Zechariah returned from Babylon to Jerusalem in 536 BC. He was called to assist Haggai in stirring up the people to build.
In condemning the scribes and Pharisees, Christ says ‘Behold, I send unto you prophets, and wise men, and scribes: and some of them ye shall kill and crucify; and some of them shall ye scourge in your synagogues, and persecute them from city to city: 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’ (Matthew 23:34-35). Some think this is not the same person as Zechariah, the prophet, largely because Scripture says nothing about the prophet Zechariah being martyred, but this is inconclusive. We have several cases where the New Testament gives us detail about Old Testament events which is recorded nowhere else. Some identify the Zacharias spoken of by Christ with the one mentioned in 2 Chronicles 24:21. That Zechariah was indeed martyred, but he was not the son of Berechiah, as was the author of this book of prophecy. Because Chronicles was the last book in the Old Testament according to the Jewish arrangement of the text, it is suggested that Christ is referring to the beginning and the end of the written word, but it is much more reasonable to assume that he is covering the entire sweep of Old Testament history so as to include the earliest martyr of the OT – Abel, and the last martyred prophet ministering at the end of the OT period – ‘Zechariah, the son of Berechiah’.