Luke 1:39-41

1. The arrival of Mary: Luke 1:39-41.

The terms arose and with haste express a lively eagerness. This visit met what was in fact a deep need of Mary's soul. Since the message of the angel, Elizabeth had become for her what a mother is for her daughter in the most important moment of her life.

The words in those days comprise the time necessary for making preparations for the journey. The distance to be traversed being four days' journey, Mary could not travel so far alone.

The word ἡ ὀρεινή, the hill country, has sometimes received quite a special meaning, making it a kind of proper name, by which in popular language the mountainous plateau to the south of Jerusalem was designated; but no instance of a similar designation can be given either from the Old or the New Testament. It appears to me that in this expression, a city of Juda in the mountain, it is in no way necessary to give the term mountain the force of a proper name. The context makes it sufficiently clear that it is the mountain of Juda, in distinction from the plain of Juda, that is meant. Comp. Joshua 15:48, where ἡ ὀρεινή is employed precisely in this way by the LXX. According to Joshua 15:55; Joshua 21:16, there was in this country, to the south of Hebron, a city of the name of Jutha or Juttha; and according to the second passage (comp. Luke 1:13), this city was a priestly city. From this several writers (Reland, Winer, Renan) have concluded that the text of our Gospel has undergone an alteration, and that the word Juda is a corruption of Jutha. But no MS. supports this conjecture; and there is nothing in the context to require it. On the contrary, it is probable that, had Luke desired to indicate by name the city in which the parents of John the Baptist lived, he would have done it sooner. The most important priestly city of this country was Hebron, two leagues south of Bethlehem. And although, subsequent to the exile, the priests no longer made it a rule to reside exclusively in the towns that had been assigned to them at the beginning, it is very natural to look for the home of Zacharias at Hebron, the more so that Rabbinical tradition in the Talmud gives express testimony in favour of this opinion. Keim finds further support for it on this ground, that in the context πόλις ᾿Ιούδα can only signify the city of Juda, that is to say, the principal priestly city in Juda. But wrongly; the simplest and most natural translation is: a city of Juda.

The detail, she entered into the house, serves to put the reader in sympathy with the emotion of Mary at the moment of her arrival. With her first glance at Elizabeth, she recognises the truth of the sign that had been given her by the angel, and at this sight the promise she had herself received acquires a startling reality. Often a very little thing suffices to make a divine thought, which had previously only been conceived as an idea, take distinct form and life within us. And the expression we have used is perhaps, in this case, more than a simple metaphor.

It is not surprising that the intense feeling produced in Mary by the sight of Elizabeth should have reacted immediately on the latter. The unexpected arrival of this young maiden at such a solemn moment for herself, the connection which she instantly divines between the miraculous blessing of which she had just been the object and this extraordinary visit, the affecting tones of the voice and holy elevation of this person, producing all the impression of some celestial apparition, naturally predisposed her to receive the illumination of the Spirit. The emotion which possesses her is communicated to the child whose life is as yet one with her own; and at the sudden leaping of this being, who she knows is compassed about by special blessing, the veil is rent. The Holy Spirit, the prophetic Spirit of the old covenant, seizes her, and she salutes Mary as the mother of the Messiah.