Translation commentary on Luke 2:20

Exegesis:

kai hupestrepsan hoi poimenes ‘and the shepherds returned,’ to their flocks; kai ‘and’ indicates that the account of the events immediately following the birth of Christ is resumed after mentioning in v. 19 what Mary’s attitude was.

doxazontes kai ainountes ton theon ‘glorifying and praising God.’

doxazō, always (except 4.15) with God as object, ‘to honour,’ ‘to glorify.’ As compared with aineō ‘to praise’ doxazō is the stronger of the two.

epi pasin hois ēkousan kai eidon ‘for all that they had heard and seen’; epi followed by the dative introduces here that upon which the glorifying and praising of the shepherds is based. The relative pronoun hois ‘that’ has been attracted into the case of the antecedent pasin ‘all.’ The verbs are in the aorist tense but are to be rendered in the pluperfect, cf. Moule 16. ēkousan kai eidon ‘(what) they had heard and seen’ is best understood as one expression summing up the experience of the shepherds in Bethlehem.

kathōs elalēthē pros autous ‘as it had been said to them,’ scil. by the angel, to be connected only with the preceding ‘all that they had heard and seen.’

Translation:

The shepherds returned, glorifying and praising God, or, changing the pattern of subordination, ‘when the shepherds returned (i.e. to their sheep), they were-glorifying, they were-praising God’ (Kituba); or, shifting to co-ordination, ‘the shepherds went back, (and) they glorified and praised God.’ Glorifying and praising. A few other renderings are, ‘to make big the precious quality of’ (Kekchi), ‘to holy-remember’ (Tabasco Chontal). For the second verb see above v. 13. Since in several cases the renderings of the two verbs are basically the same or closely resemble each other, their combination may require some adaptation, such as using one verb with two qualifications, e.g. ‘lift up the brightness and the name,’ ‘say that is great and good,’ or representing the second verb as an indication of high degree, e.g. ‘to speak extremely well of,’ ‘great their praising’ (Tboli).

All they had heard and seen, as it had been told them, or to express the relationship of the two clauses more clearly, “all that they had heard and seen in fulfilment of what they had been told” (An American Translation), “all they had heard and seen; it had been just as the angel had told them” (Good News Translation, similarly New English Bible, Willibrord).

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 2:20

2:20a–b

returned: If it is more natural in your language to say to where the shepherds returned, you can say:

returned to the field(s)
-or-
returned to their flock of sheep

glorifying and praising God for all they had heard and seen: The phrase glorifying and praising God for all they had heard and seen indicates that the shepherds talked about how great and good God was to cause those events.

glorifying and praising God: The Greek words that the Berean Standard Bible translates as glorifying and praising have almost the same meaning here. The meaning is that the shepherds honored and praised God. The same Greek word that the Berean Standard Bible translates as praising was also used in 2:13.

The author used two words with the same meaning in order to emphasize the idea. In some languages it may be more natural to express this emphasis in another way. For example:

greatly praised God

glorifying: The word glorifying means “honoring, extolling, praising.” In this context the shepherds were honoring and praising God. They were talking about how God showed his greatness and glory through all that they had heard and seen (2:20b). See glory, sense C1, in Key Biblical Terms.

all they had heard and seen: The phrase all they had heard and seen refers to the baby in the manger, what the angel had said about him, and how the angels had praised God.

2:20c

just as the angel had told them: This clause is passive in Greek, literally “just as it was told to them.” It is similar to the phrase in 2:17b that the Berean Standard Bible translates as “they had received about Him.” In Greek the phrase is more literally “that had been told to them.” In some languages it may be more natural to use an active verb and indicate who told the shepherds the message. If that is true in your language, you may indicate that the angel told the shepherds (2:9–12). For example:

exactly as ⌊the angel⌋ had told them ⌊it would happen⌋

General Comment on 2:20a–c

In some languages, it may be more natural to put 2:20a after 2:20b–c. For example:

20bAll the things that the shepherds heard and saw 20cwere just as they had been told. 20aSo they returned, glorifying and praising God.

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