Luke 1:13 But the angel said to him, Fear not, Zacharias: for your prayer is heard; and your wife Elisabeth shall bear you a son… The barrenness necessitated the annunciation. The annunciation transfigured the barrenness. Is it not often exactly thus with trying and bitter and "reproach" bringing experiences of the believer? We are denied what we fain would have; we have what we would fain have been denied. We feel ourselves of those who "walk in the darkness," and have "no light." Well! do we "trust" in the Lord, and "stay ourselves upon God"? If only we do, sooner or later, I am satisfied increasingly, "light will arise." It may not come when we wished it, nor as we wished it, but come it does. (A. B. Grosart, LL. D,)Consider the exquisite connexion of the whole, the gradually-attained climax of the Divine message from the lips of the angel from before the throne. The messenger of joy begins with the mention of the accepted prayer, promises a son, gives him a high name, foretells for him a distinguished office. But the greatest tidings are yet to come: the longed-for coming of the Messiah, whose forerunner this child is to be. To quote Pfenninger: "How tenderly interwoven, how intimately connected, the Divine with the human story I It is one of the chief perfections of a drama that all its occurrences should essentially hang together; that none of them should appear extraneous or isolated; and where are these conditions better observed than in the Divine narratives of Holy Writ? The grandest, Divinest story in the world blended at its first most human commencement with the human heart-history of a childless wedded pair, who pray to God for a son." This is certainly true, although the prayer here referred to can hardly have been confined to such a petition. The heavenly message, however, retrospectively includes former prayers, and has three separate clauses — first, the birth of a son to Zacharias; last, the coming of the Lord Himself; and as connecting link between the two, the announcement that this son shall make ready the way of this very Lord. (Rudolph Stier) Parallel Verses KJV: But the angel said unto him, Fear not, Zacharias: for thy prayer is heard; and thy wife Elisabeth shall bear thee a son, and thou shalt call his name John. |
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