Translation commentary on Luke 1:70

Exegesis:

kathōs elalēsen ‘as he spoke,’ subject God.

dia stomatos tōn hagiōn aiōnos prophētōn autou ‘through the mouth of his holy prophets of old.’

dia stomatos in Luke and Acts always (with the exception of Acts 15.7 where the reference is to the preaching of the Gospel) introduces a quotation of, or a reference to, a word of God in the Old Testament, cf. Acts 1.16, 4.25 (David); 3.18 (all the prophets).

hagios ‘holy’ here as an attribute of people consecrated to God.

ap’ aiōnos ‘of old time,’ either ‘from the beginning of time’ (cf. Zürcher Bibel, ‘from eternity’) or ‘of time gone by,’ ‘of long ago’ (so the majority of translators), preferably the latter; the phrase is attributive to prophētōn.

prophētēs ‘prophet,’ i.e. the person who proclaims and interprets a divine revelation mostly by means of the spoken word.

Translation:

The verse qualifies the events referred to in vv. 68b and 69 as being the fulfilment of God’s promise. It acquires the character of a parenthesis when, as preferred in Exegesis, v. 71 is taken with v. 69. Where such a sentence structure would be undesirable, one may make a break after v. 70, thus giving vv. 71ff the status of a new sentence, to be introduced by an appropriate connective or transitional expression (see below).

He spoke by the mouth of …, or, ‘by the lips/tongue/voice of…,’ ‘by the intermediacy of…,’ ‘through (the words of)…,’ all indicating God as the initiator, but the prophets as the actual speakers; or, reorganizing the syntactic pattern, ‘as he caused his holy prophets to speak’ (Tboli), or, ‘as his word, uttered by…’ (Toraja-Sa’dan). For spoke, or, ‘promised,’ cf. on v. 55.

Holy, cf. references on v. 15.

Prophets from of old is, in the interpretation preferred in Exegesis, synonymous with “old prophets” in 9.8, and rendered, ‘prophets of former times’ (Tae’), ‘prophets who lived long ago.’ some other renderings used are ‘person who speaks under divine impulse’ (Ekari), ‘divine-word-man’ (Lü Zhenzhong), ‘holy spokesman’ (Uab Meto). Such renderings may have to be adjusted here because the explicit reference to God or to holiness would sound superfluous in this context. The noun occurs also in 1.76; 3.4; 4.17, 24, 27; 6.23, 26; 7.16, 26, 39; 9.8, 19; 10.24; 11.47, 49f; 13.28, 33f; 16.16, 29, 31; 18.31; 20.6; 24.19, 25, 27, 44; and in the feminine form, 2.36.

Quoted with permission from Reiling, J. and Swellengrebel, J.L. A Handbook on the Gospel of Luke. (UBS Handbook Series). New York: UBS, 1971. For this and other handbooks for translators see here . Make sure to also consult the Handbook on the Gospel of Mark for parallel or similar verses.

SIL Translator’s Notes on Luke 1:70

1:70

as He spoke through His holy prophets, those of ages past: This verse applies both to the verses before it and the verses after it. Long before Zechariah was born, God spoke through his holy prophets that he would provide salvation for his people. This salvation is mentioned in both 1:69 and 1:71.

Some English versions connect 1:70 to 1:69, while others connect it to 1:71. You should connect the verse to the context in a natural way in your language. In some languages, it may be more natural to change the order of some of the clauses in 1:68–71. See the General Comment on 1:68b–71 at the end of the notes on 1:71 for suggestions.

He spoke through His holy prophets: The pronoun He refers to the Lord, the God of Israel (1:68a). The phrase He spoke through His holy prophets means that God said things to his prophets, and the prophets told these things to other people.

Some ways to translate He spoke through His holy prophets are:

the Lord promised by the words of his holy prophets (Contemporary English Version)
-or-
he said these things to his holy prophets and they proclaimed them to people
-or-
just as he promised through his holy prophets (New Living Translation (2004))

through His holy prophets: The phrase that the Berean Standard Bible translates as through His holy prophets is literally “through the mouth of his holy prophets.” The “mouth” represents the prophets speaking. Another way to translate this is:

through what his holy prophets said

His holy prophets: The word prophets refers to men and women who spoke on behalf of God. They told people what God revealed to them. The word holy indicates that they were dedicated to God. It also implies that they lived in a righteous way that pleased him. Some ways to translate His holy prophets are:

God’s own spokesmen
-or-
righteous men and women who spoke God’s words
-or-
God’s message-speakers

When you translate the word “prophet,” it is good to use a general term that does not focus only on foretelling the future. Although prophets did foretell the future, they also gave people other messages from God. They especially told them to stop sinning and to obey God.

When you choose a term for “prophet,” consider how you will distinguish prophet from other words which are similar in meaning such as “angel,” “apostle,” and “preacher.”

This word has the same root as the word “prophesied” in 1:67b. See also prophet in the Glossary.

those of ages past: The phrase those of ages past, literally “from the ages,” refers to prophets who lived hundreds of years before Zechariah was born.

Some other ways to translate this are:

who lived a long time ago
-or-
who lived/prophesied many centuries ago

© 2009, 2010, 2013 by SIL International®
Made available under the terms of a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License (CC BY-SA) creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0.
All Scripture quotations in this publication, unless otherwise indicated, are from The Holy Bible, Berean Standard Bible.
BSB is produced in cooperation with Bible Hub, Discovery Bible, OpenBible.com, and the Berean Bible Translation Committee.