Память святого пророка Захарии Серповидца

The decree of the Persian king Cyrus on liberation 1274 sounded like a joyful message for the Jews who were in Babylonian captivity; and those of them who languished in captivity in a foreign land, as if “in darkness and the shadow of death, shackled with sorrow” (Ps. 106:10), hastened to the land of their fathers. Taking with them the sacred vessels captured by Nebuchadnezzar during the destruction of Jerusalem (1 Ezra 1:7–8), the settlers, under the leadership of Prince Zerubbabel, who came from the royal house of David (1 Ezra 1:8, 2:2; 1 Chron. 3:19, 9–17), returned to their homeland. In the seventh month upon their return, they rebuilt the altar from a pile of ruins (1 Ezra 3:1–6), and then began to rebuild the destroyed church. In the second month of the second year, according to the charter of David, the foundation stone of a new church was carried out, “and all the people shouted with a loud voice, praising the Lord because the foundation of the house of the Lord had been laid” (1 Ezra 3:11); many elders who saw the former church could not resist tears, knowing that, given the poverty of those who returned, the second church could not be so magnificent; they wept loudly, mixing sobs with exclamations of joy (1 Ezra 3:12–13). But the construction of the church itself, despite the generous influx of donations at first, proceeded extremely slowly. The country was restless; Robbers prowled everywhere, and it was impossible to carry out proper sowing and harvesting of grain; the heavy burden of the rule of Persian officials (Neh. 9:36–37), frequent droughts, and famines (Hag. 1:6, 10–11) exhausted the people. This was supplemented by enmity with the Samaritans 1275. Having their sanctuary on Mount Gerizim and considering Palestine already their possession, they were extremely hostile towards the Jews, especially after the latter rejected their offer to participate in the construction of the church; With various slander to the Persian government, the Samaritans managed to stop work for almost fifteen years 1276. These obstacles weakened the pious zeal of the Jews for the restoration of the people's shrine; to raise the religious feeling of the chosen people, especially strong-willed men were needed; The Lord raised up such men in the person of His prophets Haggai and Zechariah, about whom we have a word. Holy Prophet Zechariah 1277, sickle seer 1278, came from the tribe of Levi; he was the son of Barachia and the grandson of Adda or Iddo 1279; the latter returned with Zerubbabel from Babylonian captivity and in the book of Nehemiah is called the head of the priestly family 1280. The Holy Scriptures have not preserved detailed and definite information about the life of the prophet Zechariah; it only occasionally lifts the veil to convey this or that fragmentary news about the life of the prophet of God. Thus, it is silent about the time and place of birth of the prophet Zechariah, beginning its narrative about his life from the time he entered the prophetic ministry. He was called to prophetic activity by God while still a youth (Zech.2:4), in the second month of the second year of the reign of Darius Hystaspes (Zech.1:1), - only two months later than the prophet Haggai (Hag.1:1). Through their joint prophetic activity, Saints Haggai and Zechariah achieved that the Jews stopped thinking about their needs and began to build the church with zeal. “The prophet Haggai and the prophet Zechariah, the son of Adda,” Ezra testifies to this, “said prophetic speeches to the Jews who were in Judea and Jerusalem in the name of the God of Israel. Then Zerubbabel the son of Shealtiel and Joshua the son of Jozedek arose and began to build the house of God in Jerusalem, and with them the prophets of God, who strengthened them” (1 Ezra 5:1-2). “And the elders of the Jews built and prospered, according to the prophecy of Haggai the prophet and Zechariah the son of Adda (1 Ezra 6:14). The ministry of the prophet Zechariah probably continued after the construction of the church; in his last speeches, which form the content of his book from chapter 9. to the end, there are no longer exhortations for the unslothful completion of the construction of the church, and one can think that at the time of these speeches the latter was already ready 1281. Tradition says that the holy prophet Zechariah lived to a ripe old age and was buried near Jerusalem, next to the prophet Haggai. The prophet Zechariah left behind a precious legacy - a book containing his prophetic visions and speeches. A distinctive feature of the content of the book of the prophet Zechariah is the abundance of messianic prophecies: in no other prophet do we find so many details about the last days of the life of our Savior as in the prophet Zechariah. The book of the prophet Zechariah can be divided according to its content into two parts: in the first (from Zech. 1:1-21 to Zech. 6:1-15) there are visions, and in the second (from Zech. 7:1-14 to the end) - speeches. There are eight visions in all; most of them are explained to the prophet by the Angel of God; their goal is to assure the Jewish people of God’s protection. In the first vision of the horsemen who traveled