He hath holpen his servant Israel. — Up to this point the hymn has been one of personal thanks-giving. Now we find that all the soul of the maiden of Nazareth is with her people. Her joy in the “great things “which God has done for her rests on the fact that they are “great things “for Israel also. The word which she uses for her people is that which expresses their relation to God as “the servant” of Jehovah, who is prominent in the later Chapter s of Isaiah, and is in Isaiah 41:8 identified with the nation, as elsewhere with the nation’s Head (Isaiah 42:1). One may see in the utterance of this hope already seen as realised, an indication of the early date of the hymn. At the time when St. Luke wrote, the rejection, not the restoration of Israel, was the dominant thought in men’s minds.
In remembrance. — Literally, in order to remember. He helped Israel, as with the purpose to prove Himself not unmindful of His promised mercy.