Zechariah

Zechariah is the thirty-eighth book of the Bible and the eleventh of the minor prophets. The book is traditionally attributed to the prophet Zechariah, who prophesied at the same time as Haggai during the rebuilding of the temple in the late sixth century BC. The book is one of the longer minor prophets and one of the most quoted in the New Testament.

The first eight chapters consist of a series of eight visions Zechariah receives in a single night, plus messages encouraging the rebuilding. The visions are vivid and strange: horsemen patrolling the earth, a man with a measuring line, the high priest standing before the angel of the Lord, a flying scroll, a woman in a basket, four chariots emerging from between bronze mountains. Each carries a message about the restoration of Jerusalem and the future of God's people.

The last six chapters shift in tone and likely come from a later period in Zechariah's career. They contain prophecies about a coming king who will enter Jerusalem riding on a donkey, about a shepherd betrayed for thirty pieces of silver, about a final battle and a day when the Lord will be king over all the earth. Christians have read many of these prophecies as pointing to Jesus, and several are explicitly quoted in the gospel accounts of the passion week.

The book closes with a vision of Jerusalem in the age to come.