Does Mary speak Elizabeth’s Magnificat? I may have an answer to the problem

There’s something odd about Mary’s Magnificat.

Why does it occur at this point in the narrative, at the moment of her arrival at the house of Zechariah and Elizabeth, rather than after the annunciation?

Why is it based so obviously on the story of Hannah’s barrenness and the marvellous conception of Samuel? The Magnificat echoes both Hannah’s exultation over the personal blessing and her declaration that the Lord makes the powerful weak and the weak mighty, that he makes the well-fed hungry and the hungry full, that he “raises up the needy from the ground and lifts the poor from the dunghill, to make them sit with the mighty of the peoples, even making them inherit a throne of glory” (1 Sam. 2:8 LXX).

Mary’s assertion that God “looked on the humiliation of his slave-woman” (epeblepsen epi tēn tapeinōsin tēs doulēs autou) has clearly been drawn from Hannah’s earlier vow:

“if looking you will look on the humiliation of your slave-woman (epiblepsēis epi tēn tapeinōsin tēs doulēs sou) and remember me and give to your slave-woman an offspring of men” (1 Sam. 1:11 LXX*)

Was it ever Elizabeth’s Magnificat

The content of the prayer fits Elizabeth’s circumstances much better than it does Mary’s. Mary is a young woman whose fertility has not yet been tested by any man. Elizabeth is a barren woman, who, like Hannah, becomes pregnant by the usual means. She has known the “humiliation” of childlessness, and has already spoken of what the Lord “has done for me in the days in which he watched over (epeiden) to take away my disgrace among people” (Lk. 1:25).

Luke gives his reader no reason to think, however, that Mary is distressed or “humiliated” by her improper pregnancy. So tapeinōsin is usually translated “lowliness” or “humble estate”; but in this context it should really carry connotations of affliction or debasement or humiliation. In addition to the account of Hannah’s humiliation, consider these two passages:

And the angel of the Lord said to [Hagar], “See, you are pregnant and shall bear a son and shall call his name Ismael. For the Lord has given heed to your humiliation (tapeinōsei). (Gen. 16:11)

And Leah conceived and bore a son to Jacob, and she called his name Reuben, saying, “Inasmuch as the Lord has seen my humiliation (tapeinōsin), now it is me my husband will love.” (Gen. 29:32)

Hannah’s language may also anticipate a later incident in the book. Just before the appearance of Saul, Samuel is told to anoint a man from the land of Benjamin who will save Israel from the hand of the foreigners, “for I have looked upon the humiliation (epeblepsa epi tēn tapeinōsin) of my people, because their cry has come to me” (1 Sam 9:16 LXX).

The first strophe of the Magnificat surely includes an admission of humiliation and wretchedness, which sounds incongruous on the lips of Luke’s Mary.

It so happens that in a number of Latin manuscripts it is not Mary but Elizabeth who declares, “My soul magnifies the Lord….” No Greek version has the name change, and commentators have mostly rejected it.1 But it has sometimes been suggested that there was no name in the original source: ‘And she said, “My soul magnifies the Lord….”’ Interestingly, Hannah’s prayer begins: ‘And she said, “My heart was made firm in the Lord….”’ Perhaps then Luke or an early scribe added the name Mary for clarity, and some Latin copyists changed it to Elizabeth because it seemed to fit her situation better.

This may also explain why Mary’s name is included but not Elizabeth’s in verse 56, immediately after the Magnificat: “And Mary remained with her about three months and returned to her home.” If Mary has just been speaking, we would expect: “And she remained with Elizabeth….”2

I may have an answer to the problem

There may be another way to resolve the tension in the canonical text between a prayer attributed to Mary and Hannah’s humiliation, which is to suppose that Mary speaks of Elizabeth’s experience in verse 48. She magnifies the Lord, she exults in God as saviour, because he has looked favourably upon the humiliation of Elizabeth, just as long before he had looked favourably on the humiliation of Hannah.

This provides a much stronger narrative connection with Elizabeth’s emphatic pronouncement of blessing on Mary “among women.”

The Magnificat constitutes an answer to Elizabeth’s question: “And why is this granted to me that the mother of my Lord should come to me?” (1:43). Mary has come in order to affirm the eschatological significance of Elizabeth’s pregnancy.

Future generations will call Mary blessed because of what God has done for her, in direct fulfilment of Elizabeth’s blessing.

Mary rejoices over the baby leaping in her kinswoman’s womb as tangible evidence of the divine saving action that is currently underway.

She picks up the theme of eschatological reversal for the same reason: it underlines the significance of what has happened to Elizabeth for the future of Israel.

This reading of the Magnificat is not without its difficulties. We may feel bound to conclude that “he looked on the humiliation of his slave-woman” (1:48*) echoes Mary’s “Behold, the slave-woman of the Lord…” (1:38*); and that “the powerful one did great things for me” (1:49*) refers to the same event as “he looked on the humiliation of his slave-woman.” But in what must unquestionably be regarded as an awkward merging of traditions, one way or another, these are not insuperable obstacles.

So to paraphrase the first strophe of the Magnificat:

My soul magnifies the Lord, and my spirit exulted over God my saviour, because he looked on the humiliation of my relative Elizabeth, his slave-woman. Because, in her joy and in the sign of the presence of the child in her, she has blessed me and has affirmed my vocation, I know now that all generations will bless me. For the powerful one did great things for me; and holy is his name, and his mercy is to generations and generations for those fearing him.

Amen. Happy Christmas.

• 1

  See the discussion in I. Howard Marshall, The Gospel of Luke: A Commentary on the Greek Text (1978), 77-78; J. Nolland, Luke 1-9:20 (1989). I have not read Jeffrey Kloha, “Elizabeth’s Magnificat (Luke 1:46)” in Peter Doble and Jeffrey Kloha (eds.), Texts and Traditions: Essays in Honour of J. Keith Elliott (2014), 200-19.

• 2

  Cf. Nolland, Luke 1-9:20, 63: “the pronoun for Elizabeth and name for Mary in v 56 seem to betray an earlier form of the text that moved from v 45 to v 56.”