1:23-25 — When his time of service was completed, he returned home. After this his wife Elizabeth became pregnant and for five months remained in seclusion. "The Lord has done this for me," she said. "In these days he has shown his favour and taken away my disgrace among the people."

We do not know during which day of the week that Zechariah's division was on duty that he was serving at the altar of incense. At any rate he remained for the rest of the week before returning to his home. Soon afterwards Elizabeth was pregnant, and "with a sense of privacy about the precious and intimate way that God has dealt with her in her old age, withdraws into seclusion with her secret, until the stage where her pregnancy will be physically obvious."1. Sensitive as women usually are—in ways men usually are not—Elizabeth recognizes and acknowledges with thanksgiving that this is the Lord's doing. Whatever thoughts—of misgivings or disappointments—she may have had about her long years of barreness, of shame and as the center of unkind gossips, those days are gone. Instead, "in these days he has shown his favour and taken away my disgrace among the people." She was rejoicing in her new beginning.