Gospel Decoded
HomeAll entries › Luke

“Go and tell that fox”

Luke 13:32
Figure of speechWell-supportedJesus
Go tell that fox, 'Look, I will keep driving out demons and healing people today and tomorrow, and on the third day I will reach My goal.' (Luke 13:32 BSB)
* Calling Herod a fox: sly and destructive, yet a lightweight, not a lion.

What it sounds like today

Calling Herod sly, a backhanded compliment to his cunning.

The cultural key

In Jewish usage the fox was not chiefly the clever one; it was the lion's opposite: small-time, destructive vermin (raiding vineyards, Song of Songs 2:15), a byword for an insignificant man. The later rabbinic proverb captures the scale: better to be a tail among lions than a head among foxes. Herod Antipas, the tetrarch who killed John and now sends threats, styled himself a ruler; Jesus, told the 'king' wants him dead, files him under vermin and announces his own itinerary, unchanged.

Recovered meaning

Not 'how crafty' but 'how small.' The man with execution power is dismissed as a nuisance in the vineyard, and Jesus' schedule, ending deliberately at Jerusalem, is set by his mission, not by Herod's teeth.

Parallels: Song of Songs 2:15
Part of Gospel Decoded, 833 phrases from across the whole Bible decoded into their first-century meaning. Open this entry in the interactive explorer →
Browse all 833 entries →