Luke 6: What the Passage Says

The Chapter in a Sentence

Two Sabbath conflicts open the chapter: Jesus defends his disciples for picking grain, and he heals a man's withered hand while the scribes and Pharisees watch for a reason to accuse him. After a night of prayer, he chooses twelve of his disciples and names them apostles, then comes down to a level place where a large crowd is healed. He then teaches: blessings on the poor, hungry, weeping, and hated; woes on the rich, well fed, laughing, and well spoken of; commands to love enemies, give, and not judge; and short pictures about blind guides, specks and beams, trees and fruit, and two builders.

Claim by Claim

1. 6:1
   • It happened on a sabbath that Jesus went through fields of standing grain.
   • The King James specifies that this was the second sabbath after the first.
   • His disciples plucked the heads of grain.
   • His disciples ate the heads of grain.
   • The disciples rubbed the grain in their hands.
2. 6:2
   • Some of the Pharisees spoke.
   • They asked why the disciples were doing what is not lawful to do on the sabbath.
   • In the King James the Pharisees address the question to the disciples.
3. 6:3
   • Jesus answered them.
   • Jesus asked whether they had never read what David did.
   • Jesus said David was hungry.
   • Jesus said those who were with David were also hungry.
4. 6:4
   • Jesus said David went into the house of God.
   • Jesus said David took the bread of the presence.
   • Jesus said David ate it.
   • Jesus said David gave it also to those who were with him.
   • Jesus said it is not lawful for anyone to eat that bread except the priests alone.
5. 6:5
   • Jesus said to them that the Son of Man is Lord of the sabbath.
   • The King James says the Son of Man is Lord also of the sabbath.
6. 6:6
   • On another sabbath Jesus entered the synagogue.
   • Jesus taught there.
   • A man was there.
   • The man's right hand was withered.
7. 6:7
   • The scribes and the Pharisees watched Jesus closely.
   • They watched to see whether he would heal on the sabbath.
   • Their purpose was to find grounds to accuse him.
8. 6:8
   • Jesus knew their thoughts.
   • Jesus spoke to the man who had the withered hand.
   • Jesus told him to rise and stand in the middle.
   • The man rose.
   • The man stood there.
9. 6:9
   • Jesus spoke to them.
   • Jesus said he would ask them a question.
   • Jesus asked whether it is lawful on the sabbath to do good or to do harm.
   • Jesus asked whether it is lawful on the sabbath to save a life or to destroy it.
10. 6:10
    • Jesus looked around at all of them.
    • Jesus told the man to stretch out his hand.
    • The man did so.
    • The man's hand was restored.
    • The King James says the hand was restored whole as the other.
11. 6:11
    • They were filled with senseless rage.
    • They talked with one another about what they might do to Jesus.
12. 6:12
    • In those days Jesus went out to the mountain to pray.
    • Jesus spent the whole night in prayer to God.
13. 6:13
    • When day came, Jesus called his disciples to him.
    • Jesus chose twelve from among them.
    • Jesus named these twelve apostles.
14. 6:14
    • Simon was one of them.
    • Jesus also named Simon Peter.
    • Andrew, Simon's brother, was one of them.
    • James was one of them.
    • John was one of them.
    • Philip was one of them.
    • Bartholomew was one of them.
15. 6:15
    • Matthew was one of them.
    • Thomas was one of them.
    • James the son of Alphaeus was one of them.
    • Simon called the Zealot was one of them.
16. 6:16
    • Judas the brother of James was one of them.
    • Judas Iscariot was one of them.
    • Judas Iscariot became a traitor.
17. 6:17
    • Jesus came down with them.
    • Jesus stood on a level place.
    • A large crowd of his disciples was there.
    • A great multitude of people was there.
    • The people came from all Judea.
    • The people came from Jerusalem.
    • The people came from the coastal region of Tyre and Sidon.
18. 6:18
    • They had come to hear him.
    • They had come to be healed of their diseases.
    • Those troubled by unclean spirits were healed.
19. 6:19
    • The whole crowd sought to touch him.
    • Power was going out from him.
    • The power healed them all.
20. 6:20
    • Jesus lifted up his eyes toward his disciples.
    • Jesus said the poor are blessed.
    • Jesus said the kingdom of God belongs to them.
21. 6:21
    • Jesus said those who hunger now are blessed.
    • Jesus said they will be filled.
    • Jesus said those who weep now are blessed.
    • Jesus said they will laugh.
22. 6:22
    • Jesus said they are blessed when people hate them.
    • Jesus said they are blessed when people exclude them.
    • Jesus said they are blessed when people insult them.
    • Jesus said they are blessed when people cast out their name as evil.
    • Jesus said this happens on account of the Son of Man.
23. 6:23
    • Jesus told them to rejoice in that day.
    • Jesus told them to leap for joy.
    • Jesus said their reward in heaven is great.
