Luke Chapter 14

(Luke 14:1 NASB)  And it came about when He went into the house of one of the leaders of the Pharisees on the Sabbath to eat bread, that they were watching Him closely.

Luke 14:1:      This particular Sabbath Yeshua is invited to the house of one of the leaders of the Pharisees to eat.  Notice that they were watching Him closely. They are setting Him up.  They are wanting to confirm what they had heard from others.

 

(Luke 14:2 NASB)  And there, in front of Him was a certain man suffering from dropsy.
(Luke 14:3 NASB)  And Jesus answered and spoke to the lawyers and Pharisees, saying, “Is it lawful to heal on the Sabbath, or not?”
(Luke 14:4 NASB)  But they kept silent. And He took hold of him, and healed him, and sent him away.

Luke 14:4:      “Dropsy” is the retention by the body of excessive water. It is a medical term that appears only here in Scripture.  Keep in mind that Luke himself is a physician.
Yeshua knows this is a setup.  I wonder how many very ill men the leaders of the Pharisees invited to their houses to eat with them on the Sabbath?  Just this one and just this once.  Yeshua asks them if it is lawful to heal on the Sabbath.  They do not answer.

 

(Luke 14:5 NASB)  And He said to them, “Which one of you shall have a son or an ox fall into a well, and will not immediately pull him out on a Sabbath day?”
(Luke 14:6 NASB)  And they could make no reply to this.

Luke 14:6:      Yeshua asks them if a situation arises that a son or an ox falls into a ditch, who would not help him out on the Sabbath Day?  Torah says we are to assist animals in time of distress (Ex. 23:4-5).  That is a command from Elohim.  Can such situations wait until sundown?  Of course not.  Nor should a person be kept suffering just because it is the Sabbath Day.
Once again, the response consists of birds chirping…

 

(Luke 14:7 NASB)  And He began speaking a parable to the invited guests when He noticed how they had been picking out the places of honor at the table; saying to them,
(Luke 14:8 NASB)  “When you are invited by someone to a wedding feast, do not take the place of honor, lest someone more distinguished than you may have been invited by him,
(Luke 14:9 NASB)  and he who invited you both shall come and say to you, ‘Give place to this man,’ and then in disgrace you proceed to occupy the last place.
(Luke 14:10 NASB)  “But when you are invited, go and recline at the last place, so that when the one who has invited you comes, he may say to you, ‘Friend, move up higher’; then you will have honor in the sight of all who are at the table with you.

Luke 14:10:      This is a principle that is precisely taught in the Tanakh (Prov. 25:6-7).

 

(Luke 14:11 NASB)  “For everyone who exalts himself shall be humbled, and he who humbles himself shall be exalted.”

Luke 14:11:      Once again, Yeshua is teaching the Word of His Father (Prov. 15:33, 18:12, 29:23).

 

(Luke 14:12 NASB)  And He also went on to say to the one who had invited Him, “When you give a luncheon or a dinner, do not invite your friends or your brothers or your relatives or rich neighbors, lest they also invite you in return, and repayment come to you.

Luke 14:12:      Yeshua is warning against doing things only for those who always return the favor.  We are, in effect, only doing those things for ourselves (Zech. 7:5-7).

 

(Luke 14:13 NASB)  “But when you give a reception, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, the blind,
(Luke 14:14 NASB)  and you will be blessed, since they do not have the means to repay you; for you will be repaid at the resurrection of the righteous.”

Luke 14:14:      When we do things for our good friends and loved ones, these favors are returned and we are essentially doing those things for ourselves.  Yeshua says to invite those who cannot repay us and we will be repaid at the resurrection of the righteous because doing those things is righteousness (Prov. 19:17, 28:27, Dan. 12:2-3).

 

(Luke 14:15 NASB)  And when one of those who were reclining at the table with Him heard this, he said to Him, “Blessed is everyone who shall eat bread in the kingdom of God!”

Luke 14:15:      It appears that this man wants to change the subject to the Kingdom.  He has heard that Yeshua speaks of the Kingdom and that is it at hand.

 

(Luke 14:16 NASB)  But He said to him, “A certain man was giving a big dinner, and he invited many;
(Luke 14:17 NASB)  and at the dinner hour he sent his slave to say to those who had been invited, ‘Come; for everything is ready now.’
(Luke 14:18 NASB)  “But they all alike began to make excuses. The first one said to him, ‘I have bought a piece of land and I need to go out and look at it; please consider me excused.’

Luke 14:18:      The “certain man” in parables is a reference to Yeshua or to Elohim.  In keeping with the subject brought up by the dinner guest, the big dinner spoken of can be none other than the marriage supper of the Lamb (Rev. 19:9, Isa. 25:5-9, Jer. 31:12-14).
The excuses given here are ridiculous and inexcusable. This man said he bought some land and needs to go look at it.  Who buys land without looking at it first??

