Verse 76 It is interesting to observe how the natural feelings and partialities of the father are here merged in the higher emotions of inspiration and prophecy. With his own infant son before him, his only son, the child of his old age, and on an occasion the most exciting to a father's feelings,--the burden of his song is the great blessings which are to come upon the world through the instrumentality of another child, yet to be born. It is only in conclusion that he turns to his own son, and then to assign him the comparatively humble part of going before the face of the Lord, to prepare his ways.