The lowest. Since the other, intervening places are all assigned.
10. Sit down (avarece). Lit., lay yourself back. 11. Humbled. See on lowly, Matt. vii. 29.
12. Dinner—supper. Sceeon Matt. xxii.4. Supper (Setmvor) is the principal meal at evening, and corresponding to the modern late dinner.
Call not thy friends, etc. A striking parallel occurs in Plato’s “ Phaedrus,” 2338. ‘And, in general, when you make a feast, invite not your friend, but the beggar and the empty soul, for they will love you, and attend you, and come about your doors, and will be the best pleased, and the most grateful, and will invoke blessings on your head.”
13. Feast (Soyjv). Or reception. Used by Luke only. See on ch. v. 29.
15. Blessed. See on Matt. v. 3.
16. Made (ézroée). Imperfect, was making. His prepara- tions were in progress. A definite act among these preparations is described by the aorist, he bade (éxddecer), the technical word for inviting toa festival. See Matt. xxii. 3; John ii. 2.
380 WORD STUDIES IN THE NEW TESTAMENT. [Cu. XIV.
Sent hisservant. “If a sheikh, bey, or emeer invites, he always sends a servant to call you at the proper time. - This servant often repeats the very formula mentioned in Luke xiv. 17: Come, for the supper is ready. The fact that this custom is confined to the wealthy and to the nobility is in strict agree- ment with the parable, where the man who made the supper is supposed to be of this class. It is true now, as then, that to re- fuse is a high insult to the maker of the feast (Thomson, ‘ Land and Book”). Palgrave mentions a similar formula of invitation among the Bedouins of Arabia. ‘The chief, or some un- breeched youngster of his family, comes up to us with the cus- tomary tefaddaloo, or do us the favor” (Central and Eastern Arabia ”).
18. Make excuse (zrapauteicdat). Also rendered in New Testament refuse, Heb. xii. 19, 25, where both meanings occur. See also 2 Tim. ii. 23, Rev. Our phrase, beg off, expresses the idea here.
I must needs (éyw avayxnv). Lit., LT have necessity: a strong expression.
Go (éfedJeiv). Go out (é&) from the city.
20. | cannot. A newly married man had special indulgence allowed him. See Deut. xxiv. 5. Herodotus relates how Croe- sus refused for his son an invitation to a hunt on this ground. ‘‘ But Croesus answered, ‘Say no more of my son going with you; that may not be in anywise. He is but just joined in wedlock, and is busy enough with that’” (i., 36). The man who had the most plausible excuse returned the surliest and most peremptory answer. Compare 1 Cor. vii. 33.
21. Streets (wAare/as)—lanes (fvuas). The former word from maAartvs, broad; the broad streets contrasted with the narrow lanes. Wyce., great streets and small streets.
22. As thou hast commanded. Following the reading as, as. ‘The best texts substitute 6, what. Render as Rev., “ What thou didst command is done.”
Cu. XIV.) LUKE. 381
23. Hedges (dpayyovs). See on Matt. xxi. 33. It may mean either a hedge, or a place enclosed with a hedge. Here the hedges beside which vagrants rest.
Compel. Compare constrained, Matt. xiv. 22; Acts xxvi. 11; Gal. vi. 12. Not touse force, but to constrain them against the reluctance which such poor creatures would feel at accept- ing the invitation of a great lord.
May be filled (yeusod9). A very strong word; properly of loading a ship. ‘‘ Nature and grace alike abhor a vacuum” (Bengel).
27. His cross. More correctly, his own. An important charge. All must bear the cross, but not all the same cross: each one his own.
28. A tower. The subject of the parable is the life of . Christian discipleship, which is figured by a tower, a lofty structure, as something distinguished from the world and at- tracting attention.