Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of Luke 1:16
And many of the children of Israel shall he turn to the Lord their God.
16. many shall he turn ] Eze 3:19; Isa 40:3; Mat 3:3-6. The word for ‘ turn ’ is sometimes rendered ‘ convert ’ as in Luk 22:32, ‘when thou art converted.’ These words resume the thread of prophecy which had been broken for three centuries (Mal 4:6).
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
Children of Israel – Jews. Descendants of Israel or Jacob.
Shall he turn – By repentance. He shall call them from their sins, and persuade them to forsake them, and to seek the Lord their God.
Fuente: Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible
Verse 16. Many of the children of Israel shall he turn] See this prediction fulfilled, Lu 3:10-18.
Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible
16, 17. A religious and moralreformer, Elijah-like, he should be (Mal4:6, where the “turning of the people’s heart to the Lord”is borrowed from 1Ki 18:37).In both cases their success, though great, was partialthenation was not gained.
Fuente: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown’s Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible
And many of the children of Israel,…. To whom only, or at least chiefly, he was sent, and came preaching, and administering the ordinance of baptism; and great multitudes of them flocked unto him, attended on his ministry, believed in his doctrine, and submitted to his baptism, but not all; for some slighted his preaching, and rejected his baptism: however, some there were, and many too, that were converted under his ministry, confessed their sins, and were baptized by him; which verified this prediction:
shall he turn to the Lord their God; not Jehovah, the Father; for though he was the Lord God of the Jews in general, and of those that were turned by John’s ministry in a special manner; yet John cannot be said “to go before him”, as he is in the next verse; but the Messiah is here meant, who is the Lord Jehovah, and is often so called in the Old Testament; particularly in a prophecy afterwards respected, Isa 40:3 a name peculiar to God alone: and who also is called God, as he is frequently with additional epithets; as the mighty God, God over all, the great God, the true God, and eternal life; and our, your, and their God, the God of his covenant people, whether Jews or Gentiles; see Isa 25:9. Conversion, which is meant by turning to God, is not man’s work, but God’s; and is effected by his mighty power, which is only equal to it; but John was to be, and was, an instrument of the conversion of many among the Jews, by preaching the doctrine of repentance towards God, and faith in the Messiah, that was just ready to come: he was the means in the hand of God, of turning many from sin, of bringing them to a true sense of it, and to an hearty and ingenuous confession and acknowledgment of it; and from trusting to, and depending upon, their birth privileges, legal duties, and self-righteousness; and from their gross notions of a temporal Messiah; and of leading them to believe in Christ as a spiritual Saviour, as the Lamb of God, that should take away the sin of the world.
Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible
1) “And many of the children of Israel,” (kai pollous ten huion Israel) “And many of the sons or heirs of Israel,” not all, but many, for multitudes followed him as a prophet, Mat 14:5.
2) “Shall he turn to the Lord their God.” (epistrepsei epi kurion ton theon auton) “He will turn to the Lord their God,” from ceremonialism and ritualism to genuine repentance and faith in the coming Messiah. Repentance or conversion of life and soul was his watchword as he prepared a people for the Lord, Mat 3:5-8; Luk 3:3-4; Luk 3:7-8; Act 19:4.
Fuente: Garner-Howes Baptist Commentary
16. And many of the children of Israel shall he bring back These words show the shamefully dissolute conduct which then prevailed in the Church, for those in whom conversion to God could take place must have been apostates. And certainly corrupt doctrine, depraved morals, and disorderly government, were such as to render it next to a miracle that a very few continued in godliness. But if the ancient Church was so awfully dissolute, it is a frivolous pretext by which the Papists defend their own superstitions, that it is impossible for the Church to err, particularly since they include under this designation not the genuine and elect children of God, but the crowd of the ungodly.
But John appears to have more ascribed to him here than belongs to man. For conversion to God renews men to a spiritual fife, and therefore is not only God’s own work, but surpasses even the creation of men. In this way ministers might seem to be made equal, and even superior, to God viewed as Creator; since to be born again to a heavenly life is a greater work than to be born as mortals on the earth. The answer is easy; for when the Lord bestows so great praise on the outward doctrine, he does not separate it from the secret influence of his Spirit. As God chooses men to be his ministers whose services he employs for the edification of his Church, he at the same time operates by them, through the secret influence of his Spirit, that their labors may be efficacious and fruitful. Wherever Scripture applauds this efficacy in the ministry of men, let us learn to attribute it to the grace of the Spirit, without which the voice of man would have spent itself uselessly in the air. Thus, when Paul boasts that he is a minister of the Spirit, (2Co 3:6,) he claims nothing separately for himself, as if by his voice he penetrated into the hearts of men, but asserts the power and grace of the Spirit in his ministry. These expressions are worthy of remark; because Satan labors, with amazing contrivance, to lower the effect of doctrine, in order that the grace of the Spirit connected with it may be weakened. The outward preaching, I acknowledge, can do nothing separately or by itself; but as it is an instrument of divine power for our salvation, and through the grace of the spirit an efficacious instrument, what God hath joined together let us not put asunder, (Mat 19:6.)
