9. The question o f this date is, of course, intimately connected with that of the Nativity of
Christ, and could therefore not be treated in the text. It is discussed in Appendix VII.: 'On
the Date of the Nativity of our Lord.'
10. This was the eighth course in the original arrangement (1 Chr. xxiv. 10).
In the group ranged that autumn morning around the superintending Priest was one, on
whom the snows of at least sixty winters had fallen. 11 But never during these many years
had he been honoured with the office of incensing - and it was perhaps well he should
have learned, that this distinction came direct from God. Yet the venerable figure of
Zacharias must have been well known in the Temple. For, each course was twice a year
on ministry, and, unlike the Levites, the priests were not disqualified by age, but only by
infirmity. In many respects he seemed different from those around. His home was not in
either of the great priest-centres - the Ophel-quarter in Jerusalem, nor in Jericho 12 - but in
some small town in those upla nds, south of Jerusalem: the historic 'hill-country of Judea.'
And yet he might have claimed distinction. To be a priest, and married to the daughter of
a priest, was supposed to convey twofold honour.13 That he was surrounded by relatives
and friends, and that he was well known and respected throughout his district, appears
incidentally from the narrative.14 It would, indeed, have been strange had it been
otherwise. There was much in the popular habits of thought, as well as in the office and
privileges of the Priesthood, if worthily represented, to invest it with a veneration which
the aggressive claims of Rabbinism could not wholly monopolise. And in this instance
Zacharias and Elisabeth, his wife, were truly 'righteous,'15 in the sense of walking, so far
as man could judge, 'blamelessly,' alike in those commandments which were specially
binding on Israel, and in those statutes that were of universal bearing on mankind.16 No
doubt their piety assumed in some measure the form of the time, being, if we must use
the expression, Pharisaic, though in the good, not the evil sense of it.
11. According to St. Luke i. 7, they were both 'well stricken in years.' But from Aboth v.
21 we learn, that sixty years was considered 'the commencement of agedness.'
12. According to tradition, about one-fourth of the priesthood was resident in Jericho.
But, even limiting this to those who were in the habit of officiating, the statement seems
greatly exaggerated.
13. Comp. Ber. 44 a; Pes. 49 a; Vayyikra R. 4.
14. Luke i. 58, 59, 61, 65, 66.
15. δικαιος - of course not in the strict sense in which the word is sometimes used,
especially by St. Paul, but as pius et bonus. See Vorstius (De Hebraism. N.T. pp. 55 &c.).
As the account of the Evangelist seems derived from an original Hebrew source, the word
must have corresponded to that of Tsaddiq in the then popular signification.
16. εντολαι and δικαιωµατα evidently mark an essential division of the Law at the
time. But it is almost impossible to determine their exact Hebrew equivalents. The LXX.
render by these two terms not always the same Hebrew words. Comp. Gen. xxvi. 5 with
Deut. iv. 40. They cannot refer to the division of the law into affirmative (248) and
prohibitive (365) commandments.