Luke 1:5-25

The Announcement of the Birth of the Fore-runner

5. There was in the days The elaborate style of the Preface is at once replaced by one of extreme directness and simplicity, full of Hebraic expressions; shewing that here St Luke begins to use, and probably to translate, some Aramaic document which had come into his hands. The remainder of this chapter is known as the Protevangeliumthe Gospel History before the Birth of Christ. The sweetness and delicate reserve of the narrative, together with the incidents on which it dwells, have led to the not unreasonable conjecture that the Virgin Mary had written down some of those things which she long -kept in her heart."

of Herod, the king Towards the close of the reign of Herod the Great. The true sceptre had departed from Judah. Herod was a mere Idumaean usurper imposed on the nation by the Romans. "Regnum ab AntonioHerodi datum, victor Augustus auxit." Tac. Hist.v. 9.

of Judea Besides Judaea, Samaria, and Galilee, his kingdom included the most important regions of Peraea (Jos. Antt.xv. 5, § 6, 7; B. J.i. 20, § 3, 4).

Zacharias The common Jewish name Zachariah (2 Kings 14:29; Ezra 8:3; Ezra 8:11; Zechariah 1:1; 1Ma 5:18, &c.) means -remembered by Jehovah." The Jews highly valued the distinction of priestly birth (Jos. Vit. 1). The notion that Zacharias was a High Priest and that his vision occurred on the great Day of Atonement is refuted by the single word ἔλαχε "his lotwas," Luke 1:9.

of the course The word ephemeriameans first -a daily ministry" (Heb. Mishmereth) and then a class of the priesthood which exercised its functions for a week. Aaron had four sons, but the two elder Nadab and Abihu were struck dead for using strange fire in the sanctuary (Leviticus 10). From the two remaining sons Eleazar and Ithamar had sprung in the days of David twenty-four families, sixteen from the descendants of Eleazar, and eight from those of Ithamar. To these David distributes by lot the order of their service from week to week, each for eight days inclusively from sabbath to sabbath (1 Chronicles 24:1-19; 2 Chronicles 31:2). After the Babylonish exile only four of the twenty-four courses returned a striking indication of the truth of the Jewish saying that those who returned from the exile were but like the chaff in comparison of the wheat. The four families of which the representatives returned were those of Jedaiah, Immer, Pashur, and Harim (Ezra 2:36-39). But the Jews concealed the heavy loss by subdividing these four families into twenty-four courses to which they gave the original names, and this is alluded to in Nehemiah 13:30 ("I … appointed the wardsof the priests and the Levites, every one in his business"). This arrangement continued till the fall of Jerusalem a. d. 70 at which time, on the ninth of the month Ab (Aug. 5), we are told that the course in waiting was that of Jehoiarib (Jos. Bell. Jud.vi. 5), Taanith, iv. 6: Derenbourg, Palest. p. 291. Reckoning back from this we find that the course of Abijah went out of office on Oct. 9, b.c. 6, a.u.c. 748 (but see Lewin, Fasti Sacri, p. 191). The reader should bear in mind that our received era for the Birth of Christ (a.u.c. 753) was only fixed by the Abbot Dionysius Exiguus in the 6th century, and is probably four years wrong.

of Abia 1 Chronicles 24:10, "the eighth [lot came forth] to Abijah." This was not one of the four families which had returned, but the name was soon revived (Nehemiah 12:4). Josephus tells us that he enjoyed the high distinction of belonging by birth to the first of the twenty-four courses (Vit.1).

Elisabeth The same name as Elisheba (-one whose oath is by God," comp. Jehoshebah, 2 Kings 11:2), the wife of Aaron, Exodus 6:23; mentioned by name according to Ibn Ezra as -the mother of the priesthood."