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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.com | DownloadCambridge Greek Testament for Schools and Colleges - Luke 1:6 - 1:6
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This Chapter Verse Commentaries:
6. δίκαιοι. The Hebrew Tsaddîkîm. It is one of the oldest terms of high praise among the Jews (Gen 6:9; Gen 7:1; Gen 18:23-28. See Psa 37:37; Eze 18:5-19, &c.). It is used also of Joseph, Mat 1:19; and is defined in the following words in the almost technical sense of strict legal observance which it had acquired since the days of the Maccabees. The true Jashar (upright man) was the ideal Jew. Thus Rashi calls the Book of Genesis ‘the book of the upright, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.’
ἐναντίον τοῦ θεοῦ. The Hebrew לִפְנֵי יְהֹוָה which implies perfect sincerity, since hypocrisy is
“the only evil that walks
Invisible, except to God alone,
By His permissive will, through heaven and earth.”
See Gen 7:1; Act 8:21. For the word ἐνώπιον which is read in some MSS. see note on Luk 24:11.
ἐν πάσαις ταῖς ἐντολαῖς καὶ δικαιώμασιν. The two words occur in the LXX[27] version of Gen 26:5 (of Abraham) and 2Ch 17:4 (of Jehoshaphat). ‘Commandments’ means the moral precepts of natural and revealed religion (Gen 26:5; Deu 4:40; Rom 7:8-13). ‘Ordinances’ had come to be technically used of the ceremonial Law (Heb 9:1). The distinctions were not accurately kept, but the two words together would, to a pious Jew of that day, have included all the positive and negative precepts which later Rabbis said were 613 in number, namely 248 positive, and 365 negative. ‘To walk in the ordinances’ is a Hebraism (1Ki 8:62; Deu 4:1; Psa 119:93, &c.).
[27] LXX. Septuagint.
ἄμεμπτοι. ‘So that they were blameless.’ The word is used proleptically as in 1Th 3:13. Blamelessness in external observances must not of course be confused with sinlessness.