The Hyperlinked Bible
Intertextuality Pair
Allusion
Later text
Then Jesus took the Twelve aside and said to them, “Look, we are going up to Jerusalem, and everything the prophets have written about the Son of Man will be fulfilled. He will be delivered over to the Gentiles and will be mocked and insulted and spit upon. They will flog Him and kill Him, and on the third day He will rise again.”
Earlier text
Isaiah 50:6BSB
I offered My back to those who struck Me, and My cheeks to those who tore out My beard. I did not hide My face from scorn and spittle.
Luke's form of the third passion prediction sets the whole under a fulfillment statement: "everything the prophets have written about the Son of Man will be fulfilled" (18:31). The statement is general. It names "the prophets," not Isaiah, so the link to Isaiah 50:6 is an allusion and not a formula citation. But the details that follow are the Third Servant Song's: the Son of Man "will be mocked and insulted and spit upon" (18:32), and "They will flog Him and kill Him" (18:33). These are the spitting and the whips of the Greek Isaiah 50:6, foretold by the Servant's own mouth before a single blow falls. Jesus goes up to Jerusalem knowing the script because He is the One of whom it was written, and He goes willingly, as the Servant who "offered" His back. Luke alone adds that the disciples "did not understand any of these things. The meaning was hidden from them" (18:34). The prophecy stood in plain words, and still it was veiled. Only after the resurrection does the risen Lord open their minds to see that "Everything must be fulfilled that is written about Me in the Law of Moses, the Prophets, and the Psalms" (Luke 24:44). The same unveiling is given to every reader who comes to the Servant Songs and finds Christ in them. Beholding the Servant who was spat upon and flogged for us, "we, who with unveiled faces all reflect the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into His image with intensifying glory" (2 Cor 3:18).
Text-form: Word for word, none of the three verses (18:31, 18:32, 18:33) shares a Greek content word with LXX Isaiah 50:6. The correspondence is carried by cognates: Luke's verbs "spit upon" (ἐμπτύω, 18:32) and "flog" (μαστιγόω, 18:33) are formed from the same roots as the Greek Isaiah's nouns "spitting" (ἔμπτυσμα) and "whips" (μάστιξ). Luke spreads the pair across two verses; Mark's form of the same prediction joins them in one (Mark 10:34). The flogging half follows the Greek text-form: the Hebrew reads "those who struck Me." The spitting stands in both forms.