Zechariah is one of the prophets whose personality as distinguished from their message exerts some degree of fascination on the student. This is not due, however, as in the case of Hosea or Jeremiah, to the facts of his life, for of these we know extremely little; but to certain conflicting symptoms of character which appear through his prophecies. His name was a very common one in Israel, Zekher-Yah, _Jehovah remembers_.[757] In his own book he is described as _the son of Berekh-Yah, the son of Iddo_,[758] and in the Aramaic document of the Book of Ezra as _the son of Iddo_.[759] Some have explained this difference by supposing that Berekhyah was the actual father of the prophet, but that either he died early, leaving Zechariah to the care of the grandfather, or else that he was a man of no note, and Iddo was more naturally mentioned as the head of the family. There are several instances in the Old Testament of men being called the sons of their grandfathers:[760] as in these cases the grandfather was the reputed founder of the house, so in that of Zechariah Iddo was the head of his family when it came out of Babylon and was anew planted in Jerusalem. Others, however, have contested the genuineness of the words _son of Berekh-Yah_, and have traced their insertion to a confusion of the prophet with Zechariah son of Yĕbherekh-Yahu, the contemporary of Isaiah.[761] This is precarious, while the other hypothesis is a very natural one.[762] Whichever be correct, the prophet Zechariah was a member of the priestly family of Iddo, that came up to Jerusalem from Babylon under Cyrus.[763] The Book of Nehemiah adds that in the high-priesthood of Yoyakim, the son of Joshua, the head of the house of Iddo was a Zechariah.[764] If this be our prophet, then he was probably a young man in 520,[765] and had come up as a child in the caravans from Babylon. The Aramaic document of the Book of Ezra[766] assigns to Zechariah a share with Haggai in the work of instigating Zerubbabel and Jeshua to begin the Temple. None of his oracles is dated previous to the beginning of the work in August 520, but we have seen[767] that among those undated there are one or two which by referring to the building of the Temple as still future may contain some relics of that first stage of his ministry. From November 520 we have the first of his dated oracles; his Visions followed in January 519, and his last recorded prophesying in December 518.[768]