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The angel of the Lord only spoke to Zechariah about the name of the child to be born. How did she know about the name? Did the Lord reveal this to her or her husband told her? How she know what the baby should be named?

Luke 1

59 On the eighth day they came to circumcise the child, and they were going to name him after his father Zechariah,
60 but his mother spoke up and said, “No! He is to be called John.”

61 They said to her, “There is no one among your relatives who has that name.”

62 Then they made signs to his father, to find out what he would like to name the child. 63 He asked for a writing tablet, and to everyone’s astonishment he wrote, “His name is John.”

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    I guess that Zechariah did do something to explain his loss of speech to Elizabeth, including his verbal exchange with the angel and what the name of the child should be. It would be rather strange if a wife simply accepted her husband had become dumb and didn't want to know what had happened. – Andrew Leach Jan 6 '13 at 18:48
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Then they made signs to his father, to find out what he would like to name the child. He asked for a writing tablet, and to everyone's astonishment he wrote, "His name is John."

He had all the time prior to this to write it out to her. That is most likely how he would have communicated it to her. Zechariah writing here is just to show everyone else.

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  • I believe this - as it is rational. I just felt like there could be other belief that the Holy Spirit might have revealed it to her. – tunmise fashipe Jan 7 '13 at 21:22
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If she could know that Mary was pregnant with the messiah (In Luke 1:39, we see that Elizabeth visited Mary shortly after Angel Gabriel had visited her and prophesied to her that she would give birth to the Christ- the bible clearly mentions that Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit), in the same way, we can say its certain that she knew by the spirit that her child's name was John.

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The text doesn't say directly, so there is no certain answer. It's likely that Zechariah communicated the name in some other fashion.

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