That the glory of conversion and faith, on the other hand, may remain undivided with God alone, Scripture frequently reminds us that ministers are nothing in themselves; but in such cases he compares them with God, that no one may wickedly steal the honor from God and convey it to them. In short, those whom God, by the aid of the minister, converts to himself, are said to be converted by the minister, because he is nothing more than the hand of God; and both are expressly asserted in this passage. Of the efficacy of the doctrine we have now said enough. That it lies not in the will and power of the minister to bring men back to God, we conclude from this that John did not indiscriminately bring all back, (which he would unquestionably have done, if every thing had yielded to his wish,) but only brought those back whom it pleased the Lord effectually to call. In a word, what is here taught by the angel is laid down by Paul in his Epistle to the Romans, that faith cometh by hearing, (Rom 10:17,) but that those only to whom the Lord inwardly reveals his arm (Isa 53:1; Joh 12:38) are so enlightened as to believe.
Fuente: Calvin’s Complete Commentary
(16) Shall he turn to the Lord their God.The opening words of the message of the New Covenant spring out of the closing words of the last of the prophets (Mal. 4:6), and point to the revival of the Elijah ministry, which is more definitely announced in the next verse.
Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)
“And many of the children of Israel will he turn to the Lord their God.”
Such will be the inspiration of which he partakes that he will turn many in Israel to the Lord their God (bring them to repentance). For this is why he is being sent. He is coming in order to bring God’s people back to Himself (compare Isa 49:6), ready for God’s great deliverance. This turning of the people of Israel to Himself is a constant theme of the Old Testament, and was especially associated with the last days (e.g. Isa 30:15; Isa 31:6; Isa 44:22; Jer 3:14; Jer 24:7; Eze 33:11; Dan 12:3; Hos 3:5; Hos 6:1; Hos 12:6; Hos 14:1-2; Joe 2:12-13; Joe 2:28-32; Zec 1:3; Mal 3:7; Mal 4:6) and was a requirement for the coming of the Redeemer (Isa 59:20).
Fuente: Commentary Series on the Bible by Peter Pett
Luk 1:16-17 . Working of John as a preacher of repentance, who as a moral reformer of the people (comp. on Mat 17:11 ) prepares the way for the Messianic consummation of the theocracy.
] for through sin they have turned themselves away from God.
. .] not the Messiah (Euthymius Zigabenus, and many of the older commentators), but God .
] He will turn many to God, and he himself will, etc.
] not: he will emerge previously (de Wette), but: he will precede (Xen. Cyr. vi. 3, 9), go before Him (Gen 23:3 ; Gen 23:14 ; Jdt 2:19 ; Jdt 15:13 ).
. ] can only, in accordance with the context, be referred to God (Luk 1:16 ), whose preceding herald he will be. The prophets, namely, look upon and depict the setting in of the Messianic kingdom as the entrance of Jehovah into the midst of His people, so that thereupon God Himself is represented by the Messiah; Isa 40 .; Mal 3:1 ; Mal 4:5 f. Comp. Tit 2:13 . In the person of the entering Messiah Jehovah Himself enters; but the Messiah’s own personal divine nature is not yet expressed in this ancient-prophetic view (in opposition to Gess, Pers. Chr. p. 47). Incorrect, because in opposition to this prophetic idea, is the immediate reference of to the Messiah (Heumann, Kuinoel, Valckenaer, Winer), as regards which appeal is made to the emphatic use of , , and ipse (comp. the Pythagorean ), whereby a subject not named but well known to every one is designated (Winer, p. 152 [E. T. 182 f.]).
. . .] furnished therewith. Spirit and power (power of working) of Elias (according to Mal 4:5 f.) is, as a matter of course, God’s Spirit (comp. Luk 1:15 ) and divine power, but in the peculiar character and vital expression which were formerly apparent in the case of Elias, whose antitype John is, not as a miracle-worker (Joh 10:41 ), but as preacher of repentance and prophetic preparer of the way of the Lord.
