And thou shalt anoint Aaron and his sons, and consecrate them, that they may minister unto me in the priest's office. in. Luke 1:5 There was in the days of Herod, the king of Judaea, a certain priest named Zacharias, of the course of Abia: and his wife was of the daughters of Aaron, and her name was Elisabeth. 1 Chronicles 24:19
Dec 19, 2013 · The upshot, though, is that Zechariah likely saw the vision when he was on duty with the rest of the course of Abijah between November 10 and 17 in 4 B.C.
Dec 18, 2006 · What is known for sure is that the priests were divided into twenty-four courses, serving for one week at a time from Sabbath to Sabbath (2 Ch 23:8; 24:7-19; Josephus Ant. 7:14:7). In addition, there were three weeks of the year when all of the courses were on duty: Passover, Pentecost, and Tabernacles (Dt 16:16).
Dec 19, 2014 · Now while he was serving as priest before God when his division was on duty, according to the custom of the priesthood, it fell to him by lot to enter the temple of the Lord and burn incense. And the whole multitude of the people …
Luke states that during the week when it was the duty of Zechariah's family line to serve at "the temple of the Lord", the lot for performing the incense offering had fallen to Zechariah (Luke 1:8–11).
According to the account, the angel Gabriel was then sent to Nazareth in Galilee to her relative Mary, a virgin, betrothed to a man called Joseph, and informed her that she would conceive by the Holy Spirit and bring forth a son to be called Jesus.
A contemporary of the prophet Haggai in the early years of the Persian period, Zechariah shared Haggai's concern that the Temple of Jerusalem be rebuilt. Unlike Haggai, however, Zechariah thought that the rebuilding of the Temple was the necessary prelude to the eschatological age, the arrival of which was imminent.
Role in the TempleDivisionNameshould start workingFifthMalchijah24/2/2024SixthMijamin2/3/2024SeventhHakkoz9/3/2024EighthAbijah16/3/202420 more rows
She hides herself, perhaps with a veil, for the first five months of her pregnancy until the day Mary visits. At the sound of Mary's greeting Elizabeth feels her baby leaping in her womb and interprets this as a confirmation of her son's role as forerunner to Mary's newly conceived baby.
Luke's biblical account of the travel of the Virgin Mary to Jordan to visit Elizabeth, her "cousin." Elizabeth was actually Mary's aunt, sister of Anna, Mary's mother. Joida, High Priest of Aaron, was father of Elizabeth and Anna, and thus grandfather of Jesus and of John the Baptist.Apr 10, 1998
Who wrote this book? The prophet Zechariah wrote this book. He was the son of Berechiah, who was the son of Iddo (see Zechariah 1:1). Iddo was a priest who returned to Jerusalem with Zerubbabel, the first Jewish governor of Jerusalem after the Jews' return from the Babylonian exile (see Nehemiah 12:1–7).
Zechariah (New Testament figure), the father of John the Baptist. In the King James version of the Bible his name was written Zacharias. He is recognized as a saint in both the Eastern Orthodox Church and the Roman Catholic Church.
Authorship and date. The book's superscription attributes its authorship to "Zephaniah son of Cushi son of Gedaliah son of Amariah son of Hezekiah, in the days of King Josiah son of Amon of Judah," All that is known of Zephaniah comes from the text.
The remaining Levites were divided into three groups: Gershonites (descended from Gershon), Kohathites (from Kohath), and Merarites (from Merari). Each division filled different roles in the Tabernacle and later in the Temple services.
my Father is YahAbijah (Hebrew: אֲבִיָּה Aviyyah) is a Biblical Hebrew unisex name which means "my Father is Yah". The Hebrew form Aviyahu also occurs in the Bible.
Levite, member of a group of clans of religious functionaries in ancient Israel who apparently were given a special religious status, conjecturally for slaughtering idolaters of the golden calf during the time of Moses (Ex. 32:25–29).
Zechariah does not accept what the angel has told him. Instead, he challenges the angel: "How shall I know this? For I am an old man, and my wife is advanced in years."
An angel--who is at first nameless--appears "on the right side of the altar of incense," causing Zechariah to be afraid. The angel tells Zechariah not to be afraid, that his prayer has been heard, and that Elizabeth will bear him a son.
According to a theory introduced a little more than a century ago, Herod reigned from 37 B.C. to 4 B.C. This view is generally accepted today, but it has been vigorously challenged in favor of a more traditional dating, which would extend Herod's reign to 1 B.C. (And also place the beginning of his reign in 39 B.C.).
Luke introduces the familiar figures of Zechariah and Elizabeth, who will become the parents of John the Baptist, and informs us that Zechariah is a priest belonging to "the division of Abijah."
The name "John" (Hebrew, Yohannan) means "Yahweh has been gracious.". The idea may include the idea that God has been gracious to Zechariah and Elizabeth, by giving them a child in their old age. But it also signifies God's grace to mankind in general, as he will be the forerunner of the Messiah.
