Jesus again focused His teaching on the multitudes (cf. v. 13). He urged the people to discern the significance of the present times. This was important in view of the coming judgment and the present division of opinion concerning Himself. Luke did not indicate a chronological connection between this section and the preceding one, though there may have been one. He may have inserted this teaching here because of its logical connection with what precedes. In effect Jesus was calling the people to join the ranks of His faithful disciples before it was too late.
12:54-55 Rain clouds moved in from the Mediterranean to the west and usually indicated showers. Southerly winds often brought hotter weather from the desert that lay in that general direction.
12:56 The people could predict future weather from present signs, but they could not see that the events associated with Jesus' ministry indicated the arrival of Messiah (cf. Matt. 16:2-3). The present time was one of change and crisis. By calling His hearers hypocrites Jesus was saying that He recognized that their professed inability to recognize Messiah's appearance was unreal. It was not that they could not see that He was the Messiah, but they did not want to see it in spite of the evidence.
12:57-59 Jesus urged His hearers to come to a decision before it was too late (cf. Matt. 5:25-26). They needed to judge what was right and to believe on Jesus before God judged them and condemned them for their unbelief. Jesus reminded them of the wisdom of settling their disputes with one another before they went to court and a judge made the decision for them. The result of not settling out of court might be condemnation and confinement in a Roman debtors prison from which they could not escape easily. Jesus' point was that the unbelievers in the crowd needed to get things right with their adversary (Jesus) before the judge (God) sent them to prison (hell).
The fact that Jesus presented the person in the illustration as escaping from prison by paying his debt does not mean people can escape from hell by paying their way out. This false interpretation might lead one to pay money to the church to get his or her friends and or relatives out of hell. Elsewhere Jesus taught that hell is a place of eternal torment from which no one can escape (Dan. 12:2; Matt. 25:46; John 5:29; Acts 24:15). Jesus probably did not say the person in prison in His illustration had to stay there forever because in the prison in His illustration one could get out if he paid his debt. The parallels between divine judgment and the human judgment that Jesus described in His illustration are not exact.
