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Luke 1:5-10
By J.D. Myers | January 21, 2009
Luke begins by laying some social, cultural, political, and religious groundwork. The tension in the story becomes palpable as Luke pits the promises of God against both the political aspirations of human rulers and the faith-testing circumstances of life.
King Herod on the Throne
1:5a. Luke masterfully begins his narrative by mentioning Herod, the king of Judea. This not only provides a time period for the following events (King Herod ruled from 74 BC – 4 AD), but also sets the stage for the entire narrative. The presence of King Herod on the throne in Jerusalem would have been a sore spot for the Jews during this time.
First of all, this was because Herod was a terribly wicked and ruthless king. For example, he had several of his relatives (including his wife and his sons) killed because he thought they were trying to take the throne from him. Later, as Matthew 2 reveals, he ordered that all Jewish boys two years old and younger be killed. Again, this was an attempt to preserve the throne. As he neared death, he feared that nobody would mourn his passing, and so he ordered that when he died, many prominent men of the city be killed. In this way, there would be mourning in Jerusalem on the day of his death.
However, the primary reason the Jews did not like Herod on the throne is that by their understanding of Scripture, he had no right to rule over Israel. In Genesis 49:10, God promised that the scepter would not depart from Judah until Shiloh (i.e., the Messiah) comes. In other words, the authority to rule Israel would remain with the tribe of Judah until the Messiah arrived. Though it had been a long time since any person from the tribe of Judah had sat on the throne in Jerusalem, the Jewish Rabbis had decided that Genesis 49:10 could still be fulfilled through the authority of the Jewish ruling council, the Sanhedrin, and specifically, in their right to practice capital punishment on Jewish criminals.
Nevertheless, the tension in the story remains. Herod, an Idumean (of the Edomites), was on the throne. Though he could trace his ancestry back to Abraham, it was through Esau, not Jacob. So from a Jewish perspective, Herod had no right to rule, and yet the Roman government had set him up as ”The King of the Jews.” His presence on the throne posed a threat to the promises of God.
Zacharias and Elizabeth Childless
1:5b. Luke next introduces Zacharias and Elizabeth. Luke records some of their genealogical record, which for the Jew, is like a badge of honor.
Zacharias was a priest, of the division of Abijah. There were some 32,000 priests in Israel at this time, divided into about 24 divisions (Green, 1997:68). Each division would serve in the Temple for two weeks out of the year. The rest of the year they would serve and minister in their home town. Elizabeth, being a descendant of Aaron, was also from a priestly family.
1:6. The key thing about this couple, however, is what Luke records next: they were both righteous before God, walking in all the commandments and ordinances of the Lord blameless.
By this description, Luke reveals that Zacharias and Elizabeth were devout Jews, obedient to the Law. As obedient and faithful Jews, there were many promises of God that they could expect to be fulfilled to them. One of them was that if the Israelites obeyed God and remained faithful to Him (as Zacharias and Elizabeth had done), God would bless them with children (cf. Exod 23:22-26; Deut 7:12-14).
1:7. However, Luke records that Zacharias and Elizabeth had no child, because Elizabeth was barren, and they were both well advanced in years. Due to the promises of God in the Hebrew Scriptures, Israelites believed that if a woman was barren, it was because God was punishing the couple for sin committed by either the husband or the wife.
This raises the tension about how an obedient and faithful Israelite couple could be past the child-bearing years, and yet be without children. Quite possibly, there were many whispers and rumors in the Jewish community that Zacharias and Elizabeth were not as righteous as they appeared. After all, the logic was clear: she was barren, and God’s promises do not fail. Therefore, she or Zacharias must have sinned (cf. this line of thinking in John 9 when the disciples encounter a man who was blind from birth).
Zacharias Before the Lord
1:8-9. During the two weeks that Zacharias was serving as priest in Jerusalem that year, his lot fell to burn incense in the temple. This was an offering of incense which was to be burned daily in the temple (Exod 30:7-8). It was burned in the Holy Place at the Altar of Incense, right outside the Holy of Holies. The altar was considered part of the furnishings in the Holy of Holies (Exod 30:6), but since incense had to be burned on it daily, and only the High Priest could enter the Holy of Holies one time a year on the Day of Atonement, the Altar was placed right at the veil, outside the Holy of Holies.
Since it was a great honor to burn incense, it was determined by lot which priest would burn the incense on a particular day. The casting of lots was a culturally bound Middle Eastern method of making decisions (cf. Prov 16:33; Jonah 1:7; Acts 1:26).
Due to the vast number of priests in Israel (about 32,000), only those who had never before offered the incense were eligible to participate in the casting of lots (Green, 1997:68). So a priest was only given this honor once in his entire life, and many priests were never chosen at all. On this day, the lot fell to Zacharias.
1:10. As Zacharias went in to burn incense, a multitude of the people was praying outside. Though entering the Holy Place to light incense was not nearly as serious of an event as that of entering the Holy of Holies, it nevertheless should be performed with great caution. At all times the priests were to maintain personal holiness, but this was especially true when they ministered before the Lord and approached the veil (cf. Lev 21:23). Certainly, every priest who entered the Holy Place remembered what happened to Nadab and Abihu when they approached in an unprescribed manner — fire came out from the Most Holy Place and consumed them (Lev 10:1-2).
As Zacharias entered the Holy Place to burn the incense, he likely felt some trepidation. All priests naturally experienced the fear of the Lord as they entered, but Zacharias probably had some extra concern due to the fact that his wife remained barren. If there was a sin which God was judging them for, and which Zacharias was unaware of, entering the Holy Place without having been cleansed of that sin would be a death sentence.
Possibly, various members of the multitude were there for similar reasons. They wanted to see, once and for all, whether Zacharias was as righteous and blameless as he appeared. God was going to provide the answer this day when Zacharias entered the Holy Place.
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