ABSTRACT
After the many pages centred on the exile of the Jews to Babylon, the first six chapters of Zechariah, written to encourage the rebuilding of the Temple, c.520 bc, in an age, not of threat, but of reconstruction, offer happier, but more cryptic material. These chapters consist of a series of eight visions shown him by an angel; the form is akin to apocalypse (see p. 268), though without its extravagance. Symbols are central here as they are in the earlier prophets, but Zechariah expounds them like a lesson; he is a teacher, sermoniser, expositor of meanings. True, he can produce such memorable lines as, ‘Who hath despised the day of small things?’ (4:10), but on the whole, these are measured visions, written down in prose in a spirit of earnest exhortation, unlike the vigorous, open-air oratory of the earlier prophets, whose images came to them direct from God. By contrast, some later chapters of the book (by different authors and of disputed dates), when the prophet envisages the rebuilt city and its prosperity, display notably more enthusiasm.
