On a Sabbath, while he was going through the grainfields, his disciples plucked and ate some heads of grain, rubbing them in their hands. 2 But some of the Pharisees said, “Why are you doing what is not lawful to do on the Sabbath?” 3 And Jesus answered them, “Have you not read what David did when he was hungry, he and those who were with him: 4 how he entered the house of God and took and ate the bread of the Presence, which is not lawful for any but the priests to eat, and also gave it to those with him?” 5 And he said to them, “The Son of Man is lord of the Sabbath.”
A Man with a Withered Hand
6 On another Sabbath, he entered the synagogue and was teaching, and a man was there whose right hand was withered. 7 And the scribes and the Pharisees watched him, to see whether he would heal on the Sabbath, so that they might find a reason to accuse him. 8 But he knew their thoughts, and he said to the man with the withered hand, “Come and stand here.” And he rose and stood there. 9 And Jesus said to them, “I ask you, is it lawful on the Sabbath to do good or to do harm, to save life or to destroy it?” 10 And after looking around at them all he said to him, “Stretch out your hand.” And he did so, and his hand was restored. 11 But they were filled with fury and discussed with one another what they might do to Jesus. Luke 6: 1-11 ESV
Luke 6: 1-11
On a Sabbath - This goes all the way back to the Creation week that in six days God created the heavens and the earth and on the seventh day He rested. The Sabbath had very practical implications even after the Fall. Men and women need their rest, and this gives rise to human rights in that it's expression was toward all men and women not just those of the Abrahamic lineage or Mosaic covenant of the law. A big thing at corporations right now is preaching work, life, family balance, but often it is just talk. God makes it a law here, and in Exodus 20 it is extended to your children, your servants, livestock and even visiting foreigners. Remember, in Genesis, Adam and Eve were given the mandate to work and keep the garden, but also to be fruitful and multiply, filling the earth. They were given dominion, and even then, under the most pristine conditions, God sanctified the day of rest. Our parents were not born fallen, but innocent, and so they met with and walked with God in the garden. In a fallen world man has lost this communion with God, for He is holy and hates sin, and we are all sinners, but on the promise of His Son's life we have a way to be reconciled. So then out of all of fallen humanity God finds a man named Noah, and He tells him to build an ark, and for 120 years he does this and becomes a preacher of righteousness, mocked by all around him. God demonstrates His opposition toward sin, the flood kills everyone outside of the ark, which also demonstrates His righteousness and Judgment. The eight people in the ark demonstrate His grace, His undeserved mercy. The flood does not get rid of sin though, it is a part of our fallen natures, and it makes it very difficult for us to find or commune with God, impossible on our own. He has to make Himself know to us, which brings us to Abraham. Out of all those living in the post flood world, God comes to one man and makes a covenant with him, that in his seed all the nations of the earth would be blessed. It is a unilateral covenant meaning that God is the initiator and upholder. You are probably wondering, "what does this have to do with the Sabbath?" A lot, because remember, He blessed and sanctified the seventh day. So later on, through His prophet Moses, He calls out Abraham's progeny from Egypt, and in Exodus He makes the Sabbath a part of the ten commandments, a part of the covenant of the law. He communicates with His people now through the law, the prophets and the testimony. On the seventh day the people come to hear the reading of God's word, the priest sacrifice at the temple, and Israel becomes a light to the other nations in doing all these things. On the seventh day they remind their children that in six days God created all the world that we enjoy. Everything belongs to Him, all honor, all glory, all the earth and it's inhabitants. We go over the story of Creation, of the fall, of God's plan of redemption, the gospel, or godspell, God's story.
