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World English Bible: Zechariah

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This is the biblical book of Zechariah (chapters 1–6, with truncation), a prophetic text from the Hebrew Bible/Old Testament composed around 520–518 BCE during the post-exilic period of Judah's restoration under Persian rule. The book opens with a call to repentance, framing Israel's past sufferings as divine consequence for their ancestors' disobedience, then transitions into a series of eight night visions mediated through an interpreting angel. These visions — including patrolling horsemen, four horns and craftsmen, a man measuring Jerusalem, a lampstand flanked by olive trees, a flying scroll, a woman in a basket, and four chariots — use dense symbolic imagery to convey Yahweh's renewed commitment to Jerusalem, the coming punishment of hostile nations, and the restoration of the temple and the city. A distinctive claim running through the visions is the dual messianic figure of the "Branch": a coming leader who will unite priestly and royal authority, explicitly prefigured in the crowning of the high priest Joshua. The text is notably concerned with theodicy and timing — the angel's complaint about seventy years of indignation — and argues that divine power, not human military strength, will accomplish restoration ("not by might, nor by power, but by my Spirit"). Readers interested in Jewish apocalypticism, post-exilic theology, or the roots of later messianic expectation will find this a foundational primary source.

World English Bible: Zechariah

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