29 And Levi made him a great feast in his own house and there was a great company of publicans and of others that sat down with them. 30 But their scribes and Pharisees murmured against his disciples, saying, Why do ye eat and drink with publicans and sinners? 31 And Jesus answering said unto them, They that are whole need not a physician; but they that are sick. 32 I came not to call the righteous, but sinners to repent ance. 33 And they said unto him, Why do the disciples of John fast often, and make prayers, and likewise the disciples of the Pharisees; but thine eat and drink? 34 And he said unto them, Can ye make the children of the bridechamber fast, while the bridegroom is with them? 35 But the days will come, when the bridegroom shall be taken away from them, and then shall they fast in those days. 36 And he spake also a parable unto them; No man putteth a piece of a new garment upon an old; if otherwise, then both the new maketh a rent, and the piece that was taken out of the new agreeth not with the old. 37 And no man putteth new wine into old bottles; else the new wine will burst the bottles, and be spilled, and the bottles shall perish. 38 But new wine must be put into new bottles; and both are preserved. 39 No man also having drunk old wine straightway desireth new for he saith, The old is better. e Matt. ix. 14. have been intended; and it was sufficiently common for the Jews to have two names, and to be called indifferently by either or by both; as Simon, and Peter, and Simon Peter. Verse 30. Their scribes and Pharisees murmured, &c.-See notes on Matt. ix. 14-17. Some мss. and versions leave out avlwv; but if it be retained, the scribes and Pharisees of Capernaum may be those particularly alluded to. Verse 36. Then both the new maketh a rent.-These two last clauses of the verse must be read in a reversed order, to make the sense conspicuous, If otherwise, the piece that was taken out of the new agreeth not with the old, and (what is worse) the new maketh a rent. Verse 37. New wine into new bottles.See the notes on Matt. ix. 17. Verse 39. No man also, having drunk old wine, &c.—He refuses the new wine, which is harsh in its taste, and prefers the old, which is xgnoToTegos, better, be CHAPTER VI. 1 Christ reproveth the Pharisees' blindness about the observation of the sabbath, by scripture, reason, and miracle: 13 Chooseth twelve apostles: 17 healeth the diseased : 20 preacheth to his disciples before the people of blessings and curses: 27 how we must love our enemies: 46 and join the obedience of good works to the hearing of the word: lest in the evil day of temptation we fall like an house built upon the face of the earth, without any foundation. a 1 AND it came to pass on the second sabbath after the first, that he went through the corn fields; and his disciples plucked the ears of corn, and did eat, rubbing them in their hands. a Matt. xii. 1. cause mellower and more generous. The superiority of old to new wine forms the basis of various proverbs and allusions among ancient writers. Our Lord's meaning is generally understood to be, that it is difficult suddenly to change old habits, and therefore his disciples must be trained up gradually to austerities which were practised by the disciples of John and the Pharisees. But he did not enjoin these austerities upon his disciples afterwards, and could not, therefore, intend gradually to train them to practise them. Nor can the interpretation of Wolfius, who applies the words to the Pharisees, as intimating that they were too much attached to their old traditions to relish Christ's new doctrine, be maintained, because our Lord's words clearly imply, on his part, a justification of the choice of old wine to new. The true import appears to be, that our Lord tacitly affirms that his DISCIPLINE was as much more pleasant to a spiritual taste, such as he had excited in a good degree in his disciples by his teaching, and as much more salutary in comparison with the discipline of the Pharisees and that practised by the disciples of John, as old wine was more grateful and wholesome than new; and so, his disciples, having proved the excellence of the rule and spirit of his religion, were not likely to measure their steps back to the ordinances of inferior dispensations. There is also, probably, in the words a reproof of the austerities in question, as NOVELTIES in religion, and therefore to be compared to new wine. Those of the Pharisees were certainly of human invention, and so probably were those fasts of the disciples of John, rules devised and practised after their master had been cast into prison; for in his preaching he appears not to have enjoined them. But freedom from superstitous rigidity had been the character of true religion in all ages; and our Lord therefore compares his rule of discipline, as being conformed to that which had a divine authority from the beginning, to old wine, and declares it better. No inventions of men can compare with the simple institutions of God. Old wine with the Jews was wine of the age of three years. CHAPTER VI. Verse 1. On the second sabbath after the first.-On this phrase, εν σαββατῳ δευτερόπρωτῳ, says Simon, there are eight different explications, and all conjectural; and even the Syriac and Arabic versions though so much nearer in time and place to Palestine, show plainly, that their authors did not understand it. Happily nothing depends upon it; and it only adds another proof that this Gospel was written, as it professes, by one intimately familiar with Jewish customs and modes of expression. That most generally received, is sanctioned by Scaliger, Lightfoot, Whitby, Lamy, and others. On the second day of unleavened bread, or of 2 And certain of the Pharisees said unto them, Why do ye that which is not lawful to do on the sabbath days? 3 And Jesus answering them said, Have ye not read so much as this, what David did, when himself was an hungred, and they which were with him; 4 How he went into the house of God, and did take and eat the shewbread, and gave also to them that were with him; which it is not lawful to eat but for the priests alone? 5 And he said unto them, That the Son of man is Lord also of the sabbath. b 6 And it came to pass also on another sabbath, that he entered into the synagogue and taught: and there was a man whose right hand was withered. 7 And the scribes and Pharisees watched him, whether he would heal on the sabbath day; that they might find an accusation against him. 8 But he knew their thoughts, and said to the man which had the withered hand, Rise up, and stand forth in the midst. And he arose and stood forth. 