Lukas 5:23

5:23 Which is easier, ¹  to say, ‘Your sins are forgiven,’ or to say, ‘Stand up and walk’?

Lukas 6:6

Healing a Withered Hand

6:6 On ²  another Sabbath, Jesus ³  entered the synagogue ⁴  and was teaching. Now ⁵  a man was there whose right hand was withered. ⁶ 

[5:23]  ¹ sn Which is easier is a reflective kind of question. On the one hand to declare sins are forgiven is easier, since one does not need to see it, unlike telling a paralyzed person to walk. On the other hand, it is harder, because for it to be true one must possess the authority to forgive the sin.

[6:6]  ² tn Grk “Now it happened that on.” The introductory phrase ἐγένετο (egeneto, “it happened that”), common in Luke (69 times) and Acts (54 times), is redundant in contemporary English and has not been translated.

[6:6]  ³ tn Grk “he”; the referent (Jesus) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

[6:6]  ⁴ sn See the note on synagogues in 4:15.

[6:6]  ⁵ tn Here καί (kai) has been translated as “now” to indicate the transition to a new topic. In addition, because the Greek sentence is rather long and complex, a new sentence was started here in the translation.

[6:6]  ⁶ tn Grk “a man was there and his right hand was withered.”

[6:6]  sn Withered means the man’s hand was shrunken and paralyzed.