Luke 1:39

Luke 1:39. In these days. Mary returned after three months (Luke 1:56), yet before the birth of John (Luke 1:57). Her visit must therefore have been less than a month after the Annunciation.

With haste, implies that she started at the first opportunity. Hence the improbability that her marriage with Joseph intervened. The purpose of the journey was to find the confirmation indicated by the words of the angel, and to congratulate her kinswoman. The latter would not in itself be a sufficient reason for a betrothed wife to travel alone, or for a newly married bride to leave her husband.

Into the hill-country, of Judea.

Into a city of Judah, a city of the tribe of Judah. The more usual form in the New Testament is ‘Judea,' but in Matthew 2:6, the same word occurs twice with the same meaning in a quotation from the Old Testament (comp. Joshua 21:11), where ‘the hill-country of Judah' is spoken of. Hence the possibility that this is translated from some Hebrew document. Jerusalem is not meant, for that was the city, and Zacharias did not live at Jerusalem (Luke 1:23; Luke 1:65). Most think it was Hebron, which was given to the sons of Aaron in the hill-country of Judah (Joshua 19:11), but this cannot certainly be inferred. Thomson (Land and Book) accepts 'Ain Karim, the traditional birth-place of John the Baptist. (See cut.) The view that the name of the place is here given, namely, ‘Juttah' (Joshua 21:16), is a conjecture to which there are positive objections.