Luke 13: What the Passage Says

The Chapter in a Sentence

People tell Jesus about Galileans whom Pilate killed, and he says twice that those who died were not worse sinners than anyone else, and that all who do not repent will also perish. He tells a story about a fig tree given one more year to bear fruit. He heals a bent-over woman on the Sabbath and argues with the synagogue leader about it, then compares the kingdom of God to a mustard seed and to yeast. On the way to Jerusalem he warns that many who try to enter will find the door shut, sends a message to Herod, and speaks about Jerusalem killing the prophets.

Claim by Claim

1. 13:1
   • Some people were present at that time.
   • They told Jesus about the Galileans.
   • Pilate had mingled the blood of those Galileans with their sacrifices.
2. 13:2
   • Jesus answered them.
   • Jesus asked whether they supposed these Galileans were sinners above all the other Galileans.
   • Jesus asked whether they supposed this because those Galileans suffered such things.
3. 13:3
   • Jesus said no.
   • Jesus said that unless they repent, they will all likewise perish.
4. 13:4
   • Jesus asked about the eighteen on whom the tower in Siloam fell.
   • The tower in Siloam fell on those eighteen.
   • The tower killed them.
   • Jesus asked whether they thought those eighteen were debtors above all the people dwelling in Jerusalem.
5. 13:5
   • Jesus said no.
   • Jesus said that unless they repent, they will all likewise perish.
6. 13:6
   • Jesus spoke this parable.
   • A certain man had a fig tree planted in his vineyard.
   • The man came seeking fruit on the fig tree.
   • The man found no fruit.
7. 13:7
   • The man said to the keeper of his vineyard that for three years he had come seeking fruit on this fig tree and found none.
   • The man told the keeper to cut the fig tree down.
   • The man asked why the fig tree should also use up the ground.
8. 13:8
   • The keeper answered him.
   • The keeper addressed him as lord.
   • The keeper asked him to leave the tree alone this year also.
   • The keeper said he would dig around the tree and put manure on it.
9. 13:9
   • The keeper said that if the tree bears fruit in the future, well.
   • The keeper said that if the tree does not bear fruit, the owner shall cut it down.
10. 13:10
    • Jesus was teaching in one of the synagogues.
    • This took place on the sabbath.
11. 13:11
    • There was a woman who had a spirit of infirmity for eighteen years.
    • She was bent over.
    • She could not straighten herself up at all.
12. 13:12
    • Jesus saw her.
    • Jesus called her to him.
    • Jesus addressed her as woman.
    • Jesus said she was loosed from her infirmity.
13. 13:13
    • Jesus laid his hands on her.
    • She was immediately made straight.
    • She glorified God.
14. 13:14
    • The ruler of the synagogue answered with indignation.
    • He was indignant because Jesus had healed on the sabbath day.
    • He said to the crowd that there are six days in which men ought to work.
    • He said they should come and be healed on those days.
    • He said they should not come to be healed on the sabbath day.
15. 13:15
    • The Lord answered him.
    • The Lord called them hypocrites.
    • The Lord asked whether each of them does not loose his ox or his donkey from the stall on the sabbath.
    • The Lord asked whether each of them does not lead it away to water it.
16. 13:16
    • Jesus said this woman is a daughter of Abraham.
    • Jesus said Satan had bound her for eighteen years.
    • Jesus asked whether she ought not to be loosed from this bond on the sabbath day.
17. 13:17
    • Jesus said these things.
    • All his adversaries were ashamed.
    • All the crowd rejoiced.
    • They rejoiced at all the glorious things that were done by him.
18. 13:18
    • Jesus asked what the kingdom of God is like.
    • Jesus asked to what he should compare it.
19. 13:19
    • Jesus said the kingdom of God is like a grain of mustard seed.
    • A man took the seed.
    • The man cast it into his own garden.
    • It grew and became a tree.
    • The birds of the air lodged in its branches.
20. 13:20
    • Jesus spoke again.
    • Jesus asked to what he should liken the kingdom of God.
21. 13:21
    • Jesus said the kingdom of God is like leaven.
    • A woman took the leaven.
    • The woman hid it in three measures of meal.
    • The whole was leavened.
22. 13:22
    • Jesus went through the cities and villages.
    • Jesus was teaching.
    • Jesus was journeying toward Jerusalem.
23. 13:23
    • Someone said to him, addressing him as Lord, asking whether those who are saved are few.
    • Jesus said to them.
24. 13:24
    • Jesus said to strive to enter in at the narrow door.
    • Jesus said many will seek to enter in.
    • Jesus said they shall not be able to enter.
25. 13:25
    • Jesus spoke of when the master of the house has risen up.
    • The master of the house shuts the door.
    • Those outside begin to stand outside and knock at the door.
    • They say, Lord, open to us.
    • The master shall answer and say to them that he does not know where they are from.
26. 13:26
    • Jesus said they shall then begin to say that they ate and drank in his presence.
    • They shall say that he taught in their streets.
27. 13:27
    • The master shall say that he tells them he does not know where they are from.
    • The master shall tell them to depart from him.
    • The master shall call them all workers of iniquity.
28. 13:28
    • Jesus said there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth there.
    • This shall be when they see Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and all the prophets in the kingdom of God.
    • This shall be when they themselves are thrust outside.
29. 13:29
    • People shall come from the east and the west and the north and the south.
    • They shall recline at table in the kingdom of God.
30. 13:30
    • There are last who shall be first.
    • There are first who shall be last.
31. 13:31
    • At that same time certain Pharisees came to Jesus.
    • They told him to get out and depart from there.
    • They said Herod wanted to kill him.
32. 13:32
    • Jesus said to them to go and tell that fox.
    • Jesus said he casts out demons and performs cures today and tomorrow.
    • Jesus said on the third day he shall be perfected.
33. 13:33
    • Jesus said he must walk today and tomorrow and the day following.
    • Jesus said it cannot be that a prophet perish outside Jerusalem.
34. 13:34
    • Jesus addressed Jerusalem twice.
    • Jerusalem kills the prophets.
    • Jerusalem stones those who are sent to her.
    • Jesus said he had often wanted to gather her children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings.
    • Jesus said they were not willing.
35. 13:35
    • Jesus said their house is left to them desolate.
    • Jesus said to them that they shall not see him until the time comes when they say, Blessed is he that comes in the name of the Lord.

