Lord, now lettest thou thy servant depart in peace, according to thy word:
Lord. The word is 'Master' х Despota (G1203)], a word but rarely used in the New Testament, and never but to mark emphatically the sovereign rights of Him who is so called, as Proprietor of the persons or things meant. Here it is selected with special propriety, when the aged saint, feeling that his last object in wishing to live had now been attained, only awaited his Master's word of command to "depart."
Now lettest thou thy servant depart in peace, according to thy word. Most reader probably take this to be a prayer for permission to depart, not observing that "lettest Thou" is just 'Thou art letting,' or 'permitting thy servant to depart.' It had been clearer as well as more literal thus - "Lord, now art Thou releasing Thy servant" - a placid, reverential intimation that having now "seen the Lord's Christ," his time, divinely indicated, because "seeing death" had arrived, and he was ready to go.