Luke 1:39 Commentary and Bible Study

(Synoptics: Luke 1:39-45)The angel Gabriel has spoken of Elisabeth being with child, and Mary must see this with her own eyes because she somehow understands this is connected with her own promised child. Nothing has been said about this as far as we know, but here is something which only God could do, and it will strengthen her faith to see her relative blessed so remarkably. She surely reasons that this would not have been told her unless she needed to know about it, and so she will go and visit Elisabeth. Mary was in Nazareth in Galilee, and Elisabeth was in the hill country of Judea, in a particular city, which some think was hebron, a city in the hills, a priestly city given to the tribe of Levi, and a city of refuge (Joshua 21:1-13); if so, this would have been a journey of about 100 miles. Mary knows the house and knows both Zacharias and Elisabeth. She enters and greets Elisabeth, but there is indication that she told Elisabeth of the angel Gabriel’s revelation to her. That would have come later. And yet Elisabeth on hearing Mary’s greeting does something remarkable. She is filled with the Holy Spirit and she prophesies. What she says is not her best guess concerning the strange and strong movement of the child within her. It is her inspired comment and interpretation on what has just happened. She has felt the child leap within her, and she is given to understand the reason. This too is part of her prophecy. She knows why it has happened because God has revealed the reason to her along with other things. She knows that her child is filled with the Spirit as Zacharias had been told (verse 15), and she has proved this for herself. The greeting of Mary has been heard by the infant within her, and it has responded with joy. The relationship between these two persons – John the Baptist and Jesus Christ – is such that John, still in his mother’s womb, has been enabled to understand that Mary is the mother of the Lord Jesus, and he whose life’s work will be to go before Christ and prepare the way before him, is already by the Holy Spirit rejoicing in him. So both Elisabeth and John know that Mary is with child, and that she carries in her womb the incarnate Son of God. This is revealed to them by the Spirit, and this will confirm to Mary what the angel has already told her.