Nothing indicates why his father gave him that name. However, based on the significance of naming in that culture, we can infer that Zechariah’s birth was felt by his father to be a meaningful response by God to something very significant in his life. So let’s go back to the beginning of this story. Zechariah’s father, an ordinary Levitical priest whose name we do not know, had just heard his baby’s first cry. As he waited outside the room where his wife had struggled to give birth, perhaps he wondered