THE PROPHET ZECHARIAH

Chapter 1:1-6

In ver. 1 Zechariah is described as the grandson of "Iddo the prophet." Does this mean that Iddo belonged to the same prophetical order as his illustrious descendant Zechariah? The Masoretes were of opinion that it did. They adopted the view that when a prophet is defined by the addition of his father's or grandfather's name, the ancestor so named was also a seer or prophet. Consequently they have joined together the two Hebrew words by an ordinary connective accent. In this case, however, they have helped to confuse the grandfather of Zechariah with Iddo the seer who prophesied concerning Jeroboam, the son of Nebat, in 2 Chron. ix. 29; but as there is nothing in the order of the Hebrew words to necessitate this identification the Revised Version prefers to insert a comma after Iddo— "Iddo, the prophet" — and thus limit the designation "prophet" to the son of Berechiah himself. The insertion of the comma is not so trivial as it seems. It helps to set in a clearer light the personality of the prophet.

1. His Comparative Youth.

As the son of Berechiah, Zechariah must have been comparatively young when he began to prophesy in B.C. 520. He is not to be identified with the "young man" referred to in chap. ii. 4; but if his grandfather Iddo was one of the priests who went up from Babylon with Zerubbabel and Joshua in 537 (Neh. xii. 4), Zechariah himself could not have been of any great age when he began to prophesy in the second year of Darius Hystaspis. His first recorded prophecy overlaps the work of Haggai, being dated one month earlier than Haggai's concluding message (Zech. i. 1; Hag. ii. 20); but as the latter was one of the old men who had seen the house of God in its former glory, Zechariah can only be described as his younger and more ideal colleague. It may even be suggested that this is the explanation of the seemingly inaccurate expression "unto them" in ver. 3. Grammatically it can only refer to its antecedent "fathers" in ver. 2; but as the prophet was sent, not to the fathers, but to the elders of his own generation, it is conceivable that Zechariah, because of his youth, allowed his thought to include both classes in one — the older men who were the leaders of the returned exiles and the former generation of Israel whose children and representatives they were. Instinctively, therefore, had he framed an expression that was equally applicable to both. He placed the old men, ancient and modern, in one and the same class.

Still, this is not to be understood as implying that he the exponent of a new era had nothing but cynicism towards the ideals of his predecessors. The merest suspicion that he was prepared to stand aloof from, or to hurl the cynic's ban at, Israel's past, would have disqualified him forthwith as a divinely-appointed organ of revelation. A true prophet must not only address himself to the needs of his own age; he must be one with it in its aspirations and problems, and seek to elevate it to a higher spiritual level by the very depth of his kinship. Hence, instead of the accepted reading "your fathers" in ver. 2, Codex A1 would introduce the first personal pronoun, saying, "The Lord hath been sore displeased with our fathers." There was no conscious intention on Zechariah's part to separate himself from the elders of the people. Standing on the accepted basis of Israel's past, he was only seeking to take the exiles back to the glory of forgotten ideals. He was a reformer, not an innovator in the faith and customs of their fathers. And in this respect he was a teacher for all time. It is no mark of greatness in any age when reverence for the past is conspicuous by its absence. The first test of a growing and vigorous national life is gratitude for those who have gone before.

2. The Severity of the Fathers' Fate.

"The Lord hath been sore displeased with our fathers" — lit., hath been angry with anger — a Hebraic expression, consisting of the finite verb with its cognate accusative, and designed to bring out the intensity of the verbal action or the awe-inspiring energy of the divine wrath. So intensely did the Septuagint translators feel this that they introduced the adjective, "great" from chap. vii. 12, and read,

"The Lord hath been incensed against our fathers with a great indignation."

The explanation of this wrath is to be sought in the peculiar heinousness of the sin. Their fathers had been guilty, not only of walking in evil ways, or practising evil doings, but also of continued impenitence and disobedience after they had been summoned to submission. It was refusal to hear, or apostasy. Disobedience, in its strict sense, may simply mean a failure to hear, or hearing amiss, but the notion of active disobedience, which so easily follows this inattentive or careless hearing, is readily superinduced on the original signification. Remissness on the part of Israel when Jehovah is the speaker is really rebellion or apostasy in essence. These two stages in the development of moral evil are quite distinctly marked by the two Hebrew synonyms employed by Zechariah. Not only did the fathers fail to hear, when the former prophets remonstrated with them, but they refused to incline their ears, or give attention, when Jehovah, the God of Israel, drew near to confirm or vindicate His word. "They did not hear, nor hearken unto Me, saith the Lord."

