Luke 5: What the Passage Says

The Chapter in a Sentence

Jesus teaches from Simon's boat, then tells him to fish in deep water; the catch is so large the nets tear, and Simon, James, and John leave everything to follow him. He heals a man covered with leprosy and a paralyzed man whom men lower through the roof, and he tells the paralyzed man his sins are forgiven, which the scribes and Pharisees call blasphemy. He calls the tax collector Levi and eats with tax collectors and sinners, and when questioned about that and about fasting, he answers with sayings about a doctor, a wedding, new cloth, and new wine.

Claim by Claim

1. 5:1
   • A crowd pressed in on Jesus to hear the word of God.
   • Jesus was standing beside the lake of Gennesaret.
2. 5:2
   • Jesus saw two boats lying at the edge of the lake.
   • The fishermen had gotten out of the boats.
   • The fishermen were washing their nets.
3. 5:3
   • Jesus got into one of the boats.
   • That boat belonged to Simon.
   • Jesus asked Simon to put out a little way from the land.
   • Jesus sat down.
   • Jesus taught the crowds from the boat.
4. 5:4
   • Jesus finished speaking.
   • Jesus told Simon to put out into the deep water.
   • Jesus told them to let down their nets for a catch.
5. 5:5
   • Simon answered Jesus.
   • Simon addressed him as Master.
   • Simon said they had labored all through the night.
   • Simon said they had taken nothing.
   • Simon said that on Jesus' word he would let down the net.
6. 5:6
   • They did as Jesus said.
   • They enclosed a great quantity of fish.
   • Their net began to tear.
7. 5:7
   • They signaled to their partners in the other boat to come and help them.
   • The partners came.
   • They filled both boats.
   • The boats began to sink.
8. 5:8
   • Simon Peter saw what had happened.
   • Simon Peter fell down at Jesus' knees.
   • Simon Peter told Jesus to depart from him.
   • Simon Peter said he was a sinful man.
   • Simon Peter called Jesus Lord.
9. 5:9
   • Astonishment had seized Simon Peter.
   • Astonishment had seized all who were with him.
   • The astonishment was at the catch of fish they had taken.
10. 5:10
    • James and John, the sons of Zebedee, were likewise astonished.
    • James and John were partners with Simon.
    • Jesus told Simon not to be afraid.
    • Jesus said that from now on Simon would be catching men alive.
11. 5:11
    • They brought their boats to land.
    • They left everything.
    • They followed Jesus.
12. 5:12
    • Jesus was in one of the cities.
    • There was a man full of leprosy.
    • The man saw Jesus.
    • The man fell on his face.
    • The man begged Jesus.
    • The man called Jesus Lord.
    • The man said that if Jesus was willing, Jesus could make him clean.
13. 5:13
    • Jesus stretched out his hand.
    • Jesus touched the man.
    • Jesus said he was willing.
    • Jesus commanded the man to be clean.
    • The leprosy immediately left the man.
14. 5:14
    • Jesus charged the man to tell no one.
    • Jesus told him to go and show himself to the priest.
    • Jesus told him to make the offering for his cleansing as Moses commanded.
    • Jesus said this would be a testimony to them.
15. 5:15
    • The report about Jesus spread all the more.
    • Great crowds came together to hear him.
    • Great crowds came together to be healed of their sicknesses.
16. 5:16
    • Jesus withdrew into the wilderness.
    • Jesus prayed.
17. 5:17
    • On a certain day Jesus was teaching.
    • Pharisees and teachers of the law were sitting there.
    • They had come out of every village of Galilee and of Judea and from Jerusalem.
    • The power of the Lord was present to heal.
18. 5:18
    • Men came carrying a paralyzed man on a bed.
    • They sought to bring him inside.
    • They sought to lay him before Jesus.
19. 5:19
    • They could not find a way to bring him in because of the crowd.
    • They went up onto the roof.
    • They let him down with his mat through the tiles.
    • They let him down into the middle, in front of Jesus.
20. 5:20
    • Jesus saw their faith.
    • Jesus addressed the man as Man.
    • Jesus said the man's sins were forgiven him.
21. 5:21
    • The scribes and the Pharisees began to reason.
    • They asked who this man was who speaks blasphemies.
    • They asked who can forgive sins except God alone.
22. 5:22
    • Jesus perceived their reasonings.
    • Jesus answered them.
    • Jesus asked why they were reasoning in their hearts.
23. 5:23
    • Jesus asked which is easier: to say 'Your sins are forgiven you' or to say 'Rise up and walk.'
24. 5:24
    • Jesus said this so they would know that the Son of man has authority on earth to forgive sins.
    • Jesus spoke to the paralyzed man.
    • Jesus told him to arise.
    • Jesus told him to take up his mat.
    • Jesus told him to go to his house.
25. 5:25
    • The man immediately rose up in front of them.
    • The man took up what he had been lying on.
    • The man departed to his own house.
    • The man glorified God.
26. 5:26
    • Amazement seized them all.
    • They glorified God.
    • They were filled with fear.
    • They said they had seen strange things that day.
27. 5:27
    • After these things Jesus went out.
    • Jesus saw a tax collector named Levi sitting at the tax booth.
    • Jesus told him to follow him.
28. 5:28
    • Levi left everything.
    • Levi rose up.
    • Levi followed Jesus.
29. 5:29
    • Levi made a great banquet for Jesus in his own house.
    • A large crowd of tax collectors and others were reclining at table with them.
30. 5:30
    • The Pharisees and their scribes murmured against Jesus' disciples.
    • They asked why the disciples eat and drink with tax collectors and sinners.
31. 5:31
    • Jesus answered them.
    • Jesus said those who are healthy have no need of a physician.
    • Jesus said those who are sick need a physician.
32. 5:32
    • Jesus said he had not come to call the righteous.
    • Jesus said he had come to call sinners to repentance.
33. 5:33
    • They said to Jesus that John's disciples fast often.
    • They said John's disciples make prayers.
    • They said the disciples of the Pharisees do likewise.
    • They said Jesus' disciples eat and drink.
34. 5:34
    • Jesus answered them.
    • Jesus asked whether they can make the companions of the bridegroom fast while the bridegroom is with them.
35. 5:35
    • Jesus said days will come when the bridegroom will be taken away from them.
    • Jesus said they will fast in those days.
36. 5:36
    • Jesus spoke a parable to them.
    • No one tears a piece from a new garment and puts it on an old garment.
    • Otherwise the new garment is torn.
    • Otherwise the piece from the new does not match the old garment.
37. 5:37
    • No one puts new wine into old wineskins.
    • Otherwise the new wine will burst the wineskins.
    • The wine will be spilled.
    • The wineskins will be ruined.
38. 5:38
    • New wine must be put into new wineskins.
    • Both the wine and the wineskins are preserved.
39. 5:39
    • No one who has drunk old wine immediately desires new wine.
    • He says that the old is better.

