LUKE 14:1-6 DROPSY DEFEATED ON SABBATH

DROPSY DEFEATED ON SABBATH

LUKE 14:1-6

Luke 14:1 And it came to pass, as he went into the house of one of the chief Pharisees to eat bread on the sabbath day, that they watched him.

Susan: The question popped into my head, “What was a chief Pharisee?”

Susie: After skimming several websites, looking up the Greek word translated “chief,” and reading the verse in other versions of the Bible, we have concluded that there appears to be no official hierarchy among the Pharisees of Jesus’s day. Therefore, we feel that this man may have been someone who stood out as a leader among the Pharisees.

Susan: Perhaps he was a mentor to the other Pharisees, well-respected by his peers.

Susie: Apparently, this prominent Pharisee had invited Jesus to share his family’s Sabbath meal. We are not told if he was truly interested in following Jesus or not, but the implication given by “they watched him,” is that if not this man, at least others in the home were watching to see if Jesus made any gross errors in tradition.

Susan: In other words, did the Pharisee invite Jesus for a genuine learning experience or for sinister, deceptive reasons? Or were there other people at the table who desired to entrap and embarrass Jesus?

Susie: The word does not make clear the intent of the chief Pharisee’s heart, but the passage strongly implies that the group of people there did not approve of or believe Jesus.

Luke 14:2 And, behold, there was a certain man before him which had the dropsy.

Susie: There’s a word that has fallen out of common usage—what is “dropsy?”

American Dictionary of the English Language, Noah Webster, 1828

DROPSY, noun [L, Gr., water; the face. Formerly written hydropisy; whence by contraction, dropsy ] In medicine, an unnatural collection of water, in an part of the body, proceeding from a greater effusion of serum by the exhalant arteries, than the absorbents take up. It occurs most frequently in persons of lax habits, or in bodies debilitated by disease. The dropsy takes different names, according to the part affected; as ascites, or dropsy of the abdomen; hydrocephalus, or water in the head; anasarca, or a watery swelling over the whole body; etc.

Susie: The man probably had swelling that was obvious to the naked eye. Jesus, of course, noticed him immediately.

Susan: Today there are medicines and surgical procedures that alleviate much of this problem. I had many friends at the boarding school I attended who had shunts to drain fluid due to hydrocephalus.

Susie: However, this man had no need of modern medicine, as we will see.

Susan: The Great Physician was on the scene!

Luke 14:3 And Jesus answering spake unto the lawyers and Pharisees, saying, Is it lawful to heal on the sabbath day?

Susie: Many times, Pharisees have tried to tell Jesus that it was wrong to heal on the Sabbath. This time, it is Jesus who poses the question to them before He proceeds.

Susan: To me, His question comes across as mocking or facetious.

Susie: Jesus, of course, knows the answer since He has given it many times.

Luke 6:9 Then said Jesus unto them, I will ask you one thing; Is it lawful on the sabbath days to do good, or to do evil? to save life, or to destroy it?

Luke 14:4 And they held their peace. And he took him, and healed him, and let him go;

Susan: I think the people held their peace because they knew Jesus could shut them up, and they didn’t want to be embarrassed.

Susie: Some of these people had probably already witnessed Jesus healing on the Sabbath and heard His logic and correct interpretation that healing was a good deed and, therefore, lawful on the Sabbath. However, these acts of kindness on a day when work was to cease, still chafed the Pharisees strict, nit-picky following of tradition. Jesus taught that the Sabbath was a day given to men to rest, not to cause them to struggle with the letter of man-made traditions associated with it.

Mark 2:27 And he said unto them, The sabbath was made for man, and not man for the sabbath:

Mark 2:27 (NLT) Then Jesus said to them, “The Sabbath was made to meet the needs of people, and not people to meet the requirements of the Sabbath.

Mark 3:4-6 And he saith unto them, Is it lawful to do good on the sabbath days, or to do evil? to save life, or to kill? But they held their peace. And when he had looked round about on them with anger, being grieved for the hardness of their hearts, he saith unto the man, Stretch forth thine hand. And he stretched it out: and his hand was restored whole as the other. And the Pharisees went forth, and straightway took counsel with the Herodians against him, how they might destroy him.

Susan: After posing His rhetorical question, Jesus turned back to the man. In no time at all, with no medical intervention, the man was miraculously freed from the fluid-filled swelling by the Great Physician.

Susie: Jesus had probably taken hold of the man in some way because the verse then states that He let him go. Note that the man with dropsy never says a word. Jesus simply saw him and compassionately chose to heal him. Had he been an invited guest? I doubt it since Pharisees did not associate with people who had infirmities. Had he just wandered in off the street hoping to be healed? Maybe. The Bible doesn’t tell us.

Susan: The man was at the right place, at the right time to be an object lesson to the Pharisees.

Susie: God had perfectly timed the man’s entrance whether the man was aware of it or not.

Susan: The man ended up being blessed by the healing power of Jesus, the Messiah!

Luke 14:5 And answered them, saying, Which of you shall have an ass or an ox fallen into a pit, and will not straightway pull him out on the sabbath day?

Susie: I didn’t see the guests ask a question. Did you see them ask a question?

Susan: Jesus was in their heads. He knew the question they were thinking, the one He had asked them earlier.

Susie: Once again, Jesus points out the fallacy of their Sabbath traditions that would allow them to minister to their domestic beasts but not to a fellow human being.

Luke 13:15-16 The Lord then answered him, and said, Thou hypocrite, doth not each one of you on the sabbath loose his ox or his ass from the stall, and lead him away to watering? And ought not this woman, being a daughter of Abraham, whom Satan hath bound, lo, these eighteen years, be loosed from this bond on the sabbath day?

Luke 14:6 And they could not answer him again to these things.

Susan: They were dumbfounded by Jesus’s words of wisdom.

Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers as quoted at https://biblehub.com/luke/14-6.htm

And they could not answer him again.--The Greek is, perhaps, a little more emphatic--"They had no power, they were powerless to answer him."

Ponder this and Apply it: The Pharisees were constantly criticizing Jesus for healing on the Sabbath, but He continued to do so because He was breaking no law. It is always right to show compassion to a person created in the image of God (Genesis 1:26). Hypothetical question for you: If you saw a person in need of medical attention, but stopping to help would mean missing Sunday worship, would you help?