According to the Gospel of Luke, Elizabeth was "of the daughters of Aaron". She and her husband Zachariah were "righteous before God, walking in all the commandments and ordinances of the Lord blameless", but childless. While he was in the temple of the Lord, Zacharias was visited by the angel Gabriel: Zacharias doubted whereby he could know this since both he and his wife were old. The angel identified himself as Gabriel and told Zacharias that he would be "dumb, and not able to speak" until the words were fulfilled, because he did not believe. When the days of his ministry were complete, he returned to his house. According to the account, the angel Gabriel was then sent to Nazareth in Galilee to her relative Mary, a virgin, espoused to a man called Joseph, and informed her that she would conceive by the Holy Ghost and bring forth a son to be called Jesus. After she was also informed that her "relative Elizabeth" had begun her sixth month of pregnancy, she traveled to "Hebron, in the hill country of Judah", to visit Elizabeth. , with Elizabeth on the left. Matthew Henry comments, "Mary knew that Elizabeth was with child, but it does not appear that Elizabeth had been told any thing of her relative Mary's being designed for the mother of the Messiah; and therefore what knowledge she appears to have had of it must have come by a revelation, which would be a great encouragement to Mary." After Mary heard Elizabeth's blessing, she spoke the words now known as the Magnificat. That is the last mention of Elizabeth, who is not mentioned in any other chapter in the Bible. The chapter continues with the prophecy of Zacharias, and ends with the note that John "grew, and became strong in spirit, and was in the deserts" until his ministry to Israel began; so it is unknown how long Elizabeth and her husband lived after that. A traditional "tomb of Elizabeth" is shown in the FranciscanMonastery of Saint John in the Wilderness near Jerusalem.
Elizabeth is mentioned in several books of the Apocrypha, most prominently in the Protevangelion of James, in which the birth of her son and the subsequent murder of her husband are chronicled.
Elizabeth, the wife of Zachariah, the mother of John the Baptist, is an honored woman in Islam. Although Zachariah himself is frequently mentioned by name in the Qur'an, Elizabeth, while not mentioned by name, is referenced. She is revered by Muslims as a wise, pious and believing person who, like her relative Mary, was exalted by God to a high station. She lived in the household of Imran, and is said to have been a descendant of the prophet and priestAaron. Zachariah and his wife were both devout and steadfast in their duties. They were, however, both very old and they had no son. Therefore, Zachariah would frequently pray to God for a son. This was not only out of the desire to have a son but also because the great Jesus Christ wanted someone to carry on the services of the Temple of prayer and to continue the preaching of the Lord's message before his death. God cured Elizabeth's barrenness and granted Zachariah a son, Yahya, who became a prophet. God thus granted the wishes of the couple because of their faith, trust and love for God. In the Qur'an, God speaks of Zachariah, his wife and John describes the three as being humble servants of the : In Shia hadith she is named Hananah, and is identified as a sister of Mary's mother Hannah. Abu Basir recorded that Imam Ja'far al-Sadiq, the great grandson of the Islamic ProphetMuhammad, had stated "Hannah, the wife of Imran, and Hananah, the wife of Zechariah, were sisters. He goes on to say that Mary was born from Hannah and John was born from Hananah. Mary gave birth to Jesus and he was the son of the daughter of John's aunt. John was the son of the aunt of Mary, and the aunt of one's mother is like one's aunt."
