Chapter 9 - The Theology of the Books of Haggai and Zechariah within the Old Testament

Summary

No two prophets within the canon of the Old Testament are as closely linked as Haggai and Zechariah. Other prophetic books indicate that two prophets delivered their oracles during the reigns of the same kings (e.g., Isaiah and Micah or Jeremiah and Ezekiel). But only the Books of Haggai and Zechariah explicitly indicate that the messages of these two prophets overlapped at one point during the same year in the same location: the second year of the reign of Darius I in the city of Jerusalem. Moreover, only Haggai and Zechariah are named together in a third book purporting to tell the history of their time period, the Book of Ezra. And, of course, they appear next to each other in the Hebrew canon of Scripture, like Jeremiah and Ezekiel, but unlike Isaiah and Micah.