The Bible Says
Luke 2:39-40 Meaning

The parallel Gospel account of Luke 2:39-40 is Matthew 2:19-23.

Luke 2:39-40 tells how after fulfilling the requirements of the Law, the family returns to Nazareth where Jesus grows physically strong, increases in wisdom, and enjoys the favor of God.

After giving many details of Jesus’s birth and the first forty or so days of Jesus’s life (Luke 2:1-38), Luke then writes a brief account transitioning from Jesus’s infancy to childhood (Luke 2:41-52). Luke 2:39-40 is this brief biographical transition.

It begins: When they had performed everything according to the Law of the Lord, they returned to Galilee, to their own city of Nazareth (v 39).

The pronoun—they—in Luke 2:39 refers to Mary and Joseph, Jesus’s mother and his adoptive father.

Luke says Mary and Joseph had performed everything according to the Law of the Lord.

Luke’s term: the Law of the Lord is a less Jewish way of saying “the Law of Moses.” Luke likely used the Law of the Lord instead of “the Law of Moses” to make his account more accessible for his Gentile (mostly Greek) audience.

Moses was a prophet of God. He received the Law directly from God. And Jews understood that Moses received the Law from the Lord, but they referred to it as “the Law of Moses” to differentiate the commands they had received through Moses from other divine instructions they had received through the other prophets of the Lord.

The Greeks however were preoccupied with great individual heroes—men like Achilles or Odysseus from their myths, or important lawgivers such as Solon or Lycurgus. Had Luke used “Law of Moses,” his Greek reader may have been inclined to misunderstand and think that Moses was the creator and giver of this code of Law rather than only a prophetic messenger on the Lord’s behalf. Luke, therefore, may have used the Law of the Lord instead of “the Law of Moses” to make clear that this was the Lord’s Law, and not a mere human’s.

Everything they had performed according to the Law of the Lord included:

• Circumcising Jesus eight days after His birth (Luke 2:21—Leviticus 12:3).

• Offering Mary’s purification sacrifice forty days after giving birth to Jesus (Luke 2:22-23—Leviticus 12:6-8).

• Presenting Jesus, Mary’s firstborn son, to the priest and paying the redemption price (Luke 2:22—Exodus 13:2, 13:12, Numbers 18:15-16).

They had performed all these commandments according to the Law of the Lord.

And Luke writes when they had performed everything, Jesus’s parents returned from Bethlehem, located in the district of Judea, which was where Jesus was born, to their own city of Nazareth, which was in the district of Galilee. The main city in Judea is Jerusalem and it is about 70 miles south of Nazareth. Depending on the route and pace one takes, it was typically a three-to-five-day journey between these two cities in the ancient world.

Luke’s account is factually accurate: they did return to Galilee after they had performed everything according to the Law of the Lord. But Matthew’s account provides some additional details that are significant.

According to Matthew, it appears that the holy family remained in the vicinity of Bethlehem for a year or more after Jesus was born and did not immediately return to Nazareth.

The reason they may have decided to remain in Bethlehem after Jesus’s birth was to avoid the scandal of Mary’s virgin-pregnancy and delivery of Jesus, and its potential fallout. Not everyone believed that the angel visited her and that her child was the Son of God. Some in Nazareth may have wrongly concluded that she was unfaithful and might have treated her with disrespect or excluded her.

Matthew tells us that magi from the east arrived in Herod’s courts in Jerusalem asking about a newborn Jewish king’s star (Matthew 2:1-3). King Herod, ignorant of Jesus’s birth and His identity, determined from the magi the exact time when the star appeared (Matthew 2:7). He would later use this information to deduce the age of the newborn king and issued a brutal command that every male child found in Bethlehem in that age range be slaughtered. Herod had every male child in the vicinity of Bethlehem who was “two years old and under” executed (Matthew 2:16).

After they first visited Herod, the magi followed the star and found the young king and His family in Bethlehem (Matthew 2:9-11). But after the magi left, an angel of God warned Joseph to flee Bethlehem for Egypt to escape Herod’s oncoming slaughter (Matthew 2:13). Joseph quickly obeyed and took Jesus and Mary with him to Egypt during the night (Matthew 2:14).

Joseph and Mary remained in Egypt until after the death of Herod.

The book of Matthew suggests that Jesus was around two years old when Joseph and Mary fled Judea for Egypt (Matthew 2:16). Matthew also reports that Herod was in Jerusalem at this time—when the magi visited him (Matthew 2:3).

This is significant, because according to the ancient Jewish historian Josephus, Herod relocated to the city of Jericho from Jerusalem near the end of his life (Josephus, Antiquities of the Jews, 17.6.5—Whiston numbering).

This relocation took place in 5 B.C.

