Zacharias

Zachari'as (Ζαχαρίας), the Greek form of the Heb. name Zechariah; applied to several men in the Apocrypha and New Test., besides those mentioned in the Old Test.: the priest in Josiah's reign.(l Esdr. 1, 8), the lesser prophet (6, 1; 7:3)j the adviser of Ezra (8:44; comp. Ezr 8:16), the "son" of Pharosh (1 Esdr. 8:30; comp. Ezr 8:3), the "son" of Bebai. (1 Esdr. 8:37; comp. Ezr 8:11), a "son" of Elam (1 Esdr. 9:27; comp. Ezr 10:26), and one (1 Esdr. 1, 15) who is properly called Heman (2Ch 35:15), and another (Eapaianc, 1 Esdr. 5, 8) properly called Azariah, or Seraiah (Ezr 2:2; Ne 7:7).

1. Son of Barachias, who, our Lord says, was slain by the Jews between the altar and the Temple (Mt 23:35; Lu 11:51). There has been much dispute who this Zacharias was. There is no reason to identify him with the Zechariah son of Jeberechiah mentioned in 1Sa 8:2. It is singular that Josephus (War, 4:5,4) mentions another Zacharias, son of Baruch, who was slain by the Jews in the Temple shortly before the last siege of Jerusalem began (see Whiston's note, ad loc.). From the time of Origen, who relates that the father of John the Baptist was killed in the Temple, many of the Greek fathers have maintained that this is the person to whom our Lord refers. The name of the father of Zacharias not being mentioned by Luke, some unwarrantably suppose that the name of Barachias crept into the text of Matthew from a marginal gloss, a confusion having been made between Zacharias, the son of Jehoiada, and Zacharias the prophet, the son of Barachias (Berechiah). There can be little or no doubt that the allusion is to Zechariah, the son of Jehoiada (2Ch 24:20-21). As the book of Chronicles-in which the murder of this Zechariah occurs-closes the Hebrew canon, this assassination was the last of the murders of righteous men recorded in the Bible, just as that of Abel was the first (see Renan, Vie de Jesus, p. 353). SEE ZECHARIAH.

2. Father of Joseph, a leader in the first campaign of the Maccabaean war (1 Macc. 5, 18, 56-62).

⇒Bible concordance for ZACHARIAH.

3. Father of John the Baptist (Lu 1; Lu 5, etc.). B.C. ante 8.

⇒See also the International Standard Bible Encyclopedia.