Tool Beta
The Ancient World Behind the Text
Pick a passage anywhere in the New Testament. See the customs and ideas a first reader knew without being told.
Luke 18:35-19:10, A blind beggar and Zacchaeus at Jericho
Near Jericho a blind beggar calls Jesus Son of David and receives his sight. In the town Jesus invites himself to the house of Zacchaeus, a rich chief tax collector, who promises to give half his goods to the poor and repay fourfold.
Luke 18:35-19:10, in every translation this tool compares.
Outside Jericho a blind beggar keeps calling Jesus Son of David and begging for mercy despite the crowd's attempts to quiet him, and Jesus restores his sight. In the town, Zacchaeus, a wealthy head toll collector too short to see, climbs a tree to watch, and Jesus singles him out and invites himself to his house, to the crowd's disgust. Zacchaeus promises to give half his wealth away and repay four times anyone he has defrauded, and Jesus declares that salvation has reached this household, since rescuing the lost is why he came.
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- {"u":"https:\/\/jayms.com\/bible-study-tools-2\/ancient-world-ideas\/tax-collectors\/","n":"Tolls and tax collectors","s":"Local men who collected tolls and taxes for rulers backed by Rome, distrusted as collaborators and cheats.","r":""}
- {"u":"https:\/\/jayms.com\/bible-study-tools-2\/ancient-world-ideas\/hospitality\/","n":"Hospitality to travelers","s":"Taking in travelers was one of the great virtues of the ancient Mediterranean, above all among Jews. Messengers could travel light because they expected to be housed.","r":""}
- {"u":"https:\/\/jayms.com\/bible-study-tools-2\/ancient-world-ideas\/eating-together\/","n":"Eating together","s":"Sharing a table made a bond of friendship, so who you ate with told everyone whose side you were on.","r":""}
Son of David meant he took Jesus for the Messiah (Keener and his notes). Jericho was a border town between Judea and Antipas's Perea with a customs station (Keener and his notes). In Jesus' day there were two Jerichos, the abandoned mound of the Old Testament and the new city about a mile south, and some reconcile Mark's leaving Jericho with Luke's approaching it by placing the healing between them (Strauss, in the Zondervan backgrounds commentary). People did not invite themselves to another's home, and respectable people did not ask hospitality of a sinner (Keener and his notes). A tax collector was thought to have forfeited his place as a son of Abraham, which gives 19:9 its edge (Strauss). Later rabbis thought it unwise to give away more than a fifth of one's goods, so half is radical, and fourfold repayment went beyond the law, which asked it only for stolen livestock (Exodus 22:1; Keener; Strauss). Bailey reads Jesus' choice of this house as taking the crowd's hostility onto himself, with the restitution following grace already given; Keener likewise says Zacchaeus repays in response to grace, not to earn it.
- Craig S. Keener, The IVP Bible Background Commentary: New Testament, on Luke 18:35, 18:36-38, 19:1-2, 19:5 and 19:6-8
- NIV Cultural Backgrounds Study Bible, notes on Luke 18:35, 18:38, 19:2, 19:4, 19:5, 19:7 and 19:8
- Kenneth E. Bailey, Jesus Through Middle Eastern Eyes, ch. 13, The Blind Man and Zacchaeus
- Mark L. Strauss, Luke, in Zondervan Illustrated Bible Backgrounds Commentary, ed. Clinton E. Arnold, on Luke 19:2, 19:8 and 19:9 and sidebar Jericho
