Luke 17:11-13

The Grateful Leper

17:11 Now on ¹  the way to Jerusalem, ²  Jesus ³  was passing along ⁴  between Samaria and Galilee. 17:12 As ⁵  he was entering ⁶  a village, ten men with leprosy ⁷  met him. They ⁸  stood at a distance, 17:13 raised their voices and said, “Jesus, Master, have mercy ⁹  on us.”

[17:11]  ¹ tn Grk “Now it happened that on.” The introductory phrase ἐγένετο (egeneto, “it happened that”), common in Luke (69 times) and Acts (54 times), is redundant in contemporary English and has not been translated.

[17:11]  ² sn This is another travel note about Jesus going to Jerusalem in Luke 9:51-19:48, the so-called “Jerusalem journey” section of Luke’s Gospel. It is not a straight line journey, because to travel along the Galilean and Samaritan border is to go east or west, not south to Jerusalem.

[17:11]  ³ tn Grk “he”; the referent (Jesus) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

[17:11]  ⁴ tn Or “was traveling about.”

[17:12]  ⁵ tn Here καί (kai) has not been translated because of differences between Greek and English style.

[17:12]  ⁶ tn The participle εἰσερχομένου (eisercomenou) is taken temporally.

[17:12]  ⁷ sn The ten men with leprosy would have been unable to approach Jesus (Lev 13:45-46; Num 5:2-3). The ancient term for leprosy covered a wider array of conditions than what is called leprosy today. A leper was totally ostracized from society until he was declared cured (Lev 13:45-46).

[17:12]  ⁸ tn Grk “leprosy, who.” Because of the length and complexity of the Greek sentence, the relative pronoun was replaced with a personal pronoun and a new sentence started at this point in the translation.

[17:13]  ⁹ sn “Have mercy on us” is a request to heal them (Luke 18:38-39; 16:24; Matt 9:27; 15:22; 17:15; 20:31-32; Mark 10:47-49).