In consequence that former generation had been compelled to bear the severity of divine chastisement. As a nation they had succumbed and disappeared amid the dark storm-clouds of the exile. "Out of the north" had come that dreaded scourge depicted by Jeremiah. The contents of the seething cauldron 'had been poured over the land, and the inhabitants of Jerusalem learned, when too late, that the Parable of the Almond Branch, no less than of the seething cauldron, had been tragically fulfilled — "I am watching over My word to perform it" (Jer. i. 12, 14). Is this not the meaning of the emphatic Paseq in Zech. i. 6? It is placed after the adversative "but" to bring out the striking contrast between transitory human life and the enduring and unfailing potency of the divine word. "Your fathers, where are they? and the prophets, do they live for ever? But My words and My statutes . . . did they not overtake your fathers?" (R.V.) "Rarely has punishment, though lame, failed to overtake the criminal fleeing before her?"2 So it fared with Israel. She turned a deaf ear to Jehovah's word, but it dogged her footsteps like a divine goel, and overtook her at the last.

3. The Call to Repentance.

"Return unto Me . . . and I will return unto you, saith the Lord of Hosts" (ver. 3). Does this mean that the returning grace of Jehovah was dependent on the heartfelt penitence of the people? No, the preacher, in reading this great text, may well follow the hints supplied by the Hebrew tenses, and prepare himself for one of the profoundest lessons of Old Testament theology. In Sermons in Syntax3 the suggestion has been hazarded that while the idiom here employed undoubtedly expresses design or purpose in a sufficient number of instances, there are not lacking others where the element of sequence is allowed to recede into the background, and the clauses connected by "and" are conceived simply as co-ordinate. Cf. Gen. xvii. 1-2, "Walk before Me, and be thou perfect. And l will make My covenant between Me and thee." The "and" here is not consecutive in the sense that the framing of a covenant is made dependent on the perfect allegiance of the man. The spring of the divine action is found in El Shaddai Himself, and since both the allegiance and the covenant are traced back, like parallel streams, to His revealed will and character, the connection between them is suitably represented by the insertion of the simple copulative. "Walk before Me" is, therefore, a divine injunction that looks in both directions — back to the character of El Shaddai and forward to the fulness of the covenant. Nevertheless it is not the covenant that is contingent on the obedience: it is the obedience that is stimulated by the covenant. "When it is said in Scripture," Turn ye unto Me and I will turn unto you,' we are reminded of our freewill. When we reply, ‘ Turn us to Thee, O Lord, and we shall be turned,' we confess that we are first aided (præveniri) by the grace of God."4

This is the key to our present passage. God has not waited for Israel's response. The God of their fathers has taken the initiative. The mere fact that Zechariah has now appeared as an organ of revelation is the one proof needed that Jehovah, the God of Israel, has turned to them with the wonders of His grace, and that they, on their part, should return to Him with open hearts. For why thus dwell on the love of God for Israel, if not to incite responsive love in Israel — responsive love as the deepest motive for Old Testament morality? Legal righteousness is not the burthen of the Old Testament after all, and legal righteousness is not, and cannot be, the burthen of any New Testament creed. Righteousness, as in the Pauline Epistles, is often a synonym for grace. There was a Power, not themselves, making for mercy.

Therefore be ye not as your fathers, unto whom the former prophets prophesied in vain. But be ye as your fathers' God, the framer and vindicator of the covenant. For He has returned unto you in love, and will return more and more, as you are prepared by prayer and heartfelt contrition for the fulness of the revelation. Say, then, with Herrick in Noble Numbers: —

"Sick is my heart! O Saviour! do Thou please

To make my bed soft in my sicknesses:

Lighten my candle, so that I beneath

Sleep not for ever in the vaults of death;

Let me Thy voice betimes i' th' morning hear:

Call, and I'll come; say Thou the when, and where.

Draw me but first, and after Thee I'll run

And make no one stop till my race be done."

1 The Septuagint.

2 Horace, Carm. III. 2, 31.

3 P. 220

4 Concil. Trident., cited by Pusey.