Poor Zechariah. For starters, we basically ignore him completely. Apart from occasionally trotting out his prophecy about the Messiah riding on a donkey, we don't much care about this book or the guy who wrote it.

Tweeting Zechariah here at the very end of two and a half years of making sense (?) of the Old Testament, I have to confess to poor Zech that this is the first time I've read his book all the way through. Doing so made me quite compassionate toward him. The fellow was so clearly bipolar that he could have strongly benefited from modern meds.

Consider these whiplash-inducing chapters in rapid succession:

#Twible Zech 8: G: “I know I was harsh w/ yr ancestors—all that death & exile. But I’ve mellowed a lot, really. Less w/ the smiting.”

#Twible Zech 9: Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion! Your king is coming. He’s riding on a donkey, so he’s just a bit delayed is all.

#Twible Zech 10: G’s rounding up the Lost 10 Tribes from the 1st exile. Insert your conspiracy theory here re: their whereabouts.

#Twible Zech 11: Being a kinder & gentler deity these last few chapters has been really hard on G, who’s back w/ the smiting.

#Twible Zech 12: OK, G’s thinking positively again. Sorry about yesterday. Let’s look ahead to unleashing whupass on our enemies!

#Twible Zech 13: Uh oh, G’s having another dark day. Says he’ll slaughter 2/3 of Israel & kill its prophets. Get him some lithium, stat.

#Twible Zech 14: Whew, G’s back on our side. Zech finishes w/ grand vision of G marching out to battle for us. The lithium helped.

I'm glad the lithium was helpful and the book ended on a happy note. Of course, the core understanding here is that poor Zech isn't the one who's bipolar -- God is. Zech's just the messenger. God, as they say, has his good days and his bad days. And the prophets are dragged to all those extremes too.

I'm so glad I have a desk job.

 

The mood gauge image is used with permission of Shutterstock.com.