Luke 13 Bible study: Leave it alone this year also

Luke begins, "Now there were some present at the same time who told him about the Galileans whose blood Pilate had mixed with their sacrifices" (13:1). Luke says no more about what happened than that, and these notes add nothing to it. "Jesus answered them, “Do you think that these Galileans were worse sinners than all the other Galileans, because they suffered such things?" (13:2). Then he asks the same of others: "Or those eighteen on whom the tower in Siloam fell and killed them—do you think that they were worse offenders than all the men who dwell in Jerusalem?" (13:4) (tap offenders). To both questions he gives the same answer, in the same words in the WEB: "I tell you, no, but unless you repent, you will all perish in the same way" (13:3), and again in 13:5 (tap repent and perish). Here is what almost everyone misses: those who came told him about the Galileans (13:1); the eighteen at Siloam are in Jesus's own answer (13:4). These notes say only what Jesus said to those who told him, and apply his words to no one's suffering, death or disaster today.

Exodus 23:12→leads toLuke 13:15

The seventh day is for rest, "that your ox and your donkey may have rest, and the son of your servant, and the alien may be refreshed" (23:12). When Jesus healed a woman on the Sabbath and the ruler of the synagogue was indignant (Luke 13:10-14), he answered, "Doesn’t each one of you free his ox or his donkey from the stall on the Sabbath and lead him away to water?" (Luke 13:15). On another Sabbath he said, "The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath" (Mark 2:27). Jesus doesn't cite Exodus 23:12, so this link is a reading: some hear in his words the same care for people and animals that this verse gives the seventh day; others read them as his answer about the Sabbath law in general, without a link to this verse.

λύωlyosay LOO-o

Thayer: "to loose any person (or thing) tied or fastened". Jesus answers the ruler of the synagogue, "Doesn’t each one of you free his ox or his donkey from the stall on the Sabbath and lead him away to water?" (13:15), and then, "Ought not this woman, being a daughter of Abraham whom Satan had bound eighteen long years, be freed from this bondage on the Sabbath day?" (13:16). Free in 13:15 and freed in 13:16 are this one Greek verb, and bound in 13:16 is a verb Strong's gives as "to bind". When Jesus spoke to her, "Woman, you are freed from your infirmity" (13:12), freed was another verb, apolyo (Strong's: "to free fully"). Luke's Greek has lyo seven times (counted in RP2018), two of them here. These notes say no more of 13:16 than Jesus's words, and apply them to no one's illness today.