Luke 1:67-71

[clark thompson]

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Luke 1:67-71



KJV(i) 67 And his father Zacharias was filled with the Holy Ghost, and prophesied, saying, 68 Blessed be the Lord God of Israel; for he hath visited and redeemed his people, 69 And hath raised up an horn of salvation for us in the house of his servant David; 70 As he spake by the mouth of his holy prophets, which have been since the world began: 71 That we should be saved from our enemies, and from the hand of all that hate us;

MSTC(i) 67 And his father Zacharias was filled with the holy ghost, and prophesied, saying, 68 "Blessed be the Lord God of Israel, for he hath visited and redeemed his people. 69 And hath raised up a horn of salvation unto us, in the house of his servant David. 70 Even as he promised by the mouth of his holy prophets which were since the world began. 71 That we should be saved from our enemies: And from the hands of all that hate us:

These are my thoughts, please share yours.

67 He spoke the message wanted him to speak and boldly proclaimed God’s word. Even if there is no new revelation for the church we are to boldly proclaim the word of God which is the scriptures.

68 He knew that God had made this to happen. He knew that the God Israel served was the one true and only God. He knew that God’s plan was to redeem His people and He would do more than this and redeem any who believed, both Jew and Gentile.

69 He is not speaking of John here because John was not of the house of David; he was this whole time speaking of Jesus. John prepared the people for Jesus but Zechariah may have been the influence God gave John to aid him in gaining what he needed to do so.

70 He was this was the answer to what the prophets had spoke. The word God gave to the prophets will all be fulfilled even the parts that had not been finished yet. All things will come to pass by the power of Christ.

71 He may have thought that Jesus would bring Israel back to power; he may have thought Jesus would over throw Rome; He will over throw the powers of this earth when He returns.





Better to be a servant of the King than to be a king in hell.

[Fat]

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A couple of points here, first that Zacharias was saying in verse 68 is what he should've been saying in verse 22, if he had not doubted the angel Gabriel.
The point is made here that Zacharias was not speaking for himself but speaking for the Holy Ghost. Remember that the sword of the Holy Ghost is the word of God, the Scripture. The Holy Ghost refers to the Old Testament through Zacharias. (See 2 Samuel 22:3, and Psalms 18:2)

And the question in verse 71 concerning who are the enemies, is a question about the enemies of the Holy Ghost not of Zacharias, per se. They are the seed of Satan, the world who hates Christ also hates us.

Gen 3:15 And I will put enmity Between you and the woman, And between your seed and her Seed; He shall bruise your head, And you shall bruise His heel." John 7:7  The world cannot hate you, but it hates Me because I testify of it that its works are evil. John 15:19 If you were of the world, the world would love its own. Yet because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hates you.

[Zant Law]

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And the question in verse 71 concerning who are the enemies, is a question about the enemies of the Holy Ghost not of Zacharias, per se. They are the seed of Satan, the world who hates Christ also hates us.

I was reading Gill on this and he agrees with you but adds that the last enemy is the LAW that has been defeated by the Cross.
The LAW is not the enemy of the Holy Spirit but of us and Zacharias, so in that context he would disagree with you. 

[Frank T]

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Here is what Adam Clarke had to say about these verses.

Luke 1:67
Zacharias—prophesied—The word prophesy is to be taken here in its proper acceptation, for the predicting or foretelling future events.
Zacharias speaks, not only of what God had already done, but also of what he was about to do, in order to save a lost world.