 

(Luke 14:19 NASB)  “And another one said, ‘I have bought five yoke of oxen, and I am going to try them out; please consider me excused.’
(Luke 14:20 NASB)  “And another one said, ‘I have married a wife, and for that reason I cannot come.’

Luke 14:20:      These are very poor reasons.  Who buys oxen without trying them out first?  As for the married man, why wouldn’t he simply take his wife with him?  He did not even ask if he could bring her.  Obviously the men here were not interested in coming to the lavish dinner.
(Luke 14:21 NASB)  “And the slave came back and reported this to his master. Then the head of the household became angry and said to his slave, ‘Go out at once into the streets and lanes of the city and bring in here the poor and crippled and blind and lame.’

Luke 14:21:      Once again, this parable is not without precedence in Scripture (Prov. 1:20-25, 8:2-4, 9:1-6).  The certain man who made the lavish dinner said to call the poor, blind and the crippled (1 Sam. 2:7-8).

 

(Luke 14:22 NASB)  “And the slave said, ‘Master, what you commanded has been done, and still there is room.’
(Luke 14:23 NASB)  “And the master said to the slave, ‘Go out into the highways and along the hedges, and compel them to come in, that my house may be filled.

Luke 14:23:      The man says to go out to the rest of the world to find people to fill His house (Psalm 98:1-3, Isa. 49:5-6).

 

(Luke 14:24 NASB)  ‘For I tell you, none of those men who were invited shall taste of my dinner.'”

Luke 14:24:      Why will those who were first invited not taste of the dinner? (Prov. 1:24-32)

 

(Luke 14:25 NASB)  Now great multitudes were going along with Him; and He turned and said to them,
(Luke 14:26 NASB)  “If anyone comes to Me, and does not hate his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, yes, and even his own life, he cannot be My disciple.

Luke 14:26:      This is not a call to hate everyone including ourselves.  This is stated as a point of reference and this is stated as such in Matthew (Matt. 10:34-37).  This is actually a quote from Micah (Micah 7:5-7).
We are to love Yahweh our Elohim more than our family and ourselves.  This is a principle defined in Torah (Deut. 13:6-9, 33:8-10).

 

(Luke 14:27 NASB)  “Whoever does not carry his own cross and come after Me cannot be My disciple.

Luke 14:27:      In keeping with the context of the passage, Yeshua is saying that we should love Yeshua and His ways (“and come after me..”) by following Torah if we are to be a disciple of His.
The Greek word for “cross” is stauros.  It means a “stake,” not a cross.  The concordance mentions that it only means “cross” by implication, but it means “stake.  G4716. stauros,  from the same root as G2476; an upright stake, hence a cross (the Rom. instrument of crucifixion):– cross(27).
The Hebrew word for “post” is Mezuzah.

 

(Luke 14:28 NASB)  “For which one of you, when he wants to build a tower, does not first sit down and calculate the cost, to see if he has enough to complete it?
(Luke 14:29 NASB)  “Otherwise, when he has laid a foundation, and is not able to finish, all who observe it begin to ridicule him,
(Luke 14:30 NASB)  saying, ‘This man began to build and was not able to finish.’

Luke 14:30:      Yeshua is telling us to weigh the cost of following Him.  We are foolish if we start something without first calculating the cost.

 

 

(Luke 14:31 NASB)  “Or what king, when he sets out to meet another king in battle, will not first sit down and take counsel whether he is strong enough with ten thousand men to encounter the one coming against him with twenty thousand?
(Luke 14:32 NASB)  “Or else, while the other is still far away, he sends a delegation and asks terms of peace.

Luke 14:32:      Yeshua is saying that we should not even attempt to follow Him if the things in this world, our families, and even our lives mean more to us than Him and His ways.  We should not even try to follow Him if we are not willing or able to walk in His paths.

 

(Luke 14:33 NASB)  “So therefore, no one of you can be My disciple who does not give up all his own possessions.

Luke 14:33:      This is what His disciples did (Luke 5:11, 28).

 

(Luke 14:34 NASB)  “Therefore, salt is good; but if even salt has become tasteless, with what will it be seasoned?
(Luke 14:35 NASB)  “It is useless either for the soil or for the manure pile; it is thrown out. He who has ears to hear, let him hear.”

Luke 14:35:      Salt without its saltiness is just there.  It is worthless.  Let’s see what Yeshua was referring to with “salt” by looking in Torah.
Salt is to be used on the grain offering (Lev. 2:13).  Salt is a preservative and is the opposite of leaven.  Leaven is a bacteria which corrupts and infects the bread.  Salt is a preservative that prevents corruption.  We are told to in this passage in Luke to be salt and to keep our saltiness.  We are to be the salt of the earth by keeping and preserving His Word that was given to us in His Torah.  “Salt” is a reference to preserving His covenant and His Torah (Num. 18:19).