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Zechariah prophesied about the same time as Haggai, when after returningfrom exile in 593, the people had still not rebuilt the temple. Only about 50,000 returned. From Ezra 2.36-39 we see that out of the 24 orders of priests, representatives of only four had returned. Only 74 Levites and 392 temple servants came back:Ezra 2.40, 58.

    Isaiah as we recall had painted so bright a picture of the return from
exile. But then, as we gather from Ezra and Nehemiah, the picture was not so glorious. Why? They had not been faithful to God. We saw that in Isaiah 58-59. They had fallen into many and serious sins. So the promised glory was not yet to be seen.

    The rebuilding of the temple had faltered. First, political conditions
were unstable after the death of Cyrus in 529. Also, the returned exiles
faced opposition from Samaritans. The Samaritans had offered to help rebuild the temple. They claimed they had worshipped the true God since the time of Esarhaddon of Assyria who brought them there. But Zerubbabel, Jeshua and the heads of the families of Israel rejected their offer.

Then the Samaritans got the governor of the West-of-Euphrates satrapy to write to King Artaxerxes saying Jerusalem was rebellious. They therefore got a restraining order, and frustrated things until the second year of the reign of Darius. They also complained to King Darius, but he had the archives searched, and found the decree of Cyrus for the rebuilding of the temple. Darius then ordered Tattenai governor of the West-of-Euphrates satrapy not to interfere. (Full account is found in Ezra chapters 4-6).

     Zechariah is the most messianic of the prophets, next to Isaiah. We will explain the messianic symbolism as we go along. How much did Zechariah himself see? We do not know. We discussed this sort of problem in our comments on Isaiah 7.14. Briefly: the Holy Spirit, the chief Author of Scripture, could easily have in mind more than the human author saw. Vatican II, in LG 55 indicated that is may well be the case with Genesis 3.15 and Isaiah 7.14. We suggested it may also be true in Jeremiah 31.31, the prophecy of the New Covenant. Yet the Targums, which may go back in oral form to the 6th century B. C. did understand much, as we shall indicate as we go along.  And the NT also understood much as we shall see. 

  Just as on the case of Isaiah, commentators are strongly convinced that there were three Isaiahs, so here there is a strong conviction that there are two Zecharias. The reasons are these: Chapters 9-14 are of a different character than chapters 1-8.

There is a difference in style, e.g., the second part uses terms not found
in the first part, such as sheep and shepherd (11.4ff). And the phrase "in
those days" comes several times in chapters 12-14, whereas it is found only three times in chapters 1-8. But we reply: differences in style much greater than these are found between the historical works of Tacitus, especially if we read them in the original Latin, and his Dialogue on Orators. Yet evidence is such as to satisfy almost all that he did write all of these. Further, differences in chapters 9-14 are especially called for by the difference in materials. There were some messianic texts in chapters 1-8, but they are much more abundant in the last chapters.
 
    It is also objected that chapter 9 mentions several cities that were of
no special concern to the Jews of the time of Zecharias. There is even a
mention of the Greeks, quite a distance in the future, at the time of
Alexander the Great. We reply: In the case of Isaiah a strong objection was the mention of the name of Cyrus, who took Babylon in 539, long after the time of Isaiah. We reply: Isaiah explicitly (Is 44.28), speaks of Cyrus as sent by God. Josephus reports (Antiquities 11.1-18) that Cyrus was shown the text of Isaiah about his sending the Jews home, and that reading it influenced Cyrus. Similarly here, Josephus (Antiquities 11.317-39) tells us that Alexander the Great, before crossing over into Asia, when he was at Dios in Macedonia, was told by God during sleep that God had appointed him to conquer all those lands. Alexander did so. When he came to Jewish territory, the High Priest Sanballat, and other priests and laymen came out to meet him. The high priest wore his official robes. Then Alexander prostrated himself before the Sanballat. On being asked why, he told of the dream in which he had seen the priest dressed that way. He said he was not honoring the priest, but the God for whom the priest stood. Then Alexander gave great favors to the Jews. So Zechariah also knew by prophetic light what was to come, and knew the work of Alexander and his army of Greeks.

Incidentally, Josephus (ibid. 11.338) also reports that Alexander was shown the book of Daniel, in which it was foretold that he would conquer the Persians, and Josephus adds that this influenced Alexander. (The passages of Daniel are likely to be Daniel 8.3-8, 20-22; and especially 11.3). The implications for the date of writing of Daniel are, to put it mildly, interesting, since so many today think Daniel was written in the second century B. C.).

The prophecy opens with a series of 8 visions, in the first six
chapters. The purpose is to encourage rebuilding of the temple, and encourage the exiles who had returned in 539 BC. The year is now February 15, 539, about five months after work on rebuilding of the temple had been resumed. It was about the same year, 520, in which Haggai prophesied. They had had hopes for a fine future, but came back to a ruined city, and were disconsolate. As we said, we know too from the last chapters of Isaiah and from the books of Nehemiah and Ezra, that they had not lived as they should.