Albert Barnes Commentary Zechariah 1

In the eighth month - The date connects Zechariah’s prophecy to those of Haggai. Two months before, “in the sixth month” (Haggai 1:1), Haggai, together with Zechariah (Ezra 5:1–2), had exhorted Zerubbabel and the people to resume the interrupted building of the temple. They had used such diligence, despite the partial discouragement of the Persian Government, that God gave them, “in the seventh month” (Ezra 5:3–5), the magnificent promise of the later glory of the temple through the coming of Christ (Haggai 2:1–9). Still, as Haggai also warned them, their conversion was not complete. So Zechariah in the eighth month, just as Haggai in the ninth month (Haggai 2:10–14), urges upon them the necessity of thorough and inward repentance as the condition for sharing in those promises.

Osorius: “Three times in the course of one saying, he mentions the most holy name of God; partly to teach about the Three Persons in one Nature, partly to confirm their minds more strongly in the hope of the salvation to come.”

The Lord was exceedingly angry with your fathers—that is, a wrath that was truly so, the greatness of which He does not further express, but leaves for their memories to supply. Cyril says: “Do you see how he scares them, and, by setting before the young what happened to those before them, urges them to reform, threatening them with similar or more grievous troubles, unless they wisely rejected their fathers’ ways, considering pleasing God worthy of all thought and care? He speaks of great wrath.”

For it indicates considerable displeasure that He allowed the Babylonians to devastate all Judah and Samaria, burn the holy places and destroy Jerusalem, and remove the elect Israel to a pitiful slavery in a foreign land. They were cut off from sacrifices, no longer entering the holy court nor offering the thank-offering, tithes, or first-fruits of the law, but were prevented by necessity and fear even from the duty of celebrating His prescribed and dearest festivals.

We might say something similar to the Jewish people, if we were to apply it to the mystery of Christ. For after they had killed the prophets and had crucified the Lord of glory Himself, they were captured and destroyed. Their famed temple was leveled, and Hosea’s words were fulfilled in them: The children of Israel shall abide many days without a king and without a prince, without a sacrifice and without an image, without an ephod and without teraphim.

Therefore say you — Literally, “And you say,” that is, this having been so, it follows that you say or must say, Turn ye unto Me. In some degree they had turned to God, for whose sake they had returned to their land; and again when, after some negligence (Haggai 1:2–11), they renewed the building of the temple, and God had said, I am with you (Haggai 1:13). But a more inward, more complete turning was still needed, upon which God promises a still nearer presence, as Malachi repeats the words (Malachi 3:7), and James exhorts, Draw nigh to God and He will draw nigh to you (James 4:8).

Those who have turned to God continually need to turn more into the center of the narrow way. As the soul opens itself more to God, God—whose communication of Himself is always hindered only by our closing the door of our hearts against Him—enters more into it. If a man love Me, he will keep My words, and My Father will love him, and We will come unto him, and We will make Our abode with him (John 14:23).

Osorius: “People are said to be converted when, leaving behind them deceitful goods, they give their whole mind to God, bestowing no less effort and zeal on divine things than before on the nothings of life.”

Council of Trent, Session VI, Chapter 5: “When it is said in Holy Scripture, Turn unto Me and I will turn unto you, we are admonished as to our own freedom; when we answer, Turn us, Lord, unto Thee, and we shall be turned, we confess that we are preceded by the grace of God.”

Be you not like your fathers - Strangely infectious is the precedent of evil. Tradition of good, truth, and faith is decried; only tradition of evil and error is adhered to. The sin of Jeroboam was held sacred by every king of Israel: “The statutes of Omri were diligently kept, and all the works of the house of Ahab” (Micah 6:16). “They turned back and were treacherous like their forefathers; they turned themselves like a deceitful bow” (Psalms 78:57), is God’s summary of the history of Israel. Cyril says: “Absurd are they who follow the ignorances of their fathers, and ever plead inherited custom as an irrefutable defense, though blamed for the gravest ills. So idolaters especially, being called to the knowledge of the truth, ever bear in mind the error of their fathers and, embracing their ignorance as an hereditary lot, remain blind.”

