This content has been archived. It may no longer be relevant
Now while Zechariah was serving as priest before God when his division was on duty, he was chosen by lot, according to the custom of the priesthood, to enter the Holy Place of the Lord and burn incense. Now the whole crowd of people were praying outside at the hour of the incense offering. An angel of the Lord, standing on the right side of the altar of incense, appeared to him. And Zechariah, visibly shaken when he saw the angel, was seized with fear. 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; you will name him John.
Luke 1:8 – 13
Last week we took a rather cursory look at the priestly courses established by David for the First Temple. We did so because understanding the timing of the courses is crucial to understanding when the angel visited Zechariah and, therefore the conception of Yochanon / John the Baptist, sixth months prior to the conception of the Messiah.
Still with me?
Good, let’s continue.
The Second Temple
On the seventh day of the fifth month, in the nineteenth year of King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon, Nebuzaradan, the captain of the royal guard, who served the king of Babylon, arrived in Jerusalem. He burned down the Lord’s temple, the royal palace, and all the houses in Jerusalem, including every large house.
2 Kings 25:8 – 9
First temple was defiled and subsequently destroyed by Nebuchadnezzar, King of Babylon as reported in 2 Kings 25 and Jeremiah 52. The Temple would remain in this state until the completion of the Babylonian exile, 70 years later.
Remember that we’re not dealing with the Gregorian calendar here – were dealing with God’s calendar. For those unfamiliar, I refer you to the article series on this very site: The Creators Calendar – Part One and Part Two.
The Babylonian exile was essentially brought to an end under the reign of the Persian king, Cyrus II, otherwise known as Cyrus the Great. We are told in Ezra chapter 1 that this same Cyrus issued a decree allowing those Jews who so desired, to return to Jerusalem and to rebuild the Temple. Ezra chapter 2 provides us with a listing of those who did so, and among these we find 4 of the 24 priestly courses originally delineated in 1 Chronicles 24.
In Ezra chapter 6, we find evidence that those who returned, further divided from among themselves in order to equitably allot priestly duties:
They appointed the priests by their divisions and the Levites by their divisions over the worship of God at Jerusalem, in accord with the book of Moses.
Ezra 6:18
While this obviously does not explicitly state that they divided themselves in to 24 courses, or that each course would serve for seven days, or that this would be done in a continuous 168 day cycle, I’d ask you – what other means would they have employed aside from that prescribed by David himself?
Let’s be clear, from the inception of the First Temple, through the destruction of the Second, everything that could be handled in accordance with the prescriptions laid out by king David, was. From the edifice to which psalms were sung on which days and at what times, David was the “architect” of the Temple and its operation followed his prescriptions meticulously.
Each and every time the Jews were separated from the Temple, upon their return, they reconstituted their service and worship in the Temple as prescribed. They did so after exile in Babylon, they did so following the Maccabean revolt and they will do so again when the Third Temple is constructed.
With all of this in mind, let’s go back to the priestly courses and do our math… recall that we are specifically looking to place the eighth course as it will tell us the timing of Zechariah’s angelic encounter. Know also that every course was required to serve during the three yearly “Pilgrim Feasts” – that is, Passover, Pentecost and Tabernacles.
In the year 6 BC, the first day of the first month (the month of Nisan according to the Hebrew Calendar) was a weekly Sabbath. According to calculations synchronizing the Hebrew Calendar and the Julian Calendar, this Sabbath was March 20. Projecting forward, the assignments course by course, or week by week, were: Course 1, the first week; Course 2, the second week; all courses for the Passover and Feast of Unleavened Bread, the third week; Course 3, the fourth week; Course 4, the fifth week; Course 5, the sixth week; Course 6, the seventh week; Course 7, the eighth week; Course 8, the ninth week; and all courses the tenth week, which was the week of Pentecost.
– A Harmony of the Gospels in Modern English [Frederick Coulter]
Before we move on, let me say that I understand there is some debate to be had regarding the year of Messiah’s birth. I have personally encountered arguments placing it anywhere from 6 BC to 2 BC. I don’t care to get into that – what I do care about presently is the fact that Zechariah would have been serving his course during the Eighth to Ninth week – placing his service at either the end of the third month, or the beginning of the fourth…
For those not keeping track, we just laded in June.
Now, how does this all correlate with the birth of the Messiah? Let’s recap:
An angel of the Lord, standing on the right side of the altar of incense, appeared to him. And Zechariah, visibly shaken when he saw the angel, was seized with fear. 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; you will name him John…”
Luke 1:11 -13
We know that during this visitation, Zechariah was struck dumb ad that shortly thereafter, Elizabeth conceived John exactly as Gabriel said.
After some time his wife Elizabeth became pregnant, and for five months she kept herself in seclusion. She said, “This is what the Lord has done for me at the time when he has been gracious to me, to take away my disgrace among people.”
Luke 1:24 – 25
Understanding that Zechariah completed his Temple service in early June, we can comfortably point to this as the period of John’s conception, which is important because of the following…
In the sixth month of Elizabeth’s pregnancy, the angel Gabriel was sent by God to a town of Galilee called Nazareth, to a virgin engaged to a man whose name was Joseph, a descendant of David, and the virgin’s name was Mary. The angel came to her and said, “Greetings, favored one, the Lord is with you!” But she was greatly troubled by his words and began to wonder about the meaning of this greeting. So the angel said to her, “Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God! Listen: You will become pregnant and give birth to a son, and you will name him Jesus.
Luke 1:26 – 31
If Elizabeth conceived in June, then simply counting forward six months tells us that Yeshua’s / Jesus’ conception was in December. In fact, it’s entirely plausible that this occurred during Chanukah, but that is not certain. What is certain is that human-beings gestate for approximately nine months. It’s easy to see from this that one cannot be both conceived in December and be born in December without having gestated for 12 months. If we count forward nine months from December we land in September.
It just so happens that there are three Mo’edim which occur within this time-frame; Yom Teruah / the Day of Trumpets, Yom Kippur / the Day of Atonement and Sukkot / the Festival of Tabernacles…
And the Word became flesh and tabernacled among us. We looked upon His glory, the glory of the one and only from the Father, full of grace and truth.
John 1:14 TLV
Is it possible that the light of the world was conceived into the world during the Festival of Lights and then born to tabernacle among us during the Festival of Tabernacles? Could he have then been circumcised on Shemini Atzeret / the Eight Day? I don’t know about anyone else, but I don’t serve a God of coincidence. My God is specific, exacting and intentional.
As a final thought, the word translated in our English Bibles as “manger” correlates to the Hebrew term Sukkah – but I’ll leave that for you to research on your own.
Until next time,
שלום עליכם – Shalom Aleichem – Peace Be Upon You
Source materials: