HE shall be great, and shall be called the Son of the Highest: and the Lord God shall give unto him the throne of his father David: And he shall reign over the house of Jacob for ever;* and of his kingdom there shall be no end.*
Then said Mary unto the angel, How shall this be, seeing I know not a man?* And the angel answered and said unto her, The Holy Ghost shall come upon thee, and the power of the Highest shall overshadow thee:* therefore also that holy thing which shall be born of thee shall be called the Son of God.* And, behold, thy cousin Elisabeth, she hath also conceived a son in her old age:* and this is the sixth month with her, who was called barren. For with God nothing shall be impossible. And Mary said, Behold the handmaid of the Lord;* be it unto me according to thy word. And the angel departed from her.
* Jacob is one of the great Patriarchs of the Old Testament, the son of Isaac and grandson of Abraham. He was known also as Israel, and the House of Jacob is the people of Israel. Each of Jacob’s twelve sons was the head of one of the Twelve Tribes of Israel. See also The Story of Joseph.
* The Kingdom left to his heirs by David was ended dramatically early in the sixth century BC, when the Babylonian Empire annexed it. The grief was felt keenly in Jesus’s day, especially as Israel had now passed under Roman imperial control. This line became important in another way early in the fourth century AD, when some started to teach that the Son of God was only a temporary manifestation of the Father, not one of an everlasting Trinity of Father, Son and Holy Spirit. A re-affirmation that Christ’s kingdom would have no end was consequently included in The Creed of AD 381, which is recited to this day at every communion service.
* Joseph was betrothed to Mary but according to tradition never married to her, and St Luke is clear that they had no sexual relations at any time. This is not to decry the marriage-bed: see Hebrews 13:4. It is to establish that in Mary the prophecy of Isaiah was fulfilled, “A virgin shall conceive and bear a son”, Isaiah 7:14. This is known as the miracle of the Sign, and a famous icon and many churches are named in honour of it. For a story about one such icon, see Sign of Deliverance.
* In Greek, the language used recalls the opening lines of the Bible, where God’s Spirit moves over the face of the formless universe prior to God’s mighty act of creation: see Genesis 1:1-3.
* Hitherto, the term ‘son of God’ had been used in the Bible to mean an angel or the King of Israel. It now took on an additional meaning.
* Elizabeth’s child was named John, and later known as John the Baptist and also John the Forerunner, as he led many to Jesus and practised a form of baptism similar to, though not the same as, Christian baptism.
* See Psalm 123:2.