around the whole earth and found it in peace, God reveals that the prosperous nations - the oppressors of the Jews - will be struck by His wrath, and Jerusalem will be restored and the cities of Judah will be exalted (Zech. 1: 7-17). What will be the fate of the pagans is explained by the second vision of four blacksmiths who go to knock off the horns - a symbol of the nations that scattered the Jews and destroyed Jerusalem (Zech. 1:18-21). After the crushing of the oppressors of the Jews who prevented the construction of the city and the temple, Jerusalem will be inhabited again; this is revealed in the third vision of the Angel of the Lord, who comes with a measuring rope to measure Jerusalem, since the latter will be dispersed from a multitude of people, and the Lord Himself will be a wall of fire for it (Zech. 2:1-13). The sins of the people will no longer hinder the Lord’s settlement in Zion, because they will be forgiven, as the fourth vision shows: the prophet sees the high priest Jesus in filthy robes, a symbol of sinful uncleanness, and Satan accused him; but God justifies him, and the stained clothes are removed from the high priest, the representative of the people, and replaced with clean ones, which foreshadowed the great future work of God’s mercy - the blotting out of the sins of the whole earth in one day by the Branch-Messiah (Zech. 3:1-10). In the fifth vision, the prophet is shown a golden lamp (symbol of the Church - Rev. 1:13, 20), with seven lamps, filled with oil from two olive trees standing on its sides; this meant that God Himself was watching over the church and the people, and the two olive trees - Zerubbabel and Jesus - were the instruments of His providence (Zech. 4:1-14). But the Jewish people will not long enjoy the mercies of God, which are spoken of in the previous five visions: they will again be corrupted and again suffer punishment; this thought is revealed in the sixth vision of a scroll with a curse on thieves and perjurers (Zech. 5:1-4), and - in the seventh vision of an ephah (a measure of liquid) with a woman sitting in it - an image of wickedness - carried away by two others to Shinar or Babylon (Zech. 5:5-10). In the time contemplated by the prophet, as the fifth and sixth visions show, the corruption of the chosen people will reach its peak; then the curse will fly throughout Judea and will strike the wicked until the measure of the people’s iniquities is fulfilled and the final punishment befalls them; wicked woman - Jewish people; ephah is the measure of the untruths that caused the curse. The pagans will not be left without punishment, as the last seventh vision of four chariots with motley horses harnessed to them shows - a symbol of the Angels of the Lord who will travel around the whole earth to judge the enemies of God. After the destruction of the pagan world, the kingdom of the Messiah will come, which the prophet depicts with the following symbolic action: he places on the head of the high priest Jesus two crowns of gold and silver, a symbol of the high priestly and royal dignity of the coming Messiah, along with the prediction that the Branch (Messiah) will come and build a temple and will be the high priest: when this comes true, then distant nations will come to build a temple to the God of Israel ( Zechariah 6:1–15). The second part (from Zechariah 7:1–14 to the end) contains the speeches of the prophet Zechariah. In his first speech, the prophet, regarding the question of his contemporaries, whether it is necessary to observe fasts established in remembrance of the sad events of captivity, teaches that deeds of truth and love for others should be combined with fasts, then fasts will turn into days of triumph and the blessing of God and the joy of salvation will rest on Israel, which has to embrace even the pagans (Zech. 7:1-14, 8:1-23). In his second speech, the prophet predicts the destruction of nations hostile to Israel, and Jerusalem will be under the special protection of God, and no oppressor will ever come to it. Then the prophet invites the Jewish people to rejoice, for a righteous and meek King is coming to them; He will establish righteousness on earth and save His people, destroy the arrogance and self-confidence of people. He will open His kingdom by riding into His capital on a donkey and a colt, gentle animals that serve as a symbol of peace 1282. The kingdom of the Messiah - the kingdom of peace - will spread from Judea throughout the whole earth; The king will attract him not by force, but by the bloody sacrifice that He will make for all people to reconcile them with God. The Hellenes - the enemies of God's people - are predicted to be defeated, and the Jews - the blessing of fertility and childbearing. After depicting the bright fate awaiting Israel in the near future, the prophet moves on to depicting the impending rejection of the Jewish people: the prophet turns to Lebanon with a request to open the doors to the enemy, who will devastate all of Judea. The prophet Zechariah explains the cause of such a disaster with the symbolic story of the two rods of the Heavenly Shepherd. On one of them was the inscription favor, and on the other bonds; when the sheep, despite