Jesus Remembered: Christianity in the Making, vol. 1

§13.4 For Whom Did Jesus Intend His Message?
Luke's portrayal of Jesus reading the passage and explicitly claiming its fulfilment
(Luke 4.16-21) is an elaboration of the briefer tradition in Mark 6.1-6a, we
can still be confident that his elaboration was based on a strong remembrance of
Jesus making clear allusion to the passage on more than one occasion. 134
The point here is that the proclamation of the good news to the poor evidently
ranked at the forefront of Jesus' conception of his mission. The list of eschatological
blessings already manifest in Jesus' mission climaxes not with the
most striking (the raising of the dead), but with the fact that 'the poor have good
news proclaimed to them' (Matt. 11.5/Luke 7.22). The first beatitude is a benediction
on the poor: 'Blessed are the poor . ..' (Matt. 5.3/Luke 6.20). Here is a clear
answer to our question: For whom did Jesus intend his message? At or near the
top of any list which Jesus himself might have drawn up were clearly 'the poor'.
a. Who Were 'the Poor'?
Behind the Greek term ptöchoi 135 stands a number of Hebrew terms, particularly
'aniyyim. 136 The Hebrew terms denote material poverty in its various aspects and
consequences. Of these consequences the most important were the social responsibilities
thereby laid upon the Israelite community (to relieve poverty) and what
today would be called 'God's option for the poor'. 137
(1) In the agricultural economies of the ancient Near East ownership of
land was the basis of economic security. Material poverty might be the result of
any one or more of a number of factors: bad harvests caused by natural disaster,
enemy invasion and appropriation, indolence and bad management, malpractice
by powerful neighbours, or entrapment in a vicious cycle of debt at extortionate
interest. The poor, then, were those who lacked a secure economic base. Like
widows, orphans, and aliens, they were in an especially vulnerable position,
without any means of self-protection.
134. See also above, chapter 12 n. 282.
135. It is normally used in the plural; in the Gospels the only individuals described as
'poor' are the widow (Mark 12.42-43/Luke 21.3) and Lazarus in the parable of Luke 16.20, 22.
The NT makes almost no use of the relatively lesser term, penes (only in 2 Cor. 9.9's quotation
from Ps. 112.9); in Greek usage penes denotes one who has to work, but in the LXX any distinction
is blurred (F. Hauck, penes, TDNT 6.37-39; E. Bammel, ptöchos, TDNT 6.894-95).
136. In the LXX (HR) ptöchos is used to translate 'ani (39), but also other terms, notably
dal (22), 'ebyon (11), 'anaw (4), and in Proverbs rosh (9). BDB gives as the range of meaning in
each case: 'ani 'poor, afflicted, humble'; dal 'crushed, oppressed'; 'ebyon 'in want, needy,
poor'; 'anaw 'poor, afflicted, humble, meek'; rosh 'in want, poor'. Isa. 61.1 uses 'anaw. See
further Bammel, TDNT 6.888-902.
137. In what follows see particularly Gerstenberger, TDOT 11.242-51.
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