The former prophets - The prophets spoke God’s words, both in their pastoral office—predicting things to come, enforcing God’s law, and exhorting to repentance—and in announcing the judgments on disobedience.

The predictive as well as the pastoral office were united in Nathan (2 Samuel 7:4–16; 2 Samuel 12:1–14), Gad (1 Samuel 22:5; 1 Samuel 24:11), Shemaiah (2 Chronicles 11:2–4; 2 Chronicles 12:5–8), Azariah (2 Chronicles 15:0), Hanani (2 Chronicles 16:7–9), Elijah (1 Kings 17:1; 1 Kings 17:14; 1 Kings 18:1; 1 Kings 18:41; 1 Kings 21:19; 1 Kings 21:21; 1 Kings 21:23; 1 Kings 21:29; 2 Kings 1:4; 2 Kings 1:16), Elisha (2 Kings 3:17–18; 2 Kings 4:16; 2 Kings 5:27; 2 Kings 7:1–2; 2 Kings 8:10–13; 2 Kings 13:14–19), and Micaiah the son of Imlah, whose habitual predictions against Ahab induced Ahab to say, “I hate him, for he doth not prophesy good concerning me, but evil” (1 Kings 22:8).

The specific calls to conversion mentioned here, and their fruitlessness, are summed up by Jeremiah as the words of all the prophets. For ten years, he says, “The word of the Lord hath come unto me, and I have spoken unto you, rising early and speaking, and ye have not hearkened. And the Lord hath sent unto you all His servants the prophets, rising early and sending; but ye have not hearkened nor inclined your ear to hear. They said, Turn ye again now every one from his evil ways and from the evil of your doings, and dwell in the land that the Lord hath given unto you and to your fathers forever and ever; and go not after other gods to serve and worship them, and provoke Me not to anger with the works of your hands, and I will do you no hurt.”

“But ye have not hearkened unto Me, saith the Lord; that ye might provoke Me to anger with the works of your hands to your own hurt. Therefore, thus saith the Lord of hosts, Because ye have not heard My words ...” (Jeremiah 25:3–8).

The prophetic author of the book of Kings sums up in a similar way, concerning “all the prophets and all the seers”: “The Lord testified against Israel and against Judah by the hand of all the prophets and all the seers, saying, Turn ye from your evil ways and keep My commandments, My statutes, according to all the law which I commanded your fathers, and which I sent to you by My servants the prophets, and they did not hear, and hardened their neck, like the neck of their fathers” (2 Kings 17:13).

The characteristic phrase, “turn from your evil ways and the evil of your doings,” occurring in Jeremiah, makes it probable that this summary was chiefly in Zechariah’s mind, and that he refers not to Isaiah, Joel, Amos, etc. (as all the prophets were preachers of repentance), but to the whole body of teachers, whom God raised up, analogous to the Christian ministry, to recall people to Himself.

The title, “the former prophets,” contrasts the office of Haggai and Zechariah not with definite prophets before the captivity, but with the whole company of those whom God sent, as He says, so unremittingly.

And they hearkened not unto Me - Jerome says: “They heard not the Lord warning through the prophets; they attended not—not to the prophets who spoke to them but—not to Me, says the Lord. For I was in them who spoke and was despised. Thus also the Lord in the Gospel says, “He that receiveth you, receiveth Me” (Matthew 10:40).

Your fathers, where are they? - The abrupt solemnity of the question seems to imply an unexpected close of life which cut short their hopes, plans, and promises to self. When they said, Peace and safety, then sudden destruction cometh upon them (1 Thessalonians 5:3).

Yet not only they but the prophets too, who ministered God’s Word to them, these also being human beings, passed away, some of them before their time as people, by the martyr’s death. Many of them did not see their own words fulfilled. But God’s word which they spoke, being from God, did not pass away.