the Shepherd’s care for them, did not correct themselves, He broke the rod with the inscription favor, which meant the end of the covenant between God and His people, and then demanded payment for His pastoral labors, but the Jews valued His activity at 30 pieces of silver; The Shepherd threw these pieces of silver into the house of the Lord for the potter 1283. Following this, the Shepherd broke another rod - the bonds - as a sign that the brotherhood between Judah and Israel was broken. When the good Shepherd was rejected, the flock fell into the hands of mercenaries (Zechariah 9:1–17, 10:1–12, 11:1–17). In his last speech, the prophet proclaims that all the nations of the world will rise up against Jerusalem, but the Lord Himself will protect it and destroy the attackers, but the Lord will pour out the spirit of grace and tenderness on the Jewish people, and the Jews will look at Him whom they pierced and will cry for Him as for their only begotten son 1284. Then a fountain will be opened to the house of David, washing away their sins, and all memory of idols and false prophets will be destroyed; The Shepherd will be smitten, and the sheep will be scattered 1285. The Lord creates a kingdom of grace, small in number, constituting only a third of those living on earth, but sophisticated and holy. Finally, the pagan nations will once again surround Jerusalem, but the Lord will rise up to defend and defeat it, and then there will be a single day known only to the Lord: there will be no light, the luminaries will move away, there will be neither day nor night; only in the evening will the light appear 1286. Living waters will flow from Jerusalem, it will become the center of a new kingdom in which only the righteous will live - there will be nothing unclean in it anymore. ( Zechariah 12:1–14, 13:1–19, 14:1–21 ) 1287 . He reigned from 559 to 530. BC Cyrus's mercy towards the Jews is explained by the fact that the prophet Daniel showed him the prophecy of Isaiah (Is. 44:28, 45:1), where more than one hundred and fifty years later the liberation of the Jews from captivity through Cyrus was predicted. The Samaritans are a mixed people, formed from a combination of immigrants who occupied the region of the ten-tribe kingdom of Israel after its destruction by the Assyrians with the remnants of the people of Israel taken into captivity. In a foreign land, the settlers continued to honor their former gods, but when the Lord sent packs of lions at them for this, the Samaritans, in order to ward off disaster, established the veneration of the true God, without at the same time abandoning idolatry (2 Kings 17:27–34) (1Ezra 4:1-3) The Jews rejected the Samaritans as two-believers. From Hebrew: memory of the Lord. This is the name of the prophet Zechariah among some Church Fathers on the basis of one revelation that came to him, in which he saw a scroll flying through the air, probably bent like a sickle (Zech. 5:1–2). Zach. 1:1. In the books of Holy Scripture the prophet Zechariah is called the son of Adda; this is explained either by the custom of Jews in genealogy to indicate the names of more famous ancestors, or it may be due to the fact that after the death of his father, the prophet Zechariah was raised by his grandfather; the last opinion belongs to St. Cyril of Alexandria Neh. 12:16 . Under the high priest Joachim, the son of the high priest Jesus (Zechariah ch. 3), the prophet Zechariah himself was already a priest, and the head of the generation, probably due to the early death of his father. (Neh. 12:12–16). The construction of the church was completed in the sixth year of the reign of Darius Hystaspes (1 Ezra 6:15). Darius reigned from 521 to 486; the year of construction of the church, therefore, falls on the 515th BC. The holy evangelists, narrating about the solemn entry of the Lord into Jerusalem, cite this passage from the book of the prophet Zechariah, thus attributing it to Christ the Savior (Matthew 21:4–6; John 12:14–16) St. Evangelist Matthew, conveying the decision of the Sanhedrin to purchase land from a potter for the burial of strangers using the pieces of silver thrown down by Judas, sees in this the fulfillment of the prophecy of Zechariah, but calls it the prophecy of Jeremiah, probably because the scroll containing the prophetic books and which was under the hand of the holy evangelist was headed by the name of the prophet Jeremiah St. Evangelist John, reporting the fulfillment of this prophecy in Christ Jesus, literally quotes the prophecy itself (John 19:34–37). The Lord Himself refers to this prophecy when, after the Last Supper, on the way to Gethsemane, He predicts to the Apostles that they will soon leave Him. (Matthew 26:31; Mark 14:27). Here you can see a prophecy about an eclipse of the sun during Christ's crucifixion (Luke 23:44–45). Some passages from the book of the prophet Zechariah are read during Vespers as parimia. Yes, Zach. 9:9–14 are read on the week of Vai; Zach. 11:10–13 – on Good Friday; Zach. 8:7–17, 19–23 – on the heel of cheese week, Zech. 14:4, 8–11 (which speaks of the appearance of the Lord on the Mount of Olives) - at the Ascension of the Lord, which took place on this mountain. You might be interested in: