The first reason is the weightiest. There are only two
places in the Old Testament where the description of the end of a person’s life
has the following components: (a) a person is violently snuffed out although he
is innocent; (b) this murder is linked to his dedication to God; and (c) in
this event is heard his cry to heaven for retribution. These two places are Gen
4 and 2 Chronicles 24, where the murder of Abel and Zechariah is described.
Especially important for us is the cry for retribution: »Listen, the blood of
your brother is crying out to me from the ground« (Gen 4,10); »May the Lord see
and avenge!« (II Chr 24,22). This cry to heaven puts the legal case into the
hands of the Supreme Judge because on earth there is no longer any justice for
those who were murdered. God will require their blood from those who committed
the dead. It is for this reason that Jesus speaks in Mt 23/Lk 11 about Abel and
Zechariah and not (say) about the prophet Uriah who was murdered at a much
later time than Zechariah, but of whom it is not written that his blood or he
himself cries out for judicial retribution (Jer 26,23). Again: this last
element is mentioned only in the case of these two: Abel and Zechariah.
But there is also a second reason why Jesus mentions
these two. The profound seriousness of the murder of God’s servants the
prophets can be very clearly exemplified by reference precisely to the fate of
Abel and Zechariah. Their name and history serve as a warning signal. On the
one hand, in the dawn of humankind, there is the figure Abel 5 δικαιος (cf. I Joh 3,12; Heb 11,4), by whose blood
the virginal earth of God’s creation was stained for the first time. On the
other hand, there is Zechariah, a priest who spoke prophetically and who, on
instigation of the king whose life had been saved by Zechariah’s father, was
cravenly murdered at a sacred location, between the temple and the altar. The
deep impression made by this murder is also evident from the legends formed
around his person in the later rabbinical literature. There is a well-known
story of the blood stain – on the rocky foundation of the temple – that would
not go away. According to the legend, Zechariah’s blood fermented on the stones
of the temple court until it was atoned for by a massacre under the command of
the Babylonian general Nebuzaradan. In short, in Abel and Zechariah the text is
referring to two figures who over a span of centuries portray the entire
tragedy of the murder of God’s servants. Both of them working in the service of
God, killed for that very reason, ans crying out for God’s justice. Abel was
murdered in secret, in the field, far away from the altar, and without
witnesses. Zechariah was openly murdered by the altar, in public, on orders
from the chief justice. Abel was killed abroad, at an unknown location in God’s
wide world; Zechariah at the heart of Israel, the place where God caused his
name to dwell, in Jerusalem.
When we read Mt 23,35 and Lk 11,50f. in these connections
and perspectives, the intent of the phrase »from Abel to Zechariah« becomes
clear. In using it Jesus’ intention is not so much to mark the starting point
and end point of a linear canonical time span as to touch upon two deeply
incisive moments of an occurence which has been going on for centuries and
still continues in the present. Especially Abel and Zechariah are mentioned
because their fate perfectly illustrates the nature of this occurrence. It is a
specific and concrete characterization of the stream of prophetic blood that
has been shed from the foundation of the world. Anchored deeply in the Old and
the New Testament as well as in the Jewish tradition is the realization that
God will not leave the blood of his servants the prophets unavenged. When in
his discourse against Pharisees and scribes Jesus refers to this, he, by citing
the two names of Abel and Zechariah, evokes that whole history and that whole
tradition. The explicative phrase »from Abel to Zechariah« in Mt 23,35 and Lk
11,51 packs the preceding words »the blood of all the prophets« with dynamite. H.
G. L. Peels, “The Blood from Abel to Zechariah (Matthew 23,35; Luke 11,50f.)
and the Canon of the Old Testament,” Zeitschrift für die alttestamentliche
Wissenschaft 113, no. 4 [2001], 598-99)
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