Luke 1:31-33

1:31 Listen: ¹  You will become pregnant ²  and give birth to ³  a son, and you will name him ⁴  Jesus. ⁵  1:32 He ⁶  will be great, ⁷  and will be called the Son of the Most High, ⁸  and the Lord God will give him the throne of his father ⁹  David. 1:33 He ¹⁰  will reign over the house of Jacob ¹¹  forever, and his kingdom will never end.”

Luke 1:40-47

1:40 and entered Zechariah’s house and greeted Elizabeth. 1:41 When ¹²  Elizabeth heard Mary’s greeting, the baby leaped ¹³  in her ¹⁴  womb, and Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit. ¹⁵  1:42 She ¹⁶  exclaimed with a loud voice, ¹⁷  “Blessed are you among women, ¹⁸  and blessed is the child ¹⁹  in your womb! 1:43 And who am I ²⁰  that the mother of my Lord should come and visit me? 1:44 For the instant ²¹  the sound of your greeting reached my ears, ²²  the baby in my womb leaped for joy. ²³  1:45 And blessed ²⁴  is she who believed that ²⁵  what was spoken to her by ²⁶  the Lord would be fulfilled.” ²⁷ 

Mary’s Hymn of Praise

1:46 And Mary ²⁸  said, ²⁹ 

“My soul exalts ³⁰  the Lord, ³¹ 

1:47 and my spirit has begun to rejoice ³²  in God my Savior,

Luke 1:58

1:58 Her ³³  neighbors and relatives heard that the Lord had shown ³⁴  great mercy to her, and they rejoiced ³⁵  with her.

[1:31]  ¹ tn Grk “And behold.”

[1:31]  ² tn Grk “you will conceive in your womb.”

[1:31]  ³ tn Or “and bear.”

[1:31]  ⁴ tn Grk “you will call his name.”

[1:31]  ⁵ tn See v. 13 for a similar construction.

[1:32]  ⁶ tn Grk “this one.”

[1:32]  ⁷ sn Compare the description of Jesus as great here with 1:15, “great before the Lord.” Jesus is greater than John, since he is Messiah compared to a prophet. Great is stated absolutely without qualification to make the point.

[1:32]  ⁸ sn The expression Most High is a way to refer to God without naming him. Such avoiding of direct reference to God was common in 1st century Judaism out of reverence for the divine name.

[1:32]  ⁹ tn Or “ancestor.”

[1:33]  ¹⁰ tn Grk “And he.” Here καί (kai) has not been translated because of differences between Greek and English style. A new sentence is begun here in the translation because of the length of the sentence in Greek.

[1:33]  ¹¹ tn Or “over Israel.”

[1:41]  ¹² tn Grk “And it happened that.” The introductory phrase ἐγένετο (egeneto, “it happened that”), common in Luke (69 times) and Acts (54 times), is redundant in contemporary English and has not been translated. Because of the difference between Greek style, which often begins sentences or clauses with “and,” and English style, which generally does not, καί (kai) has not been translated here either.

[1:41]  ¹³ sn When the baby leaped John gave his first testimony about Jesus, a fulfillment of 1:15.

[1:41]  ¹⁴ tn The antecedent of “her” is Elizabeth.

[1:41]  ¹⁵ sn The passage makes clear that Elizabeth spoke her commentary with prophetic enablement, filled with the Holy Spirit.

[1:42]  ¹⁶ tn Grk “and she.” Because of the length and complexity of the Greek sentence, a new sentence was begun here in the translation. Here καί (kai) has not been translated because of differences between Greek and English style.

[1:42]  ¹⁷ tn Grk “and she exclaimed with a great cry and said.” The verb εἶπεν (eipen, “said”) has not been included in the translation since it is redundant in contemporary English.

[1:42]  ¹⁸ sn The commendation Blessed are you among women means that Mary has a unique privilege to be the mother of the promised one of God.

[1:42]  ¹⁹ tn Grk “fruit,” which is figurative here for the child she would give birth to.

[1:43]  ²⁰ tn Grk “From where this to me?” The translation suggests the note of humility and surprise that Elizabeth feels in being a part of these events. The ἵνα (Jina) clause which follows explains what “this” is. A literal translation would read “From where this to me, that is, that the mother of my Lord comes to visit me?”

[1:44]  ²¹ tn Grk “for behold.”

[1:44]  ²² tn Grk “when the sound of your greeting [reached] my ears.”

[1:44]  ²³ sn On the statement the baby in my womb leaped for joy see both 1:14 and 1:47. This notes a fulfillment of God’s promised word.

[1:45]  ²⁴ sn Again the note of being blessed makes the key point of the passage about believing God.

[1:45]  ²⁵ tn This ὅτι (Joti) clause, technically indirect discourse after πιστεύω (pisteuw), explains the content of the faith, a belief in God’s promise coming to pass.

[1:45]  ²⁶ tn That is, “what was said to her (by the angel) at the Lord’s command” (BDAG 756 s.v. παρά A.2).

[1:45]  ²⁷ tn Grk “that there would be a fulfillment of what was said to her from the Lord.”

[1:46]  ²⁸ tc A few witnesses, especially Latin mss, (a b l* Ir^arm Or^lat mss Nic) read “Elizabeth” here, since she was just speaking, but the ms evidence overwhelmingly supports “Mary” as the speaker.

[1:46]  ²⁹ sn The following passage has been typeset as poetry because many scholars regard this passage as poetic or hymnic. These terms are used broadly to refer to the genre of writing, not to the content. There are two broad criteria for determining if a passage is poetic or hymnic: “(a) stylistic: a certain rhythmical lilt when the passages are read aloud, the presence of parallelismus membrorum (i.e., an arrangement into couplets), the semblance of some metre, and the presence of rhetorical devices such as alliteration, chiasmus, and antithesis; and (b) linguistic: an unusual vocabulary, particularly the presence of theological terms, which is different from the surrounding context” (P. T. O’Brien, Philippians [NIGTC], 188-89). Classifying a passage as hymnic or poetic is important because understanding this genre can provide keys to interpretation. However, not all scholars agree that the above criteria are present in this passage, so the decision to typeset it as poetry should be viewed as a tentative decision about its genre.

[1:46]  ³⁰ tn Or “lifts up the Lord in praise.”

[1:46]  ³¹ sn This psalm (vv. 46-55) is one of the few praise psalms in the NT. Mary praises God and then tells why both in terms of his care for her (vv. 46-49) and for others, including Israel (vv. 50-55). Its traditional name, the “Magnificat,” comes from the Latin for the phrase My soul magnifies the Lord at the hymn’s start.

[1:47]  ³² tn Or “rejoices.” The translation renders this aorist, which stands in contrast to the previous line’s present tense, as ingressive, which highlights Mary’s joyous reaction to the announcement. A comprehensive aorist is also possible here.

[1:58]  ³³ tn Grk “And her.” Here καί (kai) has not been translated because of differences between Greek and English style.

[1:58]  ³⁴ tn Grk “had magnified his mercy with her.”

[1:58]  ³⁵ tn The verb συνέχαιρον (sunecairon) is an imperfect and could be translated as an ingressive force, “they began to rejoice.”