Luke 1:14-16

1:14 Joy and gladness will come ¹  to you, and many will rejoice at ²  his birth, ³  1:15 for he will be great in the sight of ⁴  the Lord. He ⁵  must never drink wine or strong drink, and he will be filled with the Holy Spirit, even before his birth. ⁶  1:16 He ⁷  will turn ⁸  many of the people ⁹  of Israel to the Lord their God.

[1:14]  ¹ tn Grk “This will be joy and gladness.”

[1:14]  ² tn Or “because of.”

[1:14]  ³ 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.

[1:15]  ⁴ tn Grk “before.”

[1:15]  ⁵ 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.

[1:15]  ⁶ 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.

[1:16]  ⁷ tn Grk “And he.” Here καί (kai) has not been translated because of differences between Greek and English style.

[1:16]  ⁸ sn The word translated will turn is a good summary term for repentance and denotes John’s call to a change of direction (Luke 3:1-14).

[1:16]  ⁹ tn Grk “sons”; but clearly this is a generic reference to people of both genders.