Luke 24: What the Passage Says

The Chapter in a Sentence

Early on the first day of the week, women find Jesus' tomb open and empty, and two men in shining clothes tell them he has risen; the apostles do not believe them, though Peter runs to the tomb and finds only the linen cloths. That same day Jesus walks unrecognized with two disciples to Emmaus, explains what the scriptures say about himself, and is recognized when he breaks bread. He then appears to the whole group in Jerusalem, shows them his hands and feet, eats a piece of fish, opens their minds to the scriptures, tells them they are witnesses and must wait in the city for the promised power, and is carried up into heaven while blessing them at Bethany.

Claim by Claim

1. 24:1
   • On the first day of the week, very early in the morning, they came to the tomb.
   • They brought the spices they had prepared.
   • Certain others were with them.
2. 24:2
   • They found the stone rolled away from the tomb.
3. 24:3
   • They went in.
   • They did not find the body of the Lord Jesus.
4. 24:4
   • While they were perplexed about this, two men stood by them.
   • The two men were in dazzling, flashing clothing.
5. 24:5
   • The women became afraid.
   • The women bowed their faces to the ground.
   • The two men asked them why they were seeking the living one among the dead.
6. 24:6
   • The men said he is not here.
   • The men said he has been raised.
   • The men told them to remember what he said to them while he was still in Galilee.
7. 24:7
   • He had said the Son of man must be handed over into the hands of sinful men.
   • He had said the Son of man must be crucified.
   • He had said the Son of man must rise again on the third day.
8. 24:8
   • They remembered his words.
9. 24:9
   • They returned from the tomb.
   • They reported all these things to the eleven.
   • They reported all these things to all the rest.
10. 24:10
    • Mary Magdalene was among them.
    • Joanna was among them.
    • Mary the mother of James was among them.
    • Other women were with them.
    • These women told these things to the apostles.
11. 24:11
    • The women's words seemed to the apostles like nonsense.
    • The apostles did not believe the women.
12. 24:12
    • Peter got up and ran to the tomb.
    • He stooped down and looked in.
    • He saw the linen cloths lying by themselves.
    • He went away wondering to himself at what had happened.
13. 24:13
    • That same day two of them were traveling to a village named Emmaus.
    • The village was about sixty stadia from Jerusalem.
14. 24:14
    • They were talking with each other about all these things that had happened.
15. 24:15
    • While they talked and debated, Jesus himself came near.
    • Jesus went along with them.
16. 24:16
    • Their eyes were held so that they did not recognize him.
17. 24:17
    • He asked them what these words were that they were exchanging with each other as they walked.
    • They stood still.
    • They looked downcast.
18. 24:18
    • One of them was named Cleopas.
    • Cleopas answered him.
    • Cleopas asked whether he was the only one staying in Jerusalem who did not know the things that had happened there in these days.
19. 24:19
    • He asked them what things.
    • They said the things concerning Jesus of Nazareth.
    • They said Jesus was a prophet.
    • They said he was mighty in deed and word.
    • They said he was mighty before God and all the people.
20. 24:20
    • They said the chief priests and their rulers handed him over to the sentence of death.
    • They said they crucified him.
21. 24:21
    • They said they had hoped that he was the one who was going to redeem Israel.
    • They said that besides all this, this is the third day since these things happened.
22. 24:22
    • They said certain women of their company astonished them.
    • They said the women were at the tomb early.
23. 24:23
    • They said the women did not find his body.
    • They said the women came saying they had seen a vision of angels.
    • They said the angels said that he was alive.
24. 24:24
    • They said some of those with them went to the tomb.
    • They said those men found it just as the women had said.
    • They said those men did not see him.
25. 24:25
    • He called them foolish.
    • He called them slow of heart to believe all that the prophets spoke.
26. 24:26
    • He asked whether it was not necessary for the Christ to suffer these things.
    • He asked whether it was not necessary for the Christ to enter into his glory.
27. 24:27
    • He began from Moses and all the prophets.
    • He explained to them in all the scriptures the things concerning himself.
28. 24:28
    • They drew near to the village they were going to.
    • He acted as though he were going farther.
29. 24:29
    • They urged him strongly.
    • They asked him to stay with them.
    • They said it was toward evening.
    • They said the day was already far spent.
    • He went in to stay with them.
30. 24:30
    • He reclined at the meal with them.
    • He took the bread.
    • He blessed it.
    • He broke it.
    • He gave it to them.
31. 24:31
    • Their eyes were opened.
    • They recognized him.
    • He became invisible to them.
32. 24:32
    • They said to each other that their heart was burning within them while he spoke to them on the road.
    • They said their heart was burning while he opened the scriptures to them.
33. 24:33
    • They got up that same hour.
    • They returned to Jerusalem.
    • They found the eleven gathered together.
    • They found those who were with them.
34. 24:34
    • Those gathered said the Lord has really been raised.
    • Those gathered said he has appeared to Simon.
35. 24:35
    • The two recounted what happened on the road.
    • The two recounted how he was made known to them in the breaking of the bread.
36. 24:36
    • While they were speaking these things, Jesus himself stood in the middle of them.
    • He said to them, Peace to you.
37. 24:37
    • They were terrified and frightened.
    • They thought they were seeing a spirit.
38. 24:38
    • He asked them why they were troubled.
    • He asked why doubts were rising in their hearts.
39. 24:39
    • He told them to look at his hands and his feet.
    • He said it is he himself.
    • He told them to touch him and see.
    • He said a spirit does not have flesh and bones.
    • He said they see that he has flesh and bones.
40. 24:40
    • After saying this, he showed them his hands and his feet.
41. 24:41
    • They still did not believe, because of joy.
    • They were amazed.
    • He asked them whether they had anything there to eat.
42. 24:42
    • They gave him a piece of broiled fish.
    • They gave him part of a honeycomb.
43. 24:43
    • He took it.
    • He ate it in front of them.
44. 24:44
    • He said these were the words he spoke to them while he was still with them.
    • He said everything written about him must be fulfilled.
    • He said these things were written in the law of Moses, in the prophets, and in the psalms.
45. 24:45
    • He opened their minds to understand the scriptures.
    • He spoke to them.
46. 24:46
    • He said it is written this way.
    • He said the Christ must suffer.
    • He said the Christ must rise from the dead on the third day.
47. 24:47
    • He said repentance and forgiveness of sins is to be proclaimed in his name.
    • He said this is to be proclaimed to all nations.
    • He said this is to begin at Jerusalem.
48. 24:48
    • He said they are witnesses of these things.
49. 24:49
    • He said he is sending the promise of his Father upon them.
    • He told them to stay in the city of Jerusalem.
    • He told them to stay until they are clothed with power from on high.
50. 24:50
    • He led them out as far as Bethany.
    • He lifted up his hands.
    • He blessed them.
51. 24:51
    • While he was blessing them, he was parted from them.
    • He was carried up into heaven.
52. 24:52
    • They worshiped him.
    • They returned to Jerusalem with great joy.
53. 24:53
    • They were continually in the temple.
    • They were praising and blessing God.

