Charles Ellicott Commentary Luke 24:50

"And he led them out until [they were] over against Bethany: and he lifted up his hands, and blessed them." — Luke 24:50 (ASV)

And he led them out as far as to Bethany.—It must be admitted that this narrative, taken by itself, would leave the impression that the Ascension followed with not more than a day’s interval after the Resurrection. We must remember, however, that even the coincidences between the close of Saint Luke's first book and the beginning of his second show that he was already looking forward to resuming his work, and that the interval of forty days is distinctly recognised in Acts 1:3, though there also, as here, there is no mention of any return to Galilee in the interval.

Is it a conceivable solution to the problem that the devout women, who were Saint Luke's informants, remained at Jerusalem in almost entire seclusion, and hardly knew what had passed outside the walls of their house from the day of the Resurrection until the Ascension? To them, as to others who look back on periods in which intense sorrow and intense joy have followed one another, all may have seemed, when they looked back on it in later years, like a dream, the memory of which was, in one sense, regarding its outcome, indelible, but in which the sequence of details could no longer be traced with clearness. If we may distinguish between two words often used as synonyms, it was for them not recollection, but memory. Concerning the brief narrative that follows, see the notes on Acts 1:9-11.