Luke 13 - In Depth Bible Commentaries

2704 2705 2706 270713:15 But then the Lord answered him and said, "Play Actors! Each one of you, on2703(...continued)e`bdo,mh| sa,bbata kuri,w| tw/| qew/| sou ouv poih,seij evn auvth/| pa/n e;rgon,... literally, "Six days you(singular) shall work and shall do all your works. But on the seventh (day), Days-of-Rest for Lordthe God of yours, you shall not do on it any work..." Both passages say the same thing, and it ison this basis that the ruler of the gathering-place tells the people to come on weekdays forhealing, but not on the Day-of-Rest. The ruler of the gathering-place is right--this divine law thatgoverns Israel's life says that all work should be done on the six work-days of the week, but thaton the Days-of-Rest no such work should be done. From his standpoint, and from the standpointof this passage alone, Jesus is violating the Torah, the Ten Commandments (specifically, thefourth commandment).2704The title given to Jesus by Luke, "the Lord" (see Luke 7:13 with footnote 1274) isespecially appropriate in this passage, since it implies his authority to speak to such a matter; inthe passages from Exodus and Deuteronomy, it is "Lord" (without the definite article) who isgiving the laws concerning rest and no work on the Day of Rest. Fitzmyer comments that "...Thereader of this episode cannot fail to note the way it says something about how the Lucan Jesusperceives himself. Having cured this unfortunate 'daughter of Abraham' on a Sabbath in asynagogue, it implicitly depicts him acting with authority toward the Sabbath and the traditions ofold and upbraiding the hypocrisy of reactions which would criticize him for so acting." (2, p. 1012)The title is changed to "Jesus" by Bezae, N, Theta, Families 1 and 13 of Minuscules,Minuscule 2542, some other Greek manuscripts, some manuscripts of the Latin Latin Vulgate,the Sinaitic Syriac, the Curetonian Syriac, the Peshitta Syriac and the Bohairic Coptic (in part).The variant reading does not change the meaning of Luke, but does away with the connotationsof authority which are involved in using the title.2705 rdThe 3 person singular aorist passive indicative verb avpekri,qh, "he answered," ischanged to the nominative singular masculine first aorist passive participle of the verb,avpokriqei,j, "answering," by P45, Minuscule 1424, a few other Greek manuscripts, a majority ofthe Old Latin witnesses and the Clementine Latin Vulgate. Along with this change to the participlegoes the later omission of the conjunction kai, "and"--see the next footnote. These variants areof the nature of grammatical enhancement of the original text, and do not change its meaning.2706This is the conjunction that is omitted by the witnesses who change the verb to aparticiple. See the preceding footnote.2707The nominative and vocative plural noun u`pokritai, "Play-Actors!" or "Hypocrites!" (seethe earlier usage of the same vocative plural at Luke 12:56; compare 6:42, where the vocativesingular is used) is changed to the vocative singular u`pokrita, "Play-Actor!", "Hypocrite!" by P45,Bezae, W, Family 1 of Minuscules, Minuscules 579, 2542, some other Greek manuscripts, theOld Latin Manuscripts f, I, the Sinaitic Syriac, the Curetonian Syriac and the Peshitta Syriac. Thechange from plural to singular changes the meaning of the story slightly, making Jesus addressthe ruler of the gathering-place rather than including others with him.1285