Zechariah

Zechariah (Heb. Zekharyah, “the LORD remembers”) is the son of Berechiah, son of Iddo, a priest as well as a prophet (Neh.12.16). He began to prophesy in the eighth month of the second year of Darius — late October 520 BC, just two months after Haggai — and his ministry continued for at least another two years (Zec.1.1; 7.1). The first six chapters record his famous series of eight night visions: the horsemen patrolling the earth, the four horns and four craftsmen, the man with the measuring line, the cleansing of Joshua the high priest, the golden lampstand and two olive trees, the flying scroll, the woman in the ephah, and the four chariots. They are followed by a symbolic crowning of Joshua (Zec.6.9–15), a pair of dated oracles on true fasting and future blessing in chapters 7–8, and then the great series of burdens in chapters 9–14 that look beyond his own day to the coming and rejection and triumph of the Messianic King. The New Testament quotes him for the King riding humbly upon a donkey (Zec.9.9 in Mat.21.5; Joh.12.15), the thirty pieces of silver thrown to the potter (Zec.11.12–13 in Mat.27.9), the smitten shepherd whose sheep are scattered (Zec.13.7 in Mat.26.31), and the one whom they pierced (Zec.12.10 in Joh.19.37; Rev.1.7). Jesus refers to a “Zechariah son of Berechiah” murdered between the temple and the altar (Mat.23.35) — a tradition that the prophet himself died as a martyr.