The Lord therefore answered him and said, Hypocrites! does not each one of you on the sabbath loose his ox or his ass from the manger and leading [it] away, water [it]?
A synagogue ruler had just found fault with Christ for healing a woman on the sabbath. The Lord answers by giving that objection its true name. Then He points to what these same men do for their own animals every sabbath.
The Lord does not answer the ruler alone. One writer notes that the better reading is plural. The argument then weighs what these men allow an animal against what they refuse a woman.
"You hypocrites" — that is how we should read it. The Lord addressed a whole class, not only that ruler, who was just the mouthpiece of others. How absurd to plead the holiness of the day against setting a human being free from Satan's power! In their own eyes that holiness was not broken when they cared for the needs of their animals. Was it wrong to care for the animals? Not at all. Then it certainly could not be wrong to set the woman free. Where their own daily interests were at stake, their practice showed that the ruler's objection was hollow and his indignation had no ground.
Another writer explains the ruler's silent supporters as sharers in the same half-heartedness:
"The Lord therefore answered him and said, You hypocrites!" — for he had not a few who shared his half-hearted unbelief.
Their everyday care for their animals showed what they thought a person was worth.
It was, in fact, only loud-voiced hypocrisy. They had no problem leading their animals away to water. They valued a person at less than an animal.
The same word "loose" covers both the animal and the woman. What stirred the ruler was not the bondage but the release from it.
As far as the ruler of the synagogue cared, that poor woman might have gone on to the end of her days, bent over and unable to straighten up. He would have been quite content to let her stay a sad witness to Satan's power, as long as he could keep his sabbath. What stirred his religious anger was not Satan's power, seen in the woman's condition. It was Christ's power, seen in her complete deliverance.
That indignation says something about the man himself:
The ruler of the synagogue should have acknowledged God and blessed Him for the goodness and power He had shown. Instead he was "indignant." He hated the grace he could not deny. So he proved himself to be under a deeper slavery to Satan than the woman who had been set free.
One writer traces the ruler's blindness to a habit of mind that Paul also once shared.
One weakness of the human mind is to use the truth it already holds to resist the truth God is now revealing. Paul was an example of this — "as to righteousness under the law, blameless"; yet he thought he "ought to do many things in opposing the name of Jesus of Nazareth"... People use their orthodoxy to shut truth out. When truth is the ground of a man's standing, it gains him credit; but when a new truth comes in, it puts faith to the test... But he ought to have known that the Lord of the sabbath was there; for that one phrase "daughter of Abraham" should have told him who was standing there.
The absurdity, as one writer puts it, is a creature legislating for his Maker about his Maker's own day.
If he had stopped to think for a moment, he would have seen the folly and wickedness of his pretended pious anger. He would have seen that he was fighting against God. But religious passion never stops to think. It stands wholly apart from true faith, so present interests usually rule it... Vain and wicked man, that dared to lay down the law to God! He was far from keeping the law himself, yet ventured to give law to Him who was not more truly man than God. God is not to work on His own Sabbath day!
The healing sits in a chapter about coming judgment.
But the Lord afterwards lets us see that grace could act in the middle of such a state. In healing the woman bent over by a spirit of weakness, He displays the goodness of God even in a day when judgment was at the doors. And He rebuked the hypocritical wickedness of a heart that found fault with His goodness because it was the sabbath day.
- Untie — the ruler unties his ox on the sabbath and leads it to water. The Lord turns that habit against him.
- Hypocrites — the plural shows the Lord addressed a whole class. The ruler spoke for others who thought as he did.
- Cheap — men who watered an animal without hesitation valued a person at less than that animal.
- Exposed — Satan's long grip on the woman did not anger him; Christ's power breaking it did. That left him in a deeper bondage than she was.
- Grace — judgment stood at the doors, yet God's goodness was still at work. The objection to it only exposed the objector.
And this [woman], who is a daughter of Abraham, whom Satan has bound, lo, [these] eighteen years, ought she not to be loosed from this bond on the sabbath day?
Jesus has just healed a woman bent double for eighteen years. The ruler of the synagogue is angry that He did it on the Sabbath. Jesus does not argue about the law. He names who the woman is, who had been holding her, and what should happen next.
The Lord could have called her a sufferer or a cripple. He chose a title that placed her inside the family of promise. Commentators read it as a mark of faith, not bloodline alone.
The Lord spoke of the woman as a daughter of Abraham. This means more than a natural relationship. It means the relationship of true faith (Gal. 3:7). She had been in bondage to Satan for eighteen years. Should the Sabbath day keep her there? The Lord knew how to express matters in such a way as to show up the cruelty of mere religious prejudice.
One commentator finds meaning in both the number of years and her bent posture.
The woman had suffered in her deformity eighteen years. If Scripture numbers carry meaning, as we believe, then eighteen is three times six. It suggests the full display of evil. Compare Revelation 13:18. She becomes the type of the worst of sinners. She "was bent over and could not fully straighten herself" — a vivid picture of every person's spiritual condition through sin. A sinner cannot look up into the face of God, and has no strength to fix his own sad plight.
Sitting in a religious setting is not the same as being free.
We today move in a circle of religious profession. That in itself does not mean we have been set free. The woman in Luke 13 had been bound for eighteen years in full view of the synagogue. No one realised that it was Satan's work. Then the Lord Jesus set her free — the One who appeared to undo the works of the devil.
He frees her, and He deals with the one who tied her.
She did not ask, and no one asked for her. He spoke to her with words of wonder-working compassion: "Woman, you are freed from your disability." That was already enough. Yet He went further: "He laid his hands on her, and immediately she was made straight, and she glorified God." He had defeated the strong one. He would take from him all the armour he trusted in, and would divide his spoils. The Lord was entitled to proclaim release to the captives, and to set at liberty those who were bound.
The comparison shows how these men ranked a suffering woman against their animals.
What! the Lord says. Does keeping God's rest unbroken mean leaving a daughter of Abraham in bondage to Satan? Notice the emphasis He puts on this, that she is a daughter of Abraham. How unfitting to keep someone who inherits Abraham's faith bowed over! In fact it was nothing but loud-voiced hypocrisy. They had no difficulty in leading their animals away to water. They simply valued a human being at less than a beast.
Behind the question lies a view of God that will not sit still while people suffer.
How can God rest where sin is? where misery is? He cannot have His rest in a world like this. Christ had come to work... God did not cut off the sinners or leave them in their misery. He made Himself a workman in His grace, and the whole thing changed. The law required man to work... But in the gospel, it is God who works.
The ruler's outrage revealed exactly where his interest lay.
Nothing in all this world is so blinding to the mind and so hardening to the heart as religion without Christ. Nothing so deadens the conscience or so damages the whole person... The ruler of the synagogue did not care. That poor woman might have gone on to the end of her days, bent over and unable to lift herself up. He would have been quite content to let her go on as a sad witness to the power of Satan, provided he could keep his Sabbath. What stirred his religious indignation? Not the power of Satan seen in the woman's condition, but the power of Christ seen in her complete deliverance.
- Bound. The eighteen years were not bad luck. Jesus names Satan as the one who tied her, and no one in that synagogue had seen it.
- Belonging. "Daughter of Abraham" marks her out as a child of faith. That is why leaving her bent over was unfitting.
- Loosed. Christ unties her bond. He defeats the strong one, takes his armour, and divides his spoils.
- Ought. They led their animals to water on the Sabbath but left a woman bound. They valued a human being below a beast.
- Works. God has no rest in a world of misery. So the Sabbath was never a reason to make her wait — in the gospel, it is God who works.