In the days after receiving the news that she would conceive the Son of God by the Holy Spirit, Mary left Nazareth and departed for the hill country of Judea to escape the social condemnation of her community.

Mary had entered into a betrothal contract with Joseph so that they were legally considered to be husband and wife. It would be expected that they would not have any sexual relations between the betrothal and their wedding day.

Mary had not engaged in sexual relations, yet she was pregnant and would have been considered unfaithful to her marriage contract and faced the probability that Joseph would divorce her because of her perceived unfaithfulness. Potentially, both she and her baby would struggle to survive as social outcasts, and she even faced the possibility of execution according to Mosaic law.

It is no wonder that “Mary got ready and hurried to a town in the hill country of Judea” to visit her relative, Elizabeth, a woman who was disgraced due to her barren womb, much as Hannah, from the hill country of Ephraim, had experienced a thousand years earlier (1 Samuel 2:1–10).

However, in their meeting, both Elizabeth and Mary received assurance and comfort. At the sound of Mary’s greeting, Elizabeth’s child, the future John the Baptizer, leaped within her, and Elizabeth, filled with the Holy Spirit, blessed Mary for believing that the Lord would do what He had said.