Luke 1:15

1:15 for he will be great in the sight of ¹  the Lord. He ²  must never drink wine or strong drink, and he will be filled with the Holy Spirit, even before his birth. ³ 

Luke 3:5

3:5 Every valley will be filled, ⁴ 

and every mountain and hill will be brought low,

and the crooked will be made straight,

and the rough ways will be made smooth,

Luke 5:7

5:7 So ⁵  they motioned ⁶  to their partners in the other boat to come and help them. And they came and filled both boats, so that they were about to sink. ⁷ 

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¹ tn Grk “before.”

² tn Grk “and he”; because of the length and complexity of the Greek sentence, the conjunction καί (kai) has not been translated here. Instead a new English sentence is begun in the translation.

³ tn Grk “even from his mother’s womb.” While this idiom may be understood to refer to the point of birth (“even from his birth”), Luke 1:41 suggests that here it should be understood to refer to a time before birth.

sn He will be filled with the Holy Spirit, even before his birth. This is the language of the birth of a prophet (Judg 13:5, 7; Isa 49:1; Jer 1:5; Sir 49:7); see 1:41 for the first fulfillment.

⁴ sn The figurative language of this verse speaks of the whole creation preparing for the arrival of a major figure, so all obstacles to his approach are removed.

⁵ tn Here καί (kai) has been translated as “so” to indicate consequential nature of the action.

⁶ tn That is, “they signaled by making gestures” (L&N 33.485).

⁷ tn This infinitive conveys the idea that the boats were at the point of sinking.