Charles Ellicott Commentary Luke 14:18

"And they all with one [consent] began to make excuse. The first said unto him, I have bought a field, and I must needs go out and see it; I pray thee have me excused." — Luke 14:18 (ASV)

They all with one consent . . .—The Greek phrase, as the italics show, is elliptical; but the English idiom expresses its meaning whether we take the omitted noun to be "voice," "consent," or "mind."

To make excuse.—To beg off would, perhaps, be too colloquial, but it exactly expresses the force of the Greek verb.

I have bought a piece of ground.—The Greek noun implies a little more than the English—better, perhaps, a farm (see Notes on Mark 6:36); and the tense in each case is strictly one in which a man naturally speaks of the immediate past—“I bought just now.”