The Promised King Enters Ordinary Days

Octavian ruled as Caesar Augustus from 27 BC to AD 14; the title means revered. “All the world” is the oikoumene, the inhabited world, which in Roman mouths meant the empire. “Taxed” is literally enrolled: a registration of names and property, from which taxes were later assessed.

Cyrenius is the Greek spelling of Publius Sulpicius Quirinius, a Roman soldier of undistinguished birth who rose to the consulship in 12 BC and later governed Syria. The King James sets the verse in brackets, as an aside to date the registration for readers.

“His own city” means his ancestral town. Roman registrations usually counted people where they lived or held property, but an edict from Roman Egypt in AD 104 ordered people to return to their home districts for a census, which shows such movements were not unheard of.

In the Old Testament “the city of David” almost always means Zion, the stronghold in Jerusalem (2 Samuel 5:7). Luke gives the title to Bethlehem, David’s birthplace and the town where Samuel found him (1 Samuel 16). “Went up” is literal: the road climbs from Galilee into the Judean hills, about ninety miles.

“Great with child” renders a word found only here in the New Testament. Luke does not say why Mary travelled when the registration concerned Joseph’s lineage; perhaps she had property to register, or would not be left behind so close to her time. Both are guesses.

Bethlehem had seen births before that mattered to Israel. Rachel died giving birth to Benjamin on the road to Ephrath, “which is Beth-lehem” (Genesis 35:19), and Obed, David’s grandfather, was born there to Ruth (Ruth 4:13–17).

Swaddling meant binding a newborn’s limbs straight with strips of cloth, ordinary care in every household; Ezekiel 16:4 treats the lack of it as a sign of neglect. In the Wisdom of Solomon the speaker, writing as King Solomon, says, “I was nursed in swaddling clothes”, like any other child. A manger was a feeding trough, often cut from stone.

David kept his father’s sheep in these same fields (1 Samuel 16:11). “Abiding in the field” means living out in the open, and “keeping watch” is literally watching the watches of the night, taking turns through the dark hours. Luke gives no season.

“Came upon them” means stood suddenly beside them. “The glory of the Lord” is the brightness that filled the tabernacle (Exodus 40:34), now spilling over a hillside of sheep. “Shone round about” is the verb Paul uses for the light on the Damascus road (Acts 26:13).

“Good tidings” is the verb of the gospel. An inscription set up at Priene in 9 BC hailed the birthday of Augustus as the beginning of good tidings for the world. “All people” is literally “all the people”, Luke’s usual term for Israel; the widening to the nations comes in verse 32.

Greek cities called Augustus “saviour”; here the title is given to a newborn in a village. “Christ the Lord” as a pair of titles appears nowhere else in the New Testament. “This day” is Luke’s word “today”, which returns at Nazareth (4:21), in Zacchaeus’ house (19:9) and on the cross (23:43).

The manger has one Old Testament precedent: Isaiah 1:3, “The ox knoweth his owner, and the ass his master’s crib”, where the Greek for crib is this word. Israel, said Isaiah, did not know its master. The shepherds will. “Babe” is brephos, a newborn infant.

“Host” is stratia, an army, and the soldiers of heaven appear to announce peace. “Suddenly” marks the change from one messenger to a multitude, without preparation, as the single angel of verse 9 is joined by more.

The King James follows later manuscripts. The older ones differ by one letter and read “peace among men of good will”, meaning God’s good pleasure: peace to those on whom his favour rests. Augustus had his own Altar of Peace dedicated in Rome in 9 BC.

“This thing” is literally “this word”, following the Hebrew dabar, which means both a word spoken and an event that happens. The shepherds take the angel’s message as something already done that can be gone and looked at.

“With haste” is the phrase used of Mary hurrying to Elisabeth (1:39). “Found” implies looking; the shepherds had a sign to search for, not an address. Mary is named first, before Joseph and the child.

