“Therefore also said the wisdom of God, ‘I will send to them prophets and apostles, and some of them they will kill and persecute', that the blood of all the prophets, which was shed from the foundation of the world, may be required of this generation, from the blood of Abel to the blood of Zechariah, who perished between the altar and the sanctuary. Yes, I say to you, it shall be required of this generation.”
In view of what has been said no one should be surprised that that was what God's wisdom had revealed would happen, and was indeed still revealing would happen in the present day. For God has prophesied (‘said') through His Spirit (His Wisdom) speaking through Jesus (Matthew 23:34) that the current Apostles will along with the prophets be killed and persecuted. And by this the present generation would be bringing on themselves the blood of all the prophets through all generations, for by it they will be consenting to what had happened to them.
‘The Wisdom of God.' Jesus is never called this anywhere else, nor is the phrase used. But note its connection back to Luke 11:31. Here is a greater wisdom than that of Solomon. It may therefore be Jesus saying, ‘I am the Wisdom of God', in contrast with the wisdom of Solomon (compare 1 Corinthians 1:30). On the other hand it is quite possible that Luke uses it as a synonym for the Spirit (as he previously used ‘finger of God') so as not to name the Spirit (the Spirit is connected to wisdom in Proverbs 1:23) in accordance with his policy of on the whole not doing so (see Introduction). Or it may signify ‘God in His wisdom said ---.'
Others connect it with the words of Wisdom in Proverbs ‘for they hated knowledge and did not choose the fear of the Lord, they would none of my counsel. They despised all my reproof' (Proverbs 1:29-30), what is said here simply being Jesus' free interpretation of that idea. The different way in which He cited it on another occasion (Matthew 23:34) might be seen as confirming this.
‘Said' (eipen). This tends to exclude the idea of a written source, and there is no source that we know of in which these words are contained, although the idea is contained in Mark 12:4-5. Thus it was certainly in the mind of Jesus at that time.
Jesus then sums up the long line of prophets by citing Abel and a certain Zechariah who perished between the altar and the sanctuary. The place between the altar and the sanctuary was the holiest place in the courtyard of the Sanctuary, thereby accentuating the horror of the crime. Abel was not strictly a prophet but it was clearly here a loose use of the term signifying that his blood cried out prophetically on his behalf. Thus Jesus was citing the first martyrdom and the most heinous one.
We do not know anything about this martyrdom of Zechariah, the son of Berechiah (Matthew 23:35; compare Zechariah 1:1), apart from what we find here, but that is not surprising for our knowledge of the details of Jewish history is strictly limited. Some have suggested that he is the Zechariah the son of Jehoiada mentioned in 2 Chronicles 24:20-22, on the grounds that Chronicles was the last book in the Hebrew Scriptures, as Genesis was the first, and thus that Jesus was saying ‘all the prophets from Genesis to Chronicles'. However, the Zechariah mentioned there is ‘the son of Jehoiada', not Berechiah, and does not in any way fit in with this description. (Although ‘son of Jehoiada' may well mean grandson, for Jehoiada would then have been of great age). It is best that we assume that Jesus knew more about Hebrew history than we do.