Behold, I give you authority to tread on serpents and scorpions, and over all the power of the enemy. Nothing will in any way hurt you.
Parallel Translations
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Behold, I give you authority to tread on serpents and scorpions, and over all the power of the enemy. Nothing will in any way hurt you.
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Beholde I geve vnto you power to treade on serpetes and scorpions and over all maner power of the enimye and no thinge shall hurte you.
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Beholde, I giue vnto you power to treade on Serpents, and Scorpions, and ouer all the power of the enemie, and nothing shall hurt you.
Cross-references (10)
Passages linked to Luke 10:19 in the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge, ordered by reader-vote popularity; verse text shown in World English Bible.
- Psalms 91:13 You will tread on the lion and cobra. You will trample the young lion and the serpent underfoot.
- Mark 16:18 they will take up serpents; and if they drink any deadly thing, it will in no way hurt them; they will lay hands on the sick, and they will recover.”
- Romans 16:20 And the God of peace will quickly crush Satan under your feet. The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you.
- Acts 28:5 However he shook off the creature into the fire, and wasn’t harmed.
- Revelation 11:5 If anyone desires to harm them, fire proceeds out of their mouth and devours their enemies. If anyone desires to harm them, he must be killed in this way.
- Luke 21:17-18 You will be hated by all men for my name’s sake. And not a hair of your head will perish.
- Ezekiel 2:6 You, son of man, don’t be afraid of them, neither be afraid of their words, though briers and thorns are with you, and you dwell among scorpions. Don’t be afraid of their words, nor be dismayed at their looks, though they are a rebellious house.
- Romans 8:31-39 What then shall we say about these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? He who didn’t spare his own Son, but delivered him up for us all, how would he not also with him freely give us all things? Who could bring a charge against God’s chosen ones? It is God who justifies. Who is he who condemns? It is Christ who died, yes rather, who was raised from the dead, who is at the right hand of God, who also makes intercession for us. Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Could oppression, or anguish, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? Even as it is written, “For your sake we are killed all day long. We were accounted as sheep for the slaughter.” No, in all these things, we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am persuaded that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor any other created thing will be able to separate us from God’s love which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.
- Hebrews 13:5-6 Be free from the love of money, content with such things as you have, for he has said, “I will in no way leave you, neither will I in any way forsake you.” So that with good courage we say, “The Lord is my helper. I will not fear. What can man do to me?”
- Isaiah 11:8 The nursing child will play near a cobra’s hole, and the weaned child will put his hand on the viper’s den.
Cross-references from openbible.info (CC BY 4.0)
Explain this verse (15 sources)
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Geneva Bible translators 1599 · Public Domain Shall do you wrong.
Shall do you wrong.
Geneva Bible (1599) marginal notes — public domain.
John Trapp 1656 · Public Domain 19 Behold, I give unto you power to tread…
19 Behold, I give unto you power to tread on serpents and scorpions, and over all the power of the enemy: and nothing shall by any means hurt you.
Ver. 19. To tread on serpents] {See Trapp on "Mar 16:18"} Good ministers tread so hard on the old serpent’s head, that it is no wonder he turns again, and nibbleth at their heels.
John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Matthew Poole 1685 · Public Domain Christ doth here:
Christ doth here:
1. Confirm the power before given to these seventy for working miracles, that they might not think that it ceased upon the determination of their first mission.
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2. He confirmeth his promise to them for his presence with them, and protection of them.
Interpreters think here is a manifest allusion to Psa 91:13, Thou shalt tread upon the lion and adder: the young lion and the dragon shalt thou trample under thy feet: which must be understood figuratively, the sense being, that nothing should hurt them. This promise was more specially verified for some years in God’s protection of time first ministers of the gospel, until they had done their work; and shall be fulfilled in a sense to the end of the world, according to the promise in Psa 91:13. Nothing shall hurt their souls, as to the favour of God and their eternal happiness, nor their bodies, so far forth as, or so long as, God in his wisdom shall judge fit. They have a further power also given them more common to all the ministers of the gospel sent by Christ, yea, and to all Christians. They have a power over all the power of the enemy; God will not be wanting to them in a power to resist the devil, and they have a promise that, being resisted, he shall flee from them.
Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
William Burkitt 1703 · Public Domain Our Lord, finding that his seventy ambassadors had managed…
Our Lord, finding that his seventy ambassadors had managed their former commission so well, he here enlarged it, adding there unto a promise of divine protection: Behold I give you power to tread on serpents, and nothing shall hurt you; as if Christ had said, "Go forth again in this armor of power, with which I have girt you, and I warrant you sword-free and shot-free; nothing shall by any means hurt you, neither strength nor stratagem shall overcome you. Neither the power, the presence, nor protection, of God, shall be wanting to any of Christ’s ministers, or members, who go forth in his strength against the spiritual enemies of their salvation."
