1:59 On 5 the eighth day 6 they came to circumcise the child, and they wanted to name 7 him Zechariah after his father.
2:21 At 8 the end of eight days, when he was circumcised, he was named Jesus, the name given by the angel 9 before he was conceived in the womb.
1 tn Heb “Isaac his son, the son of eight days.” The name “Isaac” is repeated in the translation for clarity.
2 sn Just as God had commanded him to do. With the birth of the promised child, Abraham obeyed the
3 tn Heb “and in….”
4 tn This rendering, “the flesh of his foreskin,” is literal. Based on Lev 15:2-3, one could argue that the Hebrew word for “flesh” here (בָּשָׂר, basar) is euphemistic for the male genitals and therefore translate “the foreskin of his member” (see, e.g., J. Milgrom, Leviticus [AB], 1:748). A number of English versions omit this reference to the foreskin and mention only circumcision, presumably for euphemistic reasons (cf. NIV, NCV, TEV, CEV, NLT).
5 tn Grk “And it happened that.” The introductory phrase ἐγένετο (egeneto, “it happened that”), common in Luke (69 times) and Acts (54 times), is redundant in contemporary English and has not been translated. Here καί (kai) has not been translated because of differences between Greek and English style.
6 sn They were following OT law (Lev 12:3) which prescribed that a male child was to be circumcised on the eighth day.
7 tn This could be understood as a conative imperfect, expressing an unrealized desire (“they were trying to name him”). It has been given more of a voluntative nuance in the translation.
8 tn Grk “And when eight days were completed.” Here καί (kai) has not been translated because of differences between Greek and English style.
9 sn Jesus’ parents obeyed the angel as Zechariah and Elizabeth had (1:57-66). These events are taking place very much under God’s direction.
10 tn Grk “gave you circumcision.”
11 tn Grk “a man.” While the text literally reads “circumcise a man” in actual fact the practice of circumcising male infants on the eighth day after birth (see Phil 3:5) is primarily what is in view here.
12 tn Grk “a man.” See the note on “male child” in the previous verse.
13 tn Grk “receives circumcision.”
14 sn If a male child is circumcised on the Sabbath so that the law of Moses is not broken. The Rabbis counted 248 parts to a man’s body. In the Talmud (b. Yoma 85b) R. Eleazar ben Azariah (ca.
15 tn Or “made an entire man well.”
16 tn Grk “he”; the referent (God) has been specified in the translation for clarity.
17 tn Grk “him”; the referent (Abraham) has been specified in the translation for clarity.
18 sn God gave…the covenant. Note how the covenant of promise came before Abraham’s entry into the land and before the building of the temple.
19 tn Grk “circumcised him on the eighth day,” but many modern readers will not understand that this procedure was done on the eighth day after birth. The temporal clause “when he was eight days old” conveys this idea more clearly. See Gen 17:11-12.
20 tn The words “became the father of” are not in the Greek text due to an ellipsis, but must be supplied for the English translation. The ellipsis picks up the verb from the previous clause describing how Abraham fathered Isaac.
21 sn The twelve patriarchs refers to the twelve sons of Jacob, the famous ancestors of the Jewish race (see Gen 35:23-26).
22 sn A Pharisee was a member of one of the most important and influential religious and political parties of Judaism in the time of Jesus. There were more Pharisees than Sadducees (according to Josephus, Ant. 17.2.4 [17.42] there were more than 6,000 Pharisees at about this time). Pharisees differed with Sadducees on certain doctrines and patterns of behavior. The Pharisees were strict and zealous adherents to the laws of the OT and to numerous additional traditions such as angels and bodily resurrection.