much?; cf. 1 S 2^ etc., i.e. by Semitic idiom 'house' (as in English) may mean family, con- nexions].
In favour of («) is the circumstance that ri rivoi, which strictly means ' that which is a person's property,' came to be used specially of his house, the word ' house ' bein^ omitted, afield and Hum- phrey compare the colloquialism ' I am going to my father's.' In profane Greek cf. Herod, i. Ill, iv Apirayov : Philostratus, Vita Apollon. ii. 28, iv toO pa<ri\4(jjs : Lucian, Philop. iv TXavKiov : and many other cases where oTkos or rather oU^imTo. is to be understood. L. Bos, who collected many of these instances in his work on Greek Ellipses, held strongly that -Kpiynaaiv ('business') was not the word to be supplied here. He gave (p. 193) the same explanation of Jn 1" (16^- 19=') and Ac 21«, but in these we find to. tSta. In the LXX, cf. Est 7" Kal iipdarat iv To7s'Afiav ivXov, k.t.X. : Gn 41°' where TavToiv tQv toO iraTpds /xov represents the MT 'all my father's house,' and Job 18'". On the other hand, the supjxirters of («) say that no example has been produced in Biblical or profane Greek for ' to be about a person's business ' as a render- ing of (Ivai iv Tois Tivos, though it is admitted that iv ToiVois iVfli (1 Ti 4") approaches it closely. Origen, Epiphanius, Theodoret, Theophylact, and Euthymius show a chain of commentators, ex- plaining a passage in their mini language, who take it in the sense of ' house.' Sir 42'" iv rots irarpiKoh aiir^s (Vulg. inpaternis suis) also seems to support it.
Against this, and in favour of (i), it has been said that Christ did not mean to say ' I could not return, I was in the Temple of God,' but ' My Father's business is the most important thing for Me.' It is also said that ' the necessity of our
* Where did AKord find ground for sajing, ' Up to this time Joseph had been so called C father') by the holy ChUd Himself. but from this time never ' ? It may be so, but it is not recorded
t iiuiirem occurs f ou ' ' and nowhere else in Nl
:2039)
seem strong enoi
InLkl62J-25AVha of the sufferinirs < presses the L'rit-f
Luke (here, le^J 25, iT. •Sorrowing' (AV and RV) does not *With intense anguish' is rather the . Luke) suggests 'with aching hearts.' > be tormented,' but RV 'to be in anguish,' le rich man in Hades. In Ac ■iff-'* it ex-
Lord's being in His Father's house could hardly be intended by Him as absolutely regulating all His movements, and determining where He should be found, seeing that He had scarcely uttered the words in question before He withdrew with Joseph and Mary from that house, and spent the next eighteen years substantially away from it. On the other hand, the claim to be engaged in His Father's concerns had doubtless both frequently been alleged explicitly in respect of the occupation of His previous home life, and continued to be so during the subsequent periods of His eighteen years' subjection to the parental rule ; His acknow- ledgment of that claim being in nowise intermitted by His withdrawal with His parents from His Father's house. Intimations oi a more general kind seem ' easily capable of being read between the lines of the inspired narrative, which increase the probability that the AV, rather than the KV, expresses the meanin" of the Evangelist' (Dr. R. E. Wallis). It should also be noted that the ex- pression 'my Father's house' occuis in J n 2'^ in plain terms.
In favour of (c) we may quote the words of Jul. Doderlein (Ncues Jahrbuch fur deutsche Theologie, 1892, i. 204): '"In My Father's house" is not correct: Christ soon leaves the Temple. "Busi- ness " is little better. . . . Joseph and Mary could hardly have been expected to understand that their child had special work to do for God's king- dom' (i.e. at that age). . . . 'Had they sought Him among the good, they would not have needed to seek long. Instead of this, they sought Him iv Tots (TvyyevicTLV Kal roTs yvaiaTois, who afterwards tried to cast Him down from the hUl (4='- '■*), and therefore even then would converse little about God's word : on the other hand. He was to be found iv ToU toD iraTpds fiou, who held the office of the Word (Mt 23-), and as such gladly listened to His eager questions . . . the masculine, so to sjieak, has the first claim on the tois, which is formed from oi, not from rd. There is no mention of things in the context. . . . In Ko 12'" Luther, AV and RVni give the masculine, " tliera of low estate." 1 Co 12i' 15=8, Col 3" Tavra iv Tra(riv = "all things in all men," not "all things in all things." In Lk 2" no one would render iv tois 7i'u<rTors, "in the kno^vn places." Again the fie at the end of the phrase seems to be antithetical and emphatic. " Among those of My Father must /not be?" . . . Not in •wha.t j>lace, but in what company He must be, the anxious ones are able to learn once for all . . . "where men speak of God, I shall surely be found"' (cf. a review in The Thinker, 1893, iii. 171 fl'.). We think this explanation deserves more consideration than it has received.