Lucas 1:5

There was in the days of Herod, king of Judaea, a certain priest named Zacharias, of the course of Abijah: and he had a wife of the daughters of Aaron, and her name was Elisabeth.

ANNUNCIATION TO ZACHARIAS

Herod ... This ruler is the one known historically as Herod the Great, a savage Idumean, who had acquired the kingship of several provinces in Palestine from the Roman Senate, influenced by Octavius, to whom Herod had given large sums of money. He was a descendent of Esau and fully as profane as his progenitor. Technically, he reigned from 40 B.C. to the year of his death in 4 B.C.; but his actual control of the country dates from 37 B.C.[7] The event narrated here occurred in either 7 B.C. or 5 B.C., depending upon the exact date assigned to the birth of our Lord. Dummelow favored 6 B.C.,[8] and Boles 4 B.C.[9] The reckoning of time from the birth of Christ began a long time after the event of his birth, the error remaining long undetected; and this accounts for the paradox that Christ was born in a year called B.C.! The uncertainty of the exact year stems from Matthew's statement that Herod slew all the children "two years old" and under (Matthew 2:16). If the two years were those lost by the Wise Men in finding Jesus (which would suppose the star to have appeared two years before he was born), then the date would be 4 B.C.; but if the two years represented the two-year period while Herod searched for Jesus, then his birth would have been no later than 6 B.C. One thing is sure, Jesus was born before the death of Herod on April 1,4 B.C.

Zacharias, of the course of Abijah ... The name of this priest means" - Jehovah is renowned."[10] Following the events of this chapter, there is no further mention of him in the New Testament. The course of Abijah was one of 24 classes of priests who were rotated in the service of the temple. The great numbers of priests necessitated that particular choice for various functions should be made by casting lots; and no one was allowed to burn incense more than once, many never being permitted to do so at all.

Elisabeth ... was also a descendent of Aaron, her name meaning "God is an oath."[11] It is significant that she was a relative, a cousin of the mother of our Lord (Luke 1:36); but this does not mean that Mary also belonged to the tribe of Levi, for "Male descent alone determined the tribe, and Mary may have been related to Elizabeth on her mother's side."[12]

[7] Encyclopedia Britannica, Vol. 11, p. 510.

[8] J. R. Dummelow, op. cit., p. 627.

[9] H. Leo Boles, Commentary on Matthew (Nashville: Gospel Advocate Company, 1936), p. 36.

[10] Herbert Lockyer, All the Men of the Bible (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Zondervan Publishing House, 1958), p. 339.

[11] F. N. Peloubet, Peloubet's Bible Dictionary (Philadelphia: The John C. Winston Company, 1925) p. 174.

[12] J. R. Dummelow, op. cit., p. 739.