Elijah never died. Instead, he was taken directly to heaven and his successor, Elisha, inherited a "double portion" of his spirit. This indicated that he was Elijah's rightful successor, comparable to a firstborn son, who inherited a double portion of his father's estate (2 Kgs. 2:1-15; Deut. 21:17).
The fact that John will be filled with the Holy Spirit "from his mother's womb"--literally, before birth , as we shall soon see--is unprecedented and indicates that he will be a particularly powerful prophet. In fact, he has a special role to play in God's plan of the ages.
The timing of John’s conception is tied to the annunciation to Zechariah while he was serving at the temple (Lk 1). Presumably, within a week or two of his return from Jerusalem, John was conceived. The key, therefore, is to narrow down the dates on which Zechariah would have been serving at the temple.
Taking another approach, some early fathers such as John Chrysostom asserted that Zechariah heard the angelic annunciation on the Day of Atonement.
The Queen of Sheba came to Jerusalem to meet the Lord’s king. Of all the nations of the earth it was Israel whom God loved, the land where he had made himself known. In Israel God raised up Abraham, Moses, David and the prophets. The Lord gave to them the covenants and the promises.
That is the background to this first chapter of Luke. 2. GODLY ZECHARIAH. So here is godly Zechariah, and he is a priest, one of the 18,000 priests in Israel at this time, the descendants of Aaron of the tribe of Levi. Zechariah belonged to the priestly division of Abijah; he was Zechariah Abijah.
The altar of incense was made of acacia wood, had two rings of gold to transport it and it was overlaid with gold. It had a horn in each corner, just as the brass altar did. Also the altar of incense had a crown of gold which speaks of the exaltation of the Crucified One, and the supremacy of the Sacrificed One.
The altar of incense was much smaller than the altar of brass. It was two cubits high, and one cubit wide (almost three feet high by a foot and a half wide). Outside in the court the altar of brass was three cubits high and five cubits square.
The land of Israel was the one location in the world where you could meet with the living God. The Lord Jesus told the woman of Samaria that salvation was of the Jews, and exercised and serious-minded men and women all over the middle east recognized that fact during those years.
ii] The climactic purpose of the Old Testament was to prepare a people for the coming of the Messiah. In the Scriptures God told them that one day the Messiah would come, and for thousands of years God was preparing them for his coming.
The gum resin was the sap of a tree and this sap was dried and beaten fine. The onycha was a shellfish from the Red Sea, which gave off a strong odour when it was burned. The galbanum was a resin from plants. These three substances were mixed with frankincense, which is also a resin from a tree.
Then Zechariah’s father, the high priest Jehoiada, led an uprising to return King Joash to the throne.
The second Zechariah we consider lived in the sixth century BC and became categorized as the eleventh of the twelve minor prophets in the Hebrew Bible. Initially, he lived in Babylon among the captives and then left Babylon to assist Zerubbabel in rebuilding Jerusalem (see Zechariah 8:8; Ezra 5:1–2; 6:14).The book of Zechariah is named after him and begins with his genealogy, “the word of the Lord [came] unto Zechariah, the son of Berechiah, the son of Iddo the prophet” (Zechariah 1:1). The book includes eight visions and multiple prophecies—including the famous foretelling of the promised Messiah: “Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion; shout, O daughter of Jerusalem: behold, thy King cometh unto thee: he is just, and having salvation; lowly, and riding upon an ass, and upon a colt the foal of an ass” (Zechariah 9:9). The New Testament quotes the book of Zechariah more than any of the other so-called minor prophets; in particular, the Gospel of Matthew quotes Zechariah three times, suggesting Matthew’s familiarity with “Zechariah, the son of Berechiah” (Zechariah 1:1). [7]
[36] The narrative blamed the Jews for Zacharias’s death, as he supposedly allowed Mary to stand in a part of the temple reserved exclusively for virgins. [37] The Jews felt Mary’s presence violated the sanctity of the temple because, from their perspective, Mary’s maternity disproved her virginity. The Jews stoned Zacharias for allowing her to enter.
Leaders like the Orthodox patriarch Peter I of Alexandria (300–311) and a spokesman for the Syrian Christians, Bishop Solomon of Bassoria (1222), perpetuated the tale that the martyred Zacharias cited in Matthew 23:35 was actually the father of John the Baptist.
The Protevangelium of James adapted the biblical account of the ninth-century high priest Zechariah’s martyrdom referenced in Matthew 23:35 to claim that John the Baptist’s father was the high priest slain in the temple, due to Herod’s edict—not King Joash’s conspiracy. Because the account made its way into Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith, Latter-day Saints have also propagated it. I wrote on this subject in order to illuminate the sources for the account and to arrest its further spread among Latter-day Saint educators as a revealed teaching of the Prophet Joseph Smith.
Luke 11:50–51. That the blood of all the prophets, which was shed from the foundation of the world, may be required of this generation; From the blood of Abel unto the blood of Zacharias, which perished between the altar and the temple.