Section 12:13–21

Jesus warned the people not to be greedy

In the previous section Jesus was speaking to his disciples. In this section a man in the crowd interrupted and asked Jesus to settle a quarrel between him and his brother about an inheritance. Jesus used this situation as an opportunity to warn the crowd about being greedy and selfish. He told them a parable about a rich man who kept all his riches for himself. God called him a fool and judged him for it.

Some other possible headings for this section are:

The Parable About The Rich Fool
-or-
A Rich Fool (Contemporary English Version)
-or-
Jesus Warns Against Selfishness (New Century Version)

This parable is only in the Gospel of Luke.

Paragraph 12:13–21

12:13a

This verse introduces an interruption to what Jesus was saying. In some languages it may be necessary to provide a connection to the preceding context. For example:

Just then…

Someone in the crowd: The context makes it clear that this Someone was a man, and if it is natural in your language you may make that explicit at this point. For example:

A man in the crowd (New Jerusalem Bible)

12:13b

Teacher: The Greek word that the Berean Standard Bible translates as Teacher was a polite title for a Jewish religious leader. It was a title of respect for a Jewish man who had authority to teach the things about God. In some languages the appropriate way to address a religious teacher may be:

Sir Teacher
-or-
Sir
-or-
Master

Be careful not to use a term that can refer only to a school teacher. Be sure also to translate the man’s request in a polite way.

The word Teacher last occurred in 11:45b.

tell my brother to divide the inheritance with me: This man had apparently been arguing with his older brother. Their father must have died and the older brother had not given the younger brother his share of the land, money, and other possessions that their father had left. The younger brother who was speaking wanted Jesus to use his authority to help him get what he considered his fair share of this inheritance.

my brother: This was probably the man’s older brother and his only brother. If you need to make explicit whether or not he was older, you should say:

my ⌊older⌋ brother

inheritance: An inheritance is the money, land, and other possessions a man leaves when he dies. In Jewish culture, this inheritance normally went to his sons. The oldest son would receive twice as much as each of the other sons would receive.

Other ways to translate the request in 12:13b are:

⌊Please⌋ order my ⌊older⌋ brother to share/divide our family property with me.
-or-

⌊Please⌋ tell my brother to give me my ⌊proper⌋ share of the inheritance ⌊from our father⌋.

© 2009, 2010, 2013 by SIL International®
Made available under the terms of a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License (CC BY-SA) creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0.
All Scripture quotations in this publication, unless otherwise indicated, are from The Holy Bible, Berean Standard Bible.
BSB is produced in cooperation with Bible Hub, Discovery Bible, OpenBible.com, and the Berean Bible Translation Committee.