understood not the saying which he spake unto them.--_Luke_ ii. 48-50.


Was that his saying? Why did they not understand it? Do we understand
it? What did his saying mean? The Greek is not absolutely clear. Whether
the Syriac words he used were more precise, who in this world can tell?
But had we heard his very words, we too, with his father and mother,
would have failed to understand them. Must we fail still?

It will show at once where our initial difficulty lies, if I give the
latter half of the saying as presented in the revised English version:
its departure from the authorized reveals the point of obscurity:--'Wist
ye not that I must be in my father's house?' His parents had his exact
words, yet did not understand. We have not his exact words, and are in
doubt as to what the Greek translation of them means.

If the authorized translation be true to the intent of the Greek, and
therefore to that of the Syriac, how could his parents, knowing him as
they did from all that had been spoken before concerning him, from all
they had seen in him, from the ponderings in Mary's own heart, and from
the precious thoughts she and Joseph cherished concerning him, have
failed to understand him when he said that wherever he was, he must be
about his father's business? On the other hand, supposing them to know
and feel that he must be about his father's business, would that have
been reason sufficient, in view of the degree of spiritual development
to which they had attained, for the Lord's expecting them not to be
anxious about him when they had lost him? Thousands on thousands who
trust God for their friends in things spiritual, do not trust him for
them in regard of their mere health or material well-being. His parents
knew how prophets had always been treated in the land; or if they did