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Luke2:39–40

The Return to Nazareth

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Luke 2:39–40 — The Return to Nazareth. Each verse below carries the full apparatus: the Berean Standard Bible, the vocalized original (tap any word), and a parsed breakdown of every term transcribed from the interlinear. Synthesized commentary, canonical threads, and the reading of Christ gather at the end, over the whole unit.

39

When Jesus’ parents had done everything required by the Law of the Lord, they returned to Galilee, to their own town of Nazareth.

Berean Standard Bible · CC0

Greek — tap a word ↓

Kai hōs etelesan panta ta kata ton nomon Kyriou epestrepsan eis tēn Galilaian eis heautōn polin Nazareth

Word by word17 · parsed
ΚαὶKaiG2532
√ καί — and, also, even, so then, too, etcConjunction
ὡςhōsWhenG5613
√ ὡς — which how, iAdverb
ἐτέλεσανetelesan[Jesus’ parents] had doneG5055
√ τελέω — to end, iVerbAorist Indicative Active3rd Person Plural
teleō: to end, to complete, to discharge in full The aorist ἐτέλεσαν gathers the purification, the presentation, the redemption price and the sacrifice into a single completed act. Gill itemises what the verb covers: the purification of Mary, the presentation and redemption of the firstborn, and the sacrifices belonging to them. The choice of a “finishing” verb is not incidental in Luke, whose Gospel will end with another completion; here the Law is discharged on behalf of a Child who is Himself under it.
πάνταpantaeverythingG3956
√ πᾶς — all, any, every, the wholeAdjectiveAccusative Neuter Plural
τὰtaG3588
√ ὁ — the (sometimes to be supplied, at others omitted, in English idiom)ArticleAccusative Neuter Plural
κατὰkatarequired byG2596
√ κατά — (prepositionally) down (in place or time), in varied relations (according to the case (genitive, dative or accusative) with which it is joined)Preposition
A preposition of measure and norm: the action is laid alongside the Law as its standard.
τὸνtontheG3588
√ ὁ — the (sometimes to be supplied, at others omitted, in English idiom)ArticleAccusative Masculine Singular
νόμονnomonLawG3551
√ νόμος — law (through the idea of prescriptive usage), genitive case (regulation), specially, (of Moses (including the volume)NounAccusative Masculine Singular
nomos: law, prescriptive regulation, the Mosaic code Yet again in this chapter Luke anchors the family in the written statute, a phrase he has already repeated over the presentation scene. Pulpit records the historical weight of this: Marcion, who kept only Luke, cut out precisely the passages where the Mosaic Law is spoken of with reverence. The verse is therefore a piece of evidence that Luke’s Gospel is not the anti-Jewish document a second-century heretic wanted it to be.
ΚυρίουKyriouof [the] LordG2962
√ κύριος — supreme in authority, iNounGenitive Masculine Singular
kyrios: supreme in authority, lord In the genitive here the title belongs to the covenant God who gave the statute; a few verses earlier in this same chapter the angel laid the same title on the newborn, “Christ the Lord” (Luke 2:11), and Simeon has just called Him the Lord’s Christ (Luke 2:26). Luke never pauses to explain the overlap, and the unforced way he lets both stand inside one chapter is itself part of the evidence.
ἐπέστρεψανepestrepsanthey returnedG1994
√ ἐπιστρέφω — to revert (literally, figuratively or morally)VerbAorist Indicative Active3rd Person Plural
epistrephō: to turn back, to revert Elsewhere in the New Testament this verb carries the moral sense of conversion; here it is plain geography. The chronological gap that the commentators debate hangs on this one word: Ellicott, Barnes, JFB, Poole, Gill, Cambridge and Pulpit all agree that Matthew’s Magi, massacre and flight into Egypt fall somewhere inside it, and none of them claims Luke says otherwise.
εἰςeistoG1519
√ εἰς — to or into (indicating the point reached or entered), of place, time, or (figuratively) purpose (result, etcPreposition
τὴνtēnG3588
√ ὁ — the (sometimes to be supplied, at others omitted, in English idiom)ArticleAccusative Feminine Singular
ΓαλιλαίανGalilaianGalileeG1056
√ Γαλιλαία — Galilæa (iNounAccusative Feminine Singular
εἰςeistoG1519
√ εἰς — to or into (indicating the point reached or entered), of place, time, or (figuratively) purpose (result, etcPreposition
ἑαυτῶνheautōntheir [own]G1438
√ ἑαυτοῦ — him- (her-, it-, them-, also (in conjunction with the personal pronoun of the other persons) my-, thy-, our-, your-) self (selves), etcReflexive PronounGenitive Masculine 3rd Person Plural
heautou: self, their own Reflexive and emphatic. Nazareth is claimed as home, which is the narrative hinge for the hidden years and for the standing title “Jesus of Nazareth” that the rest of the New Testament will use.
πόλινpolintownG4172
√ πόλις — a town (properly, with walls, of greater or less size)NounAccusative Feminine Singular
ΝαζαρέθNazarethof NazarethG3478
√ Ναζαρέθ — Nazareth or Nazaret, a place in PalestineNounAccusative Feminine Singular
Nazareth: a place in Palestine A rare name in the Greek New Testament (12 verses), and every one of them ties a person to a village of no scriptural pedigree, which is what John 1:46 sneers at. Luke reports the residence and draws no etymology from it; the netzer wordplay on Isaiah 11:1 belongs to Matthew 2:23 and must not be read back into Luke, who makes no such claim here.
40

