Luke’s use of the Old Testament in his gospel and Acts.
Jump to: ** Acts; **
| Luke’s Gospel | Old Testament | Type |
| Lu 1:10 – And the whole multitude of the people were praying outside at the hour of incense. | Le 16:17 | allusion |
| Lu 1:17 – and he will go before him in the spirit and power of Elijah, to turn the hearts of the fathers to the children, and the disobedient to the wisdom of the just, to make ready for the Lord a people prepared.” | Mal 4:5,6 | |
| Lu 1:32 – He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High. And the Lord God will give to him the throne of his father David, | Ps 132:11 | allusion |
| Lu 1:33 – and the lame I will make the remnant, and those who were cast off, a strong nation; and the Lord will reign over them in Mount Zion from this time forth and forevermore. | Mic 4:7; Da 4:3 | allusion |
| Lu 1:55 – as he spoke to our fathers, to Abraham and to his offspring forever.” | Ge 22:18; Ge 17:19 | allusion |
| Lu 1:73 – the oath that he swore to our father Abraham, to grant us | Ge 12:3; Ge 22:16 | allusion |
| Lu 1:78 – because of the tender mercy of our God, whereby the sunrise shall visit us from on high | Nu 24:17; Mal 4:2 | allusion |
| Lu 1:79 – to give light to those who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death, to guide our feet into the way of peace.” | Isa 9:2 | allusion |
| Lu 2:21-22 – And at the end of eight days, when he was circumcised, he was called Jesus, the name given by the angel before he was conceived in the womb. And when the time came for their purification according to the Law of Moses, they brought him up to Jerusalem to present him to the Lord | Le 12:3-4 | allusion |
| Lu 2:23 – (as it is written in the Law of the Lord, “Every male who first opens the womb shall be called holy to the Lord”) | Ex 13:2 | |
| Lu 2:24 – and to offer a sacrifice according to what is said in the Law of the Lord, “a pair of turtledoves, or two young pigeons.” | Le 12:8 | |
| Lu 2:34 – And Simeon blessed them and said to Mary his mother, “Behold, this child is appointed for the fall and rising of many in Israel, and for a sign that is opposed | Isa 8:14-15 | allusion |
| Lu 3:4-6 – As it is written in the book of the words of Isaiah the prophet, “The voice of one crying in the wilderness: ‘Prepare the way of the Lord, make his paths straight. Every valley shall be filled, and every mountain and hill shall be made low, and the crooked shall become straight, and the rough places shall become level ways, and all flesh shall see the salvation of God.’ ” | Isa 40:3-5 | |
| Lu 4:4 – And Jesus answered him, “It is written, ‘Man shall not live by bread alone.’ ” | De 8:3 | |
| Lu 4:8 -And Jesus answered him, “It is written, “ ‘You shall worship the Lord your God, and him only shall you serve.’ ” | De 6:13; De 10:20 | |
| Lu 4:10-11 – for it is written, “ ‘He will command his angels concerning you, to guard you,’ and “ ‘On their hands they will bear you up, lest you strike your foot against a stone.’ ” | Ps 91:11-12 | |
| Lu 4:12 – And Jesus answered him, “It is said, ‘You shall not put the Lord your God to the test.’ ” | De 6:16 | |
| Lu 4:18-19 – “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim liberty to the captives and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty those who are oppressed, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.” | Isa 61:1-2 | |
| Lu 4:25-26 – But in truth, I tell you, there were many widows in Israel in the days of Elijah, when the heavens were shut up three years and six months, and a great famine came over all the land, and Elijah was sent to none of them but only to Zarephath, in the land of Sidon, to a woman who was a widow. | 1Ki 17:1; 1Ki 17:9; 1Ki 18:1-2 | allusion |
| Lu 4:27 – And there were many lepers in Israel in the time of the prophet Elisha, and none of them was cleansed, but only Naaman the Syrian.” | 2Ki 5:14 | allusion |
