What Possessions and Precautions Cannot Secure

“An innumerable multitude” is myriades, tens of thousands, the Greek word that gives English “myriad”. Leaven was a lump of old fermented dough kept back to start the next batch, and a little of it worked through the whole; Passover law ordered every scrap out of the house (Exodus 12:15).

The same saying appeared in 8:17, where it promised that what Jesus taught in parables would come to light. Here the identical words are turned into a warning: whatever hypocrisy covers will be uncovered as well.

“Closets” are tameia, the inner storerooms of a house, usually windowless, the most private space a family had. Flat roofs served as a public platform, the natural place for shouting news down to the street.

“My friends” is the only place in the first three gospels where Jesus addresses his disciples as friends, a title John 15:14-15 develops. The persecutor’s power is real but capped: “after that” there is nothing more he can do.

“Hell” here is geenna, Gehenna, the valley of Hinnom south of Jerusalem where children had been burned to Molech (Jeremiah 7:31), which became the name for final judgment. It differs from the hadēs of 10:15, the place of the dead. “Forewarn” means show plainly.

A farthing is an assarion, a small copper coin worth a sixteenth of a denarius. Matthew 10:29 has two sparrows sold for one; Luke has five for two, as though the fifth were thrown in for nothing, and yet that one too is remembered.

“Are numbered” is a perfect tense: have been counted, and the count stands. The picture recalls the oath that saved Jonathan, “there shall not one hair of his head fall to the ground” (1 Samuel 14:45).

“Confess me” is literally “confess in me”, an Aramaic turn of phrase for openly acknowledging someone. “Before the angels of God” is a reverent way of saying before God, picturing the heavenly court where the Son of man stands as witness.

The second half is shorter and passive, and the Son of man is not named in it. Luke will set this saying to work on the night of the arrest, when Peter says three times that he does not know Jesus, and yet Jesus has prayed that his faith would not fail (22:32).

Luke’s own sequel shows the first half at work: Peter tells the crowd in Jerusalem that they killed Jesus “through ignorance” and calls them to repent (Acts 3:17-19). Paul says the same of himself (1 Timothy 1:13). The word against the Son of man is not beyond pardon.

The three settings climb in rank: synagogue courts, then Gentile “magistrates”, then “powers”, the highest authorities. Acts walks through each, from Peter and John before the council to Paul before Gallio, Felix, Festus and Agrippa. “How or what” covers both manner and content.

Acts records the promise kept: “Peter, filled with the Holy Ghost, said unto them” (Acts 4:8), and Stephen’s opponents “were not able to resist the wisdom and the spirit by which he spake” (Acts 6:10). “In the same hour” means at the moment it is needed.

Under Deuteronomy 21:17 the firstborn received a double share, and families often brought such disputes to a respected teacher. The speaker is probably a younger brother who wants the estate split while his elder brother would keep it whole.

“Man” is a cool, distancing address, the word Peter will use in denial, “Man, I know not what thou sayest” (22:60). The question echoes the Hebrew who challenged Moses: “Who made thee a prince and a judge over us?” (Exodus 2:14).

“Covetousness” is pleonexia, literally the desire to have more. The Greek of the second half is compressed and awkward, roughly “not in abundance does anyone’s life come out of his possessions”; “life” is zōē, life itself, not a standard of living.

“Brought forth plentifully” is euphoreō, bore well, a verb found only here in the New Testament. The ground is the subject of the sentence: the harvest is not credited to the man’s effort at all.

“Thought within himself” is dialogizomai, to debate or deliberate, and the only partner in the debate is himself. “What shall I do” is the question the lawyer asked in 10:25 and the unjust steward will ask in 16:3.

He does not add a barn; he tears down working barns to build larger ones. The storehouses Joseph filled in Egypt (Genesis 41:48) were raised against famine for a whole nation, a use of surplus this man never considers.