And the Child grew and became strong. He was filled with wisdom, and the grace of God was upon Him.

Berean Standard Bible · CC0

Greek — tap a word ↓

de To paidion ēuxanen kai ekrataiouto plēroumenon sophia kai charis Theou ēn ep’ auto

Word by word14 · parsed
δὲdeAndG1161
√ δέ — but, and, etcConjunction
ΤὸTotheG3588
√ ὁ — the (sometimes to be supplied, at others omitted, in English idiom)ArticleNominative Neuter Singular
παιδίονpaidionChildG3813
√ παιδίον — a childling (of either sex), iNounNominative Neuter Singular
paidion: a childling, a young child of either sex Not βρέφος, the newborn of Luke 2:12 and 2:16, but the small child of the growing years. The neuter noun governs every agreement in the verse, including the participle and the closing pronoun, and it is the word Luke also used of John in Luke 1:80.
ηὔξανενēuxanengrewG837
√ αὐξάνω — to grow ("wax"), iVerbImperfect Indicative Active3rd Person Singular
auxanō: to grow, to increase The imperfect makes the growth a continuing state of affairs across the twelve silent years Luke is about to pass over in one sentence. Poole notes plainly that this verse sums up the entire recorded history of those years.
καὶkaiandG2532
√ καί — and, also, even, so then, too, etcConjunction
ἐκραταιοῦτοekrataioutobecame strongG2901
√ κραταιόω — to empower, iVerbImperfect Indicative Middle or Passive3rd Person Singular
krataioō: to empower, to make strong A rare verb, found in only four New Testament verses, and Luke uses two of them, here and of John the Baptist at Luke 1:80. Paul takes the same word for what the Spirit does in the inner man (Ephesians 3:16) and for what believers are commanded to be (1 Corinthians 16:13). The middle or passive form leaves the agency unstated. Ellicott records that the better manuscripts omit the following words “in spirit,” so the strengthening is not restricted by the text to one faculty.
πληρούμενονplēroumenonHe was filledG4137
√ πληρόω — to make replete, iVerbPresent Participle Middle or PassiveNominative Neuter Singular
plēroō: to make replete, to fill full The pivotal grammatical fact of the verse. A present participle describes a filling in progress, which is why Cambridge calls this verse, with Luke 2:52, “a stronghold against the Apollinarian heresy” that the Divine Logos occupied the place of a human soul in Christ. Ellicott and Pulpit make the same judgment independently: the Boy learnt as others learn. A filling that is complete admits no increase; Luke writes one that does.
σοφίᾳsophiawith wisdomG4678
√ σοφία — wisdom (higher or lower, worldly or spiritual)NounDative Feminine Singular
sophia: wisdom, higher or lower, worldly or spiritual Dative of content. Gill is careful to distinguish what is meant: not the essential wisdom of the Godhead, nor the treasures of wisdom hid in the Mediator, but created and natural wisdom as man, increasing by degrees. Henry ascribes the filling to the influence of the Holy Ghost, which is an inference from the text rather than a statement of it.
καὶkaiandG2532
√ καί — and, also, even, so then, too, etcConjunction
χάριςcharis[the] graceG5485
√ χάρις — graciousness (as gratifying), of manner or act (abstract or concreteNounNominative Feminine Singular
charis: graciousness, favour Barnes is precise and restrains the usual sense: the word commonly means unmerited favour shown to sinners, but “here it means no more than favour.” Ellicott hears something more than the guidance given to the Baptist, namely a visible outflowing of divine favour in the moral beauty of a holy childhood. The two readings are not the same, and the Greek noun alone will not decide between them.
ΘεοῦTheouof GodG2316
√ θεός — figuratively, a magistrateNounGenitive Masculine Singular
ἦνēnwasG1510
√ εἰμί — I exist (used only when emphatic)VerbImperfect Indicative Active3rd Person Singular
ἐπ’ep’uponG1909
√ ἐπί — properly, meaning superimposition (of time, place, order, etcPreposition
A preposition of resting superimposition: the favour lies upon the Child, as the Spirit will later be seen descending and remaining upon Him.
αὐτόautoHimG846
√ αὐτός — the reflexive pronoun self, used (alone or in the comparative G1438 (ἑαυτοῦ)) of the third person , and (with the proper personal pronoun) of the other personsPersonal / Possessive PronounAccusative Neuter 3rd Person Singular
autos: self, him, it Neuter by grammatical agreement with παιδίον, not by any theological intent. The concord is a small proof of how ordinary Luke’s sentence is on its surface.

