Jesus is moving from Galilee to Judea. This section of Luke is very long, building up to his final week in Jerusalem.
11 On the way to Jerusalem he was passing along between Samaria and Galilee.
Galilee is in the north, an agricultural region with mainly gentiles but some Jews. Jesus would spend much of his time here. Judea is in the most southern part of Israel and Samaria is in the middle. Instead of just passing through Samaria he follows the traditional pilgrimage route going around the edge of Samaria, this route took longer but it’s emblematic of the historical conflict between Jews and Samaritans . After the Assyrian conquest of the northern kingdom of Israel in 722 BC, many Israelites were exiled, and foreign populations were settled in their place, leading to intermarriage and the formation of a mixed population. These are who the Samaritans are. They even developed their own worship practices, centering on Mount Gerizim rather than Jerusalem, and accepted only the Pentateuch as canonical scripture, rejecting other Jewish traditions. They aren’t just considered not Jews but also inherently anti-jewish by their existence.
“The hostility between Jews and Samaritans stemmed from longstanding differences in ethnicity, worship practices, and religious texts, causing them to regard each other as unclean” (The New Interpreter’s Bible, Vol. 8, p. 276).
12 And as he entered a village, he was met by ten lepers, who stood at a distance
13 and lifted up their voices and said, “Jesus, Master, have mercy on us.”
Jesus enters a village on the border of Samaria and is greeted by ten lepers. Lepers were people with a contagious skin disease so they were required by religious law to only live amongst eachother and to be separated from non-infected people. They want to greet Jesus and they call him Master, epistatēs in greek, which means overseer or teacher so they seem to recognise who he is and at least to some degree they recognise his authority but they must stay at a distance because of the Law.
“The leprous person who has the disease shall wear torn clothes and let the hair of his head hang loose, and he shall cover his upper lip and cry out, ‘Unclean, unclean.’ He shall remain unclean as long as he has the disease. He is unclean. He shall live alone. His dwelling shall be outside the camp.” (Leviticus 13:45–46)
They ask Jesus to “have mercy” on them which means they believe he can help their affliction (something people thought incurable without divine help) implying that the authority they believe him to have is more than just that of mortal man.
14 When he saw them he said to them, “Go and show yourselves to the priests.” And as they went they were cleansed.
In other places Jesus will touch lepers to heal them (Matthew 8:1-4) but in this case perhaps because of the large crowds with him he demonstrates his divine capacity to simply will things into existence as he doesn’t even say they are healed just that they must present themselves to the priests according to custom to show that they are clean and along the way they are miraculously cured. This demonstrates the many methods that Jesus can heal.
“and the priest shall go out of the camp, and the priest shall make an examination; then, if the leprous disease is healed in the leper,” (Leviticus 14:3, RSV)
15 Then one of them, when he saw that he was healed, turned back, praising God with a loud voice;
All the lepers are healed but only one of them will turn back and thank Jesus for it. He praises God for this healing that Jesus has done, the leper is therefore recognising the son being sent by the father implicitly.
16 and he fell on his face at Jesus’ feet, giving him thanks. Now he was a Samaritan.
In the old testament context to fall at someone’s feet is a sign of reverence towards royalty.
“When the woman of Tekoa came to the king, she fell on her face to the ground and did obeisance, and said, ‘Help, O king.’” (2 Samuel 14:4, RSV)
Luke takes note of the fact that the only one to return to Jesus in order to thank him was a Samaritan, this implies that the other nine lepers were Jews. Interesting implication here beyond the obvious is that leprous Jews were welcomed to a degree among Samaritan villages albeit still isolated from the common population, in their exile from their own people. This speaks to the puritanical nature of Jews to the detriment of their own kind and what is perceived as laxity of the Law on the part of the Samaritans is closer to the compassion of Jesus himself. This is encapsulated by who actually returns to thank Jesus, it’s the Samaritan, not the Jews.
17 Then said Jesus, “Were not ten cleansed? Where are the nine?
18 Was no one found to return and give praise to God except this foreigner?”
19 And he said to him, “Rise and go your way; your faith has made you well.”
Jesus acknowledges the other nine not returning to thank him by asking the question “was no one found to return and give praise to God except for this foreigner?”. In response to their healing the Jews who are zealous for purity are absent of mind on to whom this purity is directed, that being God. They are more about returning to the world than they are to thank him who made it or more literally “give glory to God”. This can’t be overlooked, they have experienced a miraculous cure by a prophet but they are so taken up into being a part of the material world that they completely blank on the supernatural event that just occured. The Samaritan on the other hand, who worships what he does not know, does give glory to God in response to this healing.
A peculiar word for foreigner is used here and this is the only time the word is used in the entire new testament. The word is allogenēs.
(allos, “another,” genos, “a race”)
Moulton and Milligan illustrate the use of the word by the inscription on the Temple barrier, “No foreigner (allogenēs) may enter within the balustrade (soreg) around the sanctuary and the enclosure. Whoever is caught, on himself shall he put the blame for the death which will ensue” according to Mommsen this inscription was cut by the Romans.
“The stone bears an inscription forbidding any foreigner to enter within the balustrade and enclosure surrounding the sanctuary, under penalty of death.(Moulton, J. H., & Milligan, G. (1930). The Vocabulary of the Greek Testament: Illustrated from the Papyri and Other Non-literary Sources (p. 9)).
For context, this inscription has been discovered on several stone fragments and is consistent with accounts from the historian Josephus (Jewish War 5.5.2; Antiquities 15.11.5). The warning reflects the seriousness of maintaining the sanctity of the inner Temple areas and emphasizes the boundary between Jews and Gentiles in worship practices.
Considering the temple is the place of giving glory to God in the sacrificial liturgy in it’s fullness Jesus could be highlighting that a man who is not even allowed passed the temple barrier is giving greater glory to God than those literally allowed to partake in the liturgical rites.
Jesus then says the man’s faith has made him well. The other men were also physically healed but something invisible has been made well in the Samaritan, the phrase literally means he has been “saved”. The same Greek verb, σῴζω (sōzō), meaning “to save” or “to heal,” is used in the healing of Bartimaeus (Mark 10:52; Luke 18:42)
There are quite a few old testament correlations in this passage with that of 2 Kings 5:1-14 where the prophet Elisha heals the leprous gentile Naaman. Naaman asks to take two mule-loads of earth from Israel back to Syria so he can worship the God of Israel on it. This request reflects an ancient belief that worship was tied to specific lands or locations (2 Kings 5:17). The Samaritan receives entrance to the kingdom after his healing, Naaman brings the literal dirt of the kingdom to his own lands to worship the true God.
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