The man who was waiting. Luke calls him righteous and devout and gives him no office — not a priest, not a scribe, just a man in Jerusalem who had been told he would not die before he saw the Lord's Christ. He takes the child in his arms and speaks the song the church later called the NUNC DIMITTIS, from its opening words in Latin, sung at compline for fifteen centuries. ⚠ Read the Greek of Luke 2:29 with its three words together — apolyeis, doulos, despota: release, slave, owner. It is the vocabulary of manumission, a slave asking his master to sign the papers. ⚠ And the reach of what he says next is the whole of Luke-Acts in one line: a light for revelation to the NATIONS, and glory for your people ISRAEL. He is not to be confused with Simeon son of Jacob, or with Simon Peter; the name is the same Hebrew Shim'on.