Discovery BoxLuke 1:13-14 
Context1:13 But the angel said to him, “Do not be afraid, Zechariah, for your prayer has been heard, 1 and your wife Elizabeth will bear you a son; you 2 will name him John. 3 1:14 Joy and gladness will come 4 to you, and many will rejoice at 5 his birth, 6
Luke 1:58
Context1:58 Her 7 neighbors and relatives heard that the Lord had shown 8 great mercy to her, and they rejoiced 9 with her.
1 tn The passive means that the prayer was heard by God.
sn Your prayer has been heard. Zechariah’s prayer while offering the sacrifice would have been for the nation, but the answer to the prayer also gave them a long hoped-for child, a hope they had abandoned because of their old age.
2 tn Grk “a son, and you”; καί (kai) has not been translated. Instead a semicolon is used in the translation for stylistic reasons.
3 tn Grk “you will call his name John.” The future tense here functions like a command (see ExSyn 569-70). This same construction occurs in v. 31.
sn “Do not be afraid…you must call his name John.” This is a standard birth announcement (see Gen 16:11; Isa 7:14; Matt 1:21; Luke 1:31).
4 tn Grk “This will be joy and gladness.”
5 tn Or “because of.”
6 tn “At his birth” is more precise as the grammatical subject (1:58), though “at his coming” is a possible force, since it is his mission, as the following verses note, that will really bring joy.
7 tn Grk “And her.” Here καί (kai) has not been translated because of differences between Greek and English style.
8 tn Grk “had magnified his mercy with her.”
9 tn The verb συνέχαιρον (sunecairon) is an imperfect and could be translated as an ingressive force, “they began to rejoice.”
