Zacharias son of Barachias

Here’s an interesting verse:

Matthew 23:35 That upon you may come all the righteous blood shed upon the earth, from the blood of righteous Abel unto the blood of Zacharias son of Barachias, whom ye slew between the temple and the altar.

The name Zacharias son of Barachias is an enigmatic name. Zacharias is an extremely common name. For example, John the Baptist’s father’s name:

Luke 1:13 But the angel said unto him, Fear not, Zacharias: for thy prayer is heard; and thy wife Elisabeth shall bear thee a son, and thou shalt call his name John.

The name is in a parallel passage in Luke:

Luke 11:51 From the blood of Abel unto the blood of Zacharias, which perished between the altar and the temple: verily I say unto you, It shall be required of this generation.

The name Barachias is not found anywhere else in the Old Testament. There are at least two people this is commonly identified as.

The Silent Years?

The name could matter if it is a person in the inter-testamental period. This is commonly viewed as a time period of four hundred years where there were no prophets in Israel.

It is known by some Protestants as the “400 Silent Years” because it was a period when no new prophets were raised and God revealed nothing new to the Jewish people. Many of the deuterocanonical books, accepted as scripture by the Catholic Church and Eastern Orthodoxy, were written during this time, as were many pseudepigraphal works, the Biblical apocrypha and Jewish apocrypha.

The “silent years” is a Protestant presumption and is based on a certain reading of Josephus.

Importance of 1 Maccabees 9:27

“So there was great distress in Israel, such as had not been since the time that prophets ceased to appear among them.”

It should be noted that the genre of Maccabees is a historical book. In this way, it is similar to the books of Kings and Chronicles, so the genre does not disqualify it as being Scripture.

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