Words Worth Explaining

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

24:1

Jewish days ran from sunset to sunset, and the Sabbath, Saturday, was a day on which no work could be done. The women had prepared spices before the Sabbath began on Friday evening and had to wait until Sunday morning, the first day of the week, to use them. The spices were aromatic oils and powders packed around a corpse to slow and mask decay; the visit was to finish a burial that had been done in haste.

24:2

A rock-cut tomb of this kind was closed with a large stone, either a disc rolled along a channel or a plug-shaped block wedged into the opening. Either way it took several people to move, which is why the women had been wondering who would shift it for them.

24:4

"Behold" in the King James is not a command to the reader to look. It is the translators' way of rendering a word that marks something sudden or startling, closer to "and there, all at once."

24:5

Dropping the face toward the ground was the ordinary gesture of fear and deference before a king or a heavenly messenger, not a posture of prayer.

24:6

Galilee was the northern part of the country, where Jesus grew up and did much of his teaching. Jerusalem was several days' walk to the south.

24:7

"The Son of man" is the title Jesus regularly uses for himself in the Gospels. In ordinary Hebrew and Aramaic it can simply mean a human being, but it also echoes a figure in the book of Daniel who is given lasting authority, and the phrase carries both senses at once. Crucifixion was the Roman public execution reserved for slaves, rebels and provincials: the condemned man was fastened to a wooden beam and left to die of exhaustion and suffocation.

24:9

"The eleven" is the group of twelve close followers Jesus had chosen, now short one man after Judas. Luke uses the number as a name for the group, the way one might say "the board."

24:10

Joanna was introduced earlier in Luke as the wife of Chuza, an official in Herod's household, so she was a woman of some standing. "Mary the mother of James" is a way of distinguishing her from the other Marys, since the name was extremely common.

24:11

"Idle tales" translates a Greek word used in medical writing for the babbling of someone delirious with fever. It is stronger than "nonsense": it means talk not worth taking seriously. In Jewish legal practice of the period a woman's testimony was generally not accepted as evidence, which is part of why the report landed the way it did.

24:12

The "linen clothes" are the burial wrappings, long strips of cloth wound around the body with the spices. Seeing them lying there and the body gone is what puzzles Peter. Some ancient copies of Luke do not contain this verse at all.

24:13

"Threescore" means sixty, and a furlong here stands for the Greek stadion, about 600 feet, so sixty of them is roughly seven miles, a walk of two to three hours. The exact site of Emmaus is no longer known.

24:16

"Holden" is simply the old past participle of "hold." The Greek is passive and does not say who or what kept them from recognizing him, and the rendering leaves that open as the original does.

