Luke 1:5-7

1. The trial: Luke 1:5-7. For 400 years direct communications between the Lord and His people had ceased. To the lengthened seed-time of the patriarchal, Mosaic, and prophetic periods, had succeeded a season of harvest. A fresh seed-time, the second and last phase of divine revelation, was about to open; this time God would address Himself to the whole world. But when God begins a new work, He does not scornfully break with the instrument by which the past work has been effected. As it is from the seclusion of a convent that in the middle ages He will take the reformer of the Church, so it is from the loins of an Israelitish priest that He now causes to come forth the man who is to introduce the world to the renovation prepared for it. The temple itself, the centre of the theocracy, becomes the cradle of the new covenant, of the worship in spirit and in truth. There is, then, a divine suitability in the choice both of the actors and theatre of the scene which is about to take place.

The days of Herod (Luke 1:5) designate the time of this prince's reign. This fact agrees with Matthew 2:1 et seq., where the birth of Jesus is also placed in the reign of Herod. It may be inferred from Matthew 2:19 that this birth happened quite at the end of this reign. According to Josephus, the death of Herod must have taken place in the spring of the year 750 U.C. Jesus, therefore, must have been born at latest in 749, or quite at the beginning of 750. It follows from this, that in the fifth century our era was fixed at least four years too late.

The title of King of Judea had been decreed to Herod by the Senate on the recommendation of Antony and Octavius. The course of Abia was the eighth of the twenty-four courses or ephemeriae into which, from David's time, the college of priests had been divided (1Ch 24:10). Each of these classes did duty for eight days, from one Sabbath to another, once every six months (2 Kings 11:9). ᾿Εφημερία, properly daily service; thence: in rotation, returning on a fixed day; thence: lastly, the group of persons subject to this rotation. As we know that the day on which the temple of Jerusalem was destroyed was the ninth of the fifth month of the year 823 U.C., that is to say, the 4th of August of the year 70 of our era; and as, according to the Talmud, it was the first ephemeria which was on duty that day, we may reckon, calculating backwards, that in the year which must have preceded that in which Jesus was born, that is to say, probably in 748, the ephemeria of Abia was on duty in the week from the 17th to the 23d of April, and in that from the 3d to the 9th of October. Therefore John the Baptist would be born nine months after one of these two dates, and Jesus six months later, consequently in the month of July 749, or in the month of January 750. In this calculation, however, of the time of year to which the births of John and Jesus should be assigned, everything depends on the determination of the year of the birth of Jesus. But this is a question which is not yet decided with any certainty.

The Hebraistic colouring of the style is seen particularly: 1 st, in the expression ἐν ταῖς ἡμέραις (בִּימֵי); 2 dly, in the connection of propositions by means of the particle καί, instead of the Greek syntactical construction by means of relative pronouns and conjunctions; 3 dly, in the employment of the verb ἐγένετο in the sense of וַיַהִי. The subject of ἐγένετο is not, as is generally thought, the word ἱερεύς, but rather the verb ἦν, which must be understood in the three following propositions (comp. Luke 1:8, ἐγένετο ἔλαχε).

The Alex. reading γυνὴ αὐτῷ, which is more uncouth and Hebraistic than ἡ γυνὴ αὐτοῦ, is probably the true reading.

The term righteous (Luke 1:6) indicates general conformity of conduct to the divine precepts; this quality does not absolutely exclude sin (comp. Luke 1:18-20). It simply supposes that the man humbly acknowledges his sin, strives to make amends for it, and, aided from on high, struggles against it.

The Byz. reading ἐνώπιον, in the presence, under the eyes of, appears preferable to the Alexandrian reading ἐναντίον, in the face of, before. God and man cannot be represented as being face to face in this passage, where God's judgment on man is in question (see at Luke 1:8). ᾿Ενώπιον answers to לִפְנֵי, and expresses the inward reality of this righteousness.

The two terms ἐντολαί and δικαιώματα, commandments and ordinances, have been distinguished in different ways. The former appears to us to refer to the more general principles of the moral law to the Decalogue, for example; the latter, to the multitude of particular Levitical ordinances. Δικαίωμα properly is, what God has declared righteous.

As the expression before God brings out the inward truth of this righteousness, so the following, walking in..., indicates its perfect fidelity in practice. The term blameless no more excludes sin here than Philippians 3:6. The wellknown description in Romans 7 explains the sense in which this word must be taken. The germ of concupiscence may exist in the heart, even under the covering of the most complete external obedience.

Ver. 7. In the heart of this truly theocratic family, so worthy of the divine blessing, a grievous want was felt. To have no children was a trial the more deeply felt in Israel, that barrenness was regarded by the Jews as a mark of divine displeasure, according to Genesis 2 Καθότι does not signify because that exactly, but in accordance with this, that. It is one of those terms which, in the New Testament, only occur in Luke's writings (Luke 19:9, and four times in the Acts). If, therefore, as Bleek thinks, Luke had found these narratives already composed in Greek, he must nevertheless admit that he has modified their style. The last proposition cannot, it appears, depend on καθότι, seeing that; for it would not be logical to say, “ They had no children...seeing that they were both well stricken in years.” So, many make these last words an independent sentence. The position, however, of the verb ἦσαν at the end, tends rather to make this phrase depend on καθότι. To do this, it suffices to supply a thought: They had no children, and they retained but little hope of having any, seeing that...” The expression προβεβηκότες ἐν ταῖς ἡμέραις αὐτῶν is purely Hebraistic (Genesis 18:11; Genesis 24:1; Joshua 13:1; 1 Kings 1:1 בּוֹאבַּיָּמִים).