Zechariah

Zechariah spoke to God’s people about seventy years after Babylon destroyed Jerusalem and Solomon’s temple in 586 B.C. In 538 B.C. King Cyrus of Persia allowed the Jews to go home, and the first group laid the foundation of a new temple, but opposition and discouragement stopped the work for about sixteen years (Ezra 1–4). In 520 B.C., the second year of King Darius I, the LORD sent two prophets to stir the people to build again: Haggai and Zechariah (Ezra 5:1–2). Zechariah, a young priest, began two months after Haggai, and his first word was a call to repent: “Return to me,” declares the LORD Almighty, “and I will return to you” (1:3). The people’s ancestors had refused to listen to the earlier prophets, and the LORD’s words had overtaken them. This generation must not repeat their mistake (1:4–6).

Three months later, in February 519 B.C., Zechariah saw eight visions in one night (1:7–6:8), each explained by an angel who talked with him. In the first, a man on a red horse stood among myrtle trees, and riders reported that the whole earth was at rest, while Jerusalem still lay in ruins. The angel of the LORD asked, “How long will you withhold mercy from Jerusalem?” and the LORD answered with kind and comforting words: “I am very jealous for Jerusalem and Zion … I will return to Jerusalem with mercy, and there my house will be rebuilt” (1:12–16). In the second, four horns that had scattered Judah were thrown down by four craftsmen (1:18–21). In the third, a man set out to measure Jerusalem, but the city would overflow its walls, for the LORD said, “I myself will be a wall of fire around it … and I will be its glory within” (2:5). “Whoever touches you touches the apple of his eye. … I am coming, and I will live among you” (2:8, 10).

The fourth vision showed Joshua the high priest standing before the angel of the LORD in filthy clothes, with Satan beside him to accuse him. “The LORD rebuke you, Satan! … Is not this man a burning stick snatched from the fire?” Joshua’s dirty clothes were removed: “See, I have taken away your sin, and I will put fine garments on you” (3:2–4). The LORD promised, “I am going to bring my servant, the Branch,” and “I will remove the sin of this land in a single day” (3:8–9). In the fifth vision Zechariah saw a gold lampstand fed by two olive trees, and the message was for Zerubbabel the governor: “Not by might nor by power, but by my Spirit,” says the LORD Almighty (4:6). Zerubbabel had laid the temple’s foundation, and he would finish it. “Who dares despise the day of small things?” (4:9–10). The two olive trees are “the two who are anointed to serve the Lord of all the earth” (4:14), usually understood as Joshua and Zerubbabel.

The last three visions show the land made clean. A huge flying scroll carried a curse against those who steal and swear falsely (5:1–4). A woman in a basket, called “wickedness,” was shut in and carried away to Babylonia (5:5–11). Then four chariots came out from between two bronze mountains and went throughout the earth, showing that the LORD rules over all of it (6:1–8). After the visions, Zechariah was told to take silver and gold brought by the returned exiles, make a crown, and set it on the head of Joshua the high priest. “Here is the man whose name is the Branch, and he will branch out from his place and build the temple of the LORD. … And he will be a priest on his throne. And there will be harmony between the two” (6:12–13). The crown was to be kept in the temple as a memorial, and “those who are far away will come and help to build” (6:15).

Almost two years later, in December 518 B.C., people from Bethel asked the priests and prophets whether they should still fast in the fifth month, as they had done for seventy years to mourn the temple’s destruction (7:1–3). The LORD answered with a question: “When you fasted and mourned … was it really for me that you fasted?” (7:5). What he wanted was what the earlier prophets had always said: “Administer true justice; show mercy and compassion to one another. Do not oppress the widow or the fatherless, the foreigner or the poor” (7:9–10). Their ancestors had made their hearts as hard as flint, and that is why they were scattered (7:11–14). Then come ten short promises, each beginning “This is what the LORD Almighty says” (8:1–23). Jerusalem will be called the Faithful City, old men and women will sit in its streets and boys and girls will play there (8:3–5). “Do not be afraid, but let your hands be strong” (8:13). The sad fasts of the fourth, fifth, seventh and tenth months will become “joyful and glad occasions and happy festivals … Therefore love truth and peace” (8:19). Many nations will come to seek the LORD, and ten people will take hold of one Jew and say, “Let us go with you, because we have heard that God is with you” (8:23).

