The History Of The Infancy Of John The Baptist And Christ: - Part One

Date: B.C. 5 or 4
In the beginning of Church History: The appearance of the angel of the Lord to Zacharias in the temple announcing the birth of John The Baptist, Luke 1:5–25.
In the days of Herod, the king, surnamed the Great, the son of Antipater, an Idumean by birth, who had professed himself a proselyte to the Jewish religion, but regarded no religion, farther than it promoted his secular interests and ambition. For the first time, the throne of Judah was filled by a person not of Jewish extraction, who had been forced upon the people by the Roman government. Therefore it appears plain that the prophecy of Jacob, Genesis 49:10, was now fulfilled; for the scepter had departed from Judah: and now was the time, according to another prophecy, to look for the governor from Bethlehem, who should rule and feed the people of Israel The course of Abiah: His wife was the daughter of Aaron. Her name was Elisabeth. She was of one of the sacerdotal families. This shows that John was most nobly descended: his father was a priest and his mother the daughter of a priest; and thus, both by father and mother, he descended from the family of Amram, of whom came Moses, Aaron, and Miriam, the most illustrious characters in the whole Jewish history.1
Both Zacharias and Elisabeth were now well up in years. God chooses this woman, naturally barren, and now aged also, to be the mother of John the Baptist, therein working a double miracle; and it is observable in holy writ, that when God denied to any women children for some long time, and then opened their wombs, they were the mothers of some eminent persons, whom God made great use of. Thus it was with Sarah, Rachel, the wife of Manoah, Hannah, 1Samuel 1:1-28, and this Elisabeth.