What would we give to our beloved? asks one of our poets. What would we ask for our children if we might have our hearts' desire? When the young father or mother looks down on the little child, and then looks on to the future, what is the parental hope concerning him? What is that which, if it could only be assured, would give "joy and gladness"? The history of our race, the chronicles of our own time, even the observation of our own eyes, give abundant proof that the child may rise to the highest distinction, may wield great power, may secure large wealth, may enjoy many and varied pleasures, and yet be a source of sorrow and disappointment. On the other hand, these same authorities abundantly prove that if the parent is only true to his convictions and avails himself of the resources that are open to him, there is every reason to expect that his child will be such an one as to yield to him a pride that is not unholy, a joy that nothing can surpass. Not on the same scale, but alter the same manner, every man's child may become what Gabriel told Zacharias his son should be -

1. ONE TAKING HIGH RANK WITH GOD. "Great in the sight of the Lord." By faith in Jesus Christ our child may become a "son of God" in a sense not only true but high (see John 1:12). "And if children, then heirs, heirs of God" (Romans 8:17). Obedience will ensure the friendship of God (see John 14:23; John 15:14). Earnestness will make him a fellow-laborer with God (1 Corinthians 2:9; 2 Corinthians 6:1). The acceptance of all Christian privilege will make him a "king and priest unto God" (Revelation 1:6). Who can compute how much better it is to be thus "great in the sight of the Lord" than to be honored and even idolized by men?

II. ONE IN WHOM GOD HIMSELF DWELLS. "He shall be filled with the Holy Ghost." God desires to dwell with and in every one of his human children; and if there be purity of heart and prayerfulness of spirit, he will dwell in them continually (Luke 11:13; John 14:17; 1 Corinthians 3:16; 1 Corinthians 6:19; Revelation 3:20).

III. ONE THAT IS MASTER OF HIMSELF. "He shall drink neither wine," etc. By right example and wise discipline any man's child may be trained to control his own appetites, to regulate his tastes, to form temperate and pure habits, to wield the worthiest of all scepters - mastery of himself.

IV. ONE IN WHOM THE BEST AND NOBLEST LIVES AGAIN. "He shall go in the spirit and power of Elijah." In John the Baptist there lived again the great Prophet Elijah - a man of self-denying habit; of dauntless courage, that feared the face of no man, and that rebuked kings without flinching; of strong and scathing utterance; of devoted and heroic life. In any one of our children there may live again that One who "in all things in which John was great and noble, was greater and nobler than he." In the little child who is trained in the truth and led into the love of Christ there may dwell the mind and spirit of the Son of God himself (Romans 8:9; Philippians 2:5).

V. ONE THAT LIVES A LIFE OF HOLY USEFULNESS. What nobler ambition can we cherish for our children than that, in their sphere, they should do as John did in his - spend their life in the service of their kind? Like him, they may:

1. Make many a home holier and happier than it would have been.

2. Prepare the way for others to follow with their higher wisdom and larger influence.

3. Be instrumental in turning disobedient hearts from the way of folly to the path of wisdom.

4. Earn the benediction of" many" whom they have blessed (verse 14). To ensure all this, there must be:

1. Parental example in righteousness and wisdom.

2. Parental training as well as teaching.

3. Parental intercession. - C.

What is greatness? Scarcely two persons among us would give the same reply to that question. All would admit that it denotes pre-eminence, but each would have his own preference as to the department in which it was to be manifested. Some would associate it with power, some with courage, some with eloquence, and some, perhaps, with wealth; yet each would think of it as conferring an advantage on its possessor, and so putting others at a corresponding disadvantage. The really great man is he whom holiness and love combine to inspire for the service of his generation by the will of God.

1. He who wins this greatness does not attain it at the expense of others.

2. We may win this greatness anywhere.

3. This greatness is satisfying to its possessor.The highest commendation one can earn is this — "He hath done what he could;" and the noblest life-record is that which comes nearest to His of whom it was said that "He went about doing good." That is fame, though no earthly herald may trumpet it abroad, for Christ shall proclaim it on the day of days before the assembled universe.

