Luke 1:48
Luke 1:4848For He has looked with favor on the humble state of His servant. From now on all generations will call me blessed.
JW commentary on the Magnificat reads Mary's words as ordinary Hebraic poetry praising Jehovah for choosing a humble servant. "All generations will declare me happy" is treated as a prediction that Mary will be remembered with respect, not as a ground for any special honour. Where Catholic readings underwrite Marian devotion, the Watchtower swings to the opposite extreme — Mary is barely mentioned, and the Magnificat's self-prediction about her ongoing blessedness sits awkwardly in JW publications that effectively forbid the very thing she predicts.
Mary herself, by the Holy Spirit, says "from now on all generations will call me blessed." Protestants can and should honour Mary as the chosen vessel of the Incarnation — not as an object of prayer or a co-mediator, but as a model disciple ("let it be to me according to your word," v. 38) and as the woman through whom God sent his Son (). The Protestant balance — captured in Luther's 1522 Matthew sermon "we have an obligation to honour Mary, but be careful to give her honour that is fitting" — affirms Mary's blessedness without Catholic veneration. The JW position that the Magnificat is poetic exaggeration sits poorly with Mary's own Spirit-inspired prediction.
The NWT renders makariousin as "declare me happy" rather than the standard "call me blessed." The substitution is part of a systematic NWT pattern across the Beatitudes and elsewhere (compare , ) where makarios is rendered "happy" rather than "blessed." The flattening loses the covenantal-theological category of blessedness — divine favour resting on a person — and replaces it with a subjective emotional state. The Magnificat in particular suffers from the swap because Mary is not predicting that she will be remembered as cheerful; she is predicting that she will be recognised across history as the recipient of divine favour. The "Happy" rendering re-codes the verse for a category the Watchtower's spare Mariology can comfortably ignore.