Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of Luke 15:2
And the Pharisees and scribes murmured, saying, This man receiveth sinners, and eateth with them.
2. the Pharisees and scribes ] See Excursus VI.
murmured ] Rather, were loudly murmuring (Luk 19:7; Jos 9:18). “With arid heart they blame the very Fount of Mercy,” Gregory the Great. In all ages it had been their sin that they ‘sought not the lost.’ Eze 34:4.
and eateth with them ] Even their touch was regarded as unclean by the Pharisees. But our Lord, who read the heart, knew that the religious professors were often the worse sinners before God, and He associated with sinners that He might save them. “Ideo secutus est… usque ad mensam, ubi maxime peccatur.” Bengel. It is this yearning of redemptive love which finds its richest illustration in these three parables. They contain the very essence of the Glad Tidings, and two of them are peculiar to St Luke.
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
Murmured – They affected to suppose that if Jesus treated sinners kindly he must be fond of their society, and be a man of similar character. They considered it disgraceful to be with them or to eat with them, and they, therefore, brought a charge against him for it. They would not suppose that he admitted them to his society for the purpose of doing them good; nor did they remember that the very object of his coming was to call the wicked from their ways and to save them from death.
Receiveth sinners – Receives them in a tender manner; treats them with kindness; does not drive them from his presence.
And eateth with them – Contrary to the received maxims of the scribes. By eating with them he showed that he did not despise or overlook them.
Fuente: Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible
Verse 2. Receiveth sinners] . He receives them cordially, affectionately – takes them to his bosom; for so the word implies. What mercy! Jesus receives sinners in the most loving, affectionate manner, and saves them unto eternal life! Reader, give glory to God for ever!
Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible
2. murmured, saying, c.tookit ill, were scandalized at Him, and insinuated (on the principlethat a man is known by the company he keeps) that He must have somesecret sympathy with their character. But oh, what a truth ofunspeakable preciousness do their lips, as on other occasions,unconsciously utter., Now follow three parables representing thesinner: (1) in his stupidity (2) as all-unconscious of hislost condition; (3) knowingly and willingly estranged from God[BENGEL]. The first twoset forth the seeking love of God; the last, His receivinglove [TRENCH].
Lu15:3-7. I. THE LOSTSHEEP.
Fuente: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown’s Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible
And the Pharisees and Scribes murmured,…. When they saw the easy access these wicked men had to Christ; and that he stopped and stayed with them, and very freely imparted instructions to them: saying,
this man receiveth sinners. The Persic version reads, “publicans and sinners”, as in the preceding verse: the word “man” is not in the original text, it is only “this”; which is to be understood not by way of eminence, as this great person, this prophet, this master in Israel; but by way of diminution and reproach, this fellow; as it is sometimes supplied: the word “man” be very rightly inserted, for they took him to be a mere man; though it is certain he was more than a man, even the true and mighty God; and therefore was able to save those sinners that came to him: and great condescension and grace did he show in receiving them who were “sinners”, not only by nature, but by practice; and not merely guilty of common infirmities, but were notorious sinners, covetous, extortioners, oppressors of the poor, and very debauched persons; and such as these Christ “receives”: hence no man should be discouraged from coming to Christ, on account of sin; all that do come to him, should come as sinners, for he receives them as such; nor does he receive any for any worthiness there is in them: these persons he received first at his Father’s hand, as he did all the elect, as his portion, and to be preserved and saved by him; with all gifts, grace, blessings, and promises for them; and in consequence of this, he receives them upon their coming to him as sinners, into his open love and affection, into his arms; which denotes communion and protection; into his house and family, and not only to hear him preach, or preached, but to converse and eat with him at his table, and even to live by faith upon him; and when he has freed them from all their sins, he will receive them to himself in glory. And there is the greatest reason imaginable to believe, that Christ still does, and will receive sinners; since he came to save the chief of sinners; and has bore their sins, and died for them; and now makes intercession for transgressors; and by the ministers of the word calls sinners to repentance.
And eateth with them; as he did in the houses of Matthew the publican, and of Zaccheus; see Mt 9:10 each of which occasioned great murmurings among the Pharisees; and who therefore traduced him as a friend of publicans and sinners; and he is indeed so in the best sense: and not only did he eat with them corporeally, but in a spiritual sense, as he still does; admitting them into his house to eat of the provisions of it, to live on him the bread of life, to sup with him, and he with them; and feeding and delighting himself in the exercise of those graces, which he himself is the donor and author of, in them.
Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible
Both … and ( … ). United in the complaint.
