This child is set for the fall and rising again. — The words start from the thought of Isaiah 8:14-15. The Christ is seen by Simeon as the stone on which some fall and are bruised (Luke 20:18), while others plant their feet upon it and rise to a higher life. Primarily the clause speaks of the contrast between the two classes; but there is nothing to exclude the thought that some may first fall, and then, though sorely “bruised,” may rise again. (Comp. Romans 11:11.)
For a sign which shall be spoken against. — Better, “a sign that is spoken against.” In the choice of the phrase, we have again an echo from Isaiah (Isaiah 7:14). The child Immanuel was to be Himself a sign, even as Isaiah and his children were (Isaiah 8:18), but the sign was not to win acceptance. He was to endure the “contradiction” of sinners (Hebrews 12:3). There is probably a reference also to the words of Jehovah (Isaiah 65:2) stretching forth his hands to a “gainsaying” people. The whole history of our Lord’s ministry — one might almost say, of His whole after-work in the history of Christendom — is more or less the record of the fulfilment of Simeon’s prediction.