The Fallible Study Bible

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Luke6:17–19

Jesus Heals the Multitudes

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Luke 6:17–19 — Jesus Heals the Multitudes. Each verse below carries the full apparatus: the Berean Standard Bible, the vocalized original (tap any word), and a parsed breakdown of every term transcribed from the interlinear. Synthesized commentary, canonical threads, and the reading of Christ gather at the end, over the whole unit.

17

Then Jesus came down with them and stood on a level place. A large crowd of His disciples was there, along with a great number of people from all over Judea, Jerusalem, and the seacoast of Tyre and Sidon.

Berean Standard Bible · CC0

Greek — tap a word ↓

Kai katabas met’ autōn estē epi pedinou topou kai polys ochlos autou mathētōn kai poly plēthos tou laou apo pasēs tēs Ioudaias kai Ierousalēm kai tēs paraliou Tyrou kai Sidōnos

Word by word30 · parsed
ΚαὶKaiThenG2532
√ καί — and, also, even, so then, too, etcConjunction
καταβὰςkatabas[Jesus] came downG2597
√ καταβαίνω — to descend (literally or figuratively)VerbAorist Participle ActiveNominative Masculine Singular
katabainō: to descend, come down Aorist active participle. Luke has just spent the night and the choosing on the mountain (6:12, 6:13); the descent is deliberate narrative motion from the place of prayer and election to the place of the people. Gill: "With the twelve apostles, from the top of the mountain, where he had been praying all night." The verb that in the LXX carries God's descent to Sinai here carries the Son's descent to a crowd of the sick.
μετ’met’withG3326
√ μετά — properly, denoting accompanimentPreposition
αὐτῶνautōnthemG846
√ αὐτός — the reflexive pronoun self, used (alone or in the comparative G1438 (ἑαυτοῦ)) of the third person , and (with the proper personal pronoun) of the other personsPersonal / Possessive PronounGenitive Masculine 3rd Person Plural
ἔστηestē[and] stoodG2476
√ ἵστημι — to stand (transitively or intransitively), used in various applications (literally or figuratively)VerbAorist Indicative Active3rd Person Singular
histēmi: to stand, take one's stand Aorist indicative active, third singular: the one finite verb of the first clause, so everything before it is approach and everything after it is what gathers around a fixed point. Barnes presses exactly this: Luke "does not say that he delivered the sermon on the plain, but only that he healed the sick there." He stands to receive, then (in Matthew's account) sits to teach.
ἐπὶepionG1909
√ ἐπί — properly, meaning superimposition (of time, place, order, etcPreposition
πεδινοῦpedinoua levelG3977
√ πεδινός — level (as easy for the feet)AdjectiveGenitive Masculine Singular
pedinos: level, flat, easy for the feet A genuinely rare adjective, found only here in the New Testament. Cambridge notes it also renders the phrase at Isaiah 13:2 in the Septuagint. Anarthrous: a level place, not the plain, which dissolves most of the alleged conflict with Matthew 5:1 without anyone needing to harmonize by force.
τόπουtopouplaceG5117
√ τόπος — a spot (general in space, but limited by occupancyNounGenitive Masculine Singular
topos: a place, a spot occupied Genitive after ἐπί. Luke names the ground rather than the geography: the point is not which plain but that the footing is level, the same footing for the Twelve, for the crowd of disciples, and for the Gentile seacoast.
καὶkaiG2532
√ καί — and, also, even, so then, too, etcConjunction
πολὺςpolysA largeG4183
√ πολύς — (singular) much (in any respect) or (plural) manyAdjectiveNominative Masculine Singular
ὄχλοςochloscrowdG3793
√ ὄχλος — a throng (as borne along)NounNominative Masculine Singular
ochlos: a throng, a crowd borne along The word carries the sense of a mass carried by its own momentum. Luke applies it here to disciples, which is a striking usage: at this point in the ministry the learners are themselves a throng, not yet a church, and among them stands the traitor Henry names.
