Charles Ellicott Commentary Luke 4:20

"And he closed the book, and gave it back to the attendant, and sat down: and the eyes of all in the synagogue were fastened on him." — Luke 4:20 (ASV)

And he closed the book.—It is better understood as rolled up, describing the actual manner of closing. The description is characteristic, indicating:

1. that it probably came originally from an eyewitness;
2. and the calmness and deliberation with which our Lord acted.

And sat down.—This conveys to us the idea of falling back to a place of comparative obscurity among the congregation. For a Jew, it implied just the opposite. The chair near the place from which the lesson was read was the pulpit of the Rabbi, and to sit down in that chair (Matthew 23:2) was an assumption by our Lord, apparently for the first time in that synagogue, of the preacher’s function. This led to the eager, fixed gaze of wonder which the next clause speaks of.

Fastened on him.—The Greek word so rendered is noticeable as being used twelve times by St. Luke (chiefly in the Acts), and twice by St. Paul (2 Corinthians 3:7; 2 Corinthians 3:13), and by no other writer of the New Testament. It had been used by Aristotle in his scientific writings and was probably a half-technical word that St. Luke’s studies as a physician had brought into his vocabulary, and that St. Paul learned, as it were, from him.