Zechariah

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Eleventh of the Minor Prophets in the Prophets section of the Bible. His first prophecy was made in the second year of the reign of Darius I Hystaspis, i.e., 520 BCE. Zechariah was a contemporary of Zerubabbel the governor, Joshua the High Priest, and Haggai the prophet. He prophesied for about two years. Along with Haggai, he exhorted the people of Jerusalem to resume work on the rebuilding of the Temple.

The Book of Zechariah belongs, together with Haggai and Malachi, to a group of prophecies dating after the Babylonian Exile. It contains two different parts: the first eight chapters are explicitly ascribed to the prophet and clearly indicate the time of his prophecies. The remaining six chapters, eschatological in content, are written in an obscure style with allusions to a background that is unclear. Authorship and date of composition of this part are unknown. Although the whole work is attributed to one prophet, most modern scholars contend that the author of these chapters cannot be the same prophet and that the oracles stem from a later period. The Book of Zechariah is the longest of all the Minor Prophets, containing 211 verses. After the return from Babylonian exile, the people of Jerusalem were a poor and dispirited community (8:10). Adding his voice to that of Haggai, Zechariah urged them to continue building the Temple as a necessary prelude to the Messianic kingdom. The result of their combined efforts was the completion of the restoration of the Temple (Ezra 6:15) in 516 BCE. The first six chapters contain eight visions which are recorded as having taken place in a single night. The connecting theme of these visions is the assurance that the Messianic age is about to begin despite appearances to the contrary. The last chapters of the book deal with various aspects of the Messianic age. Both sections of the book contributed greatly to the later literary genre of apocalypticism.

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(zĕk'ə-rī'ə)

A Hebrew prophet of the sixth century B.C.

[Hebrew Zəkaryāh, Yahweh has remembered : zākar, zəkar, he remembered + yāh, Yahweh.]

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