The Sending and Return of the 70
in Luke 10
By Jonathan Mitchell

1. Now after these things, the Lord also indicated (or: designates) seventy [other MSS: seventy-two] different people by raising them up to be seen, and later sent them out as representatives on a mission, two by two, before His face (= in advance of His presence) into every town and place where He continued being about to be progressively coming.

2. So He began saying to them, "On the one hand, the harvest [is] much (or: vast; = it is a very good crop); on the other hand, the workers are few. Therefore, at once urgently ask (or: beg) the Owner (or: Lord; Master) of the harvest so that He would (or: should) put out workers into His harvest.

3. "You people be off, and lead the way under [my word and direction] to progressively bring things under control. Look, and consider this: I am progressively sending you folks off as representatives (emissaries) - as lambs within [the] midst of wolves!

4. "Do not continue carrying a bag (belt; purse) for money, nor a food or beggar's pouch, neither sandals - and you should not embrace or greet anyone down along the path (road; way). [comment: be barefoot priests: treat the Land as holy; villages as temples - Bruce Chilton]

5. "Yet into whatever house you may enter, first always say, 'Peace [= Shalom] to (or: [We are] joined with; or: = The result of the joining [is] with and for) this house.'

6. "And if a son of peace [note: = a person having the character, qualities and spirit of peace and of being joined to Yahweh or the Messiah] should be there, your peace (the joining from you) will rest and repose upon him - yet if not, it will bend back upon you people again....

9. "and then continue treating, giving attentive care for or curing the sick and weak folks within it. Also, be constantly saying to them, 'God's reigning and activity of exercising sovereignty (or: kingdom) has drawn near upon you people - close enough to touch (= has arrived and is now accessible)!'

10. "But into whatever town or city you may one after another be entering - and they may not continue favorably welcoming and receiving you folks - after going out into its broad, open streets (plazas or squares), be at once saying,

11. "'Even the dust being caused to cling unto our feet - from out of your town - we are now in the process of wiping off for you people (= with regard to you folks; [cf note in 9:5, above])! Furthermore, continue knowing this by intimate experience, that God's reigning (or: the sovereignty from God; the kingdom activity, which is God) had drawn near and is close enough to touch (= has arrived; = is accessible)!'

12. "I am now saying to you folks, that within that Day it will continue being more able to hold up in (or: endurable and bearable for) Sodom than in (or: for) that town or city....

15. "And you, Capernaum! You will not proceed in being 'lifted up (or: exalted) to heaven (or: as far as [the] sky)!' You will [instead] progressively climb down (or: descend; subside; [other MSS: be mounted so as to be brought down]) to the unseen (or: as far as Hades; or to the [state and condition of being] unseen)'.... [cf Isa. 14:13, 15]

17. Now the seventy [other MSS: seventy-two] returned with joy, one after another saying, "O Lord, even the demons (Hellenistic concept and term: = animistic influences) are continually being subjected to us (or: set under and arranged below for us) within and in union with Your Name!" [comment: 70 in Judaism = "the non-Jewish nations" - Bruce Chilton]

18. So He said to them, "I began gazing and continued contemplating and repeatedly watching the adversary (opponent; or: satan) suddenly falling - as lightning from out of the sky (or: dropping down as lightning - from out of the atmosphere and heaven).

19. "So look, and realize - I have given to you folks the authority to habitually step on and trample snakes (serpents) and scorpions - as well as upon all the power and ability of the enemy (or: the hostile or adversarial person) - and nothing will proceed in any circumstance causing you folks harm (or: wronging you or treating you unjustly).

20. "Nevertheless, do not continue rejoicing in this - that the breath-effects (spirits; attitudes; life-forces; winds) are being continually subjected to you people. Instead, be constantly rejoicing that your names have been written on and stand engraved (or: inscribed; [other MSS: were/are written]) within the heavens (or: in union with the atmospheres; centered among the skies)."

I wish to point out a few observations about this incident, as it is recorded here in Luke. First note that He was sending them

"into every town and place where He continued being about to be progressively coming."

