Biblion Bible Commentary
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His Name Is John
Luke 1:57-66
57 Now the time that Elizabeth should give birth was fulfilled, and she gave birth to a son. · WEB
The neighbors want the family name; both parents refuse it, and the father's silence ends the moment he writes it down.
Now the time that Elizabeth should give birth was fulfilled, and she gave birth to a son Luke 1:57.
The promise made at the altar is kept, and the first response recorded is the neighborhood's. Her neighbors and her relatives heard that the Lord had magnified his mercy toward her, and they rejoiced with her Luke 1:58. The joy the angel predicted Luke 1:14 arrives on schedule and in the ordinary form — people glad for a couple who had waited a long time.
On the eighth day, they came to circumcise the child; and they would have called him Zacharias, after the name of his father Luke 1:59.
The naming is where the trouble starts, and the reason is that everyone present knows what is proper. A first son of an old priestly family carries the family name; it is not a preference but a form of respect, and the whole village has turned out for it.
"Not so; but he will be called John" Luke 1:60. Elizabeth refuses, and the account has not told us that anyone told her. Her husband has been unable to speak for nine months.
"There is no one among your relatives who is called by this name" Luke 1:61. The objection is genealogical, and it is the exact objection the whole chapter is answering. This child does not belong to the family line; he belongs to the errand.
They made signs to his father Luke 1:62. A small detail that says something: they sign to him as well as speak, so he seems to have been deaf as well as mute. Nine months entirely inside his own head.
He asked for a writing tablet, and wrote, "His name is John." They all marveled Luke 1:63.
Not he shall be called — his name is. The naming was done in the sanctuary before the child existed, and the father is reporting a fact rather than making a decision. It is also his act of belief, made at cost in front of everyone whose opinion he had spent a career managing, and it is the first thing he has been able to say since he doubted.
His mouth was opened immediately and his tongue freed, and he spoke, blessing God Luke 1:64.
The timing is exact. The silence was imposed until the day that these things will happen Luke 1:20, and it lifts at the moment he writes the name he was given. The discipline ends when the man does the thing it was for.
"What then will this child be?" Luke 1:66. The question spreading through the hill country is the right one and is left unanswered for thirty years. The hand of the Lord was with him is the account's only comment.
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