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Luke 5:25-27  New English Translation

25 Immediately[a] he stood up before them, picked[b] up the stretcher[c] he had been lying on, and went home, glorifying[d] God. 26 Then[e] astonishment[f] seized them all, and they glorified[g] God. They were filled with awe,[h] saying, “We have seen incredible[i] things[j] today.”[k]

The Call of Levi; Eating with Sinners

27 After[l] this, Jesus[m] went out and saw a tax collector[n] named Levi[o] sitting at the tax booth.[p] “Follow me,”[q] he said to him.

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Footnotes

  1. Luke 5:25 tn Grk “And immediately.” Here καί (kai) has not been translated because of differences between Greek and English style.
  2. Luke 5:25 tn Grk “and picked up.” Here καί (kai) has not been translated because contemporary English normally places a coordinating conjunction only between the last two elements in a series.
  3. Luke 5:25 tn Grk “picked up what he had been lying on”; the referent of the relative pronoun (the stretcher) has been specified in the translation for clarity.
  4. Luke 5:25 sn Note the man’s response, glorifying God. Joy at God’s work is also a key theme in Luke: 2:20; 4:15; 5:26; 7:16; 13:13; 17:15; 18:43; 23:47.
  5. Luke 5:26 tn Here καί (kai) has been translated as “then” to indicate the implied sequence of events within the narrative.
  6. Luke 5:26 tn Or “amazement.” See L&N 25.217, which translates this clause, “astonishment seized all of them.”
  7. Luke 5:26 tn This imperfect verb could be translated as an ingressive (“they began to glorify God”), but this is somewhat awkward in English since the following verb is aorist and is normally translated as a simple past.
  8. Luke 5:26 tn Grk “fear,” but the context and the following remark show that it is mixed with wonder; see L&N 53.59.
  9. Luke 5:26 tn Or “remarkable.” The term παράδοξος (paradoxos) is hard to translate exactly; it suggests both the unusual and the awe inspiring in this context. For the alternatives see L&N 31.44 (“incredible”) and 58.56 (“remarkable”). It is often something beyond belief (G. Kittel, TDNT 2:255).
  10. Luke 5:26 tn The word “things” is not in the Greek text, but has been supplied because the adjective παράδοξος (paradoxos) is substantival. Other translations sometimes supply alternate words like “miracles” or “signs,” but “things” is the most neutral translation.
  11. Luke 5:26 sn See the note on today in 2:11.
  12. Luke 5:27 tn Grk “And after.” Here καί (kai) has not been translated because of differences between Greek and English style.
  13. Luke 5:27 tn Grk “he”; the referent (Jesus) has been supplied in the translation for clarity.
  14. Luke 5:27 sn See the note on tax collectors in 3:12.
  15. Luke 5:27 sn It is possible that Levi is a second name for Matthew, because people often used alternative names in 1st century Jewish culture.
  16. Luke 5:27 tn While “tax office” is sometimes given as a translation for τελώνιον (telōnion; so L&N 57.183), this could give the modern reader a false impression of an indoor office with all its associated furnishings.sn The tax booth was a booth located at a port or on the edge of a city or town to collect taxes for trade. These taxes were a form of customs duty or toll applied to the movement of goods and produce brought into an area for sale. As such these tolls were a sort of “sales tax” paid by the seller but obviously passed on to the purchaser in the form of increased prices (L&N 57.183). The system as a whole is sometimes referred to as “tax farming” because a contract to collect these taxes for an entire district would be sold to the highest bidder, who would pay up front, hire employees to do the work of collection, and then recoup the investment and overhead by charging commissions on top of the taxes. Although rates and commissions were regulated by law, there was plenty of room for abuse in the system through the subjective valuation of goods by the tax collectors, and even through outright bribery. Tax overseers and their employees were obviously not well liked. There was a tax booth in Capernaum, which was on the trade route from Damascus to Galilee and the Mediterranean. It was here that Jesus met Levi (also named Matthew [see Matt 9:9]) who, although indirectly employed by the Romans, was probably more directly responsible to Herod Antipas, the tetrarch of Galilee appointed by Rome. It was Levi’s job to collect customs duties for Rome and he was thus despised by his fellow Jews, many of whom would have regarded him as a traitor.
  17. Luke 5:27 sn Follow me. For similar calls on the part of Jesus see Luke 5:10-11; 9:23, 59; 18:22.
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