Zechariah

Zechariah is the eleventh of the twelve Minor Prophets and the longest of them. Zechariah the son of Berechiah, the son of Iddo, was both prophet and priest, and he began preaching in 520 BC, two months after Haggai, to the same community of exiles who had returned from Babylon to rebuild the temple under Zerubbabel and Joshua the high priest. Where Haggai's messages are short and practical, Zechariah's book is rich with symbolic visions and long-range prophecy, and it is quoted repeatedly in the New Testament accounts of Christ's final week.

The book opens with a call to return to the LORD, then unfolds a series of eight night visions - horsemen among the myrtle trees, four horns and four carpenters, a man with a measuring line, Joshua the high priest in filthy garments, a golden candlestick with two olive trees, a flying roll, a woman in an ephah, and four chariots. Joshua is crowned in a sign pointing to 'the man whose name is The BRANCH.' The later chapters look far ahead: a King coming to Zion lowly and riding upon an ass, thirty pieces of silver, a shepherd smitten and the sheep scattered, and the LORD standing upon the mount of Olives.

Zechariah matters because it ties the modest work of rebuilding a temple to God's vast plan of redemption. Its watchword - 'Not by might, nor by power, but by my spirit' - reminds every generation that God's work is accomplished by God's Spirit, and its detailed portraits of the coming Messiah were fulfilled in Jesus with striking precision.