N.T. and in Sept. = Hebrew 77}. The comparison in the moral sphere is bold,
5. καὶ.
579
µετανοίας. 8. Ἡ τίς γυνὴ “δραχμὰς ἔχουσα δέκα, ἐὰν ἀπολέσῃ d here only δραχμὴν µίαν, οὐχὶ ἅπτει λύχνον, καὶ σαροῖ τὴν οἰκίαν, καὶ ζητεῖ (thrice).
»ἐπιμελῶς, ἕως ὅτου 1 εὕρῃ ;
ϱ. καὶ εὑροῦσα συγκαλεῖται 3 τὰς « here only
in N.T
φίλας καὶ tas® γείτονας, λέγουσα, Συγχάρητέ pot, ὅτι εὗρον τὴν
δραχμὴν ἣν ἀπώλεσα.
10. οὕτω, λέγω ὑμῖν, χαρὰ γίνεται ΄ ἐνώπιον
τῶν ἀγγέλων τοῦ Θεοῦ ἐπι ἑνὶ ἁμαρτωλῷ μετανοοῦντι.”
1 For οτου NBLX al. have ov (W.H.). D has simply ews. 2Soin D. συνκαλει in NBKLXA ai. (Tisch., W.H.).
3 NBL omit this second τας.
but the principle holds true there as in the natural sphere, even if the ninety- nine be truly righteous men needing no repentance. It 1s rational to have peculiar joy over a sinner repenting, therefore God has it, therefore Christ might haveit. This saying is the third great word of Christ’s apology for loving the sinful. For the other two vide on Mt. ix. 9-13 and Lk. vii. 36-50.
Vv. 8-10. The second parable, a pen- dant to the first, spoken possibly to the Capernaum gathering to bring the ex- perience of joy found in things lost home to the poorest present. As spoken to Pharisees it is intended to exemplify the principle by a lost object as insigni- ficant in value as a publican or a sinner was in their esteem. A sheep, though one of a hundred, was a comparatively precious object. A drachma was a piece of money of inconsiderable value, yet of value to a poor woman who owned only ten drachmas in all; its finding therefore a source of keen joy to her.—Ver. 8. ἅπτει λ., lightsalamp. The verb used in this sense in N.T. only in Lk. No windows in the dwellings of the poor: a lamp must be lighted for the search, unless indeed there be one always burn- ing on the stand.—eapot: colloquial and vulgar for σαίρει, vide on Mt. xii. 44.— ζητεῖ ἐπιμελῶς: the emphasis in this parable lies on the seeking—dadre, σαροῖ, ζητεῖ; in the Lost Sheep on the carrying home of the found object of quest.—Ver.'9. συγκαλεῖ: this calling together of friends and neighbours (femi- nine in this case, τὰς @. καὶ τὰς y.) pe- culiarly natural in the case of a woman; hence perhaps the reading of T.R., ovy- καλεῖται, the middle being more subjec- tive. The finding would appeal specially to feminine sympathies, if the lostdrachma was not part of a hoard to meet some debt, but belonged to a string of coins worn as an ornament round the head, then as now, by married women in the
«γινεται χαρα in SBLX 33.
East, as Tristram suggests (Eastern Cus- toms in Bible Lands, p. 76). This view, favoured by Farrar, is ignored by most commentators.—Ver. 10 repeats the moral of ver. 7, but without comparison which, with a smaller number, would only weaken the εΠεοί.- -ἐνώπιον τῶν ἀγγέλων τ.θ.: the angels may be referred to as the neighbours of God, whose joy they witness and share. Wendt (L. F., i., 141) suggests that Luke uses the ex- pression to avoid anthropopathism, and because God has no neighbours.
Vv. 11-32. The third parable, rather an example than a parable illustrating by an imaginary case the joy of recovering a lost human being. In this case care is taken to describe what loss means in the sphere of human life. The interest in the lost now appropriately takes the form of eager longing and patient waiting for the return of the erring one, that there may be room for describing the repent- ance referred to in vv. 7 and το, which is the motive for the return. Also in the moral sphere the subject of the finding cannot be purely passive: there must be self-recovery to give ethical value to the event. A sinning man cannot be brought back to God like a straying sheep to the fold. Hence the beautiful picture of the sin, the misery, the penitent reflections, and the return of the prodigal peculiar to this parable. It is not mere scene-paint- ing. It is meant to show how vastly higher is the significance of the terms “lost” and “found” in the human sphere, justifying increased interest in the find- ing, and so showing the utter unreason- ableness of the fault-finding directed against Jesus for His efforts to win to goodness the publicans and sinners, Je sus thereby said in effect: You blame in me a joy which is universal, that of finding the lost, and which ought to be greater in the case of human beings just because it is a man that is found and not a beast. Does not the story as I tell it