Luke 2:26

2:26 It 1  had been revealed 2  to him by the Holy Spirit that he would not die 3  before 4  he had seen the Lord’s Christ. 5 

Luke 12:39

12:39 But understand this: If the owner of the house had known at what hour the thief 6  was coming, he would not have let 7  his house be broken into.

1 tn Grk “And it.” Here καί (kai) has not been translated because of differences between Greek and English style.

2 tn The use of the passive suggests a revelation by God, and in the OT the corresponding Hebrew term represented here by κεχρηματισμένον (kecrhmatismenon) indicated some form of direct revelation from God (Jer 25:30; 33:2; Job 40:8).

3 tn Grk “would not see death” (an idiom for dying).

4 tn On the grammar of this temporal clause, see BDF §§383.3; 395.

5 tn Or “Messiah”; both “Christ” (Greek) and “Messiah” (Hebrew and Aramaic) mean “one who has been anointed.”

sn The revelation to Simeon that he would not die before he had seen the Lord’s Christ is yet another example of a promise fulfilled in Luke 1-2. Also, see the note on Christ in 2:11.

6 sn On Jesus pictured as a returning thief, see 1 Thess 5:2, 4; 2 Pet 3:10; Rev 3:3; 16:15.

7 tc Most mss (א1 A B L Q W Θ Ψ 070 Ë1,13 33 Ï lat syp,h sams bo) read “he would have watched and not let” here, but this looks like an assimilation to Matt 24:43. The alliance of two important and early mss along with a few others (Ì75 א* [D] e i sys,c samss), coupled with much stronger internal evidence, suggests that the shorter reading is authentic.