But a Samaritan, as he traveled, came where the man was; and when he saw him, he took pity on him — the Samaritan is the parable's scandal. The expected third character in the priest-Levite pattern would be an ordinary Israelite layman; the substitution of a Samaritan (despised enemy of the Jews) is the shocking reversal. When he saw him, he took pity (splagchnisthē, was moved in the bowels): the same visceral compassion as Jesus in the widow of Nain and the feeding of the five thousand.

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