Biblion Bible Commentary
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Which of You Would Not Pull Him Out?
Luke 14:1-6
1 When he went into the house of one of the rulers of the Pharisees on a Sabbath to eat bread, they were watching him. · WEB
A sick man is placed in front of him at a Sabbath dinner, and the room declines to answer a simple question.
When he went into the house of one of the rulers of the Pharisees on a Sabbath to eat bread, they were watching him Luke 14:1.
The third dinner in a Pharisee's house in this Gospel, and the least hospitable. They were watching him — the verb is the one for surveillance, and the meal is a test.
Behold, a certain man who had dropsy was in front of him Luke 14:2.
The placement is suspicious and the account leaves it so. A man with an obvious and serious condition — dropsy is the swelling of the body with fluid, and it was understood to be fatal — happens to be directly in front of the guest at a private Sabbath meal in a ruler's house. He is not said to have asked for anything.
Jesus, answering, spoke to the lawyers and Pharisees, saying, "Is it lawful to heal on the Sabbath?" Luke 14:3.
The word answering is used although nobody has spoken, which is the account's way of saying he replied to what the room was thinking. And he asks first. The question is put to the experts before anything is done, which gives them the ruling if they want it.
But they were silent Luke 14:4. They will not say yes, because they came to object; they will not say no, because saying it aloud in front of a swollen man is more than they can manage. The silence is the answer, and it is a confession.
He took him, and healed him, and let him go. Three verbs, done without argument. The man is not kept as an exhibit — he is sent away before the discussion resumes, which spares him the rest of the evening.
"Which of you, if your son or an ox fell into a well, wouldn't immediately pull him out on a Sabbath day?" Luke 14:5.
The argument is the same one made about the bent woman Luke 13:15 and is put more sharply. Not watering an animal now but rescuing one — and your son is placed first, so the case runs from what any of them would do without a second thought.
The word immediately carries it. Nobody in that room would leave a child in a well until sundown, and nobody would need to think about it.
They couldn't answer him regarding these things Luke 14:6. The second silence of the paragraph, and it is a different kind. The first was refusal. This one is defeat.
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