Lu 10:1-24. Mission of the Seventy Disciples, and Their Return.
As our Lord's end approaches, the preparations for the establishment of the coming Kingdom are quickened and extended.
1. the Lord—a becoming title here, as this appointment was an act truly lordly [Bengel].
other seventy also—rather, "others (also in number), seventy"; probably with allusion to the seventy elders of Israel on whom the Spirit descended in the wilderness (Nu 11:24, 25). The mission, unlike that of the Twelve, was evidently quite temporary. All the instructions are in keeping with a brief and hasty pioneering mission, intended to supply what of general preparation for coming events the Lord's own visit afterwards to the same "cities and places" (Lu 10:1) would not, from want of time, now suffice to accomplish; whereas the instructions to the Twelve, besides embracing all those to the Seventy, contemplate world-wide and permanent effects. Accordingly, after their return from this single missionary tour, we never again read of the Seventy.