Expositor's Bible Commentary Commentary Luke 1:7

"And they had no child, because that Elisabeth was barren, and they both were [now] well stricken in years." — Luke 1:7 (ASV)

To be childless brought sorrow and often shame. At her advanced age, Elizabeth could no longer entertain the hope of each Jewish woman to be the mother of the Messiah. While her situation and the subsequent intervention of God had its precedents in the OT (cf. Sarah, Genesis 17:16–17; Hannah, 1 Samuel 1:5–11), no other woman had such a total reversal in fortune as to bear the forerunner of the Messiah.