Zechariah 1:7

"Upon the four and twentieth day of the eleventh month, which is the month Shebat, in the second year of Darius, came the word of Jehovah unto Zechariah the son of Berechiah, the son of Iddo, the prophet, saying."

The time indicated here was exactly five months after the rebuilding of the temple had been resumed (Haggai 1:15), and Keil thought that, "The choice of the day for the divine revelation to Zechariah was evidently connected with that."[18] This was also some two months after the last message of the prophet Haggai.

See under Zechariah 1:1, which except for the date is the same as this verse. Perhaps the reason for such a formal beginning being used twice is that the first (Zechariah 1:1) pertains to Zechariah's call as a prophet, and this (Zechariah 1:7) pertains to the particular series of visions beginning here. All of these visions came within a single night, "two full months after Haggai's last message (Haggai 2:10) it is February, 519 B.C."[19]