Dr Paul Allen

  Luke 1:15-17. All that we know of Zacharias has been recorded in Luke chapter 1. This is a priestly gospel, beginning and ending in the temple, and in these early verses Zacharias, a priest, is burning incense at the golden altar. He is introducing a fragrance which will pervade all the pages that will follow. It has often been said that Zacharias was a priest both morally and officially. What he was in the temple, he was also in his home, a righteous man who walked obediently, prayed constantly, and served faithfully. Israel’s large priesthood was divided into twenty-four courses. Each course ministered twice in the year. According to the historian JOSEPHUS there were then twenty thousand officiating priests in the land and an individual priest might expect to minister at the golden altar only once in his lifetime. This then was a great occasion for Zacharias, and indeed it was to be greater still. This good man was to be privileged to hear the very voice of heaven after four hundre

“Through the tender mercy of our God ; whereby the dayspring from on high hath visited us.” ( Luke 1:78 ) This is an unusual, but beautiful, name of the coming Savior given Him by Zacharias when he was “filled with the Holy Ghost , and prophesied” ( Luke 1:67 ). In that same prophecy, Zacharias also called that coming one “the Highest” and “the Lord” who would “give knowledge of salvation unto his people by the remission of their sins” (vv. 76-77). Just six months later, Jesus was born. The Greek word here translated “dayspring” is so translated only this one time. It refers to the metaphorical spring from which the sun springs forth each day, and so is usually translated simply as “the east.” It is interesting that it is used three times in connection with the story of the wise men “from the east” who saw “his star in the east,” and then, when they reached Bethlehem once again, “the star, which they saw in the east,” led them to the one who was Himself “the dayspring” ( Matthe