Charles Ellicott Commentary Luke 1:27

"to a virgin betrothed to a man whose name was Joseph, of the house of David; and the virgin`s name was Mary." — Luke 1:27 (ASV)

To a virgin betrothed to a man whose name was Joseph.—The canonical Gospels tell us nothing about Mary's parentage, and apocryphal legends have no claim to credibility. The assertions—that her mother’s name was Anna, that she surpassed the young women of her own age in wisdom, that she went as a child into the Temple, that she had many who sought her hand in marriage, and that they agreed to decide their claims by laying their rods before the Holy Place and seeing which budded, with Joseph thus becoming the accepted suitor—may be worth mentioning for their influence on Christian art, but they have no claim to be considered even tradition.

The scarce details in the Gospels are as follows:

1. That she was a “cousin,” or more generally a “kinswoman,” of Elizabeth, and may, therefore, have been, through her parentage, wholly or partly descended from Aaron.

2. That she had a sister who, according to a somewhat doubtful interpretation of an ambiguous sentence, may also have had the name Mary or Mariam (the “Miriam” of the Old Testament), and later became the wife of Cleophas, or, more correctly, Clopas (John 19:25).

The absence of any mention of her parents suggests she was an orphan, and the entire narrative of the Nativity implies poverty. Assuming the Magnificat was not merely a sudden inspiration of the moment but, in some sense, the expression of cherished thoughts held for years, we may think of her as feeding upon the psalms, hymns, and prophecies of the Sacred Books. Knowing, as she did, that the man to whom she was betrothed was of the house of David, this may well have guided her expectations of redemption toward looking for the Christ, who was to be the son of David.

Regarding Joseph, we know that he was, possibly by a twofold lineage (but see Note on Luke 3:23), the heir of that house and must have known himself to be so. He was merely a carpenter in a Galilean village, probably older than his betrothed, possibly a widower with sons and daughters, or perhaps the guardian of nephews and nieces who had been left orphans. However, the documents containing his genealogy must have been precious heirlooms. The hopes that God would raise up the tabernacle of David that had fallen, to which one of those sons or nephews later gave expression (Acts 15:16), could never have been completely extinguished.