On a Sabbath, while he was going through the grainfields, his disciples plucked and ate some heads of grain, rubbing them in their hands.
Luke 6:1. On the second-first Sabbath It is beyond all question that this Sabbath belonged to some one of the festival-days which the Law enjoined to be observed once every year. Some have thought that there were two festival-days in immediate succession; but as the Jews had arranged their festival-days after the Babylonish captivity so that one day always intervened between them, that opinion is set aside.
These two passages of story we had both in Matthew and Mark, and they were there laid together (Mat 12:1; Mar 2:23; Mar 3:1), because, though happening at some distance of time from each other, both were designed to rectify the mistakes of the scribes and Pharisees concerning the sabbath day, on the bodily rest of which they laid greater stress and required greater strictness than the Law-giver intended.
Commenting on Luke 6:1-11
LUKE CHAPTER VI. Verses 1-11. See this passage explained: , also . 1. Second sabbath after the first. . This phrase has given great perplexity to commentators. A literal translation would be, "on the sabbath called second first," or second first Sabbath. The word occurs nowhere else. It is therefore exceedingly difficult of interpretation. The most natural and easy explanation is that proposed by Scaliger.