αὐτοῦautouof HisG846
√ αὐτός — the reflexive pronoun self, used (alone or in the comparative G1438 (ἑαυτοῦ)) of the third person , and (with the proper personal pronoun) of the other personsPersonal / Possessive PronounGenitive Masculine 3rd Person Singular
μαθητῶνmathētōndisciples [was there]G3101
√ μαθητής — a learner, iNounGenitive Masculine Plural
mathētēs: a learner, a disciple Genitive plural. Gill: "not only the twelve, but the large number out of which he had chosen twelve." Luke has three concentric bodies here (the Twelve, the disciple crowd, the fulness of the people), and the Sermon that follows is preached primarily into the innermost ring while the outer rings hear.
καὶkaialong withG2532
√ καί — and, also, even, so then, too, etcConjunction
πολὺpolya greatG4183
√ πολύς — (singular) much (in any respect) or (plural) manyAdjectiveNominative Neuter Singular
πλῆθοςplēthosnumberG4128
√ πλῆθος — a fulness, iNounNominative Neuter Singular
plēthos: a fulness, a great number Nominative neuter singular, paired with πολύ. Luke's characteristic word for a mass of people gathered by report rather than by allegiance. Benson reads the gathering as evidence: people "collected from parts at a great distance from each other," which "prove beyond contradiction, how universal the persuasion now was."
τοῦtouofG3588
√ ὁ — the (sometimes to be supplied, at others omitted, in English idiom)ArticleGenitive Masculine Singular
λαοῦlaoupeopleG2992
√ λαός — a people (in generalNounGenitive Masculine Singular
laos: a people, the covenant people The Septuagint's standing word for Israel as God's own people. Its scope is then immediately widened by the prepositional chain that follows, ending on Gentile Phoenicia, so that the covenant noun and the Gentile coastline stand in the same sentence without explanation.
ἀπὸapofromG575
√ ἀπό — "off," iPreposition
πάσηςpasēsall overG3956
√ πᾶς — all, any, every, the wholeAdjectiveGenitive Feminine Singular
τῆςtēsG3588
√ ὁ — the (sometimes to be supplied, at others omitted, in English idiom)ArticleGenitive Feminine Singular
ἸουδαίαςIoudaiasJudeaG2449
√ Ἰουδαία — the Judæan land (iNounGenitive Feminine Singular
καὶkaiG2532
√ καί — and, also, even, so then, too, etcConjunction
ἸερουσαλὴμIerousalēmJerusalemG2419
√ Ἱερουσαλήμ — Hierusalem (iNounGenitive Feminine Singular
καὶkaiandG2532
√ καί — and, also, even, so then, too, etcConjunction
τῆςtēstheG3588
√ ὁ — the (sometimes to be supplied, at others omitted, in English idiom)ArticleGenitive Feminine Singular
παραλίουparaliouseacoastG3882
√ παράλιος — beside the salt (sea), iAdjectiveGenitive Feminine Singular
paralios: beside the sea, the seaboard Another word unique to this verse in the New Testament, an adjective used substantivally for the coastal strip. Geneva glosses it "From all the sea coast, which is called Syrophoenecia." This is Gentile territory, outside the land, and Luke lists it in the same breath as Jerusalem.
ΤύρουTyrouof TyreG5184
√ Τύρος — TyreNounGenitive Feminine Singular
καὶkaiandG2532
√ καί — and, also, even, so then, too, etcConjunction
ΣιδῶνοςSidōnosSidonG4605
√ Σιδών — Sidon (iNounGenitive Feminine Singular
Sidōn: Sidon A rare name (nine verses in the New Testament) and a loaded one. Sidon is where Elijah was sent to a widow when Israel would not receive him (1 Kings 17:9), and it is the city Jesus will later hold up as less culpable than Chorazin and Bethsaida (Luke 10:13). That its people are here streaming toward him is the point Luke is making quietly.
18

They had come to hear Him and to be healed of their diseases, and those troubled by unclean spirits were healed.

Berean Standard Bible · CC0

Greek — tap a word ↓

hoi ēlthon akousai autou kai iathēnai apo autōn tōn nosōn kai hoi enochloumenoi apo akathartōn pneumatōn etherapeuonto