According to Josephus, the reason Herod moved to Jericho was to seek relief from the terrible pain inflicted upon him from God’s judgment for his sins (Josephus. “Antiquities of the Jews” 17.6.5—Whiston numbering)

It was while Joseph, Mary, and Jesus were in Egypt that Herod died in 4 B.C. (Matthew 2:19).

After Herod died, an angel again appeared to Joseph and instructed him to return to Israel Matthew 2:20). Joseph obeyed, but instead of staying in Judea or Bethlehem where Herod’s son had a degree of authority, Joseph returned to the more remote and obscure town of Nazareth in Galilee (Matthew 2:22-23).

Reconstructing dates, a plausible timeline of events surrounding the birth and early life of Jesus might be:

• 8/7 B.C. Caesar Augustus issues the census. 
  (Luke 2:1)
  
  
• 7/6 B.C. Jesus is born in Bethlehem during the implementation of the 
  census while Quirinius served his first term as governor of Syria.
  (Matthew 1:25, Luke 2:1-6)
  
  
• 6/5 B.C. The magi visit Herod in Jerusalem.
  The magi visit Joseph, Mary, and Jesus in Bethlehem. 
  The angel warns Joseph to escape with his family to Egypt. 
  Herod slaughters the males two years old and younger in Bethlehem.
  (Matthew 2:1-17)
  
  
• 5/4. B.C. Herod moved from Jerusalem to Jericho. Jesus lived in Egypt.
  (Josephus. Antiquities of the Jews, The Wars of the Jews)
• 4 B.C. Herod died, and the angel told Joseph to return to Nazareth in Galilee.
  (Matthew 2:19-21)

If this timeline is correct, Jesus would have been about two years old when His family went to Egypt and three years old when His family returned to Galilee.

Again, Luke’s account (Luke 2:39b) is concise and accurate about Mary and Joseph and Jesus’s relocation from Judea back to Galilee but omits these other details. This is likely because Luke did not consider these details to be important to his Gentile audience.

Matthew’s account (Matthew 2:1-23) provides the eventful dangers and details of their relocation via Egypt. Matthew’s account also details how their rendezvous and perils fulfilled Messianic prophecies (Matthew 2:6, 2:15, 2:18, 2:23). Matthew likely included Jesus’s journey to Egypt because of the messianic prophecies, which would have been highly meaningful to his Jewish audience.

After mentioning that Jesus’s family returned to their own city of Nazareth, Luke writes a general description of Jesus’s early childhood:

The Child continued to grow and become strong, increasing in wisdom; and the grace of God was upon Him (v 40).

This lone verse in scripture offers an account of Jesus’s very early development. In the next section, we will learn of His development as He approached what moderns might call the teen years.

Like every human child, Jesus grew physically, developing strength and stature. This affirms the full humanity of Jesus, the Son of God. Jesus was not a superhuman infant with adult capacities. Rather, it is inferred that He experienced the natural progression of childhood like any other human. Though He was the eternal Son of God, in His humanity He submitted Himself to the ordinary process of growth and learning, yet without sin.

Luke emphasizes that His growth was not just physical, but also intellectual and spiritual.

That the Child continued to grow and become strong indicates His physical growth and maturity of His body from infancy to boyhood.

That the Child increased in wisdom means that Jesus learned, reflected, and developed discernment. He was likely schooled in the synagogue of Nazareth like his peers and He learned about the stories of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Joseph, Moses, Joshua, and King David. He learned Israel’s history, studied the Law of Moses, and sang the Psalms. As a young boy, Jesus also saw his adoptive father Joseph work as a tekton (craftsman, likely a stone mason) and would eventually enter that trade.

The phrase the grace of God was upon Him reveals that even as a Child, Jesus enjoyed God’s favor. The Greek word “charis,” translated here as grace, means “favor.” It will occur in a similar context and will be translated “favor” in Luke 2:52. As a growing Child, Jesus began to develop His divine unique relationship with God the Father.

God’s favor, presence, and guidance surrounded Jesus. This echoes Old Testament descriptions of God’s chosen servants, but in a fuller and more permanent way. It was not merely that Jesus had God’s help. That the grace of God was upon Him describes how Jesus lived under the active pleasure and purpose of God from the very beginning. This divine grace or favor did not exempt Him from the ordinary challenges of life, but it shaped His character and development in perfect harmony with the will of the Father.

Luke’s remark in verse 40 serves as a transition between the infancy narrative and the later account of Jesus in the temple at age twelve (Luke 2:4-51). It gives readers a glimpse into the general details of His remarkable life. During those obscure or hidden years, Jesus was growing steadily, both in body and soul.

His human years of development helped prepare Him for the ministry that would begin and complete decades later. This verse also subtly invites us to marvel at the mystery of the Incarnation: namely that the eternal Son of God chose to grow, learn, and live among us in perfect obedience, fully human and fully divine.