As we have a promise of power in this text to enable us to resist the devil, so we have a promise of success elsewhere upon our resisting him: Resist the devil and he will flee from you, Jas 4:7
William Burkitt's Expository Notes on the New Testament (1700–1703) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
John Gill 1763 · Public Domain Behold, I give you power to tread on serpents…
Behold, I give you power to tread on serpents and scorpions,.... Which may be literally understood, as in Mar 16:18, or figuratively of the devil, and his principalities and powers, and all his emissaries, who, for their craft and cunning, and for their poisonous and hurtful nature and influence, may be compared to serpents and scorpions:
and over all the power of the enemy; of mankind in general, and of the seed of the woman, Christ and his people in particular, Christ has a power over all his power, his whole posse of devils, even the power of the air, of which he is prince; and he communicated this power to his disciples, even to the seventy: adding,
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and nothing shall by any means, hurt you; not the most hurtful and poisonous animals, nor the most malicious persecutors on earth, nor all the devils in hell: as the former venomous creatures, when took up in their hands, should not hurt, their bodies; so the other, whatever they might be permitted to do with respect to their lives, and outward estate, should never hurt their souls, and the eternal welfare of them; nor even hinder the work of God prospering in their hands.
John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
John Wesley 1765 · Public Domain I give you power - That is, I continue…
I give you power - That is, I continue it to you: and nothing shall hurt you - Neither the power, nor the subtilty of Satan.
John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the Whole Bible (1754–1765) — public domain. Text via the GEBible commentary corpus.
Adam Clarke 1810 · Public Domain Verse 19. To tread on serpents, c.] It is…
Verse 19. To tread on serpents, c.] It is possible that by serpents and scorpions our Lord means the scribes and Pharisees, whom he calls serpents and a brood of vipers, Mt 23:33, (see the note there,) because, through the subtilty and venom of the old serpent, the devil, they opposed him and his doctrine and, by trampling on these, it is likely that he means, they should get a complete victory over such: as it was an ancient custom to trample on the kings and generals who had been taken in battle, to signify the complete conquest which had been gained over them. See Jos 10:24. See also Ro 16:20. See the notes on Mr 16:17; Mr 16:18.
Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Albert Barnes 1834 · Public Domain To tread on serpents - Preservation from danger. If…
To tread on serpents - Preservation from danger. If you tread on a poisonous reptile that would otherwise injure you, I will keep you from danger. If you go among bitter and malignant enemies that would seek your life, I will preserve you. See the notes at Mar 16:18.
Scorpions - The scorpion is an animal with eight feet, eight eyes and a long jointed tail, ending in a pointed weapon or sting. It is found in tropical climates, and seldom exceeds 4 inches in length. Its sting is extremely poisonous, and it is sometimes fatal to life. It is in Scripture the emblem of malicious and crafty men. When rolled up it has some resemblance to an egg, Luk 11:12; Eze 2:6. The annexed cut will give an idea of its usual form and appearance.
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The enemy - Satan. The meaning of this verse is, that Jesus would preserve them from the power of Satan and all his emissaries - from all wicked and crafty men; and this shows that he had divine power. He that can control Satan and his hosts that can be present to guard from all their machinations, see all their plans, and destroy all their designs, must be clothed with no less than almighty power.
Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible (1834–1885) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Haydock's Catholic Bible Commentary 1859 · Public Domain Given you power, &c. By these words our Saviour…
Given you power, &c. By these words our Saviour seems to insinuate, that the venom of serpents, and the other noxious qualities of some animals, proceed from the malice of the devil. These are the arms and the instruments he makes us of to kill us, being the prince of death and a murderer from the beginning, as the Scripture styles him. The Jews attributed sickness, poisons, and every thing of the same kind to evil spirits.
George Leo Haydock (1774–1849), Haydock's Catholic Family Bible and Commentary, 1859 edition — public domain. Excludes Psalms (Douay-Rheims chapter numbering differs from Protestant) and Deuterocanonical books (Catholic canon only).
Robert Jamieson, A. R. Fausset & David Brown 1871 · Public Domain Behold, I give you, &c.--not for any renewal of…
Behold, I give you, &c.--not for any renewal of their mission, though probably many of them afterwards became ministers of Christ; but simply as disciples.
serpents and scorpions--the latter more venomous than the former: literally, in the first instance (Mar 16:17-18; Act 28:5); but the next words, "and over all the power of the enemy, and nothing shall by any means hurt you," show that the glorious power of faith to "overcome the world" and "quench all the fiery darts of the wicked one," by the communication and maintenance of which to His people He makes them innocuous, is what is meant (Jo1 5:4; Eph 6:16).
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown — Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
Daniel D. Whedon 1874 · Public Domain 19. Behold I give—The perfect tense, I have given.…
19. Behold I give—The perfect tense, I have given. The Greek perfect signifies a past act whose effect remains. I have given and the gift still remains. The gift was imparted in the first bestowment of their symbolical office, as one of its significant points. It was probably to cease with their office, though this may not be so certain. The same promise was made even to private believers in Mar_16:18, on which see our note.
