It is, of course, true that Zechariah did a blessed work for the people who lived in his day; he had a special mission to perform and succeeded in it, but the Spirit of God in the message of comfort for that time gives the history of events then in a distant future. The Babylonian captivity of Israel foreshadows their greater dispersion in which they are to-day wanderers all over the earth, and the restoration which took place in the time of Zechariah is highly typical of that coming restoration for which we hope and pray. Zechariah may therefore be fitly called the Prophet of the Restoration. Surely it is a deplorable blindness in some teachers of the Word, who see in the book of Zechariah nothing but past history, and who claim that all has been fulfilled in the return of the small Jewish remnant from the captivity, and whatever promises of mercy given to Jerusalem and the land of Judah find now their spiritual fulfilment in the church. It will be our aim in a series of studies in Zechariah to consider mostly the relation of these visions to the end of this age, and the beginning of the next, the millennial glory. We shall find that instead of the book of Zechariah being all fulfilled prophecy, as some would have it, it is indeed mostly unfulfilled, and even some of the prophetic promises which on the surface seem to have been seen a fulfilment, were only in part realized. And how important at this time to study the book of Zechariah! We are living in the time when that greater restoration with all its events forerunning and connected with it are about to come to pass. It is needless to say that we firmly believe that Zechariah wrote all of the book which bears his name. Several of the Jewish commentators confess an inability to explain the book. The well-known Jewish commentator Solomon Ben Jarchi (generally known by the name Rashi), says: "The prophecy (of Zechariah) is very dark, for it contains visions much like dreams, which want interpreting, and we will never succeed in finding the true meaning until _the Teacher of righteousness arrives_." Abarbanel makes a similar confession. We praise God that the Teacher of righteousness has come, even the Spirit of Truth, who guides into all truth and reveals the things to come. CHAPTER I. _The Opening Address of the Prophet to His Nation. The Night Visions and Their Meaning. The First Night Vision._