Word by word17 · parsed
οἳhoiTheyG3739
√ ὅς — the relatively (sometimes demonstrative) pronoun, who, which, what, thatPersonal / Relative PronounNominative Masculine Plural
Relative pronoun οἵ, masculine plural, reaching back past πλῆθος (neuter) to the people themselves; the grammar follows sense rather than form, which is Luke's way of keeping persons, not a mass noun, in view.
ἦλθονēlthonhad comeG2064
√ ἔρχομαι — to come or go (in a great variety of applications, literally and figuratively)VerbAorist Indicative Active3rd Person Plural
ἀκοῦσαιakousaito hearG191
√ ἀκούω — to hear (in various senses)VerbAorist Infinitive Active
akouō: to hear, to listen, to heed Aorist active infinitive of purpose, and Luke puts it first, before healing. The order matters for what follows: the Sermon on the level place is the answer to the first infinitive, the cures to the second. Henry draws the pastoral conclusion, that it is worth going a long way to hear the word of Christ.
αὐτοῦautouHimG846
√ αὐτός — the reflexive pronoun self, used (alone or in the comparative G1438 (ἑαυτοῦ)) of the third person , and (with the proper personal pronoun) of the other personsPersonal / Possessive PronounGenitive Masculine 3rd Person Singular
καὶkaiandG2532
√ καί — and, also, even, so then, too, etcConjunction
ἰαθῆναιiathēnaito be healedG2390
√ ἰάομαι — to cure (literally or figuratively)VerbAorist Infinitive Passive
iaomai: to cure, to heal Aorist passive infinitive. ἰάομαι is the Septuagint's word in Exodus 15:26 ("I am the LORD who heals you") and in Psalm 107:20 ("He sent forth His word and healed them"). Luke, whom Ellicott and the tradition call the physician, uses it of what only God is said to do in those texts, and says it of Jesus without explanation.
ἀπὸapoofG575
√ ἀπό — "off," iPreposition
αὐτῶνautōntheirG846
√ αὐτός — the reflexive pronoun self, used (alone or in the comparative G1438 (ἑαυτοῦ)) of the third person , and (with the proper personal pronoun) of the other personsPersonal / Possessive PronounGenitive Masculine 3rd Person Plural
τῶνtōnG3588
√ ὁ — the (sometimes to be supplied, at others omitted, in English idiom)ArticleGenitive Feminine Plural
νόσωνnosōndiseasesG3554
√ νόσος — a malady (rarely figuratively, of moral disability)NounGenitive Feminine Plural
nosos: a malady, a disease A relatively rare noun (eleven verses), the same word used in the summary notices of Matthew 4:23, Matthew 9:35 and Luke 9:1 where the healing of every disease marks the arrival of the kingdom. Here it is plural and unqualified: whatever they brought.
καὶkaiandG2532
√ καί — and, also, even, so then, too, etcConjunction
οἱhoithoseG3588
√ ὁ — the (sometimes to be supplied, at others omitted, in English idiom)ArticleNominative Masculine Plural
ἐνοχλούμενοιenochloumenoitroubledG1776
√ ἐνοχλέω — to crowd in, iVerbPresent Participle Middle or PassiveNominative Masculine Plural
enochleō: to crowd in upon, to harass Present passive participle, rare in the New Testament (two verses). The root is the same family as ὄχλος, the crowd of verse 17: these people are themselves mobbed from within while a crowd presses them from without. Barnes insists on the weight of it, calling it deep and heavy trial, not petty annoyance.
ἀπὸapobyG575
√ ἀπό — "off," iPreposition
ἀκαθάρτωνakathartōnuncleanG169
√ ἀκάθαρτος — impure (ceremonially, morally (lewd) or specially, (demonic))AdjectiveGenitive Neuter Plural
akathartos: impure, unclean The Levitical category, ceremonial and moral at once, now used of the spirits themselves. Note where Luke has placed the word: three verses after the Gentile seacoast of Tyre and Sidon, ground that a first century Jewish reader would also file under unclean. The uncleanness Jesus actually drives out is the one inside the person, not the one on the map.
πνευμάτωνpneumatōnspiritsG4151
√ πνεῦμα — a current of air, iNounGenitive Neuter Plural
ἐθεραπεύοντοetherapeuontowere healedG2323
√ θεραπεύω — to wait upon menially, iVerbImperfect Indicative Middle or Passive3rd Person Plural
therapeuō: to wait upon, to attend, to heal Imperfect, middle or passive, third plural: they were being cured, continuously. JFB catches the force of the same tense in the next verse: "kept healing, denoting successive acts of mercy till it went over all that needed."
19

The entire crowd was trying to touch Him, because power was coming from Him and healing them all.