Murmured (). Imperfect active of , late Greek compound in the LXX and Byzantine writers. In the N.T. only here and Lu 19:7. The force of here is probably between or among themselves. It spread (imperfect tense) whenever these two classes came in contact with Jesus. As the publicans and the sinners were drawing near to Jesus just in that proportion the Pharisees and the scribes increased their murmurings. The social breach is here an open yawning chasm.
This man (). A contemptuous sneer in the use of the pronoun. They spoke out openly and probably pointed at Jesus.
Receiveth (). Present middle indicative of the common verb . In 12:36 we had it for expecting, here it is to give access to oneself, to welcome like of Martha’s welcome to Jesus (Lu 10:38). The charge here is that this is the habit of Jesus. He shows no sense of social superiority to these outcasts (like the Hindu “untouchables” in India).
And eateth with them ( ). Associative instrumental case () after – in composition. This is an old charge (Lu 5:30) and a much more serious breach from the standpoint of the Pharisees. The implication is that Jesus prefers these outcasts to the respectable classes (the Pharisees and the scribes) because he is like them in character and tastes, even with the harlots. There was a sting in the charge that he was the “friend” () of publicans and sinners (Lu 7:34).
Fuente: Robertson’s Word Pictures in the New Testament
1) “And the Pharisees and scribes murmured,” (kai diegonguzon hoi te Pharisaioi kai hoi grammateis) “And the scribes (writers and guardians of the archives) and the Pharisees murmured out of reason,” audibly among themselves, one to another.
2) “Saying, This man receiveth sinners,” (legontes hoti houtos hamartalous prosdechetai) “Repeatedly complaining that this man (Jesus) receives,” keeps company or associates with “lawless people,” people who are morally and ethically sinners. This Jesus did, as they repented of their sins and began to follow Him, Mat 21:32.
3) “And eateth with them.” (kai sunesthiei autois) “And he eats in company, colleague, or intimate association with them.” Indeed He did for, “He that would have friends must show himself friendly,” Pro 18:24. He sought to win the “bad,” not the good, Mat 9:13; Mar 2:17; Luk 5:32.
Fuente: Garner-Howes Baptist Commentary
(2) And the Pharisees and scribes . . .Here, too, we may well believe that the speakers were some of the guests of Luk. 14:15. They had followed Him to see what He would do, and were at once startled and shocked to find the Teacher who had spoken so sternly to those who were professedly godly, not only talking to, but eating with, those who were, at any rate, regarded as ungodly and sinful.
Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)
2. Pharisees and scribes This would seem to imply that our Lord was in some populous town, where numbers of these classes were to be found. And the reply of Jesus, of which Luke doubtless gives us but an abbreviated sketch is still so full, as well as so regular and symmetrical, as to induce us to suppose that it was a public and even a synagogue discourse. It cannot be a mere collection by Luke of parables brought together by classification, but must be accepted as a threefold unit.
This man receiveth sinners Accepts them as followers and even apostles, as Matthew.
Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
‘And both the Pharisees and the scribes murmured, saying, “This man receives sinners, and eats with them.’
It is clear that Jesus welcomed these ‘public servants and sinners’ openly (compare Luk 5:30; Mar 2:15-16) and was willing to eat among them, quite probably often in a kind of picnic situation (as when the five thousand were fed), although no doubt sometimes being invited to people’s houses. And this was so much so that the Pharisees muttered among themselves at what they saw to be His ‘irreligious behaviour’. As they do not suggest otherwise, however, it is probable that even when doing so Jesus went to the trouble of proper cleansing in spite of the conditions. He still sought to avoid offence wherever He could. But that did not satisfy them. For even close association with such people was frowned on, and no Pharisee would have mixed with them.
It should be noted that the Pharisees and Scribes must not be seen as all bad. They would have welcomed these people one by one if they had come privately and had ‘repented’ and had been determined to follow their ways, but they would never have sought them out, and such a one would first have had to follow very rigorous procedures in order to be finally welcomed after appropriate cleansing. They therefore totally disapproved of Jesus lax approach.
Fuente: Commentary Series on the Bible by Peter Pett
2 And the Pharisees and scribes murmured, saying, This man receiveth sinners, and eateth with them.
Ver. 2. But the scribes and Pharisees ] Being sick of the devil’s disease, and doing his lusts,Joh 8:44Joh 8:44 .
Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
2. ] ., into His circle of adherents ., allows them to sit at meat with Him; on the journey, or at entertainments, as in Mat 9:10 . Stier remarks (iii. 214, edn. 2) that this . . is an important and affecting testimony, from the mouth of the enemies of our Lord, to His willingness to receive sinners.
The . implies either throughout the journey; or rather, one to another, responsively.