This was to prepare those towns for His arrival - and acceptance. Note their message:

"'Peace [= Shalom] to (or: [We are] joined with; or: = The result of the joining [is] with and for) this house' (vs. 5), and then, "'God's reigning and activity of exercising sovereignty (or: kingdom) has drawn near upon you people - close enough to touch (= has arrived and is now accessible)!'" (vs. 9).

If we take vss. 5 and 9 together, we can correlate the Peace (the Joining - the Greek word "peace" is the noun from the verb that means "to join.") that is brought to their house with the arrival and access of God's kingdom. Notice that this last phrase, "God's kingdom," can also be rendered, "God's reigning (or: the sovereignty from God; the kingdom activity, which is God)," as on offer in vs. 11. I especially like the appositional rendering, here, "the kingdom activity, which is God." In other words, the sovereign influence, or reign, from God (an ablative rendering) is actually God, Himself, operating within and among humans. We are more familiar with this, in our present age of the new arrangement (covenant), as "the work of the Holy Spirit." Both phrases refer to the same thing.

Next notice, in vs. 2, that the "harvest" was described as a present situation, and that the need for "workers" in the harvest elicited His statement that His present audience should beg that the Owner (God, or Christ) should send workers into the field to do the harvesting. But He, Himself, answers that request and meets the need by sending out the 70, in vs. 3. Now He is sending them into the town of Galilee and Judea, but observe how he characterizes the environment of those regions, in vs. 3: those regions are a pack of "wolves" - or else, He is saying that Israel's "lost sheep" (Mat. 15:24) were being ruled by wolves.

Bruce Chilton (Rabbi Jesus, An Intimate Biography, Doubleday 2002) makes a cogent observation about their being sent out without sandals.

"Be barefoot priests: treat the Land as holy; villages as temples."

Recall Ex. 3:5; God's presence makes the ground holy. This prefigures the body of Christ being God's temple - and it is a rejection of Jerusalem's temple cultus as the seat of authority for God's kingdom on earth. These 70 "priests" are functioning as "God's sovereign influence" out among the people. This specification, in vs. 4, above, may be an allusion to the commissioning and sending of Moses (Ex. 3) to deliver his people, which is the primary reason for sending out the 70, in our present text.

Next, I want to point to the paraphrased interpretation of the term, "a son of peace," based upon the Greek meaning of the word peace, as noted above: "a person having the character, qualities and spirit of peace and of being joined to Yahweh or the Messiah." This concept prefigures Eph. 2:14-15,

14. You see, He Himself is our Peace (or: continuously exists being our joining and harmony [= Shalom]) - the One making (forming; constructing; creating; producing) The Both [to be] one, and within His flesh (= physical being; or: = system-caused crucifixion) is instantly destroying (unbinding; unfastening; loosing; causing to collapse) the middle wall of the fenced enclosure (or: the partition or barrier wall): the enmity (cause of hate, alienation, discord and hostility; characteristics of an enemy),

15. rendering useless (nullifying; rendering down in accord with inactivity and unemployment) the Law (or: the custom; = the Torah) of the implanted goals (or: concerning impartations of the finished product within; from commandments; which was inward directives) consisting in decrees (or: prescribed ordinances), to the end that He may frame (create; found and settle from a state of wildness and disorder) The Two into One qualitatively New and Different [p46 & others: common] Humanity centered within the midst of, and in union with, Himself, continuously making (progressively creating) Peace and Harmony (a joining; = shalom).

What about the message to be given to the village (note the corporate aspect, here) that rejects these emissaries: "'Even the dust being caused to cling unto our feet - from out of your town - we are now in the process of wiping off for you people." I suggest that this is a symbolic act that speaks on at least two levels:

1) According to Jewish purity codes, this would send the message that God's reign was now classing them as being equivalent to the Gentiles, the non-Jews: they were contaminants, impure.

2) The emissaries were to rid themselves of the "fleshly" paradigm of the Jews that were looking for a messiah that would throw out the Romans and establish a literal kingdom - for this is the reason that some villages would reject these itinerant representatives of God's "kingdom."

