What does Luke 13:1 mean?
Jesus is teaching a crowd about priorities. It's foolish to strive after worldly wealth and a comfortable life if they don't pay any attention to their relationship with God (Luke 12:13–21). They need to properly interpret how His ministry heralds the coming of God's kingdom (Luke 12:54–56). And they need to reconcile with each other (Luke 12:57–59). In these last two lessons, He emphasizes the urgency with which they should repent and seek salvation. This is meant to apply both individually and as a nation (Luke 13:1–9).The wording of Pilate's actions sounds like he killed Galilean Jews at the temple, possibly even burning their bodies with their offerings. This might also be more poetic: saying that the governor killed Galileans who had come to sacrifice in Jerusalem, possibly at Passover. The Galileans had meant to offer animals but wound up losing their own lives. Non-biblical records detail several Roman attacks on large numbers of Jews, but none of them fit the time and location. However, those records do indicate Pilate was a violent ruler, even for a Roman. The murder of a group of Jewish worshippers might have been common enough to not be considered newsworthy, even for ancient historians such as Josephus. Such things were not unheard of.
Josephus records two events which epitomized Pilate's term as governor. At one point he took money from the temple treasury to pay for a waterway to bring fresh water to Jerusalem. Tens of thousands of Jews joined together and "made a clamor against him" but didn't seem to be violent. Pilate sent soldiers who carried long knives into the crowd. At Pilate's command, they "laid upon them much greater blows than Pilate had commanded them, and equally punished those that were tumultuous, and those that were not, nor did they spare them in the least…" The soldiers killed and wounded many, and the "sedition" broke up, according to Antiquities of the Jews, Book XVIII, 3:2.
At another time, preserved in Antiquities of the Jews, Book XVIII, 4:1, a mystic convinced a large group of Samaritans that Moses' sacred vessels were buried on Mt. Gerizim. Thousands joined him in the trek up the mountain. Pilate apparently thought the mystic was building an army. He sent horsemen and footmen who killed many. Because of a formal complaint by the Samaritan senate, Pilate was recalled to Rome.
In Jesus' previous lesson, He had warned the crowd that if they have wronged someone, they need to settle the matter before it goes to trial. Otherwise, they risk losing the case and being imprisoned and fined (Luke 12:57–59). The same applies to their crimes against God. Violence, injustice, and fatal accidents can happen at any time. They need to settle with God before they meet the "court" of His judgment (Luke 13:3).
