Luke 9:51

(ἐγένετο δὲ) ἐν τῷ συμπληροῦσθαι τὰς ἡμέρας τῆς�. ‘When the days of His Assumption were drawing near’ (literally, were being fulfilled). It is not (as Meyer takes it) ‘were completed,’ which would be πλησθῆναι as in Luke 2:21. Comp. Acts 2:1. Wyclif, “Whilst the days were accomplishing.” St Luke thus clearly marks the arrival of a final stage of our Lord’s ministry. “His passion, cross, death, and grave were coming on, but through them all Jesus looked to the goal, and the style of the Evangelist imitates His feelings,” Bengel. The word ἀνάληψις means the Ascension (in Eccl. Latin, Assumptio). So ἀνελήφθη of Elijah and of our Lord, 2 Kings 2:11; Mark 16:19; Acts 1:2; Acts 1:11, &c.; 1 Timothy 3:16. The subst. is in the N. T. an ἅπαξ λεγόμενον in this sense, but is found in Testam. XII. Patr. The peculiarity of the expressions seems to point to the solemnity of the crisis, comp. Mark 10:32.

καὶ αὐτός. ‘He Himself also.’

τὸ πρόσωπον αὐτοῦ ἐστήρισεν. Jeremiah 21:10; 2 Kings 12:17 (LXX[207]), and especially Isaiah 1:7. The phrase shews that St Luke is using an Aramaic document (Exodus 33:14).

[207] LXX. Septuagint.