Luke 1:15

1:15 for he will be great in the sight of ¹  the Lord. He ²  must never drink wine or strong drink, and he will be filled with the Holy Spirit, even before his birth. ³ 

Luke 2:26

2:26 It ⁴  had been revealed ⁵  to him by the Holy Spirit that he would not die ⁶  before ⁷  he had seen the Lord’s Christ. ⁸ 

[1:15]  ¹ tn Grk “before.”

[1:15]  ² 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]  ³ 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.

[2:26]  ⁴ tn Grk “And it.” Here καί (kai) has not been translated because of differences between Greek and English style.

[2:26]  ⁵ 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).

[2:26]  ⁶ tn Grk “would not see death” (an idiom for dying).

[2:26]  ⁷ tn On the grammar of this temporal clause, see BDF §§383.3; 395.

[2:26]  ⁸ tn Or “Messiah”; both “Christ” (Greek) and “Messiah” (Hebrew and Aramaic) mean “one who has been anointed.”