He answered, ‘Lord, leave it alone this year also, until I dig around it and fertilize it.
Parallel Translations
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He answered, ‘Lord, leave it alone this year also, until I dig around it and fertilize it.
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And he answered and sayde vnto him: lorde let it alone this yeare also till I digge rounde aboute it and doge it to se whether it will beare frute:
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And he answered, and said vnto him, Lord, let it alone this yeere also, till I digge round about it, and doung it.
Cross-references (14)
Passages linked to Luke 13:8 in the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge, ordered by reader-vote popularity; verse text shown in World English Bible.
- Romans 10:1 Brothers, my heart’s desire and my prayer to God is for Israel, that they may be saved.
- 2 Peter 3:9 The Lord is not slow concerning his promise, as some count slowness; but he is patient with us, not wishing that anyone should perish, but that all should come to repentance.
- Joel 2:17 Let the priests, the ministers of Yahweh, weep between the porch and the altar, and let them say, “Spare your people, Yahweh, and don’t give your heritage to reproach, that the nations should rule over them. Why should they say among the peoples, ‘Where is their God?’ ”
- Exodus 34:9 He said, “If now I have found favor in your sight, Lord, please let the Lord go among us, even though this is a stiff-necked people; pardon our iniquity and our sin, and take us for your inheritance.”
- Joshua 7:7-9 Joshua said, “Alas, Lord Yahweh, why have you brought this people over the Jordan at all, to deliver us into the hand of the Amorites, to cause us to perish? I wish that we had been content and lived beyond the Jordan! Oh, Lord, what shall I say, after Israel has turned their backs before their enemies? For the Canaanites and all the inhabitants of the land will hear of it, and will surround us, and cut off our name from the earth. What will you do for your great name?”
- Psalms 106:23 Therefore he said that he would destroy them, had Moses, his chosen, not stood before him in the breach, to turn away his wrath, so that he wouldn’t destroy them.
- Jeremiah 15:1 Then Yahweh said to me, “Though Moses and Samuel stood before me, yet my mind would not turn toward this people. Cast them out of my sight, and let them go out!
- Romans 11:14 if by any means I may provoke to jealousy those who are my flesh, and may save some of them.
- Numbers 14:11-20 Yahweh said to Moses, “How long will this people despise me? and how long will they not believe in me, for all the signs which I have worked among them? I will strike them with the pestilence, and disinherit them, and will make of you a nation greater and mightier than they.” Moses said to Yahweh, “Then the Egyptians will hear it; for you brought up this people in your might from among them. They will tell it to the inhabitants of this land. They have heard that you Yahweh are among this people; for you Yahweh are seen face to face, and your cloud stands over them, and you go before them, in a pillar of cloud by day, and in a pillar of fire by night. Now if you killed this people as one man, then the nations which have heard the fame of you will speak, saying, ‘Because Yahweh was not able to bring this people into the land which he swore to them, therefore he has slain them in the wilderness.’ Now please let the power of the Lord be great, according as you have spoken, saying, ‘Yahweh is slow to anger, and abundant in loving kindness, forgiving iniquity and disobedience; and he will by no means clear the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children, on the third and on the fourth generation.’ Please pardon the iniquity of this people according to the greatness of your loving kindness, and just as you have forgiven this people, from Egypt even until now.” Yahweh said, “I have pardoned according to your word;
- Jeremiah 14:7-9 Though our iniquities testify against us, work for your name’s sake, Yahweh; for our rebellions are many. We have sinned against you. You hope of Israel, its Savior in the time of trouble, why should you be as a foreigner in the land, and as a wayfaring man who turns aside to stay for a night? Why should you be like a scared man, as a mighty man who can’t save? Yet you, Yahweh, are in the middle of us, and we are called by your name. Don’t leave us.
- Jeremiah 18:20 Should evil be recompensed for good? For they have dug a pit for my soul. Remember how I stood before you to speak good for them, to turn away your wrath from them.
