Chapter of the New Testament
Luke 7
is the seventh chapter of the
Gospel of Luke
in the
New Testament
of the
Christian
Bible
. It tells the records of two great miracles performed by Jesus, his reply to
John the Baptist
's question, and the anointing by a sinful woman.
[1]
The book containing this chapter is
anonymous
, but early Christian tradition uniformly affirmed that
Luke the Evangelist
, a companion of
Paul the Apostle
on his missionary journeys,
[2]
composed this
Gospel
as well as the
Acts of the Apostles
.
[3]
Text
[
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]
The original text was written in
Koine Greek
.
This chapter is divided into
50 verses.
Textual witnesses
[
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]
Some early manuscripts containing the text of this chapter are:
Healing the centurion's servant (7:1-10)
[
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]
Luke 7:1-10
relates that, when Jesus had "concluded all his
sayings
", a Roman
centurion
in
Capernaum
sent the Jewish elders to ask Jesus for help, because his servant (or slave) was ill.
[5]
The elders testified to the centurion's worthiness (?ξι??,
axios
) but the centurion did not consider himself worthy (using the same Greek word, ηξιωσα,
?xi?sa
)
[6]
to have Jesus come into his home to perform the healing, suggesting instead that Jesus perform the healing at a distance. Jesus concurred, and the servant was found to have been healed when the centurion returned home.
Matthew 8:5?13
records the same healing. A similar event is recounted in
John 4:46?53
, but this may refer to another event as it concerns the
son of a court official
.
Widow of Nain's son raised (7:11-17)
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]
This account of a miracle by Jesus is only recorded in the Gospel of Luke.
[7]
Jesus, accompanied by a large crowd (verse 11), arrived at the gates of the village of
Nain
during the burial ceremony of the son of a widow, and raised the young man from the dead. The location is the village of Nain in
Galilee
, two miles south of
Mount Tabor
. This is the first of three miracles of Jesus in the canonical gospels in which he raises the dead, the other two being the
raising of Jairus' daughter
and
of Lazarus
.
Following the healing, Jesus' fame spread "throughout all
Judea
and all the surrounding region".
[8]
In the
Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
, commentator
F. W. Farrar
explains that "the notion that St Luke therefore supposed Nain to be in Judaea is quite groundless. He means that the story of the incident at Nain spread even into Judaea".
[9]
Some parallels in details are noted with the
raising of the son of the widow of Zarephath
, by the Old Testament prophet
Elijah
(
1 Kings 17
),
[10]
especially some verbal parallels.
[11]
The
raising of the son of the woman of Shunem
(
2 Kings 4
) by
Elisha
is also similar, including the reaction of the people, and in particular, the location of Nain is very close to
Shunem
(identified with modern
Sulam
), giving an example of a repeated pattern in the history of
redemption
.
[12]
Messengers from John the Baptist (7:18-35)
[
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]
When John the Baptist was in
prison
and heard of the works performed by Jesus, John sent two of his disciples as messengers to ask a question of Jesus:
- "Are you the one who is to come (? ?ρχ?μενο?, ho erchomenos), or should we expect someone else?"
[13]
Following this episode, Jesus begins to speak to the crowds about John the Baptist, describing him as the 'messenger', a
prophet
who was himself foretold in prophecy (
Malachi 3:1
).
[14]
Parable of the Two Debtors (7:36-50)
[
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]
A
Pharisee
named
Simon
invites Jesus to eat in his house but fails to show him the usual marks of
hospitality
offered to visitors - a greeting kiss (v. 45), water to wash his feet (v. 44), or oil for his head (v. 46). A "sinful woman" comes into his house during the meal and
anoints
Jesus' feet with perfume, wiping them dry with her hair. Simon is inwardly critical of Jesus, who, if he were a prophet, "would know what kind of sinful life she lives".
[15]
Jesus then uses the story of two debtors to explain that a woman loves him more than his host, because she has been forgiven of greater sins.
Verse 38
[
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]
- And stood at his feet behind him weeping, and began to wash his feet with tears, and did wipe them with the hairs of her head, and kissed his feet, and anointed them with the ointment.
