Luke 2:49

Luke 2:49. How is it that ye sought me, or, ‘were seeking me?' A boy of twelve years would understand the mother's anxiety. (In Oriental countries maturity comes earlier than among us.) Were He only human, the answer would have been mocking. But ‘in all the simplicity and boldness of holy childhood,' He expresses astonishment that they had not known where He would be and where He ought to be. He knew and felt there was something in Him and in His previous history, which ought to be known to Mary and Joseph, that justified His being where He was and forbade their anxiety about Him. Mary's reproach implies that she had not told Him of the things she had been ‘pondering in her heart' (Luke 2:19). This makes the answer the more remarkable, while its quiet repose shows that the child was superior to the mother.

Did ye not know. This, like the previous clause, implies that they ought to have known this.

That I must be. This points to a moral necessity, identical with perfect freedom. Our Lord afterwards uses it of ‘His appointed and undertaken course' (Alford). At this time when legal duty fell upon a Jewish boy, He would express His conviction of duty. It represents the time when children begin to feel that they have entered upon ‘years of discretion,' and assumed for themselves the moral responsibility hitherto largely resting upon their parents.

In my Father's house. Lit., ‘in the things of my Father.' It may mean: abiding in, occupied in that which belongs to my Father, to His honor and glory, including all places and employments peculiarly His. The place in which He was, is in any case included. But it seems best to restrict the sense to the place. Greek usage favors this. The question about seeking Him makes it necessary to accept the reference to the temple as the primary one, even if the wider reference is not excluded. They need not have sought Him, they ought to have known where to find Him. At the same time it is true that He here suggests the sphere in which He lived, whether in or out of the temple. The words: ‘my Father,' assert what was implied, or only negatively expressed, in the previous part of the response. He claims God as His Father, and not only justifies His conduct by this claim, but expresses the conviction that they should have recognized it. There is a contrast with the phrase, ‘Thy father' (Luke 2:48). This is the first recorded utterance of Jesus, and in it the Divine-human self-consciousness is manifest. The narrative suggests that this was the first time words of this deep meaning had fallen from His lips. Christ's first saying was not a moral precept, but a declaration concerning His relation to God. The calmness of the response confirms the view that the consciousness of this relation had previously existed.

Luke 2:50. And they understood not the saying. This was natural, even after the remarkable peculiarities of our Lord's birth. Twelve years had passed since then, and their faith might have grown weaker. While they knew something as to His Person, they could not understand the deeper meaning which He seemed to comprehend so clearly and express so decidedly. Further, what He said came from Himself and not from their information; this obedient child deviated from His parents' expectation and calmly justified His conduct. No wonder they did not understand. In these days men, after all the light from Christ's life, after all the evidences of His power in the Christian centuries, fail to understand this saying of His, respecting His own Person.