The account of the visitation is in four parts. First, there is the brief narrative introduction to the visit itself (vv. 39–41a). There is no reason to think Mary’s visit was to check out the angel’s statement about Elizabeth; Mary had already accepted Gabriel’s word as true. The two women, not only kin but drawn by a common experience, meet in an unnamed village in the Judean hills. The one is old and her son will close an age; the other is young and her son will usher in the new. Even the unborn