Biblical commentary on the New Testament - The Christian ...

224 Luke I. 47-50.
strangeness which at first sight appears to attach to them. Even
Sclileiermacher made use of them to support the opinion, that the
history of the childhood of Jesus had been cast into a mythical
form. Were the poetical effusions independent poems, they
would he calculated to awaken some suspicion ; but as they are
merely reminiscences from the Old Testament, which we must
suppose to have been quite famihar to the parties concerned, their
introduction here is no way inconceivable or even inappropriate.
The following song of praise (verses 46-55) is usually called 3Iag-
Qiijicat, from the first word in the Vulgate ; we have an excellent
practical exjDOsition of it by Luther. (MeyaAuvw = Vi^An^ Acts x.
46; xix. 17; Phil.i. 20.) The combination of 7n^ei;fia,sptViY, and i/"^%?7,
soul, the distinction between which will be found at length in note
on 1 Thcss. V. 23, denotes the whole internal being ; the powers of
the soul, both high and low, were moved with joy. (See Psalm
ciii. 1, 'i:^? and •'nn;5-^3,) In eixl Gew tw owT7]pi fiov, in God my Saviour,
the reference to an external salvation should not be altogether ex-
cluded (see verse 52) ; doubtless Mary looked forward to the
exaltation of David's family. But the deep religious fervor ex-
pressed in the song, does not leave us at liberty to regard this
reference as piedominant, or to conceive of it at all under a coarse
and sensual aspect, particularly as we must certainly suppose
Mary to have been illuminated by the Holy Spirit, agreeably to
verse 41. The entire fulness of blessings, consummated by the
appearance of the Messiah, lay spread out before her, and she ap-
plied the general salvation (spiritual as well as external) to herself
also. God was in Christ her Saviour also ; and as she was now
about to give birth to the Son of Man, so she was afterwards to re-
ceive the Son of God also into her heart. (See note on Luke ii. 35.)
Yer. 48-50.—AVith our spiritual conception of the passage, the
mention of the humiliation does not refer primarily to Mary's
outward political lowliness, since she was of David's family ; it is
rather the expression of conscious inward poverty, which could
discover no pre-eminence in herself, because of which such hap-
piness should have fallen to her lot. (TaTteivof r=i3s^1'in5N [see note
on Matth. xi. 29], is closely related to -rrTDx^g, Matth. v. 3.) We
ought not, however, entirely to exclude a reference to what is external
; as a result of the mercy of God bestowed upon her, Mary
probably pictured external splendour to herself. But those who
have found in this fact a key to the Saviour's training, and show what
Messianic hopes he imbibed with his mother's milk, in fact but
enhance his glory in giving to the doctrine of the Messiah a character
so completely spiritual.* But again it is no false notion that
* [The views refen-ed to above may not be familiar to some English readers. It has
been the great aim of the schools of theology opposed to the Gospel truth, to account for