24:17

"Communications" in 1611 English meant conversation, not messages or technology. The word has narrowed since.

24:18

Jerusalem filled with pilgrims at Passover, so the city was full of outsiders. Cleopas is asking whether this man is the one visitor in town who somehow missed the news everyone else has been talking about.

24:19

"Mighty in deed and word" describes a prophet in the classic mold, one whose actions and whose speech both carried force. Nazareth was a small and unremarkable village in Galilee, and identifying a man by his home town was the normal way of saying which Jesus you meant.

24:20

The chief priests were the senior families who ran the temple, and together with the other "rulers" they made up the council that governed Jewish internal affairs under Roman oversight. The council could not carry out an execution itself, which is why it handed Jesus over to the Roman governor.

24:21

To "redeem" was originally a commercial word: to buy something or someone back out of debt or slavery. The hope in the phrase "redeemed Israel" was for national liberation, freedom from Roman rule. Days were counted inclusively, so Friday counted as the first day and Sunday as the third.

24:23

Angels are messengers who bring words from God.

24:25

"Fools" translates a word that means unperceiving or slow to put things together, not stupid or wicked. "Slow of heart" uses "heart" in its Hebrew sense, the seat of thought and will rather than of feeling, so it is closer to slow to grasp than to unfeeling.

24:26

"Christ" is not a surname. It is the Greek word for "anointed one," translating the Hebrew title Messiah. Kings and priests were installed by having oil poured over the head, and the title came to mean the deliverer Israel expected.

24:27

"Moses and all the prophets" names the parts of the Jewish scriptures: the five books attributed to Moses, then the prophetic books. "Expounded" means explained or interpreted, and the word behind it is the one from which "hermeneutics" comes.

24:29

Travel after dark was dangerous, and pressing a guest to stay the night was the expected courtesy rather than mere politeness. "Abide" and "tarry" both simply mean stay.

24:30

"Sat at meat" is old English for being at a meal; "meat" in 1611 meant food of any kind. Diners reclined on their sides around a low table rather than sitting on chairs. Taking the bread, giving thanks, breaking it and distributing it was the job of the host or the head of the household, so the guest here has quietly taken the host's role.

24:32

"Our heart burned within us" was an idiom for being stirred or set alight inside, the way we might say something made our pulse race.

24:34

Simon is Simon Peter, the same man who ran to the tomb in verse 12. Jesus had given him the additional name Peter, and Luke uses both.

24:36

"Peace be unto you" is the ordinary everyday greeting, the Hebrew shalom, roughly "hello" but carrying the fuller sense of wholeness and wellbeing.

24:37

"Affrighted" is simply the older form of frightened. The word translated "spirit" here means the shade of a dead person, what we would call a ghost; the common ancient assumption was that such an apparition had no solid body.

24:38

"Thoughts arise in your hearts" again uses "heart" for the mind. The word behind "thoughts" means disputing or second guessing, so he is asking why they are arguing with themselves about what they can see.

24:39

"Handle me" means touch me, take hold of me. The usual pairing in Greek and Hebrew is "flesh and blood" for a living human being; "flesh and bones" here points to a body with physical substance.

24:41

"Meat" in the King James means food of any kind, not flesh specifically. Jesus is asking whether they have anything at all to eat. "Believed not for joy" describes the state of finding news too good to take in.

24:42

Honeycomb appears here in some ancient copies of Luke and not in others, which is why some modern translations mention only the fish.

24:44

"The law of Moses, and the prophets, and the psalms" names the three divisions of the Jewish scriptures as they were then reckoned: the five books of the Law, the prophetic books, and the collection of writings that opens with the Psalms. Naming all three is a way of saying the whole of scripture.

24:46

"Behoved" is an old word meaning it was necessary, it had to be so.

24:47

"Repentance" translates a word meaning a change of mind that turns into a change of direction, not sorrow or regret by itself. "Remission" is a release or cancellation, the word used for wiping out a debt, and here means the letting go of sins. "All nations" is the standard phrase for the peoples outside Israel.

24:49

"The promise of my Father" is a compressed way of saying what my Father promised. "Endued" means clothed or invested: the image is of having power put on you like a garment, not generated from within. "Tarry" means wait.

24:50

Bethany was a village about two miles from Jerusalem, on the far side of the Mount of Olives. Lifting both hands over people was the formal gesture a priest made when pronouncing a blessing over the congregation.

24:51

Some ancient copies of Luke end the verse at "was parted from them" and do not have the words about being carried up into heaven.

24:52

To worship is to show great love and honor, the way people do to God.

24:53

The temple was the single national sanctuary in Jerusalem, with large public courts where people gathered daily; being "continually in the temple" means in those courts, not inside the sanctuary building itself. "Amen" is a Hebrew word meaning something like "truly" or "so be it," used to close a prayer or a book.