- Exodus 32:11-13 Moses begged Yahweh his God, and said, “Yahweh, why does your wrath burn hot against your people, that you have brought out of the land of Egypt with great power and with a mighty hand? Why should the Egyptians talk, saying, ‘He brought them out for evil, to kill them in the mountains, and to consume them from the surface of the earth?’ Turn from your fierce wrath, and turn away from this evil against your people. Remember Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, your servants, to whom you swore by your own self, and said to them, ‘I will multiply your offspring as the stars of the sky, and all this land that I have spoken of I will give to your offspring, and they shall inherit it forever.’ ”
- Exodus 32:30-32 On the next day, Moses said to the people, “You have sinned a great sin. Now I will go up to Yahweh. Perhaps I shall make atonement for your sin.” Moses returned to Yahweh, and said, “Oh, this people have sinned a great sin, and have made themselves gods of gold. Yet now, if you will, forgive their sin—and if not, please blot me out of your book which you have written.”
- Jeremiah 14:13-18 Then I said, “Ah, Lord Yahweh! Behold, the prophets tell them, ‘You will not see the sword, neither will you have famine; but I will give you assured peace in this place.’ ” Then Yahweh said to me, “The prophets prophesy lies in my name. I didn’t send them. I didn’t command them. I didn’t speak to them. They prophesy to you a lying vision, divination, and a thing of nothing, and the deceit of their own heart. Therefore Yahweh says concerning the prophets who prophesy in my name, but I didn’t send them, yet they say, ‘Sword and famine will not be in this land.’ Those prophets will be consumed by sword and famine. The people to whom they prophesy will be cast out in the streets of Jerusalem because of the famine and the sword. They will have no one to bury them—them, their wives, their sons, or their daughters, for I will pour their wickedness on them. “You shall say this word to them: “ ‘Let my eyes run down with tears night and day, and let them not cease; for the virgin daughter of my people is broken with a great breach, with a very grievous wound. If I go out into the field, then, behold, the slain with the sword! If I enter into the city, then, behold, those who are sick with famine! For both the prophet and the priest go about in the land, and have no knowledge.’ ”
Cross-references from openbible.info (CC BY 4.0)
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John Trapp 1656 · Public Domain 8 And he answering said unto him, Lord, let…
8 And he answering said unto him, Lord, let it alone this year also, till I shall dig about it, and dung it:
Ver. 8. Lord, let it alone this year] Happy that people that have praying vinedressers to intercede for them! God will yield somewhat to prayer, when he is bitterly bent against a people or person.
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Till I shall dig, &c.] Donec eam ablaqueavero et stercoravero. (Beza.) Ministers must try their utmost to fulfil their ministry that they have received of the Lord, Col 4:17.
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.
William Burkitt 1703 · Public Domain Observe here, 1. The vine-dresser’s petition and request, Lord,…
Observe here, 1. The vine-dresser’s petition and request, Lord, let it alone this year also. This points out unto us the office and duty of the ministers of God, who are laborers in his vineyard, to be intercessors with God, for sparing a barren and unfruitful people. Lord, spare them a little longer, Let alone this year also. If they cannot absolutely prevent judgment coming upon an unfruitful people, yet they endeavor to respite it, and delay its coming all they can.
Observe, 2. The condition upon which the vine-dresser’s petition is grounded, Till I shall dig about it, and dung it; phrases which intimate unto us the nature and quality of the ministerial work and service, signifying it to be a very difficult and laborious service. Digging is a painful work, and a spending work: and such is our ministerial work, if followed as it ought to be. We deal in mysteries, in the deep things of God, which are not received without much digging.
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Observe, 3. A double supposition here made by the vine-dresser:
First, of future fruitfulness; If it bear fruit, well.
Secondly, of future incorrigibleness; If not, after that thou shalt cut it down.
Here is a supposition of future fruitfulness; If it bear fruit, well; that is, it will be well for the Master of the vineyard; herein is he glorified, when his fig trees bear much fruit: well for the dresser of the vineyard; it rejoices the ministers of God to see their people bring forth fruit unto God: well for the vineyard, and the rest of the trees that are in it: but more especially well for the tree itself, thereby avoiding the punishment of barrenness, and procuring the reward of fruitfulness; thus, If it bear fruit, well.
Here is a supposition of future incorrigibleness, After that thou shalt cut it down: that is, after thou hast spared it, and I have pruned it; after thy patience and my pains; after thou hast forborne it, and I have manured it, digged and dunged it; if after all this, it bear no fruit, then I have not a word more to say, Thou shalt cut it down. Thou may cut it down, nobody will go about to hinder thee.