Words Worth Explaining

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

5:1

The lake of Gennesaret is the same water called the Sea of Galilee and the Sea of Tiberias elsewhere: a freshwater lake in the north of the country, about thirteen miles long and eight across, ringed with fishing villages and a busy trade in salted fish.

5:2

The 'ships' of the King James are ordinary fishing boats, open wooden craft around twenty five feet long, worked by a crew of a few men with oars and a sail. Nets were washed and spread out after every night's work to clear the weed, silt and debris out of the mesh.

5:3

'Prayed him' in 1611 English simply means asked him, with no religious sense attached: you prayed a neighbor to lend you a tool. Sitting was the normal teaching posture, and water carries a voice, so a boat pushed a few yards out makes a serviceable platform for speaking to a crowd on the shore.

5:4

A 'draught' in this English is a haul: whatever is drawn up in one pull of the net. The word has nothing to do with a draft of air or of drink.

5:5

Fishing on this lake was done at night, when the fish cannot see the net, so Simon is reporting a whole working shift with nothing to show for it. The word he uses for 'Master' is not the ordinary word for a teacher; it means a person set over others, a chief or overseer, the sort of word a workman uses to a foreman. Luke is the only Gospel writer who uses it.

5:8

Luke has called this man Simon up to now. Peter is a nickname, from the Greek for a stone or rock, which Luke records Jesus giving him later; here Luke uses both names together because Peter is the name his readers know him by.

5:10

Fishermen on this lake worked in small partnerships, family businesses that shared boats, nets, hired hands and the proceeds, so James and John are Simon's business associates as well as his neighbors. The word translated 'catch' in 'catch men' is not the usual word for netting fish. It means to take alive, to capture something without killing it, and was used of taking prisoners rather than of landing a catch.

5:11

Fishing was their family business and their whole living. Leaving the boats and nets meant giving up how they fed themselves.

5:12

'Leprosy' in the Bible covers a range of visible, spreading skin conditions, not only the modern disease of that name. Under the law in Leviticus 13 and 14 a person in this state was ritually unclean and had to live apart from the community, with torn clothes and uncovered head, calling out a warning to anyone who came near. So 'make me clean' asks for more than a cure: it asks for a life among other people again.

5:13

Touching such a person would ordinarily have made the toucher unclean as well, which is why the detail is reported rather than passed over.

5:14

Only a priest could certify that the condition had gone, so the priesthood served as the public health authority of the system as well as its clergy. Leviticus 14 lays out the ceremony that followed: eight days, two birds, lambs, flour and oil. 'For a testimony unto them' means the certification would stand as evidence; who 'them' refers to, the priests or people in general, is left open in the Greek.

5:15

'Fame' in 1611 English means report or news, what is being said about a person. It carries none of the modern sense of celebrity.

5:16

The King James 'wilderness' does not mean sandy desert. It is open, unfarmed country, rough grazing and scrub away from the villages, which is simply where a person went to be out of reach of a crowd.

