Luke 1:27
“to a virgin pledged to be married to a man whose name was Joseph, of David’s house. The virgin’s name was Mary.”
What does Luke 1:27 mean?
Mary was a young Jewish woman engaged to Joseph, a carpenter from Nazareth who traced his family line back to King David. This detail about Joseph's ancestry mattered deeply to Luke's first readers because Jewish tradition held that the promised Messiah would come from David's line, and Luke wanted them to understand that Jesus had legitimate roots in that lineage. The mention that Mary was a virgin is both a straightforward historical note and, in context with the angel's visit in the verses just before, signals that something extraordinary was about to happen in her life. Luke presents her simply and respectfully, as a real person in a real situation, going about the business of being engaged to marry, unaware that she was about to become central to God's plan for humanity.