The verse-by-verse work is done. What follows gathers the whole unit. All three layers below are machine-generated (⚙). Weigh them; they have no authority.

⚙

Grand Commentary — the unit, read whole

synthesis · verify

AI synthesis — woven from the public-domain voices above and the original text; generated and fallible.

i. The Law discharged in full — Luke 2:39

⚙ Luke ends the Temple sequence with a completion-verb: ἐτέλεσαν (teleō, G5055), “they brought to an end.” Gill lists what is thereby discharged: the purification of Mary, the presentation and redemption of the firstborn, and the sacrifices belonging to them. Pulpit reads the clause as “another note” of the rigid obedience Mary and Joseph paid to the Law under which they lived, and adds the sharpest historical corroboration in the file: Marcion, who accepted Luke alone as authoritative, deleted exactly those passages where the old Mosaic Law is spoken of with reverence. Benson, from a different angle, says they made conscience of doing these things “that they might fulfil all righteousness.” Two independent witnesses, one from the second century by way of what he had to censor, agree on what the verse is doing.

ii. The gap the text does not close — Luke 2:39

⚙ ἐπέστρεψαν (epistrephō, G1994) says they turned back to Galilee; it says nothing about when. Into that silence Matthew 2 places the Magi, the flight into Egypt and the massacre of the Innocents, and the commentators divide on the order rather than on the fact. Barnes states the grammar of the omission: Luke “has not denied it, nor are his words to be pressed,” and offers the parallel of Acts 9:26 read against Galatians 1:17-18, where a three-year interval hides behind a bare “came to Jerusalem.” Gill puts the return to Bethlehem first and the Magi two years later. Poole argues from Herod’s character that the Magi must have come after the presentation, since otherwise Herod would have made an end of the Child already. Ellicott and Cambridge both suspect neither evangelist had read the other, Cambridge adding that they supplement one another because each narrates truth without knowing the whole. JFB refuse to settle it: it is “perhaps best to leave this in the obscurity in which we find it.” ⚙ We follow JFB. The sourced fact is the omission; the sequence is inference, and five reconstructions that disagree are not a sixth fact.

iii. Two imperfects and a present participle — Luke 2:40

⚙ The whole doctrinal weight of v. 40 sits in its tenses. ηὔξανεν and ἐκραταιοῦτο are imperfects, ongoing across years; πληρούμενον is a present participle, a filling still under way. Ellicott states the grammatical point exactly: the participle “implies the continuous process of being filled,” and so anticipates the increase of wisdom in Luke 2:52. Cambridge issues the same correction as a translation note, “Rather, being filled,” and calls the growth described here a natural human growth. Pulpit, independently, reads the same clause as teaching that the Boy learnt as others learnt. All three then draw the same inference, that Apollinarius is condemned by anticipation, since a Divine Logos standing in the place of a human mind could not be described as being filled by degrees. Barnes adds the balancing sentence: it is no more inconsistent with His being God to say that His soul expanded than to say that His body grew. Poole guards the other flank with the Reformed rule that the divine nature admits no accession and its properties are not communicated to the human. Gill applies it to the detail: not essential wisdom, not the treasures hid in the Mediator, but created and natural wisdom as man.

