Now after these days, Elizabeth his wife conceived, and hid herself five months, saying,
The priest Zacharias comes home from the temple unable to speak. Then his elderly wife Elizabeth conceives — and drops out of sight for five months. Why hide the child she had prayed years for? And what did those five months do?
This pregnancy answers a prayer the couple had prayed years before and had stopped expecting.
They looked in faith for the Messiah. So they were righteous, walking blamelessly in the commandments and ordinances of the Lord. All the same, they had a disappointment of heart that matched the state of things in Israel. "They had no child, because Elizabeth was barren, and both were advanced in years." They had prayed about it, as we find later. Though Zacharias seems even to have lost sight of his own prayer, God had not.
The shame of her barren years explains why she hid.
Elizabeth "hid herself." All this fits the circumstances she was in. It was to take away her shame, and yet she was ashamed. But this was the Lord's own doing — and He did it in circumstances that humble, where only His hand could put things right.
Her retreat had a worth no one around her could see.
The grace that blessed her did not make her numb to what had been a shame in Israel. The shame was gone, yet as far as people could see it left its traces, because God took it away in a way beyond nature. This was right thinking, and it suited a holy woman. But what is rightly hidden from people has all its value before God, and in her retreat the mother of the Lord comes to visit Elizabeth.
Her hiding shows what God's nearness does to a person.
Knowing that God is taking away her reproach, Elizabeth hides herself. This is how grace works. If God is with someone, and this is truly known, it will not lift that person up but humble them. Nothing really humbles except His presence: in that light, who can exalt himself?
Her response stands beside her husband's, and his is the more common one.
"Thus the Lord has done for me in the days when He looked on me, to take away my reproach among people." Elizabeth's feeling in these circumstances was godly. The unbelief of Zacharias was just as striking a witness of what is so natural to us all.
This conception is not like the one announced to Mary a few verses later, and the difference matters.
John comes as a child of promise, born by a special gift of God that renewed a natural ability in his mother. But Jesus comes as Son of God, born not by any gift to nature but by the Holy Spirit, entirely beyond nature. The one is the child of a barren wife, the other of a virgin. Elizabeth was the mother of the saved, Mary of the Saviour. Elizabeth's child was the sanctified, Mary's the Sanctifier. A child of a barren wife has always been a symbol of the saved, or of the family of God. Such a birth speaks of the grace and gift of God to those found powerless and lacking.
- Remembered. The couple had prayed years before and lost sight of the prayer. God had not.
- Removed. Her reproach — the shame of being childless — is gone, and she credits it to the Lord looking on her.
- Retired. The shame was lifted, but she still felt it, so she stayed out of sight for five months.
- Hidden yet seen. What she hid from people kept its full worth before God. In that seclusion the mother of the Lord came to her.
- Humbled, not inflated. Grace received as grace lowers a person. Her quiet is the pattern; her husband's unbelief shows what comes naturally to us all.
Thus has [the] Lord done to me in [these] days in which he looked upon [me] to take away my reproach among men.
Elizabeth had been childless for years, and in Israel that was a public shame. Now a son is on the way, and her first words point away from herself to God. Her short sentence holds two things at once: a real disgrace among people, and a Lord who looked and lifted it.
To feel her relief you have to feel what she had carried. In Israel, being childless touched more than family life. It touched the hope every mother held.
We know from the book of Daniel that Jewish women longed to give birth to a son. They hoped that son would prove to be the Messiah, the One long promised to Israel. Every Jewish mother longed for this, that she might be the one whom God would use to bring into being the Messiah. So for a Jewish woman to be barren was a great reproach to her.
Yet the very condition that shamed her is the one God keeps choosing when He plans something great. It happens too often in Scripture to be an accident.
But there is another reproach attached to her. She shared it with many a woman whom God raised up to be a channel of blessing to His people. She is barren. Like Sarah, like Hannah, like Rebekah, she has none of nature's energy and none of nature's strength at all. Completely desolate, completely helpless. Her own sense of this is not spoken of, yet we know how intense the longing was among the women of Israel, and how intense the sense of reproach. May that not have stirred her own soul and prepared her for God to reveal His will to her? Hannah was the same: she felt her need so deeply before God that He could give it, and answer the request of her soul.
Elizabeth does not say her situation changed. She says the Lord did it, and that He looked on her. Her husband had responded very differently.
Elizabeth's feeling in these circumstances was just as godly as the unbelief of Zacharias was striking. His unbelief showed what comes so naturally to us all.
Her disgrace is over, yet she goes into hiding instead of out into the street. Grace, not gloom, explains it.
Knowing that God is taking away her reproach, Elizabeth hides herself. This is how grace works. If God is with someone, and that person truly knows it, it will not lift him up but humble him. Nothing humbles us as it should except His presence. In the light of it, who can exalt himself?
Two feelings met in her at once: the shame was gone, and the shame still stung. And only God's hand could have removed it.
Elizabeth "hid herself." All of this fits the circumstances she was in. God acted to take away her shame, and yet she was ashamed. The Lord had dealt with her, but He did it in circumstances designed to humble, where His hand alone could put things right.
Her reproach was "among people," and it is from people that she hides. Five quiet months might look like a loss. They are not.
Elizabeth has feelings that suit a holy woman. She remembers what had been a shame to her in Israel, and the miraculous blessing now given to her only marked that shame more plainly. So she hides herself, and at the same time she acknowledges the Lord's goodness to her. But what hides us from the eyes of men has great value before God.
- Reproach. In Israel, being childless was a public shame. Every Jewish mother hoped to bear the promised Messiah, and Elizabeth had carried that loss for years.
- Chosen weakness. God starts His greatest gifts in barren women: Sarah, Rebekah, Hannah. Nature has no strength left there to claim any share of the result.
- Looked on. Elizabeth names no cause but the Lord: He looked, He acted, He removed the disgrace. Her faith stands out beside her husband's unbelief.
- Humbled. Real blessing did not puff her up; it sent her into hiding. Nothing humbles like God's presence, and no one who senses it can exalt himself.
- Hidden and valued. She withdrew from the eyes of people. What is hidden from them carries weight with God.