Claim: Zechariah ben Jehoiada was a priest figure from the Hebrew Bible whose boiling blood proclaimed his murder and caused the death of 940,000 people until Nebuzar-adan invoked his name.
Evidence: Later, when Nebuzar-adan, the captain of Nebuchadnezzar's body-guard, came to destroy the Temple, he saw Zechariah's blood which had been boiling since his murder. The Jews then told him the truth, and Nebuzar-adan, wishing to appease Zechariah's blood, slew in succession the Great and Small Sanhedrins, the young priests, and school-children, till the number of the dead was 940,000. Still the blood continued to boil, whereupon Nebuzar-adan cried: "Zechariah, Zechariah! for thee have I slain the best of them; wouldst thou that I destroy them all?" And at these words the blood ceased to effervesce. Zechariah ben Jehoiada is a figure in the Hebrew Bible described as a priest who was stoned to death by Jehoash of Judah and may possibly have been alluded to in the New Testament.