Berean Standard Bible · CC0

Greek — tap a word ↓

kai ho pas ochlos ezētoun haptesthai autou hoti dynamis exērcheto par’ autou kai iato pantas

Word by word15 · parsed
καὶkaiG2532
√ καί — and, also, even, so then, too, etcConjunction
ὁhoTheG3588
√ ὁ — the (sometimes to be supplied, at others omitted, in English idiom)ArticleNominative Masculine Singular
πᾶςpasentireG3956
√ πᾶς — all, any, every, the wholeAdjectiveNominative Masculine Singular
πᾶς attached to the articular ὄχλος: the crowd as a whole, without remainder. Luke will end the verse with the matching accusative πάντας, so the verse opens and closes on the same word: all sought, all were healed.
ὄχλοςochloscrowdG3793
√ ὄχλος — a throng (as borne along)NounNominative Masculine Singular
ἐζήτουνezētounwas tryingG2212
√ ζητέω — to seek (literally or figuratively)VerbImperfect Indicative Active3rd Person Plural
zēteō: to seek, to try to get Imperfect active. Luke does not say they asked; he says they kept seeking to lay hold. Benson notes that many were healed "in which Christ did not so much as take any apparent notice of the cases," which is exactly what an imperfect of repeated attempt describes.
ἅπτεσθαιhaptesthaito touchG680
√ ἅπτομαι — properly, to attach oneself to, iVerbPresent Infinitive Middle
haptomai: to fasten oneself to, to take hold of Present middle infinitive. The same verb governs the woman with the hemorrhage at Luke 8:44 and the crowds at Matthew 14:36, both cross-references Cambridge gives here. The middle voice keeps the initiative with the sufferer while the power remains entirely his.
αὐτοῦautouHimG846
√ αὐτός — the reflexive pronoun self, used (alone or in the comparative G1438 (ἑαυτοῦ)) of the third person , and (with the proper personal pronoun) of the other personsPersonal / Possessive PronounGenitive Masculine 3rd Person Singular
ὅτιhotibecauseG3754
√ ὅτι — demonstrative, that (sometimes redundant)Conjunction
ὅτι, causal: Luke supplies the reason the crowd behaved this way, and it is not their faith but his power. The explanation is about him, not about them.
δύναμιςdynamispowerG1411
√ δύναμις — force (literally or figuratively)NounNominative Feminine Singular
dynamis: force, might, power The word Luke uses for the power that goes out of Jesus here and at Luke 8:46. It is the same noun that the Verifier finds shared with Luke 10:13, where the δυνάμεις (mighty works) done in Chorazin and Bethsaida are contrasted with what Tyre and Sidon would have done. The coastline named in verse 17 is the coastline of that saying.
ἐξήρχετοexērchetowas comingG1831
√ ἐξέρχομαι — to issue (literally or figuratively)VerbImperfect Indicative Middle or Passive3rd Person Singular
exerchomai: to go out, to issue forth Imperfect, middle or passive, with δύναμις as subject. Gill's image is the honest one: it went out "in great abundance, as water from a fountain; without his speaking a word, or using any gesture." Henry adds the doctrinal point, that there is "a fulness of grace in Christ," enough for all and enough for each.
παρ’par’fromG3844
√ παρά — properly, nearPreposition
αὐτοῦautouHimG846
√ αὐτός — the reflexive pronoun self, used (alone or in the comparative G1438 (ἑαυτοῦ)) of the third person , and (with the proper personal pronoun) of the other personsPersonal / Possessive PronounGenitive Masculine 3rd Person Singular
καὶkaiandG2532
√ καί — and, also, even, so then, too, etcConjunction
ἰᾶτοiatohealingG2390
√ ἰάομαι — to cure (literally or figuratively)VerbImperfect Indicative Middle or Passive3rd Person Singular
iaomai: to cure, to heal Imperfect, middle or passive, third person singular, with the power (or Jesus) as subject: it kept on healing. JFB calls the tense "successive acts of mercy till it went over all that needed," which is the plainest possible reading of the grammar.
πάνταςpantasthem allG3956
√ πᾶς — all, any, every, the wholeAdjectiveAccusative Masculine Plural
πάντας, accusative masculine plural: all of them, and Luke means it without qualification. This is the only place in the unit where a result is stated absolutely, and the tradition treats it as the high water mark of the healing ministry. Pulpit calls it perhaps the hour when the miraculous power was most abundantly displayed.