    • Jesus said the fathers of those people did the same things to the prophets.
24. 6:24
    • Jesus pronounced woe on the rich.
    • Jesus said they have already received their consolation.
25. 6:25
    • Jesus pronounced woe on those who are full now.
    • Jesus said they will hunger.
    • Jesus pronounced woe on those who laugh now.
    • Jesus said they will mourn.
    • Jesus said they will weep.
26. 6:26
    • Jesus pronounced woe when all people speak well of them.
    • Jesus said the fathers of those people did the same to the false prophets.
27. 6:27
    • Jesus said he was speaking to those who hear.
    • Jesus commanded them to love their enemies.
    • Jesus commanded them to do good to those who hate them.
28. 6:28
    • Jesus commanded them to bless those who curse them.
    • Jesus commanded them to pray for those who mistreat them.
29. 6:29
    • Jesus said to offer the other cheek to one who strikes you on the cheek.
    • Jesus said not to withhold your tunic from one who takes away your outer garment.
30. 6:30
    • Jesus said to give to everyone who asks of you.
    • Jesus said not to demand your goods back from one who takes them.
31. 6:31
    • Jesus said to do to others as you want others to do to you.
32. 6:32
    • Jesus asked what credit it is if you love those who love you.
    • Jesus said sinners also love those who love them.
33. 6:33
    • Jesus asked what credit it is if you do good to those who do good to you.
    • Jesus said sinners also do the same.
34. 6:34
    • Jesus asked what credit it is if you lend to those from whom you hope to receive.
    • Jesus said sinners also lend to sinners in order to receive back as much.
35. 6:35
    • Jesus commanded them to love their enemies.
    • Jesus commanded them to do good.
    • Jesus commanded them to lend without hoping for anything in return.
    • Jesus said their reward will be great.
    • Jesus said they will be sons of the Most High.
    • Jesus said the Most High is kind to the ungrateful and to the evil.
36. 6:36
    • Jesus commanded them to be merciful.
    • Jesus said their Father is merciful.
    • The King James draws this as a consequence of what precedes.
37. 6:37
    • Jesus said not to judge.
    • Jesus said they will not be judged.
    • Jesus said not to condemn.
    • Jesus said they will not be condemned.
    • Jesus said to forgive.
    • Jesus said they will be forgiven.
38. 6:38
    • Jesus said to give.
    • Jesus said it will be given to them.
    • Jesus said good measure, pressed down, shaken together, and running over will be given into their lap.
    • Jesus said that with the measure they measure, it will be measured back to them.
39. 6:39
    • Jesus also spoke a parable to them.
    • Jesus asked whether a blind man can lead a blind man.
    • Jesus asked whether they will not both fall into a pit.
40. 6:40
    • Jesus said a disciple is not above his teacher.
    • Jesus said everyone fully trained will be like his teacher.
41. 6:41
    • Jesus asked why you look at the speck in your brother's eye.
    • Jesus asked why you do not notice the beam in your own eye.
42. 6:42
    • Jesus asked how you can say to your brother, Brother, let me take out the speck in your eye.
    • Jesus said this is asked while you yourself do not see the beam in your own eye.
    • Jesus called such a person a hypocrite.
    • Jesus commanded first to cast the beam out of your own eye.
    • Jesus said then you will see clearly to cast out the speck in your brother's eye.
43. 6:43
    • Jesus said a good tree does not produce rotten fruit.
    • Jesus said a rotten tree does not produce good fruit.
44. 6:44
    • Jesus said every tree is known by its own fruit.
    • Jesus said figs are not gathered from thorn bushes.
    • Jesus said grapes are not harvested from a bramble.
45. 6:45
    • Jesus said the good man brings out what is good from the good treasure of his heart.
    • Jesus said the evil man brings out what is evil from his evil treasure.
    • The King James says the evil man's treasure is the treasure of his heart.
    • Jesus said the mouth speaks out of the abundance of the heart.
46. 6:46
    • Jesus asked why they call him Lord, Lord.
    • Jesus said they do not do the things he says.
47. 6:47
    • Jesus spoke of everyone who comes to him, hears his words, and does them.
    • Jesus said he would show them what such a person is like.
48. 6:48
    • Jesus said such a person is like a man building a house.
    • Jesus said the man dug and went deep.
    • Jesus said the man laid the foundation on the rock.
    • Jesus said a flood came.
    • Jesus said the river burst against that house.
    • Jesus said the river could not shake it.
    • The King James gives the reason as that it was founded upon a rock.
    • The Greek gives the reason as that it had been well built.
49. 6:49
    • Jesus said the one who hears and does not act is like a man who built a house on the ground without a foundation.
    • Jesus said the river burst against it.
    • Jesus said it fell immediately.
    • Jesus said the ruin of that house was great.

