Luke 7:23

Blessed is he. Or, “happy is he” (see on Matt. 5:3). In the gracious form of a benediction, yet in words whose meaning would not be lost on John, or on the disciples who bore the message to him, Jesus administered a gentle rebuke (see DA 218). This benediction, following the paraphrase of Isa. 61:1 (see on Luke 7:22), was all that Christ had personally to say to the imprisoned prophet. It was Christ’s answer to the unspoken longing of John’s heart for a personal word of comfort and cheer (see DA 217). So far as the record of the Gospels goes, this is the last contact between Jesus and John.

Offended. Gr. skandalizo, “to cause to stumble,” hence, “to offend” (see on Matt. 5:29). Many of the Jews of Christ’s day “stumbled at that stumblingstone,” or the “rock of offence [Gr. skandalon, an object of stumbling],” Jesus (Rom. 9:32, 33), as the prophet Isaiah had said they would (see on Isa. 8:14). Jesus had come to “his own, and his own received him not” (see John 1:11; DA 30, 213, 391-394). At times, even Christ’s disciples were “offended” because of Him (see DA 380), and it was because of being “offended” at Jesus that Judas betrayed Him (DA 719). It was because the disciples were “offended” on the night of the betrayal that they all “forsook him and fled” (Matt. 26:31, 56).