Zechariah 1:12

12 Then the angel of the LORD replied, "O LORD of Hosts, how long will you not have mercy on Yerushalayim and on the cities of Yehudah, against which you have had indignation these seventy years?"

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 The man who stood among the myrtle trees answered, "They are the ones the LORD has sent to go back and forth through the eretz."

11 They reported to the angel of the LORD who stood among the myrtle trees, and said, "We have walked back and forth through the eretz, and, behold, all the eretz is at rest and in shalom."

12 Then the angel of the LORD replied, "O LORD of Hosts, how long will you not have mercy on Yerushalayim and on the cities of Yehudah, against which you have had indignation these seventy years?"

13 The LORD answered the angel who talked with me with kind and comforting words.

14 So the angel who talked with me said to me, "Proclaim, saying, 'Thus says the LORD of Hosts: "I am jealous for Yerushalayim and for Tziyon with a great jealousy.