Jesus now brings up the subject of "judgment" upon the cities mentioned in vss. 12-15, but compares this judgment to the destruction of Sodom (vs. 12), which was simply a physical judgment (that came from God). This insertion of thought prefigured the soon-coming judgment of Jerusalem and Judea by the Romans in AD 70. Note, also, in vs. 15: it is speaking of a city being destroyed, not individual people. Once again we have the corporate image. Rather than a messiah "exalting Capernaum to the sky," it would be brought down to the grave, and no longer be seen. This is another allusion to the ruin that was approaching that area, in that time. These cities are branches being broken out of their olive tree (Rom. 11:17ff). But keep in mind what Paul said in Rom. 11:23-26 - they can be grafted back in, again.

In vs. 17, the 70 return, rejoicing that they were able to subject demons, which, as the translation points out, was both a word and a concept that through syncretism had been incorporated into Jewish thought from the culture and religions of the Greeks, during Second Temple Judaism. You will find no doctrine about "demons" in the canon of the Hebrew Scriptures. Now look at how Jesus describes, in vs. 20, what in vs. 17 they referred to as "subjection of demons":

"Nevertheless, do not continue rejoicing in this - that the breath-effects (spirits; attitudes; life-forces; winds) are being continually subjected to you people."

He did not use the word "demons," here, but "breathe-effects; spirits; attitudes; life-forces; winds."

In the text, above -- after vs. 15, I suggest reading Isa. 14 for the "fall" of what the KJV erroneously renders, "Lucifer," but I suggest that this Isa. passage is a reference to Adam's ejection from Eden (cf "Who is Lucifer, Satan or Adam?" http://www.greater-emmanuel.org/jm/wholucifer.htm ). The statement by Jesus, in vs. 18, refers to what the disciples had just reported to Jesus: the deliverance of the people from adversarial spirits. Note, also, that the word "satan" simply means "adversary; opponent." These things were being removed from the minds, spirits and bodies of the folks whom the 70 had just healed. The corporate work of the 70 was bringing the "fall" of the adversary - the thinking, attitudes and spirits of which all were being called to change (commonly called, "repent").

Jesus proceeded to further describe what they had done because of what He had given them: "the authority to habitually step on and trample snakes (serpents) and scorpions - as well as upon all the power and ability of the enemy (or: the hostile or adversarial person)." He characterizes the "demons" and "adversary" as snakes and scorpions - things that bite and sting, and can cause death (as in Num. 21, which Jesus gave an example of His work in Jn. 3:14-15). Recall what Paul said in 1 Cor. 15:56,

"Now the sharp point and stinger of (or: the sting, thus, the injection from) the Death [is] the Sin (the mistake; the error; the failure), and the power and ability of the Sin [is] the Law."

It was the Jewish leadership that was hostile to Jesus and His kingdom. They had become the "snakes" and "vipers" (Mat. 3:7; 12:34; 23:33; Lu. 3:7). Religion has always become this to the people.

The figure of "engraved names" (vs. 20b, above) speaks of participation in and belonging to the activities of His reign. Cf Rev. 3:12; 14:1b for other pictures of this same thing. This may be an allusion to Ezra 2:61-62 (repeated in Neh. 7:63-64) where those not found written in the genealogy records were considered unqualified to be a part of the priesthood.

"These genealogical records were actually kept by the Sanhedrin. Herod the Great was always despised by the pure-blooded Jews because he was half an Edomite; and we can see the importance that even Herod attached to these genealogies from the fact that he had the official registers destroyed, so that no one could prove a purer pedigree than his own" (William Barclay, The Daily Study Bible Series; The Gospel of Matthew, Vol. 1, Rev. Ed., The Westminster Press, 1975 p 12).

The temple, and the Jewish leadership, were often symbolized by the term "heaven," i.e., the place of God's throne. So here, Jesus may be implying that these 70 were legitimate "priests" in the new order, where fleshly heritage had no meaning (cf Rom. 2:28-29; Heb. 5:5-6; 7:14-17). Note the divine lineage that is stated in Heb. 5:5b. And this correlates to Jn. 3:7, which Jesus applied even to Jews (note the plural pronoun there), and to Rom. 8:14, where Paul connects divine sonship with being led by God's Spirit.

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