3. The Ark of the Covenant in
1:35?
Many of the exegetes (Lyonnet,
Sahlin, Hebert, Laurentin) who think that Luke portrayed Mary as the Daughter
of Zion also find the symbolism of Mary as the Ark of the Covenant or as the
Tabernacle of divine glory. The key to this symbolism is 1:35c: “Power from the
Most High will overshadow [episkiazein]
you.” I have shown above (C2) that this clause and its parallel (“The Holy
Spirit will come upon you”) represent the language of early christology,
echoing phrases used in Gospel ministry accounts of the baptism and the
transfiguration. Yet the cloud of divine presence that overshadows at the
transfiguration is set against the background of Peter’s offer to build tabernacles for Jesus, Moses, and Elijah
(Luke 9:34–35). This reminds us that episkiazein,
“to overshadow” (along with skiazein,
“to shadow”) was used to describe how the cloud of God’s glory cast a shadow
upon the Tabernacle in the wilderness (Exod 40:35; Num 9:18, 22). Indeed, the
verbs for overshadow and shadow described several forms of the divine presence
in the OT, e.g., the cloud overshadowing the renewed Mount Zion and its festal
assemblies (Isa 4:5); the cloud overshadowing the Israelites when they departed
from the desert camp (Num 10:34[36]); God overshadowing His chosen ones (Deut
33:12; Ps 91:4); and the winged cherubim overshadowing the mercy seat or top of
the Ark of the Covenant (Exod 25:20; 1 Chr 28:18).
From this background we may
deduce that Luke is thinking of a divine presence overshadowing Mary, a
deduction also possible from the parallel line wherein the Holy Spirit comes
upon her. The power of that presence creatively brings about the conception of
the child, but that is not necessarily the same as Jesus being the embodiment
of the divine presence in the womb of Mary. I rejected above the contention
that “The Lord is with you” is the same as Zephaniah’s “The Lord is in your
midst.” And it is totally a guess to assume from the verb episkiazein that Luke thinks of Mary as the Tabernacle or the Ark
of the Covenant overshadowed by or containing the divine presence. To be
precise, in the OT the cherubim rather than God are said to overshadow the Ark;
moreover, the Ark and Tabernacle are not the only places overshadowed by divine
presence.
We have not finished the
discussion of Mary as the Ark of the Covenant, for it will reappear in the next
scene of the visitation (§ 12B on 1:43), even as will the theme of the Daughter
of Zion. If the evidence thus far adduced for either symbolism is not
convincing, the proponents argue that the evidence is cumulative. Let me
reserve judgment. But in showing myself dubious thus far, I do not wish to
convey the impression that in my opinion Luke did not think of Mary against the
background of the OT. As I have shown in D above, he draws her dialogue from
what he knows of her during the ministry. But her portrayal as a mother
conceiving a child is deeply influenced by OT portraits (especially that of
Hannah whose very name means “grace, favor”—see Note on “favored one” in 1:28),
as is the whole annunciation pattern. Moreover, by stressing Mary’s acceptance
of God’s word in 1:38, Luke has begun to associate her with those in Israel who
were “poor ones” (anawim) in the
sense of being totally dependent upon God for support. Luke will develop that
theme beautifully in the Magnificat. (Raymond E. Brown, The Birth of the Messiah: A Commentary on
the Infancy Narratives in the Gospels of Matthew and Luke [New York: Yale
University Press, 1993], 327-28)
Having seen that vss. 42 and 45
in Elizabeth’s canticle have both OT and NT background, let us turn now to the
intermediary verses. The question in vs. 43, “Who am I that the mother of my
Lord should come to me?”, vocalizes Elizabeth’s recognition that Jesus is the
Messiah. Both in the Gospel (20:41–44) and in Acts (2:34) Luke uses Ps 110:1,
“The Lord said to my Lord,” to show
that Jesus is the Messiah and Son of God; and Elizabeth is recognizing Mary as
the mother of “my Lord,” i.e., of the Messiah. The implicit citation of a
Davidic messianic psalm may have suggested to Luke the reminiscence of a scene
in 2 Sam 6 in which David figured, a scene which, like the visitation, took
place in the hill country of Judea near Jerusalem. At David’s command the Ark
of the Covenant was being brought from the Philistine border country toward
Jerusalem, but David hesitated to take it into his city (Jerusalem) because it
had caused the death of a man who touched it. He exclaimed, “How can the Ark of
the Lord come to me?” (6:9). The resemblance to Elizabeth’s question is
noteworthy, especially since as the result of David’s self-questioning the Ark
of the Covenant remained at the house of Obed-edom the Gittite for three months
(6:11), even as Mary the mother of the Lord remained with Elizabeth about three
months (1:56). This resemblance has been seized upon to defend the (dubious) thesis
already mentioned (§ 11, E3) that Luke thinks of Mary as the Ark of the
Covenant. However, one should be cautious in drawing an identification from
such echoes of an OT scene. It is the Ark’s power to kill that causes David to
ask his question—a motivation quite different from that of Elizabeth’s
question. The Ark’s eventual journey to Jerusalem after the three-month stay is
quite different from Mary’s return home. The connecting link in the Lucan
reminiscences may be David rather than the Ark. When David goes to Araunah the
Jebusite to purchase the threshing floor that will ultimately become the site
of the Temple in Jerusalem, Araunah asks, “What is this, that my lord the king
has come to his servant?” (2 Sam 24:21). This question also resembles Elizabeth’s
question, and it does not concern the Ark. (Raymond E. Brown, The Birth of the Messiah: A Commentary on
the Infancy Narratives in the Gospels of Matthew and Luke [New York: Yale
University Press, 1993], 344-35)