| Lu 5:14 – And he charged him to tell no one, but “go and show yourself to the priest, and make an offering for your cleansing, as Moses commanded, for a proof to them.” | Le 14:2 | allusion |
| Lu 6:3-4 – And Jesus answered them, “Have you not read what David did when he was hungry, he and those who were with him: how he entered the house of God and took and ate the bread of the Presence, which is not lawful for any but the priests to eat, and also gave it to those with him?” | 1Sa 21:6 | allusion |
| Lu 6:24 – “But woe to you who are rich, for you have received your consolation. | Am 6:1 | allusion |
| Lu 7:27 – This is he of whom it is written,“ ‘Behold, I send my messenger before your face, who will prepare your way before you.’ | Mal 3:1 | |
| Lu 8:10 – he said, “To you it has been given to know the secrets of the kingdom of God, but for others they are in parables, so that ‘seeing they may not see, and hearing they may not understand.’ | Isa 6:9 | |
| Lu 10:4 – Carry no moneybag, no knapsack, no sandals, and greet no one on the road. | 2Ki 4:29 | allusion |
| Lu 10:27 – And he answered, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind, and your neighbor as yourself.” | De 6:5; Le 19:18 | |
| Lu 10:28 – And he said to him, “You have answered correctly; do this, and you will live.” | Le 18:5 | allusion |
| Lu 11:30 – For as Jonah became a sign to the people of Nineveh, so will the Son of Man be to this generation | Jon 1:17; Jon 3:1-10; Jon 4:1-11 | allusion |
| Lu 11:31 – The queen of the South will rise up at the judgment with the men of this generation and condemn them, for she came from the ends of the earth to hear the wisdom of Solomon, and behold, something greater than Solomon is here. | 2Ki 10:1 | allusion |
| Lu 11:51 – from the blood of Abel to the blood of Zechariah, who perished between the altar and the sanctuary. Yes, I tell you, it will be required of this generation. | Ge 4:8; 2Ch 24:21-22 | allusion |
| Lu 13:27 – But he will say, ‘I tell you, I do not know where you come from. Depart from me, all you workers of evil!’ | Ps 6:8 | |
| Lu 13:35 – Behold, your house is forsaken. And I tell you, you will not see me until you say, ‘Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord!’ ” | Ps 118:26; Jer 12:7; Jer 22:5 | allusion |
| Lu 14:8 – “When you are invited by someone to a wedding feast, do not sit down in a place of honor, lest someone more distinguished than you be invited by him, | Pr 25:6 | allusion |
| Lu 14:26 – “If anyone comes to me and does not hate his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, yes, and even his own life, he cannot be my disciple. | Mic 7:6 | allusion |
| Lu 17:3 – Pay attention to yourselves! If your brother sins, rebuke him, and if he repents, forgive him, | Le 19:17 | allusion |
| Lu 17:27 – They were eating and drinking and marrying and being given in marriage, until the day when Noah entered the ark, and the flood came and destroyed them all. | Ge 7:7 | allusion |
| Lu 17:29 – but on the day when Lot went out from Sodom, fire and sulfur rained from heaven and destroyed them all— | Ge 19:16 | allusion |
| Lu 17:32 – Remember Lot’s wife. | Ge 19:26 | allusion |
| Lu 18:20 – You know the commandments: ‘Do not commit adultery, Do not murder, Do not steal, Do not bear false witness, Honor your father and mother.’ ” | Ex 20:12; De 5:17-18 | |
| Lu 19:46 – saying to them, “It is written, ‘My house shall be a house of prayer,’ but you have made it a den of robbers.” | Isa 56:7; Jer 7:11 | |
| Lu 20:9 – And he began to tell the people this parable: “A man planted a vineyard and let it out to tenants and went into another country for a long while. | Isa 5:1 | allusion |
| Lu 20:17 – But he looked directly at them and said, “What then is this that is written: “ ‘The stone that the builders rejected has become the cornerstone’? | Ps 118:22-23 | |
