Luke 1:67-75

“ And his father Zacharias was filled with the Holy Ghost, and prophesied, saying, 68. Blessed be the Lord God of Israel; for He hath visited and redeemed His people, 69. And hath raised up a horn of salvation for us in the house of His servant David; 70. As He spake by the mouth of His holy prophets, which have been since the world began; 71. That we should be saved from our enemies, and from the hand of all that hate us; 72. To perform the mercy promised to our fathers, and to remember His holy covenant, 73. The oath which He sware to our father Abraham, 74. That He would grant unto us, that we, being delivered out of the hand of our enemies, might serve Him without fear, 75. In holiness and righteousness before Him, all the days of our life. ”

The aorists, hath raised up, hath delivered, imply a knowledge on Zacharias' part of the fact of the incarnation. The term visited refers to the absence of God during the four centuries in which the prophetic voice had been silent and heaven shut. The abstract expressions of the sixty-eighth verse are followed in Luke 1:69 by one more concrete. Zacharias is emboldened to designate the Messiah Himself. He calls Him a horn of salvation. This image of a horn is frequent in the Old Testament, where it had been already applied to the Messiah: I will raise up a horn to David (Psa 132:16). The explanation must be found neither in the horns of the altar on which criminals sought to lay hold, nor in the horns with which they ornamented their helmets; the figure is taken from the horns of the bull, in which the power of this animal resides. It is a natural image among an agricultural people. The term ἤγειρε, hath raised up, is properly applied to an organic growth, like a horn. Just as the strength of the animal is concentrated in its horn, so all the delivering power granted to the family of David for the advantage of the people will be concentrated in the Messiah. This verse implies that Zacharias regarded Mary as a descendant of David.

In Luke 1:70, Zacharias sets forth the greatness of this appearing by referring to the numerous and ancient promises of which it is the subject. Whether with or without the article τῶν, ἁγίων (holy) must in any case be taken as an adjective; and it is unnecessary to translate, of His saints of every age who have been prophets, which would imply that all the saints have prophesied. If τῶν is retained, the word simply serves as a point of support to the definitive term ἀπ᾿ αἰῶνος. The epithet holy characterizes the prophets as organs, not of a human and consequently profane word, but of a divine revelation. Holiness is the distinctive feature of all that emanates from God. We may judge, by the impression which the certain approach of Christ's advent would make on us, of the feeling which must have been produced in the hearts of these people by the thought, The Messiah is there; history, long suspended, resumes its march, and touches its goal.

In vers. 71-75, Zacharias describes the work of this Messiah.

The most natural explanation of σωτηρίαν, salvation, is to regard this word as in apposition with the term horn of salvation (Luke 1:69). The notion of salvation is easily substituted for that of a Saviour.

The idea of salvation, brought out in this first word, is exhibited in its full meaning in Luke 1:74. The two terms, our enemies, and them that hate us, cannot be altogether synonymous. The former denotes the foreign heathen oppressors; the latter would embrace also the native tyrants, Herod and his party, so odious to true Israelites.

In granting this deliverance, God shows mercy (Luke 1:72) not only to the living, but to the dead, who were waiting with the heartsickness of deferred hope for the accomplishment of the promises, and especially of the oaths of God. On this idea, see Luke 1:17; for the infinitive μνησθῆναι, Luke 1:54; for the turn of expression ποιεῖν μετά, Luke 1:58. ῞Ορκον (Luke 1:73) is in apposition with διαθήκης. The accusative is occasioned by the pronoun ὅν. This attraction is the more easily accounted for, that μνᾶσθαι is construed in the LXX. with the accusative and the genitive indifferently.

The infinitive to grant expresses the long-expected end of the development of prophecy, a development which seems designed to typify this long period.

The article τοῦ characterizes the infinitive δοῦναι as the end desired and determined from the beginning. Grammatically, it depends on ὅρκον; logically, on all that precedes.

In the following phrase, the relation of ῥυσθέντας to λατρεύειν should be observed: after having been delivered, to serve God: the end is perfect religious service; political deliverance is only a means to it. Perfect worship requires outward security. The Messiah is about to reign; no Antiochus Epiphanes or Pompey shall any more profane the sanctuary! We find here in all its purity the ideal salvation as it is described in the Old Testament, and as the son of Zacharias himself understood it to the very last. Its leading feature is the indissoluble union of the two deliverances, the religious and the political; it was a glorious theocracy founded on national holiness. This programme prevented John the Baptist from identifying himself with the course of the ministry of Jesus. How, after the unbelief of Israel had created a gulf between the expectation and the facts, could a later writer, attributing to Zacharias just what words he pleased, put into his mouth these fond hopes of earlier days?

῾Οσιότης, purity, and δικαιοσύνη, righteousness (Luke 1:75), have been distinguished in several ways. Bleek and others refer the former of these terms to the inward disposition, the latter to the outward conduct. But righteousness, in the Scriptures, comprehends more than the outward act. Others apply the former to relations with God, the latter to relations with men. But righteousness also comprehends man's relations with God. It appears to us rather that purity, ὁσιότης, is a negative quality, the absence of stain; and righteousness, δικαιοσύνη, a positive quality, the presence of all those religious and moral virtues which render worship acceptable to God. Comp. Ephesians 4:24.

The authorities decide in favour of the excision of the words τῆς ζωῆς, although the French translation cannot dispense with them.

At the time of the captivity, the prophet-priest Ezekiel contemplated, under the image of a temple of perfect dimensions, the perfected theocracy (Ezekiel 40-48). Here the priest-prophet Zacharias contemplates the same ideal under the image of an uninterrupted and undefiled worship. The Holy Spirit adapts the form of His revelations to the habitual prepossessions of those who are to be the organs of them.