Luke 20:1-8

2. The Question of the Sanhedrim: Luke 20:1-8.

Vers. 1-8. This account is separated from the preceding, in Mark and Matthew, by the brief mention of two events: in Mark 11:16, the prohibition of Jesus to carry vessels across the temple, the court was probably used as a thoroughfare (Bleek); in Matthew 21:14 et seq., the cures wrought in the temple, and the hosannas of the children. The authority which Jesus thus assumed in this sacred place was well suited to occasion the step taken by the Sanhedrim. If we follow Mark, it must have taken place on the day after the purification of the temple and the cursing of the barren fig-tree, and consequently on the Tuesday or Wednesday morning. Luke omits those events, which were unknown to him, as well as the cursing of the barren fig-tree, which related specially to Israel.

Since the evening before, the members of the Sanhedrim had been in consultation (ζητεῖν of Luke 19:47); and their seeking had not been in vain. They had succeeded in inventing a series of questions fitted to entangle Jesus, or in the end to extract from Him an answer which would compromise Him either with the people or with the Jewish or Gentile authorities. The question of Luke 20:2 is the first result of those conclaves. Luke 20:1 enumerates the three classes of members composing the Sanhedrim; it was therefore a formal deputation, comp. John 1:19 et seq. The elders are mentioned here also (comp. Luke 19:47) as secondary personages, beside the high priests and scribes. The first part of the question relates to the nature of Jesus' commission: is it divine or human? The second, to the intermediate agent through whom He has received it. The Sanhedrim made sure that Jesus would claim a divine commission, and hoped to take advantage of this declaration to bring Jesus to its bar, and to sit in judgment on the question. On the one hand, Jesus avoids this snare; on the other, He avoids declining the universally recognised competency of the Sanhedrim. He replies in such a way as to force His adversaries themselves to declare their incompetence.

The question which He lays before them is not a skilful manoeuvre; it is dictated by the very nature of the situation. Was it not through the instrumentality of John the Baptist that Jesus had been divinely accredited to the people? The acknowledgment, therefore, of Jesus' authority really depended on the acknowledgment of John's. The second alternative, of men, includes the two possible cases, of himself, or of some other human authority.

The embarrassment of His adversaries is expressed by the three Syn. in ways so different, that it is impossible to derive the three forms from one and the same written source. This question has sufficed to disconcert them. They, the wise, the skilled, who affect to judge of everything in the theocracy, they shamefully decline a judgment in face of an event of such capital importance as was the appearing of John! There is a blending of indignation and contempt in the neither do I of Jesus (Luke 20:8). But that answer which He refuses them, they who have refused Him theirs, He goes on to give immediately after in the following parable. Only it is to the whole people that He will address it (πρὸς τὸν λαόν, Luke 20:9), as a solemn protestation against the hypocritical conduct of their chiefs.

Why did Luke omit the cursing of the barren fig-tree? He was well aware, answers Volkmar, that it was simply an idea represented by Mark in the form of a fact; and he restored to it its true character by presenting it, Luke 13:6-9, in the form of a parable. So the description of God's patience toward Israel, the barren fig-tree (Luke 13:6-9), is one and the same lesson with the cursing of that same figtree! Why does Matthew make the cursing of the fig-tree, and the conversation of Jesus with His disciples on that occasion, fall at the same period and on the same day, two facts which are separated in Mark by a whole day? Holtzmann answers: On reading (Mark 11:12) the first half of this account, Matthew determined to leave it out. But on coming to the second half (Mark 5:20), he took the resolution to insert it; only he combined them in one. So, when the evangelist was composing his narrative, he read for the first time the document containing the history which he was relating! In view of such admirable discoveries, is there not reason to say: Risum teneatis?