Lukas 1:17

1:17 And he will go as forerunner before the Lord ¹  in the spirit and power of Elijah, to turn the hearts of the fathers back to their children and the disobedient to the wisdom of the just, ²  to make ready for the Lord a people prepared for him.”

Lukas 3:8

3:8 Therefore produce ³  fruit ⁴  that proves your repentance, and don’t begin to say ⁵  to yourselves, ‘We have Abraham as our father.’ ⁶  For I tell you that God can raise up children for Abraham from these stones! ⁷ 

Lukas 7:22

7:22 So ⁸  he answered them, ⁹  “Go tell ¹⁰  John what you have seen and heard: ¹¹  The blind see, the lame walk, lepers are cleansed, the ¹²  deaf hear, the dead are raised, the poor have good news proclaimed to them.

Lukas 11:31

11:31 The queen of the South ¹³  will rise up at the judgment ¹⁴  with the people ¹⁵  of this generation and condemn them, because she came from the ends of the earth to hear the wisdom of Solomon – and now, ¹⁶  something greater ¹⁷  than Solomon is here!

[1:17]  ¹ tn Grk “before him”; the referent (the Lord) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

[1:17]  ² sn These two lines cover all relationships: Turn the hearts of the fathers back to their children points to horizontal relationships, while (turn) the disobedient to the wisdom of the just shows what God gives from above in a vertical manner.

[3:8]  ³ tn The verb here is ποιέω (poiew; see v. 4).

[3:8]  ⁴ tn Grk “fruits.” The plural Greek term καρπούς has been translated with the collective singular “fruit” (so NIV; cf. Matt 3:8 where the singular καρπός is found). Some other translations render the plural καρπούς as “fruits” (e.g., NRSV, NASB, NAB, NKJV).

[3:8]  ⁵ tn In other words, “do not even begin to think this.”

[3:8]  ⁶ sn We have Abraham as our father. John’s warning to the crowds really assumes two things: (1) A number of John’s listeners apparently believed that simply by their physical descent from Abraham, they were certain heirs of the promises made to the patriarch, and (2) God would never judge his covenant people lest he inadvertently place the fulfillment of his promises in jeopardy. In light of this, John tells these people two things: (1) they need to repent and produce fruit in keeping with repentance, for only that saves from the coming wrath, and (2) God will raise up “children for Abraham from these stones” if he wants to. Their disobedience will not threaten the realization of God’s sovereign purposes.

[3:8]  ⁷ sn The point of the statement God is able from these stones to raise up children to Abraham is that ancestry or association with a tradition tied to the great founder of the Jewish nation is not an automatic source of salvation.

[7:22]  ⁸ tn Here καί (kai) has been translated as “so” to indicate the relationship to Jesus’ miraculous cures in the preceding sentence.

[7:22]  ⁹ tn Grk “answering, he said to them.” This is redundant in English and has been simplified in the translation to “he answered them.”

[7:22]  ¹⁰ sn The same verb has been translated “inform” in 7:18.

[7:22]  ¹¹ sn What you have seen and heard. The following activities all paraphrase various OT descriptions of the time of promised salvation: Isa 35:5-6; 26:19; 29:18-19; 61:1. Jesus is answering not by acknowledging a title, but by pointing to the nature of his works, thus indicating the nature of the time.

[7:22]  ¹² tn Grk “and the,” but καί (kai) has not been translated since English normally uses a coordinating conjunction only between the last two elements in a series of three or more.

[11:31]  ¹³ sn On the queen of the South see 1 Kgs 10:1-3 and 2 Chr 9:1-12, as well as Josephus, Ant. 8.6.5-6 (8.165-175). The South most likely refers to modern southwest Arabia, possibly the eastern part of modern Yemen, although there is an ancient tradition reflected in Josephus which identifies this geo-political entity as Ethiopia.

[11:31]  ¹⁴ sn For the imagery of judgment, see Luke 10:13-15 and 11:19. The warnings are coming consistently now.

[11:31]  ¹⁵ tn Grk “men”; the word here (ἀνήρ, anhr) usually indicates males or husbands, but occasionally is used in a generic sense of people in general, as is the case here (cf. BDAG 79 s.v. 1, 2). The same term, translated the same way, occurs in v. 32.

[11:31]  ¹⁶ tn Grk “behold.”

[11:31]  ¹⁷ sn The message of Jesus was something greater than what Solomon offered. On Jesus and wisdom, see Luke 7:35; 10:21-22; 1 Cor 1:24, 30.