{"id":6260,"date":"2012-10-24T01:00:45","date_gmt":"2012-10-24T08:00:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lighthousebc.com\/beacon\/?p=6260"},"modified":"2012-11-28T04:10:30","modified_gmt":"2012-11-28T12:10:30","slug":"bob-zechariah","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lighthousebc.com\/beacon\/2012\/10\/24\/bob-zechariah\/","title":{"rendered":"BOB – Zechariah"},"content":{"rendered":"

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by Stephen Rodgers<\/em><\/p>\n

ZECHARIAH IN\u00a010\u00a0WORDS\u00a0OR\u00a0LESS<\/strong><\/p>\n

“Jewish exiles should rebuild their temple – and anticipate their Messiah.”<\/p>\n

TITLE<\/strong><\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

AUTHOR\u00a0&\u00a0AUDIENCE<\/strong><\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

Per the MSB:<\/p>\n

Like Jeremiah and Ezekiel, Zechariah was also a priest (Neh. 12:12\u201316) 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…<\/em>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.<\/em><\/p>\n

There is some dispute as to which Zechariah Jesus was referring to. Per Constable:<\/p>\n

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\u2019s life ended.[Gleason L. Archer Jr., A Survey of Old Testament Introduction<\/span>, p. 425.] This would make Zechariah one of the last righteous people the Jews slew in Old Testament history.<\/em><\/p>\n

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<\/span>, 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 \u201call the martyrs from Genesis to Revelation.\u201d Nevertheless that Zechariah was the son of Jehoiada, not Berechiah, and Jesus mentioned Berechiah as the father of the Zechariah He meant. \u201cSon\u201d sometimes means \u201cancestor,\u201d but there is no known Berechiah in the family line of the Zechariah of 2 Chronicles.<\/em><\/p>\n

The original audience consisted of the Jews who had returned from the Babylonian exile (see notes on Haggai<\/a>).<\/p>\n

DATE<\/strong><\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

Per the MSB:<\/p>\n

Zechariah\u2019s 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\u2013521 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\u2019s prophecy (520\u2013518 B.C.). Chapters 9\u201314 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\u2013470 B.C., after Darius I (ca. 521\u2013486 B.C.) and during Xerxes\u2019 reign (ca. 486\u2013464 B.C.), the king who made Esther queen of Persia.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

BACKGROUND\u00a0&\u00a0SETTING<\/strong><\/p>\n

Zechariah was contemporary of Haggai, so he spoke to the post-exilic community as they struggled to rebuild Jerusalem, the nation, and the temple. \u00a0Like Haggai he exhorted them to focus on the temple, but unlike Haggai, he took a bit of a broader view, focusing on the future\u00a0restoration\u00a0<\/em>of the nation to a greater degree than the future\u00a0judgment<\/em> (which makes it a bit of a departure from type, since it doesn’t particularly embody the classical “covenant lawsuit” pattern).<\/p>\n

HISTORICAL\u00a0&\u00a0THEOLOGICAL\u00a0THEMES<\/strong><\/p>\n

There are two main themes that pervade the book of Zechariah.<\/p>\n