ἀκούσας δέ τις τῶν συνανακειμένων ταῦτα. He may have wanted to diminish the force of the rebukes implied in the previous lessons by a vapid general remark. At any rate, he seems to have assumed that he would be one of those who would sit at the heavenly feast which should inaugurate the new aeon, and from which, like all Jews, he held it to be almost inconceivable that any circumcised son of Abraham should be excluded. Hence the warning involved in this parable which was meant to prove how small was the real anxiety to accept the divine invitation.

φάγεται ἄρτον ἐν τῇ βασιλείᾳ τοῦ θεοῦ. Almost the same words occur in Revelation 19:9. The Jews connected the advent of the Messianic Kingdom with banquets of food more delicious than manna—the flesh of Leviathan, and the bird Bar Juchne.

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Old Testament