A Quiet World and an Unanswered Jerusalem

The eighth month of Darius’s second year, about November 520 BC, falls between Haggai’s second and third words (Haggai 2:1, 10), so the two prophets overlap. Zechariah means the LORD remembers. Nehemiah 12:16 lists a Zechariah as head of the priestly family of Iddo, which makes this prophet a priest as well; Ezra 5:1 calls him simply “the son of Iddo”.

The Hebrew doubles the anger, literally angry with anger. The fathers are the generation that saw Jerusalem fall, and the whole message fits into five Hebrew words. It is the shortest statement of the past the book gives, and everything that follows assumes it.

“The LORD of hosts” is named three times in one sentence, a heavy seal on a short promise. Malachi 3:7 quotes the offer almost exactly, nearly a century later: “Return unto me, and I will return unto you, saith the LORD of hosts.” The same Hebrew verb, shuv, carries both halves.

“The former prophets” are the prophets before the exile; the phrase returns in 7:7 and 7:12. The quotation is close to Jeremiah 25:5 and 35:15, “Turn ye again now every one from his evil way”, so Zechariah quotes Jeremiah while calling him a prophet of the past.

Two rhetorical questions, each three words in Hebrew. The prophets had indeed died: Uriah was put to the sword by Jehoiakim (Jeremiah 26:23), and Jeremiah was last seen taken down to Egypt. The questions strip away both the hearers’ ancestors and the prophets’ authority as persons, leaving only the words.

“Take hold of” is the verb nasag, to overtake, used in Deuteronomy 28:15 of curses that “shall come upon thee, and overtake thee”. “They returned” is the same verb as “turn” in verse 3: the fathers did turn, but only to confess after the fact. Lamentations 2:17 makes the same admission: “The LORD hath done that which he had devised.”

Sebat is a Babylonian month name, one of several the exiles brought home, and the date is about 15 February 519 BC. It is the twenty-fourth day, exactly two months after Haggai’s last two words (Haggai 2:10, 20). All the visions that follow come in this one night.

The myrtle is a low evergreen shrub of ravines, whose Hebrew name gives Esther hers, Hadassah; its branches were cut for booths at the feast (Nehemiah 8:15). “The bottom” is a word used for the depths of the sea (Exodus 15:5), here a hollow or glen. “Speckled” is uncertain, perhaps sorrel or bay.

“My lord” is adoni, a courteous address, not the divine name. This is the first appearance of “the angel that talked with me”, literally who spoke in me, a guide who explains what the prophet sees. The figure recurs through the night visions and becomes a fixture of later visionary books such as Daniel.

“Walk to and fro” is the verb the Satan uses in Job 1:7 of “going to and fro in the earth”. Persian kings kept mounted couriers and inspectors, called the king’s eyes and ears, who rode the empire and reported back; the heavenly patrol works the way the empire did.

“Is at rest” is the word the Book of Judges uses for peace after deliverance: “the land had rest forty years” (Judges 3:11). By early 519 BC Darius had put down the revolts that followed his accession, and the empire was indeed quiet. The report is accurate to the political calendar.

The seventy years are Jeremiah’s (Jeremiah 25:11–12; 29:10). Counted from the temple’s destruction in 586 BC they run out near 516, when the rebuilt house would be finished. It is unusual to see the angel of the LORD praying to the LORD of hosts, an intercessor in the heavenly court.

“Comfortable” in 1611 meant strengthening and consoling. The Hebrew is nichumim, from the root of Nahum’s name and of Isaiah 40:1, “Comfort ye, comfort ye my people.” The words themselves are not yet given; the verse only tells us they were kind, and the next verse supplies them.

“Jealous with great jealousy” uses the word for a husband’s passion (Numbers 5:14). In Zephaniah 1:18 the fire of the LORD’s jealousy devoured the land; now the same jealousy is on Jerusalem’s side. The angel tells the prophet to “cry”, to proclaim it aloud, the verb of a herald.

“At ease” is the word of Amos 6:1, “Woe to them that are at ease in Zion”, turned now on the nations. Isaiah 47:6 makes the same charge against Babylon: “I was wroth with my people… thou didst shew them no mercy.” The nations were used, and they went further than the use.

“I am returned” answers verse 3, “I will turn unto you”: God has done his half first. In Lamentations 2:8 the LORD “hath stretched out a line” over Jerusalem’s wall to destroy it. The measuring line comes back, and this time it marks out a building site.

“Yet” is said four times. The verb for “spread abroad” means to overflow, used of springs spilling over in Proverbs 5:16. “Choose Jerusalem” recurs in 2:12 and 3:2; the choice first made in David’s day (1 Kings 11:13) has to be made again.

The Hebrew Bible begins chapter 2 here, so verses 18–21 are Hebrew 2:1–4. A horn is the ancient Near East’s picture of strength. The false prophet Zedekiah once made iron horns to show Ahab how he would push the Syrians (1 Kings 22:11).

The horns scattered Israel too, the northern kingdom taken by Assyria in 722 BC, so they cover both catastrophes, not only Babylon’s. “Scattered” is the verb for winnowing, tossing grain so the wind can take the chaff (Ruth 3:2): nations tossed about like husks.

This time the LORD himself shows the vision, not the angel. The Talmud (Sukkah 52b) names the four craftsmen as Messiah son of David, Messiah son of Joseph, Elijah and the righteous priest, one reading among many. The vision itself says only what they came to do.

To lift the head is the idiom of freedom and dignity; after Gideon’s victory Midian “lifted up their heads no more” (Judges 8:28). The horns reversed that for Judah, and the craftsmen reverse it back. “Cast out” is a verb for throwing, as one throws down a stone.