Luke 17:11 to 19 · Story · Gratitude
The Ten Lepers
Luke 17:11 to 19 records ten lepers cleansed by Jesus on the road to Jerusalem, of whom one, a Samaritan, came back to give thanks.
The account turns on a question about thanks left unsaid, "Where then are the other nine?"
A diseased person must wear torn clothes and let his hair hang loose, and he must cover his mouth and cry out, ‘Unclean, unclean!’ As long as he has the infection, he remains unclean. He must live alone in a place outside the camp.
- Where
- Samaria, Galilee
- Who
- Jesus of Nazareth
- When
- on Jesus' way to Jerusalem (Luke 9:51 and 17:11)
Summary
Luke 17:11 to 19 is an account of thanks given and thanks withheld. Of the ten men Jesus healed, a single one turned to praise God and fell at His feet. Jesus' questions show that He looked for all the men He had cleansed to return and give glory to God. The story teaches that thanks to God is the fitting answer to His mercy, and that a person can receive His gift and still leave Him unthanked.
- Jesus sent the ten to the priests before they were cleansed, because the law of Leviticus 14 gave a priest the duty of declaring a leper clean (Leviticus 14:2 to 3).
- The one who returned was a Samaritan, whom Jesus called "this foreigner", and Luke names no one else among the ten (Luke 17:16 and 18).
- Only the one who returned heard that his faith had made him well, with the verb of Luke 7:50, "Your faith has saved you" (Luke 17:19).
The One Who Returned
Luke sets ten cleansed lepers beside the one who returned to Jesus.
The ten lepers is a story of gratitude told in nine verses. It speaks to every reader who has received a gift from God and gone on without a word. The Lord who gave the gift asked after the men who did not come back to thank Him.
The question at the centre of the story is what the one who returned did that the nine left undone, and what Jesus said to him. The law of Moses, the Samaritan setting and the words Luke chose each bear on that question. The story belongs to the Bible's teaching on gratitude, the thanks a person owes to God for who He is and for what He has done.
Scripture names thanks to God as the right answer to what He gives, and this story shows that answer in one man on one road.
The Story Step by Step
Luke 17:12 to 19 records what the men did and what Jesus said, in the order it happened.
The story moves from ten men crying out at a distance to one man sent on his way with a word from Jesus.
- They met HimTen lepers met Jesus as He entered a village, and they stood at a distance.Luke 17:12
- They cried outThey raised their voices and called Him Jesus, Master, asking Him for mercy.Luke 17:13
- He sent themJesus told them to go and show themselves to the priests.Luke 17:14
- Cleansed on the wayAs they went, all ten were cleansed.Luke 17:14
- One returnedOne saw that he was healed, came back praising God, and fell at Jesus' feet in thanksgiving. He was a Samaritan.Luke 17:15 to 16
- Three questionsJesus asked whether all ten were not cleansed, where the nine were, and whether only this foreigner had come back to give glory to God.Luke 17:17 to 18
- The word to the oneJesus told him to rise and go, because his faith had made him well.Luke 17:19
A sequence of seven steps, each with the verse of Luke 17 that records it.
Cleansed, Healed and Made Well
Luke uses three different Greek verbs in verses 14, 15 and 19 for what happened to the men.
Of all ten, Luke says that they were cleansed (verse 14), with katharizō, the verb the lexicon gives for cleansing from leprosy, and Jesus repeats it in verse 17. Of the one, Luke says that he saw that he was healed (verse 15), with iaomai, to cure. To the one alone Jesus says that his faith has made him well (verse 19), with sōzō, which the lexicon gives as to save, deliver or protect.
The nine did what Jesus told them to do. They set out for the priests at His word and were cleansed on the way. In verse 18 Jesus asked about the one thing none of them did, which was to come back and give glory to God.
The Law of the Leper
The law that sent the ten to the priests stands in Leviticus 13 and 14.
A leper who recovered could not simply go home, because the law gave the priest the duty of declaring him clean.
“This is the law for the one afflicted with a skin disease on the day of his cleansing, when he is brought to the priest. The priest is to go outside the camp to examine him, and if the skin disease of the afflicted person has healed, the priest shall order that two live clean birds, cedar wood, scarlet yarn, and hyssop be brought for the one to be cleansed.The rites of cleansing begin with the priest going out to the man, and this is the law Jesus followed when He sent the ten to the priests.
Earlier in Luke, Jesus touched one leper, cleansed him at once, and then sent him to the priest with the offering Moses prescribed (Luke 5:13 to 14). The ten were sent before they were cleansed. Matthew Henry called the command a trial of their obedience, like the command Naaman received to wash in the Jordan.
A Samaritan Among the Ten
Luke sets the story on the border of Samaria and Galilee, on the road to Jerusalem that Jesus took in Luke 9:51.
He sent messengers on ahead, who went into a village of the Samaritans to make arrangements for Him. But the people there refused to welcome Him, because He was heading for Jerusalem.A Samaritan village turned Jesus away early on this road, and in Luke 17:16 a Samaritan is the one man of ten who comes back to Him.
John 4:9 records that Jews did not associate with the people of Samaria, yet a Samaritan stood among the ten lepers. Jesus calls him "this foreigner" (Luke 17:18), translating allogenēs, a word found nowhere else in the New Testament.
Luke had already named a foreign leper cleansed by God. At Nazareth, Jesus said that of the many lepers in Israel in Elisha's day only Naaman the Syrian was cleansed (Luke 4:27). Naaman's story ends the same way, with a return to the prophet after his skin was restored.
