John Lightfoot on Luke 4:17

[And there was delivered unto him the book of Esaias.] I. The minister of the church kept the sacred books in his custody, and brought them out to be read when they met together in the synagogue.

"The high priest came to read [on the day of expiation]; the minister of the synagogue takes the book of the law, and giveth it to the ruler of the synagogue," &c. Where the Gloss is, The 'chazan' of the synagogue, that is, the minister. From him did our Saviour receive the book, and to him he returned it again.

II. If it be asked whether he received the book of the Prophet Isaiah by itself or joined with the other prophets, it is not easy to determine it. We may gather something from what vulgarly obtained amongst them.

"The Rabbins deliver: 'Let a man frame the Law and the Prophets and the holy writings into one volume': they are the words of R. Meir. But R. Judah saith, 'Let the Law be apart by itself; the book of the Prophets by itself; and the book of the holy writings [Hagiographa] by itself.' And the wise men say, 'Every book by itself.'"

But we may ask if every prophet was by himself, Isaiah by himself, Jeremiah by himself, &c. It is probable they were: for so they sometimes divided the law into single quintanes [or fifth parts].

All know what title the books of the law do bear in the front of the Hebrew Bibles, viz. The five quintanes of the law. Genesis is the first quintane: Exodus is the second quintane: and so of the rest...

"They fold up the book of the Law in the cloth of the quintanes, and the quintanes in the cloth of the Prophets and Hagiographa: but they do not fold up the Prophets and Hagiographa in the cloth of the quintanes, nor the quintanes in the cloth of the Law." And a little after; "They lay the Law upon the quintanes, and the quintanes upon the Prophets and Hagiographa; but not the Prophets and Hagiographa upon the quintanes, nor the quintanes upon the Law": that is, not any one single quintane upon all the quintanes made up into one volume. So the Gloss hath it; "A quintane; that is, a book of the law, in which there is only one quintane."

Seeing, therefore, that the book of that Law was sometimes divided in this manner, into distinct books, we may judge as well that the greater prophets might be thus divided also, and the twelve lesser made up into one volume. Hence, perhaps, that passage: "The reader of the Prophet might skip from one text to another: but he might not skip from prophet to prophet: but in the twelve prophets it was lawful." For they were all made up in one volume ready to his hand; and so were not the greater prophets.

Give me leave, therefore, to conjecture that on that sabbath wherein these things were transacted in the synagogue at Nazareth, that section which was to be read in the Prophets was, according to the rubric, in the prophet Isaiah; and upon that account the minister of the synagogue delivered that book to our Saviour when he stood up to read.

[And when he had opened the book, he found the place, &c.] In the Talmudic language I would render it thus, unrolling the book...

The high priest after the reading of the law, rolling, or folding up the book, puts it into his bosom. And yet

It is said...which we must not render they do not fold up, but they do not unfold or unroll the book of the law in the synagogue.

They unroll a prophet in the congregation, but they do not unroll the law in he congregation. That is, as the Gloss hath it, They unroll from one place or passage to another passage in another place. So they were wont to do in the Prophets, but not in the Law. And upon this account was it permitted for the reader to skip in the prophet from one place to another, because it was permitted them to unroll the prophet, either a single prophet, or the twelve lesser in the synagogue; but as to the Law, it was not allowed them so to do.

And they put the question How far may he skip so that he that interprets do not break off? The Gloss is, "Let him not skip from the place he reads, unless that he may unroll the book, and be ready to read the place to which he skips, when the interpreter ceaseth."

And because it was not lawful for him so to unroll the law in the synagogue, "on the kalends of the month Tebeth, if it proved to be the sabbath day, they brought three books of the law and read in one of them the place for the sabbath, in another, that for the kalends, in the third, that for the feast of dedication."

The words therefore of our evangelist to me seem not barely to mean that he unfolded or opened the book; but that being opened, he unrolled it from folio to folio, till he had found the place he designed to read and expound. Which though it was not the section appointed by the rubric for the day, yet did not Christ much recede from the custom of the synagogue, which allowed the reader to skip from one place to another.