Father’s “house” or “business” (Luke 2:49)

Omitted words. We all do it. I am from Minnesota, and we love to end sentences in repositions. “Do you want to go with?” From context, you know to supply the final “me.” It happens especially in parallel constructions. “I went to the store, but he didn’t.” Didn’t what? He didn’t “go the store.” It is natural in your own language to know what word needs to be supplied.

It is not so easy in other languages. Jesus tells his parents, “Why is it that you were looking for me? Did you not know that I would have to be in my Father’s house (ἐν τοῖς τοῦ πατρός μου)?” (Luke 2:49). What does τοῖς modify? Luke doesn’t say, and leaves it up to our Greek informed imagination.

Most translations supply “house” (ESV, CSB, NRSV, CSB, NIV, NLT). This makes good sense since Jesus would be referring to the temple. In this case, the omitted word is οἶκος. This is Bock’s preferred interpretation (1:269f.).

What is the problem with that? Right, τοῖς is plural, and there is only one temple. This explains the footnotes. The ESV has “about my Father’s business,” although they may be imitating the KJV. The NIV also has “business,” possibly seeing “business” as a collective noun and thus accounting for the plural. If you want a footnote that clearly accounts for the plural, I prefer the NRSV, “Or be about my Father’s interests? The NLT uses “affairs.” The CSB offers, ”Or be involved in my Father’s interests (or things), or be among my Father’s people.” Interestingly, there is no variant supplying the noun modified by τοῖς.

I am not sure “house” is legitimate because τοῖς is plural (but Bock argues it is an idiom). “My Father’s people” would imply Joseph and Mary were not God’s people. “Affairs” has such strong sexual overtones that I would not go with that word either.

I wonder if this is one of those situations that we should use the more generic “things.” There is no way Joseph and Mary should have known that Jesus needed to be in a certain place, but perhaps they should have known that even at the age of 12 Jesus needed to be involved in the work of his heavenly Father, his “business.”

This might help to remove some of the awkwardness of the passage. Personally, I struggle a bit with Jesus’ answer. As a father, my response would have been, “No. How should I have known that you needed to be anywhere?” But apparently, by now Jesus has had a discussion with his parents about his identity and what he needed to be doing.