Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of Luke 12:18
And he said, This will I do: I will pull down my barns, and build greater; and there will I bestow all my fruits and my goods.
18. my barns ] Rather, storehouses ( apothekas not only for corn). He never thought of the admonition of the Son of Sirach, “Shut up alms in thy storehouses,” Sir 29:12 . my fruits
my goods ] Such ‘good things’ as he was alone capable of recognising, Luk 16:25. And “all my goods,” with no mention of the poor.
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
I will pull down my barns – The word barns here, properly means, granaries, or places exclusively designed to put wheat, barley, etc. They were commonly made, by the ancients, underground, where grain could be kept a long time more safe from thieves and from vermin. If it be asked why he did not let the old ones remain and build new ones, it may be answered that it would be easier to enlarge those already excavated in the earth than to dig new ones.
Fuente: Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible
Verse 18. I will pull down, &c.] The rich are full of designs concerning this life, but in general take no thought about eternity till the time that their goods and their lives are both taken away.
Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible
And he said, this will I do,…. This was the resolution he came to, and which he took up, without consulting God, or asking leave of him:
I will pull down my barns, and build greater; which was not a very wise one; for he might have let his present barns have stood, and have added new ones to them:
and there will I bestow all my fruits and my goods; he ascribes the increase of his substance to himself, and reckons them his own acquisitions, and entirely owing to his diligence and industry; and therefore calls them my fruits, and my goods; and accounts them his good things, his only good things; as worldly men place all good and happiness in outward enjoyments, having no notion of spiritual and eternal good things he determines to lay up all in his barns, for his own use and service, and nothing for God and his interest, nor any thing for the poor and their relief.
Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible
I will pull down (). Future active of , an old verb, the usual future being . This second form from the second aorist (from obsolete ) like in Re 22:19.
My barns ( ). From , to lay by, to treasure. So a granary or storehouse, an old word, six times in the N.T. (Matt 3:12; Matt 6:26; Matt 13:30; Luke 3:17; Luke 12:18; Luke 12:24).
All my corn ( ). Better grain (wheat, barley), not maize or Indian corn.
My goods ( ). Like the English, my good things. So the English speak of goods (freight) train.
Fuente: Robertson’s Word Pictures in the New Testament
Fruits [] . Some texts, however, read ton siton, my corn. So Rev.
Fuente: Vincent’s Word Studies in the New Testament
1) “And he said, This will I do,” (kai elpen touto poieso) “And he said, this I will (am determined) to do,” not seeking the will of God, Eph 5:16-17; This is what I have made up my mind to do. It was not to help his fellowman, any charitable or religious cause, but for selfish gain.
2) “I will pull down my barns, and build greater,” (kathelo mou tas apothekas kai meizonas oikodomeso) “I will pull down (remove) my present barns and I will build larger ones,” not realizing that that farm, and those barns, did not belong to him, and he did not belong to himself, but to God, by right of creation, Eze 18:4; Mal 2:10, and by right of daily Divine care over him, La 3:22; Act 17:28.
3) “And there will I bestow all my fruits and my goods.” (kai sunakso ekei panta ton siton kai ta agatha mou) “And I will gather out there (bring together) all my wheat and goods,” which really actually did not belong to him, but to God. He did not reflect any spirit of “If the Lord wills,” as commanded Jas 4:15. He sought not, and thought not, of God, or of the poor who might have need of what he was hoarding, but of himself only.
Fuente: Garner-Howes Baptist Commentary
(18) I will pull down my barns.The Greek noun (apothek, whence our apothecary,) has a somewhat wider meaning, and includes storehouses or warehouses of all kinds.
All my fruits.Here, too, the Greek word is somewhat wider. Literally, producei.e., crops of every kind.
Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)
18. Pull down His barns then are not, as they often were among the Jews, caves of the earth or rocks. They are tall buildings; but he must have still more spacious ones.
My fruits My products.
My goods The heathen philosophers, especially the Stoics, denied that perishable things should be called goods. But to this man they were, indeed, my goods. They were his life, than which he knew no life higher, and which he considered to consist in the abundance of his possessions.
Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
“And he said, This will I do, I will pull down my barns, and build greater, and there will I bestow all my grain and my goods.”
And he resolved his problem by deciding that he would build larger barns so that he could store it all up in order to secure his own future and enable himself to retire. Note the constant reference to Himself. (‘I — I — my –I — my — my’). He has thought neither for God nor for others. We recognise the significance of the choice he made. It was not to say to himself, ‘well, I already have what I need. I will give all this surplus to the poor and use it in the service of God.’ It was to say, ‘I will use all this for my own benefit and my family’s benefit, and to our greater advantage. I will look after Number One.’
