Luke 1:5 - Coke's Commentary on the Holy Bible

In the days of Herod, &c.— See on Matthew 2:1. The descendants of Aaron multiplied to such a degree, that they could not all do duty in the temple at once; David therefore divided them into twenty-four courses, who ministered weekly in their turns. The time of their ministration was, called εφημερια, as was likewise the course itself; but the name belonged originally to the Athenian magistrates, called Prytaneis, who, being fifty men chosen by lot out of a tribe, and each man governing the city a single day, the days which any tribe governed, as well as its fifty Prytaneis succeeding one another, were called εφημερια. Hence, because the Jewish courses of priests resembled the Athenian Prytaneis in several respects, they had their name applied to them by those who wrote in Greek. The course of Abia, to which Zacharias belonged, was the eighth in David's regulation; but whether the courses were the same now as at the first institution, it is impossible to determine. Comp. 1 Chronicles 23:6; 1 Chronicles 24:10 and see Potter's Antiquities.