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REFERENCE SHELF – MAY 27, 2012

These final two chapters of Zechariah’s prophecies are dated to December, 518 B.C.E. Temple construction continues, but there is international stability. The Persian army has passed by Jerusalem; God has ensured the city’s safety as promised through the prophets.

REFERENCE SHELF – MAY 20, 2012

Zechariah’s political concerns reappear in both the international and the local arenas. The prophet sees horses once more that represent God’s involvement in international affairs, and then God oversees the crowning of Joshua for his role in Temple construction.

REFERENCE SHELF – MAY 13, 2012

The power of the completed Temple to destroy evil is an important theme for Zechariah. The prophet senses the disasters that had befallen the people through the exile and recognizes the extent of impurity that must be eradicated. Thus, Zechariah envisions the removal of iniquity itself from Jerusalem.

REFERENCE SHELF – MAY 6, 2012

The thematic introduction to the prophecies of Zechariah begins with a date formula placing the prophecy in October or November 520 B.C.E., toward the end of Darius’s second year as Persian emperor. Zechariah begins his prophecy just before Haggai’s last recorded ORACLE. According to Ezra 5:1 and 6:14, HAGGAI and ZECHARIAH worked together.

REFERENCE SHELF – APRIL 29, 2012

“For you were called to this, because Christ also suffered on your behalf, leaving behind an example for you so that you should follow in his footsteps; who ‘committed no sin, nor was deceit found in his mouth’; who when reviled did not revile in turn, did not threaten when he suffered, but handed himself over to the one judging justly; who bore our sins in his body on the tree, so that by dying to sins we might live to righteousness; by whose wounds you may be healed.

REFERENCE SHELF – APRIL 22, 2012

“Beloved, I urge you as resident aliens and sojourners to abstain from fleshly desires which war against your souls, by having your manner of life among the gentiles [be] good, so that when they slander you as evil-doers, by observing [your] good works they may glorify God on the Visitation Day.”

REFERENCE SHELF – APRIL 15, 2012

At 5:1-5 the reader encounters a stirring text on “faith, the power that conquers the world.”

REFERENCE SHELF – APRIL 8, 2012

The transition from Christology to parenesis is introduced by a conditional prepositional phrase (“if you have been raised with Christ”) to which the affirmative “we have” is assumed.