Genesis 15.13 "four hundred years" Israel’s corporate life began with four
centuries of silence and oppression, when Egypt gave them the doubled
task, and Heaven grew strangely still, giving them neither voice nor
vision.
Is it but one of the chance repetitions of history that Israel’s
national life should end, too, with four hundred years of silence?
for such is the coincidence, if, indeed, we may not call it something
more.
It is, however, just such a coincidence as the Hebrew mind, quick to
trace resemblances and to discern signs, would grasp firmly and
eagerly.
It would revive their long-deferred and dying hopes, overlaying the
near future with its gold. Possibly it was this very coincidence that
now transformed their hope into expectation, and set their hearts
listening for the advent of the Messiah.
Did not Moses come when the task was doubled? And was not the four
hundred years silence broken by the thunders of the Exodus, as the I
AM, once again asserting Himself, "sent redemption to His people?"
And so, counting back their silent year’s since Heaven’s last voice
came to them through their prophet Malachi, they caught in its very
silences a sound of hope, the footfall of the forerunner, and the
voice of the coming Lord.
But where, and how, shall the long silence be broken? We must go for
our answer and here, again, we see a correspondence between the new
Exodus and the old to the tribe of Levi, and to the house of Amram
and Jochebed.
Expositor’s Bible, Luke's Gospel 1