| Lu 20:18 – Everyone who falls on that stone will be broken to pieces, and when it falls on anyone, it will crush him.” | Isa 8:14; Zec 12:3; Da 2:44 | allusion |
| Lu 20:28 – and they asked him a question, saying, “Teacher, Moses wrote for us that if a man’s brother dies, having a wife but no children, the man must take the widow and raise up offspring for his brother. | De 25:5 | |
| Lu 20:37 – But that the dead are raised, even Moses showed, in the passage about the bush, where he calls the Lord the God of Abraham and the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob. | Ex 3:6 | allusion |
| Lu 20:42-43 – For David himself says in the Book of Psalms, “ ‘The Lord said to my Lord, Sit at my right hand, until I make your enemies your footstool.” ’ | Ps 110:1 | |
| Lu 22:37 – For I tell you that this Scripture must be fulfilled in me: ‘And he was numbered with the transgressors.’ For what is written about me has its fulfillment.” | Isa 53:12 | |
| Lu 23:29 – For behold, the days are coming when they will say, ‘Blessed are the barren and the wombs that never bore and the breasts that never nursed!’ | Isa 54:1 | allusion |
| Lu 23:30 – Then they will begin to say to the mountains, ‘Fall on us,’ and to the hills, ‘Cover us.’ | Ho 10:8 | allusion |
| Lu 23:46 – Then Jesus, calling out with a loud voice, said, “Father, into your hands I commit my spirit!” And having said this he breathed his last. | Ps 31:5 | |
| Lu 24:46 – and said to them, “Thus it is written, that the Christ should suffer and on the third day rise from the dead, | Isa 53:5 | allusion |
| Acts | Old Testament | Type |
| Ac 1:20 – “For it is written in the Book of Psalms, “ ‘May his camp become desolate, and let there be no one to dwell in it’; and “ ‘Let another take his office.’ | Ps 69:25; Ps 109:8 | |
| Ac 2:17-21 – “ ‘And in the last days it shall be, God declares, that I will pour out my Spirit on all flesh, and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, and your young men shall see visions, and your old men shall dream dreams; even on my male servants and female servants in those days I will pour out my Spirit, and they shall prophesy. And I will show wonders in the heavens above and signs on the earth below, blood, and fire, and vapor of smoke; the sun shall be turned to darkness and the moon to blood, before the day of the Lord comes, the great and magnificent day. And it shall come to pass that everyone who calls upon the name of the Lord shall be saved.’ | Joe 2:28-32 | |
| Ac 2:25-28 – For David says concerning him, “ ‘I saw the Lord always before me, for he is at my right hand that I may not be shaken; therefore my heart was glad, and my tongue rejoiced; my flesh also will dwell in hope. For you will not abandon my soul to Hades, or let your Holy One see corruption. You have made known to me the paths of life; you will make me full of gladness with your presence.’ | Ps 16:8-10 | |
| Ac 2:30 – Being therefore a prophet, and knowing that God had sworn with an oath to him that he would set one of his descendants on his throne, | 2Sa 7:12; Ps 89:4 | allusion |
| Ac 2:31 – he foresaw and spoke about the resurrection of the Christ, that he was not abandoned to Hades, nor did his flesh see corruption. | Ps 16:10 | |
| Ac 2:34 – For David did not ascend into the heavens, but he himself says, “ ‘The Lord said to my Lord, Sit at my right hand, | Ps 110:1 | |
| Ac 3:22-23 – Moses said, ‘The Lord God will raise up for you a prophet like me from your brothers. You shall listen to him in whatever he tells you. And it shall be that every soul who does not listen to that prophet shall be destroyed from the people.’ | De 18:15-19 | |
| Ac 3:25 – You are the sons of the prophets and of the covenant that God made with your fathers, saying to Abraham, ‘And in your offspring shall all the families of the earth be blessed.’ | Ge 22:18; Ge 12:3 | |