1Thus the heavens and the earth were completed in all their vast array. 2And by the seventh day God had finished the work He had been doing; so on that day He rested from all His work. 3Then God blessed the seventh day and sanctified it, because on that day He rested from all the work of creation that He had accomplished.… Genesis 2: 1-3
…20You must redeem the firstborn of a donkey with a lamb; but if you do not redeem it, you are to break its neck. You must redeem all the firstborn of your sons. No one shall appear before Me empty-handed. 21Six days you shall labor, but on the seventh day you shall rest; even in the seasons of plowing and harvesting, you must rest. 22And you are to celebrate the Feast of Weeks with the first fruits of the wheat harvest, and the Feast of Ingathering at the turn of the year.… Exodus 34: 20-22
…9Six days you shall labor and do all your work, 10but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the LORD your God, on which you must not do any work— neither you, nor your son or daughter, nor your manservant or maidservant or livestock, nor the foreigner within your gates. 11For in six days the LORD made the heavens and the earth and the sea and all that is in them, but on the seventh day He rested. Therefore the LORD blessed the Sabbath day and set it apart as holy.… Exodus 20: 9-11
Why are You doing what is not lawful to do on the Sabbath - This was according to Rabbinical teaching in the Talmud, not the law of God. The scribes of both the Pharisees and Sadducees had added things that made burdens that were both grievous and unnecessary to bare. And they removed or made work arounds for the things that God commanded that they didn't want to follow. Things like taking care of widows rather than stealing their property.
38In His teaching Jesus also said, “Watch out for the scribes. They like to walk around in long robes, to receive greetings in the marketplaces, 39and to have the chief seats in the synagogues and the places of honor at banquets. 40They defraud widows of their houses, and for a show make lengthy prayers. These men will receive greater condemnation.”… Mark 12: 38-40
If we are to understand what happened to Jesus we must understand something about the Law, and the relationship of the scribes and the Pharisees to it. When the Jews returned from Babylon about 440 b.c. they knew well that, humanly speaking, their hopes of national greatness were gone. They therefore deliberately decided that they would find their greatness in being a people of the law. They would bend all their energies to knowing and keeping God’s law.
The basis of the law was the Ten Commandments. These commandments are principles for life. They are not rules and regulations; they do not legislate for each event and for every circumstance. For a certain section of the Jews that was not enough. They desired not great principles but a rule to cover every conceivable situation. From the Ten Commandments they proceeded to develop and elaborate these rules.
Let us take an example. The commandment says, “Remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy”; and then goes on to lay it down that on the Sabbath no work must be done (Exodus 20:8–11). But the Jews asked, “What is work?” and went on to define it under thirty-nine different heads which they called “Fathers of Work.” Even that was not enough. Each of these heads was greatly sub-divided. Thousands of rules and regulations began to emerge. These were called the Oral Law, and they began to be set even above the Ten Commandments.
Again, let us take an actual example. One of the works forbidden on the Sabbath was carrying a burden. Jeremiah 17:21–24 says, “Take heed for the sake of your lives, and do not bear a burden on the Sabbath day.” But, the legalists insisted, a burden must be defined. So definition was given. A burden is “food equal in weight to a dried fig, enough wine for mixing in a goblet, milk enough for one swallow, oil enough to anoint a small member, water enough to moisten an eye-salve, paper enough to write a custom-house notice upon, ink enough to write two letters, reed enough to make a pen” … and so on endlessly. So for a tailor to leave a pin or needle in his robe on the Sabbath was to break the law and to sin; to pick up a stone big enough to fling at a bird on the Sabbath was to sin. Goodness became identified with these endless rules and regulations.
Let us take another example. To heal on the Sabbath was to work. It was laid down that only if life was in actual danger could healing be done; and then steps could be taken only to keep the sufferer from getting worse, not to improve his condition. A plain bandage could be put on a wound, but not any ointment; plain wadding could be put into a sore ear, but not medicated. It is easy to see that there was no limit to this.
The scribes were the experts in the law who knew all these rules and regulations, and who deduced them from the law. The name Pharisee means “The Separated One”; and the Pharisees were those who had separated themselves from ordinary people and ordinary life in order to keep these rules and regulations. Note two things. First, for the scribes and Pharisees these rules were a matter of life and death; to break one of them was deadly sin. Second, only people desperately in earnest would ever have tried to keep them, for they must have made life supremely uncomfortable. It was only the best people who would even make the attempt.
