Luke 13:10-17

(Luke 13:10-17) Now he was teaching in one of the synagogues on the sabbath. And, look! a woman with a spirit of weakness for eighteen years, and she was bent double and was unable to raise herself up at all. When he saw her, Jesus addressed her and said to her: “Woman, you are released from your weakness.” And he laid his hands on her; and instantly she straightened up, and began to glorify God. But in response the presiding officer of the synagogue, indignant because Jesus did the cure on the sabbath, began to say to the crowd: “There are six days on which work ought to be done; on them, therefore, come and be cured, and not on the sabbath day.” However, the Lord answered him and said: “Hypocrites, does not each one of YOU on the sabbath untie his bull or his ass from the stall and lead it away to give it drink? Was it not due, then, for this woman who is a daughter of Abraham, and whom Satan held bound, look! eighteen years, to be loosed from this bond on the sabbath day?” Well, when he said these things, all his opposers began to feel shame; but all the crowd began to rejoice at all the glorious things done by him.

The Christian Scriptures are filled with many gems that are often overlooked or neglected due to the fact that we work with translations. As the saying usually goes, "something is always lost in translation." This saying proves to true here.

When Jesus tells the woman that she is "released from" her "weakness," the Greek word that Luke uses for Jesus' saying is ἀπολέλυσαι, which can mean "set free," "released," untied in the sense of being "released" and so on. (See BDAG for more definitions) This action of Jesus lead the Jews to claim that he broke the Sabbath. How does Jesus respond? 

He responds by calling them "hypocrites"! On what basis does Jesus call them that? Jesus continues by saying that "each one of" them 'unties' their "bull" or "ass from the stall and lead[s] it away to give it [a] drink." What is Jesus' point? 

The point is this: Jesus did a work by untying the woman from demons. The Jews also did work by untying their "bull" or "ass from the stall" to lead it to a drink of water on the Sabbath. This was Jesus' way of saying 'you do work on the Sabbath, too, who are you to criticize me'? Note, too, that the Jews don't challenge Jesus, at least according to Luke; instead, they walked away and "began to feel shame" because Jesus exposed their 'hypocrisy.' While Jesus untied people from demons, the Jews untied their animals--which both acts amounted to work on the Sabbath. The Jews were quick to call out Jesus but weren't quick to call out themselves; they were truly "hypocrites."