But a certain Samaritan journeying came to him, and seeing [him], was moved with compassion,
A priest and a Levite have already seen the wounded man and crossed to the other side. Now a third traveller comes down the same road. The parable turns on three things: what this man is called, how near he comes, and what he feels when he sees him.
His enemies had thrown one name at Him. The Lord chose that name for Himself.
So the priest and the Levite pass by and give place to another. "But a Samaritan, as he journeyed, came to where he was." Why a Samaritan? It was the insult they had thrown at Him — "Are we not right in saying that You are a Samaritan?" It was meant to suggest a man who walked outside the path the law laid down, and whom the law condemned. If the Lord takes that name, we may be sure there is meaning in it. And how did He come where we were, except by being "made in the likeness of sinful flesh" and "a curse for us"? And how could His mercy reach us, except by His taking a path outside the law?
That choice is more striking when you look back one chapter.
There is a wonderful touch of grace in the Lord taking up the thought of a Samaritan. In the ninth chapter we read that a Samaritan village had refused Him. It is one of those precious incidents we have in Luke of the amazing grace and humility of the Lord Jesus.
The word "but" sets this traveller against the two who came before. The difference is not in the man on the ground. It is in what the newcomer brought with him.
That is the point to keep before us — not the law's inability to help, nor the poverty of the man, but the resources that came in with the Samaritan. He brought everything that was necessary, and in compassion took full charge of the situation. The priest was on the line of demand, but the man had nothing to give — he had lost all he had. The Levite was on the line of works. His duty was to teach Israel God's law — but the man is half dead, and there was nothing he could do. He could not have been in a worse state, and it was this that drew out the compassion of the Samaritan.
Three short phrases carry the verse: he came, he saw, he had compassion.
"He came to where he was" — not half-way or nine-tenths of the way, but all the way. "And when he saw him," what then? Did he turn away in disgust at his appearance and despair of his condition? Ah! no; "He had compassion on him." His tender heart yearned over him. He cared not what he was or who he was. Jew or Gentile, it mattered not... Was this "compassion" only a passing sentiment — a brief feeling that speaks empty words and then fades? No; it was real, living and active, and it showed itself in the plainest way.
The wounded man never speaks in the story. One writer makes that silence part of the point.
Now, why is the blessed Lord of glory called a Samaritan? Because He was a stranger. A stranger from heaven has come down to show neighbourly love on earth... "And when he saw him, he had compassion." What is the source of all the salvation found in Him? Was there anything in you to draw it out or provoke it? No. Something in Him suggested it. The poor waylaid man was silent from first to last... There is no more blessed answer to the grace of God than the stillness of faith... The Lord acts from Himself — at the suggestion of His own compassion.
The Samaritan makes three distinct moves across verses 33 and 34. One writer gives each move a meaning.
There are three movements to note in the Samaritan. First, he was on a journey. Second, he "came to where he was". Third, in verse 34, he "went to him". The "journey" may suggest the Lord stooping down into Manhood in this world. Coming to "where he was" may point to the different scenes along His path, where He showed the grace of God moving out in blessing towards man. But when he "went to him", to bind up his wounds and bring him to full recovery, that may involve the cross itself.
- Name. The Lord takes for Himself the insult thrown at Him — the outsider who walks outside the path the law laid down.
- Journey. He was already on the way. The rescue starts with Him stooping down, not with a cry from the road.
- Nearness. He came where the man was — all the way, not most of the way, and without asking who or what he was.
- Compassion. The source is in Him alone. The wounded man is silent from beginning to end and offers nothing that could provoke it.
- Action. The compassion is not a feeling that fades. It is alive, and it moves to the man himself — a step one writer connects with the cross.
and came up [to him] and bound up his wounds, pouring in oil and wine; and having put him on his own beast, took him to [the] inn and took care of him.
On the road down from Jerusalem to Jericho, a priest and a Levite have already walked past a robbed and half-dead man. Now a Samaritan stops, and every move he makes costs him something.
Commentators see the Lord Himself in the Samaritan. The choice of that figure is deliberate.
Why a Samaritan? It was the name of reproach they had hurled at Him — "Say we not well that You are a Samaritan?" It was meant to suggest a man who walked outside the path the law laid down, and whom the law condemned. If the Lord takes that name, there is meaning in it we may be sure. And, indeed, how did He come where we were, but by being "made in the likeness of sinful flesh," and "a curse for us"? And how could His mercy reach us except by His taking a path outside of law?
Nothing about the man in the road made him worth the trouble.
"He came where he was" — not half-way or nine-tenths of the way, but all the way. "And when he saw him," what then? Did he turn away in disgust at his appearance and despair of his condition? Ah! no; "He had compassion on him." His tender heart yearned over him. He cared not what he was or who he was.
One writer sees more here than first aid.