Words Worth Explaining

Every language note in this chapter, gathered. These explain what a word meant, never what it means for the reader.

13:1

Pilate was the Roman governor of Judea from about AD 26 to 36, and had the authority to order executions. Sacrifices were killed by the worshiper himself at the temple in Jerusalem, so these Galileans were cut down at the moment they were presenting their offerings, and their own blood ran together with the blood of the animals. No other account of this incident survives.

13:2

Behind the report lies a common assumption of the time: that a sudden or violent death was evidence of unusual guilt in the person who suffered it. The question Jesus asks is aimed at that assumption.

13:3

The King James "except ye repent" means "unless you repent." The Greek word behind "repent" means a change of mind that turns a person around and redirects how they live, not simply feeling sorry.

13:4

Siloam was at the southern end of Jerusalem, where a pool collected water carried into the city through a tunnel cut under the rock. Nothing else is known about this tower or why it fell.

13:6

Fig trees were commonly planted among the vines in a vineyard, and a newly planted tree took several years to come into bearing. Three fruitless seasons after that meant the tree had been given a fair trial.

13:7

"Dresser of his vineyard" is the King James term for the hired man who tended the vines. "Why cumbereth it the ground" means "why should it go on taking up the soil," since a barren tree still drew water and nourishment the vines needed.

13:8

"Dung it" means to work manure into the soil around the roots as fertilizer. The "Lord" the worker uses here is the ordinary polite address of a workman to his employer, closer to "sir" than to any religious title.

13:10

A synagogue was the local assembly house where Jews gathered, especially on the Sabbath, to hear the scriptures read and explained; a visiting teacher might be invited to speak. The Sabbath ran from Friday sunset to Saturday sunset and was kept as a day of rest on which work was forbidden.

13:11

"A spirit of infirmity" translates the Greek literally: "a spirit of weakness." Luke names a spirit as the cause but describes the effect in physical terms, a spine bent so far she could not straighten. "Could in no wise lift up herself" means she could not straighten up at all.

13:12

The verb translated "loosed" means to untie or release, and it is the same word used of untying an animal in verse 15 and of the woman's release in verse 16. Addressing a woman as "Woman" was not rude in Greek; it was a neutral, ordinary form of address.