Fuente: Commentary Series on the Bible by Peter Pett
Luk 12:18. All my fruits and my goods. All my increase and good things: that is, “There will I collect and lay up all this year’s increase, and likewise the produce of former years which I have in store.”
Fuente: Commentary on the Holy Bible by Thomas Coke
18 And he said, This will I do: I will pull down my barns, and build greater; and there will I bestow all my fruits and my goods.
Ver. 18. My barns ] So my fruits, and my goods, all was his; God came not into this epicure’s thoughts. Hic Deus nihil fecit, Here God does nothing, one wittily twitted Pope Adrian, talking after the same rate.
Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
18, 19. ] “His folly is fourfold: he forgets the Giver (‘ my fruits, my goods’), he greedily reserves all for himself ( ), he imagines such things to be food for his soul ( , ., ., ., . ) he forgets death , which is every day possible.” (Stier, iii. 146, edn. 2.) A very striking similarity is found in Sir 11:18-19 , , , , , . Stier thinks this a convincing proof that our Lord did occasionally refer to the Apocrypha (?).
Fuente: Henry Alford’s Greek Testament
Luk 12:18 . (or ): may refer to the fruits ( , Luk 12:17 ) of the season, to the accumulated possessions of bygone years.
Fuente: The Expositors Greek Testament by Robertson
barns = granaries.
fruits = produce. Not the same word as in Luk 12:17. Tr. WI R read “the corn”.
goods = good things.
Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics
18, 19.] His folly is fourfold:-he forgets the Giver (my fruits, my goods),-he greedily reserves all for himself ( ),-he imagines such things to be food for his soul (, ., ., ., .)-he forgets death, which is every day possible. (Stier, iii. 146, edn. 2.) A very striking similarity is found in Sir 11:18-19, , , , , . Stier thinks this a convincing proof that our Lord did occasionally refer to the Apocrypha (?).
Fuente: The Greek Testament
Luk 12:18. , all) There is no mention made here of the poor.
Fuente: Gnomon of the New Testament
Luk 12:21, Luk 18:4, Luk 18:6, Psa 17:14, Jam 3:15, Jam 4:15
Reciprocal: Gen 13:6 – General Deu 28:8 – storehouses Ecc 10:2 – but Isa 23:18 – it shall Isa 47:8 – I shall not
Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge
THE RICH FOOL
And he said, This will I do But God said unto him, Thou fool.
Luk 12:18-20
How busy are the streets of a great city! How anxious and eager are some of the faces we meet! Look at this manpoor a few years ago, well off now. He has been successful in his business. This is what all these business people are striving to be. Our Lords parable is a solemn warning about success in life. The rich man had good land, good harvests, and no doubt looked well after his farms. See the result (Luk 12:16-17). He became richer and richer.
I. What the rich man said to himself.He was pleased with his success; congratulated himself, looked proudly on his wealth (Dan 4:28-30). The man hardly knew where to stow all his wealth. Yet there were plenty of poor to feed, many a heart he might have made glad. But no. All his thoughts were centred on himself; his increase of wealth only made him more selfish. This is just the danger the Psalmist saw in wealth (Psa 62:10). So the rich man became more selfish. He will build more barns and get richer and richer. But does he think of the future? Yes. See what he has in his mind (Luk 12:19). He will enjoy himself, be merry; his soul shall be happy for years!
II. What God said to him.God had a startling message for him. What was that? (Luk 12:20). He had been priding himself on his cleverness in getting so richyet see what God calls him.A fool! Let us see where his folly lay.
(a) He had been speaking of my barns, my fruits, my goods. Were they really his? (see Psa 50:10-12). They were Gods, and only lent to him.
(b) He had forgotten how uncertain his riches were. He had seen others fall from wealth to poverty. Might not he fall too? Riches often have wings and fly away (Pro 23:5). He was not a very wise man to have forgotten this.
(c) What folly to count on many years! He could not count on to-morrow (Pro 27:1). All his wealth could not purchase one minutes life when God called for it!
(d) And could he be sure of being happy with all his wealth? Many a miserable life is passed in grand mansions and palaces.
He knew this too. He wanted something more than wealth to make his soul happy and at ease. He would have found out his folly if he had lived.
III. Gods call.Gods decree had gone forth. His soul was required that very night! Could he not refuse? No. God demanded it. It was His, and must be yielded. What good was all his wealth to him then? Was he willing to go? No. He would have refused if he could. No wonder, for he was losing his all! How different with Gods true servant! He commits his soul to God (Psa 31:5; Act 7:59). He is not quitting, but going to his riches.
