GOD’S WORD FOR YOU
LUKE 1:5a
Gabriel Predicts John’s Birth
5 In the days of Herod, king of Judea, there was a priest of Abijah’s division named Zechariah.
Luke has already told us that he did research for the story of Jesus. The most likely source for his narrative in the first three chapters is Mary, Jesus’ mother. Mary would have been a girl in her teens when Jesus was born and a woman in her mid seventies when she spoke with Luke. As we noted before, Luke was in Judea and Jerusalem in about 59 AD (Acts 21:15).
Luke’s Gospel is often arranged topically, but he pays more attention to specific dates than the other Gospel authors. He starts us off “in the days of Herod, king of Judea.” Luke means King Herod the Great, whose reign is believed to have ended in 4 B.C. This date is used because in his Antiquities (17,6,4), Josephus describes a lunar eclipse that took place just before Herod’s death. According to the NASA “Catalogue of Lunar Eclipses” (eclipse.gsfc.nasa.gov), this eclipse took place on March 13, 4 BC, but there were also two other partial eclipses in 5 BC (April 4 and September 27) and another on January 20, 1 BC. The 4 BC date for Herod’s death is the one accepted by most historians.
Luke introduces a priest named Zechariah. He was not a high priest like Aaron or Eli, but just an ordinary priest. King David divided the priestly families into a duty roster of twenty-four divisions (1 Chronicles 24:7-18). In this list, Abijah is the eighth division. According to King David’s system, that meant that the family division of Abijah was to serve in the temple on the eighth week following the religious new year (Passover) and again on the eighth week following the secular new year (Rosh Hashanah). The whole division was required to serve on the Sabbath of their scheduled week, and then one family within the division (chosen either by lot or by some other rotation) would stay on duty in the temple for the remainder of the week until the next division took over on the following Sabbath. All twenty-four divisions were to serve for the high festival of Atonement (Tabernacles), and possibly at the other two pilgrim festivals (Passover and Pentecost).
This does not tell us when Zechariah was serving. The cycle of Jewish years included an extra month in leap years, and this would change the rotation of the priests. Also, the whole system was thrown into upheaval after the return from the exile, when only twenty-two of the twenty-four families of priests could be accounted for (Nehemiah 12:1-7). The families in Nehemiah are given according to the (then) current family heads, and so which division corresponded to an earlier division is uncertain according to the text. Abijah is once again mentioned, but twelfth rather than eighth (Nehemiah 12:4).
According to an ancient Christian tradition (not necessarily accurate), Zechariah was serving in the temple in September. The reason for thinking of that date might be because of Luke 1:10, when the whole crowd of the people were praying outside at the hour of burning incense. Luke’s words suggest a very large group, which would not be usual except during one of the larger festivals. Certainly Tabernacles, which takes place in September or October (depending on the phases of the moon), would be such a time, but we can’t really be precise.
Zechariah was an ordinary priest from an ordinary priestly family. Luke has begun by introducing a priest in the way several books of the Old Testament begin (Exodus 2:1; Jeremiah 1:1; Ezekiel 1:1-3, and possibly Zechariah 1:1). We are therefore drawn into the story from the point of view of a believing family, a servant of God, and a man who was well-versed in the Scriptures. When we think about the announcement of the coming of the Messiah, a question that inevitably arises is: What did the Old Testament priests think about this? And the answer is the story given by Luke: This priest was amazed and thrilled (as he shows in his song, the Benedictus, Luke 1:68-79), and his son John would be an important part of the story.
The Holy Spirit is drawing our attention to the subject of the coming of the Savior, Jesus Christ, in the flesh. Already we have an approximate date, a general location, and the context of a believing priest of God. By mentioning Herod to give us the date and by mentioning Zechariah the priest to introduce his son John, Luke has deftly introduced the three offices the Savior would fulfill perfectly to glory of God: he came as prophet, priest and king. Our personal sins and failings are covered by the blood of Jesus, just as the failings and sins of the wicked king Herod, the doubting priest Zechariah, and the martyred prophet John were covered. Jesus came for all of us, to give his life as a ransom for many.
In Christ,
Pastor Timothy Smith
Archives by Wisconsin Lutheran Chapel: http://www.wlchapel.org/worship/daily-devotion/
Pastor Smith serves St. Paul’s Lutheran Church, New Ulm, Minnesota