Expositor's Dictionary of Texts - Luke 2:1-52
The Love of the Cradle (For Christmas Day) Luke 2:7 The Church has ever held that in all the estate of His Humiliation in the whole sad three and thirty years of His earthly life, our Lord offered up an atoning sacrifice. He suffered life as well as death for us. But a great saint and doctor has well reminded us that we are ready to be so dazzled by the love of the Cross that we often forget the love of the Cradle. We forget that our Lord endured the weakness of death and the weakness of... read more
Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers - Luke 2:32
(32) To lighten the Gentiles.—Literally, for a revelation to the Gentiles. The idea is strictly that of the withdrawal of the “veil spread over all nations” of Isaiah 25:7.The glory of thy people Israel.—Here, again, the language is the natural utterance of the hope of the time, not the after-thought of later years. The Christ whom Israel had rejected was hardly “the glory of the people” when St. Luke wrote his Gospel. read more