Luke 4:29

And rose up, and thrust him out of the city, and led him unto the brow of the hill whereon their city was built, that they might cast him down headlong.

EXPOSITORY (ENGLISH BIBLE)

Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers

(29) The brow of the hill.—See Notes on Luke 1:26. The hill now shown as the Mount of Precipitation is about two miles from the city, and could hardly have been the place referred to. There is, however, a cliff about forty feet high close to the city.

That they might cast him down headlong.—The Greek word implies casting down from a cliff or precipice. It was not a recognised Jewish punishment, as flinging from the Tarpeian rock was at Rome; but we have an instance of it as an improvised method of execution in Amaziah’s treatment of the Edomite prisoners in 2Chronicles 25:12. A multitude under the influence of fanaticism or anger is always fertile in expedients of this nature.

Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary

4:14-30 Christ taught in their synagogues, their places of public worship, where they met to read, expound, and apply the word, to pray and praise. All the gifts and graces of the Spirit were upon him and on him, without measure. By Christ, sinners may be loosed from the bonds of guilt, and by his Spirit and grace from the bondage of corruption. He came by the word of his gospel, to bring light to those that sat in the dark, and by the power of his grace, to give sight to those that were blind. And he preached the acceptable year of the Lord. Let sinners attend to the Saviour's invitation when liberty is thus proclaimed. Christ's name was Wonderful; in nothing was he more so than in the word of his grace, and the power that went along with it. We may well wonder that he should speak such words of grace to such graceless wretches as mankind. Some prejudice often furnishes an objection against the humbling doctrine of the cross; and while it is the word of God that stirs up men's enmity, they will blame the conduct or manner of the speaker. The doctrine of God's sovereignty, his right to do his will, provokes proud men. They will not seek his favour in his own way; and are angry when others have the favours they neglect. Still is Jesus rejected by multitudes who hear the same message from his words. While they crucify him afresh by their sins, may we honour him as the Son of God, the Saviour of men, and seek to show we do so by our obedience.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

The brow of the hill whereon ... - The region in which Nazareth was is hilly, though Nazareth was situated "between" two hills, or in a vale among mountains. The place to which they led the Saviour is still shown, and is called the "Mount of Precipitation." It is at a short distance to the south of Nazareth. See the notes at Matthew 2:23.

Cast him down - This was the effect of a popular tumult. They had no legal right to take life on any occasion, and least of all in this furious and irregular manner. The whole transaction shows:

1. That the character given of the Galileans elsewhere as being especially wicked was a just one.

2. To what extremities the wickedness of the heart will lead people when it is acted out. And,

3. That people are opposed to the truth, and that they would do anything, if not restrained, to manifest their opposition.

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary

29. rose up—broke up the service irreverently and rushed forth.

thrust him—with violence, as a prisoner in their hands.

brow, &c.—Nazareth, though not built on the ridge of a hill, is in part surrounded by one to the west, having several such precipices. (See 2Ch 25:12; 2Ki 9:33.) It was a mode of capital punishment not unusual among the Romans and others. This was the first insult which the Son of God received, and it came from "them of His own household!" (Mt 10:36).

Matthew Poole's Commentary

See Poole on "Luke 2:28"

Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible

And rose up,.... In great wrath, and, in a noisy and tumultuous manner, before the service was well over, and without being regularly dismissed:

and thrust him out of the city; first out of the synagogue, and then out of their city, as unworthy to be in it, though an inhabitant of it; and as if he had done something deserving of death; and therefore to be punished as a malefactor without the city:

and led him unto the brow of the hill; the edge of it, where it run out, and hung over the precipice:

whereon their city was built; so that it was a city upon an hill, and very visible, to which Christ may allude in Matthew 5:14. That they might cast him down headlong; and break him to pieces: in this manner ten thousand Edomites were destroyed by the Jews, in the times of Amaziah, 2 Chronicles 25:12 though this was not an usual way with the Jews of putting persons to death, as with some other nations (u); their four capital punishments were stoning, strangling, burning, and killing with the sword (w): nor did the inhabitants of Nazareth proceed in any judicial manner with Christ, but hurried him away, in order to destroy him, without any formal process, in the manner the zealots did; though to put any man to death, or to inflict any punishment on a person on the sabbath day, as this was, was contrary to their own canon, which runs thus (x);

"they do not inflict punishment on the sabbath day, even though it is the punishment of an affirmative precept; they do not beat one that is guilty, nor put to death, as it is said, Exodus 35:3 "ye shall kindle no fire throughout your habitations upon the sabbath day": this is a caution to the sanhedrim, that they do not burn on the sabbath day he that is condemned to burning; and this is the law with respect to any one that is liable to the other punishments.''

