Zechariah 1:12

Therefore thus says the Lord; I am returned to Jerusalem with mercies: My house shall be built in it, says the Lord of Hosts and a line shall be stretched forth upon Jerusalem. Cry yet, saying, Thus says the Lord of hosts: My cities through prosperity shall yet be spread abroad. And the Lord shall yet comfort Zion and shall yet choose Jerusalem. Then lifted I up my eyes and sa w and behold four horns. And I said unto the angel that talked with me, What are these? And he answered me, These are the horns which have scattered Judah, Israel and Jerusalem. And the Lord showed me four carpenters. Then said I, What come these to do? And He spoke, saying, These are the horns which have scattered Judah, so that no man did lift up his head: but these are come to scatter them, to cast out the horns of the Gentiles, which lifted up their horn over the land of Judah to scatter it." Zechariah 1:8-21. THIS is a somewhat dark and mysterious passage. And if we should ask many a reader, "Do you understand what you are reading?" he would be compelled to reply as did the Ethiopian eunuch, "How can I, except some man should guide me?" Although there are some portions of the Word of God which are hard to be understood—by far the greater portion of Scriptures which are at first perplexing—will open up if we will carefully peruse them and prayerfully ask the illumination of God's Holy Spirit. We should seek to know all of God's Word which can be known. You will perceive that the Prophet Zechariah himself was not content with beholding the two visions described in this passage, but had to ask, in the ninth verse, "O my Lord, what are these?" And then, again, in the nineteenth verse, "What are these?" Nor did he cease his enquiries! In the twenty-first verse he says, "What come these to do?" If the seer of the vision asked for an interpretation, much more may you and I.

And the Angel of the Lord answered - the implied longing, by intercession with God. As the angel-interpreter in Job had “the office of no mere created angel, but one, anticipative of His, who came at once to redeem and justify,” so the Angel of the Lord, in whom God was, exercised at once a mediatorial office with God, typical of our Lord’s high priest’s prayer John 17, and acted as God. These seventy years - The seventy years of the captivity, prophesied by Jeremiah Jer 25:11-12; Jer 29:10, were on the eve of their conclusion at the time of Daniel’s great prayer of intercession Dan 9:2; they ended with the capture of Babylon, and the edict of Cyrus, permitting the Jews to return 2Ch 36:22-23; Ezr 1:1. Yet there seems to have been a secondary fulfillment, from the destruction of the temple and city, in Zedekiah’s eleventh year 2Ki 25:2, 2Ki 25:8-9, 588 b.c. to the second year of Darius, 519 b.c. Such double fulfillments of prophecy are not like alternative fulfillments. They are a more intricate and fuller, not an easier fulfillment of it. Yet “these 70 years” do not necessitate such a double fulfillment. It might express only a reverent wonder, that the 70 years being accomplished, the complete restoration was not yet brought to pass. Cyril: “God having fixed the time of the captivity to the 70th year, it was necessary to be silent, so long as the time was not yet come to an end, that he might not seem to oppose the Lord’s will. But, when the time was now come to a close and the fear of offending was removed, he, knowing that the Lord cannot lie, entreats and ventures to enquire whether His anger has come to an end, as had those who sinned; or whether, fresh sins having accrued, there shall be a further delay, and their forlorn estate shall be yet further extended. […]