Zechariah ben Jehoiada | |
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 The Murder of Zechariah by William Brassey Hole | |
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Zechariah ben Jehoiada [lower-alpha 1] is a figure in the Hebrew Bible described as a priest who was stoned to death by Jehoash of Judah, and may possibly have been alluded to in the New Testament.
Zechariah was the son of Jehoiada, the High Priest in the times of Ahaziah and Jehoash of Judah. After the death of Jehoiada, Zechariah condemned both King Jehoash and the people for their rebellion against God (2 Chronicles 24:20). This so stirred up their resentment against him that at the king's commandment they stoned him, and he died "in the court of the house of the Lord" (24:21).
In rabbinical literature, Zechariah was the son-in-law of the king, and, being also a priest, prophet, and judge, he dared censure the monarch. He was killed in the priests' courtyard of the Temple on a Sabbath which was likewise the Day of Atonement. Later, when Nebuzar-adan, the captain of Nebuchadnezzar's body-guard, came to destroy the Temple, he saw Zechariah's blood which had been boiling since his murder. The Assyrian asked the Jews what that phenomenon meant, but when they replied that it was the blood of sacrifices, he proved the falsity of their answer. The Jews then told him the truth, and Nebuzar-adan, wishing to appease Zechariah's blood, slew in succession the Great and Small Sanhedrins, the young priests, and school-children, till the number of the dead was 940,000. Still the blood continued to boil, whereupon Nebuzar-adan cried: "Zechariah, Zechariah! for thee have I slain the best of them; wouldst thou that I destroy them all?" And at these words the blood ceased to effervesce. [1]
According to the ancient apocryphal Lives of the Prophets , after the death of Zechariah Ben Jehoiada, the priests of the Temple could no more, as before, see the apparitions of the angels of the Lord, nor could make divinations with the Ephod, nor give responses from the Debir .
Most modern Christian commentators identify this Zechariah with the one whose murder Jesus alluded to in Matthew 23:35 and Luke 11:50–51. [2] In Matthew 23:28–23:39, Jesus derides the Pharisees and then says, "Therefore I send you prophets and wise men and scribes, some of whom you will kill and crucify, and some you will scourge in your synagogues and persecute from town to town, that upon you may come all the righteous blood shed on earth, from the blood of innocent Abel to the blood of Zacharias the son of Barachias (Ζαχαρίου υἱοῦ Βαραχίου), whom you murdered between the sanctuary and the altar" Matthew 23:35).
Zechariah is then understood as representing the last of the martyrs recorded in the Masoretic Text (since the Hebrew sequence of books ends with 2 Chronicles). [3] Dale C. Allison notes that Luke 11:49–51 echoes 2 Chron 24:17–25 by referring to the sending of the prophets, the blood of Zechariah and the temple precinct. [4]
The Gospel of Matthew records his name as "Zacharias/Zechariah son of Barachias/Berechiah". This identification can be reconciled if Jehoiada was Zechariah's grandfather, and Berechiah his father. However, the prophet Zechariah is listed as the son of Berechiah (Zech. 1:1) and some therefore make this identification. The Book of Zechariah is commonly dated to c. 520-518 BC, several hundred years after the reign of Jehoash of Judah, and in this interpretation Zechariah is chronologically the last of the martyrs.[ citation needed ]
Other identifications of the person Jesus was referring to include the tradition of the Eastern Orthodox Church, which considers "Zechariah son of Berechiah" as Zechariah, the father of John the Baptist, and his slaying is understood as taking place during the slaughter of the Innocents by Herod. [5]
The Gospel of the Nazarenes, which is said to have been related to the Gospel of Matthew, and is considered the true Gospel of Matthew to the Nazarene Christians, says "son of Jehoiada" instead of "son of Berechiah". [6]
The Methodist theologian Adam Clarke suggests that this allusion by Jesus was actually a prophetic reference to Zacharias Baruch, who was indeed slaughtered 'in the middle of the Temple' in the late AD 60s. Clarke says of this: "Some think that Jesus refers ... to the murder of Zacharias son of Baruch ... They gave him a mock trial, and when no evidence could be brought against him ... two of the stoutest of the zealots fell upon him and slew him in the middle of the temple." [7] Clarke has taken this possible allusion from Josephus Flavius' Jewish War book 4 ch. 5.