(Dr. W. M. Taylor.)

He was no selfish lover of his own soul, too fearful of pollution to touch society, but a magnanimous reformer, great in his love alike of man and of righteousness. He was too much the pupil of Divine freedom and discipline to be the child of any school, the spokesman of any sect. His faith was the fruit of inspiration as opposed to experience. His education made him a preacher who lived as he believed, possessed of the courage to summon men to a like life and faith.

(A. M. Fairbairn, D. D.)

The child was to be great in the sight of the Lord. According to the verdict of our Lord passed afterwards, he was the greatest of those born of women until His time. Yet what a strange greatness! A poor man, living in the wilderness the life of an anchorite, and at length beheaded by a wicked king, buried by his disciples, and nothing more heard of him! There is another person mentioned in this chapter who was also called great. Herod the king, mentioned in the fifth verse, is commonly known as Herod the Great, but he was not great in the sight of the Lord, only great in the sight of himself and of his court, and of those who admired his skill in adding to his kingdom. Which was the really great man? Which will appear to be great when the magnitude of men is tested by God, and when men are weighed in the righteous balances of God's judgment?

(Bishop Goodwin.)

We are what we are in God's sight, not what men think us, not what we think ourselves, but what He sees and knows that we are, nothing more, nothing less.

(Dean Church.)

His drink was water of the river. He lived on locusts and wild honey. Men felt in him that power of mastery which is always granted to perfect self-denial.

(Archdeacon Farrar.)

Take it as a broad fact in nature that there is no such thing as emptiness. If any corner of the world is vacated even for an instant, something else will come in instantaneously to fill up the empty space. So by the constitution of human nature there is no possibility of emptiness in the soul of man. The spiritual nature " abhors a vacuum." If a man will not let good into his life, evil must and will possess it. If he would eject evil from his life, he can only do so by letting good into it. The most striking recognition of the principle occurs in Paul's letter to the Christians at Ephesus. He is taking them to" task with reference to certain abuses which had crept into their Church. Prominent among these was drunkenness. "Be not drunk with wine," says the apostle, "but be filled with the Spirit." Wine versus the Spirit! The disease was not drunkenness. The drunkenness was a casual episode. The souls of these men had an empty chamber which must be filled. Their legitimate food was God. This was rejected or neglected. But the void remained. That could not be neglected. It must be filled with God or with a substitute. We may choose this substitute for ourselves, but we cannot not-choose it, for nature abhors a vacuum. The Ephesians had made their choice — it was wine. This was what Paul saw. To cure it how was he to proceed? He could not enjoin abstinence. The problem was not the drink, but the vacuum. He must make some proposal, therefore, about the vacuum. "Fill yourselves," he says, "with the Spirit of God." There is a valid relation between the stimulus of intoxicants and the stimulus of religion. Either, so far, will carry out the law of filling the vacuum. But merely to adjure a man not to be filled with wine is to command an impossibility. You must give him another stimulus equally absorbing, intenser, richer, and when the sensual passion is high and strong your substitute must be supreme. There is only one thing which will absorb it quite — the more abundant life of God.

(Professor Drummond.)The choice is not between God and an empty heart. Man is like a house situated between two winds. On the one side comes the wind from a dreary, bleak desert, laden with fog and disease, blowing across things foul and rotten. The other side of the house fronts the sunlight, and winds that blow from the wide, fresh sea, and over gardens, orchards, and blooming fields. Every one must decide to which side he is going to open. Both doors cannot be shut. You can only get the dismal, fatal door shut by opening wide the door that looks to the sea of eternity, and the sunshine of God. The wind blowing in through this open door keeps that door of ruin shut.

(Dr. Joseph Leckie.)

