Luke 1:78,79

3 d. Luke 1:78-79.

After this episode, Zacharias returns to the principal subject of his song, and, in an admirable closing picture, describes the glory of Messiah's appearing, and of the salvation which He brings.

Vers. 78 and 79. “ Through the tender mercy of our God, whereby the day-spring from on high hath visited us, 79 To give light to them that sit in darkness and in the shadow of death, to guide our feet unto the way of peace. ”

Zacharias ascends to the highest source whence this stream of grace pours down upon our earth the divine mercy. This idea is naturally connected with that of pardon (Luke 1:77), as is expressed by διά with the accusative, which means properly by reason of.

The bowels in Scripture are the seat of all the sympathetic emotions. Σπλάγχνα answers to א.

The future ἐπισκέψεται, will visit, in some Alex., is evidently a correction suggested by the consideration that Christ was not born at the time Zacharias was speaking. Yet even such instances as these do not disturb the faith of critics in the authority of Alexandrine MSS.!

All the images in the picture portrayed in Luke 1:78-79 appear to be borrowed from the following comparison:

A caravan misses its way and is lost in the desert; the unfortunate pilgrims, overtaken by night, are sitting down in the midst of this fearful darkness, expecting death. All at once a bright star rises in the horizon and lights up the plain; the travellers, taking courage at this sight, arise, and by the light of this star find the road which leads them to the end of their journey.

The substantive ἀνατολή, the rising, which by general consent is here translated the dawn, has two senses in the LXX. It is employed to translate the noun ֶצמַח, H7542, branch, by which Jeremiah and Zechariah designate the Messiah. This sense of the word ἀνατολή is unknown in profane Greek. The term is also used by the LXX. to express the rising of a heavenly body the rising of the moon, for instance; comp. Isaiah 60:19. This sense agrees with the meaning of the verb ἀνατέλλειν; Isaiah 60:1, “ The glory of the Lord hath risen (ἀνατέταλκεν) upon thee; ” Malachi 4:2, “ The Sun of righteousness shall rise (ἀνατελεῖ) upon you. ” This is the meaning of the word ἀνατολή in good Greek. And it appears to us that this is its meaning here. It follows, indeed, from the use of the verb hath visited us, which may very well be said of a star, but not of a branch; and the same remark applies to the images that follow, to light and to direct (Luke 1:79). Besides, the epithet from on high agrees much better with the figure of a star than with that of a plant that sprouts. The regimen from on high does not certainly quite agree with the verb to rise. But the term from on high is suggested by the idea of visiting which goes before: it is from the bosom of divine mercy that this star comes down, and it does not rise upon humanity until after it has descended and been made man. Bleek does not altogether reject this obvious meaning of ἀνατολή; but he maintains that we should combine it with the sense of branch, by supposing a play of words turning upon the double image of a sprouting branch and a rising star; and as there is no Hebrew word which will bear this double meaning, he draws from this passage the serious critical consequence, that this song, and therefore all the others contained in these two Chapter s, were originally written, not in Aramaean, but in Greek, which of course deprives them of their authenticity. But this whole explanation is simply a play of Bleek's imagination. There is nothing in the text to indicate that the author intends any play upon words here; and, as we have seen, none of the images employed are compatible with the meaning of branch.

The expressions of Luke 1:79 are borrowed from Isaiah 9:1; Isaiah 60:2. Darkness is the emblem of alienation from God, and of the spiritual ignorance that accompanies it. This darkness is a shadow of death, because it leads to perdition, just as the darkening of sight in the dying is a prelude to the night of death. The term sit denotes a state of exhaustion and despair. The sudden shining forth of the star brings the whole caravan of travellers to their feet (τοὺς πόδας), and enables them to find their way.

The way of peace denotes the means of obtaining reconciliation with God, the chief of all temporal and spiritual blessings. Εἰρήνη, peace, answers to שָׁלוֹם, H8934, a word by which the Hebrew language designates the bountiful supply of whatever answers to human need full prosperity.