Luke 6:25

Woe unto you that are full! for ye shall hunger. Woe unto you that laugh now! for ye shall mourn and weep.

EXPOSITORY (ENGLISH BIBLE)

Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers

(25) Woe unto you that are full!—The fulness is, as the context shows, that of the satiety of over-indulgence. The word is closely connected with that fulness (rather than “satisfying”) of the flesh of which St. Paul speaks in Colossians 2:23.

Woe unto you that laugh now!—We note here, as so often elsewhere, an echo of our Lord’s teaching, in that of James the brother of the Lord. He, too, presents the same contrast, “Let your laughter be turned to mourning” (James 4:9).

Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary

6:20-26 Here begins a discourse of Christ, most of which is also found in Mt 5; 7. But some think that this was preached at another time and place. All believers that take the precepts of the gospel to themselves, and live by them, may take the promises of the gospel to themselves, and live upon them. Woes are denounced against prosperous sinners as miserable people, though the world envies them. Those are blessed indeed whom Christ blesses, but those must be dreadfully miserable who fall under his woe and curse! What a vast advantage will the saint have over the sinner in the other world! and what a wide difference will there be in their rewards, how much soever the sinner may prosper, and the saint be afflicted here!

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

These verses have been omitted by Matthew. They seem to have been spoken to the Pharisees.

Who are rich - In this world's goods. They loved them; they had sought for them; they found their consolation in them. It implies, farther, that they would not seek or receive consolation from the gospel. They were proud, and would not seek it; satisfied, and did not desire it; filled with cares, and had no time or disposition to attend to it. All the consolation which they had reason to expect they had received. Alas! how poor and worthless is such consolation, compared with that which the gospel would give!

Woe unto you that are full! - Not hungry. Satisfied with their wealth, and not feeling their need of anything better than earthly wealth can give. Many, alas! are thus "full." They profess to be satisfied. They desire nothing but wealth, and a sufficiency to satisfy the wants of the body. They have no anxiety for the riches that shall endure forever.

Ye shall hunger - Your property shall be taken away, or you shall see that it is of little value; and then you shall see the need of something better. You shall feel your want and wretchedness, and shall "hunger" for something to satisfy the desires of a dying, sinful soul.

That laugh now - Are happy, or thoughtless, or joyful, or filled with levity.

Shall mourn and weep - The time is coming when you shall sorrow deeply. In sickness, in calamity, in the prospect of death, in the fear of eternity, your laughter shall be turned into sorrow. "There is" a place where you cannot laugh, and there you will see the folly of having passed the "proper time" of preparing for such scenes in levity and folly. Alas! how many thus spend their youth! and how many weep when it is too late! God gives them over, and "laughs" at their "calamity," and mocks when their fear comes, Proverbs 1:26. To be happy in "such scenes," it is necessary to be sober, humble, pious in early life. "Then" we need not weep in the day of calamity; then there will be no terror in death; then there will be nothing to fear in the grave.

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary

24, 25. rich … full … laugh—who have all their good things and joyous feelings here and now, in perishable objects.

received your consolation—(see on [1584]Lu 16:25).

shall hunger—their inward craving strong as ever, but the materials of satisfaction forever gone.

Matthew Poole's Commentary

Our Saviour must be understood, either of those who are sinfully full, or at least such as are spiritually empty; those that are full are opposed to those that hunger. If we take hunger for a hungering and thirsting after righteousness, as Matthew speaks, those that are full are such as are filled with wind, a high opinion of their own righteousness. If we take hunger for a want of the necessaries of this life, then fullness signifieth either a sinfulness with drink, or meat, or ill gotten goods, or at least for such as are spiritually empty of the knowledge or grace of God; there will come a time when they shall want, as rich Dives wanted a little water to cool his tongue. So by those that laugh must be understood, either those that are sinfully merry, or at least those that have no true cause of spiritual joy. By mourning and weeping, threatened to such, is either meant the vengeance of God upon them in this life, or in the world to come, where there shall be weeping, and wailing, and gnashing of teeth.

Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible

Woe unto you that are full,.... Not so much with the plenty and affluence of the things of this life, as of themselves, and their own righteousness, and so with conceit, vanity, and pride, and have no appetite for spiritual things, nor do they hunger and thirst after Christ, and the grace that is in him:

for ye shall hunger; not that they shall truly and spiritually desire an interest in Christ, and his righteousness, or heaven and eternal life hereafter; but they shall be in starving and famishing circumstances; and whilst the saints are feeding upon the joys and glories of the other world, compared to a banquet, they shall be without, and have no share in these things; Isaiah 65:13.

Woe unto you that laugh now; at sin, rejoice in iniquity, make a mock at it, instead of mourning for it; or that glory in themselves, and in their righteousness, and rejoice in their boastings:

for ye shall mourn and weep; shall be cast into outer darkness, where are weeping, waiting, and gnashing of teeth; and for all the fire they have kindled, and sparks they have encompassed themselves with, and danced in and about, this they shall have at the hand of God, they shall lie down in sorrow, and ever continue in it.

Geneva Study Bible

Woe unto you that are full! for ye shall hunger. Woe unto you that laugh now! for ye shall mourn and weep.

EXEGETICAL (ORIGINAL LANGUAGES)

Expositor's Greek Testament

Luke 6:25. ἐμπεπλησμένοι, the sated, a class as distinct in character as the δεδιωγμένοι of Matthew 5:10, on whom vide remarks there. Readers can picture the sated class for themselves.

Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

25. you that are full] “Behold, this was the iniquity of thy sister Sodom, pride, fulness of bread,” Ezekiel 16:49.

Woe unto you that laugh now] Compare Ecclesiastes 2:2; Ecclesiastes 7:6; Proverbs 14:13..

Bengel's Gnomen

Luke 6:25. Οἱ ἑμπεπλησμένοι, who are full) Their fulness does not deserve the name of “full satisfaction.” Comp. [χορτασθήσεσθε, ye shall be filled to satisfaction, ye shall be fully satisfied] Luke 6:21.

Pulpit Commentary

Verse 25. - Woe unto you that are full! for ye shall hunger. This saying points to men who used their wealth for self-indulgence, for the mere gratification of the senses. "The fulness," writes Dean Plumptre, "is the satiety of over-indulgence." Woe unto you that laugh now! for ye shall mourn and weep. These are they who, proudly self-satisfied, dreamed that they needed nothing, neither repentance in themselves nor forgiveness from God - a character too faithfully represented in the self-satisfied, haughty Pharisee of the time of our Lord, a character, alas! not extinct even when the hapless men to whom the Lord specially referred had paid the awful penalty of extinction of name and race, loss of home and wealth. The hunger, the mourning, and the weeping were terribly realized in the case of the men and their proud houses in the national war with Rome which quickly followed the public teaching of Jesus. When the Master spoke the words of this sermon the date was about A.D. -31. In A.D. - that is, within forty years - Jerusalem, its temple, and its beautiful houses, were a mass of shapeless ruins. Its people, rich and poor, were ruined. Its very name, as a city and nation, blotted out. But from parables, and still more from direct words, we gather, too, that the hunger, the mourning, and the weeping point to the cheerless state of things in which those poor souls who have lived alone for this world will find themselves after death. Luke 6:25

Vincent's Word Studies

Mourn and weep (πενθήσετε καὶ κλαύσετε)

See on Matthew 5:4.