I. To be "children of Israel" not necessarily equivalent to being spiritually "sons of Abraham" (John 8:39).

II. As a historical fact the children of Israel over and over again turned from the Lord, and at the beginning of the Baptist's ministry nearly the whole nation had sunk into religious formalism.

III. But repentance was still possible to Israel after ages of unfaithfulness. Still they might turn to the Lord their God. John's message was "Repent!" and his preaching produced the effects here foretold (see Luke 3:7-14).

IV. "He shall turn." Recognition of human instrumentality in the doing of the work which only the Spirit of God can do — the production of conviction leading to conversion.

(J. R. Bailey.)

"Nothing can make a man truly great, but being truly good, and a partaker of God's holiness." "A dram of goodness is worth more than all worldly greatness." Wealth, honour, power, may constitute a person great in the estimation of man; but faith, love, and true holiness are necessary to secure for us God's approbation.

(Henry R. Burton.)

When General Grant was in command of the army before Vicksburg, a number of officers were gathered at his headquarters. One of them invited the party to join in a social glass; all but one accepted. He asked to be excused, saying that he "never drank." The hour passed, and each went his way to his respective command. A few days after this the officer who declined to drink received a note from General Grant to report at headquarters. He obeyed the order, and Grant said to him, "You are the officer, I believe, who remarked the other day that you never drank?" The officer modestly answered that he was. "Then," continued the General, "you are the man I have been looking for to take charge of the Commissary Department, and I order that you be detailed to that duty." He served all through the war in that responsible department, and afterwards, when General Grant became President, the officer who never drank was again in request. The President, needing a man on whom he could rely for some important business, gave him the appointment.

(Christian Chronicle.)

Before I became an abstainer I was much subject to fainting fits. I even fainted in the pulpit, and my life was a burden; and when I had made up my mind to abstain my medical man came from London and said, "If you do you will probably die. You want the 'whip' for your constitution." I did not believe him, and I said, "Very well, doctor, then I'll die, and there's an end of it." But I have not died. And when I met that medical man in London three days since I said, "Now, doctor, what do you think of it?" He said, "You beat me altogether. I was never more mistaken in any case in my life. And now let me tell you that if there was no such thing as alcohol I should have to put up my shutters. Nearly all the illnesses that come before me have, in one sense or another, come from that; not always from the personal indulgence of the patients, but because this is hereditary."

(Canon Basil Wilberforce.)

A man who can be satisfied with nothing less than that which is real and right; who is content to count all things loss for the attainment of a spiritual aim, and to fight for it against all enemies; who deems truth the bread of life and makes its pursuit his daily labour — he is a great man.

Dr. Tyng, speaking of personal influence, mentions a young lady whom no storms of snow or rain ever kept from her class. One after another of her scholars, he says, would come to him, and when he would ask the question, "What has led you to seek a Saviour's love?" they would mention her name, until, he says, " I traced twenty.five, at least, of my young people who were converted through her prayers and labours, and among them that beloved son of mine, at whose bedside I sat for sixteen long hours, wondering why God had taken him and left me behind. This was the character of that girl. Nothing kept her back."

When Henry VIII. had determined to make himself head of the English Church, he insisted upon it that Convocation should accept his headship without limiting and modifying clauses. He refused to entertain any compromises, and vowed that "he would have no tantrums," as he called them. Thus when a sinner parleys with his Saviour he would fain have a little of the honour of his salvation, he would save alive some favourite sin, he would fain amend the humbling terms of grace; but there is no help for it, Jesus will be all in all, and the sinner must be nothing at all. The surrender must be complete, there must be no tantrums, but the heart must without reserve submit to the sovereignty of the Redeemer.

(C. H. Spurgeon.)