. . .] according to Malachi, l.c.: in order to turn fathers’ hearts to children; to be taken literally of the restoration of the paternal love, which in the moral degradation of the people had in many grown cold. Comp. Sir 48:10 and Fritzsche in loc. Kuinoel incorrectly holds that means the patriarchs, and that the meaning is (similar to that given by Augustine, de civit. D. xx. 29; Beza, Calovius, and others): “efficiet, ut posteri erga Deum eundem habeant animum pium, quem, habebant eorum majores.” Comp. also Hengstenberg, Christol. III. p. 674, and Bleek. The absence of any article ought in itself to have warned against this view!
. . .] sc. . The discourse passes over from the special relation to the general one. is the opposite of , and therefore is not to be understood of the children (Olshausen), but of the immoral in general, whose characteristic is disobedience, namely towards God.
] connected immediately in a pregnant way with the verb of direction, in which the thought of the result was predominant. See Khner, II. p. 316. “Sensus eorum, qui justi sunt, in conversione protinus induitur,” Bengel. (see Arist. Eth. Nic. vi. 5. 4), practical intelligence. Comp. on Eph 1:8 . The practical element follows from .
] to put in readiness, etc. Aim of the . . ., and so final aim of the . . .
] for God, as at Luk 1:16-17 .
.] a people adjusted, placed in the right moral state (for the setting up of the Messianic kingdom), is related to as its result. “Parandus populus, ne Dominus populum imparatum inveniens majestate sua obterat,” Bengel.
Fuente: Heinrich August Wilhelm Meyer’s New Testament Commentary
16 And many of the children of Israel shall he turn to the Lord their God.
Ver. 16. Shall he turn to the Lord ] A high honour to have any hand in the conversion of souls. They that wise others shall shine in heaven,Dan 12:3Dan 12:3 .
Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
16. ] The work of John was one of preparation and turning men’s hearts towards God. For full notes on his office, see on Mat 11 . It may suffice here to repeat, that it was a concentration of the spirit of the law , whose office it was to convince of sin: and that he eminently represented the law and the prophets in their work of preparing the way for Christ.
Fuente: Henry Alford’s Greek Testament
Luk 1:16 describes the function of the Baptist. : repentance, conversion, his great aim and watchword.
Fuente: The Expositors Greek Testament by Robertson
Luke
ELIJAH COME AGAIN
Luk 1:5 – Luk 1:17
The difference between the style of Luke’s preface Luk 1:1 – Luk 1:4 and the subsequent chapters relating to the Nativity suggests that these are drawn from some Hebrew source. They are saturated with Old Testament phraseology and constructions, and are evidently translated by Luke. It is impossible to say whence they came, but no one is more likely to have been their original narrator than Mary herself. Elisabeth or Zacharias must have communicated the facts in this chapter, for there is no indication that those contained in this passage, at all events, were known to any but these two.
If we were considering a fictitious story, we should note the artistic skill which prepared for the appearance of the hero by the introduction first of his satellite; but the order of the narrative is due, not to artistic skill, but to the divinely ordered sequence of events. It was fitting that John’s office as Forerunner should begin even before his birth. So the story of his entrance into the world prepares for that of the birth which hallows all births.
I. We have first a beautiful outline picture of the quiet home in the hill country.
The most of the priests who appear in the Gospels are heartless formalists, if not worse; yet not only Annas and Caiaphas and their spiritual kindred ministered at the altar, but there were some in whose hearts the ancient fire burned. In times of religious declension, the few who still are true are mostly in obscure corners, and live quiet lives, like springs of fresh water rising in the midst of a salt ocean. John thus sprang from parents in whom the old system had done all that it could do. In his origin, as in himself, he represented the consummate flower of Judaism, and discharged its highest office in pointing to the coming One.
This ‘blameless’ pair had a crook in their lot. Childlessness was then an especial sorrow, and many a prayer had gone up from both that their solitary home might be gladdened by children’s patter and prattle. But their disappointed hope had not made them sour, nor turned their hearts from God. If they prayed about it, they would not murmur at it, and they were not thereby hindered from ‘walking in all God’s commandments and ordinances blameless.’ Let us learn that unfulfilled wishes are not to clog our devotion, nor to silence our prayers, nor to slacken our running the race set before us.