Words Worth Explaining

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

6:1

The Sabbath was the Jewish day of rest, running from Friday sunset to Saturday sunset. The law forbade work on it, and the whole argument in this scene is over what counts as work: reaping and threshing were both on the forbidden list, and picking heads of grain and rubbing them in the hands could be classed as either. Taking a few handfuls from someone else's field while walking through it was itself permitted by law. In 1611 English "corn" meant grain of any kind, here wheat or barley; it did not mean maize. The KJV's "the second sabbath after the first" translates a Greek phrase found nowhere else, whose meaning was already unclear to ancient copyists; many manuscripts simply read "a sabbath."

6:2

The Pharisees were a religious movement, mostly ordinary laymen rather than priests or officials, known for close attention to the written law and to the body of oral tradition that worked out how to keep it in daily life. They were widely respected.

6:3

The episode is told in 1 Samuel 21. David, not yet king and on the run from Saul, arrived hungry at the sanctuary at Nob and asked the priest for food.

6:4

"Shewbread" is show bread, bread set out on show. Twelve loaves stood on a table inside the sanctuary in the presence of God, one for each tribe of Israel, and were replaced with fresh loaves every Sabbath. The loaves taken away were then eaten by the priests, and by no one else.

6:5

"Son of man" is the title Jesus regularly uses for himself in the Gospels. In ordinary Hebrew and Aramaic the phrase simply means a human being, a mortal; it also echoes Daniel 7:13, where "one like the Son of man" is given lasting authority. The Greek keeps both senses available and does not settle between them.

6:6

A synagogue was the local meeting house where Jews gathered on the Sabbath to hear the scriptures read and explained. There was no fixed preacher, and a visiting teacher could be invited to speak, which is how Jesus comes to be teaching there. A "withered" hand is one that has shrunk and stiffened, from injury, disease or paralysis, so that it cannot be opened or used.

6:7

Scribes were professional experts in the law, trained to copy it, interpret it and teach it. They were the nearest thing this society had to lawyers.

6:9

Jewish teachers already agreed that saving a life overrode the Sabbath. The disputed cases were ones like this, where the condition was long standing and no one would die if treatment waited until the next day. Jesus' question puts the case in the sharpest possible terms, as a choice between doing good and doing harm.

6:11

In 1611 English "madness" covered furious anger as well as insanity. The Greek word means senseless rage, not mental illness.

6:13

The word translated "apostles" is the Greek apostoloi, meaning ones sent out. It was an ordinary word for an envoy or messenger dispatched with authority to act on the sender's behalf.

6:14

Peter comes from the Greek petros, a stone or rock. The same nickname in Aramaic was Cephas.

6:15

"Zelotes" means zealot, a man of fierce enthusiasm, particularly for the law and for God's honor. Later in the century Zealot became the name of an armed party that fought Rome, but that organized movement did not yet exist; here the word describes the man himself or some earlier grouping.

6:16

"Iscariot" is usually taken to mean "man of Kerioth," a town in southern Judea, which would make Judas the only one of the twelve not from Galilee. Other explanations have been offered and none is certain. The word the KJV renders "traitor" means one who hands another over, the term used throughout the Gospels for what Judas did.

6:17

Judea was the southern region around Jerusalem. Tyre and Sidon were Phoenician port cities up the Mediterranean coast to the north, outside Jewish territory, so the crowd includes people from Gentile districts. The KJV's "the plain" translates a phrase meaning a level place, which may be a flat shelf on the mountainside rather than open lowland; this is why Luke's sermon here is often contrasted with the one Matthew sets on a mountain.

6:18

"Vexed" in 1611 English meant tormented or afflicted, far stronger than the modern word. "Unclean" is a ritual term meaning unfit to come near what is holy, not dirty.

6:19

In 1611 English "virtue" could mean power or potency, as in the healing virtue of a medicine. The Greek word is dynamis, power. It has nothing to do with moral goodness here.