Then Naaman and all his attendants went back to the man of God, stood before him, and declared, “Now I know for sure that there is no God in all the earth except in Israel. So please accept a gift from your servant.”Naaman's words to Elisha confess the God of Israel as the only God, the glory to God that Jesus looked for from the cleansed in Luke 17:18.
What Luke Leaves Unsaid
The account is silent on five things readers often supply.
Luke does not name the village of verse 12. He gives no name or people for the nine, and he does not say whether they reached the priests.
Luke gives the one who returned no name, only his people. He does not record what the Samaritan did after Jesus told him to rise and go.
Thanks That Comes Back to the Giver
The one who returned praised God and thanked Jesus in the same act.
The Samaritan praised God in a loud voice and fell at Jesus' feet in thanksgiving to Him (Luke 17:15 to 16), and Jesus counted that return as giving glory to God (Luke 17:18). Luke's word for his thanks, eucharistōn, is a present participle of eucharisteō, the Greek verb to give thanks, which the lexicon also gives for saying grace at a meal.
But love your enemies, do good to them, and lend to them, expecting nothing in return. Then your reward will be great, and you will be sons of the Most High; for He is kind to the ungrateful and wicked.Jesus had already taught that the Most High is kind to the ungrateful, and the nine received their cleansing without coming back to give thanks.
Teachers on the One Who Returned
Bede in the eighth century and Henry in the eighteenth wrote on the Samaritan's thanks at Luke 17:16.
died 735 · Bede
Bede read the man's people as a picture of everyone who credits what he has received to the One who gave it.
“And he was a Samaritan. Indeed, Samaritan is interpreted as custodian. By this name, that people who, by giving thanks to Him from whom they received, attributes everything they received, is most aptly signified, in a manner singing from the Psalm: My strength I will …”
Bede · On the Gospel of Luke · on Luke 17:16Patristic
1662 to 1714 · Matthew Henry
Henry drew from the same verse a rule for when thanks should be given.
“Note, We ought to give thanks for the favours Christ bestows upon us, and particularly for recoveries from sickness; and we ought to be speedy in our returns of praise, and not defer them, lest time wear out the sense of the mercy. It becomes us also to be very humble in our thanksgivings, as well as in our prayers.”
Matthew Henry · Commentary on the Whole Bible · on Luke 17:16Puritan
Rise and Go
Commentators read Jesus' last words to the Samaritan in Luke 17:19 in two ways, and they divide on where He sent him.
A wholeness beyond the bodyMatthew Henry; Jamieson, Fausset and Brown
Matthew Henry, in his Commentary on the Whole Bible, wrote that the nine were made whole by Christ's power in answer to their prayer. This man, he wrote, was made whole by his faith. Robert Jamieson, A. R. Fausset and David Brown, in their Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871), read the words as wholeness "not as the others, merely in body, but in that higher spiritual sense".
And Jesus told the woman, “Your faith has saved you; go in peace.”Jesus spoke the same Greek verb to the woman whose sins He forgave, and there the Berean text renders it "has saved".
The faith through which he was cleansedAdam Clarke
Adam Clarke, in his Commentary on the Bible (1832), read the words of the cleansing itself, writing that the man's faith had been the means of receiving the influence by which he was cleansed.
“Daughter,” said Jesus, “your faith has healed you. Go in peace.”Jesus used the same words of a bodily healing when He sent away the woman who had touched His cloak, and there the Berean text renders them "has healed".
His thanks stood in place of the offeringTertullian
Tertullian, writing against Marcion, held that Jesus did not send the one who returned on to the priest with a gift, because his thanks had already paid what the law required.
“Whence also, astonished that one only out of the ten was thankful for his release to the divine grace, He does not command him to offer a gift according to the law, because he had already paid his tribute of gratitude when ‘he glorified God; for thus did the Lord will that the law's requirement should be interpreted.”
Tertullian · Against Marcion Book IV · on Luke 17:15Patristic
He went on to the priestAlbert Barnes
Albert Barnes, in his Notes on the New Testament, read "go" as sending the man on to the priest. Without the priest's word, Barnes wrote, he could not return to his friends or to the public worship of God.
“Do not tell anyone,” Jesus instructed him. “But go, show yourself to the priest and present the offering Moses prescribed for your cleansing, as a testimony to them.”Jesus had sent an earlier leper to the priest with the offering Moses prescribed, and this reading holds that the Samaritan was sent the same way.
Where Are the Nine?
Jesus' question about the nine is asked of every reader who has received from God.
The story ends with the reader where the ten stood, cleansed and on the road, free to go on or to turn back.
Bless the LORD, O my soul, and do not forget all His kind deeds—The psalm commands the soul not to forget the LORD's kind deeds, which is what the Samaritan remembered when he turned back.
Sources
Scripture is the Berean Standard Bible.
- STEP Bible TBESG, the Brief lexicon based on Abbott-Smith (1922), Tyndale House, CC BY 4.0.
- Matthew Henry, Commentary on the Whole Bible.
- Robert Jamieson, A. R. Fausset and David Brown, Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)
- Adam Clarke, Commentary on the Bible (1832)
- Albert Barnes, Notes, Explanatory and Practical, on the New Testament.
- Bede, On the Gospel of Luke.
- Tertullian, Against Marcion, Book 4.
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