Luke 2:42 - Ellicott's Commentary On The Whole Bible

(42)When he was twelve years old. — The stages of Jewish childhood were marked as follows: — At three the boy was weaned, and wore for the first time the fringed or tasselled garment prescribed by Numbers 15:38-41, and Deuteronomy 22:12. His education began, at first under the mother’s care. At five he was to learn the Law, at first by extracts written on scrolls of the more important passages, the Shemk or Creed of Deuteronomy 2:4, the Hallel or Festival Psalms (Psalms 114-118, 136), and by catechetical teaching in school. At twelve he became more directly responsible for his obedience to the Law, and on the day when he attained the age of thirteen, put on for the first time the phylacteries which were worn at the recital of his daily prayer. (See Note on Matthew 23:5.) It was accordingly an epoch of transition analogous to that which obtains among us at Confirmation. It was, therefore in strict accordance with usage, with perhaps a slight anticipation of the actual day, that the “child Jesus” should, at the age of twelve, have gone up with His parents to Jerusalem. If the conjecture suggested in the Notes on Luke 2:8, that the birth of our Lord coincided with the Paschal Season, be accepted, He may actually have completed His thirteenth year during the Feast; and so have become, in the fullest sense, one of the “children of the Law,” bound to study it and know its meaning. This at least fits in with, and in fact explains, the narrative that follows. In the later Maxims of the Fathers (Pirke Aboth) two other stages of education were marked out. At ten, a boy was to enter on the study of the Mischna (= “comments”), or body of traditional interpretations of the Law; at eighteen, on that of the Gemara (= “completeness”), or wider collection of sayings or legends, which, with the Mischna, made up what is known as the Talmud (= “learning,” or “doctrine”).