The shepherds become the first to tell others about Jesus, working men with no standing as teachers. “Made known abroad” means they spread the report through the town, beyond the family they had found.

Wondering is not the same as believing. At Nazareth the congregation will wonder at Jesus’ gracious words (4:22), and within minutes try to throw him off a cliff. Luke records wonder often and rarely treats it as enough.

“Kept” is imperfect: she went on keeping them. “Pondered” is symballo, literally throwing together, placing things side by side to compare them. When Joseph told his dreams, his father “observed the saying” (Genesis 37:11), holding on to what he did not yet understand.

The shepherds do what the angels did in verse 13, glorifying and praising God, so heaven’s song is taken up on earth. “As it was told unto them” means everything matched the angel’s sign. They return to their flocks, back to work.

The verse runs parallel to John’s circumcision and naming (1:59–63), but there is no argument this time. The name was fixed before conception (1:31), and it is simply given. Luke keeps the two sons’ lives in step while marking the difference.

Leviticus 12:2–4 set a mother’s purification after a son at forty days. The Greek says “their purification”, which has puzzled readers since antiquity, since the law concerned only the mother. From Bethlehem to Jerusalem was about six miles.

Exodus 13:2 and 12 claim every firstborn male for God, and Numbers 18:15–16 set the redemption price at five shekels. Luke mentions no payment, only presentation, which recalls Hannah bringing Samuel to the LORD at Shiloh (1 Samuel 1:24–28).

One bird was for a burnt offering and the other for a sin offering; the sin offering here concerns ritual impurity after childbirth, not moral guilt. Turtledoves were wild and pigeons bred. Dove sellers had stalls in the temple courts, the traders Jesus overturns in Mark 11:15.

Simeon comes from the Hebrew for “hear”; Leah named her son Simeon because “the LORD hath heard” (Genesis 29:33). “The consolation of Israel” draws on Isaiah 40:1, “Comfort ye, comfort ye my people”, the opening of the prophet’s promise of return.

“Revealed” is a word used of a divine oracle or warning, as when the wise men were “warned of God in a dream” (Matthew 2:12). “The Lord’s Christ” is the Old Testament’s “the LORD’s anointed”, the title David used of Saul (1 Samuel 24:6).

The “temple” here is hieron, the whole complex of courts, not the inner sanctuary where Zacharias stood alone (1:9). The meeting could happen where a mother with a child was permitted, probably the Court of the Women. Luke calls Joseph and Mary simply “the parents”.

Simeon takes the forty-day-old child into his arms before he speaks. His blessing is addressed to God, not to the child: the old man gives thanks for what he has been allowed to hold.

The song is the Nunc Dimittis, from its first Latin words. “Lord” is despotes, a master of slaves, and “servant” is doulos, a slave. “Depart” is the word for releasing a slave or dismissing a sentry from his watch. His long watch is over.

“Salvation” here is the rarer neuter form, the word of Isaiah 40:5 in Greek, “all flesh shall see the salvation of God”, which Luke will quote in the next chapter (3:6). Simeon has seen it, in the form of a baby.

“All people” is now plural, all the peoples. Isaiah 52:10 says the LORD has made bare his arm “in the eyes of all the nations; and all the ends of the earth shall see the salvation of our God”.

“A light to the Gentiles” comes from Isaiah 42:6 and 49:6. Paul and Barnabas quote the second in Antioch of Pisidia as their warrant for turning to the Gentiles (Acts 13:47). The Gentiles are named first here, and Israel’s glory after.

Many manuscripts read “his father and his mother”; the King James follows those with “Joseph”. After angels and shepherds, the parents still marvel. What is new in Simeon’s words is the Gentiles.

“Set” is the verb for something laid in place, like a stone. Isaiah 8:14 speaks of a stone of stumbling for both houses of Israel, and Luke will return to the stone that breaks those who fall on it (20:18). “Spoken against” is the verb Jews in Rome use of the Christian movement in Acts 28:22.