Power to tread on serpents and scorpions—And as the casting out of demons by the Seventy, and the fall of Satan, which Christ saw, were both actual and physical realities, so was this treading on serpents and scorpions an actual and physical reality. The Seventy during their mission should find a superiority to reptile venom one of their miraculous gifts, as did Paul at Melita. Act_28:5. But all three of these realities were symbols of the spiritual. They were the type of the final
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bruising of the serpent’s head. All the power of the enemy—It is not sin which has produced physical evil in the world; for evil, accident, and death existed on earth, as geology shows, before Adam sinned. But sin excluded man from access to the tree of life, from which he had been immortal, and thus sin established that relation of the body and mind of man towards external nature, as that disease and death ensue. Sin, therefore, constitutes to man the power of the serpent’s venom and the scorpion’s sting. Christ here promises to these his followers some faint restoration of the Adamic superiority to the power of the enemy.
The enemy—The chief and first old Serpent; the Satan of Luk_10:18, by whose first hostility all other venomous things are poisonous to man.
Hurt you—This promise of miraculous power should doubtless be limited by the laws of miracle and faith, as defined in our note on Mat_17:20.
Daniel D. Whedon (gen. ed.), Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1874–1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges 1878 · Public Domain 19. I give] Read, I have given, with א,…
19. I give] Read, I have given, with א, B, C, L, &c.
power] Rather, the authority.
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to tread on serpents and scorpions] Compare Mar_16:17-18. So far as the promise was literal, the only fact of the kind referred to in the
N. T. is Act_28:3-5. In legend we have the story of St John saved from poison, which is represented in Christian art as a viper escaping from the cup (Jameson, Sacred and Legendary Art, I. 159). But it may be doubted whether the meaning was not predominantly spiritual as in Gen_3:15; Rom_16:20; Psa_91:13; Isa_11:8.
nothing shall by any means hurt you] Rom_8:28; Rom_8:39.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers 1878 · Public Domain (19) Behold, I give unto you . . .—The…
(19) Behold, I give unto you . . .—The better MSS. have, “I have given,” as of something already bestowed in its completeness. In the power to “tread on serpents and scorpions,” we have a manifest reference to the words of Psa_91:13. Those words stand in closest sequence with the promise which had been wrested from its true meaning by the Tempter in the great struggle in the wilderness; and it is not over-bold to think that they were connected with our Lord’s memories of that time, and especially of the fact indicated by St. Mark’s statement (Mar_1:13) that He “was with the wild beasts.” Now, through resistance to the Temptation, there had come the victory which if He had then yielded, never would have been won. Of a literal fulfilment of the words, St. Paul’s escape from the viper at Melita (Act_28:3) is the only recorded instance; but the parallelism between this promise and that of Psa_91:13 shows that the literal meaning falls into the background, that the serpent and the scorpion are symbols of spiritual powers of evil. A merely literal interpretation lands us in two serious difficulties: (1) that it represents the treading on serpents as a greater work than casting out demons; and (2) that it implies that serpents and scorpions, as such, are not part of God’s creation, but belong to the power of the Evil One. So far as we think of a literal fulfilment at all, it can only be as the symbol and earnest of the spiritual. The real kernel of the promise lies in the last words, “Nothing shall by any means hurt you,” and these find their interpretation in the thought that “nothing shall separate us from the love of God,” and that “all things work together for good to those that love Him” (Rom_8:39; Rom_8:28).
A Bible Commentary for English Readers, edited by Charles John Ellicott (1878–1897) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Pulpit Commentary 1880 · Public Domain Behold, I give unto you power to tread on…
Behold, I give unto you power to tread on serpents and scorpions, and over all the power of the enemy. The older authorities read here, "I have given." The only recorded instance of a literal fulfilment of this promise was in the case of Paul at Melita, after the shipwreck. (Act_24:3-5) A similar promise was made during the "forty days". (Mar_16:17, 18) It seems however, best, in the case of this peculiar promise, to interpret the Lord"s words as referring to spiritual powers of evil, taking the serpent and scorpion as symbols of these. It should be remembered that the subject of conversation between the Master and his servants was the conflict with and victory ever these awful powers restlessly hostile to the human race. (see Psa_91:13)
The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Tyndale Open Study Notes 2022 · CC BY-SA 4.0 10:19 Snakes and scorpions were symbols of danger and…
10:19 Snakes and scorpions were symbols of danger and evil (see Num 21:6-9; Deut 8:15; 1 Kgs 12:14; Isa 11:8; Ezek 2:6). Satan is the ancient serpent who tempted Eve (Gen 3:15; Rom 16:20; Rev 12:9; 20:2), and demonic forces are described as scorpions (Rev 9:3-4). • Nothing will injure you: This didn’t mean that Jesus’ followers should take dangerous chances. The point is that God protects his servants (e.g., Acts 28:3-6).
Tyndale Open Study Notes — © Tyndale Open Resources, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Text via the HelloAO Bible API.