| Ac 4:11 – This Jesus is the stone that was rejected by you, the builders, which has become the cornerstone. | Ps 118:22-23; Isa 28:16 | |
| Ac 4:25-26 – who through the mouth of our father David, your servant, said by the Holy Spirit, “ ‘Why did the Gentiles rage,and the peoples plot in vain? The kings of the earth set themselves, and the rulers were gathered together, against the Lord and against his Anointed’— | Ps 2:1-2 | |
| Ac 7:2 – And Stephen said: “Brothers and fathers, hear me. The God of glory appeared to our father Abraham when he was in Mesopotamia, before he lived in Haran, | Ge 15:7; Ne 9:7 | allusion |
| Ac 7:3 – and said to him, ‘Go out from your land and from your kindred and go into the land that I will show you.’ | Ge 12:1 | |
| Ac 7:4 – Then he went out from the land of the Chaldeans and lived in Haran. And after his father died, God removed him from there into this land in which you are now living. | Ge 11:31; Ge 12:4-5 | allusion |
| Ac 7:5 – Yet he gave him no inheritance in it, not even a foot’s length, but promised to give it to him as a possession and to his offspring after him, though he had no child. | Ge 12:7; Ge 13:15 | allusion |
| Ac 7:6-7 – And God spoke to this effect—that his offspring would be sojourners in a land belonging to others, who would enslave them and afflict them four hundred years. ‘But I will judge the nation that they serve,’ said God, ‘and after that they shall come out and worship me in this place.’ | Ge 15:13-14 | |
| Ac 7:8 – And he gave him the covenant of circumcision. And so Abraham became the father of Isaac, and circumcised him on the eighth day, and Isaac became the father of Jacob, and Jacob of the twelve patriarchs. | Ge 17:10; Ge 21:3-4; Ge 25:26; Ge 42:13 | allusion |
| Ac 7:9 – And the patriarchs, jealous of Joseph, sold him into Egypt; but God was with him | Ge 37:4; Ge 37:11; Ge 37:28; Ge 39:1-2; Ge 39:21 | allusion |
| Ac 7:10 – and rescued him out of all his afflictions and gave him favor and wisdom before Pharaoh, king of Egypt, who made him ruler over Egypt and over all his househo | Ge 41:37; Ge 41:40 | allusion |
| Ac 7:11 – Now there came a famine throughout all Egypt and Canaan, and great affliction, and our fathers could find no food. | Ge 41:54 | allusion |
| Ac 7:12 – But when Jacob heard that there was grain in Egypt, he sent out our fathers on their first | Ge 42:2 | allusion |
| Ac 7:13 – And on the second visit Joseph made himself known to his brothers, and Joseph’s family became known to Pharaoh. | Ge 45:1; Ge 45:9 | allusion |
| Ac 7:14-15 – And Joseph sent and summoned Jacob his father and all his kindred, seventy-five persons in all. And Jacob went down into Egypt, and he died, he and our fathers, | Ge 45:1-28 | allusion |
| Ac 7:16 – and they were carried back to Shechem and laid in the tomb that Abraham had bought for a sum of silver from the sons of Hamor in Shechem. | Jos 24:32 | allusion |
| Ac 7:17 – But as the time of the promise drew near, which God had granted to Abraham, the people increased and multiplied in Egypt | Ex 1:7 | allusion |
| Ac 7:18 – until there arose over Egypt another king who did not know Joseph. | Ex 1:8 | allusion |
| Ac 7:19 – He dealt shrewdly with our race and forced our fathers to expose their infants, so that they would not be kept alive. | Ex 1:10; Ex 1:22 | allusion |
| Ac 7:20 – At this time Moses was born; and he was beautiful in God’s sight. And he was brought up for three months in his father’s house, | Ex 2:2 | allusion |
| Ac 7:21 – and when he was exposed, Pharaoh’s daughter adopted him and brought him up as her own son. | Ex 2:3-10 | allusion |
| Ac 7:24 – and when he was exposed, Pharaoh’s daughter adopted him and brought him up as her own son. | Ex 2:11 | allusion |
