Luke 1:38 - Ellicott's Commentary On The Whole Bible

Behold the handmaid of the Lord... — The words seem to show a kind of half-consciousness that the lot which she thus accepts might bring with it unknown sufferings, as well as untold blessedness. She shrinks, as it were, from the awfulness of the position thus assigned to her, but she can say, as her Son said afterwards, when His time of agony was come, “Not my will, but Thine be done.” It may be that the more immediate peril of which St. Matthew speaks (1:19). flashed even then upon her soul as one that could not be escaped. (Comp. Luke 2:35.)