Lukas 1:13

1:13 But the angel said to him, “Do not be afraid, Zechariah, for your prayer has been heard, ¹  and your wife Elizabeth will bear you a son; you ²  will name him John. ³ 

Lukas 4:41

4:41 Demons also came out ⁴  of many, crying out, ⁵  “You are the Son of God!” ⁶  But he rebuked ⁷  them, and would not allow them to speak, ⁸  because they knew that he was the Christ. ⁹ 

[1:13]  ¹ tn The passive means that the prayer was heard by God.

[1:13]  sn Your prayer has been heard. Zechariah’s prayer while offering the sacrifice would have been for the nation, but the answer to the prayer also gave them a long hoped-for child, a hope they had abandoned because of their old age.

[1:13]  ² tn Grk “a son, and you”; καί (kai) has not been translated. Instead a semicolon is used in the translation for stylistic reasons.

[1:13]  ³ tn Grk “you will call his name John.” The future tense here functions like a command (see ExSyn 569-70). This same construction occurs in v. 31.

[1:13]  sn “Do not be afraid…you must call his name John.” This is a standard birth announcement (see Gen 16:11; Isa 7:14; Matt 1:21; Luke 1:31).

[4:41]  ⁴ sn Demons also came out. Note how Luke distinguishes healing from exorcism here, implying that the two are not identical.

[4:41]  ⁵ tn Grk “crying out and saying.” The participle λέγοντα (legonta) is redundant in English and has not been translated here.

[4:41]  ⁶ tc Most mss (A Q Θ Ψ 0102 Ë^1,13 Ï) read “the Christ, the Son of God.” But the earliest and best mss, along with several other witnesses (א B C D L W Ξ 33 579 700 1241 2542 lat sa), lack “the Christ” here. It is likely that later scribes wished to bring the demons’ confession in line with what Luke says they knew later in the verse.

[4:41]  ⁷ tn Or “commanded,” but “rebuke” implies strong disapproval, which seems to be more in keeping with the context here (L&N 33.419).

[4:41]  ⁸ sn Jesus would not allow the demons to speak because the time for such disclosure was not yet at hand, and such a revelation would have certainly been misunderstood by the people. In all likelihood, if the people had understood him early on to be the Son of God, or Messiah, they would have reduced his mission to one of political deliverance from Roman oppression (cf. John 6:15). Jesus wanted to avoid, as much as possible, any premature misunderstanding about who he was and what he was doing. However, at the end of his ministry, he did not deny such a title when the high priest asked him (22:66-71).

[4:41]  ⁹ tn Or “Messiah”; both “Christ” (Greek) and “Messiah” (Hebrew and Aramaic) mean “one who has been anointed.”

[4:41]  sn Note how Luke associates Son of God with Messiah (Christ) in this context, a regal connection with OT roots (Ps 2:7). Also, see the note on Christ in 2:11.