| Ac 7:26 – And on the following day he appeared to them as they were quarreling and tried to reconcile them, saying, ‘Men, you are brothers. Why do you wrong each other?’ | Ex 2:13-14 | |
| Ac 7:29 -At this retort Moses fled and became an exile in the land of Midian, where he became the father of two sons. | Ex 18:3 | allusion |
| Ac 7:30 – “Now when forty years had passed, an angel appeared to him in the wilderness of Mount Sinai, in a flame of fire in a bush. | Ex 3:2 | allusion |
| Ac 7:32 – ‘I am the God of your fathers, the God of Abraham and of Isaac and of Jacob.’ And Moses trembled and did not dare to look. | Ex 3:6 | |
| Ac 7:33-34 – Then the Lord said to him, ‘Take off the sandals from your feet, for the place where you are standing is holy ground. I have surely seen the affliction of my people who are in Egypt, and have heard their groaning, and I have come down to deliver them. And now come, I will send you to Egypt.’ | Ex 3:5-10 | |
| Ac 7:35 – “This Moses, whom they rejected, saying, ‘Who made you a ruler and a judge?’—this man God sent as both ruler and redeemer by the hand of the angel who appeared to him in the bush. | Ex 2:14; Ex 3:15-18 | |
| Ac 7:36 – This man led them out, performing wonders and signs in Egypt and at the Red Sea and in the wilderness for forty years. | Ex 7:1-12:51; Ex 12:41; Ex 14:21; Ex 15:23; Ex 16:1-36 | allusion |
| Ac 7:37 – This man led them out, performing wonders and signs in Egypt and at the Red Sea and in the wilderness for forty years. | De 18:15 | |
| Ac 7:38 – This is the one who was in the congregation in the wilderness with the angel who spoke to him at Mount Sinai, and with our fathers. He received living oracles to give to us. | Ex 19:3; Ex 20:1-24:18 | allusion |
| Ac 7:40 – saying to Aaron, ‘Make for us gods who will go before us. As for this Moses who led us out from the land of Egypt, we do not know what has become of him.’ | Ex 32:1 | |
| Ac 7:41 – And they made a calf in those days, and offered a sacrifice to the idol and were rejoicing in the works of their hands. | Ex 32:19 | allusion |
| Ac 7:42-43 – But God turned away and gave them over to worship the host of heaven, as it is written in the book of the prophets: “‘Did you bring to me slain beasts and sacrifices, during the forty years in the wilderness, O house of Israel? You took up the tent of Moloch and the star of your god Rephan, the images that you made to worship; and I will send you into exile beyond Babylon.’ | Am 5:25-26 | allusion |
| Ac 7:44 – “Our fathers had the tent of witness in the wilderness, just as he who spoke to Moses directed him to make it, according to the pattern that he had seen. | Ex 25:40; Ex 26:30 | allusion |
| Ac 7:45 – Our fathers in turn brought it in with Joshua when they dispossessed the nations that God drove out before our fathers. So it was until the days of David, | Jos 3:14; Jos 18:1 | allusion |
| Ac 7:46 – who found favor in the sight of God and asked to find a dwelling place for the God of Jacob. | 2Sa 7:2; Ps 132:5 | allusion |
| Ac 7:47 – But it was Solomon who built a house for him. | 1Ki 8:1-66 | allusion |
| Ac 7:49-50 – “‘Heaven is my throne, and the earth is my footstool. What kind of house will you build for me, says the Lord, or what is the place of my rest? Did not my hand make all these things?’ | Isa 66:1-2 | |
| Ac 8:32-33 – Now the passage of the Scripture that he was reading was this: “Like a sheep he was led to the slaughter and like a lamb before its shearer is silent, so he opens not his mouth. In his humiliation justice was denied him. Who can describe his generation? For his life is taken away from the earth.” | Isa 53:7-8 | |
| Ac 10:34 – So Peter opened his mouth and said: “Truly I understand that God shows no partiality, | De 10:17; Job 34:19 | allusion |
