Commentaries:
Robertson's Word Pictures (NT)
Son (teknon). Child, literally. It was natural for Mary to be the first to speak.
Why (Ti). The mother's reproach of the boy is followed by a confession of negligence on her part and of Joseph (
sorrowing, odunwmenoi).
Thy father (o pater sou). No contradiction in this. Alford says: "Up to this time Joseph had been so called by the holy child himself, but from this time never."
Sought (ezhtoumen). Imperfect tense describing the long drawn out search for three days.
How is it that (Ti oti). The first words of Jesus preserved to us. This crisp Greek idiom without copula expresses the boy's amazement that his parents should not know that there was only one possible place in Jerusalem for him.
I must be (dei einai me). Messianic consciousness of the necessity laid on him. Jesus often uses dei (must) about his work. Of all the golden dreams of any boy of twelve here is the greatest.
In my Father's house (en toiv tou patrov mou). Not "about my Father's business," but "in my Father's house" (cf. Genesis 41:51). Common Greek idiom. And note "my," not "our." When the boy first became conscious of his peculiar relation to the Father in heaven we do not know. But he has it now at twelve and it will grow within him through the years ahead in Nazareth.
Other Robertson's Word Pictures (NT) entries containing Luke 2:49:
Mark 6:3
Luke 1:80
Luke 4:22
John 1:38
John 2:16
Acts 5:4
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