Zechariah- Everyman's Bible Commentary

5:1

PREFACE

Zechariah has been called an obscure book and an extremely difficult book to understand. What is its meaning? What is its message? Few Old Testament books are the subject of as many conflicting interpretations as are associated with Zechariah.

The goal of this commentary is to present a study of Zechariah’s message following carefully established interpretive guidelines. This commentary may be regarded as a cautious approach to the book of Zechariah. The central message of each prophecy and vision will be expounded. Speculation regarding the uncertain details will be avoided.

Zechariah recorded the words and visions of a spokesman for God who ministered in Judah following the return from Babylonian captivity. The restoration period was an exciting and challenging era in Judah’s history. The Temple and the city walls of Jerusalem needed rebuilding; the worship institutions needed refurbishing; and the people, still weary from long years of exile, needed encouraging. In the face of those challenges there were threats from the Arabs and syncretistic Samaritans who wanted to prevent the reestablishment of Judah. The leaders of the people faced such internal difficulties as neglect of worship, neglect of spiritual priorities, and breakdown in marriage relationships.

It was during this tempestuous period of rebuilding Jerusalem and the Jewish faith that Zechariah declared his challenging but encouraging message. He called for repentance, announced the coming of Messiah, and presented a detailed portrayal of God’s future dealings with His chosen people, Israel.

INTRODUCTION

TITLE

The book receives its title from the name of the prophet who ministered to the restoration community as a contemporary of Haggai. His Hebrew name, Zekar-Yah, means Yahweh remembers and communicates a message of hope. The God of Zechariah is characterized by loyal love and will not forget His own.

AUTHOR

The name Zechariah was quite common among the Hebrews. It is applied to thirty different individuals in the Old Testament. Zechariah, the prophet and author of the book, is said to be the son of Berechiah, the son of Iddo (1:1). Ezra 5:1 and 6:14 mention him as being the son of Iddo, but no reference is made to Berechiah. Whereas some have attributed the reference to Berechiah as the result of scribal confusion between two different Zechariahs (cf. Isa. 8:2), there is abundant evidence in the Old Testament for son being used as an equivalent to grandson (cf. Gen. 31:28). Zechariah was the son of Berechiah and grandson of Iddo.

Nehemiah 12:4, 16 reveals that Iddo was among the heads of the priestly families that returned from Babylon to Judea. Thus Zechariah was a member of the tribe of Levi and probably served both as a priest and a prophet. Zechariah appears to have succeeded his grandfather Iddo as head of the priestly family (cf. Neh. 12:16), from which it may be inferred that his father, Berechiah, died at an early age.

Zechariah is generally considered to have been a young man when he received his visions of chapters 1-8 (cf. 2:4, that young man). He entered his prophetic ministry two months after his contemporary, Haggai, concluded his first oracles (October-November 520 B.C.).

UNITY

Critical scholars generally do not regard the book of Zechariah as a literary unit written by the one prophet named in 1:1. Whereas most scholars accept chapters 1-8 as authentic, many believe that chapters 9-14 contain anonymous prophecies from a later period that were appended to the writings of Zechariah for the purpose of preservation. It is interesting that the literary criticism of Zechariah began with the work of a scholar who was seeking to defend the accuracy of the New Testament.

Joseph Mede, a Cambridge scholar, published a dissertation in 1653 suggesting that the quotation from Zechariah 11:13 that Matthew attributes to Jeremiah (Matt. 27:9-10) indicates that chapters 9-11 were written by Jeremiah and are therefore preexilic.¹ Others advanced Mede’s theory, arguing that chapters 12-14 were also a distinct literary unit written sometime before the exile. More recently scholars have abandoned the preexilic view of Mede and argue that chapters 9-14 were written long after the time of Zechariah in the Hellenistic² or Maccabean³ period. Many critics would argue that two or more authors composed chapters 9-14 rather than a single Deutero-Zechariah.⁴ The main arguments against the unity of the book and the single authorship by Zechariah focus on three main areas: content, style, and vocabulary.