The verse-by-verse work is done. What follows gathers the whole unit. All three layers below are machine-generated (⚙). Weigh them; they have no authority.

⚙

Grand Commentary — the unit, read whole

synthesis · verify

AI synthesis — woven from the public-domain voices above and the original text; generated and fallible.

i. The descent and the level place — Luke 6:17

Luke has kept Jesus on the mountain all night in prayer and has just named the Twelve; now the participle καταβὰς brings him down. Ellicott and JFB both stop over the translation: Ellicott insists the Greek is anarthrous, "Better, on a plain, or on a level place. The Greek has no article," and JFB reports that some render it "on a level place," a piece of high tableland. Cambridge goes further and supplies the topography, the flat space between the two peaks of Kurn Hattin, and notes that the phrase topos pedinos also stands in the Septuagint at Isaiah 13:2. Barnes, more cautiously, observes that Luke "does not say that he delivered the sermon on the plain, but only that he healed the sick there," and Gill locates the spot "in a lower part of the mountain, in a plain place on it." Poole declines the whole harmonizing exercise, warning that the evangelists here "give us a general account of more than they particularly mention." ⚙ The synthesis takes Poole's restraint as the governing rule and Ellicott's grammar as the decisive datum: the text says a level place, and the level place is where the standing happens.

ii. Judea, Jerusalem, and the coast of Tyre and Sidon — Luke 6:17

The list of origins is not decoration. Benson reads it as evidence, a multitude "collected from parts at a great distance from each other," which shows "how universal the persuasion now was, that he was a divinely-commissioned teacher." Geneva glosses the last item without flinching: the sea coast "is called Syrophoenecia." Cambridge counts the nationalities present once Matthew's and Mark's parallel lists are added in, "Jews, Greeks, Phoenicians, and Arabs," and Pulpit says the same, that the great sermon was addressed "to rigid and careless Jews, to Romans and Greeks, to Phoenicians from Tyre and Sidon, and to nomad Arabs from Idumaea." ⚙ Note what Luke has done grammatically: the covenant noun λαός, the Septuagint's word for God's own people, governs a chain that ends outside the land. He does not argue for the Gentile mission here. He simply lets the geography stand in the sentence.

iii. Power that goes out, and healing that keeps going — Luke 6:18-19

Every finite verb in verses 18 and 19 that describes the healing is imperfect: ἐθεραπεύοντο, ἐζήτουν, ἐξήρχετο, ἰᾶτο. JFB hears it: "kept healing, denoting successive acts of mercy till it went over all that needed." Barnes will not let the participle ἐνοχλούμενοι be softened, since the older "vexed" now suggests petty irritation where the Greek means to afflict and to torment. Gill describes the power going out "in great abundance, as water from a fountain; without his speaking a word, or using any gesture, such as laying his hands on them," and Benson draws the striking practical inference that Jesus thereby "put the cure in the power of the diseased themselves." Ellicott notes that δύναμις in this technical sense is peculiar to Luke. Henry supplies the theology the grammar implies: "There is a fulness of grace in Christ, and healing virtue in him, ready to go out from him, that is enough for all, enough for each." Pulpit calls it perhaps the hour of the ministry when miraculous power was most abundantly displayed. ⚙ The verse ends where it began, on πᾶς: all the crowd sought, and all were healed.

Read under Sola Scriptura — this tool’s own fallible reading (⚙)

⚙ This is a fallible reading, offered to be tested against the text. Luke has placed three verses of scene-setting between the choosing of the Twelve and the Sermon, and the scene is doing theological work he never states. The night of prayer and the election happen up the mountain; the healing happens on ground that is level, and Luke chooses a word, πεδινός, that occurs nowhere else in the New Testament to say so. On that level ground the covenant word λαός is used of a gathering that includes the Phoenician seaboard. The uncleanness that gets driven out is not the uncleanness of the map, Tyre and Sidon, but the uncleanness of the spirits inside the people. And the healing is not asked for and granted case by case: the power goes out from him, continuously, to all who take hold. Read this way, the passage is the Sermon's own preface. Before a single beatitude is spoken, the ground has been levelled, the outsiders have been counted in, and mercy has been shown to be the kind of thing that pours out rather than the kind that is rationed. The tradition here divides mainly over harmonizing Luke with Matthew, and Poole's warning that these are general notices, not itineraries, should restrain anyone (including this reading) from building a chronology on it.

