Luke 1:59

1:59 On ¹  the eighth day ²  they came to circumcise the child, and they wanted to name ³  him Zechariah after his father.

Luke 9:54

9:54 Now when his disciples James and John saw this, they said, “Lord, do you want us to call fire to come down from heaven and consume ⁴  them?” ⁵ 

[1:59]  ¹ 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.

[1:59]  ² sn They were following OT law (Lev 12:3) which prescribed that a male child was to be circumcised on the eighth day.

[1:59]  ³ 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.

[9:54]  ⁴ tn Or “destroy.”

[9:54]  ⁵ tc Most mss, especially the later ones (A C D W Θ Ψ Ë^1,13 33 Ï it), read here “as also Elijah did,” making the allusion to 2 Kgs 1:10, 12, 14 more explicit. The shorter reading has better and earlier support (Ì^45,75 א B L Ξ 579 700* 1241 pc lat sa). It is difficult to explain how the shorter reading could have arisen from the longer, especially since it is well represented early on. However, the longer reading looks to have been a marginal note originally, incorporated into the text of Luke by early scribes.