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Luke 20:39

in Luke 20

Some of the scribes answered, “Teacher, You have spoken well!”

BSB

The same verse in ASV and KJV

ASV

And certain of the scribes answering said, Teacher, thou hast well said.

KJV

Then certain of the scribes answering said, Master, thou hast well said.

This verse in Luke 20

Commentary

12 notes on this verse

A commentator

Tertullian

Against Marcion Book IV · Written before 220.

They, indeed, who had caught the very force of His voice, and pronunciation, and expression, discovered no other sense than what had reference to the matter of the question. Accordingly, the Scribes exclaimed, "Master, Thou hast well said." For He had affirmed the resurrection, by describing the form thereof in opposition to the opinion of the Sadducees.

This site's exposition

Master, thou hast well said

on Luke 20:39-40

Certain of the scribes answer, Master, thou hast well said, a rare moment of Pharisaic agreement against their usual Sadducee rivals on exactly this doctrine of resurrection, and after that they durst not ask him any question at all. The bench reads the silence as the scene's true verdict, three successive traps sprung by the authority question, the tribute question and the resurrection question have all failed, and the questioners now know there is no angle left to try. Luke closes the sequence of public tests with Jesus standing unrefuted before every party that came against him.

The record, by era

The Medieval Church5 voices

A commentator

Bede

On the Gospel of Luke · Written before 735.

proposed

But some of the scribes answering said: "Master, you have spoken well." And they dared not ask him anything further. The chief priests, Sadducees, and scribes seeking a cause for calumny, and to find a word that could be ensnared, since they were confounded in …

A commentator

Bede

Catena Aurea by Aquinas · Written before 735.

proposed

And since they had been defeated in argument, they ask Him no further questions, but seize Him, and deliver Him up to the Roman power. From which we may learn, that the poison of envy may indeed be subdued, but it is a hard thing to keep it at rest.

A commentator

Theophylact of Ohrid

Commentary on Luke · Written before 1107.

proposed

When the Sadducees were thus put to shame, the scribes, pleased with the victory over them, approved of Jesus as their adversary.

A commentator

Theophylact of Ohrid

Catena Aurea by Aquinas · Written before 1107.

proposed

But when the Sadducees were silenced, the Scribes commend Jesus, for they were opposed to them, saying to Him, Master, thou hast well said.

A commentator

Bonaventure

Commentary on Luke, Chapter 20 · Written in the 13th century.

proposed

Fourth, with respect to the commendation of the confirmation, he adds: And certain of the scribes answering said to him: Master, thou hast spoken well. The scribes commended this because they were of the sect of the Pharisees, who say that there is a resurrection. …
5 more voices on this verse

The Puritans and the Awakening2 voices

Then certain of the Scribes, answering said,.... Who believed the doctrine of the resurrection, which the Sadducees denied, and so were pleased with our Lord's reasoning on this subject: master, thou hast well said; thou hast spoken in a beautiful manner, reasoned finely upon this head, and set this matter in a fair and clear light; See Gill on Mar 12:28.

A commentator

Matthew Henry

1662–1714

Commentary on the Whole Bible (1710)

proposed

Many that call themselves Christians come short even of this spirit. We have them here struck with an awe of Christ, and of his wisdom and authority (

quarantine:debris (2026-07-29) — unbalanced-parens

The Nineteenth Century3 voices

We see in these verses — what an old thing unbelief is. We are told that "Some of the Sadducees, who say there is no resurrection, came to Jesus with a question." Even in the Jewish Church, the Church of Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob, the Church of Moses, and Samuel, and David, and the prophets — we find that there were bold, avowed, unblushing skeptics . If infidelity like this existed among God's people, the Jews — then what must have been the state of heathenism?

