Luke 1:24,25

And hid herself five months,— The meaning is, either that she saw no company, judging it proper to spend most of her time in the duties of devotion, and in meditating silently on the wonderful goodness of God; or that she concealed her pregnancy for awhile, lest she should expose herself to ridicule. That barrenness was a reproach among the Jews, appears from Genesis 30:23. 1 Samuel 1:11.Isaiah 4:1; Isaiah 54:1; Isaiah 54:4 and many other passages. That a branch of the family of Aaron should fail, would also be looked upon as a particular calamity, and might, by ignorant and uncharitable people, be interpreted as a judgment; and so much the rather, considering the many promises which God had made to increase the families of his obedient people. See Exodus 32:13.Leviticus 26:9. Deuteronomy 7:13 and Psalms 127:3. It may not be improper here just to observe, that considering how the whole Jewish policy was interwoven withthose acts of religion which were to be performed by the priests alone, it might seem wonderful that no provision at all should be made for entailing the priesthood on any other family, if that of Aaron should happen to be extinct. Leaving this contingency unprovided for, was in effect resting the whole credit of the Jewish religion upon the perpetual continuance of the male branches of that family; an issue, on which no man of Moses's prudence, nor indeed of common sense, would have rested his legislation, if he had not been truly conscious of its divine original; especially after two of Aaron's four sons had been cut off in one day, for a rash act in the execution of their office as soon as they were initiated into it, and died without any children.