The name Zechariah means Jehovah remembers. The prophet by that name was born in Babylon in the captivity, for when he returned to the land of his fathers he was but a child. Like some other prophets, he was a priest as well as a prophet. His work as prophet was commenced by him when he was a young man, for thus he is called in one of the visions. The time of his opening address to the people is two months after Haggai had opened his lips in Jehovah’s name. Haggai received the word of the Lord in the sixth month in the second year of Darius, and Zechariah in the eighth month of the same year, about 520 bc.
Both prophets had the same desire, namely, to encourage the Jewish remnant in the blessed work of rebuilding the house of the Lord. This work had suffered an interruption; the Samaritans were the cause. They had applied to join in the work, but as the remnant considered them idolators and not belonging to God’s people, the application was rejected. These Samaritans tried after that in various ways to hinder the rebuilding, which had so blessedly begun. At last they succeeded in obtaining a decree which forbade the building.
All work ceased for about 14 years. But when Darius became king, the building of the temple was once more made possible. The leaders in the enterprise were Zerubbabel and Joshua, the high priest. But again they were hindered from the outside, while on the other hand the people themselves had lost much interest and no longer possessed that love and zeal for God’s house, so prominent after their return. Thus Haggai said: “This people say, If is not the time for us to come, the time for the Lord’s house to be built…Is it a time for you to dwell in your ceiled houses, while this house lieth waste” (Hag. 1)?
In that critical moment these two prophets made their appearance, and God gave them visions of comfort and glad tidings to encourage the disheartened, selfish, and unbelieving people.
The visions and prophecies of Zechariah, however, do not only give assurance that there could be no failure in the work the remnant had taken up anew, but more than that in them the glorious future of Jerusalem and Zion is unfolded. They lead up to the grand finale of the history of God’s ancient people, the time when Israel, redeemed and restored forever, will sing the grand and glorious Hallelujah.
It is, of course, true that Zechariah did a blessed work for the people who lived in his day; he had a special mission to perform and succeeded in it, but the Spirit of God in the message of comfort for that time gives the history of events then in a distant future. The Babylonian captivity of Israel foreshadows their greater dispersion in which they are wanderers today, and the restoration which took place in the time of Zechariah is typical of that coming restoration for which we hope and pray.
Zechariah may therefore be fitly called the Prophet of the Restoration. Surely it is a deplorable blindness in some teachers of the Word, who see in the book of Zechariah nothing but past history, and who claim that all has been fulfilled in the return of the small Jewish remnant from the captivity, and whatever promises of mercy given to Jerusalem and the land of Judah find now their spiritual fulfillment in the church.
We find that instead of the book of Zechariah being all fulfilled prophecy, as some would have it, it is indeed mostly unfulfilled, and even some of the prophetic promises which on the surface seem to have seen a fulfillment, were only in part realized. And how important at this time to study the book of Zechariah! We are living in the time when that greater restoration is about to come to pass.
Several of the Jewish commentators confess an inability to explain the book. The well-known Jewish commentator, Solomon Ben Jarchi (generally known by the name Rashi), says: “The prophecy [of Zechariah] is very dark, for it contains visions much like dreams, which want interpreting, and we will never succeed in finding the true meaning until the Teacher of righteousness arrives.” Abarbanel makes a similar confession.
We praise God that the Teacher of Righteousness has come, even the Spirit of Truth, who guides into all truth and reveals the thing to come.