Luke 1:38

And Mary said, Behold the handmaid of the Lord; be it unto me according to thy word. And the angel departed from her.

EXPOSITORY (ENGLISH BIBLE)

Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers

(38) Behold the handmaid of the Lord . . .—The words seem to show a kind of half-consciousness that the lot which she thus accepts might bring with it unknown sufferings, as well as untold blessedness. She shrinks, as it were, from the awfulness of the position thus assigned to her, but she can say, as her Son said afterwards, when His time of agony was come, “Not my will, but Thine be done.” It may be that the more immediate peril of which St. Matthew speaks (1:19). flashed even then upon her soul as one that could not be escaped. (Comp. Luke 2:35.)

Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary

1:26-38 We have here an account of the mother of our Lord; though we are not to pray to her, yet we ought to praise God for her. Christ must be born miraculously. The angel's address means only, Hail, thou that art the especially chosen and favoured of the Most High, to attain the honour Jewish mothers have so long desired. This wondrous salutation and appearance troubled Mary. The angel then assured her that she had found favour with God, and would become the mother of a son whose name she should call Jesus, the Son of the Highest, one in a nature and perfection with the Lord God. JESUS! the name that refreshes the fainting spirits of humbled sinners; sweet to speak and sweet to hear, Jesus, a Saviour! We know not his riches and our own poverty, therefore we run not to him; we perceive not that we are lost and perishing, therefore a Saviour is a word of little relish. Were we convinced of the huge mass of guilt that lies upon us, and the wrath that hangs over us for it, ready to fall upon us, it would be our continual thought, Is the Saviour mine? And that we might find him so, we should trample on all that hinders our way to him. Mary's reply to the angel was the language of faith and humble admiration, and she asked no sign for the confirming her faith. Without controversy, great was the mystery of godliness, God manifest in the flesh, 1Ti 3:16. Christ's human nature must be produced so, as it was fit that should be which was to be taken into union with the Divine nature. And we must, as Mary here, guide our desires by the word of God. In all conflicts, let us remember that with God nothing is impossible; and as we read and hear his promises, let us turn them into prayers, Behold the willing servant of the Lord; let it be unto me according to thy word.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

And Mary said, Behold the handmaid ... - This was an expression of resignation to the will of God, and of faith in the promise. To be the "handmaid of the Lord" is to be submissive and obedient, and is the same as saying, "I fully credit all that is said, and am perfectly ready to obey all the commands of the Lord."

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary

38. Marvellous faith in such circumstances!

Matthew Poole's Commentary

Once have I spoken, ( saith Job, Job 40:5) but I will not answer. In like manner the virgin speaketh: I will dispute no more; I am the Lord’s servant, let him do with me whatsoever he pleaseth. This phrase,

Behold the handmaid of the Lord, doth not speak her the lady and queen of heaven, (as the papists style her), but it speaketh her humility and readiness to give up herself to the Lord’s pleasure, her assent and consent unto God. She addeth a prayer, that God would do according to what the angel had said unto her. The angel, having despatched his errand, and obtained what he came for, ascendeth into heaven.

Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible

And Mary said, behold the handmaid of the Lord,.... In which words she expresses her obedience of faith; she owns herself to be the handmaid of the Lord, and desires to obey him, and be submissive to him as such; and tacitly acknowledges her meanness, and great unworthiness:

be it unto me according to thy word; she assented to what the angel said should be unto her; she earnestly desired it might be, and firmly believed it would be; she set her "Amen" to the angel's message:

and the angel departed from her; to the heavenly regions from whence he came; to his great Lord and master, that sent him; having dispatched the business he came about, and which he was accountable to him for.

Geneva Study Bible

And Mary said, Behold the handmaid of the Lord; be it unto me according to thy word. And the angel departed from her.

EXEGETICAL (ORIGINAL LANGUAGES)

Meyer's NT Commentary

Luke 1:38. Behold the handmaid of the Lord! without a verb. Comp. Luke 1:36; Luke 5:12; Luke 5:18.