iv. Grace upon it, and the silence — Luke 2:40

⚙ The last clause is flat Greek: χάρις Θεοῦ ἦν ἐπ’ αὐτό, grace of God was upon it, the pronoun neuter because παιδίον is neuter. The commentators pull in opposite directions on χάρις. Barnes deliberately deflates it: the word usually means unmerited favour shown to sinners, but here “it means no more than favour.” Ellicott hears more than the guidance given to the Baptist, a manifest outflowing of divine favour in the moral beauty of a perfectly holy childhood. Henry, reading the contrast with all other children, says that where they show the corruption of their nature, nothing but the grace of God was upon Him. Cambridge points the clause to Isaiah 11:2-3 and John 1:14. ⚙ The lexicon will not adjudicate; G5485 covers both. What the evangelists do agree on is the silence that follows: Barnes observes that this is all we are told of thirty years, and both Cambridge and Pulpit quote Bonaventura, that His doing nothing wonderful was itself a kind of wonder, and that there is power in His silence, in His inactivity, in His retirement. Pulpit contrasts that reticence with the apocryphal infancy gospels, which are rich in prodigies precisely where the canonical four say nothing.

Read under Sola Scriptura — this tool’s own fallible reading (⚙)

⚙ Under Sola Scriptura, offered to be tested and not as a rule of faith: these two verses are the New Testament’s most restrained sentence about the Incarnation, and the restraint is the doctrine. Luke has just shown the Law discharged over the Child by others, then shuts the record and reports only that He kept growing, kept being made strong, and was being filled. The verbs are the verbs of any Jewish boy in a Galilean village. That is the point Cambridge, Ellicott and Pulpit each reach independently: a filling that is still in progress cannot be a divine mind occupying the place of a human one. Where the reading must stay honest is the gap. The order of the Magi, Egypt and Nazareth is not in Luke, and the five reconstructions in our sources contradict each other; JFB’s refusal to fix it is the most defensible position in the file. So too the word χάρις, which Barnes restricts to favour and Ellicott expands into visible moral beauty; the text will bear both and settles neither. And Nazareth, here, is a residence and nothing more. Luke draws no etymology from it; the netzer reading of Isaiah 11:1 belongs to Matthew 2:23, and importing it here would be putting a claim in Luke’s mouth that he did not make.

The Word was being filled, and that is not a lesser miracle than the Word made flesh; it is the same one, held still long enough to be lived. (This line is ⚙ synthesis, not Scripture.)

⚙

Canonical Threads — out to the whole of Scripture

cross-refs · verify

AI-generated connections. Each carries a verification badge with a recorded basis; contested links are flagged.

The same three words Luke wrote over the Baptist verbal / quotation: confirmed

Luke 1:80 closes the Baptist’s infancy with τὸ δὲ παιδίον ηὔξανεν καὶ ἐκραταιοῦτο, and Luke 2:40 opens the Messiah’s hidden years with the same three lexemes in the same order: paidion (G3813), auxanō (G837) and the rare krataioō (G2901). The Verifier confirms all three as shared. ⚙ The deliberate repetition sets the two children side by side and then parts them: to the forerunner Luke adds “and he was in the deserts”; to the Child he adds “being filled with wisdom, and the grace of God was upon it.” Ellicott notices the same asymmetry from the other end, saying the words here seem chosen to express a different thought from that used of the Baptist’s growth.

Luke 1:80

basis: Verifier: three shared Greek lexemes within one book and one author, G3813 παιδίον (in 49 vv), G837 αὐξάνω (in 23 vv) and the rare G2901 κραταιόω (in only 4 vv). The rarity of κραταιόω plus the identical word order marks this as an authorial formula repeated verbatim, not a citation of another writer.

The rare verb of strengthening, turned on the Church verbal / quotation: confirmed

κραταιόω (G2901) appears in only four New Testament verses. Luke spends two of them on the two children; Paul spends the other two on believers, praying that the Ephesians be strengthened with power through the Spirit in the inner man, and commanding the Corinthians to be strong. ⚙ The imperfect middle or passive in Luke 2:40 leaves the agency of the Child’s strengthening unstated, and Paul’s two uses name the agent in one case (the Spirit) and issue an imperative in the other. The lexical link is firm; the theological inference that the same Spirit strengthens both Christ’s humanity and the believer is ours, and Gill records that the Persic and Ethiopic versions read “was strengthened by the Holy Spirit” here while himself preferring the plainer sense.

Ephesians 3:16 · 1 Corinthians 16:13

basis: Verifier: shared Greek lexeme G2901 κραταιόω, found in only 4 verses in the whole New Testament, which is rare enough to make the verbal link real. All refs are Greek, so no cross-language problem arises. No quotation is claimed in either direction.

