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Q: Why is Zechariah struck dumb? Write your answer Related questions. Who doubted the angel and became dumb? Why did Mary doubt the angel? Why was Zechariah dumb until John the Baptist was named? Who was struck dumb by God for laughing at a promise God had made? What sign was given john's father? What are comebacks for when people call you dumb? Why did Zechariah name his son John? Why is Luke dumb? What priest was struck mute in the Holy of Holies?
What does stupefied mean? What does the word dombfounded mean? Who wrote the book of Zechariah? Who is zechariah? Zechariah was contemporary of who? When was Zechariah Aghmati born? When did Zechariah Aghmati die? When was Zechariah Green born? Abraham may not have doubted like Zacharias but Sarah certainly did. She laughs when she and is even warned about mocking God but retains the ability to speak.
Gabriel has this effect on people. The angel Gabriel also appears in Daniel chapter 10 and appears to temporarily make some dumb. Yet, Gabriel does not make Mary dumb, he just gives her a cryptic answer. Yet, according to Luke, Gabriel makes Zacharias dumb because he did not believe his promise.
However, it is not clear why Gabriel would have this experience and not Abraham, Sarah, or Mary. When people become dumb in the NT it is often because of possession, almost always by an evil spirit. There is even once instance in Luke when a person is unable to speak because they are possessed. It seems strange that Luke would allow this potential confusion. There is obviously something I am missing because I do not understand this exchange.
What is Luke doing with this story? Perhaps Luke is drawing attention to how Zacharias and Mary ask their respective questions. Perhaps God makes Zacharias dumb because this would help him learn some important lesson and Luke — who is unaware of this personal dimension — is simply reporting the story. I do not know the answer. But then, who said angels are perfect!
Maybe Gabriel jumped to conclusions about Zacharias and was overly harsh, and was told to take a softer line when dispatched to Mary. I take this to mean that Mary is more open to the mystery of it all. She said that at times she has read unfulfilled promises from her patriarchal blessing and found them incredibly painful because they no longer seemed possible and suggested that the dumbness was not God smiting Zachariah, but actually a blessing to help him believe.
I taught this lesson in Gospel Doctrine a few weeks ago and we spent a good portion of class discussing this very question! We brought up a lot of the possibilities that have been mentioned here already Zachariah, being a priest, was perhaps held to a different standard, etc. Some thoughts I had: As a pregnant woman, I am very aware every day that there is a human person growing inside of me.
Mary would have been similarly aware of the miracle of Christ growing in her womb. But to me, the questions of Zacharias and Mary seem like very different questions. I mean, she knew how babies were made, but…. Not a perfect analogy, but those are my thoughts. Being older, a priest in the temple, having prayed many years for a son, Zacharias was probably expected to have more faith than he displayed. Where much is given, much is required.
Mary, on the other hand, was a young girl. Speaking in modern terms, he was more like a GA and she was more like one of the youth in my ward. As said above, he was receiving a specific and very detailed answer to his own prayer and yet failed to recognise this! By contrast his unborn son leaps in the womb when Mary enters their home and greets Elizabeth.
The theme of recognition is a fascinating one. In response to the question regarding the contrast in the two encounters with God's messenger, concerning Zechariah and Mary, resulting in different outcomes. Zechariah was a priest. It was customary in that time for only the priest to enter into the temple of God and burn incense pray to God , and then get a word from God to share with the people who were waiting on the outside to hear a word from God. Therefore, for a priest not to believe a word from God doubt, question was a major occurrence.
Lives depended on this word. Priests were seen as the intercessor between man and God before Jesus came The Great High Priest, Hebrew who is always interceding for his children , Romans Zechariah's was made silent because of his position; while being in that position he doubted.
I pray that this brings clarity and I encourage you to search info on Old Testament priests and their duties. Hopefully it will help put that section of Luke into context. Love you The question is: "Why then is Mary not punished for doubting God's word unlike Zachariah? I think it was a wonderful gift, the gift of silence, within which he was able to absorb the revelation he had received - itself a great grace.
True, his response can be interpreted as a bit skeptical, but I view it more as superficial - in some sense he didn't know what he was saying. So he needed some time to reflect, and an enforced silence freed him from his verbal duties as a priest. Mary, on the other hand, seems like she was already in a state of deep contemplation, and her response came from that kind of frame of mind.
My main point is that I don't view Zechariah's experience as in any way involving a "punishment" If you listen to the responses of Zacharia and Mary to the Angel Gabriel, it should be obvious that Zacariah's response was one of doubt to something being told to him, a Scripture Scholar. He had asked for a child and he, knowing God as a priest, should have known from past Scriptural history that God is never limited by anything except the person causing the limitation.
He knew that he was being visited by a messenger angel of God to relate to him God's love for him and Elizabeth by making the impossible happen, the birth of a Great Person. Yet, he doubted. On the other hand Mary never asked for anything other than to be loved by the God she prayed to each moment of her life. When the angel Gabriel appeared to her telling her that a child would be born to her and this child would be the Son of God, her inquiry was a very natural one, "I am a virgin; I know not man.
Keep in mind that Mary was a child betweeen years of age, not a priest, but a simple maiden who loved God dearly. What followed was Jesus, God with us! As a result of her "fiat" her acceptance was made freely she made it possible for God to have his divine Son become incarnate and be born bringing into the world his promised redemption to Abraham and the prophets that followed throughtout salvation history.
And Zachariah said to the angel: By what shall I know this [to be true]? For I am an old man, and my wife is advanced in years. And Mary said to the angel: How shall this be done, seeing I know not man?
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