Not a verse, a fallible reading: before the first beatitude is spoken, the ground has already been made level.

⚙

Canonical Threads — out to the whole of Scripture

cross-refs · verify

AI-generated connections. Each carries a verification badge with a recorded basis; contested links are flagged.

Tyre and Sidon: the coast that came, and the coast that would have repented verbal / quotation: confirmed

The two rare proper nouns of verse 17, Τύρου (G5184, eleven verses) and Σιδῶνος (G4605, nine verses), return together in the woe on Chorazin and Bethsaida, where Jesus says that if the mighty works (δυνάμεις, G1411, the same noun as verse 19) done in them had been done in Tyre and Sidon, those cities would have repented. Luke 6:17 and Luke 10:13 are the same evangelist using the same pair of names, and Matthew 11:21 carries the saying in nearly identical words. ⚙ The force of the link is that Luke has already shown the coast coming, before the woe is pronounced.

Luke 10:13 · Matthew 11:21 · Matthew 11:22

basis: Verifier: shared Greek lexemes G4605 Σιδών (in 9 vv) and G5184 Τύρος (in 11 vv), both rare, plus G1411 δύναμις (in 115 vv); all refs are Greek New Testament, so the shared Strong's numbers are a genuine verbal basis

A rare verb for being mobbed from within verbal / quotation: confirmed

ἐνοχλούμενοι (enochleō, G1776) occurs in only two verses in the New Testament. Here it names those crowded in upon by unclean spirits; at Hebrews 12:15 it names a root of bitterness springing up and troubling a congregation. ⚙ The lexeme is rare enough that the pairing is a real verbal datum, though the two contexts are different: a sufferer harassed by a spirit, and a community harassed by a bitterness taking root. Both are pictures of something that crowds in and has to be dealt with at the source rather than managed.

Hebrews 12:15

basis: Verifier: shared Greek lexeme G1776 ἐνοχλέω (in 2 vv), rare; both refs are Greek New Testament. No quotation is claimed, only the shared rare verb

Coming down to the people at the foot of the mountain structural / thematic: confirmed

Luke's one finite clause is a descent from the mountain of prayer followed by a standing among the people. Moses goes down from the mountain to the people at Exodus 19:14 and comes down from Sinai with the testimony in his hands at Exodus 32:15. ⚙ The shape is the same, prayer and commissioning above, the waiting multitude below, and Luke's readers of the Septuagint would have heard it. But the differences are as loud: Moses descends with tablets and to a people who must not touch the mountain, while Jesus descends and is touched by everyone who can reach him. This is a pattern link, not a citation, and nothing in the Greek text quotes Exodus.

Exodus 19:14 · Exodus 32:15

basis: Cross-Testament Greek to Hebrew, so shared Strong's numbers are not available and no verbal tier is possible. The basis is a shared narrative pattern, descent from the mountain of encounter to the waiting people, stated as pattern only

The nations coming to the mountain typological

Isaiah sees peoples streaming to the mountain of the LORD (Isaiah 2:2-3), the servant given as a light to the nations to the end of the earth (Isaiah 49:6), and the wealth of the coastlands turning toward Zion (Isaiah 60:3-5). Luke's list runs Judea, Jerusalem, and then the seacoast of Tyre and Sidon, which is Gentile Phoenicia; Geneva calls it Syrophoenecia, and Cambridge counts "Jews, Greeks, Phoenicians, and Arabs" among the hearers once the parallel lists are added. 1 Kings 17:9 had already put Sidon in Israel's prophetic story, as the place Elijah was sent when Israel would not have him. ⚙ This is a figural reading, offered as such: Luke does not cite Isaiah here, and the direction is inverted, since the nations come to a level place rather than up a mountain.

