John Calvin Commentary Luke 13:31

"In that very hour there came certain Pharisees, saying to him, Get thee out, and go hence: for Herod would fain kill thee." — Luke 13:31 (ASV)

It deserves our attention that Christ gives the designation daughter of Abraham, to one whose body had been enslaved by Satan during eighteen years. She was so called, not only in reference to her lineage, as all the Jews without exception gloried in this title, but because she was one of the true and actual members of the Church. Here we also perceive what Paul tells us, that some are delivered to Satan for the destruction of the flesh, that the spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord Jesus (1 Corinthians 5:5).

And the length of time points out to us that, though the Lord does not immediately relieve our distresses, yet we ought not to despair.

It is difficult to ascertain the precise time when this happened, other than that Christ was at that time residing in Galilee, as during the whole period of his public ministry he remained longer there than in any other place.

Certain persons, wishing to be considered as his friends, advise him that, if he wishes to be safe, he should go beyond the boundaries of Herod’s jurisdiction. How those who gave that advice felt towards him, we have no way of knowing; but I am strongly inclined to conjecture that they attempted to drive him to some other place, because they saw that most of the people in that place were attached to Christ, so that the Gospel was generally received.

We must observe who those advisers were. Luke says that they were some of the Pharisees. Now, we know that this sect was not so favorable to Christ as to make it likely that these men were anxious about his life. What then? Their design was to awaken in him such fears as would drive him to some place of concealment, for they expected that, in a short time, his authority would decline, and that his whole doctrine would vanish away.

But we must also direct our attention to the first originator and contriver of this scheme, Satan; for, as he attempted at that time to interrupt the progress of the Gospel by terrifying the Son of God, so he constantly invents and concocts new reasons for alarm to strike the ministers of Christ with dismay and to constrain them to turn aside.