“froM God” or “froM HeAveN”? 127 evn oi-j, and so it is more sensible to take the next preposition (evk) not as doubling down on the sending agent but as referring instead in a locative sense to his place of origin. While it is true that God is in some sense the sending agent, this is not grammaticalized by evx u[youj but rather by v. 1,78a. thus, if evx u[youj refers to heaven as a location of origin and not to God him- self, this semantic clarification lends support to other interpretations of the metaphor that take it not as the dawn of a messianic age in the abstract, nor simply as the provision of a Messiah “from God”, but rather as the visitation of some sort of figure from a transcendent or heavenly point of origin 22. Such readings of the metaphor must, of course, be confirmed on additional grounds beyond these, but clarifying the signification of this key prepositional phrase is a critical step in that direction. If this suggestion is correct, then, for Luke, the target domain (or tenor) of the avnatolh, metaphor is some sort of deliverer figure sent by God (1,78a), but his visitation origi- nates evx u[youj, that is, from heaven. this reading, in turn, should force us to revisit the aforementioned asso- ciation of Luke’s avnatolh, with the “Sprout/branch” or “Star” of the Septu- agint. In the former case, the avnatolh, (xmc) is raised up (avnasth,sw in Jer 23,5) or springs up from below (u`poka,twqen [...] avnatelei/ in zech 6,12); in the latter case the star arises evx Iakwb, that is, from the earthly stock of the patriarch. Here in Luke, however, the origination is not, as it were, “from below”, but rather “from above”, as coming “from heaven”, thus impacting one’s reading of this metaphor in the Benedictus. St. edmund’s college Gregory r. LANIer university of cambridge Mount Pleasant, cambridge cb3 0bN u.k. Summary the phrase avnatolh. evx u[youj in Luke 1,78 has long proven enigmatic. this note focuses on the meaning of evx u[youj. Scholars have debated whether it should be interpreted as “from God/Most High” or “from upon high/heaven”. the use of u[yistoj elsewhere in Luke 1–2 appears to be impacting the read- ing of 1,78 unnecessarily. An analysis of ~280 instances of u[yoj and ~230 of u[yistoj in the relevant Jewish/christian sources suggests that while u[yistoj often refers to God, u[yoj never does. the avnatolh, should be understood as coming ‘from heaven’, thus impacting one’s reading of this metaphor in the Benedictus. 22 r.G. HAMertoN-keLLy, Pre-Existence, Wisdom, and the Son of Man (SNtSMS 21; cambridge 1973) 78; WINter, “two Notes”, 160; GAtHercoLe, “Heavenly avnatolh,”, 475-478.