(12) Woman, thou art loosed from thine infirmity.—Better, thou hast been loosed . . . The words were obviously a test of the woman’s faith. Would she, on hearing the words, make the effort to do what she had not done for eighteen years? The verb, it may be noted, is in the perfect. The work of healing was already completed. read more
(13) And he laid his hands on her.—The bodily act was, as in the analogous cases of the blind and dumb (see Note on Matthew 9:29), a help to the faith which was necessary, on the woman’s part, that she might receive the full benefit of the divine act of power. When this was done, she poured forth her joy (as the tense of the verb implies) in a continuous strain of praise. read more
Luke 13:2-3 Think ye that they were sinners above all men that dwelt in Jerusalem? I tell you, nay: but except ye repent, ye shall all likewise perish. In one day the nay will command a ready assent: but the warning added, and the character with which it stamps such events as foreshadowings of judgment, will not readily be entered into. M'Leod Campbell. The Call to Repentance (For Lent) Luke 13:3 I. The Voice of the Love of God. Let us make quite sure that the call which comes to us now is... read more
CHAPTER 13 1. The Necessity of Repentance. (Luke 13:1-5 .) 2. The Barren Fig Tree. (Luke 13:6-9 ) 3. The Healing of a Daughter of Abraham. (Luke 13:10-17 ) 4. Parable of the Mustard Seed. (Luke 13:18-19 ) 5. Parable of the Leaven. (Luke 13:20-21 ) 6. Solemn Teachings. (Luke 13:22-30 ) 7. The Answer to Herod. (Luke 13:31-33 ) 8. Lament over Jerusalem. (Luke 13:34-35 .) Luke 13:1-9 Luke alone gives the parable of the fig tree as well as the historical incidents preceding the parable.... read more
13:10 {3} And he was teaching in one of the synagogues on the sabbath.(3) Christ came to deliver us from the hand of Satan. read more
13:11 And, behold, there was a woman which had a {d} spirit of infirmity eighteen years, and was bowed together, and could in no wise lift up [herself].(d) Troubled with a disease which Satan caused. read more
13:12 And when Jesus saw her, he called [her to him], and said unto her, Woman, thou art {e} loosed from thine infirmity.(e) For Satan had the woman bound, as if she had been in chains, to the extent that for eighteen years time she could not hold up her head. read more
REPENT OR PERISH (vs.1-9) This chapter shows that righteousness by itself provides no hope for man, but presses upon us the solemn lesson of repentance. Thus it prepares the way for chapters 14 and 15, for chapter 14 shows man's character in contrast to that of God, yet God remaining a God of grace; while in chapter 15 the heart of God is revealed to man in his lost state, God rejoicing in bringing him back by sovereign grace. The Jews told the Lord of the Galileans who had evidently been... read more
JUDGMENT AND PENALTY There is such a close connection between the opening of this chapter and the close of the preceding, that it were better not to have separated them. Jesus had been speaking of judgment and penalty, and now came those to him who put a case or two which seem to illustrate what he said (Luke 13:1-15 ). But they are mistaken, as He teaches them. “Those events had a voice for the living, and concerned not only the dead.” The parable of the barren fig tree is intended to... read more
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Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers - Luke 13:11
(11) Behold, there was a woman. . . .—The description indicates the accuracy of the trained observer. The duration of the affliction (as in Acts 9:33), the symptoms of permanent curvature of the spine, the very form of the two participles, bent together. . . . unable to unbend, are all characteristic. The phrase a “spirit of infirmity,” i.e., an evil spirit producing bodily infirmity, implies a diagnosis that the seat of the powerlessness, as in some forms of catalepsy and aphasia, was in the... read more