Luke 6:3 — Community Reflections

LUKE 6:3 — KING JAMES VERSION 0

“And Jesus answering them said, Have ye not read so much as this, what David did, when himself was an hungred, and they which were with him;”

Jesus answered them, have you never read what David did when he and his companions were hungry? — the appeal to the David precedent is the response to the Sabbath challenge. Have you never read positions the questioners as failing to understand their own Scripture. The David story (1 Samuel 21:1–6) is the precedent for necessity overriding ritual restriction.

Church Fathers on Luke 6:3

Not only in the form of expression but in His very practice and mode of action, did the Lord begin to absolve man from the observance of the old law. Hence it is said, And it came to pass that he went through the corn fields, &c.
Ambrose · 4th century

For His disciples having no opportunity for eating because the multitudes thronged so, were naturally hungry, but by plucking the ears of corn they relieved their hunger, which is a mark of a strict habit of life, not seeking for prepared meats, but mere simple food.
Bede · 8th century

Now He says, on the second sabbath after the first, because the Jews called every feast a sabbath. For sabbath means rest. Frequently therefore was there feasting at the preparation, and they called the preparation a sabbath because of the feast, and hence they gave to the principal sabbath the name of the second-first, as being the second in consequence of the festival of the day preceding.
Theophylact · 11th century

Read all 16 entries in the readerCatena Aurea · St. Thomas Aquinas, tr. J. H. Newman · public domain

COMMUNITY REFLECTIONS

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