Luke 1:78-79

‘Because of the tender mercy of our God, whereby the day-spring from on high will visit us, to shine on those who sit in darkness and the shadow of death, to guide our feet into the way of peace.’

And this will be because of God’s tenderness and compassion in bringing into the world a new dawning, the One Who is like the dawning of a new day, the One Who is the rising Sun of Righteousness (Malachi 4:2), who will come to ‘visit’ the world in redemption (Luke 1:68), and shine on those who sit in darkness.

‘Day spring.’ The Greek is ‘anatole’ which means ‘rising, that which rises’. It is used in the Old Testament to translate ‘the branch’ in Jeremiah 23:5; Zechariah 3:8; Zechariah 6:12, thus having Messianic connections. It also commonly refers to the rising of the sun or moon. Thus here ‘the rising’ may be an abbreviation for the equivalent of the rising of sun or moon. This would tie in with the rising of ‘the sun of righteousness’ in Malachi 4:2. He is thus pictured as coming like a rising sun of righteousness, shining on the darkness in which His people sit (compare John 3:19-21).

We can also compare here the idea in Isaiah 60:1 where Israel is compared to a light which is to ‘arise and shine’, and this as a result of the glory of the Lord which rises (anatello) on them. This would make ‘the rising’ here the rising of the glory of the Lord which shines on His people who sit in darkness calling on them also to arise and shine.

Alternately we may consider Isaiah 60:19 in LXX reads:

a ‘And you will no more have the sun for a light by day,

b Nor will the rising (anatole) of the moon lighten your night,

b But the Lord will be your everlasting light,

a And God your glory.’

This may be seen by inverted parallelism as signifying that the Lord Who is their everlasting light parallels the ‘rising’ of the moon to lighten the night and was therefore ‘the rising from on high’ (with the sun paralleling ‘God your glory’). In all these examples the ‘rising’ is the rising of the Lord on His people in order to bring them light in the darkness.

For He is to be like a light shining on those who sit in darkness and the shadow of death. For this last compare Isaiah 9:2, ‘the people who walked in darkness have seen a great light, those who dwell in the land of the shadow of death, on them has the light shined’, which was also spoken in the context of the coming everlasting King (Isaiah 9:6). See also Isaiah 42:6-7; Isaiah 49:6; Isaiah 60:1. For sitting in darkness see Psalms 107:10. Jesus elsewhere also likens Himself to a light shining on those in darkness (John 3:19-21; John 8:12)

‘To guide our feet into the way of peace.’ Compare Isaiah 59:8. The ‘way of peace’ there is the way of righteousness, of godliness, of avoidance of violence, of the kind of behaviour that finally leads to peace for all men (Luke 2:14). This peace was to be the result of the coming of the everlasting King, the prince of peace, in order to guide our feet (Isaiah 9:6-7) and is the fruit of the Spirit (Galatians 5:22).