Luke 1:67-79

The song of Zechariah, called from the first word of it in the Vulgate the Benedictus. It is usually divided into five strophes, but it is more obviously divisible into two main parts, Luke 1:67-75; Luke 1:76-79. (Briggs, The Messiah of the Gospels, calls these divisions strophes, thus recognising only two.) Hillmann (Jahrb. f. prot. Theol., 1891) regards the first part as a purely Jewish Psalm, having no reference to the birth of the Baptist; furnished with a preface, Luke 1:67, and an epilogue referring to the Baptist as the forerunner of Jesus by the evangelist. J. Weiss (in Meyer) seems to accept this conclusion, only suggesting that the second part (Luke 1:76-79) might be in the source used by Lk., appended to the Psalm by the Jewish-Christian redactor.