NOTES for Luk 18:7-8
Christ's words, "Will not God protect His chosen ones who cry to Him... though He delays in protecting them," in the Synodal Translation often trouble the reader. The Lord offers the disciples a parable about an unrighteous judge who nevertheless protects a poor widow because of her persistence. The unrighteous judge, from whom it would be absurd even to expect justice, could not withstand the firmness of the petitioner. All the more, Christ says, will God, who loves His chosen ones, respond to their requests. This is how the evangelist Luke understands the parable, and therefore he introduces it as "a parable about the need always to pray and not lose heart."
If a person does not immediately receive what he asks for, he begins to doubt God's goodness. This is a common mistake caused by not knowing God. Christ's parable directly refutes this opinion. But then why does God "delay in protecting them"? These words of the Synodal Translation correspond to entirely different words in the original. The Greek text contains here one verb meaning "to be patient, to possess endurance": "He is patient in them," in His chosen ones. Patientiam habebit in illis, "He keeps patience in them," the Vulgate echoes it. "And being long-suffering concerning them," the Slavonic text renders with great accuracy. The point, then, is God's participation in the endurance of the sufferings of His chosen ones.
It is hard to convey this meaning in Russian in such a way that the result is a translation and not an interpretation. Perhaps: "Will not God protect His chosen ones who cry to Him day and night? Is it not He who is long-suffering [in them]? Certainly He will give them swift protection... But when the Son of Man comes, will He find faith on earth?" It is important for us to understand that the Lord is not speaking of the indifference of a Creator who condescends to the cries of His people as if reluctantly, in an interval between more important matters. Not at all. Christ emphasizes precisely God's participation in our sufferings. Moreover, the original text shows that this participation enters into the very depth of God's relationship with the world and His design for it.
From a practical point of view, Christ's words about faith are important. About God's long-suffering and the sufferings of the chosen, Christ says something difficult to understand not only for us, but probably for the disciples as well. But, He says, the issue is not what God is like. The issue is the lack of faith that does not give us the possibility of seeing and knowing how quickly God grants His protection. And the same lack of faith deprives us of the possibility of asking for and receiving that protection.