"more lawful for him on the sabbath to save men's lives, than for them to plot his death, without the least provocation." This was a severe but just rebuke, which in the present circumstances must have been sensibly felt.