From hence learn, that a people’s continued unfruitfulness under the means of grace, does in time take off the prayers and intercessions of the ministers of God for them, and provokes God to bring his judgments unavoidably and irrevocably upon them: After that thou shalt cut it down.
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 And he answering, said unto him, Lord,.... Which, if…
And he answering, said unto him, Lord,.... Which, if understood of God the Father, may intend the intercession of Christ with him, who not only intercedes for his elect, for those that are unconverted, that they may be converted; and for converted ones, for the carrying on of the work of sanctification; for fresh discoveries of pardoning grace; for consolation and support under trouble; for their final perseverance, and eternal glorification: but also for his enemies, for profane sinners, and for formal professors; for the sake of his own people among them, and for their preservation, and for the averting of divine judgments from them, at least as yet: and so the Jewish nation was spared for some time after this, though now deserving of immediate destruction. But rather, the intercession of the ministers of Christ, and other good men, may be here meant; who, as Abraham interceded for Sodom, and Moses and Aaron for Israel, so do they for a sinful nation, a barren and unfruitful church and people, and particular persons, that they may be spared, at least a little longer, as here:
let it alone this year also; have patience one year more, or a little while longer. The Ethiopic version renders it, "until the winter", that being a time for digging about, and dunging of trees, as follows,
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till I shall dig about it, and dung it; these same phrases are used in the "Misna" (k),
, "they dung and dig" in gardens of cucumbers, and gourds, until the beginning of the year:''
upon which their commentators say (l), that they carry dung into their gardens to moisten the earth, and dig about the roots of the trees, and lay them bare, and cover them again, and prune them, and smoke them to kill the worms. And by these phrases may be signified the various means Christ made use of by his own ministry, and by the ministry of his apostles, to make the Jews a fruitful people; and rather the means Christ's ministers make use of, as did the apostles with the Jews, to reach the cases of barren professors; as by "digging", striking at, and exposing some secret sin or sins, which are the root and source of their barrenness; showing them, that they have no root in Christ, nor the root of the matter in them; and declaring to them the insufficiency of a mere profession of religion to save them: and "dunging", which as it supposes want of heat, or coldness, which is the cause of barrenness, and signifies, that such professors are without spiritual life, and without spiritual heat, or real warmth of love to Christ, his truths, ordinances, and people, and discharge their duty in a cold and lifeless manner; so it may design the means they make use of to warm and fire them with zeal for God, and true religion; by preaching the soul quickening doctrines of the Gospel, and by laying before them the agreeableness of a becoming zeal, and the disagreeableness of a lukewarm spirit and disposition, an indolence and unconcern for the glory of God, and interest of Christ.
(k) Sheviith, c. 2. sect. 2. (l) Jarchi, Maimon. & Bartenora in ib.
John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
Joseph Benson 1811 · Public Domain Luk 13:8-9. And he said, Let it alone this…
Luk 13:8-9. And he said, Let it alone this year also — Here we have the vine-dresser’s intercession for the barren fig-tree. Thus Christ the great Intercessor interceded for the Jewish Church and people, and thus, as he ever liveth, he continues to intercede for all unfruitful professors, and other sinners. And all faithful ministers of the gospel are intercessors for their flocks. They that dress the vineyard intercede for it, and pray for those to whom they preach. Observe, reader, the vine-dresser does not pray that the barren tree might never be cut down, but that it might not be cut down immediately; that a little further space might be granted to try whether it would bear fruit. Till I shall dig about it, &c. — Here the vine-dresser promises to improve this reprieve, if it be granted, for our prayers must always be seconded by our endeavours. When we request God’s grace, it must be with an humble resolution to do our duty, otherwise we mock God, and show that we do not rightly value the mercy we pray for. He engages to dig about the tree and dung it: for unfruitful Christians must be awakened by the terrors of the law, which, as it were, break up the ground, and then encouraged by the promises of the gospel, which may be compared to the application of warming and fattening manure to a tree: both methods must be tried, the one preparing for the other, and both are found by experience to be scarce sufficient. If it bear fruit, well — There being evidently an ellipsis in the original here, (for there is nothing answering to the word well,) Mr. Wesley and Dr. Campbell render the verse, Perhaps it will bear fruit; but if not, thou mayest afterward cut it down — Though God bear long, he will not bear always with unfruitful professors: his patience, if abused, will have an end, and will give way to that wrath which will have no end. And the longer he hath waited, and the more cost, so to speak, he has been at with sinners, the greater will be their destruction when it comes. And those who now intercede for them, and take pains with them, if they persist in their unfruitfulness, will be even content to see them cut down, and will have no more to plead in their behalf. Their best friends will acquiesce in, nay, will approve of, and applaud the righteous judgment of God, in the day of the manifestation of it; Rev 15:3-4. Thus, in this parable, primarily intended, as we have observed, to be applied to the Jews, our Lord represented to that people God’s displeasure against them for having neglected to improve, or, to speak more properly, for having abused the many advantages and opportunities vouchsafed to them, as planted in the vineyard of his church; and in an awful manner intimated, that though they had hitherto, at his intercession, been spared, and a further time of trial afforded them; yet, if they continued unfruitful under the additional cultivation they were shortly to receive, on the descent of the Holy Spirit, and the proposal of the gospel, in its full extent and evidence; that is, under the last and best means with which they should yet be favoured, no more pains would be taken with them, nor had they any thing to expect but speedy, irresistible, and irrecoverable ruin.