6:20

The Greek word behind "blessed" describes someone who is fortunate, to be congratulated, in an enviable position; it is not a statement about how the person feels. "Poor" translates a word for the destitute, those with nothing at all, not people of modest means. "The kingdom of God" means God's reign, the state of affairs in which God is king, rather than a territory on a map.

6:22

"Cast out your name as evil" is an idiom for throwing out someone's reputation as worthless, denouncing the very name. "Separate you from their company" covers formal exclusion from the synagogue and from the ordinary social life of the town, which in a small community meant losing trade and livelihood as well as friends.

6:23

The prophets were those who spoke for God to Israel, often in criticism of its kings and priests. The Hebrew scriptures record several of them being rejected, imprisoned or killed. "Their fathers" means the ancestors of the people now doing the hating.

6:24

"Woe" is not a curse but a cry of grief or warning, the exact counterpart of "blessed": how terrible for you. The verb behind "ye have received your consolation" was the standard commercial term for payment in full, written on receipts. The comfort has already been collected and nothing further is owing.

6:26

False prophets were men who claimed to speak for God and told rulers and people what they wanted to hear. Their popularity was the mark of them; see 1 Kings 22 and Jeremiah 28.

6:27

The word for love here is not affection or liking but a settled commitment to act for another's good. That is why it can be commanded, as a feeling could not be.

6:28

To bless and to curse are both forms of speech to God about a person. A curse called down real harm and was taken as a dangerous act, not merely rude words. "Despitefully use" in 1611 English means to treat with contempt and abuse.

6:29

The KJV's "cloak" is the outer garment, a large piece of cloth worn over everything else and used as a blanket at night; the "coat" is the tunic worn next to the skin. The saying moves from the outer layer to the inner one, and so names the one garment the law of Moses protected: a creditor who took a man's cloak in pledge had to hand it back by sunset, because he slept in it.

6:32

The word behind "thank" is charis, favor or credit. The question is what merit is earned, not whether anyone says thank you. "Sinners" here is a social label rather than an abstract judgment; it means people known for not keeping the law, the sort the hearers would treat as the opposite of themselves.

6:34

Lending between neighbors here means interest free loans to people in need, which the law of Moses required and which were expected to be repaid in full. Charging interest to a fellow Israelite was forbidden, so the only return a lender could hope for was the principal, or the goodwill of someone able to lend back.

6:35

"The Highest," or Most High, is an ancient title for God, used in Genesis and the Psalms. In this way of speaking, to be called someone's children means to share their character and to act as they act.

6:36

To be merciful is to treat someone kindly when they are in trouble, even when they have not earned it.

6:37

"Judge" here means passing sentence on a person, writing them off, rather than forming an opinion about right and wrong. The verse is not asking for an end to moral judgment; the next few verses assume you can tell a good tree from a bad one.

6:38

"Into your bosom" means into the fold of the outer robe, pulled up over the belt and used as a pocket or carrying bag. The picture is a grain seller filling a measure for a customer: shaking it and pressing the grain down so more will fit, then heaping it until it spills. "Mete" simply means measure.

6:39

A parable is a comparison drawn from ordinary life to make a point, sometimes a whole story, sometimes a single image like this one. The "ditch" is a pit or open cistern, the sort of unfenced hazard common in open country.

6:40

"Master" here means teacher, not owner. "Perfect" in 1611 English means finished or brought to completion, and the Greek word means fully trained; it does not mean morally flawless. The saying is about apprenticeship: the pupil ends up resembling the man who taught him.

6:41

A "mote" is a speck, a splinter or bit of chaff. A "beam" is a load bearing timber, the kind that holds up a roof. The contrast is deliberately absurd. "Brother" means a fellow member of the community, not a blood relation.

6:42

The Greek word hypokrites was the everyday term for a stage actor, a man speaking lines written for someone he is not. Applied to a person it means one whose outward performance does not match what lies behind it.

6:44

Figs and grapes were the two staple fruits of the region; thornbush and bramble were the two commonest worthless scrubs. The pairing sets the most valuable produce against the least promising plants.

6:45

A "treasure" here is the storeroom or strongbox where things are kept, not the valuables themselves. In this way of speaking the heart is the whole inner person, the seat of thought and decision as much as of feeling.

6:46

The Greek kyrios, translated "Lord," ran the whole range from a polite "sir" to the title of a master or ruler, and was also the word used for God in the Greek Old Testament. Doubling it, "Lord, Lord," was an intensified form of respectful address.

6:48

In this country a builder either dug down through the loose soil of a valley floor until he struck bedrock, or saved himself the labor and built on the soil. The difference showed only in the rainy season, when dry gullies filled within minutes and a wall of water came down them.