Luke 17:34

I tell you, in that night there shall be two men in one bed; the one shall be taken, and the other shall be left.

EXPOSITORY (ENGLISH BIBLE)

Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers

(34, 35) Two men in one bed.—See Notes on Matthew 24:40-41. The one to be “taken” is probably here, as there, the man who is rescued from destruction. Here there is a variation enough to prove independence, the “two in one bed” being prefixed to the examples given in St. Matthew as an instance of even closer companionship.

Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary

17:20-37 The kingdom of God was among the Jews, or rather within some of them. It was a spiritual kingdom, set up in the heart by the power of Divine grace. Observe how it had been with sinners formerly, and in what state the judgments of God, which they had been warned of, found them. Here is shown what a dreadful surprise this destruction will be to the secure and sensual. Thus shall it be in the day when the Son of man is revealed. When Christ came to destroy the Jewish nation by the Roman armies, that nation was found in such a state of false security as is here spoken of. In like manner, when Jesus Christ shall come to judge the world, sinners will be found altogether regardless; for in like manner the sinners of every age go on securely in their evil ways, and remember not their latter end. But wherever the wicked are, who are marked for eternal ruin, they shall be found by the judgments of God.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

See the notes at Matthew 24:40-41.

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary

34. two in one bed—the prepared and unprepared mingled in closest intercourse together in the ordinary walks and fellowships of life, when the moment of severance arrives. Awful truth! realized before the destruction of Jerusalem, when the Christians found themselves forced by their Lord's directions (Lu 21:21) at once and for ever away from their old associates; but most of all when the second coming of Christ shall burst upon a heedless world.

Matthew Poole's Commentary

Ver. 34-36. See Poole on "Matthew 24:40", See Poole on "Matthew 24:41". These verses seem to respect the day of judgment, and that dreadful separation which shall be in that day between the sheep and the goats. It is true also of Christ’s day in the preaching of the gospel; but that seemeth not to be the sense of this text. They can hardly be applied to the destruction of Jerusalem; it was so universal as hardly any were there left.

Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible

I tell you, in that night,.... Of affliction and calamity, that shall be upon the Jewish nation, and which is before called that day, Luke 17:31 and therefore is not to be understood literally of the night:

there shall be two men in one bed; this is said agreeably to the time, the night before mentioned, that being the time to be in bed, at rest and asleep; for they that sleep, sleep in the night; and still suggests the security the people of the Jews would be in, at the time of their destruction. The word "men" is not in the text, it is only, "there shall be two in one bed"; and may as well be understood of a man and his wife, since it is not so usual for two men to lie in one bed; and this the rather more strongly expresses the distinguishing providence of God in saving one, and suffering the other to be taken and lost: the words may be rendered, "there shall be two upon one couch": that is, sitting together at supper, which was also in the night season: it was the custom of the ancients to sit upon beds, or couches, at meals; and they had a bed, or couch, which held two persons only, and was called Biclinium (h): and so this likewise intimates, that the destruction of the Jews would be at a time when they were thoughtless of it, and were eating and drinking, as in the days of Noah and of Lot, Luke 17:27.

The one shall be taken; by the Roman soldiers:

and the other shall be left; being, by one providence or another preserved; which is mentioned, to show the distinction God will make in his providence, and to encourage believers to trust in it.

(h) Vid. Alstorph. de Lectis Veter. c. 15. p. 90, 91.

Geneva Study Bible

I tell you, in that night there shall be two men in one bed; the one shall be taken, and the other shall be left.

EXEGETICAL (ORIGINAL LANGUAGES)

Meyer's NT Commentary

Luke 17:34-35. But the decision at the Parousia, what a separation it will be!—a separation of those who are in the temporal life united in a perfectly common position. This is symbolically represented in two examples. Comp., moreover, on Matthew 24:40 f.

ταύτῃ τῇ νυκτί] which Bengel, in opposition to the context, explains: in this present night, is neither to be interpreted in tempore illo calamitoso (Kuinoel, who says that the night is imago miseriae; Micah 3:6; comp. Grotius and Bleek), nor to be pressed to the conclusion that the Parousia is definitely ordained to take place by night (de Wette, who finds the ground for this view in the comparison of the Messiah with a thief in the night), in respect of which the following grinding at the mill as an occupation of the day-time is held as left standing inappropriately from Matthew, but the horror of the night belongs to the imagery of the concrete representation.[221] At Luke 17:35, however, there is again a departure from this feature, because a graphic touch of a different kind is added to the idea. Day and hour, even the Son knoweth not, Matthew 24:36; comp. Acts 1:7.

ἐπὶ κλίνης μιᾶς] not in general: they shall be bed-fellows (Lange), but, according to the words and the concrete representation: they shall find themselves on one bed. A warning against precipitate separation of mingled domestic relations (Lange) is altogether foreign to this passage.

[221] It is not on account of the example of the two in bed together that the night is named (Hofmann, Schriftbew. II. 2, p. 626), but conversely the idea of the night-time suggested that illustration.

Expositor's Greek Testament

Luke 17:34-37. The final separation (Matthew 24:40-41).

Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

34. two men in one bed] Not necessarily men; but human beings, e.g. man and wife. The numerals are of course masculine, because the man might be either the one ‘taken’ or the one ‘left.’

Bengel's Gnomen

Luke 17:34. Ταύτῃ τῇ νυκτὶ, in this night [not as Engl. Vers. “in that night”]) He does not say, ἐν ἐκείνῃ τῇ ἡμέρᾳ “in that day,” comp. Luke 17:31 : Matthew 26:31 [ἐν τῇ νυκτὶ ταύτῃ, “All ye shall be offended because of Me this night”]. There are in our own day, saith He, persons who shall reach those times so widely different. Comp. the here in ch. Luke 9:27 [“There be some standing here,” etc., speaking of an event about to happen presently]. The event followed in the same generation: Matthew 24:34 [“This generation shall not pass, till all these things be fulfilled”].—εἷς) [the one]. So very many MSS.: and the expression, εἷς—ὁ ἓτερος, is used just as ἑνὸς—τοῦ ἑτέρου [the one—the other], ch. Luke 16:13; and πέντε—καὶ αἱ πέντε in Matthew 25:2.[192] Presently after, in Luke 17:35, Mill has omitted to notice, that in Luke 17:35 ἡ has also been omitted before μία, and that too in the text of Stephens’ Edition.[193]

[192] “The one set of five—and the other set of five.” So Scholz reads, αἱ πέντε; but Lachm. and Tisch. omit αἱ.—E. and T.

[193] In Luke 17:34 AD read εἷς. B (judging from the silence of the collations) and Rec. Text, ὁ εἷς. In Luke 17:35 ALXΔ read μία: and so Tisch. BD and Rec. Text (Elzev.), ἡ μία: and so Lachm.—E. and T.

Pulpit Commentary

Verses 34, 35. - I tell you, in that night there shall be two men in one bed; the one shall be taken, and the other shall be left. Two women shall be grinding together; the one shall be taken, the other left. How taken? Not, as some scholars have supposed, taken only to perish, but taken away by the Lord in the way described by St. Paul in 1 Thessalonians 4:17, where he paints how the faithful servant who is living when the Lord returns in glory, will be caught up in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air. The other will be left. Thus, as it has been strikingly observed, "the beings who have been most closely connected here below shall, in the twinkling of an eye, be parted for ever." Luke 17:34