The words "he went to him and bound up his wounds" may be connected with the cross. The human nature the Lord took was untainted by sin. Yet in those three hours of darkness God made Him "who knew no sin" to be sin for us. There He fully identified Himself with our state, and God dealt with Him in our place.
These were the ordinary medicines a traveller carried. Each one did a different job.
Pouring the oil in, or over, was for massage, as it still is among the Arabs. The wine was to stop the bleeding.
Commentators also find a picture in the two liquids.
The oil speaks of the Spirit of God, given to us by pure grace. The wine speaks of the blood of Christ, which cleanses from all sin and brings joy in place of misery, for wine speaks of joy too.
Notice both what the rescuer had with him and what he gave up.
He happened to have with him the very wealth that suited the man lying in the road. The Lord Jesus came loaded with the very fullness that fitted your condition. "And set him on his own beast." He exchanged places with us. He was rich, and we were poor. He became poor that we might be rich.
The rescue does not end at the roadside. Someone else takes over the care, and someone else pays for it.
He also brings him to an inn; that is, makes a stranger of him down here. Then he commits him to the host, pays for his keep until the time of his return. Nothing is expected from the subject of grace, nor does he do anything. He ruined himself. That was the sum total of all that he did. The Samaritan took on the whole responsibility for saving him and keeping him, in every way.
One word in this verse comes back later as a job description for those who lead a church.
The word translated "take care of" is found only once elsewhere in the New Testament. It occurs in the Parable of the Good Samaritan. There the Lord shows him going to the wounded, half-dead man who had been attacked by thieves. He pours oil and wine into his wounds, at his own cost, of course. He sets him on his beast and walks himself. Then he brings him to an inn. What a model to those who have been called to eldership! This is the manner in which they are to "take care of the church of God." It will cost them something. It will certainly mean self-denial.
- Came — the rescuer crossed the whole distance, not most of it. He came under a name of contempt, outside the law's respectability.
- Cured — wounds bound, oil and wine poured in. Real medicine on the road, and a picture of the cross and its healing.
- Carried — the man rides while the rescuer walks. They swap places, poverty for riches.
- Cared for — an inn, a host, and a bill paid by someone else. The rescued man brings nothing but the ruin he arrived in.
- Costly — the same word for this care sets the standard for caring for God's people. It means self-denial, paid from your own pocket.
And on the morrow [as he left], taking out two denarii he gave them to the innkeeper, and said to him, Take care of him, and whatsoever thou shalt expend more, *I* will render to thee on my coming back.
The Samaritan's work does not end when he rides away the next morning. He leaves money, instructions, and a promise. His plan covers the whole time he will be away, and gives the rescued man someone to wait for.
The Samaritan pays for tonight and promises to settle whatever tomorrow costs.
His love is not satisfied with thoughtful kindness for the present. He takes charge of the future as well. The terms are all the more striking because the picture is such an everyday one. How full and boundless is this love! It is not limited by family ties or by earthly duty. It flows from a divine and eternal spring within, and looks outside itself only for needy people to act on. No person is too repulsive, no need is beyond the resources of grace... Yes, His provision while He is absent is enough, whatever unbelief may think of it, or of Him. And when He returns, what repayment where He is trusted! What loss, where He is scorned!
Verse 34 says the Samaritan took care of the man himself; verse 35 tells the innkeeper to do it. Commentators read that handover as a picture of what Jesus did when He went back to the Father. The same rare word for "care" ties the task to caring for God's people.
The inn where the man was brought may stand for "God's house, which is the assembly of the living God" (1 Tim. 3:15)... When the time came for the Samaritan to leave, he entrusted the care of the man to the innkeeper. When the Lord Jesus was about to depart out of this world and go back to the Father, He spoke to the disciples of "another Comforter". This Comforter is the Holy Spirit. Of course, the Lord in glory still cares for His own. But in view of His departing He committed their care to One who could care for them as He had done — another divine Person... The word for care in verses 34 and 35 occurs only once elsewhere in the New Testament. That third use helps here: "For if a man does not know how to manage his own household, how will he care for God's church?" (1 Tim. 3:5).
Why two coins? An older answer made them stand for two sacraments. The writer below sets that reading aside and still finds meaning in the sum: wages for care given, with more to come.
We may, like Van Oosterzee, refuse the thought of two sacraments as trifling, and yet believe that there is meaning here as elsewhere. The two pence are clearly payment for care given... it should be easy to see that the reward goes to those through whom the Spirit works in caring for Christ's people. There is a present reward, for "the one who waters will himself be watered." There is a future one too, when the departed Saviour returns. So the two coins may carry the number of testimony. What is paid now bears witness to a gracious remembrance of all that is done here for Him. The future will show it in full.
The sum left behind is small. One commentator takes that as a sign of a short absence.