| Ac 13:17 – The God of this people Israel chose our fathers and made the people great during their stay in the land of Egypt, and with uplifted arm he led them out of it. | Isa 1:2; Ex 12:37 | allusion |
| Ac 13:18 – And for about forty years he put up with them in the wilderness. | De 1:31; Nu 14:33; Ps 95:10 | allusion |
| Ac 13:19 – And after destroying seven nations in the land of Canaan, he gave them their land as an inheritance. | De 7:1; Jos 14:2 | allusion |
| Ac 13:20 – All this took about 450 years. And after that he gave them judges until Samuel the prophet. | Jud 2:16; 1Sa 3:20 | allusion |
| Ac 13:21 – Then they asked for a king, and God gave them Saul the son of Kish, a man of the tribe of Benjamin, for forty years. | 1Sa 8:5; 1Sa 10:21 | allusion |
| Ac 13:22 – And when he had removed him, he raised up David to be their king, of whom he testified and said, ‘I have found in David the son of Jesse a man after my heart, who will do all my will.’ | 1Sa 13:14; Ps 89:20; 1Ch 10:14 | |
| Ac 13:33 – this he has fulfilled to us their children by raising Jesus, as also it is written in the second Psalm, “‘You are my Son, today I have begotten you.’ | Ps 2:7 | |
| Ac 13:34 – And as for the fact that he raised him from the dead, no more to return to corruption, he has spoken in this way, “‘I will give you the holy and sure blessings of David.’ | Ps 55:3 | |
| Ac 13:35 – Therefore he says also in another psalm, “‘You will not let your Holy One see corruption.’ | Ps 16:10 | |
| Ac 13:36 – For David, after he had served the purpose of God in his own generation, fell asleep and was laid with his fathers and saw corruption, | 1Ki 2:10 | allusion |
| Ac 13:41 – “‘Look, you scoffers, be astounded and perish; for I am doing a work in your days, a work that you will not believe, even if one tells it to you.’” | Hab 1:5 | |
| Ac 13:47 – For so the Lord has commanded us, saying, “‘I have made you a light for the Gentiles, that you may bring salvation to the ends of the earth.’” | Isa 49:6; Isa 11:10 | |
| Ac 15:16-18 – “‘After this I will return, and I will rebuild the tent of David that has fallen; I will rebuild its ruins, and I will restore it, that the remnant of mankind may seek the Lord, and all the Gentiles who are called by my name, says the Lord, who makes these things known from of old.’ | Am 9:11-12 | allusion |
| Ac 17:31 – because he has fixed a day on which he will judge the world in righteousness by a man whom he has appointed; and of this he has given assurance to all by raising him from the dead.” | Ps 9:9; Ps 96:13; Ps 98:9 | allusion |
| Ac 23:5 – And Paul said, “I did not know, brothers, that he was the high priest, for it is written, ‘You shall not speak evil of a ruler of your people.’” | Ex 22:28 | |
| Ac 28:25-27 – And disagreeing among themselves, they departed after Paul had made one statement: “The Holy Spirit was right in saying to your fathers through Isaiah the prophet: “‘Go to this people, and say, “You will indeed hear but never understand, and you will indeed see but never perceive.” For this people’s heart has grown dull, and with their ears they can barely hear, and their eyes they have closed; lest they should see with their eyes and hear with their ears and understand with their heart and turn, and I would heal them.’ | Isa 6:9-10 |
A quotation is a word-for-word citation of the original source, often preceded by “it is written” or “saying”.
An allusion is a reference to the original source using the the same key words or thoughts without quoting word for word.
Because the New Testament writers often borrow the language of the Old Testament (allusion) rather than quote verses directly, different scholars suggest different counts for the number of times the New Testament quotes or refers to the Old Testament.
Quotes from the Septuagint (LXX) may have appear to have somewhat different wording than the linked translation of the Hebrew text.