Luke Chapter 2 verse 49 Holy Bible

ASV Luke 2:49

And he said unto them, How is it that ye sought me? knew ye not that I must be in my Father's house?
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BBE Luke 2:49

And he said to them, Why were you looking for me? was it not clear to you that my right place was in my Father's house?
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DARBY Luke 2:49

And he said to them, Why [is it] that ye have sought me? did ye not know that I ought to be [occupied] in my Father's business?
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KJV Luke 2:49

And he said unto them, How is it that ye sought me? wist ye not that I must be about my Father's business?
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WBT Luke 2:49


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WEB Luke 2:49

He said to them, "Why were you looking for me? Didn't you know that I must be in my Father's house?"
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YLT Luke 2:49

And he said unto them, `Why `is it' that ye were seeking me? did ye not know that in the things of my Father it behoveth me to be?'
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Pulpit Commentary

Pulpit CommentaryVerse 49. - How is it that ye sought me? To the gently veiled reproach of Mary, Jesus replies, apparently with wonderment, with another question. It had come upon him so quietly and yet with such irresistible force that the temple of God was his real earthly home, that he marvelled at his mother's slowness of comprehension. Why should she have been surprised at his still lingering in the sacred courts? Did she not know who he was, and whence he came? Then he added, Wist ye not that I must be about my Father's business? There was an expression of Mary's which evidently distressed the Child Jesus. Godet even thinks that he discerns a kind of shudder in his quick reply to Mary's "thy father and I have sought thee sorrowing." "In my Father's house, where my Father's work is being done, there ought I to be busied. Didn't you know this?" But the twelve silent uneventful years of life at Nazareth, the poor home, the village carpentry, the natural development of the sacred Child, had gradually obscured for Mary and Joseph the memories of the infancy. They had not forgotten them, but time and circumstances had covered them with a veil. Now they were very gently reminded by the Boy's own quiet words of what had happened twelve years before. Scholars hesitate whether or not to adopt the rendering of the old Syriac Version, "in my Father's house," instead of the broader and vaguer "about my Father's business," as the Greek will allow either translation. It seems to us the best to retain the old rendering we love so well, "about my Father's business." The whole spirit of Jesus' after-teaching leads us irresistibly to this interpretation of the Master's first recorded saying.

Ellicott's Commentary

Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers(49) Wist ye not . . .?--This is, as it were, the holy Child's defence against the implied reproach in. His mother's question. Had they reflected, there need have been no seeking; they would have known what He was doing and where He was.About my Father's business.--Literally, in the things that are My Father's--i.e., in His work, the vague width of the words covering also, perhaps, the meaning "in My Father's house," the rendering adopted in the old Syriac version. The words are the first recorded utterance of the Son of Man, and they are a prophecy of that consciousness of direct Sonship, closer and more ineffable than that of any other of the sons of men, which is afterwards the dominant idea of which His whole life is a manifestation. We find in a Gospel in other respects very unlike St. John's, the germ of what there comes out so fully in such words as, "My Father worketh hitherto, and I also work" (John 5:17), "I and My Father are One" (John 10:30). The words are obviously emphasised as an answer to Mary's words, "Thy father." Subject unto His parents as He had been before and was afterwards, there was a higher Fatherhood for Him than that of any earthly adoption.