1. Luke 1:13 (ESV)
  2. Exposition

Which prayer was answered?

Luke 1:13 (ESV)

13 But the angel said to him, “Do not be afraid, Zechariah, for your prayer has been heard, and your wife Elizabeth will bear you a son, and you shall call his name John.

Contents

  1. Interpretation 1:
    The prayer that Zechariah may receive a child.
  2. Interpretation 2:
    The prayer that God's people will receive a Saviour.
  3. Interpretation 3:
    The prayer that God's people will receive a Saviour, which implies a son for Zechariah.

Interpretation 1:
The prayer that Zechariah may receive a child.

Summary: 

Gabriel is referring to the prayer of Zechariah and Elizabeth that they might raise one or more children in their marriage.

Arguments in favour of this view:

  1. When Luke introduces Zechariah and Elizabeth in his book, he immediately mentions that they did not have a child because Elizabeth was barren. And when Gabriel then addresses Zechariah in the temple, and announces that his prayer was answered, he also immediately specifies which prayer—that Zechariah’s wife would yet bear him a son.

  2. Zechariah had not come to the altar of incense to direct his personal prayers to God. The incense was intended to symbolically bring the prayers of the people before God’s throne. Nor is it likely that Zechariah, who has reached an advanced age by now (Luke 1:7), would still have been praying for a pregnancy for his barren wife. However, the angel may well refer back to Zechariah’s earlier prayers. In that case there would as yet be an answer to this request.

  3. Gabriel simultaneously connects Zechariah’s personal prayer to the prayer of God’s people for the promised Saviour. God uses this personal answer to prayer to also start preparing God’s people for his response to their prayers.

  4. When Zechariah considers Gabriel’s promise to be implausible (Luke 1:18), he is not thinking of an answer to the prayers of God’s people, but of the prayers of him and his wife: how would they still receive a child at this age...?

Arguments against this view:

  1. Luke’s immediate mention of the childlessness of Zechariah and Elizabeth is intended from the outset to call our attention to the fact that, as with Abram and Sarai, God is again going to involve a childless couple with a barren wife in his work of redemption. This does not imply that the two of them were also still praying to have a child of their own.

  2. When Gabriel had been instructed to bring them the glad tidings that their prayer for a child had been answered after all, why had he not visited them at home, as he did with Mary later (Luke 1:26–38)? Then Elizabeth would also have been able to hear the message directly from the mouth of the angel.

  3. Gabriel chooses a remarkable time and place for his message of an answer to prayer: while the crowd of people is praying outside and Zechariah is allowed to symbolically bring those prayers through the incense offering right before God’s throne in the sanctuary. Gabriel also does not choose to stand beside Zechariah, but—as Luke specifically mentions this—on the right side of the altar of incense.

  4. Gabriel speaks of prayer in the singular. This would indicate that we are rather to think of the prayer of the people that day, which Zechariah must underline with the incense, than of the undoubtedly multiple prayers (plural) that Zechariah and Elizabeth would have sent up to God in their younger years, but which would have stopped years ago.

  5. Gabriel does indeed speak at length about the task of the son that Zechariah will have, but this task is entirely in the service of answering the prayer of God’s people for the promised Saviour.

  6. When Zechariah cannot believe that he and Elizabeth will have a son at this age (Luke 1:18), it is because he cannot understand how the prayer of God’s people can be answered in this way. He does not realize that the birth of the Saviour’s herald from an elderly and childless couple is a sign that God’s people are redeemed by grace alone. (The name to be given to the son is John, meaning Yahweh is merciful!).

Interpretation 2:
The prayer that God's people will receive a Saviour.

Summary:

Gabriel is alluding to the prayer of God’s people for the coming of the promised Saviour.

Arguments in favour of this view:

All the arguments against Interpretation 1.

Interpretation 3:
The prayer that God's people will receive a Saviour, which implies a son for Zechariah.

Summary: 

Gabriel is referring first of all to the prayer of God’s people for the coming of the promised Saviour, but also implicitly to the prayer of Zechariah (and Elizabeth) for a child of their own, which they will no doubt have sent up in the past.

Argument in favour of this view:

Now that God is going to answer the prayers of his people after many centuries, he does so in such a way that thereby a long-time prayer of many years ago from this priest and his wife is also answered after all.