Luk 15:2 . : the conveys the idea of a general pervasive murmuring. This is probably not an instance illustrating Hermann’s remark ( ad Viger. , p. 856) that this preposition in compound verbs often adds the notion of striving ( , certare bibendo ). .: the ( [126] [127] [128] ) binds Pharisees and scribes together as one: as close a corporation as “publicans and sinners” (equivalent to “sinners” in their conception. , Luk 15:2 ). Note the order, Pharisees and scribes; usually the other way. Pharisees answers to sinners, scribes to publicans; the two extremes in character and calling: the holiest and unholiest; the most reputable and the most disreputable occupations. And Jesus preferred the baser group! , receives, admits to His presence; instead of repelling with involuntary loathing. : not only admits but also eats with them . That was the main surprise and offence, and therefore just the thing done, because the thing which, while offending the Pharisees, would certainly gain the “sinners”. Jesus did what the reputedly good would not do, so winning their trust.
[126] Codex Sinaiticus (sc. iv.), now at St. Petersburg, published in facsimile type by its discoverer, Tischendorf, in 1862.
[127] Codex Vaticanus (sc. iv.), published in photographic facsimile in 1889 under the care of the Abbate Cozza-Luzi.
[128] Codex Regius–eighth century, represents an ancient text, and is often in agreement with and B.
Pharisees. See App-120. This settles the scope of all that follows.
murmured = were muttering. The word implies subdued threatening. Occurs only here and Luk 19:7.
sinners. See on Mat 9:10.
2.] ., into His circle of adherents-., allows them to sit at meat with Him;-on the journey, or at entertainments, as in Mat 9:10. Stier remarks (iii. 214, edn. 2) that this . . is an important and affecting testimony, from the mouth of the enemies of our Lord, to His willingness to receive sinners.
The . implies either throughout the journey;-or rather, one to another,-responsively.
Luk 15:2. , murmured among one another.
sinners
Sin. (See Scofield “Rom 3:23”).
Luk 15:29, Luk 15:30, Luk 5:30, Luk 7:34, Luk 7:39, Luk 19:7, Mat 9:11, Act 11:3, 1Co 5:9-11, Gal 2:12
Reciprocal: Psa 51:17 – thou Isa 65:5 – Stand Mat 9:9 – named Mat 11:19 – a friend Mat 20:11 – they murmured Mat 21:31 – the publicans Mar 2:16 – How Mar 14:5 – And they Luk 3:12 – General Luk 5:17 – that there Luk 15:28 – he Luk 18:9 – and despised Joh 6:41 – murmured Joh 9:24 – a sinner Rom 15:7 – as Heb 12:3 – contradiction
EXCLUSIVENESS AND FORMALITY
The Pharisees and scribes murmured.
Luk 15:2
The crowds which gathered about our Lord in the course of His mission were eminently representative of the various phases of Jewish life and thought. Of all types of society, that of the Pharisee is perhaps the most marked. We may recognise several distinct ideas associated with it.
I. Exclusiveness or spiritual pride.If there is one great practical lesson, before all others, running through the teaching of Christ, and imparting a principle of radical change into the scheme of life, it is summed in these words, The last shall be first and the first last. This doctrine is the first step in the organisation, so to say, of the Kingdom of Heaven. This is the first in order of all those paradoxes which constitute the sum of Christianity. It was this which in the first centuries of its spread was such an outrage upon society at large, such an enigma to the dispassioned observer, and, as Gibbon has justly observed, was one great element of its triumph. The outcast was no longer an outcast. The despised and rejected of men has become the very pattern of the noblest life. And herein lay the essential antagonism to the spirit which possessed the Pharisee. Exclusion was his ideal. He clung to it as his heaven-conferred heritage. Christ broke down the walls of partition. The Kingdom of Heaven came, not to a favoured few, not to the elect or the predestinate, but to all.
II. Formalism.Formalism may be explained as an exaggerated stress laid upon ceremonial, upon formularies and upon ordinances, as the elevation, in short, of the mechanism of life in comparison with the life itself. It is not to be supposed that all, or indeed the greater part of those in whom this tendency exists, are making an ostentatious display of righteousness, or are assuming a disguise to cloak their hidden propensities, nor yet that they are themselves conscious of the unsubstantial nature of the manifestations of their religious life. There are but few, I suppose, who do not at times succumb out of sheer weariness to the temptation to rest content with seeming instead of being, to substitute a mechanical goodness for genuineness of life, a conventional orthodoxy for the unquiet pursuit of reality. That there is a compatibility of genuine piety and the most narrow formalism, is a fact which meets us at every turn. But in proportion as knowledge becomes complete, as darkness melts into light, in such proportion are the means and outward expression of life lost sight of, swallowed up in the complete freedom of life itself. The letter killeth, but the spirit giveth lifelife and liberty, unity of life beneath the multiplicity of forms. And in the recognition of this lies the Christian brotherhood, the veritable communion of saints. If we learn to recognise that this communion is a unity underlying the fragments of Christendom, we shall have been purged of the leaven of the Pharisee, we shall have been made meet to sit down with Christ in the company of publicans and sinners.
