Verse 25
25. A certain lawyer The law embraced in this man’s profession consisted of two parts, the oral and the written. The written was contained in the Pentateuch of Moses; the oral was professedly derived by unwritten tradition from the seventy elders appointed by Moses to aid in the government of Israel. Numbers 11:16. Both these formed a mass of rules and regulations, civil, moral, and religious, boundless in extent, complicated in character, exercising a controlling influence over the whole of Jewish life, and forming a subject for an infinite variety of subtle distinctions, disputes, and questionings. The distinction between lawyer and scribe is not very clearly drawn. In fact the same person receives from different evangelists each of these titles. Matthew 22:35; Mark 12:28. The title of the scribe would seem to indicate a more special relation to the text of the law and its transcription; that of lawyer more to the study of its principles.
Stood up Rose to indicate his purpose of a discussion.
Tempted him That is, proposed to try his depth of intellect and knowledge of the law. There was no malicious purpose in the case. It was simply a challenge to a keen encounter of wits and professional knowledge. Among the Jews there was the disciple and the doctor; the former was one able to answer questions which he bad specially read up; the latter was ready to answer questions on any part of the law. Similarly the Sophists among the Greeks would take a seat in public, and offer to discourse on any topic that any one would please to propose.
What shall I do? Though the lawyer proposes this question in the first person singular, he means it rather for a theoretical than a practical question. He is no convicted sinner asking the way to eternal life.
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