Luke 7:26-29

7:26 What did you go out to see? A prophet? Yes, I tell you, and more¹ than a prophet. 7:27 This is the one about whom it is written, ‘Look, I am sending my messenger ahead of you,² who will prepare your way before you.’³ 7:28 I tell you, among those born of women no one is greater⁴ than John.⁵ Yet the one who is least⁶ in the kingdom of God⁷ is greater than he is.” 7:29 (Now⁸ all the people who heard this, even the tax collectors,⁹ acknowledged¹⁰ God’s justice, because they had been baptized¹¹ with John’s baptism.

¹tn John the Baptist is “more” because he introduces the one (Jesus) who brings the new era. The term is neuter, but may be understood as masculine in this context (BDAG 806 s.v. περισσότερος b.).

²tn Grk “before your face” (an idiom).

³sn The quotation is primarily from Mal 3:1 with pronouns from Exod 23:20. Here is the forerunner who points the way to the arrival of God’s salvation. His job is to prepare and guide the people, as the cloud did for Israel in the desert.

⁴sn In the Greek text greater is at the beginning of the clause in the emphatic position. John the Baptist was the greatest man of the old era.

⁵tc The earliest and best mss read simply ᾿Ιωάννου (Iwannou, “John”) here (Ì⁷⁵ א B L W Ξ Ë¹ 579 pc). Others turn this into “John the Baptist” (K 33 565 al it), “the prophet John the Baptist” (A [D] Θ Ë¹³ Ï lat), or “the prophet John” (Ψ 700 [892 1241] pc). “It appears that προφήτης was inserted by pedantic copyists who wished thereby to exclude Christ from the comparison, while others added τοῦ βαπτιστοῦ, assimilating the text to Mt 11.11” (TCGNT 119).

⁶sn After John comes a shift of eras. The new era is so great that the lowest member of it (the one who is least in the kingdom of God) is greater than the greatest one of the previous era.

⁷sn The kingdom of God is a major theme of Jesus’ proclamation. It is a realm in which Jesus rules and to which those who trust him belong. See Luke 6:20; 11:20; 17:20-21. It is not strictly future, though its full manifestation is yet to come. That is why membership in it starts right after John the Baptist.

⁸tn Here καί (kai) has been translated as “now” to indicate the parenthetical nature of the comment by the author.

⁹sn See the note on tax collectors in 3:12.

¹⁰tn Or “vindicated God”; Grk “justified God.” This could be expanded to “vindicated and responded to God.” The point is that God’s goodness and grace as evidenced in the invitation to John was justified and responded to by the group one might least expect, tax collector and sinners. They had more spiritual sensitivity than others. The contrastive response is clear from v. 30.

¹¹tn The participle βαπτισθέντες (baptisqente") has been translated as a causal adverbial participle.