Rev. Canon Watson.
Illustration
It is an awful thought that the character which Jesus brings before us in this parable is far from being uncommon. Thousands in every age of the world have lived continually doing the very things which are here condemned. Thousands are doing them at this very day. They are laying up treasure upon earth, and thinking of nothing but how to increase it. They are continually adding to their hoards, as if they were to enjoy them for ever, and as if there was no death, no judgment, and no world to come. And yet these are the men who are called, clever, and prudent, and wise!
(SECOND OUTLINE)
THE RICH MANS FOLLY
What was the folly of this rich mans life?
I. He mistook the true gauge of the worth of life.He valued his days by the money he could make in them. He reckoned up his years by the increment to his little stock of gold. Ask him how much so-and-so might be worth; he would answer you at once by estimating the amount of money that he had amassed.
II. He mistook the true use of his superfluity.He had more than he wanted. His fields brought forth in plenty. He began to wonder what to do with the superfluous wealth, and he thought that there was no other use for it except to reserve it for himself, and so he proposed to pull down the barns and to build greater, and to store the abundance, the overplus, the superfluity of his life for other and coming days.
III. He mistook the true way of being merry.Men sometimes talk to themselves, sitting in a reverie when the house is quiet, and by their fireside they talk to their souls. And this man talked in the strangest way to his. Soul, thou hast much goods laid up for many years; take thine ease, eat, drink, and be merry.
IV. He mistook the tenure of his life.He thought he had many years before him, and he had not a single day, for that night his soul was to be called back to the God that made it, and went up to God leaving everything behind it. It went up a meagre, starved soul. He never missed a business appointment, but he was not prepared for the appointment of death. He had taken infinite pains not to be bankrupt, but he ended by being a bankrupt for eternity. He had a good title for earth, he had no title for heaven. He had taken care of this life, but not of the other.
(THIRD OUTLINE)
WHAT THE RICH MAN FORGOT
What is the fault of the man that we might call prudent, but that God calls a fool? Just these two things: first, that he did not at all recognise even, as it were, the existence of a higher life than that which we live here; and secondly, that he did not in the least recognise that sacrifice is the basis of all life. These were the two negations that made this man, with his accumulated wealth, and with his prudential resolves, and with his negative morality, a fool in the eyes of God. Just one word, as it were, about each of them.
I. He did not recognise the higher life.He said within himself, that is where we hear the truth; not the explanations we give to others, but what we say within ourselves in the still moments of thought and communion, Soul, thou hast much goods laid up for many years. He thought those things, the bursting granaries and accumulating gains, were things that could feed all the life of a man; he did not recognise that man cannot live by bread alonewhether that bread be the mere material resources that are to support your animal life, or the higher intellectual sources that are to support your intellectual life, but that man must live by every word of God; and he thought there was food for his immortal nature in the things of this life. Oh, there is a hunger and a thirst that nothing on earth can satisfy! There is a hunger and a thirst that only God can satisfy, and there is a life that can only live in God.
II. He did not recognise that sacrifice is the basis of all life.He had no idea that sacrifice lies at the root of life; that as the cypress is oer the tomb, so the roots of life are in the grave; he did not read the lesson that was written for him, that Except a grain of seed fall into the earth and die, it abideth alone; but if it die it bringeth forth much fruit; and his whole idea was not that what was given him was to be dispersed, to bring forth other and greater harvests amongst the perishing children of men, but that it was all to be accumulated. Thou hast much goods laid up, eat, drink, and be merry, and let the world take care of itself; that was the mans philosophy, and that is the philosophy of many a man like that man to-day; neglectful of that great principle, that sacrifice, the giving forth of what we have, the giving up even, if need be, of what we are for others, is the art of all life, national life, Church life, individual life. In every case selfish isolation is death, and self-sacrifice is life; not only life for others, but life for ourselves. Let a nation shut itself up in isolation, and it hears the first whispers of its coming doom. Let a church shut itself up, and forget the lessons taught it in the parables of the salt, and of the light, and of the leaven, and that Church is hastening to decay. Let individuals shut themselves up, men or women, and say, Let my country, my Church, take care of themselves; let my neighbours take care of themselves; soul, thou hast much goods laid up, eat, drink, and be merry, and such a person is denounced by God as a fool; and in the darkness of the night of that souls self-satisfaction its very life shall be required of it.
Rev. Canon Teignmouth Shore.
Fuente: Church Pulpit Commentary
8
It was necessary to build larger facilities for the crops.