Week 32 Haggai & Zechariah
When I read Haggai and Zechariah one-after-the-other I realized that both men dated some of their prophesies to the second year of the Persian king Darius (they even specified the month and the day). Haggai said that he prophesied on (Y:M:D) 2:6:1, on 2:7:21 and then again on 2:9:24.
By itself that’s not too interesting and didn’t catch my attention but when I got to Zechariah I noticed that he prophesied on 2:8:?, and 2:11:24.
That means both of the prophets were speaking to the people in Jerusalem during the exact same time period. They even kind of tag-teamed their messages in this order: Haggai-Haggai-Zechariah-Haggai-Zechariah – over a period of about six months.
Not only that – I fortunately noticed a cross-reference to Ezra that reminded me of something I read way back in May: at that time the prophets Haggai and Zechariah…prophesied in the name of the God of Israel to the Jews in Judah and Jerusalem. Zerubbabel…and Jeshua…responded by beginning the task of rebuilding the Temple of God in Jerusalem. And the prophets of God were with them and helped them.
So I got two good reminders today:
1) a bible-reader can sometimes unexpectedly discover bible characters who knew each other (for all I know Ezra’s Zerubbabel & Jeshua might have had lunch with Haggai & Zechariah)
2) hundreds of pages separating bible books don’t necessarily mean hundreds of years of time-separation.
Note: the dating notes are in Haggai 1:1, 2:1, 2:10 & Zechariah 1:1, 1:7. Quote from Ezra 5:1-2 (NLT)