This inn has a "Host," and the Spirit of God tells us His name: His name is "Pan-docheus" — the Person who receives all. The Samaritan only stayed a short time, for He went away the next day. But before He left, He promised to come back. In the meantime He left orders with the "Host" to take care of this poor man. Since He left only two pence, the poor man knew that his good Friend meant to come again soon. I am sure he kept watching down the road to see if He was coming.
The rescued man arranges nothing for himself. His safety rests on the Samaritan's plan, and his daily care passes to others who were given gifts for the job.
The security of the healed man was this: the Samaritan had lifted him from the roadside to his own seat — "set him on his own beast" — and undertook to care for him. He made provision for the whole time he would be away. The bright prospect before the man was the hope of his coming again... The Samaritan's care shows not only in the words "took care of him," but also in his handing the man over to the service of others. He had given those others gifts for that service, saying, "Take care of him."
- Paid for — the rescue is not a loan. Someone else covers the cost of the man's recovery before he is asked for anything.
- Placed — the Samaritan leaves him in an inn, a picture of God's house, in the hands of another carer.
- Provided for — the two denarii cover the absence, and reward those through whom the Spirit cares for Christ's people.
- Promised more — the Samaritan will repay whatever the care costs beyond that sum when He returns, so no carer runs at a loss.
- Waiting — the small sum hints at a short absence. It turns the man's face toward the road, watching for the One who is coming back.
Which [now] of these three seems to thee to have been neighbour of him who fell into [the hands of] the robbers?
The lawyer had asked Jesus to define his neighbour. Jesus tells a story, then hands the question back: which of the three men became a neighbour to the wounded traveller? That switch puts the whole discussion on new ground.
The lawyer wanted a boundary line drawn around his duty. As one writer puts it, love never needs such a line, because need itself supplies the answer.
If I may speak this way of Him as a man, He had the single eye and the heart that perfectly understood what God was, and enjoyed it. So He never had difficulty in finding out who was his neighbour. For, in truth, grace finds a neighbour in everyone who needs love. My neighbour is the man who needs human sympathy, and who needs divine goodness and its clear testimony, even when it comes through a man on earth. Now, Jesus was the only man walking in the whole power of divine love... As such, therefore, He found no riddle to solve in the question, Who is my neighbour?
The same principle wipes out the categories the lawyer was relying on.
After the essence of the statement of the law, the Lord shows to the man who would justify himself by quibbling over the terms, that grace, the new and blessed principle of God's dealings, makes us by its very nature the neighbour of everyone who has need, and wipes out, by its divine nature, the divisions formed by religious rules that produce no grace, but rather, with the heart being what it is, tend to feed pride by marking out the man they belong to.
Left to himself, the lawyer would have answered his own question in a way that cost him nothing.
If the lawyer had answered his own question, he would no doubt have limited neighbour to one of his own nation. In effect he would have confused neighbour with brother. For the law counted all Israelites as brothers. But a neighbour is a broader term. This is what the Samaritan's act brings out... The teacher of the law passed by. The doer of the law — the Samaritan — personally cared for the injured man, and fully provided for him.
Jesus does more than settle a point of interpretation. The story shows that the question itself came out of a heart that had already failed the test.
How it exposes the narrow selfishness that can raise such a question! Need meets us in countless shapes, right before our eyes. This is what the legal spirit breeds: the cold calculation of duty by a self-occupied mind, which is sure to spare itself as much as it can. Love is the opposite — unreckoning self-sacrifice, taken up with its object. The priest and the Levite are examples of the first, the Samaritan of the second. A little heart would have decided the lawyer's question for him. It was his shame to ask it.
The verdict was obvious, but naming the winner cost the lawyer something.
The Lord knew the lawyer would not grasp the meaning of all this. But the simple story itself was enough to have a serious effect on him. The Lord's question was pointed: which of these three was really a neighbour to the man who fell among thieves? There could be no argument about it. But the lawyer did not answer, "the Samaritan," since he hated that name; instead he said, "The one who showed him mercy."
The despised figure in the story is not chosen at random. One writer reads the Samaritan as a picture of Christ Himself, wearing the insult His enemies threw at Him.
Why a Samaritan? It was the name of reproach they had hurled at Him: "Are we not right in saying that you are a Samaritan?" The name was meant to mark out a man who walked outside the set path of the law, a man the law condemned. If the Lord takes that name, we may be sure there is meaning in it. And indeed, how did He come to where we were, except by being "made in the likeness of sinful flesh" and "a curse for us"? And how could His mercy reach us except by His taking a path outside of law? "And when he saw him, he had compassion on him."
If Christ is the Samaritan, the order of the story matters for anyone who wants to copy Him.
Next, he had taken charge of the man, and he would look after him. That is the gospel, and that is neighbourly love. Again I say, the question "Who is my neighbour?" drew the blessed Lord into a picture of Himself. And now, how are we to act the part of the Samaritan? We must begin as debtors to Jesus before we can follow Him in neighbourly love. We must be the waylaid man before we can be the Samaritan.
