Luke 4:23

Doubtless (pantw). Adverb. Literally, at any rate, certainly, assuredly. Cf. Acts 21:22 ; Acts 28:4 . This parable (thn parabolhn tauthn). See discussion on Matthew 13:1 ff. Here the word has a special application to a crisp proverb which involves a comparison. The word physician is the point of comparison. Luke the physician alone gives this saying of Jesus. The proverb means that the physician was expected to take his own medicine and to heal himself. The word parabolh in the N.T. is confined to the Synoptic Gospels except Hebrews 9:9 ; Hebrews 11:19 . This use for a proverb occurs also in Luke 5:36 ; Luke 6:39 . This proverb in various forms appears not only among the Jews, but in Euripides and Aeschylus among the Greeks, and in Cicero's Letters. Hobart quotes the same idea from Galen, and the Chinese used to demand it of their physicians. The point of the parable seems to be that the people were expecting him to make good his claim to the Messiahship by doing here in Nazareth what they had heard of his doing in Capernaum and elsewhere. "Establish your claims by direct evidence" (Easton). This same appeal (Vincent) was addressed to Christ on the Cross ( Matthew 27:40 Matthew 27:42 ). There is a tone of sarcasm towards Jesus in both cases. Heard done (hkousamen genomena). The use of this second aorist middle participle genomena after hkousamen is a neat Greek idiom. It is punctiliar action in indirect discourse after this verb of sensation or emotion (Robertson, Grammar, pp. 1040-42, 1122-24). Do also here (poihson kai wde). Ingressive aorist active imperative. Do it here in thy own country and town and do it now. Jesus applies the proverb to himself as an interpretation of their real attitude towards himself.