LUKE 9:60-62

Q:  “Let the dead bury their own dead, but as for you, go and proclaim the kingdom of God. No one who puts a hand to the plow and looks back is fit for the kingdom of God.” This saying appears to both break the commandment to honor our parents and to not allow any doubts in the Christian life. Is that the only possible understanding?

“Dead” has been variously taken to mean the spiritually dead (preferred), waverers, pallbearers, or to have the overall meaning of “let the matter take care of itself” (doubtful). Many of the alternative understandings posit a mistranslation from the original Aramaic.

If this refers to the literal dead, the following should be taken into account:

NIGTC: Burial of relatives took precedence over all other duties. Even priests could do it. To leave it undone was something scandalous to a Jew. Jesus' teaching even seems to go against the ethic of the early church (I Timothy 5:8). “The urgency of the task of preaching the gospel could not be clearer.”

NCBC: Burial was a ceremonial obligation like fasting and observing the Sabbath. It supposedly imparted benefits to those doing it in the present and future life. Jesus treats it like other sacramental rites as secondary to following him. “If discipleship requires one to forsake living parents, how much more should it require this in regard to the deceased.”

Hard Sayings of the Bible: A Scottish preacher was scheduled to speak the same day his father was to be buried. Jesus seemed to say to him: “Would you rather bury the dead or raise the dead?”

NICNT: The father can't have just died or the man would have been home helping with preparations. Burial usually took place the same day as the death.

Bible Knowledge Commentary: The father was probably not dead yet. The disciple is waiting until it happens. It may also mean that he wanted to wait until his inheritance was settled. Jesus was on his way to Jerusalem so a decision needed to be made then and there.

Beale: Secondary burial of bones after one year may be in mind. If so, then it was not really an urgent duty.

Craddock: “Jesus never said to choose him over the devil but to choose him over the family. And the remarkable thing is that those who have done so have been freed from possession and worship of family and have found the distance necessary to love them.”

DNTT, I, 493: For the disciple there is no looking back at associations and ties that are left behind, no looking back into the past, and no looking at former achievements. See Genesis 19:17,26; Luke 17:31-32; Philippians 3:13.

International Bible Commentary and others: Reference to a plowman is a reminder that God's call to Elisha came while he was plowing (I Kings 19:19)

Beale: Luke 9:54 is also an allusion to Elisha. Another allusion to the Elisha story is found in 9:59. Elijah allowed Elisha to bid farewell to his family before following him. The contrast between Jesus and Elijah highlights Jesus' authority and points to the eschatological urgency of Christ's ministry.

A plowman who looks back has his mind still partly on the life he left to follow Jesus.

“Those who look back” – see Hebrews 12:1f.

AB: The first would-be follower wants to follow but Jesus tells him to first count the cost. There was a different approach with other followers. Jesus can obviously read their minds.