Luke 20:3-7

20:3 He answered them, ¹  “I will also ask you a question, and you tell me: 20:4 John’s baptism ²  – was it from heaven or from people?” ³  20:5 So ⁴  they discussed it with one another, saying, “If we say, ‘From heaven,’ he will say, ‘Why did you not believe him?’ 20:6 But if we say, ‘From people,’ all the people will stone us, because they are convinced that John was a prophet.” 20:7 So ⁵  they replied that they did not know ⁶  where it came from.

Luke 20:41-44

The Messiah: David’s Son and Lord

20:41 But ⁷  he said to them, “How is it that they say that the Christ ⁸  is David’s son? ⁹  20:42 For David himself says in the book of Psalms,

‘The Lord said to my ¹⁰  lord,

“Sit at my right hand,

20:43 until I make your enemies a footstool for your feet.”’ ¹¹ 

20:44 If David then calls him ‘Lord,’ how can he be his son?” ¹² 

[20:3]  ¹ tn Grk “answering, he said to them.” This is redundant in English and has been simplified in the translation.

[20:4]  ² sn John, like Jesus, was not a part of the official rabbinic order. So the question “John’s baptism – was it from heaven or from men?” draws an analogy between John the Baptist and Jesus. See Luke 3:1-20; 7:24-27. The phrase John’s baptism refers to the baptism practiced by John.

[20:4]  ³ tn The plural Greek term ἀνθρώπων (anqrwpwn) is used here (and in v. 6) in a generic sense, referring to both men and women (cf. NAB, NRSV, “of human origin”; TEV, “from human beings”; NLT, “merely human”).

[20:5]  ⁴ tn Here δέ (de) has been translated as “so” to indicate the implied result of Jesus’ question.

[20:7]  ⁵ tn Here καί (kai) has been translated as “so” to indicate the implied result of the dilemma Jesus’ opponents faced.

[20:7]  ⁶ sn Very few questions could have so completely revealed the wicked intentions of the religious leaders. Jesus’ question revealed the motivation of the religious leaders and exposed them for what they really were – hypocrites. They indicted themselves when they cited only two options and chose neither of them. The point of Luke 20:1-8 is that no matter what Jesus said in response to their question they were not going to believe it and would in the end use it against him.

[20:41]  ⁷ sn If the religious leaders will not dare to question Jesus any longer, then he will question them.

[20:41]  ⁸ tn Or “Messiah”; both “Christ” (Greek) and “Messiah” (Hebrew and Aramaic) mean “one who has been anointed.”

[20:41]  ⁹ sn It was a common belief in Judaism that Messiah would be David’s son in that he would come from the lineage of David. On this point the Pharisees agreed and were correct. But their understanding was nonetheless incomplete, for Messiah is also David’s Lord. With this statement Jesus was affirming that, as the Messiah, he is both God and man.

[20:42]  ¹⁰ sn The Lord said to my Lord. With David being the speaker, this indicates his respect for his descendant (referred to as my Lord). Jesus was arguing, as the ancient exposition assumed, that the passage is about the Lord’s anointed. The passage looks at an enthronement of this figure and a declaration of honor for him as he takes his place at the side of God. In Jerusalem, the king’s palace was located to the right of the temple to indicate this kind of relationship. Jesus was pressing the language here to get his opponents to reflect on how great Messiah is.

[20:43]  ¹¹ sn A quotation from Ps 110:1.

[20:44]  ¹² tn Grk “David thus calls him ‘Lord.’ So how is he his son?” The conditional nuance, implicit in Greek, has been made explicit in the translation (cf. Matt 22:45).