It is impossible to overrate the importance of the conversion of one soul to Christ, or of the hardening of one heart in sin An old Puritan doctor writes a book more than two hundred years ago, called "The Bruised Reed," which falls into the hands of Richard Baxter, and leads his penitent spirit to its trust in Christ. Baxter's ministry is like that of a giant in his strength, and when he dies his "Call to the Unconverted" goes preaching on to thousands to whom Baxter himself had never spoken with human tongue. Philip Doddridge, prepared by his pious mother's teaching, hears this piercing "Call," devotes the summer of his life to God, and becomes a "burning and a shining light." Doddridge's "Rise and Progress" fell into the hands of Wilberforce, and led him to thought and to prayer. Wilberforce's "Practical View" cleared the faith and fired the zeal of a clergyman in the sunny South, and he wrote the simple annal of a Methodist girl, which has borne fruit of blessing in every quarter of the globe; for who has not heard of Legh Richmond and "The Dairyman!s Daughter"? And then the same book had a ministry in the bleak North, and in a country parish found out a Scottish clergyman who was preaching a gospel which he did not know, and he embraced the fulness of the glad tidings, and came forth a champion for the truth, "furnished in all things and ready," until all Scotland rang with the eloquence of Thomas Chalmers.

(W. M. Punshon, D,D.)

Much of the wisdom of Providence appears in fitting the instrument to the work. The work appointed to John was to reclaim the nation from its departure from God, to rouse a people sunk in insensibility and impenitence, to preach repentance, to proclaim the approach of the kingdom of heaven, to usher in a higher economy, a new dispensation; and for all this he was admirably qualified. He was endued with the spirit and power of Elias. His spirit was undaunted and unyielding; he rebuked the pride of kings. He was indifferent and insensible alike to the charms of pleasure, the allurement of pomp, the smiles of power, and the frowns of greatness. His whole soul was concentrated in his object. He was superior to the world; its forms and fashions made no impression on his mind, and left no traces. He was austere in his manner, abstemious in his food, rustic in his apparel; he partook of the wildness of the wilderness in which he first made his appearance.

(Robert Hall.)

Aaron, Abia, Abijah, David, Elias, Elijah, Elisabeth, Gabriel, Herod, Jacob, Jesus, John, Joseph, Mary, Theophilus, Zacharias, ZechariahGalilee, Jerusalem, Judea, NazarethDescendants, Numbers, Sons, Turn1. The preface of Luke to his whole gospel.
5. The conception of John the Baptist;
26. and of Jesus.
39. The prophecy of Elisabeth and of Mary, concerning Jesus.
57. The nativity and circumcision of John.
67. The prophecy of Zachariah, both of Jesus,
76. and of John.

Luke 1:16

     7145   remnant

Luke 1:5-17

     5098   John the Baptist

Luke 1:5-20

     5686   fathers, examples

Luke 1:5-25

     5225   barrenness
     5744   wife

Luke 1:5-38

     5658   boys

Luke 1:6-25

     5199   womb

Luke 1:11-17

     4544   wine

Luke 1:11-19

     4112   angels, messengers

Luke 1:11-20

     4145   archangels
     5548   speech, divine

Luke 1:11-22

     1469   visions

Luke 1:11-24

     5652   babies

Luke 1:13-17

     5061   sanctity of life

Luke 1:16-17

     6627   conversion, nature of

July 19 Morning
He that is mighty hath done to me great things; and holy is his name.--LUKE 1:49. Who is like unto thee, O Lord, among the gods? who is like thee, glorious in holiness, fearful in praises, doing wonders?--Among the gods there is none like unto thee, O Lord; neither are there any works like unto thy works.--Who shall not fear thee, O Lord, and glorify thy name? for thou only art holy.--Hallowed be thy name. Blessed be the Lord God of Israel; for he hath visited and redeemed his people. Who is this …
Anonymous—Daily Light on the Daily Path

