And he said unto them, How is it that ye sought me? wist ye not that I must be about my Father's business?
And he said unto them, How is it that ye sought me? wist (knew) ye not that I must be about my Father's business, х en (G1722) tois (G3588) tou (G3588) Patros (G3962) mou (G3450)]. These, as THE FIRST RECORDED WORDS OF CHRIST, have a special interest, over and above their intrinsic preciousness. They are somewhat elliptical. The meaning may be, as our translators have taken it, 'about my Father's affairs' or 'business' [sc. pragmasin (G4229)]. So Calvin, Beza, Maldonat, de Wette, Alford, Stier, Van Osterzee, etc. Or the sense may be, 'in my Father's house' [sc. oikeemasin (G3612), or doomasin (G1430)]. This latter shade of meaning, besides being the primary one, includes the former. So most of the fathers and of the moderns, Erasmus, Grotius, Bengel, Olshausen, Meyer, Trench, Webster, and Wilkinson. In His Father's house Jesus felt Himself at home, breathing His own proper air, and His words convey a gentle rebuke of their obtuseness in requiring Him to explain this. 'Once here, thought ye I should so readily hasten away? Let ordinary worshippers be content to keep the feast and be gone; but is this all ye have learnt of Me? Methinks we are here let into the holy privacies of Nazareth; for sure what He says they should have known He must have given them ground to know. She tells Him of the sorrow with which His father and she had sought Him. He speaks of no father but one, saying, in effect, 'My Father has not been seeking Me; I have been with Him all this time; the King hath brought me into His chambers: His left hand is under my head, and His right hand doth embrace Me (Song of Solomon 1:4; Song of Solomon 2:6). How is it that ye do not understand (Mark 8:21)?'