The silence of Zacharias

  • I read this foot­note to Luke 1:20 in the Ortho­dox Study Bible the other day, and I thought it was so inter­est­ing I had to share.

    The verse comes as John the Baptist’s father, Zacharias, is told by the archangel Gabriel that he will have a son who will go before the Lord in the spirit and power of Eli­jah. In response, Zacharias ques­tions Gabriel, and Gabriel replies, “you will be mute and not able to speak until the day these things take place, because you did not believe my words, which will be ful­filled in their own time.”

    The foot­note at that point has an inter­est­ing obser­va­tion on the silence of Zacharias (para­graph breaks mine):

    “Zacharias is dis­ci­plined for his lack of faith, yet this also serves as proof that Gabriel’s announce­ment is true. The silenc­ing of the high priest also reveals a deeper mystery.

    “The Mes­siah was expected to ful­fill three cru­cial roles held by var­i­ous peo­ple in the OT: prophet, priest and king. Only Jesus Christ can be said to have ful­filled all three offices per­fectly. He is the true Prophet (Dt. 18:15–18), the true King (Matt. 23:3; Is. 9:6; Mic. 5:1), and the true High Priest (Ps. 109:4; Heb. 4:14).

    “In prepa­ra­tion for Christ’s com­ing, God had silenced the prophets for many years [a later foot­note remarks that since the time of Malachi, God had not sent a great prophet to Israel], and also per­mit­ted an ille­git­i­mate usurper to occupy the posi­tion of king of Judea [since Herod was a non-Jew call­ing him­self the king of Judea]. Here, in the last days before Christ’s com­ing, the high priest is also silenced. 

    “With these three roles vacant, ille­git­i­mate and silent, all is ready for the Son of God to be revealed as Prophet, King and Priest.”


    Related posts:

    1. On silence (again)
    2. Bright Week do’s & don’ts
    3. It is truly meet
    4. An addi­tional Cross-word
    5. Another mur­der­ous saint

    July 26th, 2009 | Grace | 6 Comments |

6 Responses and Counting...

  • DebD 07.26.2009

    wow, that was a great insight. thanks

  • s-p

    Very cool. You learn some­thing new every day.

  • Grace

    Yep, I rave about the Ortho­dox Study Bible to any­one who isn’t already rav­ing about it them­selves. It’s been an amaz­ing jour­ney to start read­ing through the OT — with the Apoc­rypha — with these foot­notes. I’m con­stantly amazed by all the fore­shad­ow­ing of Christ that was there and all the other insights. It’s a fab­u­lous resource.

  • Mimi

    Great point indeed.
    I really like the OSB — I real­ize there are “issues” for some seri­ous Ortho­dox schol­ars, but for me who is cer­tainly not a scholar, it is very good.

  • BJohnD

    What Mimi said.

  • Grace

    I didn’t real­ize there were any issues with the OSB. I prob­a­bly don’t even want to know. Double-ditto to Mimi: At the level that I’m study­ing, it’s a great boon.

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