What Does Luke 8:3 Mean?

(3) **Joanna, the wife of Chuza.**—Here again we have a convert of the upper class. The name was the feminine form of Joannes, and appears in modern languages abbreviated into Joanne, Joan, or Jane. Nothing further is known of Chuza—but the “steward” (the same word as in Matthew 20:8, and the “tutor” or “guardian” of Galatians 4:2) of the Tetrarch, the manager of his income and expenditure, must have been a man of some mark. We may think of him and his wife as having probably come under the influence of the Baptist or of Manaen, the foster-brother of the Tetrarch, probably also of one of the “servants” to whom Antipas imparted his belief that John the Baptist was risen from the dead. Joanna appears again in the history of the Resurrection (Luke 24:10). It is possible, as suggested in the Note on John 4:46, that he may have been identical with the “nobleman” or “member of the royal household” at Capernaum. On this supposition her ministration may have been the result of overflowing gratitude for the restored life of her son. **Susanna.**—The name, which meant a “lily” (comp. Rhoda, “a rose,” in Acts 12:13, and *Tamar*, “a palm,” in Genesis 38:6, 2Samuel 13:2, as parallel instances of feminine names derived from flowers or trees), meets us in the well-known Apocryphal addition to the Book of Daniel known as *Susanna and the Elders.* Nothing further is known of the person thus named. **Many others.**—It seems clear that St. Luke must have come into personal contact with some, at least, of those whom he describes so fully. They were, we may well believe, among the “eye-witnesses and ministers of the word” (Luke 1:2) from whom he derived much of his information. (See *Introduction.*)