Luke 11:27-28

11:27 As ¹  he said these things, a woman in the crowd spoke out ²  to him, “Blessed is the womb ³  that bore you and the breasts at which you nursed!” ⁴  11:28 But he replied, ⁵  “Blessed rather are those who hear the word of God and obey ⁶  it!”

[11:27]  ¹ tn Grk “And it happened that as.” 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 δέ (de) has not been translated.

[11:27]  ² tn Grk “lifted up her voice and said.” This idiom is somewhat redundant in contemporary English and has been simplified to “spoke out.”

[11:27]  ³ tn For this term see L&N 8.69.

[11:27]  ⁴ sn Both the reference to the womb and the breasts form a figure of speech called metonymy. In this case the parts are mentioned instead of the whole; the meaning is “Blessed is your mother!” The warnings seem to have sparked a little nervousness that brought forth this response. In the culture a mother was valued for the accomplishments of her son. So this amounts to a compliment to Jesus.

[11:28]  ⁵ tn Grk “said.”

[11:28]  ⁶ sn This is another reference to hearing and doing the word of God, which here describes Jesus’ teaching; see Luke 8:21.