'And Mary said, My soul doth magnify the Lord, 47. And
my spirit hath rejoiced in God my Saviour. 48. For He
hath regarded the low estate of His hand-maiden: for,
behold, from henceforth all generations shall call me
blessed. 49. For He that is mighty hath done to me
great things; and holy is His name, 50. And His mercy
is on them that fear Him from generation to generation.
51. He hath shewed strength with His arm: He hath
scattered the proud in the imagination of their hearts.
52. He hath put down the mighty from their seats, and
exalted them of low degree. 53. He hath filled the
hungry with good things; and the rich He hath sent
empty away. 54. He hath holpen His servant Israel, in
remembrance of His mercy; 55. As He spake to our
fathers, to Abraham, and to his seed for ever.'
--LUKE i. 46-55.
Birds sing at dawn and sunrise. It was fitting that the last strains
of Old Testament psalmody should prelude the birth of Jesus. To
disbelievers in the Incarnation the hymns of Mary and Zacharias are,
of course, forgeries; but if it be true nothing can be more
'natural' than these. The very features in this song, which are
appealed to as proof of its being the work of some unknown pious
liar or dishonest enthusiast, really confirm its genuineness.
Critics shake their heads over its many quotations and allusions to
Hannah's song and to other poetical parts of the Old Testament, and
declare that these are fatal to its being accepted as Mary's. Why?
must the simple village maiden be a poetess because she is the
mother of our Lord? What is more likely than that she should cast
her emotions into forms so familiar to her, and especially that
Hannah's hymn should colour hers? These old psalms provided the
mould into which her glowing emotions almost instinctively would
run, and the very absence of 'originality' in the song favours its
genuineness.
Another point may be noticed as having a similar bearing; namely,
the very general and almost vague outline of the consequences of the
birth, which is regarded as being the consummation to Israel of the
mercy promised to the fathers. Could such a hymn have been written
when sad experience showed how the nation would reject their
Messiah, and ruin themselves thereby? Surely the anticipations which
glow in it bear witness to the time when they were cherished, as
prior to the sad tragedy which history unfolded. Little does Mary as
yet know that 'a sword shall pierce through' her 'own soul also,'
and that not only will 'all generations' call her 'blessed,' but
that one of her names will be 'Our Lady of Sorrows.' For her and for
us, the future is mercifully veiled. Only one eye saw the shadow of
the Cross stretching black and grim athwart the earliest days of
Jesus, and that eye was His own. How wonderful the calmness with
which He pressed towards that 'mark' during all His earthly life!
The hymn is sometimes divided into four strophes or sections: first,
the expression of devout emotion (vs. 46-48a); second, the great
fact from which they arise (vs. 48b-50); third, the consequences of
the fact (vs. 51-53); fourth, its aspect to Israel as fulfilment of
promise. This division is, no doubt, in accordance with the course
of thought, but is perhaps somewhat too artificial for our purposes;
and we may rather simply note that in the earlier part the personal
element is present, and that in the later it fades entirely, and the
mighty deeds of God alone fill the meek singer's eye and lips. We
may consider the lessons of these two halves.
I. The more personal part extends to the end of verse 50. It
contains three turnings or strophes, the first two of which have two
clauses each, and the third three. The first is verses 46 and 47,
the purely personal expression of the glad emotions awakened by
Elisabeth's presence and salutation, which came to Mary as
confirmation of the angel's annunciation. Not when Gabriel spoke,
but when a woman like herself called her 'mother of my Lord,' did
she break into praise. There is a deep truth there. God's voice is
made more sure to our weakness when it is echoed by human lips, and
our inmost hopes attain substance when they are shared and spoken by
another. We need not attribute to the maiden from Nazareth
philosophical accuracy when she speaks of her 'soul' and 'spirit.'
Her first words are a burst of rapturous and wondering praise, in
which the full heart runs over. Silence is impossible, and speech a
relief. They are not to be construed with the microscopic accuracy
fit to be applied to a treatise on psychology. 'All that is within'
her praises and is glad. She does not think so much of the
stupendous fact as of her own meekly exultant heart, and of God, to
whom its outgoings turn. There are moods in which the devout soul
dwells on its own calm blessedness and on God, its source, more
directly than on the gift which brings it. Note the twofold
act--magnifying and rejoicing. We magnify God when we take into our
vision some fragment more of the complete circle of His essential
greatness, or when, by our means, our fellows are helped to do so.
The intended effect of all His dealings is that we should think more
nobly--that is, more worthily--of Him. The fuller knowledge of His
friendly greatness leads to joy in Him which makes the spirit bound
as in a dance--for such is the meaning of the word 'rejoice'--and
which yet is calm and deep. Note the double name of God--Lord and
Saviour. Mary bows in lowly obedience, and looks up in as lowly,
conscious need of deliverance, and beholding in God both His majesty
and His grace, magnifies and exults at once.
Verse 48 is the second turn of thought, containing, like the former,
two clauses. In it she gazes on her great gift, which, with maiden
reserve, she does not throughout the whole hymn once directly name.