[16]
- "Stood at his feet behind him": Jesus, as other guests, 'reclined on couches with their feet turned outwards', a common posture in that period of time also for Persians, Greeks, Romans.
[17]
This arrangement is called
triclinia
, by which the guest reposed on his elbow at the table, with his unsandaled feet outstretched on the couch (as each guest left the sandals beside the door on entering).
[9]
- "Ointment": or "fragrant oil" in
NKJV
, is translated from the Greek word
μ?ρον
which was applied 'for any kind of sweet-smelling vegetable essence, especially that of the myrtle'.
[18]
Verses 47-48
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]
- "Therefore I tell you, her sins, which are many, are forgiven, for she loved much; but he who is forgiven little, loves little.”
48
And he said to her, “Your sins are forgiven.”
[19]
Eric Franklin observes that the woman is demonstrating her love and asks whether this is "because she has already been forgiven, which is what the parable would imply?" Verse 47, "on a first reading at any rate, does not appear to support this, but rather suggests that she has been forgiven because of her love". The
Revised Standard Version
and the
New King James Version
can be read in this way. Franklin notes that "more recent translations, assuming a consistency in the story as a whole, take the Greek ?τι (
hoti
, translated as "for" in the quoted passage above) to mean, not "because" but "with the result that", for example the
Revised English Bible
translates, "Her great love proves that her many sins have been forgiven". Verse 48 then proclaims her forgiveness, which this translation assumes has already been pronounced to her.
[20]
See also
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]
References
[
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]
- ^
Halley, Henry H.,
Halley's Bible Handbook
: an Abbreviated Bible Commentary. 23rd edition. Zondervan Publishing House. 1962.
- ^
Jerusalem Bible (1966), "Introduction to the Synoptic Gospels", New Testament p. 5
- ^
Holman Illustrated Bible Handbook. Holman Bible Publishers, Nashville, Tennessee. 2012.
- ^
a
b
Aland, Kurt
;
Aland, Barbara
(1995).
The Text of the New Testament: An Introduction to the Critical Editions and to the Theory and Practice of Modern Textual Criticism
. Erroll F. Rhodes (trans.). Grand Rapids:
William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company
. p. 96.
ISBN
978-0-8028-4098-1
.
- ^
Translated as 'slave' in the
RSV
and the
Holman Christian Standard Bible
- ^
Strong's Concordance: 515 axioo: to deem worthy
- ^
Meyer, H. A. W.
(1880),
Meyer's NT Commentary
on Luke 7, translated from the German sixth edition, accessed 31 December 2021
- ^
Luke 7:17
- ^
a
b
Farrar, F. W. (1891),
Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
on Luke 7, accessed 6 June 2018
- ^
Fred Craddock
,
Luke
, 2009
ISBN
0664234356
page 43, 95?8
- ^
The People's New Testament Commentary - M. Eugene Boring, Fred B. Craddock - 2004 Page 204 "7:11-17 RAISING THE WIDOW'S SON This story is only in Luke, but it has many points of contact with the story of Elijah's raising the widow of Zarephath's son (1 Kgs. 17:8-24), including such verbatim parallels as "he gave him to his mother" ..."
- ^
Sinclair Ferguson
,
Preaching Christ from the Old Testament
Archived
2013-09-03 at the
Wayback Machine
, Proclamation Trust, 2002, page 12.
- ^
Luke 7:19
:
New International Version
, repeated in
7:20
- ^
Guzik, D.,
Enduring Word Bible Commentary: Luke 7 - The Sick Healed, the Dead Raised, the Sinner Forgiven
, accessed 1 January 2022
- ^
Luke 7:39
:
Good News Translation
- ^
Luke 7:38
KJV
- ^
Expositor's Greek Testament. Luke 7
. Accessed 24 April 2019.
- ^
Exell, Joseph S.; Spence-Jones, Henry Donald Maurice (Editors).
On "Luke 7"
in
The
Pulpit Commentary
. 23 volumes. First publication: 1890. Accessed 24 April 2019.
- ^
Luke 7:47?48
: Revised Standard Version
- ^
Franklin, E.,
59. Luke
in Barton, J. and Muddiman, J. (2001),
The Oxford Bible Commentary
, p. 936
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