§33 Healing on the Sabbath (Luke 13:10–17)
The healing of the woman with a crooked spine occurs only in Luke. Like earlier episodes in Luke (6:1–5, 6–11), the controversy centers around Jesus, who allegedly violates the law by healing someone on the Sabbath. The episode exposes yet another example of Pharisaic hypocrisy, while it also furthers the general theme of the growing hostility that eventually will result in Jesus’ arrest and crucifixion.
To this point in his Gospel account Luke has frequently presented Jesus as teaching in one of the synagogues (4:15, 16, 33, 44; 6:6). This story, however, represents Jesus’ last teaching experience in any synagogue. The synagogue has come to symbolize the source of opposition to Jesus (12:11; 21:12). The woman had been crippled by a spirit for eighteen years, resulting in a condition probably involving a fusion of the bones in her back (Marshall, p. 557). It is not necessary to assume that some form of demonic possession is implied. The Greek reads literally: “a woman having a spirit of sickness.…” What is probably in view is not a case of possession itself, but one of affliction ultimately sourced in Satanic influence (as illness was often understood), as indicated in v. 16 (whom Satan has kept bound). When Jesus saw her, he pronounced her cured and placed his hands on her. And immediately she straightened up and praised God. (See the similar reaction of the healed lame man in Acts 3:8.) The synagogue ruler, however, challenges the legality of Jesus’ act, for he regarded it as a violation of the Sabbath. Herein lies the irony of the whole episode. Jesus has healed a woman who has suffered for many years. But does the synagogue ruler rejoice and praise God, as the woman did? No. He has found something wrong with Jesus’ “religion.” The ruler is utterly blind to the significance of what has happened. The gracious and mighty act of God was completely lost on him. That a fellow Israelite has been set free from a horrible oppression seems to him to be of little consequence in comparison to a violation of one or more of the oral laws and stipulations set up to protect the sanctity of the Sabbath. After all, he reasoned, “There are six days for work. So come and be healed on those days, not on the Sabbath.”
The hypocrisy (and absurdity) of the ruler’s attitude was immediately exposed by Jesus. He notes that his oral laws and traditions allowed the man to untie his ox or donkey … to give it water, so why should not a daughter of Abraham, one who is worth much more than an ox or donkey, be untied (or set free) on the Sabbath (the day of “rest,” in this case a day of rest and relief from one’s oppressive affliction)? What better day is there than the Sabbath to demonstrate God’s power over Satan? Jesus’ answer was not lost on his enemies, for they were humiliated (but were still angry at Jesus); while in stark contrast, the people were delighted.
13:10–16 / According to C. G. Montefiore (The Synoptic Gospels, 2 vols. [New York: Ktav, 1968], vol. 2, p. 501), “The argument which Jesus employs is scarcely sound. The ox must be watered every day, or it would suffer greatly. Cruelty to animals was abhorrent to the rabbis. But the woman, who had been rheumatic for eighteen years, could well have waited another day. Unsound arguments of this kind would have been speedily detected by the trained Rabbis.” Montefiore’s assessment is wanting. Jesus is not trying to justify doing work on the Sabbath. (If he were, then the rabbis certainly would have had no problem exposing the fallacy of his logic.) To think this is to miss the crux of the issue. The healing of the woman was not just another chore that could have been done on another day. It represented a victory over Satan (see Tiede, p. 251). Since the Sabbath is special, sanctified by God himself, why should not such a triumph of God over Satan—one which, by the way, will give the woman relief and rest from her affliction for the first time in years—take place on this day? This is why Jesus reproaches the synagogue ruler. The issue is not over what kind of work is or is not permitted on the Sabbath. The issue has to do with the spirit and true intent of the law. Jesus may have regarded such a healing on the Sabbath as especially appropriate, in that God’s act of power in effect consecrated the day. Evans (p. 46) has suggested a parallel with Deut. 15:1–18, where every Sabbath (seventh) year is proclaimed a time of “release” from debt for all fellow Israelites. The healing of the woman might then be understood as an example of an Israelite released or set free.
13:13 / put his hands on her: See note on 4:40 above.
13:14 / The comment of the synagogue ruler echoes Exod. 20:9–10 (=Deut. 5:13–14) where work on the Sabbath is prohibited. The Mishnah tractate, Shabbath, is concerned with what is and is not lawful for the Sabbath and contains many of the oral laws and traditions that Jesus and the early church encountered.
13:17 / Marshall (p. 559) comments that this verse echoes Isa. 45:16 and “may perhaps imply that for the narrator the messianic promises are being fulfilled in Jesus” (so also Fitzmyer, p. 1014).