II. We are carried away from the home among the hills to the crowded Temple courts.
Mark the manner of the angel’s appearance. He was not seen as in the act of coming, but was suddenly made visible standing by the altar, as if he had been stationed there before; and what had happened was not that he came, but that Zacharias’s eyes were opened. So, when Elisha’s servant was terrified at the sight of the besiegers, the prophet prayed that his eyes might be opened, and when they were, he saw what had been there before, ‘the mountain full of horses and chariots of fire.’ Not the Temple courts only, but all places are full of divine messengers, and we should see them if our vision was purged. But such considerations are not to weaken the supernatural element in the appearance of this angel with his message. He was sent, whatever that may mean in regard to beings whose relation to place must be different from ours. He had an utterance of God’s will to impart.
It has often been objected to these chapters that they are full of angelic appearances, which modern thought deems suspicious. But surely if the birth of Jesus was what we hold it to have been, the coming into human life of the Incarnate Son of God, it is not legend that angel wings gleam in their whiteness all through the story, and angel voices adore the Lord of men as well as angels, and angel eyes gaze on His cradle, and learn new lessons there.
III. We have next the angel’s message.
Observe how brief is the announcement of the child’s birth, important as that was to the father’s heart, and how the prophecy lingers on the child’s future work, which is important for the world. His name, character, and work in general are first spoken, and then his specific office as the Forerunner is delineated at the close. The name is significant. ‘John’ means ‘The Lord is gracious.’ It was an omen, a condensed prophecy, the fulfilment of which stretched beyond its bearer to Him as whose precursor alone was John a token of God’s grace.
His character Luk 1:15 puts first ‘great in the sight of the Lord.’ Then there are some whom God recognises as great, small as we all are before Him. And His estimate of greatness is not the world’s estimate. How Herod or Pilate or Caesar, or philosophers at Athens, or rabbis in Jerusalem would have scoffed if they had been pointed to the gaunt ascetic pouring out words which they would have thought wild, to a crowd of Jews, and been told that that was the greatest man in the world except One! The elements of greatness in the estimate of God which is truth, are devotion to His service, burning convictions, intense moral earnestness, superiority to sensuous delights, clear recognition of Jesus, and humble self-abnegation before Him. These are not the elements recognised in the world’s Pantheon. Let us take God’s standard.
John was to be a Nazarite, living not for the senses, but the soul, as all God’s great ones have to be. The form may vary, but the substance of the vow of abstinence remains for all Christians. To put the heel on the animal within, and keep it well chained up, is indispensable, if we are ever to know the buoyant inspiration which comes from a sacreder source than the fumes of the wine-cup. Like John, we must flee the one if we would have the other, and be ‘filled with the Holy Ghost.’
The consequence of his character is seen in his work, as described generally in Luk 1:16 . Only such a man can effect such a change, in a time of religious decay, as to turn many to God. It needs a strong arm to check the downward movement and to reverse it. No one who is himself entangled in sense, and but partially filled with God’s Spirit, will wield great influence for good. It takes a Hercules to stop the chariot racing down hill, and God’s Herculeses are all made on one pattern, in so far that they scorn delights, and empty themselves of self and sense that they may be filled with the Spirit.
John’s specific office is described in Luk 1:17 , with allusion to the closing prophecy of Malachi. That prophecy had kindled an expectation that Elijah, in person, would precede Messias. John was like a reincarnation of the stern prophet. He came in a similar epoch. His characteristic, like Elijah’s, was ‘power,’ not gentleness. If the earlier prophet had to beard Ahab and Jezebel, the second Elijah had Herod and Herodias. Both haunted the desert, both pealed out thunders of rebuke. Both shook the nation, and stirred conscience. No two figures in Scripture are truer brethren in spirit than Elijah the Tishbite and John the Baptist.
His great work is to go before the Messiah, and to prepare Israel for its King. Observe that the name of the coming One is not mentioned in Luk 1:17 . ‘Him’ is enough. Zacharias knew who ‘He’ was. But observe, too, that the same mysterious person is distinctly called ‘The Lord,’ which in this connection, and having regard to the original prophecy in Malachi, can only be the divine name. So, in some fashion not yet made plain, Messiah’s advent was to be the Lord’s coming to His people, and John was the Forerunner, in some sense, of Jehovah Himself.
But the way in which Israel was to be prepared is further specified in the middle clauses of the verse, which are also based on Malachi’s words. The interpretation of ‘to turn the hearts of the fathers to the children’ is very doubtful; but the best explanation seems to be that the phrase means to bring back to the descendants of the ancient fathers of the nation the ancestral faith and obedience. They are to be truly Abraham’s seed, because they do the works and cherish the faith of Abraham. The words imply the same truth which John afterwards launched as a keen-edged dart, ‘Think not to say, We have Abraham to our father.’ Descent after the flesh should lead to kindred in spirit. If it does not, it is nought.