9 Then said Jesus unto them, I will ask you one thing; Is it lawful on the sabbath days to do good, or to do evil? to save life, or to destroy it? 10 And looking round about upon them all, he said unto the man, Stretch forth thy hand. And he did so: and his hand was restored whole as the other. 11 And they were filled with madness; and communed one with another what they might do to Jesus. b Matt. xii. 9. the passover week, Lev. xxiii. 10, 16, took place the offering of the sheaf or first fruits of the harvest. Thence they reckoned fifty days to the pentecost. The dεUтεро.πрштоV, оor second-first sabbath, is the first sabbath after this second day of unleavened bread. The second sabbath would be called dEUTEрo-devTepov, the third, δευτερο τριτον ; but of this, no instances can be quoted, or this view of the matter would be established. This view is originally drawn from Theophylact, who explains the sabbath in question as the first of the seven sabbaths between the passover and the pentecost. This is supported by the season of the year; for when our Lord went through the cornfields, the corn was standing ripe, or nearly so, in the fields. On this transaction see the notes on Matt. xii. 1, &c. Verse 6. A man whose right hand was withered. See notes on Matt. xii. 9—14. Verse 7. That they might find an acessation, Kaтnyopiar, the matter of an accusation, against him, so as to proceed against him judicially, and arraign him before the council of twenty-three, as a 12 And it came to pass in those days, that he went out into a mountain to pray, and continued all night in prayer to God. 13 ¶ And when it was day, he called unto him his disciples: and of them he chose twelve, whom also he named apostles; 14 Simon, (whom he also named Peter,) and Andrew his brother, James and John, Philip and Bartholomew, C 15 Matthew and Thomas, James the son of Alphæus, and Simon called Zelotes, 16 And Judas the brother of James, and Judas Iscariot, which also was the traitor. 17 ¶ And he came down with them, and stood in the plain, and the company of his disciples, and a great multitude of people out of all Judæa and Jerusalem, and from the sea coast of Tyre and Sidon, which came to hear him, and to be healed of their diseases; sabbath-breaker. See notes on Matt. xii. follows, has given an abridgment of the 14. Verse 12. In prayer to God.-Пpoσevx TOU COU, here, is taken by some for one of the proseucha, or places of prayer, which they think distinct from the synagogues, and more ancient, and in which men prayed not together but apart. That proseucha was but another name for synagogues appears, however, most probable; but however this may be, there is no reason for departing here from the common interpretation, that our Lord, on this, as on many other occasions, spent the night in the open air alone, in meditation and prayer. In order to ensure more absolute solitude, he seems to have generally chosen a mountain for these special exercises. The genitive case, after προσευχή, is a genitive of the object, and has the force of apos, with an accusative: he continued all night in prayer to GOD. It is not improbable that our Lord spent this night in prayer preparatory to the solemn business of choosing the twelve apostles, which he did the next day. Verse 13. And of them he chose twelve. -See the notes on Matt. x. 1, &c. Verse 17. And stood in the plain.Those who think that St. Luke, in what sermon on the mount, reconcile this account of our Lord's having delivered it in the plain with that of St. Matthew, who says that it was delivered from the mountain, by supposing that the plain spoken of was an elevated table-land, on the declivity of the mountain, where his audience might conveniently stand. This presents no material difficulty; but there are reasons on the other side of greater weight: the sermon on the mount was not delivered after the choosing of the twelve apostles, but the calling of the four at the sea of Tiberias; and St. Luke has united with passages from the sermon on the mount, several others which were not delivered at that time, but on various occasions. Notwithstanding, therefore, the objection that this discourse has the same exordium and the same peroration as in Matthew's version of it, and that by both evangelists Christ is represented as having returned to Capernaum, after having delivered it, it cannot be the same discourse preached on the same occasion. It contains many of the same passages of divine wisdom and eloquence, which, however, only shows that our Lord sometimes chose to deliver the same truths in the 18 And they that were vexed with unclean spirits: and they were healed. 19 And the whole multitude sought to touch him for there went virtue out of him, and healed them all. 20 And he lifted up his eyes on his disciples, and said, Blessed be ye poor: for your's is the kingdom of God. 21 Blessed are ye that hunger now: for ye shall be filled. Blessed are ye that weep now: for ye shall laugh. 22 Blessed are ye, when men shall hate you, and when they shall separate you from their company, and shall reproach you, and cast out your name as evil, for the Son of man's sake. 23 Rejoice ye in that day, and leap for joy: for, behold, your reward is great in heaven: for in the like manner did their fathers unto the prophets. 24 'But woe unto you that are rich! for ye have received your consolation. 25 Woe unto you that are full! for ye shall hunger. Woe unto you that laugh now! for ye shall mourn and weep. same or nearly similar words, and that in discourses of considerable length; and it is confirmatory of this, that St. Luke himself, who has nowhere, like St. Matthew, recorded the sermon on the mount at full length, has preserved the account of another portion of the same sermon, as having been spoken by Christ on an entirely different occasion. See chap. xii. 22, &c. Parts of this sermon were therefore at other times repeated, with some variations. Verse 20. Blessed be ye poor, &c.-See notes on Matt. v. 1, &c. Verse 22. When they shall separate you from their company.—Όταν αφορισωσιν υμας, when they shall excommunicate you, or cast you out of their synagogues. Verse 24. Woe unto you that are rich.Not as rich, but rich men living in the spirit and after the example of the world. He alludes immediately to the opulent, proud, and luxurious Pharisees and Sadducees; yet against all rich men, in all ages, who forget God, this terrible woe lies, that in this world they have received g Isaiah lxv. 13. their consolation, and no felicity awaits |