Gabriel announces Jesus' birth to Mary
Luke 1:26–38; Matthew 1:18–25; Isaiah 7:14
Gabriel told Mary, a young woman of Nazareth engaged to Joseph of David's family, that she would conceive by the Holy Spirit and bear the Son of God, who would reign on David's throne forever.
Behold, you will conceive in your womb and give birth to a son, and shall name him ‘Jesus.’ He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High. The Lord God will give him the throne of his father David
Luke 1:31–32 (World English Bible)
Mary asked how this could be, since she was a virgin. The angel answered that the Holy Spirit would come on her, and that nothing is impossible with God; her elderly relative Elizabeth was already six months pregnant. Mary answered simply that she was the Lord's servant.
When Joseph learned that Mary was expecting, he planned to end the engagement quietly, until an angel told him in a dream that the child was from the Holy Spirit and that he should name him Jesus, “for it is he who shall save his people from their sins” (Matthew 1:21). Matthew sees here the fulfillment of Isaiah's sign of a virgin bearing a son called Immanuel, “God with us” (Matthew 1:23; Isaiah 7:14).
Places
Dating notes
Ussher: 5 BC, in the sixth month after John was conceived (Luke 1:26).