Zechariah thoughts..

I will never be able to justice to our buddy Zechariah here, but I did just want to point out a few things that really stood out to me and us.

Basically, Zechariah and Haggai were around at the same time; however Haggai was older and Zechariah was younger. According to Eugene Merrill, "Whereas Haggai’s vision encompassed, for the most part, his immediate, temporal situation, the range of his contemporary and colleague was much more expansive; for Zechariah not only shared Haggai’s burden about the inertia of the postexilic community, but by vision and dream saw the unfolding of Divine purpose for all of God’s people and for all the ages to come."

Haggai could see what needed to be done NOW, while through visions and words from the Lord, Zechariah could see "the big picture" ... he could see years into the future when Jesus, God incarnate, would walk these very paths!

Basically, Haggai was the practical one -- let's go in, get the temple built, get it done. This has no life, but only immediate work to be done. Zechariah was the prophetic one -- he could see in the Spirit about why the temple needed to be built. This has no meat, but only visions of the future. In the church, you need both to get the work done. Zechariah brings the WHY to Haggai.

I highly recommend http://www.enduringword.com/commentaries/38.html which is a commentary on Zechariah by David Guzik.