γένοιτο] λοιπὸν οὐ μόνον ἐπίστευσεν, ἀλλὰ ηὔξατο γενέσθαι αὐτῇ, καθὼς ὁ ἄγγελος εἵρηκε, Euthymius Zigabenus; “eximio fiduciae exemplo,” Grotius.

REMARK.

The natural explanation of the annunciation to Mary (Paulus) is at variance with the evangelic account; and as the latter unfolds simply, clearly, and delicately an external procedure, the objective is not to be rendered subjective and transferred, as a reciprocal operation of the theocratic Spirit of God and the emotional feeling of the Virgin, by means of poetic colouring to the soul of the latter (Lange, L. J. II. 1, p. 67). As history, believed even as it is related, the narrative arose, and that too independently of the preliminary history of Matthew, and even incompatibly with it,[26]—in consequence of the circumstance that the divine sonship of Jesus was extended to His bodily origination (see on Matthew 1:18), an idea, which gave shape to legends dissimilar in character and gaining currency in different circles. Thus, e.g., it is clear that the history, adopted at Matthew 1:19 ff., of Joseph’s perplexity and of the angelic message which came to him does not presuppose, but excludes the annunciation to Mary; for that Mary after such a revelation should have made no communication to Joseph, would have been not less psychologically unnatural, than it would have been a violation of the bridal relation and, indeed, of the bridal duty;[27] and to reckon on a special revelation, which without her aid would make the disclosure to her betrothed, she must have been expressly directed by the angelic announcement made to her, in order to be justified in deferring the communication of her pregnancy to her betrothed. We make this remark in opposition to the arbitrary presuppositions and shifts of Hug (Gutacht. I. p. 81 ff.), Krabbe, Ebrard, and others. According to the view invented by the last-named, it is assumed that Joseph had learned Mary’s pregnancy, immediately after the appearance of its earliest signs, from the pronubae (“suspicious women”); that immediately there ensued the appearance of the angel to him, and forthwith he took her home; and that for all this a period of at most fourteen days sufficed. Mark and John have rightly excluded these miracles of the preliminary history from the cycle of the evangelical narrative, which only began with the appearance of the Baptist (Mark 1:1); as, indeed, Jesus Himself never, even in His confidential circle, refers to them, and the unbelief of His own brothers, John 7:5, and in fact even the demeanour of Mary, Mark 3:21 ff., is irreconcilable with them.[28]

The angelic announcement made to Zacharias, which likewise withdraws itself from any attempt at natural explanation (Paulus, Ammon), appears as a parallel to the annunciation to Mary, having originated and been elaborated in consequence of the latter as a link in the chain of the same cycle of legends after the analogy of Old Testament models, especially that of Abraham and his wife. As in the case of the annunciation to Mary the metaphysical divine Sonship of Jesus, so in the announcement to Zacharias the extraordinary divine destination and mission of John (John 1:6) is the real element on which the formation of legend became engrafted; but to derive the latter merely from the self-consciousness of the church (Bruno Bauer), and consequently to take away the objective foundation of the history, is at variance with the entire N. T. and with the history of the church. For the formation of the legend, moreover, the historical circumstances, that John was the son of the priest Zacharias and Elizabeth, and a son born late in life, are to be held fast as premisses actually given by history (in opposition to Strauss, I. p. 135), all the more that for these simple historical data their general notoriety could not but bear witness. This also in opposition to Weisse and B. Bauer, who derive these traditions from the laboratory of religious contemplation. Further, as to what specially concerns the late birth of John, it has its historical precedents in the history of Isaac, of Samson, and of Samuel; but the general principle deduced from such cases, “Cum alicujus uterum claudit, ad hoc facit, ut mirabilius denuo aperiat, et non libidinis esse quod nascitur, sed divini muneris cognoscatur” (Evang. de Nativ. Mark 3), became the source of unhistorical inventions in the apocryphal Gospels,[29] as, in particular, the apocryphal account of the birth of Mary herself is an imitation of the history of John’s birth.

