The name Zechariah was not uncommon among the Jews; more than twenty bore it in the Old Testament. It is interpreted, "The Lord remem- bers." The prophet calls himself (eh. i. 1) cc the son of Berechiah, the son of Iddo," which words the LXX. translates, Za.xa.pla.v Tov Tau Bapaxtou, uiov 'A8ow Tov 7rpocf,frriv, as if he was son of Barachias and Iddo, one his natural father, the other his by adoption. But the English Version is doubtless correct in calling him cc son of Bereohiah," who was son of Iddo. The only objection to this genealogy is that he is termed in Ezra v. 1 and vi. 14, "the son of Iddo; " but the word '•son" is used loosely for "grandson," as Laban in Gen. xxix. 5 is called "son" of Nahor, and in Gen. xxxi. 28 Laban calL:i Jacob's children his "sons." Probably Baraohias died young, and Iddo, being more celebrated, and being the immediate predecessor of his granc~- son, was alone mentioned in the historical books. Iddo was one of the priests who returned from Babylon with Zerubbabel and Jeshua (Neh. xii. 4). Zachariah, therefore, was one of the family of Aaron, and exercised his sacerdotal office in the days of Joiakim, the.son of Jeshna (Neh. xii. 12, 16). But he acted as prophet before this, if we can reason on the term "young man" possibly applied to him in oh. ii. 4 (comp. Jer. i. 6). He must havi:, been born in Chaldea, as he commenced his prophetical office eight years after the return, some two months later than his elder contemporary, Haggai, both of these seers having the same object in view-the encourage- ment of the people iu the interrupted work ofrebuildingthe temple. Jewish tradition makes h.im a member of the great synagogue, and to have had some share in providing for the liturgical services of the temple. As has been noted in the Introduction to Haggai(§ 11.), these two prophets are credited with the production of some eight of the psalms, the contents of which are quite consistent with their supposed authorship. The latest note of time in the prophecy is the fourth year of Darius (eh. vii. 1); but it is with reason conjectured that Zachariah lived to see the temple finished two years later (see Ezra vi. 14, 15). Tradition makes him arrive at extreme old age, dying in J udma, and being buried in a tomb near to the last resting-place of his fellow-seer Haggai, in the neighbourhood of Eleutheropolis. The sepulchral monument called after him on l\Iount Olivet is of much later date. Many early writers identified our prophet with the" Zacharias son of Barachias" slain, as our Lord says (Matt. xxiii. 35), "between the sanctuary and the altar." But it is most improbable that the Jews should have committed such a crime at that time, when they had just hearkened to tho prophet's voioe and done his bidding; there is no lN'l'RODllCTION 'l'O
hit1t 0f nn~· snch ending to Zech11riah's career in the books of Ezra, Nd,cmiah, 0r Malachi, nor is any tendency to such a national crime irnputeo. to his contemporaries. And it is now well recognized that the uarnc Barachia.s in the text of the Gospel is an interpolatian or altcratio11, and that the incident mentioned has nothing to do with our prophet, but concerns the son of Jehoiada, whose murder is recorded in 2 Cl.iron. xxiv. 20-22. The first prophecy of Zecha1iah being uttered in the second year of Darius, and his third in the fourth, the period of the active exorcise of his office extended from B.c. 520 to B.c. 518. The headship in the college of priests became his subsequent to this last date, probably on the death of Iddo. his grandfather. It is well pointed out by Dean Perowne (' Diet. of Bible,' iii. 1821, etc.) how important for the due discharge of his special o.uty was Zechariah's priestly origin. In the history of Israel "too often the prophet had had to stand forth in direct antagonism to the priest." When the latter was a mere formalist, and ignorant of the inner meaning of the holy things which he handled, the former had to recall men's minds to the truth enshrined in the outward ritual. At this time there was danger of apathetio neglect of religion, that the soul and the expression of it would fade entirely away. "At such a time, no more fitting instru- ment could be found to rouse the people, whose heart had grown cold, than one who united to the authority of the prophet the zeal and the traditions of a sacerdotal family." Concerning the genuineness of the first eight chapters of the Book of Zechariah, no question has ever been raised. It is quite different with regard to the remainder, the authorship of which has been the subject of dispute since the days of Joseph Mede until the present, and is still undecided. Mede was led to dispute the unity of the book by the fact that in Matt. :x.x:vii. 9 the well-known passage concerning the thirty pieces of silver in eh. xi. 12, 13 is attributed to Jeremiah. Aoting on this hint, Mede and his followers found what they considered ample grounds for con- sidering these six last chapters to belong to pre-exilian times, ''disputing," as Calmet dryly remarks, "several chapteI'tl of Zechariah in order to restore i. verse to Jeremiah." Various explanations of the statement in St. Matthew have been offered, e.g. that the name" Jeremiah" is an interpola- tion, or a clerical error, or that the evangelist quoted from memory, or that the Book of Jeremiah being placed first gave its name to the writings 'of the other prophets. Any one of these answers would be sufficient to over throw the argument that is built on this quotation. It cannot be denied that the opposition to the opinion of the unity of our book is of quite modern growth. It was absolutely unknown to antiquity. Neither Jew nor Christian ever disputed the genuineness of these six chapters till some hrn hundred yearci ago. It must be remembered that the sacred canon w;,s fixed soon after Zechariah's death, when the question of authorship could most easily have been settled, and there is no proof whatever that THE BoOK OF ZECHARIAH. vii