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Updated: June 16, 2025
It is evident, from the apt and plentiful quotations from Scripture with which the song of Zacharias is replete, that the Scriptures were deeply pondered and reverenced in that highland home; and we have the angel's testimony to the prayers that ascended day and night.
NOW in the fifteenth year of the reign of Tiberius Caesar, Pontius Pilate being governor of Judea, and Herod tetrarch of Galilee, and Philip his brother tetrarch of Iturea and the region of Trachonitis, and Lysanias tetrarch of Abilene: when Annas and Caiaphas were high-priests, the word of God came to John the son of Zacharias in the wilderness; and he came into all the country on the confines of Jordan, preaching the baptism of repentance for the remission of sins; as it is written in the book of the words of the prophet Isaiah, saying, "The voice of one crying in the wilderness, Prepare ye the way of the Lord, make his paths strait: every valley shall be filled up, and every mountain and hill shall be levelled, and the crooked ways made strait, and the rough roads smooth: and all flesh shall see the salvation of God."
About six months after Zacharias saw the vision in the Temple, the same angel Gabriel was sent from the Lord to a city in the part of the land called Galilee, which was in the north. The city to which the angel was sent was Nazareth. There the angel found a young girl named Mary, who was a cousin to Elizabeth.
Again in the fresco of the angel appearing to Zacharias in the Temple, there are some thirty portraits of famous Florentines, painted with much patience, and no doubt with an extraordinary truth of likeness.
Yet the greatest variety prevails in the attitudes and expression: each figure is full of individuality. Zacharias is an aged man, busied in calm and circumspect investigation; Jeremiah is bowed down, absorbed in thought, the thought of deep and bitter grief; Ezekiel turns with hasty movements to the genius next to him, who points upwards with joyful expectation, etc.
It is a life concerning which it could be said of the last of the Old Testament saints, Zacharias and Elisabeth, "They were both righteous before God, walking in all the commandments and ordinances of the Lord blameless." This is the walk Jesus came to make possible and true to His people in greater power than ever before.
Moreover, the distinct assertion of the Spirit of God, through the fourth Evangelist, informs us: "There came a man, sent from God, whose name was John, the same came for witness, that all might believe through him." "The Word of God came unto John, the son of Zacharias, in the wilderness. And he came."
He is a born musician; just as John the Baptist was a born prophet, because, into the little body prepared by Zacharias and Elisabeth, came the great Ego of Elijah reincarnate; to reappear as a full-grown prophet on the banks of the Jordan the very spot from which he had been caught away, his life-work only half-accomplished, nine centuries before.
"Ah, Monsieur Seiler," said the forester, "it is perfectly natural; I would love dearly myself to sleep in the mornings, but I must always be on the go. What I want is a son-in-law, a strong youth to replace me; I would voluntarily give him my gun and my hunting pouch." Zacharias could not restrain a feeling of great uneasiness at these words. Being dressed, he descended in silence.
And he left Joseph, the son of Zacharias, and Azarias, to be over the rest of the forces, and charged them to keep Judea very carefully and to fight no battles with any persons whomsoever until his return.
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