Who was zacheariah the priest?

Answer 1

Zechariah's story is told in Luke's Gospel. He was a priest "of the division of Abijah" (Luke 1:5) and the husband of Elizabeth, the Virgin Mary's cousin. One day "while he was serving as priest before God when his division was on duty, according to the custom of the priesthood, it fell to him by lot to enter the temple of the Lord and burn incense" (Luke 1:8-9). While he was in the temple, the angel Gabriel appeared to him and told him that Elizabeth was going to have a son named John. Zechariah was told that John wouldn't be able to drink wine or other alcoholic drink and would be "filled with the Holy Spirit" (Luke 1:15). When he questioned this prophecy since Elizabeth was too old to bear children, Gabriel responded that because he had not believed he was to be mute until the time of the child's birth.

Elizabeth did indeed conceive and bear a son. When John was presented in the temple to be circumcised the elders of the temple were going to name the child Zechariah, but Elizabeth told them to name him John. They didn't want to do this because the name John was not in their genealogy, so they asked Zechariah what to name the child. Zechariah wrote on a tablet, "His name is John [...] And immediately his mouth was opened and his tongue loosed, and he spoke, blessing God" (Luke 2:63-64). Zechariah then prophesied that John would "be called the prophet of the Most High; for [he would] go before the Lord to prepare his ways, to give knowledge of salvation to his people in the forgiveness of sins" (Luke 2:76-77).