August 3 Morning
His mercy is on them that fear Him.--LUKE 1:50. Oh how great is thy goodness, which thou hast laid up for them that fear thee; which thou hast wrought for them that trust in thee before the sons of men! Thou shalt hide them in the secret of thy presence from the pride of man: thou shalt keep them secretly in a pavilion from the strife of tongues. If ye call on the Father, who without respect of persons judgeth according to every man's work, pass the time of your sojourning here in fear.--The Lord …
Anonymous—Daily Light on the Daily Path

September 9 Morning
He hath filled the hungry with good things; and the rich he hath sent empty away.--LUKE 1:53. Thou sayest, I am rich, and increased with goods and have need of nothing: and knowest not that thou art wretched, and miserable, and poor, and blind, and naked. I counsel thee to buy of me gold tried in the fire, that thou mayest be rich. As many as I love, I rebuke and chasten: be zealous therefore and repent. Blessed are they which do hunger and thirst after righteousness: for they shall be filled.--When …
Anonymous—Daily Light on the Daily Path

March 24 Morning
Abraham believed in the Lord; and he counted it to him for righteousness.--GEN. 15:6. He staggered not at the promise of God through unbelief; but was strong in faith, giving glory to God; and being fully persuaded that, what he had promised, he was able also to perform. And therefore it was imputed to him for righteousness. Now it was not written for his sake alone, that it was imputed to him: but for us also, to whom it shall be imputed, if we believe on him that raised up Jesus our Lord from the …
Anonymous—Daily Light on the Daily Path

True Greatness
He shall be great in the sight of the Lord.'--LUKE i. 15. So spake the angel who foretold the birth of John the Baptist. 'In the sight of the Lord'--then men are not on a dead level in His eyes. Though He is so high and we are so low, the country beneath Him that He looks down upon is not flattened to Him, as it is to us from an elevation, but there are greater and smaller men in His sight, too. No epithet is more misused and misapplied than that of 'a great man.' It is flung about indiscriminately …
Alexander Maclaren—Expositions Of Holy Scripture

The Magnificat
'And Mary said, My soul doth magnify the Lord, 47. And my spirit hath rejoiced in God my Saviour. 48. For He hath regarded the low estate of His hand-maiden: for, behold, from henceforth all generations shall call me blessed. 49. For He that is mighty hath done to me great things; and holy is His name, 50. And His mercy is on them that fear Him from generation to generation. 51. He hath shewed strength with His arm: He hath scattered the proud in the imagination of their hearts. 52. He hath put down …
Alexander Maclaren—Expositions Of Holy Scripture

Elijah Come Again
'There was, in the days of Herod the king of Judea, a certain priest named Zacharias, of the course of Abia: and his wife was of the daughters of Aaron, and her name was Elisabeth. 6. And they were both righteous before God, walking in all the commandments and ordinances of the Lord blameless. 7. And they had no child, because that Elisabeth was barren; and they both were now well stricken in years. 8. And it came to pass, that, while he executed the priest's office before God in the order of his …
Alexander Maclaren—Expositions Of Holy Scripture

Zacharias's Hymn
'And his father Zacharias was filled with the Holy Ghost, and prophesied, saying, 68. Blessed be the Lord God of Israel; for He hath visited and redeemed His people, 69. And hath raised up an horn of salvation for us in the house of His servant David; 70. As He spake by the mouth of His holy prophets, which have been since the world began; 71. That we should be saved from our enemies, and from the hand of all that hate us; 72. To perform the mercy promised to our fathers, and to remember His holy …
Alexander Maclaren—Expositions Of Holy Scripture

The Dayspring from on High
'The day-spring from on high hath visited us, 79. To give light to them that sit in darkness and in the shadow of death, to guide our feet into the way of peace.'--LUKE i. 78, 79. As the dawn is ushered in by the notes of birds, so the rising of the Sun of Righteousness was heralded by song, Mary and Zacharias brought their praises and welcome to the unborn Christ, the angels hovered with heavenly music over His cradle, and Simeon took the child in his arms and blessed it. The human members of this …
Alexander Maclaren—Expositions Of Holy Scripture

