1:68,69
The song actually comprises of a single sentence in the original Greek, and is referred to as the Benedictus. As with the Magnificat, this comes from the first word of the song in Latin.
“He has visited and redeemed His people”. Through the Holy Spirit Zechariah realised what was happening. God has come to His people in order to redeem them. He is doing this by “raising up a horn of salvation”. Horn is a symbol of strength, and here refers to Jesus. Jesus is the One who will bring salvation. Humanly speaking, Jesus would come from the House of David. In these days when our society is increasingly anti-Christian we need to realise more and more that Jesus is the "horn of salvation", a strong saviour.
1:70,71
The promise of salvation permeates the whole of the Old Testament, even immediately after the fall (Gen 3:15). In Jesus that salvation comes to earth. V71 expresses things in rather political terms. The Israelites longed for freedom from the Romans, and tended to see salvation in these terms. Now we know that the salvation that Jesus brought was far greater than this, and that the blindness of most of the Jews to this fact was a large part of the problem, and led to their rejection of Jesus. However, we should also note that Israel has been hated by many nations throughout history, and is still hated by many nations. When Jesus comes back she will indeed be saved from the nations, but she needs to realise her own need of forgiveness first, only then can the “practical” salvation come.
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