CONTENT

It is argued that whereas chapters 1-8 concern themselves with rebuilding the Temple and city of Jerusalem (1:16; 2:4; 4:6-9; 6:12), that concern is absent in chapters 9-14. The apocalyptic theme of catastrophic judgment on the Gentile nations (14:2-3, 12-14) is also considered a late development in Jewish writings. References to the good and evil shepherds in 11:4-17 have been used to argue the late date of Zechariah. The good shepherd is thought to be the high priest Onias III, who held office during the reign of Seleucus IV (187-175 B.C.). The evil shepherd of 11:17 has been identified as the high priest Menelaus (172-162 B.C.) or Alcimus (162-159 B.C.). There have been no less that thirty candidates for the three shepherds of 11:8.⁵ In addition, the references to the regions conquered by Alexander the Great (9:1-2) are thought by some to indicate that chapters 9-14 were written after his conquest, much later than chapters 1-8.

STYLE

Many critical scholars have alleged that the literary style of Zechariah 9-14 is so different from chapters 1-8 that they must have been written by a different author. Whereas Zechariah 1-8 is visionary and written mostly in prose, Zechariah 9-14 is eschatological and contains a great deal of poetry. And in contrast to the earlier chapters, there is no interpreting angel in chapters 9-14. Nor is there any reference made to Zechariah himself, whereas in chapters 1-8 he is named three times (1:1, 7; 7:1) and is an active participant in the visions.⁶

VOCABULARY

The vocabulary of Zechariah has also been used to argue against its unity. It has been pointed out that whereas the phrase thus says the LORD [Yahweh] occurs frequently in chapters 1-8, it is found only once in chapters 9-14 (11:4). It has also been noted that the words in that day occur at least eighteen times in Zechariah 9-14, whereas they are found only three times in Zechariah 1-8. The mention of Greece in Zechariah 9:13 as the dominant power rather than Persia is thought to indicate a late date for chapters 9-14.

A Response:

The arguments of the critical scholars against the unity of Zechariah may not be as ominous as they might at first appear. J. Stafford Wright offers this word of caution: It is not possible to prove the unity of the book, but one should not too readily abandon it.⁷ Several noted scholars, including R. K. Harrison, Gleason Archer, and E. J. Young have written well-reasoned defenses of the unity and single authorship of Zechariah. Their arguments are worthy of consideration.

With regard to content, it should be noted that variations in purpose may result in variation in content. Chapters 1-8 are historically oriented, designed to encourage the returned exiles to turn from their sinful ways of the past and enjoy cleansing and blessing. Chapters 9-14 are eschatologically oriented, designed to encourage the despairing remnant concerning the future glories of Zion. Thus, some difference in content between chapters 1-8 and 9-14 is not an overwhelming argument against the unity of the book. Arguments for late dating Zechariah 9-14 are seriously undermined by the inability of the critics to agree on the historical identifications of the shepherds of chapter 11. Their identifications are conjectural and speculative. And while Zechariah 9:1-2 may appear to refer to the provinces conquered by Alexander, only a rationalistic denial of predictive prophecy would require that that passage be written after rather than before the event.

As to alleged differences in style, one would be rather naive to think that an author’s style would remain static over a period of years. Certainly an ability to vary one’s style depending on the content and mood is one mark of a gifted writer. Whereas differences in style are frequently noted in Zechariah, similarities are often overlooked. Young observes that there is a peculiar five-member type parallelism that is scarcely found outside Zechariah but that occurs once in chapters 1-8 and three times in Zechariah 9-14 (cf. 6:13; 9:5, 7; 12:4).⁸ In addition, the Hebrew verb yashab (to sit, to dwell) is used in the special sense of be inhabited twice in chapters 1-8 and twice in chapters 9-14. Seldom does the verb have this meaning outside Zechariah.⁹ The promise in 8:8, They will be My people and I will be their God, is repeated in 13:9. Thus it appears that the similarities in style between the two sections of Zechariah are as great or greater than their differences.