Fourteenth Day. The Holy one of God.
Therefore also that holy thing which shall be born of thee shall be called the Son of God.'--Luke i. 35. 'We have believed and know that Thou art the Holy One of God.'--John vi. 69. 'The holy one of the Lord'--only once (Ps. cvi. 16) the expression is found in the Old Testament. It is spoken of Aaron, in whom holiness, as far as it could then be revealed, had found its most complete embodiment. The title waited for its fulfilment in Him who alone, in His own person, could perfectly show forth …
Andrew Murray—Holy in Christ

The Angel's Greeting
THE ANGEL'S GREETING St Luke i. 28.--"Hail, thou that art highly favoured among women, the Lord is with thee." Here there are three things to understand: the first, the modesty of the angel; the second, that he thought himself unworthy to accost the Mother of God; the third, that he not only addressed her, but the great multitude of souls who long after God. I affirm that had the Virgin not first borne God spiritually He would never have been born from her in bodily fashion. A certain woman said …
Johannes Eckhart—Meister Eckhart's Sermons

Jesus Born the Son of God.
(Christmas Sermon.) "Glory to God in" the Highest, on earth peace; goodwill towards men. Amen." TEXT: LUKE i. 31, 32. "Behold, . . . thou shalt bring forth a Son, and shalt call his name Jesus. He shall be great, and shall be called the Son of the Most High." THESE were the words of promise spoken by the angel to Mary, that Ho whom she should bear should be called the Son of the Highest; and as this promise is after wards brought into direct connection with the statement that the power of the Highest …
Friedrich Schleiermacher—Selected Sermons of Schleiermacher

The Key-Note of a Choice Sonnet
But now, having introduced to you her magnificat, we will dwell upon these words, "My soul doth magnify the Lord," and I do earnestly hope that many of us can adopt the language without being guilty of falsehood: we can as truly say as Mary did, "My soul doth magnify the Lord." If there are any of you present to-night who cannot say it, get to your chambers, fall upon your knees, and cry to the Lord to help you to do so; for as long as a man cannot magnify God he is not fit for heaven, where the …
Charles Haddon Spurgeon—Spurgeon's Sermons Volume 26: 1880

"The Tender Mercy of Our God"
"His heart is made of tenderness, His bowels melt with love." The main point of this morning's sermon will be to bring out into prominence those few words, "the tender mercy of our God." To me they gleam with kindly light: I see in them a soft radiance, as of those matchless pearls whereof the gates of heaven are made. There is an exceeding melody to my ear as well as to my heart in that word "tender." "Mercy" is music, and "tender mercy" is the most exquisite form of it, especially to a broken heart. …
Charles Haddon Spurgeon—Spurgeon's Sermons Volume 32: 1886

A Harp of Ten Strings
IT IS VERY CLEAR that Mary was not beginning a new thing; for she speaks in the present tense, and in a tense which seems to have been for a long time present: "My soul doth magnify the Lord." Ever since she had received the wonderful tidings of the choice which God had made of her for her high position, she had begun to magnify the Lord; and when once a soul has a deep sense of God's mercy, and begins magnifying him, there is no end to it. This grows by what it feeds upon: the more you magnify God, …
Charles Haddon Spurgeon—Spurgeon's Sermons Volume 37: 1891

The Judgment Upon Zacharias
UNBELIEF is everywhere a great sin, and a grievous mistake. Unbelief has proved the ruin of those countless multitudes who, having heard the gospel, rejected it, died in their sins, have been consigned to the place of torment, and await the fiercer judgment of the last day. I might ask the question concerning this innumerable host, "Who slew all these?" The answer would be, "Unbelief." And when unbelief comes into the Christian's heart, as it does at times--for the truest believer has his times of …
Charles Haddon Spurgeon—Spurgeon's Sermons Volume 62: 1916