The King James brackets the words to Mary as an aside inside a sentence about Israel. “Sword” is rhomphaia, a large broad blade, the word the Greek Old Testament uses for Goliath’s sword. “Thoughts” are dialogismoi, which in Luke are usually the hostile reasonings Jesus reads in his critics (5:22, 6:8).

Anna is the Greek form of Hannah, the name of Samuel’s mother. Phanuel means “face of God”, the name Jacob gave the place where he wrestled (Genesis 32:30). Asher was one of the northern tribes deported by Assyria, yet families still traced their descent from it.

“Departed not from the temple” may mean she lodged in its precincts or simply attended every service; either way the temple was her life. Devout Jews fasted twice a week, as the Pharisee boasts in 18:12. “Night and day” puts night first, as Jewish reckoning did.

“In that instant” is literally at that very hour. Isaiah 52:9 says the LORD “hath redeemed Jerusalem”, and during the revolt against Rome decades later coins were struck reading “for the redemption of Zion”. The hope Anna spoke to was held in the city for a long time.

This is the fifth mention of the Law in the chapter (verses 22, 23, 24, 27 and 39). Luke is emphatic that everything was done as Moses commanded. He passes from Jerusalem straight back to Nazareth and says nothing of a flight into Egypt.

“Filled with wisdom” is a present participle, being filled, a continuing process rather than a finished state. “The grace of God” uses charis, the word of the angel’s greeting to his mother (1:28, 30), now resting on the child.

The Law required men to appear before the LORD three times a year (Deuteronomy 16:16), but distance meant many Galileans went only at Passover. Women were not bound to go. Mary went every year anyway.

At thirteen, according to later Jewish tradition, a boy became responsible for the commandments. At twelve Jesus is on the edge of that threshold. “Went up” is both literal, to the hill city, and the formal word for pilgrimage.

The feast of unleavened bread lasted seven days, and some pilgrims left after the first two; this family stayed the whole week. “Child” is pais, which can mean boy or servant. “Tarried behind” is a deliberate staying, not getting lost.

“The company” is the caravan of relatives and neighbours from the Galilean villages who travelled together for safety. A boy of twelve could easily be with cousins or friends somewhere along the line. A day’s journey was about twenty miles.

Returning costs them a second day. The chapter uses “seek” again and again: they sought him among kin (verse 44), come back seeking (45), Mary says they sought him sorrowing (48), and Jesus asks why they sought (49).

“After three days” probably counts the day out, the day back and the day of searching. Readers of Luke may also hear the three days of 24:7, when Jesus is again missing and then found. Teachers held sessions in the temple colonnades, and students sat at their feet.

“Astonished” is literally beside themselves. Psalm 119:99 says, “I have more understanding than all my teachers”, a line some readers hear behind the scene. Luke gives no content for the questions or answers, only their effect.

“Son” is teknon, child, an affectionate word. “Sorrowing” translates a verb for anguish, the word used of the rich man tormented in the flame (16:24) and of the Ephesian elders grieving over Paul (Acts 20:38). Three days of searching left them in real pain.

These are the first words Jesus speaks in Luke. “I must” is dei, the necessity that governs his life in this book: he must preach elsewhere (4:43), must suffer (9:22), must be delivered and rise (24:7). “Wist” is the old past of wit, to know.

The parents’ incomprehension anticipates the disciples’, who will not understand what he says about his death (9:45, 18:34). Luke does not treat it as a fault; understanding in this book often comes later than the words.

“Was subject” is a present participle: he went on being subject to them, year after year. Joseph is never seen again in Luke’s account; he is only mentioned by name (3:23, 4:22). “Went down” is the descent from Jerusalem, the opposite of going up.

The verse echoes 1 Samuel 2:26: “the child Samuel grew on, and was in favour both with the LORD, and also with men.” “Stature” can mean height or age. Proverbs 3:4 promises favour “in the sight of God and man” to the one who keeps wisdom.