Zechariah

Zechariah 1:1:
In the eighth month, in the second year of Darius, came the word of the Lord unto Zechariah, the son of Berechiah, the son of Ido the prophet saying,

Zechariah, Zekar-yah means “Yahweh remembers” or “yahweh Has remembered.” The Greek and Latin version of his name is Zacharias.

Zechariah 2:8:
For thus saith the Lord of hosts; After the glory hath he sent me unto all the nations which spoiled you: for he that toucheth you toucheth the apple of His eye

You are the apple of God's eye. Originally meaning the central aperture of the eye. Figuratively it is something, or more usually someone, cherished above others.
'The apple of my eye' is exceedingly old and first appears in Old English in a work attributed to King Aelfred (the Great) of Wessex, AD 885, entitled Gregory's Pastoral Care.

Shakespeare used the phrase in A Midsummer Night’s Dream, 1600:

    Flower of this purple dye,
    Hit with Cupid’s archery,
    Sink in apple of his eye

It also appears several times in Deuteronomy 32:10 (King James Version, 1611)

    He found him in a desert land, and in the waste howling wilderness; he led him about, he instructed him, he kept him as the apple of his eye.

The phrase was known from those early sources but became more widely used in the general population when Sir Walter Scott included it in the popular novel Old Mortality, 1816:

    "Poor Richard was to me as an eldest son, the apple of my eye.

Zechariah 4:6: So he answered and said to me: “This is the word of the Lord to Zerubbabel: ‘Not by might nor by power, but by My Spirit,’ Says the Lord of hosts.

Zechariah was prophesying during a very dark time for Judah. The nation had been destroyed. Although the exile was technically over and people were coming back, the situation was not good. Many people looked to Zerubbabel, a descendant of David but not a king. How could one man make a difference? The word that was given to Zerubbabel through Zechariah was that it would not be by human strength but only by God’s Spirit that Zerubbabel would fulfil his role.

It is important to note that this was a word specifically to Zerubbabel and not a general promise to everyone. At the same time, this message is the general theme of Scripture. Everyone from Abraham to the apostles tried to do it on their own. This is not an excuse to stop putting effort into ministry. However, it is a reminder that our confidence is not based on what we do but on what God does.
--Stephen Bedard

William Carey

“One of the first, and most important of those duties which are incumbent upon us, is fervent and united prayer. However the influence of the Holy Spirit may be set at nought, and run down by many, it will be found upon trial, that all means which we can use, without it, will be ineffectual. If a temple is raised for God in the heathen world, it will not be by might, nor by power, nor by the authority of the magistrate, or the eloquence of the orator; but by my Spirit, saith the Lord of Hosts.”
― William Carey, An Enquiry into the Obligations of Christians to Use Means for the Conversion of the Heathens In Which the Religious State of the Different Nations of ... of Further Undertakings, Are Considered

Zechariah 4:10:
For who has despised the time of insignificant things? They will rejoice to see the plumb line in the hand of Zerubbabel. These seven lights represent the eyes of the LORD, which are looking throughout all of the earth."

I know of a man who started a church with a few people and lost hope at the end of the first year with an attendance of twelve. Now that church has over 10,000 members. Another person I know started as a dishwasher in a popular food chain and now owns 850 of those franchises.
Everything starts small. The desire to gain wealth or success overnight is a foolish dream which usually ends up in a loss. But, when God is involved in our projects, small beginnings can grow and bring forth much fruit and success.
I encourage you today to be patient and to persevere in small things, so that God may show Himself to be faithful. Let's trust in Him! --Connie Bryson

Zechariah 6:12:
Tell him this is what the LORD Almighty says: 'Here is the man whose name is the Branch, and he will branch out from his place and build the temple of the LORD.

"The Branch" is one of the most significant of Messiah's names. A branch bears the fruit and reveals the character of the tree. Christ as Jehovah's branch, revealed by His words and deeds the true character of His Father. Jesus said, "I am the Vine, ye are the branches," the fruit-bearing part of the vine.

Zechariah 9:9-10:
“Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion!
Shout, O daughter of Jerusalem!
Behold, your King is coming to you;
He is just and having salvation,
Lowly and riding on a donkey,
A colt, the foal of a donkey.
10 I will cut off the chariot from Ephraim
And the horse from Jerusalem;
The battle bow shall be cut off.
He shall speak peace to the nations;
His dominion shall be ‘from sea to sea,
And from the River to the ends of the earth.’

David McGough

The Prophet Zechariah’s joyful call to hope, addressed originally to a broken and dispirited people, speaks powerfully to our own generation as we take the first uncertain steps to emerge from the devastation of the Covid 19 pandemic.
Through the words of Zechariah, the Lord had spoken to the uncertainty of a people who had experienced the destruction of Jerusalem, death, and the humiliation of forced exile. Now at last the exiles were able to reassemble in the ruins of all that had gone before. They faced a daunting task: the rebuilding of both a city and its people.
Zechariah’s clear message was that this rebuilding would be rooted in God’s saving power rather than the sinful pride that had led to the destruction of the first Jerusalem. They were called to a God who would indeed triumph, but who would come amongst them in humility rather than pride.
“He comes to you, humble and riding on a donkey.”
The pandemic has forced us into a period of reflection as we take our first, uncertain steps into the future. We face the same question that awaited Israel’s returning exiles. What kind of a society do we want to build, and what do we want as its guiding foundation? -Bishop David McGough; What the Prophet Zechariah can teach the post-Covid world 7.4.20

Zechariah 12:3:
On that day, when all the nations of the earth are gathered against her, I will make Jerusalem an immovable rock for all the nations. All who try to move it will injure themselves.

"On that day" or, as some translations use "in that day," is used 14 times in this and the next two chapters. It is a reference to the "day of the Lord," as mentioned in Revelation.

Zechariah 14:20-21:
On that day "Holy To The Lord" will be inscribed on the bells of the horses, and the cooking pots in the LORD's house will be like the sacred bowls in front of the altar. Every pot in Jerusalem and Judah will be holy to the LORD Almighty, and all who come to sacrifice will take some of the pots and cook in them. And on that day there will no longer be a Canaanite in the house of the LORD Almighty.

The antithesis of sacrilege is holiness, and an outcome of holiness is the Kingdom of God, the community of covenant man. Zechariah gives us a vision of this estate of man. Instead of the sacrilege of the Canaanites (the ungodly) in the house of the Lord, all things reveal their devotion to God. Every cooking vessel, the sacred vessels of the temple, because men will serve God and will dedicate every aspect pf their lives and possessions to Him. In place of the sacrilege, there will be universal holiness. Instead of a division between the holy place and the unclean, all things shall be "holiness" unto the Lord. T.V. Moore wrote: All shall be happy because all shall be holy. Sorrow shall cease because sin shall cease. The groaning earth shall be mantled with joy because the trail of the serpent will be gone, and Eden of the future shall make us cease to look back with longing at the Eden of the past.