by Stephen Rodgers
ZECHARIAH IN 10 WORDS OR LESS
“Jewish exiles should rebuild their temple – and anticipate their Messiah.”
TITLE
Like nearly all the other prophetic books, the name of the book bears the name of the prophet who was responsible for its contents (Zech. 1:1). The name Zechariah (“the LORD remembers”) is quite common, appearing in conjunction with 29 other OT men.
AUTHOR & AUDIENCE
Like Haggai and Malachi, Zechariah is one of the post-exilic prophets. In fact, he is mentioned several times in conjunction with Haggai, causing many scholars to theorize that the two were friends who returned from the Babylonian exile together as children, but didn’t come of age until later when they both began to preach and prophesy in 520 BC.
Per the MSB:
Like Jeremiah and Ezekiel, Zechariah was also a priest (Neh. 12:12–16) According to tradition, he was a member of the Great Synagogue, a council of 120 originated by Nehemiah and presided over by Ezra. This council later developed into the ruling elders of the nation, called the Sanhedrin. He was born in Babylon and joined his grandfather, Iddo, in the group of exiles who first returned to Jerusalem under the leadership of Zerubbabel and Joshua the High-Priest (cf. Neh. 12:4). Because he is occasionally mentioned as the son of his grandfather (cf. Ezra 5:1; 6:14; Neh. 12:16), it is thought that his father, Berechiah, died at an early age before he could succeed his father into the priesthood…According to Matt. 23:35, he was murdered between the temple and the altar, a fate similar to an earlier Zechariah (cf. 2 Chr. 24:20,21), who had been stoned to death.
There is some dispute as to which Zechariah Jesus was referring to. Per Constable:
The Lord Jesus referred to a Zechariah, the son of Berechiah, whom the Jews murdered between the temple and the altar (Matt. 23:35). This appears to be how the prophet’s life ended.[Gleason L. Archer Jr., A Survey of Old Testament Introduction, p. 425.] This would make Zechariah one of the last righteous people the Jews slew in Old Testament history.
Some students of Scripture believe that the Zechariah to whom Jesus referred was the son of Jehoiada whom the Jews stoned in the temple courtyard (2 Chron. 24:20-22).[E.g., Eugene H. Merrill, An Exegetical Commentary: Haggai, Zechariah, Malachi, p. 95.] However, that man died hundreds of years earlier, before 800 B.C., and Jesus seems to have been summarizing all the righteous people the Jews had slain throughout Old Testament history chronologically. Zechariah ben Jehoiada was the last martyr in the last book of the Hebrew Bible, Chronicles, so Jesus may have been speaking canonically, the equivalent of “all the martyrs from Genesis to Revelation.” Nevertheless that Zechariah was the son of Jehoiada, not Berechiah, and Jesus mentioned Berechiah as the father of the Zechariah He meant. “Son” sometimes means “ancestor,” but there is no known Berechiah in the family line of the Zechariah of 2 Chronicles.
The original audience consisted of the Jews who had returned from the Babylonian exile (see notes on Haggai).
DATE
Zechariah dates the prophesies contained in chapters 1-8 (Zech. 1.1, 7; 7:1) to 520 and 518 BC. The prophecies in chapters 9-14 are undated, but there is reason to believe that he prophesied (and wrote) those chapters much later in his life.
Per the MSB:
Zechariah’s opening words are dated from 520 B.C., the second year of Darius I (Zech. 1:1). The Persian emperor Cyrus had died and was succeeded by Cambyses (ca. 530–521 B.C.) who conquered Egypt. He had no son, he killed himself, and Darius rose to the throne by quelling a revolution. He was a contemporary of Haggai, and began his prophesying 2 months after him (cf. Haggai Introduction). He is called a young man in 2:4, suggesting that Zechariah was younger than Haggai. The length of his ministry is uncertain; the last dated prophecy (Zech. 7:1) came approximately two years after the first, making them identical in time with Haggai’s prophecy (520–518 B.C.). Chapters 9–14 are generally thought to come from a later period of his ministry. Differences in style and references to Greece indicate a date of ca. 480–470 B.C., after Darius I (ca. 521–486 B.C.) and during Xerxes’ reign (ca. 486–464 B.C.), the king who made Esther queen of Persia.
BACKGROUND & SETTING
Zechariah was contemporary of Haggai, so he spoke to the post-exilic community as they struggled to rebuild Jerusalem, the nation, and the temple. Like Haggai he exhorted them to focus on the temple, but unlike Haggai, he took a bit of a broader view, focusing on the future restoration of the nation to a greater degree than the future judgment (which makes it a bit of a departure from type, since it doesn’t particularly embody the classical “covenant lawsuit” pattern).
