Luke 23:29-31

New English Translation

Footnotes

1. Luke 23:29 tn Grk “For behold.”
2. Luke 23:29 tn Grk “Blessed are the barren, and the wombs that have not borne, and the breasts that have not nursed!”sn Normally barrenness is a sign of judgment, because birth would be seen as a sign of blessing. The reversal of imagery indicates that something was badly wrong.
3. Luke 23:30 sn The figure of crying out to the mountains ‘Fall on us!’ (appealing to creation itself to hide them from God’s wrath), means that a time will come when people will feel they are better off dead (Hos 10:8).
4. Luke 23:30 sn An allusion to Hos 10:8 (cf. Rev 6:16).
5. Luke 23:31 tn Grk “if they do such things.” The plural subject here is indefinite, so the active voice has been translated as a passive (see ExSyn 402).
6. Luke 23:31 sn The figure of the green wood and the dry has been variously understood. Most likely the picture compares the judgment on Jesus as the green (living) wood to the worse judgment that will surely come for the dry (dead) wood of the nation.