There is a certain uniqueness about Elisabeth. She is the only woman in our Bible to bear that name. She is the only woman in our Bible who is said to have been filled with the Holy Spirit. She bears a striking resemblance to Sarah, mother of Isaac, and to Hannah, mother of Samuel. Elisabeth was a true daughter of Aaron and with her priestly husband Zacharias they must have had a holy and happy household.
However, there was no child in the home, and together they prayed. There was nothing selfish in this. It was not just a longing for offspring, and not simply a desire for an heir for Zacharias. It was doubtless a prayer with the blessing of the nation in view and, perhaps too, the holy ambition that Elisabeth might be the chosen vessel for the birth of the promised Messiah. Together they walked blamelessly before the Lord and together they continued to pray, and their prayer was answered in the birth of John.
There intervened, during Elisabeth’s confinement, a visit from Mary of Nazareth, Elisabeth’s cousin. Elisabeth’s greeting to Mary is inspired. She salutes Mary as ‘the mother of my Lord’. What faith is this, like that of another Mary in the shadow of the garden tomb. She also called him ‘my Lord’, John 20. 13. What devoted women they were. Elisabeth called Him ‘my Lord’, when He was not yet born. Mary of Magdala called Him ‘my Lord’ when in her mind He was yet dead.
Poor Zacharias! He must have sat in quietness as the two women greeted each other and talked jubilantly, and as Elisabeth looked at him sitting in his silence she exclaimed to Mary, ‘Blessed is she that believed’! Oh, if only her husband had believed like her cousin.
It was a time of hallowed communion. Elisabeth and Mary must have talked much about Him. These two godly souls, objects of divine favour, conversed together in the hill country of Judaea. It was not only a geographical, but a moral, elevation from the world around, as they talked together of Jehovah’s dealings with them. After three months Mary returned to Galilee and Elisabeth’s child was delivered, a son.
