In His former answer Jesus had appealed to Scripture to bear out His teaching that Sabbath observance must bend to personal necessities. Here He appeals to the natural sense of compassion to confirm the principle that it must give way to the duty of relieving others. His question is as confident of an answer as the Pharisees' had been. But though He takes it for granted that His hearers could only answer it in one way, the microscopic and cold-blooded ingenuity of the rabbis, since His day, answers it in another. They say, 'Don't lift the poor brute out, but throw in a handful of fodder, and something for him to lie upon, and let him be till next day.' A remarkable way of making 'thine ox and thine ass' keep the Sabbath! There is a delicacy of expression in the question; the owner of 'one sheep' would be more solicitous about it than if he had a hundred; and our Shepherd looks on all the millions of His flock with a heart as much touched by their sorrow and needs as if each were His only possession. The question waits for no answer; but Christ goes on (as if there could be but one reply) to His conclusion, which He binds to His first question by another, equally easy to answer. Man's superiority to animals makes his claim for help more imperative. 'You would not do less for one another than for a sheep in a hole, surely.' But the form in which our Lord put His conclusive answer to the Pharisees gives an unexpected turn to the reply. He does not say, 'It is lawful to heal,' but, 'It is lawful to do well,' thus at once showing the true justification of healing, namely, that it was a beneficent act, and widening the scope of His answer to cover a whole class of cases. 'To do well' here means, not to do right, but to do good, to benefit men. The principle is a wide one: the charitable succour of men's needs, of whatever kind, is congruous with the true design of that day of rest. Have the churches laid that lesson to heart? On the whole, it is to be observed that our Lord here distinctly recognises the obligation of the Sabbath, that He claims power over it, that He permits the pressure of one's own necessities and of others' need of help, to modify the manner of its observance, and that He leaves the application of these principles to the spiritual insight of His followers.