This took place in the year immediately prior to AD 0 – in Judah, near Jerusalem. Mary, three months pregnant with Jesus, returns home. The elderly Elizabeth gives birth. “The Lord had shown great mercy to her.”
And on the eighth day they came to circumcise the infant. And they would have called him Zechariah after the name of his father, but his mother, responding, said, “No; he shall be called John.” And they said to her, “None of your relatives is called by this name.” And they made signs to his father, inquiring what he desired him to be called. And he requested a writing tablet and wrote, declaring, “His name is John.” And they all marvelled.
A dispute arises over the child’s name. Elizabeth is quite definite – “he shall be called John.” John means “the Lord has given”. She had no doubt at all about who had given her this child in her old age. Zechariah, the father, (who has been dumb ever since he disbelieved the prophesy of the angel Gabriel that they would have a son in their old age) then writes “His name is John” and begins to speak again.
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And immediately his mouth was opened and his tongue loosed, and he spoke, honouring God. And fear came to be on all their neighbours. And all these messages were discussed through all the hill country of Judea, and all who heard them placed them in their hearts, declaring, “What then will this infant be?” For the hand of the Lord was with him.
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That settled the matter of the name. But “fear came on all their neighbours” and became widespread. The fear of God about what this child would become. They remained expectant.
And his father Zechariah was filled with the Holy Spirit and prophesied, declaring, “Blessed be the Lord God of Israel, for he has visited and redeemed his people and has raised up a horn of salvation for us in the house of his servant David, as he spoke for an aeon by the mouth of his holy prophets , that we should be saved from our enemies and from the hand of all who hate us; to show the mercy promised to our fathers and to remember his holy covenant, the oath that he swore to our father Abraham, to grant us that we, being delivered from the hand of our enemies, might serve him without fear, in holiness and righteousness in his presence all our days."
A massive change in Zechariah’s faith in the Lord took place during his wife’s gestation time. He was a priest in the Jerusalem Temple, the centre of the Jewish faith. As soon as he had declared his faith by naming his son “John”, as instructed by the angel, he was “filled with the Holy Spirit and prophesied.” He refers (see above) to the fulfilment of the Bible’s Old Testament prophesies to David (circa 1000 BC) and to Abraham (circa 1800 BC) with regard to eternal covenant promises made to Israel.
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"And you, infant, will be called the prophet of the Most High; for you will go in the presence of the Lord to prepare his ways, to give knowledge of salvation to his people in the forgiveness of their sins, because of the tender mercy of our God, whereby the sunrise shall visit us from on high to give light to those who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death, to guide our feet into the way of peace.”
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Addressing his eight-day-old son, Zechariah repeats much of what the angel had told him, ten months earlier, concerning John. But he now does so with great joy and gladness. When he said “you will go before the Lord to prepare his ways”, the words “the Lord” (Greek kyrios) meant the God (Hebrew yhwh) of the Bible’s Old Testament. John would prepare for the coming Messiah from above so as “to give knowledge of salvation to his people in the forgiveness of their sins.”
He followed this with a lovely analogy of the coming of Jesus. “The sunrise shall visit us from on high to give light to those who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death, to guide our feet into the way of peace.” Light in the darkness. Guidance into the way of peace. Wow.
And the infant grew and became strong in spirit, and he was in the wilderness until the day of his public appearance to Israel.
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