Luke 4

Luke 4:1-13 . TEMPTATION OF CHRIST.

Luke 4:14-32 . JESUS ENTERING ON HIS PUBLIC MINISTRY, MAKES A CIRCUIT OF GALILEE--REJECTION AT NAZARETH.

Note.--A large gap here occurs, embracing the important transactions in Galilee and Jerusalem which are recorded in John 1:29-4:54', and which occurred before John's imprisonment ( John 3:24 ); whereas the transactions here recorded occurred (as appears from Matthew 4:12 Matthew 4:13 ) after that event. The visit to Nazareth recorded in Matthew 13:54-58 (and Mark 6:1-6 ) we take to be not a later visit, but the same with this first one; because we cannot think that the Nazarenes, after being so enraged at His first display of wisdom as to attempt His destruction, should, on a second display of the same, wonder at it and ask how He came by it, as if they had never witnessed it before.

16. as his custom was--Compare Acts 17:2 .
stood up for to read--Others besides rabbins were allowed to address the congregation. (See Acts 13:15 .)

18, 19. To have fixed on any passage announcing His sufferings (as Isaiah 53:1-12 ), would have been unsuitable at that early stage of His ministry. But He selects a passage announcing the sublime object of His whole mission, its divine character, and His special endowments for it; expressed in the first person, and so singularly adapted to the first opening of the mouth in His prophetic capacity, that it seems as if made expressly for this occasion. It is from the well-known section of Isaiah's prophecies whose burden is that mysterious "SERVANT OF THE LORD," despised of man, abhorred of the nation, but before whom kings on seeing Him are to arise, and princes to worship; in visage more marred than any man and His form than the sons of men, yet sprinkling many nations; laboring seemingly in vain, and spending His strength for naught and in vain, yet Jehovah's Servant to raise up the tribes of Jacob and be His Salvation to the ends of the earth ( Isaiah 49:1-26 , &c.). The quotation is chiefly from the Septuagint version, used in the synagogues.

19. acceptable year--an allusion to the jubilee year ( Leviticus 25:10 ), a year of universal release for person and property. (See also Isaiah 49:8 , 2 Corinthians 6:2 .) As the maladies under which humanity groans are here set forth under the names of poverty, broken-heartedness, bondage, blindness, bruisedness (or crushedness), so, as the glorious HEALER of all these maladies, Christ announces Himself in the act of reading it, stopping the quotation just before it comes to "the day of vengeance," which was only to come on the rejecters of His message ( John 3:17 ). The first words, "THE SPIRIT of the LORD is upon ME," have been noted since the days of the Church Fathers, as an illustrious example of Father, Son, and Holy Ghost being exhibited as in distinct yet harmonious action in the scheme of salvation.

20. the minister--the chazan, or synagogue-officer.
all eyes . . . fastened on Him--astounded at His putting in such claims.

21. began to say, &c.--His whole address was just a detailed application to Himself of this and perhaps other like prophecies.

22. gracious words--"the words of grace," referring both to the richness of His matter and the sweetness of His manner ( Psalms 45:2 ).
Is not this, no rabbinical education, and anything supernatural they seemed incapable of conceiving.