The Parable of the Persistent Widow

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Luke introduces this parable with a rare editorial comment, stating its purpose before he gives the story itself. "And he spake a parable unto them to this end, that men ought always to pray, and not to faint."¹ The interpretation arrives ahead of the parable, which tells the reader what to listen for before a single detail of the story is given.

The Purpose Stated Before the Story

To pray always does not mean an unbroken stream of words directed at God. It describes a settled dependence on Him that does not lapse when the answer is delayed. The companion phrase, not to faint, translates a Greek verb that means to grow weary, to lose heart, or to give up the effort altogether. Luke rarely explains a parable before telling it. Here he does, which marks the point Jesus is about to make as one the disciples were in particular danger of missing.

The setting supports that reading. Jesus had just been speaking of His own coming, warning that the days would arrive when the disciples would desire to see one of the days of the Son of man and would not see it.² A promise of return that stretches across an unknown interval invites exactly the fatigue Luke names. The parable that follows answers that danger directly, not with an explanation of when the Lord will come, but with an argument for what His people ought to be doing while they wait.

The instruction is addressed to men who have already been told that the waiting will be long and that its ending will not be announced in advance. A shorter interval would not have required the warning. It is precisely because the delay is real, and because no marker along the way tells a disciple how much longer remains, that the command to keep praying rather than to faint becomes necessary. Luke places the interpretation first so that the parable is heard as an answer to a danger already named rather than as a fresh subject.

The Widow and the Judge

"There was in a city a judge, which feared not God, neither regarded man."³ The description is total. A judge who feared God would answer to a higher court than his own convenience, and a judge who regarded man would answer to public opinion, but this judge is loosed from both restraints. Nothing outside his own preference governs him.

"And there was a widow in that city; and she came unto him, saying, Avenge me of mine adversary."⁴ A widow in that world had no husband to plead her case and, in the situation Jesus describes, apparently no son either. She came to the judge with nothing to offer him: no bribe, no influence, no threat he needed to fear. The parable does not name the adversary or the wrong committed against her. What it establishes is enough on its own: the wrong was real, she had no power to remedy it herself, and the one man positioned to remedy it had no interest in doing so.

The law had already commanded a nation to protect exactly this kind of person. "Ye shall not afflict any widow, or fatherless child."⁵ The prophets condemned Israel's judges precisely when that command went unheeded. "Thy princes are rebellious, and companions of thieves: every one loveth gifts, and followeth after rewards: they judge not the fatherless, neither doth the cause of the widow come unto them."⁶ The widow in the parable stands in that same neglected position, before a judge cut from the same cloth as the ones the prophets denounced. Jesus did not need to explain to His hearers what such a judge was likely to do with such a woman. Their own history had already told them.

What Finally Moved Him

"And he would not for a while: but afterward he said within himself, Though I fear not God, nor regard man; Yet because this widow troubleth me, I will avenge her, lest by her continual coming she weary me."⁷ The judge narrates his own motive without embarrassment. He does not reconsider the justice of her case. He grows tired of her. The verb behind weary me carries the picture of a blow struck under the eye, an opponent worn down by a pressure he cannot make stop. What moves him is not conscience. It is exhaustion.

The Argument from the Lesser to the Greater

"And the Lord said, Hear what the unjust judge saith. And shall not God avenge his own elect, which cry day and night unto him, though he bear long with them? I tell you that he will avenge them speedily."⁸ Jesus draws out the logic Himself. If an unjust judge who cares nothing for God or man will eventually act simply to be rid of an inconvenience, God, who is neither unjust nor indifferent, will act for those who are His own.

The parable sets God against the judge, not beside him. Abraham had already put the principle into words centuries earlier, asking concerning Sodom, "Shall not the Judge of all the earth do right?"⁹ The judge in the parable does right by accident, worn into it against his own inclination. God's elect cry day and night to a Judge who needs no wearing down and delays for reasons of His own timing rather than indifference. Peter states the same patience without contradiction: "The Lord is not slack concerning his promise, as some men count slackness; but is longsuffering to us-ward, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance."¹⁰ Bearing long with His elect and avenging them speedily are not opposite claims. Both describe the same God acting on His own perfect schedule rather than on the schedule His people would set for Him.

Faith When He Comes

"Nevertheless when the Son of man cometh, shall he find faith on the earth?"¹¹ The parable ends on a question rather than a promise, and the question asks whether the persistence commanded in the first verse will actually be found when the waiting ends.

Scripture elsewhere fills in what that persistence looks like. Paul instructs the Roman church to be patient in tribulation, "continuing instant in prayer."¹² James tells believers to be patient as a husbandman who waits for the precious fruit of the earth, stablishing their hearts, "for the coming of the Lord draweth nigh."¹³

The parable teaches that a man can prevail with God, and that he should not give up on a desire, a vision, or a need. Elisha gave King Joash the same lesson when the prophet lay sick unto death. He told the king to take the arrows and smite upon the ground, "And he smote thrice, and stayed. And the man of God was wroth with him, and said, Thou shouldest have smitten five or six times; then hadst thou smitten Syria till thou hadst consumed it: whereas now thou shalt smite Syria but thrice."¹⁴ Joash stopped at three, and three victories were all he was given. The widow did not stop.

The widow's only weapon was that she kept coming back. She held no office, owned no advantage, and appealed to a man who admitted he did not care. Her strength was that she did not stop, and the judge yielded to it. The parable does not ask a believer to wear God down as she wore down the judge. It asks whether the same refusal to give up, aimed now at a Father who is already just and already willing, will still be found on the earth when the Son of man comes.