13:14

The ruler of the synagogue was the lay official who looked after the building and arranged who would read and speak. He was not a priest. His objection is that healing counted as work, which Sabbath law forbade; the recognized exception was danger to life, and a condition of eighteen years' standing could wait a day.

13:15

"Ass" is the older English word for a donkey. Untying livestock and leading it to water on the Sabbath was accepted practice, on the principle that an animal must not be left to suffer, so Jesus is arguing from what his critics already allow themselves. "Hypocrite" was originally the Greek word for a stage actor, someone speaking lines that are not his own.

13:16

"A daughter of Abraham" means a Jewish woman, one of the people descended from Abraham, and so with at least as much claim on the day as a man's ox or donkey. The wordplay is exact in the Greek: the animal is loosed from its stall, and the woman is loosed from her bond.

13:17

Being publicly shamed was heavier than embarrassment in this culture. Standing in the community was everything, and losing an argument in front of a crowd cost a leader real authority.

13:18

God's kingdom means everywhere that God is king. Jesus talked about it very often.

13:19

Mustard was proverbial for the smallest seed a farmer handled. What grows from it is a tall annual shrub, not a timber tree, so calling it "a great tree" is deliberately outsized. "Waxed" means grew, and "fowls of the air" means simply birds.

13:21

Leaven was not packaged yeast but a lump of dough kept back from the last baking and left to ferment, then kneaded into the new batch. "Meal" means ground grain, flour. Three measures is roughly forty to fifty pounds of flour, enough bread for a large gathering, so a small piece of leaven is working through an enormous mass. The King James "hid" translates a verb meaning to conceal something inside something else: the leaven disappears into the flour.

13:22

Luke has been building this journey since chapter 9. Jesus is not wandering: the whole middle section of this Gospel is shaped as one long approach to Jerusalem, which is why the city matters so much in verses 33 to 35.

13:23

"Saved" here means rescued when God judges, and brought safely into his coming kingdom. Whether that would include the whole nation or only a faithful few was a live and much argued question, which is why someone asks it.

13:24

"Strait" is an old word meaning narrow or tight, as in a strait between two coasts or being in dire straits. It has nothing to do with "straight." "Strive" translates a verb taken from athletic contests, meaning to struggle or exert yourself to the limit.

13:25

"Stand without" means stand outside. "I know you not whence ye are" is a householder's formula for refusing entry: I do not know where you belong, so you are not coming in.

13:26

The claim is one of acquaintance rather than invitation: the Greek says they ate and drank "in your presence," in the same company, and heard him teaching in public streets.

13:27

"Workers of iniquity" means people whose work is wrongdoing. The whole line repeats the wording of Psalm 6:8, "depart from me, all ye workers of iniquity," which the first hearers would have recognized.

13:28

"Gnashing of teeth" means grinding or clenching the teeth, a gesture of rage or of anguish. Abraham, Isaac and Jacob are the three ancestral fathers of Israel, from whom the nation traced its descent.

13:29

At a formal meal people did not sit on chairs but reclined on cushions around a low table, so "sit down" here means taking a place at a banquet. "East, west, north and south" is a stock phrase for every quarter of the world.

13:31

The Pharisees were a movement committed to exact observance of the law and influential in the synagogues. "Herod" here is Herod Antipas, who governed Galilee and Perea under Rome and had already executed John the Baptist. He had no authority in Jerusalem, so continuing south would take Jesus out of his jurisdiction.

13:32

Calling a ruler a fox was an insult, either for being sly or for being a small nuisance of a predator giving himself airs, and the Greek allows both. "Devils" is the King James word for demons. "I shall be perfected" translates a verb meaning to be completed or brought to the intended end. "Today, tomorrow, and the third day" is an idiom for a short, fixed stretch of time rather than a literal count of days.

13:33

"Perish out of Jerusalem" means die outside Jerusalem. The line is ironic: Jerusalem is where prophets get killed, so that, and not Herod's territory, is where a prophet's death belongs.

13:34

Stoning was a legal form of execution carried out by a crowd rather than by an official, and the Hebrew scriptures record prophets being killed in the city. "Thy children" means the city's own inhabitants; a city was regularly spoken of as a mother with children.

13:35

"Your house" may mean the temple, the city itself, or the royal dynasty, and the Greek leaves the choice open; "desolate" means emptied and abandoned. The closing words quote Psalm 118:26, the greeting called out to pilgrims as they arrived at the temple.