A commentator

Jamieson, Fausset & Brown

1802–1910

Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)

proposed

scribes . . . well said--enjoying His victory over the Sadducees. they durst not--neither party, both for the time utterly foiled. CHRIST BAFFLES THE PHARISEES BY A QUESTION ABOUT DAVID AND MESSIAH, AND DENOUNCES THE SCRIBES.

quarantine:debris (2026-07-29) — starts-lowercase

We see in these verses — what an old thing unbelief is. We are told that "Some of the Sadducees, who say there is no resurrection, came to Jesus with a question." Even in the Jewish Church, the Church of Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob, the Church of Moses, and Samuel, and David, and the prophets — we find that there were bold, avowed, unblushing skeptics . If infidelity like this existed among God's people, the Jews — then what must have been the state of heathenism? If these things existed in a green tree — what must have been the condition of the dry? We must never be surprised when we hear of infidels, deists, heretics and free-thinkers rising up in the Church, and drawing away disciples after them. We must not count it a rare and a strange thing. It is only one among many proofs, that man is a fallen and corrupt being. Since the day when the devil said to Eve "You shall not surely die" — and Eve believed him, there never has been lacking a constant succession of forms of unbelief. There is nothing new about any of the modern theories of infidelity. There is not one of them, which is not an old disease under a new name . They are all mushrooms which spring up spontaneously in the hot-bed of human nature. It is not in reality an astonishing thing that there should rise up so many who call in question the truth of the Bible. The marvel is rather, that in a fallen world — the sect of the Sadducees should be so small. Let us take comfort in the thought that in the long run of years, the truth will always prevail. Its advocates may often be feeble, and their arguments may appear to be very weak. But there is an inherent strength in the cause itself, which keeps it alive. Bold infidels like Julian, and Hobbes, and Hume, and Voltaire, and Paine — arise from time to time, and make a stir in the world. But they produce no lasting impression.

The words behind it

9 Greek words

Every Greek word of this verse in the order it stands, with what it means and the door to its own study. The last column counts the times a word stands in the whole Bible: the rarer the word, the more the places it appears belong together.

  • ἈποκριθέντεςAnswering

    apokrithentesG611231 times

  • δέnow

    deG11612765 times

  • τινεςsome

    tinesG5100528 times

  • τῶνof the

    tonG358819766 times

  • γραμματέωνscribes

    grammateonG112262 times

  • εἶπαν·said;

    eipanG2036925 times

  • διδάσκαλε,Teacher,

    didaskaleG132058 times

  • καλῶςwell

    kalosG257335 times

  • εἶπας.you have spoken.

    eipasG2036925 times

A shaded row is a word that stands 400 times or fewer in the Bible.

The walk

5 stops

Each card is a verse this one points to, and under it the verses that one points to in turn. Where several paths arrive at the same place, that place is listed first: the text keeps returning to it.

  • Through

    Acts 23:9

    A great clamor arose, and some scribes from the party of the Pharisees got up and contended sharply, “We find nothing wrong with this man. What if a spirit or an angel has spoken…

    it leads to

    • Acts 22:17–18

      Later, when I had returned to Jerusalem and was praying at the temple, I fell into a trance

    • Acts 22:7

      I fell to the ground and heard a voice say to me, ‘Saul, Saul, why do you persecute Me?’

    • John 12:29

      The crowd standing there heard it and said that it had thundered. Others said that an angel had spoken to Him.

    • Acts 26:31

      On their way out, they said to one another, “This man has done nothing worthy of death or imprisonment.”

    • Mark 2:16

      When the scribes who were Pharisees saw Jesus eating with these people, they asked His disciples, “Why does He eat with tax collectors and sinners?”

Where this verse is studied

About Luke

The Return of the Prodigal Son, Gustave Doré. Public domain.
The Return of the Prodigal Son, Gustave Doré. Public domain.
This page draws on 11 works. Open the list of works

This page draws on Bede, On the Gospel of Luke; Bede, Catena Aurea by Aquinas; Bonaventure, Commentary on Luke, Chapter 20; J. C. Ryle, Expository Thoughts on the Gospels, Luke; J.C. Ryle, Expository Thoughts on the Gospels: Luke (lightly modernized text, Grace Gems edition); Jamieson, Fausset & Brown, Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible; John Gill, Exposition of the New Testament (1746-1748); Matthew Henry, Commentary on the Whole Bible; Tertullian, Against Marcion Book IV; Theophylact of Ohrid, Commentary on Luke and Theophylact of Ohrid, Catena Aurea by Aquinas.