[26] Comp. Schleiermacher, L. J. p. 59 ff.

[27] Lange, L. J. II. p. 83 f., rightly acknowledges this, but, following older writers, thinks that Mary made the communication to Joseph before her journey to Elizabeth, but that he nevertheless (“the first Ebionite”) refused to believe her. This is not compatible with Matthew’s narrative, especially Luke 1:18. And what Lange further (p. 89) adds, that during Mary’s absence a severe struggle arose in his soul, and this state of feeling became the medium of the revelation made to him, is simply added.

[28] Schleiermacher is right in saying, L. J. p. 71: “These occurrences have been entirely without effect as regards the coming forward of Christ or the origination of faith in Him.”

[29] See, in general, R. Hofmann, das Leben Jesu nach d. Apokr. 1851; also Gelpke, Jugendgesch. des Herrn, 1842 (who, moreover, gives the Jewish legends).

Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

38. be it unto me according to thy word] The thoughts of the Virgin Mary seem to have found their most natural utterance in the phrases of Scripture. 1 Samuel 3:18, “If it be the Lord let Him do what seemeth Him good.” For Mary too was aware that her high destiny must be mingled with anguish.

And the angel departed from her] We can best appreciate the noble simplicity of truthfulness by comparing this narrative of the Annunciation with the diffuse inflation of the Apocryphal Gospels. Take for instance such passages as these from one of the least extravagant of them, ‘The Gospel of the Nativity of Mary.’ “The Angel Gabriel was sent to her … to explain to her the method or order of the Conception. At length having entered unto her, he filled the chamber where she abode with an immense light, and saluting her most courteously said, ‘Hail Mary! most acceptable Virgin of the Lord! Virgin full of grace … blessed art thou before all women; blessed art thou before all men hitherto born.’ But the Virgin who already knew the countenance of angels, and was not unused to heavenly light, was neither terrified by the angelic vision nor stupefied by the greatness of the light, but was troubled at his word alone; and began to think what that salutation so unwonted could be, or what it portended, or what end it could have. But the Angel, divinely inspired and counteracting this thought, said, Fear not, Mary, as though I meant something contrary to thy chastity by this salutation; for &c., &c.” The reader will observe at once the artificiality, the tasteless amplifications, the want of reticence;—all the marks which separate truthful narrative from elaborate fiction. (See B. H. Cowper, The Apocryphal Gospels, p. 93.)

Bengel's Gnomen

Luke 1:38. Γένοιτό μοι, be it done unto me) Compare the assent which David expresses to God’s covenant promise, 2 Samuel 7:25 [The word that Thou hast spoken—establish it for ever, and do as Thou hast said], 28.—ἀπῆλθεν, departed) even as he previously came in, Luke 1:28.

Pulpit Commentary

Verse 38. - Behold the handmaid of the Lord; be it unto me according to thy word. "God's message," writes Godet, "by the mouth of the angel was not a command. The part Mary had to fulfill made no demands on her. It only remained, therefore, for Mary to consent to the consequences of the Divine offer. She gives this consent in a word at once simple and sublime, which involved the most extraordinary act of faith that a woman ever consented to accomplish. Mary accepts the sacrifice of that which is dearer to a young maiden than her very life, and thereby becomes pre-eminently the heroine of Israel, the ideal daughter of Zion." Nor was the immediate trouble and sorrow which she foresaw would soon compass her round by any means the whole burden which submission to the angel's message would bring upon the shrinking Nazareth maiden. The lot proposed to her would bring probably in its wake unknown sufferings as well as untold blessedness. We may with all reverence think Mary already feeling the first piercings in her heart of that sharp sword which was one day to wound so deeply the mother of sorrows; yet in spite of all this, in full view of the present woe, which submission to the Divine will would forthwith bring upon her, with an unknown future of sorrow in the background, Mary submitted herself of her own free will to what she felt was the will and wish of her God. Luke 1:38