Of Fervent Love and Vehement Desire of Receiving Christ
The Voice of the Disciple With the deepest devotion and fervent love, with all affection and fervour of heart, I long to receive Thee, O Lord, even as many Saints and devout persons have desired Thee in communicating, who were altogether well pleasing to Thee by their sanctity of life, and dwelt in all ardent devotion. O my God, Eternal Love, my whole Good, Happiness without measure, I long to receive Thee with the most vehement desire and becoming reverence which any Saint ever had or could have. …
Thomas A Kempis—Imitation of Christ

Prayer and Consecration
"Eudamidas, a citizen of Corinth, died in poverty; but having two wealthy friends, Arctæus and Carixenus, left the following testament: In virtue of my last will, I bequeath to Arctæus my mother and to Carixenus my daughter to be taken home to their houses and supported for the remainder of their lives. This testament occasioned much mirth and laughter. The two legatees were pleased and affectionately executed the will. If heathens trusted each other, why should not I cherish a far greater …
Edward M. Bounds—The Essentials of Prayer

Luke's Preface and Dedication.
^C Luke I. 1-4. [1] ^c 1 Forasmuch as many [of whom we know nothing and have even no tradition] have taken in hand to draw up a narrative concerning those matters which have been fulfilled [completed, or accomplished according to the divine will] among us, 2 even as they delivered them unto us, which from the beginning were eyewitnesses [the apostles were necessarily such and there were some few others--Acts i. 21-23] and ministers of the word [the apostles were ministers, and not ecclesiastical …
J. W. McGarvey—The Four-Fold Gospel

Annunciation of the Birth of Jesus.
(at Nazareth, b.c. 5.) ^C Luke I. 26-38. ^c 26 Now in the sixth month [this is the passage from which we learn that John was six months older than Jesus] the angel Gabriel was sent from God unto a city of Galilee, named Nazareth [Luke alone tells us where Mary lived before the birth of Jesus. That Nazareth was an unimportant town is shown by the fact that it is mentioned nowhere in the Old Testament, nor in the Talmud, nor in Josephus, who mentions two hundred four towns and cities of Galilee. The …
J. W. McGarvey—The Four-Fold Gospel

Mary, Future Mother of Jesus, visits Elisabeth, Future Mother of John the Baptist.
(in the Hill Country of Judæa, b.c. 5.) ^C Luke I. 39-56. ^c 39 And Mary arose in these days [within a week or two after the angel appeared to her] and went into the hill country [the district of Judah lying south of Jerusalem, of which the city of Hebron was the center] with haste [she fled to those whom God had inspired, so that they could understand her condition and know her innocence--to those who were as Joseph needed to be inspired, that he might understand--Matt. i. 18-25], into a city …
J. W. McGarvey—The Four-Fold Gospel

Annunciation to Zacharias of the Birth of John the Baptist.
(at Jerusalem. Probably b.c. 6.) ^C Luke I. 5-25. ^c 5 There was in the days of Herod, the king of Judæa [a Jewish proselyte, an Idumæan or Edomite by birth, founder of the Herodian family, king of Judæa from b.c. 40 to a.d. 4, made such by the Roman Senate on the recommendation of Mark Antony and Octavius Cæsar], a certain priest named Zacharias, of the course [David divided the priests into twenty-four bodies or courses, each course serving in rotation one week in the temple …
J. W. McGarvey—The Four-Fold Gospel

The Birth and Early Life of John the Baptist.
(Hill Country of Judæa, b.c. 5.) ^C Luke I. 57-80. ^c 57 Now Elisabeth's time was fulfilled that she should be delivered; and she brought forth a son. 58 And her neighbors and her kinsfolk heard that the Lord had magnified his mercy towards her [mercy in granting a child; great mercy in granting so illustrious a child] ; and they rejoiced with her. 59 And it came to pass on the eighth day [See Gen. xvii. 12; Lev. xii. 3; Phil. iii. 5. Male children were named at their circumcision, probably …
J. W. McGarvey—The Four-Fold Gospel

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