The growth formula written over Samuel structural / thematic: confirmed

“The child grew and became strong, being filled with wisdom” is the shape of the sentence the Hebrew narrator uses over Samuel, who grew before the LORD and grew on and was in favour both with the LORD and with men, and over Samson, who grew and was blessed. ⚙ Luke, whose first two chapters imitate Septuagintal Hebrew idiom throughout, is writing in that register, and Luke 2:52 will complete the Samuel formula almost clause for clause. This is the clearest structural case in the unit, and it stops there: it is a shared narrative pattern, not a quotation, and Luke never names Samuel.

1 Samuel 2:21 · 1 Samuel 2:26 · Judges 13:24

basis: Cross-Testament Greek to Hebrew, so shared Strong's numbers are impossible by definition and the Verifier returns no lexical basis. The recorded basis is the repeated narrative growth formula over a child set apart (Samuel, Samson), a shared pattern with no quotation claimed. Structural, never verbal.

Nazareth: a village with no pedigree structural / thematic: confirmed

Ναζαρέθ (G3478) occurs in only twelve New Testament verses, and this thread gathers them: the town Gabriel came to (Luke 1:26), the town Joseph left for the census (Luke 2:4), the town the family came home to here and again at Luke 2:51, where He was brought up and read the scroll (Luke 4:16), the town Nathanael sneered at (John 1:46), and the standing epithet in the apostolic preaching, “Jesus of Nazareth, how God anointed Him with the Holy Spirit and with power” (Acts 10:38). ⚙ Luke offers no etymology. Matthew 2:23 does, tying the name to prophecy with plēroō, and it must be said plainly that Luke makes no such claim here; Gill notes only that Bethlehem was the family’s native city and Nazareth the city of their habitation.

Luke 1:26 · Luke 2:4 · Luke 2:51 · Luke 4:16 · John 1:46 · Acts 10:38

basis: Verifier: shared Greek lexeme G3478 Ναζαρέθ (in 12 vv), with G1056 Γαλιλαία (in 60 vv) and G4172 πόλις (in 155 vv) at several of these refs. Deliberately not tiered verbal: the shared lexeme is a proper place name, which grounds a motif and a recurring title, not a quotation or a citation.

The Spirit of wisdom on the shoot from Jesse typological

Cambridge, commenting on “the grace of God was upon him,” sends the reader to Isaiah 11:2-3, where the Spirit of the LORD rests upon the shoot from the stump of Jesse as the Spirit of wisdom and understanding. ⚙ Luke’s two clauses stand in that order: filled with σοφία (G4678), and grace resting ἐπ’ Him. The correspondence of wisdom and a favour that rests upon is real, but Luke quotes nothing, names no prophet, and gives no fulfilment formula. The reading is figural, held by Cambridge and behind the long Christian reading of Isaiah 11, and offered as such.

Isaiah 11:2 · John 1:14

basis: Cross-Testament Greek to Hebrew for the Isaiah ref, so no shared Strong's basis is possible and none is claimed. The link is figural: the Spirit of wisdom resting on the Davidic shoot read as fulfilled in the child filled with wisdom under resting grace. Widely held since antiquity and cited here by Cambridge, but it is a reading, not a quotation Luke makes.

⚙Christ in the Unittypology · verify

AI-generated reading; weigh it against the text.

A real boyhood, and the heresy it forecloses ancient/widely-held

⚙ The redemptive-historical weight of v. 40 is carried by grammar. πληρούμενον is a present participle, a filling in progress, and two imperfects surround it. Ellicott states the consequence: the soul of Jesus was human, subject to the conditions and limitations of human knowledge, and learnt as others learn, so that the heresy of Apollinarius, who held that the Divine Word took the place of the human mind, is anticipated and condemned. Cambridge names this verse with Luke 2:52 a stronghold against that heresy and sets it among the four Councils of Nice, Constantinople, Ephesus and Chalcedon, which confessed Christ truly God, perfectly Man, indivisibly God-Man, distinctly God and Man. Pulpit reaches the same verdict from the same clause. Barnes supplies the balance: a soul that expands is no more inconsistent with deity than a body that grows. Poole guards the other side with the rule that the divine nature receives no accession and its properties are not communicated. ⚙ Hebrews says it of the same person: He learned obedience by the things which He suffered. The salvation this Gospel will report is worked out by someone who first had to grow into it.

