24. The eleventh in order of the twelve minor prophets.
1. Of his personal historj' we know but little. He is called in his prophecy the son of Berechiah and the grandson of Iddo, whereas in the book of Ezra (v, 1; vi, 14) he is said to have been the son of Iddo. Various attempts have been made to reconcile this discrepanc}'. Cyril of Alexandria (^Pref. Comment, ad Zech.) supposes that Berechiah was the father of Zechariah according to the flesh, and that Iddo was his instructor, and might be regarded as his spiritual father. Jerome, too, accord- ing to some MSS., has in Zech. i, 1, "filium Barachia;, rilium Addo,"as if he supposed that Berechiah and Iddo were different naines of the same person ; and the same mistake occurs in the Sept. : roi' tuv ^apa\iov v'lov 'ASdw. Gesenius (Lex, s. v. "(S) and Rosenmiiller (On Zech. i, 1) take "3 in the passages in Ezra to mean " grandson," as in Gen. xxix, 5 Laban is termed " the son," i. e. " grandson," of Nalior. Others, again, have sucfirested that in the text of Ezra no mention is made
ZECHARIAH
1068
ZECHARIAH
of Bercchiah. because lie was already dead, or because Iddi) was tiie more distinj^uislied person, and the gener- allv recof^nised head of the family. Knobel thinks that the name of Berechiah has crept into the present text of Zecliariah from Isa. viii, 2, where mention is made of a Zecliariah •■ the son of Jthirechiah," which is virtu- ally the same name (Sept. Bopa^iov^ as Berechiah. ]Iis theory is that eh. ix-xi of our present book of Zechariah are really the work of the older Zechariah (Isa. viii, 2) : that a later scribe finding the two books, one bearing the name of Zecliariah the son of Iddo, and the oilier that of Zechariah the son of Berechiah, united them into one. and at the same time combined the titles of the two, and that hence arose the confusion which at present exists. This, however, is hardly a probable hy- pothesis. It is surely more natural to suppose, as the prophet himself mentions his father's name, whereas the historical books of Ezra and Nehemiah mention only Iddo, that Berechiah had died early, and that there was now no intervening link between the grand- father and the grandson. The son, in giving his pedi- gree, does not omit his father's name: the historian passes it over as of one who was but little known or al- ready forgotten. This view is confirmed if we suppose the Iddo here mentioned to have been the Iddo the priest who, in Neh. xii, 4, is said to have returned from Babylon in company with Zcrubbabel and Joshua. He is tlierc said to have had a son Zechariah (ver. 16), who was contemporary with Joiakim the son of Joshua; and this falls in with the hypothesis that owing to some un- explained cause — perhaps the death of his father — Zech- ariah became the next representative of the famih- af- ter his grandfather Iddo. Zechariah, according to this view, like Jeremiah and Ezekiel before him, was priest as well as prophet. He seems to have entered upon his ofHce while yet young ("1^3, Zech. ii, 4 ; comp. Jer. i, G), and must have been born in Babylon, whence he return- ed with the first caravan of exiles under Zerubbabel and Joshua.
It was in the eighth month, in the second year of Darius, that he first publicly discharged his office. B.C. .')19. In this he acted in concert with Haggai, who inust have been considerably his senior if, as seems not improbable, Haggai had been carried into captivity, and hence had himself been one of those who had seen " the house" of Jehovah "in her first glory" ( Hagg. ii, 3). Both prophets had the same great object before them ; both directed all their energies to the building of the second Temple. Haggai seems to have led the way in this work, and then to have left it chiefly in the hands of his younger contemporary. The foundations of the new building had already been laid in the time of Cy- rus, but during the reigns of Cambyses and the pseudo- Smerdis the work had been broken off through the jealousies of the Samaritans. When, however, Darius Hystaspis ascended the throne (.'»21) things took a more favorable turn. He seems to have been a large-hearted and gracious prince, and to have been well-disposed to- wards the Jews. Encouraged by the hopes which his accession held out, the prophets exerted themselves to the utmost to secure the completion of the Temple. From this time, for a space of nearly two years, the prophet's voice was silent, or his words have not been recorded. But in the fourth year of king Darius, in the fourth day of the ninth montli, there came a deputation of Jews to the Temple, anxious to know whether the fast-days which )iad been instituted during the seventy years' captivity were still to be observed. On the one hand, now that the cai)tivity was at an end, and Jeru- salem was rising from her ashes, such set tiines of mourn- ing seemed quite out of place. On the other hand, there was still much ground for serious uneasiness; for some time after their return they had suffered severely from drought and famine (1,6-11), and who could tell that they would not so suffer again"? The hostility of their neighbors had not ceased ; they were still regarded with