Charles Ellicott Commentary Zechariah 1

The prophet is (in spite of the accents), no doubt, to be referred to Zechariah. (See further in my Hebrew Student Commentary.) Septuagint, πρὸς Ζαχαριαν τὸν τοῦ Βαραχιου υἱὸν Αδδω τὸν προφήτην, in which υἱὸν appears to be a corruption of υἱοῦ, caused by the common Greek collocation τὸν τοῦ ... υἱὸν.

On the twenty-fourth day of the sixth month of the second year (B.C. 520) of Darius Hystaspis, the rebuilding of the Temple had been resumed (Haggai 1:15); and in the seventh month, on the twenty-first of that month, the prophet Haggai had foretold the latter glory of this house shall be greater than its former (Haggai 2:9); and now, but a few weeks later, Zechariah receives his mission. He is commanded to exhort the people to avoid such punishments as fell on their fathers, and to make themselves worthy of the glory which should be revealed, by turning to the Lord with sincere repentance.

Your fathers. —This verse contains the word of the Lord addressed directly to and through the prophet, who is included among those addressed in the pronoun “ your fathers.” It gives the ground on which the exhortation to repentance is founded.

To them — i.e., to the prophet’s contemporaries, whose fathers are spoken of in the preceding verse.

Turn ye ... and I will turn. — These words need not imply any special backsliding on the part of the people since the commencement of the re-building of the Temple, when the Lord had declared that He was with them (Haggai 1:13; Haggai 2:4); but, rather, that the more sincerely they turned to Him, the more gloriously His merciful intentions would be revealed to them, and fulfilled in them.

Still, it may be seen from Haggai 2:14-17, how great a need they had of repentance. “Zechariah comes forth like John the Baptist, and begins his preaching with a call to repentance, and warns the people by the history of their fathers that no spiritual privileges will profit them without holiness, but rather will aggravate their guilt, and increase their condemnation if they disobey God” (Wordsworth). Observe in this and the next verse the emphatic threefold saith the Lord of hosts.

The former prophets—namely, those who prophesied when Jerusalem was inhabited and in prosperity (Zechariah 7:7), before the captivity. Septuagint, οἱ πατέρες ἔμπροσθεν [to whom] the prophets before [enjoined], which is inaccurate. Οἱ προϕῆται οἱ ἔμπροσθεν, “the prophets of former times,” would have been correct.