Morning Bible Study: Luke 1:39-45

Mary’s Visit to Elizabeth

39 In those days Mary set out and hurried to a town in the hill country of Judah 

40 where she entered Zechariah’s house and greeted Elizabeth. 

41 When Elizabeth heard Mary’s greeting, the baby leaped inside her, and Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit. 

42 Then she exclaimed with a loud cry, “Blessed are you among women, and your child will be blessed! 

43 How could this happen to me, that the mother of my Lord should come to me? 

44 For you see, when the sound of your greeting reached my ears, the baby leaped for joy inside me. 

45 Blessed is she who has believed that the Lord would fulfill what he has spoken to her!”

Commentary

(the following is from Matthew Henry's Complete Commentary, 1706 -- www.christianity.com)

"Now, at their first coming together, for the confirmation of the faith of both of them, there was something very extraordinary. Mary knew that Elizabeth was with child, but it does not appear that Elizabeth had been told any thing of her cousin Mary's being designed for the mother of the Messiah; and therefore what knowledge she appears to have had of it must have come by a revelation, which would be a great encouragement to Mary.

The babe leaped in her womb, v. 41. It is very probable that she had been several weeks quick (for she was six months gone), and that she had often felt the child stir; but this was a more than ordinary motion of the child, which alarmed her to expect something very extraordinary, eskirteµse. It is the same word that is used by the Septuagint (Gen. 25:22) for the struggling of Jacob and Esau in Rebecca's womb, and the mountains skipping, Ps. 114:4. The babe leaped as it were to give a signal to his mother that he was now at had whose forerunner he was to be, about six months in ministry, as he was in being; or, it was the effect of some strong impression made upon the mother. Now began to be fulfilled what the angel said to his father (v. 15), that he should be filled with the Holy Ghost, even from his mother's womb; and perhaps he himself had some reference to this, when he said (Jn. 3:29), The friend of the Bridegroom rejoiceth greatly, because of the Bridegroom's voice, heard, though not by him, yet by his mother."