Return To God, And He Will Return To You (Zechariah 1:1-6) Series

Today, we begin a new series in the book of Zechariah. What I like to do, at the start of each series, is recommend a book to all of you, that you can work through as we work through the book. That book, a commentary, will give you a second perspective on the book. Hearing a second voice will help you see where scholars disagree. It'll help open the book up to you in a bigger way. And there will probably be times when I'm wrong, and he's right, and maybe the second voice will steer you closer to the truth. So for Zechariah, the commentary I recommend is Mark Boda's NIVAC commentary. He has a bigger, more nerdy version (NICOT), but the NIVAC one will be far more helpful.

The easiest introduction to the book of Zechariah is probably found, by starting in Jeremiah 25. Jeremiah was a prophet who spoke God's word to Judah, starting a couple decades (?) before Judah was conquered by Babylon. God commissioned Jeremiah, basically, to give Judah one last chance to repent, before it was too late. As I read these verses, picture God, and Jeremiah, speaking out of a mixture of sadness, and frustration, and anger.

Jeremiah 25:1ff:

(1) The word that came to Jeremiah concerning all the people of Judah in the fourth year of Jehoiakim son of Josiah king of Judah.

That [was] the first year of Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon,

(2) when Jeremiah the prophet spoke to all the people of Judah

and to all the ones dwelling in Jerusalem, saying,

(3) "From the 13th year of Josiah son of Amon king of Judah, and up to this day-- these 23 years-- the word of Yahweh has come to me,

and I have spoken to you.

I have spoken again and again,

and you haven't listened,

(4) and Yahweh has sent to you all his servants-- the prophets--

sending them again and again,

and you haven't listened/heeded,

and you haven't stretched out your ears to listen,

(5) (I've been) saying,

"Return, please, each one from his evil way, and from your (plural) evil deeds,

and live on the land that Yahweh has given to you and your fathers--

from long ago, and for forever--

(6) and may you not walk after other gods/elohim,

by serving them,

and by bowing down to them,

and don't provoke me to anger by the work of your hands,

and I won't harm you,"

(7) and you didn't listen to me --utterance of Yahweh--

so that they have provoked me to anger with the work of your hands, to bring harm to you."

(8) Therefore, thus has said Yahweh of Armies:

"Because you haven't heeded/listened to my words--

LOOK! I am about to send,

and I will take all the clans of the north-- utterance of Yahweh-- to Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, my servant,

and I will bring them against this land,

and against the ones dwelling in it,

and against all these nations around it,

and I will destroy them, ["them"=Judah, and that surrounding area]

and I will make them into a horror

and an object of hissing

and a site of ruins forever,

(10) and I will destroy from them the sound/voice of jubilation and the sound of joy--

the sound/voice of the bridegroom

and the sound/voice of the bride,

the sound of the millstones,

and the light of the lamp,

(11) and all this land shall become a site of ruins-- a desolation--

and these nations shall serve Babylon 70 years,

Everything in Jeremiah 25:1-11 has been fulfilled by the time God called Zechariah to be a prophet. God's people refused to return to God. Jerusalem was conquered. The people were scattered across the Babylonian empire, serving it. But that 70 years is basically done, more or less (a complicated topic, actually). And God's people-- some of them, at least, have returned to Jerusalem-- to a city that was left in ruins. At this point, they've restarted rebuilding the temple, and made pretty decent progress. But their life in Jerusalem has been hard. It's not going well (*Haggai). That's basically the context we need to know, for this first little bit of Zechariah to make sense.

Let's turn to Zechariah, and read verses 1-2:

(1) In the eighth month, in the second year of Darius, the word of Yahweh came to Zechariah, son of Berechiah, son of Iddo, the prophet, saying,

(2) "He was angry -- Yahweh-- with your fathers an anger," ["He was angry" is focused]

Let's stop here. The opening words to this book, are that God was angry with the generation that preceded you. He was mad.

If you were this generation Zechariah addresses, and you were thinking about your fathers' generation, you'd probably find your thinking starting somewhere else-- with what they had to go through. Their cities were burnt, and captured. Their wealth was taken. Their homes were lost. The temple where God placed his Name, and his glory, was destroyed. And that generation was sent into exile, scattered across the Middle East. Those events defined that generation, in much the same way that WW II, or the Vietnam War, defined some of ours-- with the note, that when you've been defeated, and lost everything, those events define you even to an even greater degree. It's more like being a German in WW II. Or, in some ways, it's like having grandparents who grew up in the Great Depression. To some extent, going through things like that defines you, and your history. When you think of your grandparents, or your great-grandparents, you think of the Great Depression.