What does Luke 7:17 Mean?

Verse Meaning

Luke concluded this pericope with a notation that the news (Gr. logos, word) about this incident radiated over that entire region (cf. Luke 4:14; Luke 4:37). The surrounding district probably refers to the area beyond Judea that included Perea where John heard of Jesus" mighty works ( Luke 7:18). [source][source]

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"Jesus" amazing healings and exorcisms contribute to the very rapid spread of his fame. Comparison of the following statements shows how the narrator conveys an impression of rapidly growing fame: After the exorcism in the synagogue of Capernaum, "a report about him was going out to every place of the neighboring area" ( Luke 4:37). After the healing of the leper, "the word about him was spreading more" ( Luke 5:15). In the next scene Pharisees and teachers of the law are present "from every village of Galilee and Judea and Jerusalem" ( Luke 5:17). This is surpassed in Luke 6:17-18, where we hear of "a great multitude of the people from all the Jewish land and Jerusalem and the seacoast of Tyre and Sidon, who had come to hear him and be healed." We reach the climax of this development in Luke 7:17 : "And this statement about him went out in the whole Jewish country and all the neighboring region."" ^[1] [source]

In Acts the spread of the news about Jesus would go from Jerusalem to the ends of the earth ( Acts 1:8). [source][source]

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This incident doubtless became the basis for many people concluding that Jesus was either the fulfillment of the prophecy about Elijah"s return ( Malachi 4:5-6) or Elijah himself ( Luke 9:8). Hopefully it brought others into saving faith in Him. [source][source]

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Context Summary

Nain lay near the plain of Esdraelon, on the slopes of Little Hermon. Two confluent streams met there-those with Christ and those with death, Luke 7:11-12. He wipes away tears by removing the cause. When the young are being borne by their young companions to graves of sin, it is thus that the Master arrests them. See Ephesians 5:14. There was a threefold gradation in the power He put forth-to Jairus' daughter, just dead; to this young man, on the way to burial; and to Lazarus, who was three days dead. The depression from John's long confinement in the gloomy fortress of Machaerus, east of the Dead Sea, and the fact that Jesus had not sent to deliver him, were the double root of this sad lapse from the position taken up on the Jordan bank, when he recognized and indicated the Lamb of God. But our Lord did not chide; He understood, Psalms 103:9. His miracles of mercy and power are His best evidences, and He left John to draw his own conclusions, Isaiah 35:5-6. May ours be the blessedness of the un-offended, who will trust Christ, even though He does not hasten to deliver them just as they had hoped! [source]

Chapter Summary: Luke 7

¹  Jesus finds a greater faith in the centurion;
¹⁰  heals his servant, being absent;
¹¹  raises from death the widow's son at Nain;
¹⁸  answers John's messengers with the declaration of his miracles;
²⁴  testifies to the people what opinion he held of John;
³¹  compares this generation to the children in the marketplaces,
³⁶  and allowing his feet to be washed and anointed by a woman who was a sinner,
⁴⁴  he shows how he is a friend to sinners, to forgive them their sins, upon their repentance