Isaiah 2:2-3 · Isaiah 49:6 · Isaiah 60:3-5 · 1 Kings 17:9

basis: Cross-Testament Greek to Hebrew, so no shared Strong's basis exists and a verbal tier is excluded. Figural: the prophetic motif of the nations streaming to the LORD read against Luke's Gentile seaboard. Widely held in the tradition as a theme of Luke and Acts, but not cited by this text; offered as typology, not quotation

He sent forth His word and healed them structural / thematic: confirmed

The verb Luke uses of the crowd's purpose and of the continuing cure, ἰάομαι (G2390), is the Septuagint's verb in Psalm 107:20, "He sent forth His word and healed them," and in Exodus 15:26, where the LORD names himself the one who heals Israel. Malachi 4:2 promises a sun of righteousness rising with healing in its wings. ⚙ What the machine notices is not a quotation but an ascription: in those texts healing is what God does and what God is named for, and Luke says of Jesus that power kept going out from him and kept healing all, with no explanation offered. The reader is left to draw the conclusion Luke declines to spell out.

Psalm 107:20 · Exodus 15:26 · Malachi 4:2

basis: Cross-Testament Greek to Hebrew, so shared Strong's numbers cannot be cited and no verbal tier is possible. The basis is that ἰάομαι is the Septuagint's standing verb in these healing texts where the healer is God, matched against Luke's unqualified statement about Jesus

The unclean spirit removed from the land structural / thematic: confirmed

Zechariah 13:2 promises that God will cut off the names of the idols and remove the unclean spirit from the land. Luke 6:18 reports, without comment, that those crowded in upon by unclean spirits were being cured, and the imperfect keeps it going case after case. ⚙ Luke makes no claim to fulfil Zechariah here, and the machine makes none either; what is offered is the shape of the promise laid against the shape of the report.

Zechariah 13:2

basis: Cross-Testament Greek to Hebrew, so no shared Strong's lexeme basis is available and a verbal tier is excluded. Shared motif: the removal of the unclean spirit, Zechariah as promise and Luke as narrated practice

The parallel summary notices in the Synoptics flagged: verify source

Mark 3:7-8 records a comparable gathering from Judea, Jerusalem, Idumaea, beyond Jordan, and about Tyre and Sidon, and Matthew 4:24-25 places a similar notice immediately before the Sermon on the Mount. Ellicott observes that Luke's description "has many points of resemblance both with that in Mark 3:7-12, and with that in Matthew 4:24," and Poole notes that some think Luke refers to Mark 3:7-8, though Mark may describe a crowd that followed before the ascent. ⚙ The relation among these notices is genuinely unsettled in the tradition, so the tier is kept low deliberately rather than resolved by assertion.

Mark 3:8 · Matthew 4:24 · Matthew 4:23

basis: Verifier: shared Greek lexemes with Mark 3:8 (G4605 Σιδών in 9 vv, G4128 πλῆθος in 31 vv, G4183 πολύς in 322 vv) and with Matthew 4:23 (G3554 νόσος in 11 vv, G2323 θεραπεύω in 42 vv, G2992 λαός in 138 vv). The lexical overlap is real, but whether these are reports of the same occasion is disputed among Ellicott, Poole, Barnes and JFB, so the relation is flagged rather than asserted

⚙Christ in the Unittypology · verify

AI-generated reading; weigh it against the text.

The power that goes out from him is his own ancient/widely-held

⚙ In the Hebrew Scriptures healing is something God does and something God is named for: "I am the LORD who heals you" (Exodus 15:26), "He sent forth His word and healed them" (Psalm 107:20). Luke's sentence is built the other way around from a prophet's. There is no prayer, no invocation, no word spoken; δύναμις is the subject of its own verb and it goes out παρ’ αὐτοῦ, from beside him, and keeps healing all. Gill sees it plainly: the power went out "in great abundance, as water from a fountain; without his speaking a word, or using any gesture, such as laying his hands on them." Ellicott notes that this technical use of the word is Luke's own. Henry states the doctrine the grammar implies: "There is a fulness of grace in Christ, and healing virtue in him, ready to go out from him, that is enough for all, enough for each." This is the reading the commentators here hold in common, that the healing power is proper to Christ and not delegated to him for the occasion.

Exodus 15:26 · Psalm 107:20 · Luke 8:46

Touched by the unclean, and clean still novel

⚙ Under the law, contact runs one direction: what is unclean defiles what touches it. Here the entire crowd keeps trying to fasten on to him (ἅπτεσθαι, middle voice, they take hold for themselves), and the traffic runs the other way, power out and healing in. Those crowded in upon by unclean spirits are cured, and the Phoenician seaboard stands in the same sentence as Jerusalem without apology. Benson notices the mechanism and its generosity: Jesus "put the cure in the power of the diseased themselves," so that the sick did not have to wait for a formal application to be noticed. ⚙ The machine adds the observation, offered as its own and not as the tradition's: Luke states the reversal without arguing for it, and the same evangelist will later record the woman who takes hold of the fringe of his garment (Luke 8:44) and the Syrophoenician coast again at Luke 10:13. The argument by accumulation is Luke's, not this tool's, but it is being noticed rather than proved here.

