Zechariah, whose name means "Jehovah hath remembered," a common and prominent name in the Old Testament, was contemporaneous with Haggai, and prophesied in the time of the reformation under Zerubbabel. The first eight chapters of his prophecy pertain almost wholly to that reformation among God's people and the future reformations of which that was a type. By various figures and symbols, he indicates the nations and the power of God to save. Chapters 9 to 14 are of a somewhat different character, so much so that some scholars have concluded that they belong to the prophecy of Jeremiah, rather than to Zechariah, and that when the manuscripts were gathered together by Ezra, they were placed at the end of Zechariah, instead of in Jeremiah. The two reasons for this are that "the burden of the word of the Lord" is a term used by Jeremiah and is not used by Zechariah in the first part of the book; and secondly, that Zech. 11:12, 13 is ascribed by Matthew to Jeremiah in Matt. 27: 9, 10. No such passage occurs in Jeremiah's writings, but does occur in Zechariah. This, however, does not in any wise affect the prophecy, the general tenor of which is a prediction of Christ's kingdom, of the great day of the Lord, and the punishment of the wicked of earth.
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On December 4 we begin the study of the book of Ephesians; another epistle of the apostle Paul to the people at Ephesus, not to them only, but to the faithful in Christ Jesus everywhere. It is one of the great, deep wells of the Bible, one of the fathomless mines which will bear all the working possible, and in which the deeper one goes, the more precious and abundant the precious ores that he finds. It sets forth God's plan of salvation in Christ Jesus, and so wrought out through the spirit in human hearts. A hard book it is for those of little experience in the Christian life to understand, and yet when seen through Christian experience, it is one of the most precious in the whole Bible. Chapter 1 sets forth the plan of God in eternity and time; chapter 2, man's condition without Christ and in Christ; chapter 3, a fuller revelation of the Gospel of God.