Luke 1:68

Blessed be the Lord God of Israel; for, etc.—Zacharias praises God for two grand benefits which he had granted to his people. 1. He has visited them. 2. He has ransomed them.
1.      He speaks by the spirit of prophecy, which calls things that are not, as though they were; because they are absolutely determined by the Most High, and shall be all fulfilled in their season. God visits his people in the incarnation of Jesus Christ; therefore this Christ is called by him, Κυριος ὁ Θεος , Jehovah the God of Israel. Here the highest and most glorious character of the Supreme Being is given to Christ.
2.      This God redeems his people: it is for this end that he visits them. His soul is about to be made a sacrifice for sin: he becomes flesh, that he may suffer and die for the sin of the world. God, by taking upon him the nature of man, has redeemed that nature from eternal ruin.
He hath—redeemed— Εποιησε λυτρωσιν , he hath made a ransom—laid down the ransom price. Λυτροω signifies particularly to ransom a captive from the enemy, by paying a price. The following remarkable passage from Josephus, Ant. b. xiv. c. 14, sect. 1, fully illustrates this meaning of the original. “Herod, not knowing what had happened to his brother, hastened λυτρωσασθαι , to ransom him from the enemy, and was willing to pay λυτρον ὑπερ αυτου , a ransom for him, to the amount of three hundred talents.” Sinners are fallen into the hands of their enemies, and are captives to sin and death. Jesus ransoms them by his own blood, and restores them to life, liberty, and happiness. This truth the whole Bible teaches: this truth God has shown in certain measures, even to those nations who have not been favored with the light of his written word: for Christ is that true light, which enlightens every man that cometh into the world.
How astonishing is the following invocation of the Supreme Being, (translated from the original Sanscreet by Dr. C. Wilkins), still existing on a stone, in a cave near she ancient city of Gya, in the East Indies!
“The Deity, who is the Lord, the possessor of all, appeared in this ocean of natural beings, at the beginning of the Kalee Yoog (the age of contention and baseness). He who is omnipresent and everlastingly to be contemplated, the Supreme Being, the Eternal One, the Divinity worthy to be adored—Appeared here with a Portion of his Divine Nature. Reverence be unto thee in the form of (a) Bood-dha! Reverence be unto the Lord of the earth! Reverence be unto thee, an Incarnation of the Deity, and the Eternal One! Reverence be unto thee, O God, in the form of the God of mercy; the dispeller of pain and trouble, the Lord of all things, the Deity who overcometh the sins of the Kalee Yoog; the guardian of the universe, the emblem of mercy toward those who serve thee—(b) O’M! the possessor of all things in Vital Form! Thou art (c) Brahma, Veeshnoo, and Mahesa! Thou art Lord of the universe! Thou art under the form of all things, movable and immovable, the possessor of the whole! and thus I adore thee. Reverence be unto the Bestower Of Salvation, and the Ruler of the faculties! Reverence be unto thee, the Destroyer of the Evil Spirit! O Damordara, (d) show me favor! I adore thee, who art celebrated by a thousand names, and under various forms, in the shape of Bood-dha, the God of Mercy! Be propitious, O Most High God!”—Asiatic Researches, vol. i. pp. 284, 285.
(a)      Bood-dha. The name of the Deity, as author of happiness.
(b)      O’M. A mystic emblem of the Deity, forbidden to be pronounced but in silence. It is a syllable formed of the Sanscreet letters a, o o, which in composition coalesce, and make o, and the nasal consonant m. The first letter stands for the Creator, the second for the Preserver and the third for the Destroyer. It is the same among the Hindoos as יהוה Yehovah is among the Hebrews.
(c)      Brahma, the Deity in his creative quality. Veeshnoo, he who filleth all space, the Deity in his preserving quality. Mahesa, the Deity in his destroying quality. This is properly the Hindoo Trinity: for these three names belong to the same Being. See the notes to the Bhagvat Geeta.
(d)      Damordara, or Darmadeve, the Indian God of Virtue.

Luke 1:69

And hath raised up a horn of salvation—That is, a mighty and glorious Savior: a quotation from Psalm 18:2 . Horns are the well known emblems of strength, glory, and power, both in the sacred and profane writers, because the strength and beauty of horned animals consist in their horns. Horns have also been considered as emblems of light; therefore the heathen god Apollo is represented with horns, to point out the power, glory, and excellence of the solar light. The Chaldee paraphrast sometimes translates קרן keren , horn, by מלכות malcuth , or מלכותא malcutha , 1 Samuel 2:10 ; Jeremiah 48:25 , which signify a kingdom: but it is likely that the allusion is here made to the horns of the altar; and as the altar was a place of refuge and safety, and those who laid hold on its horns were considered to be under the protection of the Lord, so, according to the expression of Zacharias, Jesus Christ is a new altar, to which whosoever flees shall find refuge.
Some imagine that this form of speech is taken from the custom of ancient warriors, who had a horn of steel on the top of their helmets, which ordinarily lay flat, till the person came victorious from battle, and then it was erected, as emblematical of the victory gained. Such a horn as this is represented on the helmet of the Abyssinian kings and warriors: see the plates in Bruce’s Travels. To this custom of wearing or lifting up the horn, the following scriptures are thought to allude: 1 Samuel 2:10 ; Psalm 112:9 ; 148:4 ; Lamentations 2:17 . In ancient gems and coins, this form of the horn on helmets is easily discernible, sometimes flat, sometimes erected. A horn, filled with various fruits, was also the emblem of abundance among the ancients: hence their cornu copia , or horn of plenty. From all this we may learn that the Lord Jesus gives a luminous, powerful, prevalent, glorious, and abundant Salvation or Refuge to mankind.
In the house of his servant David—Or, in the family: so the word οικος , house, is often used in the Sacred Writings. In Luke 1:32 , the angel states that Mary was of the family of David; and Zacharias, who, from the nature of his office, must have been well acquainted with the public genealogical tables, attests the same thing. This is a matter of considerable importance; because it shows forth the truth of all the prophetic declarations, which uniformly state that the Messiah should come from the family and sit on the throne of David.

Luke 1:71

That we should be saved (literally, a salvation) from our enemies—As Zacharias spoke by the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, the salvation which he mentions here must necessarily be understood in a spiritual sense. Satan, death, and sin are the enemies from whom Jesus came to deliver us. Sin is the most dangerous of all, and is properly the only enemy we have to fear. Satan is without us, and can have no power over us, but what he gets through sin. Death is only in our flesh, and shall be finally destroyed (as it affects us) on the morning of the resurrection.
Jesus redeems from sin; this is the grand, the glorious, the important victory. Let us get sin cast out, and then we need, fear neither death, nor the devil.