Here the personal element comes out more strongly. But it is
beautiful to note that the 'lowliness' is in the foreground, and
precedes the assurance of the benedictions of all generations. The
whole is like a murmur of wonder that such honour should come to
her, so insignificant, and the 'behold' of the latter half verse is
an exclamation of surprise. In unshaken meekness of steadfast
obedience, she feels herself 'the handmaid of the Lord.' In
undisturbed humility, she thinks of her 'low estate,' and wonders
that God's eye should have fallen on her, the village damsel, poor
and hidden. A pure heart is humbled by honour, and is not so dazzled
by the vision of future fame as to lose sight of God as the source
of all. Think of that simple young girl in her obscurity having
flashed before her the certainty that her name would be repeated
with blessing till the world's end, and then thus meekly laying her
honours down at God's feet. What a lesson of how to receive all
distinctions and exaltations!
Verses 49 and 50 end this part, and contain three clauses, in which
the personal disappears, and only the thought of God's character as
manifested in His wonderful act remains. It connects indeed with the
preceding by the 'to me' of verse 49; but the main subject is the
new revelation, which is not confined to Mary, of the threefold
divine glory fused into one bright beam, in the Incarnation. Power,
holiness, eternal mercy, are all there, and that in deeper and more
wondrous fashion than Mary knew when she sang. The words are mostly
quotations from the Old Testament, but with new application and
meaning. But even Mary's anticipations fell far short of the reality
of that power in weakness, that holiness mildly blended with
tenderest pity and pardoning love; that mercy which for all
generations was to stretch not only to 'them that fear Him,' but to
rebels, whom it would make friends. She saw but dimly and in part.
We see more plainly all the rays of divine perfection meeting in,
and streaming out to, the whole world, from her Son 'the effulgence
of the Father's glory.'
II. The second part of the song is a lyric anticipation of the
historical consequences of the appearance of the Messiah, cast into
forms ready to the singer's hand, in the strains of Old Testament
prophecy. The characteristics of Hebrew poetry, its parallelism, its
antitheses, its exultant swing, are more conspicuous here than in
the earlier half. The main thought of verses 51 to 53 is that the
Messiah would bring about a revolution, in which the high would be
cast down and the humble exalted. This idea is wrought out in a
threefold antithesis, of which the first pair must have one member
supplied from the previous verse. Those who 'fear Him' are opposed
to 'the proud in the imagination of their hearts.' These are thought
of as an army of antagonists to God and His anointed, and thus the
word 'scattered' acquires great poetic force, and reminds us of many
a psalm, such as the Second and One hundred and tenth, where Messiah
is a warrior.
The next pair represent the antithesis as being that of social
degree, and in it there may be traced a glance at 'Herod the King'
and the depressed line of David, to which the singer belonged, while
the meaning must not be confined to that. The third pair represent
the same opposites under the guise of poverty and riches. Mary is
not to be credited with purely spiritual views in these contrasts,
nor to be discredited with purely material ones. She, no doubt,
thought of her own oppressed nation as mainly meant by the hungry
and lowly; but like all pious souls in Israel, she must have felt
that the lowliness and hunger which Messiah was to ennoble and
satisfy, meant a condition of spirit conscious of weakness and sin,
and eagerly desiring a higher good and food than earth could give.
So much she had learned from many a psalm and prophet. So much the
Spirit which inspired psalmist and prophet spoke in her lowly and
exultant heart now. But the future was only revealed to her in this
wide, general outline. Details of manner and time were all still
blank. The broad truth which she foretold remains one of the salient
historical results of Christ's coming, and is the universal
condition of partaking of His gifts. He has been, and is, the most
revolutionary force in history; for without Him society is
constituted on principles the reverse of the true, and as the world,
apart from Jesus, is down-side up, the mission of His gospel is to
turn it upside-down, and so bring the right side uppermost. The
condition of receiving anything from Him is the humble recognition
of emptiness and need. If princes on their thrones will come to Him
just in the same way as the beggar on the dunghill does, they will
very probably be allowed to stay on them; and if the rich man will
come to Him as poor and in need of all things, he will not be 'sent
empty away.' But Christ is a discriminating Christ, and as the
prophet said long before Mary, 'I ... will bind up that which was
broken, and will strengthen that which was sick; and the fat and the
strong I will destroy. I will feed them with judgment.'
The last turn in the song celebrates the faithfulness of God to His
ancient promises, and His help by His Messiah to Israel. The
designation of Israel as 'His servant' recalls the familiar name in
Isaiah's later prophecies. Mary sees in the great wonder of her
Son's birth the accomplishment of the hopes of ages, and an
assurance of God's mercy as for ever the portion of the people. We
cannot tell how far she had learned that Israel was to be counted,
not by descent but disposition. But, in any case, her eyes could not
have embraced the solemn facts of her Son's rejection by His and her
people. No shadows are yet cast across the morning of which her song
is the herald. She knew not the dark clouds of thunder and
destruction that were to sweep over the sky. But the end has not yet
come, and we have to believe still that the evening will fulfil the
promise of the morning, and 'all Israel shall be saved,' and that
the mercy which was promised from of old to Abraham and the fathers,
shall be fulfilled at last and abide with their seed for ever.