Charles Ellicott Commentary Luke 10:19

"Behold, I have given you authority to tread upon serpents and scorpions, and over all the power of the enemy: and nothing shall in any wise hurt you." — Luke 10:19 (ASV)

Behold, I give unto you . . .—The better manuscripts have, “I have given,” as of something already bestowed in its completeness. In the power to tread on serpents and scorpions, we have a manifest reference to the words of Psalms 91:13. Those words stand in closest sequence with the promise which had been wrested from its true meaning by the Tempter in the great struggle in the wilderness; and it is not over-bold to think that they were connected with our Lord’s memories of that time, and especially of the fact indicated by St. Mark’s statement (Mark 1:13) that He was with the wild beasts. Now, through resistance to the Temptation, the victory had come, which never would have been won if He had yielded then.

Of a literal fulfillment of the words, St. Paul’s escape from the viper at Melita (Acts 28:3) is the only recorded instance; but the parallelism between this promise and that of Psalms 91:13 shows that the literal meaning falls into the background, that the serpent and the scorpion are symbols of spiritual powers of evil.

A merely literal interpretation lands us in two serious difficulties:

1. that it represents the treading on serpents as a greater work than casting out demons;
2. and that it implies that serpents and scorpions, as such, are not part of God’s creation, but belong to the power of the Evil One.

So far as we think of a literal fulfillment at all, it can only be as the symbol and earnest of the spiritual. The real kernel of the promise lies in the last words, Nothing shall by any means hurt you, and these find their interpretation in the thought that nothing shall separate us from the love of God, and that all things work together for good to those that love Him (Romans 8:39; Romans 8:28).