Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers - Luke 14:31
(31) What king, going to make war against another king . .?—Here also there may have been a side-glance at contemporary history. The Tetrarch’s divorce of his first wife had involved him in a war with her father Aretas, an Arabian king or ethnarch (see Note on Luke 3:14), in which his army was destroyed, and the Jewish historian sees in this the commencement of all his subsequent misfortunes (Jos. Ant. v., 18:5, § 1).In the spiritual interpretation of the two parables, the tower reminds us of... read more
John Dummelow's Commentary on the Bible - Luke 14:1-35
The Dropsical Man. The Great Supper. Divers Sayings and Parables1-6. The sabbath question again. The man with the dropsy healed (peculiar to Lk).1. To eat bread] So far from being abstemious on the sabbath, the Jews carried the pleasures of the table to excess. ’The Hebrews honour the sabbath chiefly by inviting each other to drinking and intoxication’ (Plutarch). ’Rabbah Abba bought flesh of thirteen butchers that he might be sure to taste the best, and paid them at the very gate, that he... read more