Finally, with regard to vocabulary, it should be observed that while the phrase thus says the LORD [Yahweh], occurs frequently in chapters 1-8 and only once in chapters 9-14, the phrase says the LORD [Yahweh], occurs fourteen times in the first section and six times in the second section. Yahweh of Hosts appears three times in each section of the book. Harrison notes that the use of two as a favorite number in both portions of the work (4:3; 5:9; 6:1, 11:7; 13:8), the persistent use of the vocative form of address (2:7, 10; 3:2, 8; 4:7; 9:9, 13; 11:1; 13:7), and the presence of the phrase went back and forth (7:14; 9:8), which occurs nowhere else in the Hebrew Scriptures, are evidences of the literature unity of the book.¹⁰

It is rather significant that in spite of the arguments against the unity of Zechariah, all fourteen chapters have been handed down to us as one book in every manuscript so far discovered.¹¹ Although the Hebrew manuscript discovered at Qumran includes only a fragment of Zechariah (1:1-4), the Greek manuscript found there includes the end of chapter 8 and the beginning of chapter 9 with no gap or spacing whatsoever to suggest a break between the two parts. The evidence suggests that the interpreter would do well to treat Zechariah as a unified composition written by a single author whose name appears in the book as Zechariah (1:1; 7:1).

DATE OF WRITING

Determining the date of Zechariah is a problem intrinsically united with the matter of the unity of the book. Those who deny the unity of Zechariah argue that chapters 9-14 date from the Hellenistic or Maccabean period. Eissfeldt prefers 332 B.C. because of the allusions to Alexander the Great’s siege of Tyre in 9:3.¹² Marco Treves argues that chapters 9-14 were written, at least in part, by Judas Maccabeus and dates it around 166-164 B.C.¹³

A major argument of those who late date the book is based on the reference to Greece (Javan) in 9:13. It is held that the reference to Greece as the dominant power rather than Persia suggests a date after Alexander’s conquest (c. 330 B.C.). It has been pointed out, however, that Greek influence was felt in the Near East as early as the seventh century B.C. Greece (Javan) was named by both Isaiah (66:19) and Ezekiel (27:13, 19). Harrison notes that Greek mercenary troops constituted the bulk of the Persian armed forces, and thus could have been seen by Zechariah as a coming menace to the Persian regime.¹⁴ Sporadic raids by the Greeks on the Palestinian coastland began about 500 B.C. with the great Ionian revolt. Certainly the defeat of Xerxes by the Greeks at the battle of Salamis in 480 B.C. would serve to bring them to the attention of all the inhabitants of the Persian Empire.

Those who hold to the unity of the book date Zechariah between 520 and 470 B.C. The biblical text states that Zechariah commenced his prophetic ministry in the second year of Darius (522-486 B.C.) or 520 B.C. (1:1). His last dated prophecy (7:1) was two years later in 518 B.C. The latter chapters of the prophecy (9-14) may have been composed sometime later. Archer suggests a date between 480 and 470 for chapters 9-14.¹⁵

S. Bullough correctly maintains that the visions of chapters 1-8 were composed between 520 and 518 B.C. when Zechariah was about thirty years of age. He suggests that the prophecies of chapters 9-14 were written when he was about seventy, when the future of the Persian Empire had become less secure. That would place them after the revolt of Egypt in 486 B.C., the death of Darius in 485 B.C., and the failure of Xerxes’ expedition against Greece in 480 B.C.¹⁶ The difference in the author’s age and the changing political circumstances are sufficient to account for any differences between chapters 1-8 and 9-14. It is most probable that the book of Zechariah was composed during the prophet’s lifetime (between 520 and 470 B.C.).

HISTORICAL SETTING

Zechariah lived and ministered during the restoration period that followed the Babylonian Exile. As the prophets had predicted exile because of disobedience, so they predicted the return to the land after seventy years of discipline (Isa. 43:14-21; Jer. 25:11-12; 29:10). God began to fulfill that promise of restoration when He raised up Cyrus, king of Anshan, who conquered Achmetha and inherited the kingdom of the Medes in 550 B.C. (cf. Isa.