It can be hard to pray for others when it feels like God has ignored your own requests. The angel’s declaration to Zechariah that “your prayer has been heard” (v. 13), makes us wonder what he prayed in the Temple’s holy place. Zechariah’s once-in-a-lifetime task was to offer incense on the altar and to prostrate himself in prayer for Israel (v. 9).

Perhaps he could not help but think of the long-standing desire he and his wife, Elizabeth, had for a child. They had lived with the disappointment of being childless for years and were well past the age when such expectations were reasonable. This may also be why, when the angel announced the news, Zechariah focused more on the impossibility of the birth than the details (v. 18). New Testament scholar I. Howard Marshall observes that prayer for the salvation of Israel was associated with the evening sacrifice. He suggests that at this time, Zechariah may have been praying for the coming of the Messiah. The answer to prayer about which the angel spoke was not merely the birth of John but the dawning of the age of salvation. The rules of behavior described in verses 15–17 are similar to those of someone who had taken a Nazarite vow of devoted service to the Lord (Num. 6:1–21). John’s mission, however, was to “go on before the Lord, in the spirit and power of Elijah.” This language identifies John as the forerunner promised in Malachi 3:1 (see also 4:5).

Zechariah’s request for a sign is somewhat surprising. The storyline of his own life should have been familiar, paralleling that of Abraham, Jacob, and Manoah, the father of Samson. Those stories told him that God had already performed the kind of miracle that Gabriel promised. He had answered Zechariah’s question before he even asked it.

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