5:17

The Pharisees were a strict religious movement, largely laymen, who worked out how the law of Moses applied to the details of daily life: food, purity, tithing, the sabbath. 'Doctors of the law' means teachers or experts in that law, professional interpreters of it. Jerusalem lay some eighty miles south, several days of travel, so this is not a casual local audience. The last clause is ambiguous in the manuscripts: some read that the power was present to heal 'them', others simply that it was present for him to heal.

5:18

'Palsy' in 1611 English means paralysis of any sort; the modern word has narrowed to particular conditions involving tremor or weakness. The 'bed' and 'couch' of the King James is a light sleeping mat or pallet that one man could roll up and carry under his arm.

5:19

Houses had flat roofs reached by an outside stair, used for sleeping, drying fruit and storage, so getting up there was routine. A village roof was usually beams laid across, covered with brush and packed clay; Luke's word 'tiling' points instead to roofing tiles, found in more Greek style building. Either could be broken open and afterwards repaired.

5:20

'Man' here translates the normal Greek way of addressing someone whose name you are not using. It is not a rebuke or a distancing; the tone is nearer to 'friend'.

5:21

Scribes were the professional writers and legal experts of the day, the men who copied, taught and applied the law of Moses. 'Blasphemy' means speech that insults God or claims for oneself what belongs to God alone. Under Leviticus 24 it was a capital charge, so what these men are weighing is not a difference of opinion.

5:22

In this language the heart is not the seat of feelings as opposed to thought. It is where a person thinks, weighs things up and decides, so "reason ye in your hearts" means working something out privately in your own mind.

5:24

'Son of man' is the phrase Jesus regularly uses of himself. In ordinary Hebrew and Aramaic it means simply a human being, and could serve as a modest way of saying 'I'. It is also the phrase in Daniel 7 for a figure who comes with the clouds of heaven and is given authority and a kingdom. The Greek holds both senses open and does not choose between them. Notice too that the sentence is never finished: Luke breaks in with 'he said unto the sick of the palsy', and the thing done takes the place of the rest of the sentence.

5:26

'Strange things' in 1611 English means extraordinary or unheard of things, not weird or disturbing ones. The Greek word is the one behind 'paradox': things that run contrary to expectation.

5:27

A publican is not an innkeeper. He is a tax or toll collector, a local man who had bought or been granted the right to collect duty in a district and who lived on whatever he could take above what he owed the authorities. The 'receipt of custom' is the tollbooth where duty was charged on goods passing through; Capernaum sat on a trade road near a frontier, so the post was worth having. Such men were widely despised, both as collaborators with the occupying power and as men with a licence to overcharge. Matthew's Gospel gives this same man the name Matthew.

5:29

At a formal banquet guests did not sit on chairs but reclined on low couches around the table, propped on the left elbow, which is what the King James 'sat down with them' describes. Sharing a table in this way was a public act of acceptance, which is why the company at it is worth remarking on.

5:30

'Sinners' here is close to a technical label in the mouths of the objectors. It covered people whose trade or manner of life put them outside strict observance of the law, as well as people of openly bad reputation. It is the complainers' word for these guests, not Luke's own description of them.

5:31

'Whole' in 1611 English means healthy, sound in body. 'They that are whole' is 'those who are well', with no modern sense of entire or complete.

5:32

'Repentance' translates a Greek word for a change of mind that becomes a change of direction. The emphasis is on turning around rather than on feeling sorry.

5:33

Fasting is going without food for a set time, usually from dawn until dark, as an act of mourning, petition or devotion. The law of Moses required it on only one day of the year, the Day of Atonement, but strict Pharisees fasted twice a week as a discipline, and John the Baptist's followers were known for an austere way of life. The question is therefore about religious practice, not about appetite.

5:34

'The children of the bridechamber' is a Hebrew style idiom: to be a 'son of' something means to belong to it. These are the bridegroom's friends and the wedding party. A Jewish wedding celebration ran about a week, and the guests were released from ordinary fasting obligations for its duration, so fasting at a wedding was a contradiction in terms.

5:36

A parable is a comparison drawn from ordinary life to carry a point, not necessarily a story about anything that happened. 'Maketh a rent' means makes a tear. The picture is plain household economics: cutting a patch out of a good new garment wrecks the new garment, and the fresh cloth will not match the faded old one in any case. Matthew and Mark tell the same saying with the stress on unshrunk cloth shrinking and pulling the old apart; Luke tells it with the stress on the waste of the new.

5:37

The 'bottles' of the King James are skins, not glass. A whole goat or sheep hide was cleaned, sewn up and used as a container for liquid. New wine is still fermenting and gives off gas as it works; a fresh skin has stretch left in it and gives with the pressure, while a skin already stretched and gone hard from earlier use splits instead.

5:39

Aged wine was reckoned better than new, and this was a commonplace saying rather than a novel observation. The manuscripts differ at the end: many read 'The old is better', some early ones read simply that the old is good, and a few omit the verse entirely.