Luke 8:44 · Luke 10:13 · Zechariah 13:2

The level place before the Sermon novel

⚙ Luke chose a word for the ground that he uses nowhere else, πεδινός, level, easy for the feet, and he chose it for the place where Jesus stands to receive all comers just before the Sermon begins. The tradition reads the topography mostly as a harmonization problem, and Barnes, Gill, Cambridge, Pulpit and JFB all resolve it reasonably by locating a flat shelf on the hillside. ⚙ The redemptive-historical reading offered here is more modest than a claim and more than a coincidence: the mountain in Israel's story is where God is met by one man on behalf of many and where the people are warned not to come near, and Luke's Christ comes down from the mountain of prayer and election to stand where everyone can reach him. That is the posture from which the beatitudes are then spoken. Offered as a reading of Luke's arrangement, not as a doctrine the text asserts.

Exodus 19:14 · Exodus 32:15 · Luke 6:20

Apparatus & Provenance

The biblical text is the Berean Standard Bible (BSB), public domain (CC0). Hebrew/Greek text, transliteration, morphology and Strong’s are transcribed from the Berean interlinear (CC0) + Strong’s lexicons (PD); the literal renderings, divergence notes, word notes and all synthesis are this tool’s own work (⚙) — fallible; verify them.

Named voices, quoted verbatim from public-domain works:

  • Albert Barnes, Notes on the Bible (1834)
  • Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges, — (1880s)
  • Charles Ellicott, Commentary for English Readers (1878)
  • Geneva Study Bible, Marginal Notes (1599)
  • Jamieson, Fausset & Brown, Commentary Critical and Explanatory (1871)
  • John Gill, Exposition of the Entire Bible (1746–63)
  • Joseph Benson, Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1810s)
  • Matthew Henry, Concise Commentary on the Whole Bible (1706)
  • Matthew Poole, Annotations upon the Holy Bible (1685)
  • The Pulpit Commentary, Spence & Exell, eds. (1880s)

Text: BSB (CC0) with the Berean interlinear and Strong's numbers; parse data and lexicon glosses are as supplied in the unit brief and are not second-guessed here. Commentary is verbatim public domain, cited by author tag, and every quotation is machine-extracted from the source text rather than retyped.

What is uncertain in this unit. First, the relation between Luke's discourse and Matthew's Sermon on the Mount is unresolved and the commentators openly divide: Ellicott and Cambridge lean toward one discourse variously reported, JFB argues from the woes and the chronology for two distinct occasions, Barnes and Gill harmonize by topography, and Poole declines the question as beyond what a summary notice can carry. Nothing in this synthesis depends on settling it. Second, the relation of this notice to Mark 3:7-8 and Matthew 4:24-25 is disputed in the same way, which is why that thread carries a flagged tier rather than a confirmed one. Third, the rendering "in the plain" is a translation choice, not a datum; the Greek is anarthrous and Ellicott says so directly, and the reading "a level place" is followed here. Fourth, every link to Old Testament material in this unit is cross-Testament, Greek against Hebrew, so no shared Strong's lexeme basis exists for any of it and no such thread is tiered verbal; the Isaiah and Exodus and Psalm and Malachi and Zechariah threads are pattern and figure, stated as such. Fifth, Ellicott's inference from the word δύναμις to Luke the physician is an argument from vocabulary and is flagged as such in the voice note rather than repeated as fact.

Only two threads are tiered verbal, and both join Greek New Testament texts to Greek New Testament texts on rare shared lexemes (Τύρος and Σιδών; ἐνοχλέω in two verses). No quotation of the Old Testament occurs in these three verses, and none has been manufactured.

✦ = human, public-domain source, quoted and named. ⚙ = machine synthesis, to be verified. Flagged cross-references are left visible on purpose — the verifier working in the open. “Search the Scriptures daily, whether those things were so.” (Acts 17:11)