Addressing oneself as “Soul” was a recognised way of talking to oneself in both Hebrew and Greek. “Eat, drink, and be merry” echoes the preacher of Ecclesiastes 8:15, and also the careless revellers of Isaiah 22:13, who add, “for to morrow we shall die.”

“Fool” is aphrōn, and Psalm 14:1 says “the fool hath said in his heart, There is no God”; this man too has been speaking in his heart. “Shall be required” is literally “they demand back”, an impersonal plural, and apaiteō is the word for recalling a loan.

“Layeth up treasure” is thēsaurizō, to hoard. Being “rich toward God” is not defined here; verse 33 supplies it, where treasure is laid up in the heavens by giving goods away.

In 1611, to “take thought” meant to worry, as when Saul fears his father will stop caring about the asses “and take thought for us” (1 Samuel 9:5). The “therefore” ties this teaching for the disciples to the parable just told to the crowd.

The argument runs from greater to lesser: the God who gave life and body will not fail over food and clothing. “Meat” is trophē, nourishment of any kind.

Matthew says “the fowls of the air”; Luke names ravens, birds unclean under the law (Leviticus 11:15). Scripture already had God feeding them: “he giveth… food… to the young ravens which cry” (Psalm 147:9, compare Job 38:41). “Consider” is katanoeō, look closely.

“Stature” is hēlikia, which can mean height or length of life, and a cubit was about eighteen inches. Eighteen inches of height would be enormous, so many read it as adding a small measure to one’s lifespan.

Only Luke has this verse, and it calls adding a cubit “that thing which is least”. If worry cannot manage the smallest addition, it will hardly manage the rest.

“Lilies” probably means the wild flowers of the Galilean hills in general, such as the red anemones that cover them in spring. Spinning thread was the first step in making every garment. Solomon’s glory is described in 1 Kings 10, where the queen of Sheba saw his servants’ apparel.

Dried grass and stubble were common fuel for the clay ovens in which bread was baked, so the flowers of today are tomorrow’s kindling. “O ye of little faith” is one Greek word, oligopistoi, used by Luke only here.

“Of doubtful mind” is meteōrizomai, literally to be lifted up in the air, used of a ship riding the swell or of a mind left hovering in suspense. It appears nowhere else in the New Testament.

“Nations of the world” means the Gentiles, ta ethnē; Luke adds “of the world”. The sentence turns on its two verbs: they seek, your Father knows. The disciples are not told their needs are unreal, only that they are already known.

Many manuscripts read “seek his kingdom”. Luke has neither Matthew’s “first” nor “his righteousness”. “Added” is prostithēmi, given in addition, the way an extra measure is thrown in with a purchase.

“Little flock” is a double diminutive in Greek, tiny flock, a picture of the vulnerable disciples. Daniel 7:27 speaks of the kingdom being given to “the people of the saints of the most High”, and the verb here, “to give”, is the heart of the promise.

“Bags” are ballantia, purses, the very item the seventy were forbidden to carry (10:4); here they are allowed purses that do not wear out. Moths ate fine clothing, which in the ancient world was a common form of stored wealth.

In Hebrew thinking the heart was the seat of thought and will, not only feeling. The saying makes it follow the treasure: where the money has gone, the mind and the decisions will go after it.

Long robes were tucked up into the belt for work or running; Israel ate the Passover “with your loins girded” (Exodus 12:11). Oil lamps had to be trimmed and refilled through the night, so a lamp still burning was evidence of someone awake.

A wedding feast could last for days, and a guest might leave it at any hour. “Knocketh” recalls the promise of 11:9-10: here it is the master who knocks, and the servants who must open at once.

“Verily” is amēn, which Luke keeps only a handful of times, marking a solemn saying. The master tying up his own robe to wait on his servants anticipates the scene where Jesus girds himself with a towel to wash his disciples’ feet (John 13:4-5).

Jewish reckoning divided the night into three watches, so the second and third run from about ten at night until dawn, the hours when watchers flag. Matthew and Mark speak of four watches, the Roman count.