Rev. Dr. C. H. O. Daniel.
2
Pharisees and scribes, as well as the publicans and sinners, were all Jews but in different classifications according to the social castes devised by the self-righteous Jewish leaders. On the significance of eating with others, see the quotation from the works of reference at Mat 9:11.
Luk 15:2. Murmured, among themselves. That they did not speak thus to our Lord Himself is evident.
This man. The expression does not necessarily imply contempt.
Receiveth sinners. His enemies said this in reproach, but it is important evidence of a blessed truth. He received this class of people among His followers.
And eateth with them. Comp. Mat 9:10. Our Lord admitted them to social intercourse. This was deemed by the Pharisees a lowering of Himself, and perhaps of them, since they had admitted Him as a guest at their entertainments (chap. Luk 14:1, etc.). The murmur was occasioned by the present concourse, but it referred to the habitual conduct of our Lord.
Luk 15:2-7. And he spake this parable That he might justify his conversing freely with sinners, in order to their reformation and salvation, he spake the parable of the lost sheep, which he had delivered once before, and also two other parables, which all declare, in direct contrariety to the Pharisees and scribes, in what manner God receiveth sinners. What man having a hundred sheep, &c. See note on Mat 18:12-15. Doth not leave the ninety and nine in the wilderness Where they used to feed. All uncultivated ground, like our commons, was by the Jews termed wilderness, or desert, in distinction from arable and enclosed land: and go after that which is lost In recovering a lost soul, Christ, as it were, labours. May we not learn from hence, that to let them alone, who are in sin, is both unchristian and inhuman? And when he hath found it After a long and tedious search, he layeth it on his shoulders, rejoicing, as a man in such circumstances naturally would. And calleth together his friends and neighbours Who had been informed of his loss, and grieved on account of it: saying, Rejoice With me, for my labour and search have not been in vain; I have found my sheep which was lost To my great joy, especially as I was ready to despair of finding it. Likewise joy shall be in heaven First, in our blessed Lord himself, and then among the angels of God, and the spirits of just men, perhaps informed thereof by God himself, or by the angels who ministered to them; over one sinner Over one gross, open, notorious sinner; that repenteth That is thoroughly changed in heart and life; more than over ninety and nine just , righteous persons, who need no repentance No such universal change of mind and character, having been the subjects of it in their childhood or youth. It cannot, as Dr. Doddridge justly observes, be our Lords meaning here, that God esteems one penitent sinner more than ninety and nine confirmed and established saints; (who are, undoubtedly, the persons spoken of as needing no repentance, or no universal change of heart and life, in which sense the word is commonly used;) for it would be inconsistent with the divine wisdom, goodness, and holiness to suppose this. But it is plainly as if he had said, As a father peculiarly rejoices when an extravagant child, supposed to be utterly lost, is brought to a thorough sense of his duty, and is effectually reformed; or, as any other person who has recovered what he had given up for gone, has a more sensible satisfaction in it than in several other things equally valuable, but not in such danger: so do the holy inhabitants of heaven rejoice in the conversion of the most abandoned sinners. Yea, and God himself so readily forgives and receives them, that he may be represented as having part in the joy. It must be observed, however, that, as the design of the parable is to represent divine things by images taken from the manners of men, what is here said must be understood as spoken with allusion to human passions, which are much more sensibly affected with the obtaining of what was long and vehemently desired, or with the gaining of that which was looked upon as lost, than with the continuance of the good long enjoyed. And when such passions are ascribed to God, they are to be taken in a figurative sense, entirely exclusive of those sensations which result from the commotions of animal nature in ourselves.
Verse 2
Eateth with them; lives familiarly with them.
Fuente: Henry Alford’s Greek Testament
Fuente: The Expositors Greek Testament by Robertson
Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics
Fuente: The Greek Testament
Fuente: Gnomon of the New Testament
Fuente: Scofield Reference Bible Notes
Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge
Fuente: Church Pulpit Commentary
Fuente: Combined Bible Commentary
Fuente: A Popular Commentary on the New Testament
Fuente: Joseph Bensons Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
Fuente: Abbott’s Illustrated New Testament