For he hath regarded the low estate of his
handmaiden,
&c.] Meaning, either her outward temporal estate, which was
very low and mean: David's family was now very much reduced, it
had its seat not at Jerusalem, but at Nazareth, in Galilee: Mary,
of that house, was a poor virgin, and Joseph, of the same, to
whom she was betrothed, was a poor carpenter; and yet God passed
by the rich and noble families of Jewish people, and pitched upon
this poor virgin to be the mother of the Messiah: or her estate,
in a spiritual sense, which, as that of every son and daughter of
Adam, was very low by the fall; for sin has run all mankind into
debt, and they have nothing to pay: it has stripped them of
original righteousness, and clothed them with rags; it has filled
them with diseases, from the crown of the head to the sole of the
feet; it has exposed them to a prison, into which being cast,
they must lie, till they have paid the uttermost farthing; and
has left them hopeless and helpless, poor and miserable, and
blind and naked: but God has remembered his elect, in this their
low estate, and has provided a Saviour for them, and sent him to
deliver them out of it; because his mercy endures forever; and
this Mary was sensible, and there rejoiced in God her Saviour:
for behold, from henceforth all generations;
not Jews only, but Gentiles also,
shall call me blessed;
both on account of her son she had now conceived, and was
bearing; because she was the mother of our Lord, who had reason
so to conclude, from the nature of the thing, and from the words
of the angel, and of Elisabeth, ( Luke 1:28 Luke 1:42 ) and much more
than Leah had, who said something like this, at the birth of her
second son, ( Genesis
30:13 ) and also on account of her interest in Christ, as God
her Saviour: in whom she was blessed, with all spiritual
blessings; so that she was truly blessed, and might well be
called so.