‘This record of Jesus' arming of his disciples, or rather his checking on their armament’, remarks S. G. F. Brandon, ‘has greatly troubled commentators’. The idea that Luke 22: 36–8 really presents Jesus as acting like an officer ‘checking’ his men's weapons before battle is bizarre; but that the commentators have floundered in a morass of perplexity when faced with this notoriously difficult passage is undoubtedly true. Brandon cites examples of the diverse explanations of exegetes, including myself, who have tried rather desperately to establish the meaning, and indeed to make any sense at all, of this strange pericope. A longer list of interpretations was collected by T. M. Napier, representing the period from Wellhausen to 1938, and they make discouraging reading.

The first question to be considered in any attempt to elucidate Luke 22: 38 (‘And they said, “Lord, see, here are two swords.” And he said, “It is enough.” ’) is the relation of this verse, on the one hand to the preceding dialogue, verses 35 to 37, and, on the other, to Luke's version (verses 49 to 51) of the Markan episode of the assault, at or after the arrest of jesus, on the servant of the high priest (Mark 14:47; Matt. 26: 51–4; John 18: 10–11). As this verse stands in its context in Luke, it is evidently intended to form part of the dialogue which precedes it (35–7) and which is itself an integral part of the warnings, prophecies, instructions and promises given by Jesus to the disciples at the Last Supper – a section of Luke which, on a small scale, resembles the great Johannine discourses.