Joseph Benson's Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1811–1818) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Robert Jamieson, A. R. Fausset & David Brown 1871 · Public Domain he answering, &c.--Christ, as Intercessor, loath to see it…
he answering, &c.--Christ, as Intercessor, loath to see it cut down so long as there was any hope (see Luk 13:34).
dig, &c.--loosen the earth about it and enrich it with manure; pointing to changes of method in the divine treatment of the impenitent, in order to freshen spiritual culture.
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 8. Let it alone—It is the voice of the…
8. Let it alone—It is the voice of the intercessor. No worth or worthiness in the sinner preserves him. He lives upon sufferance, and dies when the pleading voice becomes silent.
Dig about it—Hollow the earth around the root of the tree, and then pour in the manure, keeping the soil loose and mellow to catch the nourishing dews and rains that a cherishing heaven may send. Thus from beneath and from around and from above is the sinner beset with mercies to save his soul from death.
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 8. Lord] Rather, Sir, as far as the parable…
8. Lord] Rather, Sir, as far as the parable is concerned.
this year also] “The Lord... is longsuffering to us ward, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance,” 2Pe_3:9. In “this year also” it is better to see generally the respite of forty years between the crucifixion and the destruction of Jerusalem, than merely the yet remaining period of our Lord’s ministry. God never strikes without warning, because He desires to save.
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 (8) And dung it.—Literally, and put dung. Homely as…
(8) And dung it.—Literally, and put dung. Homely as the imagery is, it suggests fertilising and gracious influences not less vividly than the dew or rain from heaven, and points, perhaps, specifically to such as are working on us in our earthly surroundings, as contrasted with the directly supernatural action of God’s grace.
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 And he answering said unto him, Lord, let it…
And he answering said unto him, Lord, let it alone this year also, till I shall dig about it, and dung it. The last year the year of grace they who listened to him then were living in. It was the last summons to repentance, the final reminder to the old covenant people that to their high privileges as the chosen race there were duties attached. They prided themselves on the privileges, they utterly forgot the duties. The period represented by this last year included the preaching of John the Baptist, the public ministry of Jesus Christ, and the forty years of apostolic teaching which followed the Crucifixion and Resurrection. The last chance was given, but in the Vinedresser"s prayer to the Lord of the vineyard there is scarcely a ray of hope. The history of the world supplies the sequel to this parable-story.
The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
unfoldingWord translationNotes 2017 · CC BY-SA 4.0 Connecting Statement:
Connecting Statement:
Jesus finishes telling his parable. This is the end of the story that began in Luke 12:1.
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Leave it alone
"Do not do anything to the tree" or "Do not cut it down"
put manure on it
"put manure in the soil." Manure is animal dung. People put it in the ground to make the soil good for plants and trees. AT: "put fertilizer on it" (See: Assumed Knowledge and Implicit Information)
If it bears fruit next year, good
It may be helpful to state what will happen. AT: "If it has figs on it next year, we can allow it to keep growing" (See: Ellipsis)
cut it down
The servant was making a suggestion; he was not giving a command to the owner. AT: "Tell me to cut it down" or "I will cut it down"
translationWords
year
unfoldingWord translationNotes — © Distant Shores Media and the Door43 World Missions Community, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Source: git.door43.org/Door43/en_tn.