Biblion Bible Commentary
Read the introduction to Luke · About this commentary
He Continued All Night in Prayer
Luke 6:12-16
12 In these days, he went out to the mountain to pray, and he continued all night in prayer to God. · WEB
Before choosing twelve men out of a crowd, he spends the whole night praying.
In these days, he went out to the mountain to pray, and he continued all night in prayer to God Luke 6:12.
The choosing of the twelve is in the earliest account Mark 3:1–19. What belongs to this one is the night before it.
No other telling records it, and the placement is deliberate — it comes immediately after the synagogue where they began plotting, and immediately before the decision that will carry the whole work forward. This Gospel puts prayer at every hinge, and this is the longest instance in it. Not a morning, not an hour: the whole night.
When it was day, he called his disciples, and from them he chose twelve, whom he also named apostles Luke 6:13.
There are two stages. He calls the disciples — the wider body of people following him — and out of that group he selects twelve. Discipleship is open; this appointment is not.
The number is the argument. Twelve tribes had constituted Israel, and a man who picks exactly twelve is making a claim about what he is forming. And apostles is a job description rather than an honor: it means those sent, so they are named for the errand rather than for the rank.
The list itself repays a slow read, because of who is on it.
Simon, whom he also named Peter — a fisherman who had recently asked him to go away Luke 5:8. Matthew — a tax collector, which is to say a man who had worked for Rome. Simon who was called the Zealot Luke 6:15 — and the zealots were the party committed to driving Rome out, by violence where possible.
Those two are on the same list. A man who collected the occupier's revenue and a man who believed such men should be killed are appointed to the same work and will spend three years walking the same roads. Nothing in the account remarks on it, and nothing needs to.
And Judas Iscariot, who also became a traitor Luke 6:16.
The last name is given with its ending attached, as it is in every list. He was chosen after that night of prayer, with everything known, and the account does not soften it by hinting that a mistake was made. Became is the word — he was not a traitor when he was chosen.
settled What this mark means