2 Chronicles 24:21
And they conspired against him, and stoned him with stones at the commandment of the king in the court of the house of the LORD. And they conspired against him, and stoned him with stones at the commandment of the king in the court of the house of the LORD.
The prophet Zechariah was stoned in the court of the house of the Lord at the command of the apostate king, through conspiracy and through the instigation of the leaders in Israel. He had warned the people in God's name and denounced the sins of those in authority, and they slighted God's commands, refused to be reproved, and clung to their sins. In satanic fury they silenced God's warning while it was still on his lips.
His righteous blood stained and marked the very stones of the temple court and could not be erased. It remained as long as the temple stood as a testimony to God and a witness against apostate Israel for rejecting God's warning. There it cried to God for vengeance and justice. Refusing correction, slighting God's warnings, and holding sins closer brought punishment on the Jews in a later captivity to a heathen nation.
In Christ's day the Jews lamented their humiliation under the Romans and condemned their fathers for stoning the prophets sent to correct them. Yet their priests, elders, and leaders cherished in their hearts the same spirit and were ready to commit the same crimes. With the blood of righteous Abel, the murder of Zechariah measures the iniquity heaped up from generation to generation by rejecting God's prophets. Filled to overflowing by rejecting Christ and God's messengers, it draws retributive justice, so that the generation rejecting Jesus is made responsible for the blood of all the righteous slain from Abel to Christ.