Thou shalt call his name Jesus. — There is nothing strange in this being to Joseph the first knowledge of the name, which St. Luke tells us (Luke 1:31) had been previously imparted to Mary. The customs of the Jews were, as we have seen, against any communications between the bride and bridegroom during the period of betrothal, and the facts of the case (including Mary’s visit to Elizabeth) would make it more improbable than ever.
The name Jesus was one full of meaning, but it was not as yet a specially sacred name. In its Old Testament form of Jehoshua (Numbers 13:16), Joshua, or Jeshua (Numbers 14:6; Nehemiah 8:17), it meant “Jehovah is salvation;” and the change of the name of the captain of Israel from Hoshea, which did not include the divine name, to the form which gave this full significance (Numbers 13:16) had made it the expression of the deepest faith of the people. After the return from Babylon it received a new prominence in connection with the high priest Joshua, the son of Josedech (Haggai 1:1; Zechariah 3:1), and appears in its Greek form in Jesus the father, and again in the son, of Sirach. In the New Testament itself we find it borne by others (see Note on Matthew 1:1). It had not been directly associated, however, with Messianic hopes, and the intimation that it was to be the name of the Christ gave a new character to men’s thoughts of the kingdom. Not conquest, but “salvation” — deliverance, not from human enemies only or chiefly, nor from the penalties of sin, but from the sins themselves. As spoken by the angel to the dreamer it was the answer to prayers and hopes, going beyond the hope, and purifying it from earthly thoughts. As recorded by the Evangelist it was a witness that he had been taught the true nature of the kingdom of the Christ.