He came by the Spirit. — Better, as in Revelation 1:10, in the Spirit — i.e., in a spiritual state in which the power of the Divine Spirit was the pervading element.
The parents. — Here, as in Luke 2:33; Luke 2:48, St. Luke does not shrink from reproducing what was obviously the familiar phraseology of the household of Nazareth. In common life it is almost obvious that no other phraseology was possible.
To do for him after the custom of the law. — In common practice, the child would have been presented to the priest who offered the two turtle doves on behalf of the parents. In this instance Simeon, though not a priest (there is, at least, nothing but a legend in an Apocryphal Gospel to fix that character on him), takes on himself, standing by the priest, to receive the child as he was presented. This fits in, as far as it goes, with the idea of his having been an Essene, revered as possessing prophetic gifts. (See Notes on Luke 2:25.)