E. The birth and naming of John (1:57–66)
E. The birth and naming of John (1:57–66)
57–58. As the angel had prophesied, Elizabeth’s child was a boy. The birth was clearly of widespread interest among the mother’s family and friends, and many of them came to share in her joy. Luke describes the happy event in terms of the Lord’s mercy, a topic that runs through these opening chapters.
59. It was provided in the law that a male child should be circumcised on the eighth day of his life (Gen. 17:12; Lev. 12:3). In the Old Testament the name was apparently given at birth and it does not seem in any way connected with circumcision. SB note this passage and 2:21 as the early witness for the practice; it is next found in eighth-century Jewish writings. The lack of contemporary Jewish evidence leads some scholars to hold that the custom is later than New Testament times; they hold that Luke is influenced by prevailing practices in the Roman Empire. But it is not easy to find clear evidence anywhere in the ancient world for the naming of boys on the eighth day. The Romans named boys on the ninth day and the Greeks did so on the seventh or the tenth. There seems no reason for rejecting SB’s view that Luke happens to be the first to mention a custom that the Jews had developed.2 It is curious that the relations try to name the child, as that was the privilege of the parents. Perhaps they simply took it for granted that the boy would be named after his father. This was far from inevitable (few New Testament men seem to be so named). But in some Jewish writings it is taken as customary (e.g. Genesis Rabbah 37:7).
60–63. Elizabeth decisively rejected the idea (her Not so is emphatic). Her firm statement that the boy would be called John drew the immediate objection that this was not a family name. For the friends that ruled it out altogether. But they were under the disadvantage that they had no right to name the child themselves. So they tried to enlist the father. It is curious that they made signs to him. In their excitement they forgot that the old priest could hear, or else Zechariah was deaf as well as dumb (the word kōphos which described his ailment in v. 22 can mean ‘deaf and dumb’). His response when they gave him a writing tablet (a board covered with wax, SB) was definite. He did not say, as had Elizabeth, that the child would be called John, but His name is John. In the Greek John comes first with emphasis, and we should not overlook the force of the present. The angel had already named the boy and Zechariah accepts the name as an accomplished fact.
64. The result was an immediate end to Zechariah’s dumbness. It is a measure of the thinking he had doubtless been engaging in throughout the silent months that his first words were the praise of God.
65–66. The neighbours were awe-struck ( fear = deep reverence rather than fear in our sense of the term). Some think that Elizabeth had been supernaturally informed of the name and that it was this that impressed the friends. But there is no reason for thinking that Zechariah had not communicated his whole story to his wife, including the naming of the child. Surely that writing tablet had been much in use during Zechariah’s prolonged silence! These strange events formed a topic of conversation through all the hill country of Judea. But these country people did not simply gossip. They laid … up in their hearts the content of what was being said (JB, ‘treasured it in their hearts’) and wondered about the destiny of this child. Plainly the events that had just occurred portended some mighty action of God.