Jesus had no use for rules and regulations like that. For him, the cry of human need superseded all such things. But to the scribes and Pharisees he was a law-breaker, a bad man who broke the law and taught others to do the same. That is why they hated him and in the end killed him. The tragedy of the life of Jesus was that those who were most in earnest about their religion drove him to the Cross. It was the irony of things that the best people of the day ultimately crucified him. From this time on there was to be no rest for him. Always he was to be under the scrutiny of hostile and critical eyes. The opposition had crystallized and there was but one end. Jesus knew this and before he met the opposition he withdrew to pray. The love in the eyes of God compensated him for the hate in the eyes of men. The approval of God nerved him to meet the criticism of men. He drew strength for the battle of life from the peace of God—and it is enough for the disciple that he should be as his Lord. (Daily Study Bible) - Barclay from Precept Austin
Have you not read - That's pretty O.G., and given the egos of men, these men being ones who dedicated themselves to reading and considered themselves the experts about the law, you can feel the fire in their eyes. Jesus takes them back to God's word, not their words, which they had most unfortunately and passionately come to defend as though they were on par with Scripture, even above it. True teachers take you back to what God says, and they study looking for the Author's intent, taking the whole counsel of God. These men were more interested in their own words and that of the teachers they agreed with, but Jesus is going to show them that it differs from God's word and meaning. They left the sufficiency of Scripture for Rabbinical teachings and traditions.
…15From infancy you have known the Holy Scriptures, which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus. 16All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for instruction, for conviction, for correction, and for training in righteousness, 17so that the man of God may be complete, fully equipped for every good work.… 2 Timothy 3: 15-17
Took and ate the bread of the presence - David was one of their hero kings, highly regarded. The Son of David now stands before them and they are anything but respectful. It is a good illustration not of open unrestraint or disregard, but of it being lawful to do good on the Sabbath, to show mercy.
Lenski - What did David do in his need? He went into “the House of God,” which, however, does not mean into the Holy Place or Sanctuary of the Tabernacle but into the courts, where he might freely go; compare Ps. 122. The ἄρτοι τῆς προθέσεως, “the breads of the setting forth” or the showbread, were twelve loaves, each made of about 6¼ pounds of flour and set forth in two rows on a gold-covered table in the Holy Place every Sabbath Day; and when they were removed they were to be eaten only by the priests, Lev. 24:5–9. The bread that David received was not that which was at the time lying in the Holy Place but some that had been removed after having served its sacred purpose. It was God’s own law that made it “unlawful” for any persons but priests to eat this bread; it was not merely a rabbinical dictum such as the Pharisees brought against Jesus to condemn the plucking of a few ears of grain. Jesus overtops the charge of the Pharisees. He proves by David’s own example that even the divine ceremonial law was not intended to be absolute in its application. The rabbinical refinements are disregarded as being unworthy of notice. God cares more for the right spiritual condition of the heart than for the outward observance of his own ceremonial regulations. The argument is overwhelming. David’s hunger sets aside even a divine regulation—shall not the hunger of the disciples set aside mere rabbinical notions? (See The Interpretation of St. Mark's Gospel) - Precept Austin
Scribes and the Pharisees watched Him - This shows that they had made an obvious and conscious decision to side with their own additions to the law, and to try to hold Jesus, Who is also God the Son, to their vain interpretations.
He knew their thoughts - A sign of His omniscience.
Come stand here - This is in response to what is going on inside their heads. This is God's very conscious response to their apostasy. Jesus knows that they are trying to trap Him, that they look to accuse Him, but He doesn't avoid it. So many so called Christians today are so afraid of telling the truth because they anticipate that their hearers will not like it, so they remain silent. If Christ remains silent then everyone remains in ignorance, but He chooses the confrontation instead.
To save life or to destroy it - He has already argued from the precedence of David, and the fact is that the Rabbinical additions only carry authority or weight in their heads. Challenge accepted.
Stretch out your hand - Oh we got You now, you did something nice on the Sabbath, You healed. How dare God question the authority of man.
They were filled with fury - Again their response is to slander Him, to start planning His demise.
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