According to Jewish tradition, an ancient monument in the Kidron Valley outside the Old City of Jerusalem is identified as the tomb of Zechariah. Sozomen alludes to the burial site of Zechariah ben Jehoiada, whose execution was ordered by King Joash, as being in one of the villages that now bears his name, possibly Khirbet Beit Zakariyyah. [8]
The Book of Zechariah is a Jewish text attributed to Zechariah, a Hebrew prophet of the late 6th century BC. In the Hebrew Bible, the text is included as part of the Twelve Minor Prophets, itself a part of the second division of that work. In the Christian Old Testament, the Book of Zechariah is considered to be a separate book.
Zechariah was a person in the Hebrew Bible traditionally considered the author of the Book of Zechariah, the eleventh of the Twelve Minor Prophets.
According to the Biblical narrative, Zerubbabel was a governor of the Achaemenid Empire's province of Yehud and the grandson of Jeconiah, penultimate king of Judah. Zerubbabel led the first group of Jews, numbering 42,360, who returned from the Babylonian captivity in the first year of Cyrus the Great, the king of the Achaemenid Empire. The date is generally thought to have been between 538 and 520 BC. Zerubbabel also laid the foundation of the Second Temple in Jerusalem soon after.
Zechariah is a Jewish figure in the New Testament and the Quran, and venerated in Christianity and Islam. In the Bible, he is the father of John the Baptist, a priest of the sons of Aaron in the Gospel of Luke, and the husband of Elizabeth who is a relative of the Virgin Mary.
Joash, also known as Joash, Joas or Joás, was the eighth king of Judah, and the sole surviving son of Ahaziah after the massacre of the royal family ordered by his grandmother, Athaliah. His mother was Zibiah of Beersheba. Jehoash was 7 years old when he ascended to the throne, reigning for 40 years. He was succeeded by his son, Amaziah of Judah. He is said to have been righteous "all the days of Jehoiada the priest" but to have deviated from fidelity to Yahweh after Jehoiada's death.
The Gospel of the Nazarenes is the traditional but hypothetical name given by some scholars to distinguish some of the references to, or citations of, non-canonical Jewish-Christian Gospels extant in patristic writings from other citations believed to derive from different Gospels.
Matthew 2 is the second chapter of the Gospel of Matthew in the New Testament. It describes the events after the birth of Jesus, the visit of the magi and the attempt by King Herod to kill the infant messiah, Joseph and his family's flight into Egypt, and their later return to live in Israel, settling in Nazareth.
Matthew 2:23 is the twenty-third verse of the second chapter of the Gospel of Matthew in the New Testament. The young Jesus and the Holy Family have just returned from Egypt and in this verse are said to settle in Nazareth. This is the final verse of Matthew's infancy narrative.
The Lives of the Prophets is an ancient apocryphal account of the lives of the prophets of the Old Testament. It is not regarded as scripture by any Jewish or Christian denomination. The work may have been known by the author of some of the Pauline epistles, as there are similarities in the descriptions of the fates of the prophets, although without naming the individuals concerned.
The books of the New Testament frequently cite Jewish scripture to support the claim of the Early Christians that Jesus was the promised Jewish Messiah. Scholars have observed that few of these citations are actual predictions in context; the majority of these quotations and references are taken from the prophetic Book of Isaiah, but they range over the entire corpus of Jewish writings.
Jehoiada in the Hebrew Bible, was a prominent priest in the kingdom of Judah during the reigns of Ahaziah, Athaliah, and Joash. Jehoiada became the brother-in-law of King Ahaziah as a result of his marriage with princess Jehosheba. Both Jehosheba and Ahaziah were children of King Jehoram of Judah. Ahaziah died a year after assuming the throne, which was then usurped by his mother Athaliah, who ordered the execution of all members of the royal family.
