Cambridge Greek Testament Commentary

Luke 2:21

21. THE CIRCUMCISION

21. τοῦ περιτεμεῖν αὐτόν. The genitive of the purpose. The old way of explaining it was to understand ἕνεκα or χάριν, but it is neither an ellipse nor an Hebraism, but a classic idiom resulting from the original force of the genitive, see Winer p. 408. This construction is specially common in St Luke (Luke 2:22; Luke 5:7; Luke 21:22; Luke 22:31; Acts 3:2, &c.) It must be distinguished from the genitives in Luke 1:57; Luke 2:6, which depend on the substantives. Genesis 17:12. Doubtless the rite was performed by Joseph. “Jesus Christ was a minister of the circumcision” (i.e. went to the Jew first) “for the truth of God to confirm the promises made unto the fathers,” Romans 15:8; Galatians 4:4. Thus it became Him ‘to be made like unto His brethren, and to fulfil all righteousness,’ Matthew 3:15. Christ suffered pain thus early for our sake to teach us that, though He ordained for us the painless rite of baptism, we must practise the spiritual circumcision—the circumcision of the heart. He came “not to destroy the Law but to fulfil,” Matthew 5:17; γενόμενος ὑπὸ νόμον, Galatians 4:4.

“He, who with all heaven’s heraldry whilere
Entered the world, now bleeds to give us ease.
Alas, how soon our sin

Sore doth begin

His infancy to seize!”

MILTON, The Circumcision.

καί. There is a mixture of two constructions, namely ἐπλήσθησαν … καὶ and ὅτε ἐπλ … ἐκλήθη (comp. Luke 7:12).

ἐκλήθη τὸ ὄνομα αὐτοῦ Ἰησοῦς. See on Luke 1:31. The name of the child was bestowed at circumcision, as with us at baptism. Among Greeks and Romans also the genethlia and nominalia were on the eighth or ninth day. Observe the brief notice of Christ’s circumcision compared with the fuller and more elaborate account of John’s. “In the person of John the rite of circumcision solemnised its last glories.”

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Cambridge Greek Testament Commentary

Luke 2:21

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