Zechariah 1King James Version
Zechariah, a contemporary of Haggai. The word of the Lord: turn ye unto me, and I will turn unto you. Then the first of his visions. A man among myrtle trees in a valley, with red and speckled horses behind him. They are the patrol of the Lord, going through the earth. The earth sits still and is at rest. God is jealous for Jerusalem.
In 520 BC, Zechariah opens with a call to repentance, warning the returnees not to repeat their ancestors' fatal stubbornness. Then comes his first night vision: a rider on a red horse amid myrtle trees reports that the whole earth is at rest while Jerusalem lies broken. God responds with fierce jealousy for his city and promises that the temple will be rebuilt and Jerusalem will overflow with blessing.
God's anger at Israel's past does not cancel his passionate commitment to Jerusalem's future restoration.
"I am jealous for Jerusalem and for Zion with a great jealousy." (1:14) The word jealous here carries the force of a rightful husband reclaiming what belongs to him, signaling that God's silence during exile was never indifference but a restrained fury that is now turning toward redemption.
Late autumn 520 BC, just two months after Haggai first pushed the returned exiles back to temple work. The community is small, overwhelmed by ruins, surrounded by hostile neighbors. Zechariah stands in the night and sees between the myrtle bushes a figure on a red horse, with speckled and white horses behind him. They have seen the whole earth. Their report is that everyone else is thriving. Into that silence, God says: I have not forgotten.
Zechariah son of Berechiah son of Iddo is the prophet, a younger contemporary of Haggai among the returnees from Babylon. The angel who talks with Zechariah explains the visions throughout. The rider on the red horse among the myrtle trees is a divine envoy who has patrolled the earth. The four nations that scattered Israel are named but faceless, rebuked for overstepping their mandate.
Zechariah 1 establishes the entire prophetic program: return to God, and God will return to you. The vision of a world at ease while Jerusalem suffers creates a moral imbalance that only divine action can correct. The myrtle trees, associated with peace and the Feast of Tabernacles, hint that Israel's coming restoration will fulfill festival promises embedded in the law.
The chapter begins with urgency and edges toward comfort. The angel's intercession for Jerusalem carries genuine grief, and God's response is described as 'good words and comfortable words,' a phrase that lands softly after decades of exile.
1In the eighth month, in the second year of Darius, came the word of the LORD unto Zechariah, the son of Berechiah, the son of Iddo the prophet, saying,
2The LORD hath been sore displeased with your fathers.
3Therefore say thou unto them, Thus saith the LORD of hosts; Turn ye unto me, saith the LORD of hosts, and I will turn unto you, saith the LORD of hosts.
4Be ye not as your fathers, unto whom the former prophets have cried, saying, Thus saith the LORD of hosts; Turn ye now from your evil ways, and from your evil doings: but they did not hear, nor hearken unto me, saith the LORD.
5Your fathers, where are they? and the prophets, do they live for ever?
6But my words and my statutes, which I commanded my servants the prophets, did they not take hold of your fathers? and they returned and said, Like as the LORD of hosts thought to do unto us, according to our ways, and according to our doings, so hath he dealt with us.
7Upon the four and twentieth day of the eleventh month, which is the month Sebat, in the second year of Darius, came the word of the LORD unto Zechariah, the son of Berechiah, the son of Iddo the prophet, saying,
8I saw by night, and behold a man riding upon a red horse, and he stood among the myrtle trees that were in the bottom; and behind him were there red horses, speckled, and white.
9Then said I, O my lord, what are these? And the angel that talked with me said unto me, I will shew thee what these be.
10And the man that stood among the myrtle trees answered and said, These are they whom the LORD hath sent to walk to and fro through the earth.
11And they answered the angel of the LORD that stood among the myrtle trees, and said, We have walked to and fro through the earth, and, behold, all the earth sitteth still, and is at rest.
12Then the angel of the LORD answered and said, O LORD of hosts, how long wilt thou not have mercy on Jerusalem and on the cities of Judah, against which thou hast had indignation these threescore and ten years?
13And the LORD answered the angel that talked with me with good words and comfortable words.
14So the angel that communed with me said unto me, Cry thou, saying, Thus saith the LORD of hosts; I am jealous for Jerusalem and for Zion with a great jealousy.
15And I am very sore displeased with the heathen that are at ease: for I was but a little displeased, and they helped forward the affliction.
16Therefore thus saith the LORD; I am returned to Jerusalem with mercies: my house shall be built in it, saith the LORD of hosts, and a line shall be stretched forth upon Jerusalem.
17Cry yet, saying, Thus saith 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.
18Then lifted I up mine eyes, and saw, and behold four horns.
19And I said unto the angel that talked with me, What be these? And he answered me, These are the horns which have scattered Judah, Israel, and Jerusalem.
20And the LORD shewed me four carpenters.
21Then said I, What come these to do? And he spake, saying, These are the horns which have scattered Judah, so that no man did lift up his head: but these are come to fray them, to cast out the horns of the Gentiles, which lifted up their horn over the land of Judah to scatter it.