Zechariah

A prophet stands up in a half-built city in 520 BC and tells a discouraged remnant that God has come back. The returned exiles had laid a temple foundation and stopped; there was no king, no army, and no money, and the neighbours were hostile. Zechariah's answer comes in eight night visions, all in one night, each of them a picture with an angel standing by to explain it — horsemen patrolling a quiet earth, a man setting out to measure a city that will be too big for walls, a high priest in filthy clothes being re-dressed in the middle of a trial, a lampstand fed by two olive trees with no one tending it. What they say together is that the work is God's, the resources are not the point, and the small beginning is not to be despised. The second half of the book, chapters 9-14, is different in form and tone — undated, apocalyptic, and full of images the New Testament reaches for constantly: a king entering Jerusalem on a donkey, thirty pieces of silver thrown to the potter, a shepherd struck and the sheep scattered, and one they will look on whom they pierced. How to read those chapters, and whether the same prophet wrote them, has been argued for two centuries; this bundle sets out the readings and does not choose between them.

Themes

• Return to me, and I will return to you — The book's opening call (1:3), and the premise of everything after it — the visions describe a God who has come back to a city he had left, and asks for the same movement in return.
• Not by might, nor by power — The answer to a governor with a half-built temple and no resources (4:6). The lampstand in that vision is fed by two olive trees directly, with nobody carrying oil.
• The Branch — A title Jeremiah and Isaiah had used for a coming Davidic king, applied here to a figure who will build the temple and be both priest and ruler on one throne (3:8; 6:12-13).
• Visions with an interpreter — Eight of them, all in one night, and each follows the same shape — a picture, the prophet's question, an angel's explanation. Zechariah asks 'what are these?' more than any other prophet.
• Fasting and justice — When a delegation asks whether to keep a fast for the temple's destruction, the answer is not about the fast at all: execute true judgment, show kindness, don't oppress the widow, the fatherless, the foreigner or the poor (7:9-10).
• The nations — Not only judged but joining: many nations attach themselves to Yahweh (2:11), ten men take hold of one Jew's robe (8:23), and in the last chapter the survivors of the nations come up to keep the feast.
• The pierced one and the struck shepherd — The images of chapters 9-14 that the Gospels reach for at the entry into Jerusalem, at the betrayal price, in Gethsemane and at the cross.

Outline

• 1. Return to me — A call not to repeat the fathers' mistake, then two of the night visions: horsemen reporting a world at rest, and four horns answered by four craftsmen.
• 2. A city without walls — A man goes out to measure Jerusalem and is told not to bother — it will be unwalled and crowded, with God himself as a wall of fire around it.
• 3. Filthy garments — A courtroom vision: the high priest accused, the accuser rebuked, the clothes changed on the spot, and a promise about a servant called the Branch.
• 4. Not by might, nor by power — A lampstand fed by two olive trees with no human hand involved — and the day of small things told not to be despised.
• 5. A flying scroll — Two visions about removing what is wrong: a curse-scroll the size of the temple porch, and wickedness sealed in a grain basket and flown to Babylon.
• 6. Four chariots, and a crown — Chariots to the four winds, then a crown made for a high priest and a promise about the man whose name is the Branch.
• 7. Should we keep fasting? — A delegation asks about a fast; the answer asks whether the fasting was ever for God, and repeats what the former prophets said about widows and foreigners.
• 8. Old men and children in the streets — Ten promises in a row, the most domestic in the prophets — and fasts turned into feasts, with nations taking hold of a Jew's robe to come along.
• 9. Your king comes, riding on a donkey — An oracle sweeping down the coast, and then the entry the Gospels quote — a king who is humble, on a donkey, cutting off the war horse.
• 10. Rain in the spring — Against shepherds who mislead, and for a scattered flock: a cornerstone, a tent peg, and a gathering from Egypt and Assyria.
• 11. Thirty pieces of silver — The hardest chapter in the book: a prophet plays a shepherd, breaks two staffs named Favour and Union, and is paid off with a price he is told to throw to the potter.
• 12. Whom they have pierced — Jerusalem as a stone that injures whoever lifts it — and a mourning poured out by a spirit of grace, family by family.
• 13. Strike the shepherd — A fountain opened for uncleanness, prophecy discredited and disowned — and a sword against the shepherd, with a third refined in the fire.
• 14. Yahweh will be King over all the earth — The last day of the book: a mountain split, a day that is neither day nor night, living water, and the nations coming up to keep the feast of Booths.

