GOD’S WORD FOR YOU
LUKE 1:5b-7
His wife was from the daughters of Aaron, and her name was Elizabeth. 6 Both of them were righteous in God’s sight, living blameless lives according to all the commandments and righteous requirements of the Lord. 7 They had no children because Elizabeth could not conceive, and both of them were well along in years.
We’ve already heard about Zechariah; now we learn about his wife, and about the two of them as a couple.
Elizabeth (᾽Ελισάβετ) is the Greek form of Elisheba (אֱלִישֶׁבַע), famous in Israel as the wife of Aaron, the first high priest. Her name means “My God is an oath,” that is to say, “I swear by my God.” When Luke says that she was descended from the daughters of Aaron, it isn’t a euphemism. He means that she was descended directly from the line of Aaron, the first high priest. Zechariah may have been an ordinary priest, but his wife was descended from Israel’s great priestly nobility.
This couple was righteous in God’s sight. That means that they were right with God; righteous according to God’s forensic, legal assessment. There is only one way to achieve that status before the Lord, and that is through faith in God and in his promise of a Savior. How will the righteous live? The Lord told Habakkuk: “The righteous will live by faith” alone (Habakkuk 2:4; Romans 1:17). Besides this, they also stood up to the assessment of other people, “living blameless lives.” Many translations are tempted to take the word amemptoi (ἄμεμπτοι) as an adverb, but it’s an adjective, describing the couple and therefore what people thought of them (see also Job 1:1). So they were blameless in God’s sight, and in the world’s sight, too. This was a good, God-fearing couple.
The two standards to which they are held are “the commandments and righteous requirements of the Lord.” The commandments are certainly the written commandments of God including especially the Ten Commandments. The “righteous requirements” emphasize the righteousness of their content more than what the content actually was. Those requirements are the whole will of God, written or not. They are, one could say, the spirit of the Law. These are the things Zechariah and Elizabeth lived up to in God’s own judgment. This doesn’t mean that they were without sin; it means that they understood that they had a Savior who was coming, and they looked forward to his arrival. They has no idea that their own son would one day point and say, “There he is!”
In fact, they had no idea that they would one day have a son. This final piece of information is given matter-of-factly without any relation to what comes before. They were righteous and blameless, and they did not have a son. Why? Not because they were being punished, or because one of them harbored some secret sin or temptation. No, they were childless because Elizabeth couldn’t conceive, and by now that were beyond the normal age for having children. This typically happens to a woman some time in her fifties, and it’s reasonable to think that Zechariah and Elizabeth were about that old. Humanly speaking, they no longer had any hope for a child.
This was like Israel itself. The priesthood was coming to its end. Very soon, the priests would no longer be required; their sacrifices and service would be completed. It was not the unexpected son who would accomplish this, but the one he would point to. That would be truly the final, pure, priestly act of the Levitical priests of God. John would point to the Savior and say, “There he is!” And in the work of Christ the work of the Levitical priests would end. It would all find its fulfillment on the cross, in the very body of the Savior. He was coming soon.
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