Daily Bible Reading 5th March 2026 // Luke 1:18-25
18 And Zechariah said to the angel, “How shall I know this? For I am an old man, and my wife is advanced in years.” 19 And the angel answered him, “I am Gabriel. I stand in the presence of God, and I was sent to speak to you and to bring you this good news. 20 And behold, you will be silent and unable to speak until the day that these things take place, because you did not believe my words, which will be fulfilled in their time.” 21 And the people were waiting for Zechariah, and they were wondering at his delay in the temple. 22 And when he came out, he was unable to speak to them, and they realized that he had seen a vision in the temple. And he kept making signs to them and remained mute. 23 And when his time of service was ended, he went to his home.
24 After these days his wife Elizabeth conceived, and for five months she kept herself hidden, saying, 25 “Thus the Lord has done for me in the days when he looked on me, to take away my reproach among people.”
In the words in 17, 'to make ready a people prepared for the Lord', we have a clear and distinct echo from Isaiah 40, which passage is explicitly quoted from in Mark 1:2, and also taken up by Luke in 3:4ff, with reference to John's ministry. So, clearly, the wonderful Isaiah passage is in view here. There is a great deal of significance in this, for the message of that wonderful chapter is one not only of pardon (Isaiah 40:1, 2) but also deliverance (40:3-5). And just as the way was being prepared for Israel in the wilderness, back from Babylon to the promised land (getting back would have been the only real proof to them that God had forgiven them), so also Luke is indicating that in the coming of Jesus not only a word of pardon was being spoken to the world, but also a way of deliverance was being opened up from the bondage of sin. In this connection, it is significant to note that Luke later makes the point that the gospel is a kind of new Exodus (cf 9:31 - (Greek 'exodos'), which He should accomplish at Jerusalem. This is what Isaiah was also saying: the deliverance from Babylon was a second Exodus for Israel, a setting free of the captives; and even this was only a faint shadow and illustration of the still greater Exodus and deliverance to which it pointed in the future, and which was fulfilled in the coming of Christ.