HISTORICAL & THEOLOGICAL THEMES
There are two main themes that pervade the book of Zechariah.
- Israel’s Near Future. The first eight chapters of Zechariah read somewhat like a lighter version of Haggai. Zechariah encouraged the returnees to rebuild the temple, repent of their sins (Zech. 1:2-6) and mirror God’s character in their treatment of the poor and vulnerable (Zech. 7:4-14). His night visions also expressed God’s care and continuing concern for his covenant people.
- Israel’s Distant Future. The last six chapters of Zechariah read more like a less-obscure version of Isaiah, as they speak to how God would destroy Israel’s enemies (Zech. 9:1-8), establish their ultimate King (Zech. 9:9-17), gather His scattered people (Zech. 10:1-11:3), and rule over all creation (Zech. 14:1-21).
INTERPRETIVE CHALLENGES
Considering that Zechariah contains elements that are prophetic, apocalyptic, and eschatalogical, it would be surprising if there weren’t any interpretive issues. They tend to be relatively minor however, such as the identity of the “three shepherds” or the “wounded man.” While interesting, none of that touches on the core of Zechariah’s message to the people of Israel regarding their future kingdom and messiah.
LITERARY FEATURES
Per the ESVSB:
The main genre of Zechariah is futuristic prophecy. Although the second half of the book contains some conventional oracles of judgment and oracles of redemption, in the first half the preferred medium is visions that embody in symbolic form what God plans to do. This part of the book needs to be approached much like the NT book of Revelation—by first allowing the images and symbols to activate the imagination, and then by exploring what those details symbolize. Visions and oracles of salvation predominate over images of judgment. Chapters 1–6 of Zechariah, with their striking otherworldly visions in the company of an angelic interpreter, form an important precursor to later apocalyptic literature.
OBJECTIONS
The most significant objection that has been repeatedly raised in the last ~200 years is the issue of alleged multiple authorship. As mentioned earlier, some scholars have posited a difference in authorship based on stylistic differences between chapters 1-8 and 9-14. What is particularly interesting about the history of that dispute is that it did NOT arise as part of the higher criticism movement (on the contrary, the textual transmission evidence argues against any split between chapters 8 and 9), but rather as a response to inter-textual issues. Per Constable:
Until A.D. 1653 no one seriously questioned that Zechariah wrote the whole book. In that year Joseph Mede suggested that Jeremiah may have written chapters 9—11, in view of Matthew 27:9. In succeeding years other scholars proceeded to question the second part of the book (chs. 9—14) because of its differences in content and historical and chronological references compared to the first part. Today almost all critical scholars regard this book as the product of two or three writers who wrote either before the exile or after Zechariah…Competent conservative scholars have refuted the arguments of the radical critics adequately. [See especially Baldwin, pp. 62-70; Leupold, pp. 6-13; Merrill F. Unger, Unger’s Bible Commentary: Zechariah, pp. 13-14; R. K. Harrison, Introduction to the Old Testament, pp. 950-56; and Archer, pp. 425-30.]
Most arguments for multiple scholarship in recent years have tended to rely on anti-prophetic bias since the textual and historical evidence has shifted back towards supporting a single-author hypothesis (which has also always been the universal tradition of both Jews and Christians).
NOTABLE QUOTABLES
- Zechariah 1:3
- Zechariah 4:6
DID YOU KNOW?
- Other than Isaiah (and possibly the Psalms), Zechariah is probably the prophet with the greatest amount of messianic teaching.
- Babylonia is referred to “the land of the north” even though it was actually east of Israel. However, since Israel was protected from invasion from the east by a rather sizable desert, invading armies regularly attacked from the north (Zech. 2:6)
- A “waterless pit” (empty cistern) was sometimes used as an impromtu detention cell (Zech. 9:11).
- Inexplicable wounds on a person’s body were often associated with self-inflicted injuries in cultic practices (Zech. 13:6).
Other Works Referenced
- Apologetics Study Bible, “Zechariah”
- Archaeological Study Bible, “Introduction to Zechariah”
- ESV Study Bible, “Introduction to Zechariah”
- MacArthur Study Bible, “Zechariah”
- NET Bible, Zechariah
- NIV Study Bible, Zechariah
- Reformation Study Bible, “Zechariah”
- The Baker Illustrated Bible Handbook, “Zechariah”
- Dever, The Message of the Old Testament
- Driscoll, A Book You’ll Actually Read On the Old Testament
- Knight, The Layman’s Bible Handbook