To turn ‘the disobedient to the wisdom of the just’ is practically the same change, only regarded from another point of view. John was sent to effect repentance, that change of mind and heart by which the disobedient to the commands of God should be brought to possess and exercise the moral and religious discernment which dwells only in the spirits of the righteous. Disobedience is folly. True wisdom cannot be divorced from rectitude. Real rectitude cannot live apart from obedience to God.
Such was God’s intention in sending John. How sadly the real effects of his mission contrast with its design! So completely can men thwart God, as Jesus said in reference to John’s mission, ‘The Pharisees and lawyers frustrated the counsel of God against themselves, being not baptized of him.’ Let us take heed lest we bring to nothing, so far as we are concerned, His gracious purpose of redemption in Christ!
Fuente: Expositions Of Holy Scripture by Alexander MacLaren
children = sons. See App-108.
to = towards. Greek. epi. App-104.
Lord. Greek. kurios. App-98.
Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics
16.] The work of John was one of preparation and turning mens hearts towards God. For full notes on his office, see on Matthew 11. It may suffice here to repeat, that it was a concentration of the spirit of the law, whose office it was to convince of sin: and that he eminently represented the law and the prophets in their work of preparing the way for Christ.
Fuente: The Greek Testament
Luk 1:16-17. , , he shall turn, and shall go before) The words presently after in Luk 1:17, to turn, , refer to the verb , in Luk 1:16 : and , to make ready, refers to .-, the Lord) Christ is therefore God. Comp. the following verse, , before Him-, the Lord: and in verse 76 [the Highest-before the face of the Lord].
Fuente: Gnomon of the New Testament
Luk 1:76, Isa 40:3-5, Isa 49:6, Dan 12:3, Mal 3:1, Mat 3:1-6, Mat 21:32
Reciprocal: 1Ki 18:37 – thou hast turned Psa 80:7 – Turn Mal 2:6 – and did Mal 4:6 – turn Mat 17:11 – and restore Mar 9:12 – restoreth Luk 1:17 – before Luk 3:4 – Prepare Joh 1:23 – I am Joh 3:28 – but Act 3:19 – be Act 9:17 – the Lord Act 9:35 – turned Act 26:20 – turn 1Co 15:47 – the Lord Gal 1:15 – who Heb 1:8 – O God
Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge
6
This verse shows the fulfillment of Mal 4:6.
Fuente: Combined Bible Commentary
Luk 1:16. To the Lord their God. Not to Christ, but to God. A prediction of Johns ministry, as preparatory and reformatory,the baptism of repentance. See on Mat 3:1.
Fuente: A Popular Commentary on the New Testament
1:16 And many of the children of Israel shall he {q} turn to the Lord their God.
(q) Shall be a means to bring many to repentance, and they will turn themselves to the Lord, from whom they fell.
Fuente: Geneva Bible Notes
John would turn the hearts of many Israelites back to God, as the prophets had done in Old Testament times. None of them was more successful or important than Elijah had been. He led the people back to Yahweh after Ahab and Jezebel had pushed Israel’s apostasy farther than it had ever gone by instituting Baal worship as Israel’s official religion. John would possess the same spirit and power that Elijah had. Moreover John would be the predicted predecessor of Messiah (Mal 4:5-6; cf. Mal 3:1). Jesus later explained that John fulfilled the prophecy of Messiah’s forerunner (Mal 3:1). He would have completely fulfilled the prophecy of Elijah’s return if the Jews had accepted Jesus (Mal 4:5-6; Mat 11:10; Mat 11:14).
". . . according to Jewish notions, he [Elijah] was to appear personally, and not merely ’in spirit and power.’" [Note: Edersheim, 1:142.]
The term "turn back" (Gr. epistrepho) became a technical term for Christian conversion (cf. Act 9:35; 2Co 3:16; 1Th 1:9; 1Pe 2:25). Essentially it means turning from idols to the true God. Turning people to God was the responsibility of every true priest (Mal 2:6). The meaning of the Malachi quotation is probably that when restoration comes there will be human reconciliation and love rather than estrangement and selfishness. [Note: Marshall, The Gospel . . ., p. 60.] People would clean up their interpersonal relationships in preparation for Messiah’s appearing.
Luke spoke often of the people (Gr. laos) that God was preparing for Himself. These people prepared for the Lord included Jewish hearers but also those who formerly were not "a people" (1Pe 2:10), namely, the Gentiles. They are the elect who would compose the church. With this word Luke constantly reminded his original Greek readers that God’s plan included Gentiles who responded to the gospel as well as Jews.