express " the reverent wonder " that the seventy years being accomplished, the complete restoration was not yet brought to pass, and that though a remnant had returned, " Jerusalem and the cities of Judah " were still practically desolate. This pitiable condition of things moves the Angel of Jehovah to intercession on their behalf.
The answer to the intercession of the Angel of Jehovah, given in the 14th verse, is addressed to the interpret ing angel that he might make them sink in, so to say, into the prophet's heart and mind, so that he might be able to proclaim them to the people. What these " debharim fob him, debharim nichummim " (literally, " words good ones, words comforting ones ") were, we see in the last four verses: (i) Jehovah is jealous for Jerusalem and for Zion with a great jealousy and He is very sore displeased (or, literally, " with great anger am I angered ") against the nations that are at ease, " for I was but a little displeased," He says, " and they helped forward the affliction " (or, as it may also be rendered, " they helped for evil "). It is as if while a father was reluctantly punishing his froward but still beloved child with a stick, a stranger were to come and begin to smite him with an iron rod. No wonder that the father's jealousy is stirred, and that a quarrel ensues between him and the inter meddling stranger who dared to mix himself up in the controversy, and increase his child's sufferings. This is ever God's attitude to the oppressors of Israel.
That the nations from the very commencement of " the times of the Gentiles " have been guilty of helping forward the affliction, let the history of Israel, written for the most
of the city and Temple and the carrying away of the remnant of the people into captivity. With this date very probably begins more particularly the seventy years of "Indignation" referred to in this passage in Zechariah. Reckoning from this starting-point, the seventy years came to an end in the and year of Darius Hystaspes, in B.C. 519 the year in which Zechariah saw these visions. A distinction is made by some between " the Captivity " and " the Desolations "; but the first has special reference to the condition of the people, and the other to the land during the same period. In post-Biblical Jewish literature the whole period of the subjection to Babylon is spoken of as the niSa, "captivity," and loosely, as "the seventy years."