- Question — the lawyer asks who qualifies as his neighbour; Jesus asks who proved to be one. Love does not need the boundary line the legal mind keeps asking for.
- Mercy — the lawyer cannot bring himself to say the hated word "Samaritan." He answers, "The one who showed him mercy." Mercy, not nationality, marks out the neighbour.
- Reproach — the helper carries the insult flung at Christ Himself. He walked outside the law, and only so could His mercy reach us.
- Received — you must be the waylaid man before you can be the Samaritan. Debt to Jesus comes before imitation of Him.
- Go — the teacher of the law passed by; the doer of the law stopped and cared for the man. The story asks the reader the same question it asked the lawyer.
And he said, He that shewed him mercy. And Jesus said to him, Go, and do *thou* likewise.
The lawyer had asked Jesus to define his neighbour, and now he must answer his own question himself — with an act, not a class of people. Jesus turns that answer into a command, and that raises the real question: is this a rule we can keep, or a mirror that shows us we cannot?
The lawyer replies with a description, not a name. One writer notes what he leaves out.
If the lawyer had answered his own question, he would surely have limited the word neighbour to someone of his own nation. He would have made neighbour mean the same as brother, since the law counted all Israelites as brothers. But neighbour is a wider word, and the Samaritan's act shows it... The teacher of the law passed by. The doer of the law — the Samaritan — served the injured man himself and cared for him fully. Who was that poor man's neighbour? Forced to answer, the lawyer described him in a way typical of himself. But he seems to have avoided naming his nationality: "The one who showed him mercy," were the words.
The question Jesus asks at the end is not the question the lawyer asked at the start. He reverses the direction.
Some read the parable of the good Samaritan and quickly conclude this: the Lord answered the question "Who is my neighbour?" by showing that we should do our duty to our neighbour wherever there is need. But notice something. The man who fell among robbers is not described as a neighbour that the other man acts towards. The Samaritan was neighbour to him... the lawyer only wanted to justify himself. He wanted a clear list of those who had a claim on him, so that he would owe nothing more... Where love is at work, it does not ask "Who?" It delights to act without asking who deserves it.
If an unchanged heart cannot obey this command, why give it? The same writer answers that Jesus fits His words to the person in front of Him.
The Lord then says, "You go, and do likewise." He says it so that the man might know his own deceitful heart. Acting in that way — that is, acting in mercy — was completely foreign to his nature, so that he might learn his need. We find that the Lord always deals with souls according to their state. To a soul that feels its need He would never say, "You go, and do likewise."
Another writer places the lawyer not in the Samaritan's role but in the victim's.
Where all men had failed the Lord goes back to divine love, to the touching story of one who, after priest and Levite had walked past, came to the place of need... if the lawyer, as all others, had failed in this then he, as all others, needed to recognise himself as fallen among thieves and in need of (not "doing something" but) the grace and mercy of the Samaritan.
Commentators differ here. Some read the story as a portrait of Christ Himself, and make that the starting point for obedience.
Again I say, when He was asked, "Who is my neighbour?" the blessed Lord was forced to draw a picture of Himself. So how are we to act the part of the Samaritan? We must first be debtors to Jesus before we can follow Him in love for our neighbour. We must be the man left by the roadside before we can be the Samaritan.
Others hold that this final command rules the reading out.
The point being taught is loving your neighbour as yourself. How could we apply that to the Lord who made atonement for us?... And this settles the matter: the moral of the story is, "You go, and do likewise." No one of us could carry that out if the good Samaritan stood for our Saviour.
The lawyer goes away with a new pattern, taken from the one person he expected nothing good from.
He is no longer to display the law, but grace. He has learned who his neighbour is. That knowledge must not sit in his soul like a dried-up weed that bears no fruit. His life is to take its character from the gracious ways of one from whom he had until now expected nothing good.
This does not set the law aside. It is the one road where the law's demand is met.
What a mercy that through us, in Jesus, there is active goodness here on earth! After all, it is the only thing that ever fulfils the law... The lawyer was walking after the flesh. He saw nothing of grace, and so there was no truth in him.
- Mercy names it. Forced to answer his own question, the lawyer can only point to an act. He names the one who showed mercy, not a class of people with a claim on him.
- Mercy reverses it. The question is no longer who counts as my neighbour, but to whom I will become one; love does not ask who deserves it.
- Mercy exposes. The command targets a self-justifying heart. The man is to discover two things: mercy is foreign to his nature, and he is the one lying wounded.
- Mercy is received first. Commentators differ on whether the Samaritan pictures Christ. Those who see Him there insist we must be the rescued man before we can be the rescuer.
- Mercy is then lived. The doer of grace, not the teacher of law, is the one who fulfils what the law asked.