Luke 11:14-16

1 st. Luke 11:14-16. ῏Ην ἐκβάλλων, He was occupied in casting out. The word κωφός, dull, may mean deaf or dumb; according to the end of the verse, it here denotes dumbness. On the expression dumb devil, see vol. i. p. 434. Bleek justly concludes from this term, that the dumbness was of a psychical, not an organic nature.

The construction ἐγένετο... ἐλάλησεν betrays an Aramaic source. The accusation, Luke 11:15, is twice mentioned by Matthew: Matthew 9:32, on the occasion of a deaf man possessed, but without Jesus replying to it; then Matthew 12:22, which is the parallel passage to ours; here the possessed man is dumb and blind. Should not those two miracles be regarded as only one and the same fact, the account of which was taken first (Matthew 9) from the Logia, second (Matthew 12) from the proto-Mark, as Holtzmann appears to think, therein following his system to its natural consequences? But in that case we should have the result, that the Logia, the collection of discourses, contained the fact without the discourse, and that the proto-Mark, the strictly historical writing, contained the discourse without the fact, a strange anomaly, it must be confessed! In Mark 3 this accusation is connected with the step of the brethren of Jesus who come to lay hold of Him, because they have heard say that He is beside Himself, that He is mad (Luke 3:21, ὅτι ἐξέστη). This expression is nearly synonymous with that of possessed (John 10:20). According to this accusation, it was thus as one Himself possessed by the prince of the devils that Jesus had the power of expelling inferior devils. From this point of view, the ἐν, through, before the name Beelzebub, has a more forcible sense than appears at the first glance. It signifies not only by the authority of, but by Beelzebub himself dwelling personally in Jesus.

This name given to Satan appears in all the documents of Luke, and in almost all those of Matthew, with the termination bul; and this is certainly the true reading. It is probable, however, that the name is derived from the Heb. Baal-Zebub, God of Flies, a divinity who, according to 2 Kings 1 et seq., was worshipped at Ekron, a city of the Philistines, and who may be compared with the Ζεῦς ᾿Απομυῖος of the Greeks. The invocation of this god was doubtless intended to preserve the country from the scourge of flies. In contempt, the Jews applied this name to Satan, while modifying its last syllable so as to make it signify God of Dung (Baal-Zebul). Such is the explanation given by Lightfoot, Wetstein, Bleek, etc.

Those who raise this accusation are, in Luke, some of the numerous persons present; in Matthew (Matthew 9:34; Matthew 12:24), the Pharisees; in Mark (Mark 3:22), scribes which came down from Jerusalem. This last indication by Mark would harmonize with the synchronism which we have established in regard to this accusation between Luke and John.

The demand for a sign from heaven (Luke 11:16) is mentioned twice in Matthew 12:38; Matthew 16:1. It is not impossible that it may have been repeated again and again (comp. John 6:30). It corresponded with the ruling tendency of the Israelitish mind, the seeking for miracles, the σημεῖα αἰτεἶν (1 Corinthians 1:22). We have already explained its bearing in the present case. In John it signifies more particularly, “Show thyself superior to Moses.” In those different forms it was ever the repetition of the third temptation (πειράζοντες, tempting Him). How, indeed, could Jesus avoid being tempted to accept this challenge, and so to confound by an act of signal power the treacherous accusation which He found raised against Him!