On the twenty-fourth day of the eleventh month which is the month of Shebat, in the second year of Darius: In modern reckoning this date was February 15, 519 B.C. It is generally understood to apply to all the visions. No other date is given until 7.1. February 519 was about three months after Zechariah’s first prophecy (1.1) and exactly two months after Haggai’s last prophecy (Hag 2.10, 20). In some languages it may be helpful to use a term meaning “date” rather than day, because as verse 8 makes clear, the vision took place at night.
The words which is the month of Shebat give the name of the eleventh month according to the Babylonian calendar. The Babylonian names for the months came into use by the Jews after the exile. For the translation of Old Testament month systems, see Hag 1.1. In some languages translators may wish to follow the example of Revised Standard Version, and express the Hebrew more literally than Good News Translation, translating, for example, “On the twenty-fourth day of the eleventh month (the month Shebat) in the second year that Darius ruled.”
For Darius see the comments on verse 1 and Hag 1.1.
The word of the LORD came to Zechariah the son of Berechiah, son of Iddo, the prophet: In Hebrew the wording here is exactly the same as in verse 1, and includes the names of Zechariah’s father and grandfather. Good News Translation has not repeated the names of Berechiah and Iddo here because such repetition is poor style in English. Translators should decide whether or not to repeat these names according to the natural usage of their own language. If translators choose to repeat the names of the ancestors, they should remember that in the phrase son of Iddo, the word son may need to be translated in some languages as “grandson.” As in verse 1, the prophet qualifies Zechariah, not Iddo.
Good News Translation and Contemporary English Version have also changed from the third person reference to Zechariah to a first person “me.” This is because the vision itself is described in the first person from verse 8 onwards, and the change of person sounds awkward in English. Some translators may wish to follow this example. Others may reduce the difficulty of having several layers of direct speech by saying “Zechariah spoke about it in these words:….” Using a colon like this would avoid one set of quotation marks.
The words of Good News Translation “in a vision” do not occur in the Hebrew, but can be understood from the expression “I saw” in verse 8. The words “at night” in Good News Translation occur in verse 8 in Hebrew. If translators follow the example of Good News Translation in bringing them forward to verse 7, it would be better to join the verses and number them as 7-8 (so Contemporary English Version). Although the visions occurred “at night,” the prophet does not say he was dreaming, and the translator should not say so either. However, in languages that do not make a distinction between “dreams” or “visions,” translators may say, for instance, following the example of Revised Standard Version as far as possible, “the LORD spoke to Zechariah, the son of Iddo, in what seemed to be a dream,” or following Good News Translation, “at night the LORD gave me a message [or, spoke to me] in what seemed to be a dream” or “… in what seemed like a dream.”
Quoted with permission from Clark, David J. & Hatton, Howard A. A Handbook on Zechariah. (UBS Helps for Translators). New York: UBS, 2002. For this and other handbooks for translators see here .