Wisdom in the work from which He quotes, "I send unto you prophets" (Luke "I will send unto them prophets") compare 2 Chron. xxiv. 19, "Yet he sent prophets to them to bring them again unto the Lord."
(ii) With St. Luke's twice repeated "may (shall) be required of this generation" (xi. 50 f.) cp. the dying words of Zechariah, "The Lord look upon it and require it," as also Abel's blood "crying from the ground" (Gen. iv. 10).
(iii) Turning to Jewish tradition, we find that legend has been active in connexion with the murder in the Temple of a pre-exilic Zachariah who can be no other than the son of Jehoiada. And it is noteworthy that the two points dwelt on are just those which appear in the N.T. passage, viz. (a) the exact spot in the Temple where the murder occurred (cp. the precise localisation "between the sanctuary and the altar") and (b) the crying out of the blood from the ground for vengeance, like that of Abel, and the terrible expiation required to still it. "R. Johanan said," we read,[1] "'Eighty thousand of the flower of the priesthood were slain on account of the blood of Zachariah.' R. Judan asked R. Aha 'Where did they kill Zachariah? In the Court of the Women or in the Court of Israel?' He answered, 'Neither in the Court of the Women nor in the Court of Israel, but in the Court of the Priests.'" The legend goes on to tell how the murder was rendered more heinous by being committed on a sabbath and that the Day of Atonement, and how Nebuzaradan when he entered the Temple saw the prophet's blood welling up from the floor, and of the holocaust of priests which hardly availed to quench the stream.
- ↑ Translated from T.J., Taanith iv. 5, by G. F. Moore in the Journal of the American Oriental Society, vol. xxvi. (1906), pp. 317 ff; cf. Lightfoot Horæ Hebraiacæ on Matt. l. c.