Chapters 9–14 change in style. They have no dates and no visions, and they come in two parts, each headed “A prophecy” (9:1; 12:1). The first prophecy begins with judgment on Israel’s neighbors, from Damascus to Tyre and the Philistine cities, while the LORD guards his own house (9:1–8). Then comes a famous promise: “Rejoice greatly, Daughter Zion! … See, your king comes to you, righteous and victorious, lowly and riding on a donkey, on a colt, the foal of a donkey” (9:9). This king will take away chariots and war horses and “proclaim peace to the nations” (9:10). The gospels say this was fulfilled when Jesus rode into Jerusalem on Palm Sunday (Matthew 21:4–5; John 12:14–15). The LORD calls his people “prisoners of hope” (9:12) and promises to save them like a flock. Because their leaders had failed them and they wandered “like sheep oppressed for lack of a shepherd,” the LORD himself would care for them, strengthen Judah, and gather the scattered tribes home (10:2–12).

Chapter 11 is one of the hardest passages in the prophets. Zechariah is told to “shepherd the flock marked for slaughter” (11:4), and he acts out the part with two staffs called Favor and Union. The flock and its owners reject him, so he breaks Favor. When he asks for his wages, “they paid me thirty pieces of silver,” the price of a slave (Exodus 21:32), and the LORD says, “Throw it to the potter”—the handsome price at which they valued me! So he throws the silver into the house of the LORD, to the potter, and then breaks Union (11:12–14). The chapter ends with a “foolish” and “worthless shepherd” who deserts the flock (11:15–17). Matthew sees these words fulfilled when Judas’s thirty pieces of silver were thrown into the temple and used to buy the potter’s field (Matthew 26:15; 27:3–10), linking them also with Jeremiah.

The second prophecy (chapters 12–14) looks to “that day,” a phrase used more than fifteen times. The nations will gather against Jerusalem, but the LORD will make it an immovable rock and shield its people (12:1–9). Then he will pour out “a spirit of grace and supplication,” and “they will look on me, the one they have pierced, and they will mourn for him as one mourns for an only child” (12:10). John quotes this at the cross and in Revelation (John 19:37; Revelation 1:7). “On that day a fountain will be opened … to cleanse them from sin and impurity” (13:1). The LORD says, “Strike the shepherd, and the sheep will be scattered” (13:7), words Jesus applied to himself on the night he was arrested (Matthew 26:31). A refined remnant will call on the LORD: “They are my people,” and they will say, “The LORD is our God” (13:9). In the last chapter the LORD comes to fight for Jerusalem, “his feet will stand on the Mount of Olives” (14:4), living water flows out from the city, and “the LORD will be king over the whole earth” (14:9). The nations go up each year to worship the King, and even the cooking pots and the bells on the horses are marked “HOLY TO THE LORD” (14:16–21).

Several themes run through Zechariah. Return to the LORD: he promises to return to those who return to him (1:3; 8:3). God remembers: as the prophet’s name says, the LORD is jealous for Zion and keeps his promises (1:14–17; 8:2). By God’s Spirit: the work is done “not by might nor by power, but by my Spirit” (4:6). Cleansing from sin: filthy clothes removed, wickedness carried away, a fountain opened (3:4; 5:5–11; 13:1). Justice and mercy: true worship shows itself in how people treat the weak (7:9–10; 8:16–17). The coming King: the Branch, the humble king, the pierced one, and the LORD as king over all (3:8; 9:9; 12:10; 14:9). Readers understand some parts of Zechariah in different ways. The visions are full of symbols, and the identity of the angel of the LORD, the horns and craftsmen, and the two olive trees is explained differently by different interpreters. The Branch (3:8; 6:12) is seen by some as Zerubbabel, by many Christians as the Messiah, and by others as both, with Zerubbabel pointing beyond himself. Chapters 9–14 are held by many to come from Zechariah himself late in life, and by many scholars to come from one or more later prophets. The shepherds of chapter 11, including the “three shepherds” removed “in one month” (11:8), have been identified in many different ways. Chapter 14 is read by some as a literal future battle and reign, by others as a picture of the final victory of God’s kingdom, with Christians differing also on how it relates to the millennium. Where the New Testament applies these words to Jesus, many Christians see direct prophecy, while others see a pattern fulfilled in him. This outline simply follows the text.