The “goodman of the house” is 1611 English for the householder. “Broken through” is diorussō, to dig through: houses of mud brick could be tunnelled through the wall, which is how a thief got in without using the door.

The thief example turns inside out: the householder would have watched if he had known the hour, but the disciples do not know it and so must be ready all the time. “Ready” is hetoimos, prepared.

Only Luke records Peter’s question. He wants to know whether the parable is for the Twelve or for the whole crowd, and Jesus answers with another parable instead of a direct yes or no.

The steward, oikonomos, managed an estate and was often himself a slave. “Portion of meat” is sitometrion, a measured ration of grain, a technical word found only here in the New Testament. “In due season” means at the proper time.

The blessing is on the servant found “so doing”, in the middle of the task. It matches the blessing on the watchful servants of verse 37, but here what is rewarded is work, not only wakefulness.

Joseph is the pattern: set over all that Potiphar had (Genesis 39:4), then over all Egypt (Genesis 41:41). Faithfulness with the rations brings charge of the whole estate.

“But and if” is an old English way of saying “but if”. “Delayeth” is chronizō, takes his time, and the servant says it “in his heart”, like the rich fool. The menservants and maidens are his fellow slaves.

“Cut him in sunder” is dichotomeō, to cut in two, a punishment known from the ancient world; some think it means a savage flogging or being cut off. Matthew 24:51 puts him with the hypocrites; Luke with the unbelievers, apistoi, the unfaithful.

Deuteronomy 25:3 capped a beating at forty stripes. “Prepared not himself” uses hetoimazō, the root of “ready” in verse 40, so his failure is the one the chapter has been warning against.

The law distinguished sins of ignorance from presumptuous sins (Numbers 15:27-30), and here too ignorance lessens but does not remove the penalty. “Committed” is paratithēmi, to deposit in trust, a banking word.

The Greek of the second half is hard, and most modern versions take it as a wish: “how I wish it were already kindled!” John had promised a coming one who would baptize “with the Holy Ghost and with fire” (3:16).

Baptism is used figuratively for being overwhelmed, as in Psalm 69:2, “I am come into deep waters, where the floods overflow me”. “Accomplished” is teleō, to finish, the verb of 18:31 and 22:37, where what is written of the Son of man is brought to its end.

The angels had sung “on earth peace” (2:14), and Simeon had warned that the child would be “a sign which shall be spoken against” (2:34). Both lines stand behind this question, which uses the same words, peace and earth.

Five people make a normal household in one house: father, mother, a son, a daughter, and the son’s wife. “From henceforth” means from now on, the time of the fire and the baptism just spoken of.

The line reworks Micah 7:6: “the son dishonoureth the father, the daughter riseth up against her mother, the daughter in law against her mother in law”. Micah’s divisions run one way; Luke makes each pair turn against the other, both ways.

West was the Mediterranean, and clouds off the sea brought rain, as when Elijah’s servant saw “a little cloud out of the sea, like a man’s hand” (1 Kings 18:44). The crowd’s forecast is right, and Jesus says so.

The south wind blew in from the Negev and the Arabian desert, the scorching wind still known in the region as the sirocco or hamsin. “Heat” is kausōn, burning heat, the word James 1:11 uses of the sun withering the grass.

“Discern” is dokimazō, to test or assay, as metals are tested for purity. “This time” is kairos, the appointed or decisive moment, rather than chronos, a stretch of clock time.

“Of yourselves” means without waiting for a sign or a court to tell you. The verse bridges the weather and the lawsuit: they can judge the sky and the right thing to do on their own.

The “officer” is praktōr, the court’s debt collector, a technical term known from Egyptian papyri for the official who enforced judgments. “Hale” means drag, and “give diligence” is literally “give work”, make every effort to settle.

The “mite” is the lepton, the smallest copper coin in circulation, the coin the widow puts two of into the treasury (21:2). Matthew 5:26 has a quadrans, worth two lepta; Luke drives the debt down to the last possible coin.