Biblion Bible Commentary
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Go Tell That Fox
Luke 13:31-35
31 On that same day, some Pharisees came, saying to him, “Get out of here and go away, for Herod wants to kill you.” · WEB
Warned that Herod wants him dead, he sends a message back — and then weeps over the city that will actually do it.
On that same day, some Pharisees came, saying to him, "Get out of here and go away, for Herod wants to kill you" Luke 13:31.
The scene is this Gospel's alone, and the warning appears to be genuine. Not every Pharisee in this book is an enemy; three of them invite him to dinner, and these come with information that would save his life.
"Go and tell that fox, 'Behold, I cast out demons and perform cures today and tomorrow, and the third day I complete my mission'" Luke 13:32.
A fox in that world stood for something small and cunning rather than something powerful — a predator that works by stealth because it cannot fight. It is a precise assessment of a tetrarch who beheaded a prophet to save face at a dinner.
And the reply is a timetable rather than a defiance. He will keep doing exactly what he is doing, for a stated period, and then finish. The word for complete is the one used of a work brought to its end, and the third day is not accidental in a book that has already used the phrase three times of the resurrection.
"Nevertheless I must go on my way today and tomorrow and the next day, for it can't be that a prophet would perish outside of Jerusalem" Luke 13:33.
The must is the book's word again. And the sentence is bitterly ironic: he is safe from Herod because his death is booked elsewhere. The city with the temple in it is the one place a prophet reliably dies.
"Jerusalem, Jerusalem, you who kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to her!" Luke 13:34.
The lament is given in Matthew's account Matthew 23:37–39, where it closes the woes on the last week. Here it comes early, on the road, hundreds of miles out — and that placement is this Gospel's contribution. He is not weeping over the city at the end of a bad week in it. He has been carrying this the whole journey.
"How often I wanted to gather your children together, like a hen gathers her own brood under her wings, and you refused!" A hen spreads her wings when something is coming, and what she does is take it instead of them. How often says the offer was long-standing; you refused says where it failed.
"Behold, your house is left to you desolate" Luke 13:35. Their house now, not his Father's.
"You will not see me until you say, 'Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord!'" The last word is a condition, and conditions can be met. In this Gospel the line is shouted six chapters later as he comes down the Mount of Olives Luke 19:38 — by disciples, while the city itself stays silent.
settled What this mark means