Luke 21:1-4

8. The Widow's Alms: Luke 21:1-4.

Vers. 1-4. This piece is wanting in Matthew. Why would he have rejected it, if, according to Holtzmann's view, he had before him the document from which the other two have taken it? According to Mark (Mark 12:41-44), Jesus, probably worn out with the preceding scene, sat down. In the court of the women there were placed, according to the Talmud (tr. Schekalim, 6.1, 5, 13), thirteen coffers with horn-shaped orifices; whence their name שׁוֹפָרוֹת. They were called γαζοφυλάκια, treasuries. This name in the sing. designated the locality as a whole where those coffers stood (John 8:20; Josephus, Antiq. 19.6. 1). This is perhaps the meaning in which the word is used in Mark (Mark 12:41): over against the treasury; in Luke it is applied to the coffers themselves. Λεπτόν, mite: the smallest coin, probably the eighth part of the as, which was worth from six to eight centimes (from a halfpenny to three-farthings). Two λεπτά, therefore, correspond nearly to two centime pieces. Bengel finely remarks on the two: “ one of which she might have retained. ” Mark translates this expression into Roman money: “ which make a farthing,” a slight detail unknown to Luke, and fitted to throw light on the question where the second Gospel was composed.

In the sayings which Jesus addresses to His disciples, His object is to lead their minds to the true appreciation of human actions according to their quality, in opposition to the quantitative appreciation which forms the essence of pharisaism. Such is the meaning of the word: she hath cast in more; in reality, with those two mites, she had cast in her heart. The proof (γάρ, Luke 21:4) is given in what follows: she hath cast in of her penury all that she had. ῾Υστέρημα, deficiency, denotes what the woman had as insufficient for her maintenance. “And of that too little, of that possession which in itself is already a deficiency, she has kept nothing.” The word ὑστέρησις in Mark denotes not what the woman had as insufficient (ὑστέρημα), but her entire condition, as a state of continued penury. What a contrast to the avarice for which the scribes and Pharisees are upbraided in the preceding piece! This incident, witnessed by Jesus at such a time, resembles a flower which He comes upon all at once in the desert of official devotion, the sight and perfume of which make Him leap with joy. Such an example is the justification of the beatitudes, Luke 6, as the preceding discourse justifies the οὐαί, woes, in the same passage.