According to the Hebrew Bible, Micah, also known as Micheas, was a prophet in the Bible and is the author of the Book of Micah. He is considered one of the Twelve Minor Prophets of the Hebrew Bible and was a contemporary of the prophets Isaiah, Amos and Hosea. Micah was from Moresheth-Gath, in southwest Judah. He prophesied during the reigns of kings Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah of Judah.
Jehosheba, or Josaba, is a figure in the Hebrew Bible. She was the daughter of King Jehoram of Judah, sister to King Ahaziah of Judah and wife of Jehoiada the priest. She was a daughter of Jehoram, but not necessarily of Athaliah. After the death of Ahaziah, his mother, Athaliah, made herself Queen of Judah and ordered the execution of all members of the royal family that could claim the throne. However, according to 2 Kings 11:2, Jehosheba saved from the massacre her infant nephew Jehoash, Ahaziah's son and Athaliah's grandson:
But Jehosheba, the daughter of king Joram, sister of Ahaziah, took Joash the son of Ahaziah, and stole him from among the king's sons which were slain; and they hid him, even him and his nurse, in the bedchamber from Athaliah, so that he was not slain.
Nazarene is a title used to describe people from the city of Nazareth in the New Testament, and is a title applied to Jesus, who, according to the New Testament, grew up in Nazareth, a town in Galilee, located in ancient Judea. The word is used to translate two related terms that appear in the Greek New Testament: Nazarēnos ('Nazarene') and Nazōraios ('Nazorean'). The phrases traditionally rendered as "Jesus of Nazareth" can also be translated as "Jesus the Nazarene" or "Jesus the Nazorean", and the title Nazarene may have a religious significance instead of denoting a place of origin. Both Nazarene and Nazorean are irregular in Greek and the additional vowel in Nazorean complicates any derivation from Nazareth.
Zechariah 1 is the first chapter of the Book of Zechariah in the Hebrew Bible or the Old Testament of the Christian Bible. This book contains the prophecies attributed to the prophet Zechariah, and is a part of the Book of the Twelve Minor Prophets. As the first of the 14 chapters in the book, this chapter is a part of a section consisting of Zechariah 1-8. It records an introduction and the first two of eight visions received by the prophet.
Jeremiah 29 is the twenty-ninth chapter of the Book of Jeremiah in the Hebrew Bible or the Old Testament of the Christian Bible. It is numbered as Jeremiah 36 in the Septuagint. This book compiles prophecies attributed to the prophet Jeremiah, and is one of the Books of the Prophets. This chapter records several "letters reported by the third-person narrator": from Jerusalem, Jeremiah sent a letter to the people in the Babylonia exile and he responded to a letter about him from Shemaiah.
2 Chronicles 24 is the twenty-fourth chapter of the Second Book of Chronicles the Old Testament in the Christian Bible or of the second part of the Books of Chronicles in the Hebrew Bible. The book is compiled from older sources by an unknown person or group, designated by modern scholars as "the Chronicler", and had the final shape established in late fifth or fourth century BCE. This chapter belongs to the section focusing on the kingdom of Judah until its destruction by the Babylonians under Nebuchadnezzar and the beginning of restoration under Cyrus the Great of Persia. The focus of this chapter is the reign of Joash, king of Judah.
2 Kings 11 is the eleventh chapter of the second part of the Books of Kings in the Hebrew Bible or the Second Book of Kings in the Old Testament of the Christian Bible. The book is a compilation of various annals recording the acts of the kings of Israel and Judah by a Deuteronomic compiler in the seventh century BCE, with a supplement added in the sixth century BCE. This chapter records the reign of Athaliah and Joash as the rulers of Judah.
2 Kings 12 is the twelfth chapter of the second part of the Books of Kings in the Hebrew Bible or the Second Book of Kings in the Old Testament of the Christian Bible. The book is a compilation of various annals recording the acts of the kings of Israel and Judah by a Deuteronomic compiler in the seventh century BCE, with a supplement added in the sixth century BCE. This chapter records the reign of Joash as the king of Judah.
Azor, according to a New Testament gospel narrative in Matthew 1:13 and 1:14, was an ancestor of Jesus. He is mentioned as the son of Eliakim and the great-grandson of Zerubbabel; he is the father of Zadok. By this account he is of the Davidic line.
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