Luke 2:52 · Hebrews 5:8 · Philippians 2:7

Born under the Law, and the Law finished over Him ancient/widely-held

⚙ In v. 39 the Law is completed, ἐτέλεσαν, by Mary and Joseph on the Child’s behalf, because He is too young to do anything on His own. Benson says they made conscience of these things “that they might fulfil all righteousness,” borrowing the phrase Jesus Himself will use at His baptism. Pulpit reads the same clause as a note of rigid obedience to the Law of Israel, under which they lived. ⚙ Paul states the doctrine this scene enacts: God sent forth His Son, born of a woman, born under the Law, to redeem those under the Law. The redemption price of the firstborn is paid over the One who will pay the ransom; the sacrifices of the poor are offered for the One who becomes the offering. Luke does not draw the line; the New Testament does, and every commentator in this file who touches the Law here reads it in the same direction.

Galatians 4:4-5 · Matthew 3:15 · Luke 2:24

Thirty years of silence as a work of God ancient/widely-held

⚙ Barnes records the plain fact: this verse and the short account that follows are all we are told of thirty years, because the evangelists set out to report a public ministry and not a private life. Cambridge and Pulpit both quote Bonaventura on what that silence is: “that His doing nothing wonderful was itself a kind of wonder,” and that as there was power in His actions, so is there power in His silence, in His inactivity, in His retirement. Both set it against the apocryphal infancy gospels, which fill the same years with prodigies. Henry reads the hidden years as required by the office: in all things it became Christ to be made like unto His brethren, and therefore He passed through infancy and childhood as other children, yet without sin. ⚙ That the obedience of the last Adam had to be a whole life, most of it unwitnessed, is the reading; it is offered as such.

Hebrews 2:17 · Romans 5:19 · John 1:46

Apparatus & Provenance

The biblical text is the Berean Standard Bible (BSB), public domain (CC0). Hebrew/Greek text, transliteration, morphology and Strong’s are transcribed from the Berean interlinear (CC0) + Strong’s lexicons (PD); the literal renderings, divergence notes, word notes and all synthesis are this tool’s own work (⚙) — fallible; verify them.

Named voices, quoted verbatim from public-domain works:

  • Albert Barnes, Notes on the Bible (1834)
  • Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges, — (1880s)
  • Charles Ellicott, Commentary for English Readers (1878)
  • Jamieson, Fausset & Brown, Commentary Critical and Explanatory (1871)
  • John Gill, Exposition of the Entire Bible (1746–63)
  • Matthew Henry, Concise Commentary on the Whole Bible (1706)
  • Matthew Poole, Annotations upon the Holy Bible (1685)
  • The Pulpit Commentary, Spence & Exell, eds. (1880s)

⚙ Honesty notes for this unit. (1) Text: Ellicott records that the better manuscripts omit “in spirit” after “waxed strong” in v. 40, and Pulpit confirms that the words do not occur in the older authorities. The BSB text and the Berean interlinear supplied in the brief carry no such words, so the older commentators here are expounding a longer reading than the one we print; where they discuss “strong in spirit” as a distinct faculty, that discussion rests on words our text does not have. (2) Chronology: Luke’s omission of the Magi, the flight into Egypt and the massacre is a fact; the placement of those events relative to v. 39 is not. Ellicott, Barnes, JFB, Poole, Gill, Cambridge and Pulpit give at least four mutually incompatible reconstructions, and we have adopted none of them. (3) χάρις in v. 40 is genuinely contested between our sources: Barnes restricts it to favour, Ellicott expands it to a manifest outflowing of divine beauty. The lexicon (G5485 covers graciousness of manner or act, abstract or concrete) will not decide it, and we have not. (4) Nazareth: the netzer wordplay on Isaiah 11:1 is Matthew’s fulfilment claim at Matthew 2:23, not Luke’s, and no thread here treats it as Luke’s. (5) Cross-Testament threads (the Samuel and Samson growth formula, Isaiah 11:2) can carry no shared Strong's basis, since Greek and Hebrew lexeme numbers do not intersect; those badges are tiered structural or typological for that reason and say so. (6) The attribution of the filling with wisdom to the Holy Spirit is Henry’s and Benson’s inference, and Gill reports it only as the reading of the Persic and Ethiopic versions while preferring otherwise; Luke does not name the Spirit in this verse.

✦ = human, public-domain source, quoted and named. ⚙ = machine synthesis, to be verified. Flagged cross-references are left visible on purpose — the verifier working in the open. “Search the Scriptures daily, whether those things were so.” (Acts 17:11)