But these men, without any regard to the place where they were, and the worship they were concerned in, and the day of the sabbath which then was, rise up in great wrath and fury, and without any show of justice, and in the most brutish and barbarous manner attempt to take away the life of Christ.

(u) Vid. Rycquium de Capitol. Born. c. 4. (w) Misn. Sanhedrin, c. 7. sect. 1.((x) Moses Kotseneis Mitzvot Tora, pr. neg. 67.

Geneva Study Bible

And rose up, and thrust him out of the city, and led him unto the brow of the hill whereon their city was built, that they might cast him down headlong.

EXEGETICAL (ORIGINAL LANGUAGES)

Meyer's NT Commentary

Luke 4:29. Ἕως ὀφρύος τοῦ ὄρους] up to the lofty brink (supercilium) of the hill. See Duncan, Lex. Hom., ed. Rost, p. 877, and Wetstein. This situation of Nazareth upon a hill (ἐφʼ οὗ), i.e. hard by a hill, is still entirely in accordance with its present position,—“the houses stand on the lower part of the slope of the western hill, which rises steep and high above them,” Robinson, Pal. III. p. 419. Especially near the present Maronite church the mountain wall descends right down from forty to fifty feet,[90] Robinson, l.c. p. 423; Ritter, Erdlc. XVI. p. 744.

ὥστε] of what, as they figured to themselves the result was to be. See on Matthew 24:24; Matthew 27:1; comp. Luke 9:52; Luke 20:20.

κατακρημν.] 2 Chronicles 25:12; Dem. 446. 11; Josephus, Antt. ix. 9. 1.

[90] The place which is pointed out by tradition as the spot in question is at too great a distance from the town. See Robinson, l.c., and Korte, Reisen, p. 215 ff.

Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

29. the brow of the hill whereon their city was built] The ‘whereon’ refers to the hill not to the brow. Nazareth nestles under the southern slopes of the hill. The cliff down which they wished to hurl Him (because this was regarded as a form of ‘stoning,’ the legal punishment for blasphemy) was certainly not the so-called ‘Mount of Precipitation’ which is two miles distant, and therefore more than a sabbath day’s journey, but one of the rocky escarpments of the hill, and possibly that above the Maronite Church, which is about 40 feet high. This form of punishment is only mentioned in 2 Chronicles 25:12; but in Phocis it was the punishment for sacrilege. (Philo.)

Pulpit Commentary

Verse 29. - And rose up, and thrust him out of the city, and led him unto the brow of the hill whereon their city was built, that they might cast him down headlong. The place now shown as the scene of the act of violence of the fanatics of Nazareth, known as the Mount of Precipitation, is some two miles from the town. It must be remembered that this happened on a sabbath day; this would therefore be beyond the limits of a sabbath day's journey. There is, however, close to Nazareth a cliff about forty feet high. Luke 4:29

Vincent's Word Studies

The brow (ὀφρύος)

Only here in New Testament. Wyc., cope, which is originally cap or hood. The word is used in medical language both of the eyebrows and of other projections of the body. It would naturally occur to a physician, especially since the same epithets were applied to the appearance of the eyebrows in certain diseases as were applied to kills. Thus Hippocrates, describing a deadly fever, says, "The eyebrows seem to hang over," the same word which Homer uses of a rock. So Aretaeus, describing the appearance of the eyebrows in elephantiasis, depicts them as προβλῆτες, projecting, and όχθώδεις, like mounds. Stanley says: "Most readers probably from these words imagine a town built on the summit of a mountain, from which summit the intended precipitation was to take place. This is not the situation of Nazareth; yet its position is still in accordance with the narrative. It is built upon, that is, on the side of a mountain, but the brow is not beneath, but over the town, and such a cliff as is here implied is found in the abrupt face of a limestone rock about thirty or forty feet high, overhanging the Maronite convent at the southwest corner of the town" ("Sinai and Palestine").

Cast him down headlong (κατακρημνίσαι)

Only here in New Testament, and in the Septuagint only in 2 Chronicles 25:12.