NOTES for Luk 1:57-80
In this episode there is one circumstance that appears strange if ethnographic details are taken into account. The point is that among Jews a son can receive his father's name only if the father died during the mother's pregnancy. It is hard to say when this custom arose, but if it already existed by the time of John's birth, then the position of Zechariah, who was forced for a long time to remain silent, looks tragic: he is not taken into account; he is equated with the dead. The neighbors and relatives, rejoicing at the infant's birth and proposing to name him Zechariah, are in essence disposing of things in a house that is not theirs.
But Zechariah, despite the humiliations he endured, kept faithfulness to God. We hear his inspired speech, containing prophecy, and the evangelist notes that he spoke under the action of the Holy Spirit. But in order to be filled with the Holy Spirit, Zechariah had to pass patiently through the trial of rejection.