Luke Chapter 13 verse 23 Holy Bible

ASV Luke 13:23

And one said unto him, Lord, are they few that are saved? And he said unto them,
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BBE Luke 13:23

And someone said to him, Lord, will only a small number have salvation? And he said to them,
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DARBY Luke 13:23

And one said to him, Sir, [are] such as are to be saved few in number? But he said unto them,
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KJV Luke 13:23

Then said one unto him, Lord, are there few that be saved? And he said unto them,
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WBT Luke 13:23


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WEB Luke 13:23

One said to him, "Lord, are they few who are saved?" He said to them,
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YLT Luke 13:23

and a certain one said to him, `Sir, are those saved few?' and he said unto them,
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Pulpit Commentary

Pulpit CommentaryVerses 23-30. - Jesus replies to the question of "Are there few that be saved?" Verse 23. - Then said one unto him, Lord, are there few that be saved? The immediate circumstance which called out this question is not recorded, but the general tone of the Master's later teaching, especially on the subject of his kingdom of the future, had disturbed the vision of many in Israel, who loved to dwell on the exclusion of all save the chosen race from the glories of the world to come. The words of the Second Book of Esdras, written perhaps forty or fifty years after this time, well reflect this selfish spirit of harsh exclusiveness, peculiarly a characteristic of the Jew in the days of our Lord. "The Most High hath made this world for many, but the world to come for few" (2 Esdr. 8:1). "There be many more of them which perish, than of them which shall be saved: like as a wave is greater than a drop" (2 Esdr. 9:15, 16). Other passages breathing a similar spirit might be quoted. What relics we possess of Jewish literature of this period all reflect the same stern, jealous, exclusive spirit. The questioner here either hoped to get from the popular Master some statement which might be construed into an approval of this national spirit of hatred of everything that was not Jewish, or, if Jesus chose to combat these selfish hopes, the Master's words might then be quoted to the people as unpatriotic.

Ellicott's Commentary

Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers(23) Are there few that be saved?--More accurately, that are being saved, or, that are in the way of salvation. The Greek participle is present, not perfect, and this sense should be borne in mind both here and in 2Corinthians 2:15Acts 2:47, where the English version gives, with a singular infelicity, "such as should be saved."We are left to conjecture to what class the questioner belonged, and what feelings prompted the question. Was he thinking of salvation in the higher Christian sense of the term, or of safety from that destruction of which Christ had spoken as coming on the impenitent people? In the mind of the questioner the two things may have been blended together, but the answer clearly points to the former, and we have sufficient evidence that such questions were agitating men's minds in the apocryphal Revelation known as the Second Book of Esdras. This book is probably (in part, at least, certainly, see 2 Esdras 8:28-29), post-Christian, and has been assigned to the time of Nero, or Domitian, or Trajan; but it reflects with a wonderful fulness the fevered, anxious thoughts that were working among both Jews and Gentiles, and among those none is so prominent as that "many are created, but few shall be saved" (2 Esdras 8:1; 2 Esdras 8:3; 2 Esdras 8:55). Among the strange cabbalistic fancies of the Rabbis, one was an attempt to fix the number of the saved by the numerical value of the letters of this or that text that prophesied of the Kingdom of Heaven. Assuming the question to be of this nature, its form indicates that it was a speculative inquiry. A man anxious and in earnest would have asked, "What must I do to be saved?" And, being a speculative question, our Lord put it aside, gave no direct answer, and sought to force the man back on the thought of what was needed that he himself might take his place in that company. . . .