Zechariah 1:12

12 Then the Lord's angel asked, "Lord All-Powerful, how long will it be before you show mercy to Jerusalem and the cities of Judah? You have been angry with them for seventy years now."

Zechariah 1:12 Meaning and Commentary

Zechariah 1:12

Then the Angel of the Lord answered and said
The same that was among the myrtle trees in the bottom, ( Zechariah 1:8 Zechariah 1:10 Zechariah 1:11 ) : O Lord of hosts, how long wilt thou not have mercy on Jerusalem,
and on the cities of Judah;
which were fallen to ruin, and had lain waste for many years. These words are expressive of the intercession of Christ on the behalf of the people of the Jews, his professing people, both with respect to their temporal and spiritual good: against which thou hast had indignation these threescore and ten
years?
the time of the Babylonish captivity, which lasted such a term of time, and which was a token of the divine displeasure with them; but to be reckoned, not from Jeconiah's captivity, to the deliverance from it by Cyrus, as it is reckoned, ( Jeremiah 25:1 Jeremiah 25:11 ) ( Daniel 9:2 ) but from the taking of Jerusalem, and the destruction of the temple under Zedekiah, to the rebuilding of the temple under Darius Hystaspis, in whose second year Zechariah now prophesied, ( Zechariah 1:7 ) , which was a space of seventy years.

Zechariah 1:12 In-Context

10 Then the man standing among the myrtle trees explained, "They are the ones the Lord sent through all the earth."

11 Then they spoke to the Lord's angel, who was standing among the myrtle trees. They said, "We have gone through all the earth, and everything is calm and quiet."

12 Then the Lord's angel asked, "Lord All-Powerful, how long will it be before you show mercy to Jerusalem and the cities of Judah? You have been angry with them for seventy years now."

13 So the Lord answered the angel who was talking with me, and his words were comforting and good.

14 Then the angel who was talking to me said to me, "Announce this: This is what the Lord All-Powerful says: 'I have a strong love for Jerusalem.