Chapters

• Zechariah 1 — An opening call not to repeat the fathers' mistake, and then the first two of the eight night visions. Horsemen come back from patrolling and report that the whole earth is quiet — which sounds like good news and is the problem, because a world at peace is a world in which nothing is changing for Jerusalem.
• Zechariah 2 — A surveyor sets out to measure Jerusalem and is stopped: don't, because it will be too full for walls, and God will be a wall of fire around it. Then a call to the exiles still in Babylon to get out, and a promise that many nations will attach themselves to the same God.
• Zechariah 3 — A courtroom vision in which nothing is argued. The high priest stands in filthy clothes with an accuser at his right hand, and the case is settled not by a defence but by a rebuke and a change of clothes — carried out while everyone watches.
• Zechariah 4 — A lampstand with a bowl on top and pipes running to two olive trees — an oil supply with no one carrying it — shown to a governor trying to finish a temple with nothing. The interpretation is the book's most quoted sentence, and its subject is resources.
• Zechariah 5 — Two visions about removal rather than restoration. A scroll the size of the temple porch flies over the land carrying a curse against theft and false swearing, and then wickedness itself is personified, shut in a grain basket with a lead lid, and flown to Babylon to be given a house of its own.
• Zechariah 6 — The last vision matches the first — chariots going out to patrol instead of horsemen coming back — and then the visions stop and something physical happens: silver and gold from the exiles is made into a crown and set on the high priest's head, with a speech about a man whose name is the Branch.
• Zechariah 7 — Two years later a delegation arrives with a practical question — should we keep fasting for the destruction of the temple, now that it is being rebuilt? — and gets an answer that ignores the question and asks a better one: when you fasted, was it for me?
• Zechariah 8 — Ten oracles in a row, each opening with the same formula, and the most domestic vision in the prophets sits in the middle of them: old men and women sitting in the streets with sticks in their hands, and the streets full of children playing. Then the fasting question is finally answered — the fasts become feasts.
• Zechariah 9 — An oracle that sweeps down the trade route from Syria through Phoenicia to the Philistine coast, and then stops at Jerusalem for the verse everyone knows: your king comes to you, righteous and having salvation, humble and riding on a donkey — and the next line takes the war horse out of service.
• Zechariah 10 — Ask God for rain, not the household gods — a small instruction that sets up the whole chapter, which is about who the people have been relying on. The shepherds are the target, and the promise is a flock gathered from Egypt and Assyria and made able to fight on its own feet.
• Zechariah 11 — The hardest chapter in the book, and one of the strangest in the prophets. Zechariah is told to act the part of a shepherd over a flock being fattened for slaughter, and the sign-act ends with him resigning, breaking two staffs, and being paid off with thirty pieces of silver he is told to throw to the potter.
• Zechariah 12 — Jerusalem becomes dangerous to handle — a cup that makes the drinker stagger, a stone that injures whoever tries to lift it — and then, at the chapter's centre, the mood breaks completely: a spirit of grace is poured out and the city mourns for someone it pierced, family by family, husbands and wives apart.
• Zechariah 13 — A fountain opens for sin and uncleanness, and then two things are removed that a modern reader does not expect to see in the same list: idols, and prophets. The chapter ends with a sword called against a shepherd described as the man who stands next to God.
• Zechariah 14 — The book ends with the largest scene it has: all nations gathered against Jerusalem, the city taken and half of it exiled, and then the Mount of Olives splitting east to west under God's own feet. The last image is not a battle but a kitchen — every cooking pot in the city holy enough for sacrifice.

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