Note 30 — Chapter I · ANNUNCIATION AND BIRTH OF JOHN THE BAPTIST.

Indeed, the dumbness of Zacharias as explained from this point of view is very unsatisfactory. For had it been, as according to one explanation, the result of apoplexy; admitting Paulus’s reference to Lev. xxi. 16, to be set aside by the contrary remark of Lightfoot,30 still, we must join with Schleiermacher in wondering how Zacharias, notwithstanding this apoplectic seizure, returned home in other respects healthy and vigorous;31 and that in spite of partial paralysis his general strength was unimpaired, and his long-cherished hope fulfilled. It must also be regarded as a strange coincidence, that the father’s tongue should have been loosed exactly at the time of the circumcision; for if the recovery of speech is to be considered as the effect of joy,32 surely the father must have been far more elated at the birth of the earnestly-desired son, than at the circumcision; for by that time he would have become accustomed to the possession of his child.