The prophet exhorts the people to return to God, and declares his visions, by which he puts them in hopes of better times.

¹ In the eighth month, in the second year of king Darius, the word of the Lord came to Zechariah the son of Berechiah, the son of Iddo, the prophet, saying:

² The Lord has become angry over the resentful anger of your fathers.¹

1. 1:2The cases of the words ‘patres vestros iracundia’ do not match the cases of the corresponding words in translation because English grammar expresses this meaning in a different way. In English, ‘of your fathers’ would seen to be a translation of the genitive case, but in Latin the fathers are the object of the verb referring to anger, so the case is accusative.(Conte)

³ And you shall say to them: Thus says the Lord of hosts: Turn to me, says the Lord of hosts, and I will turn to you, says the Lord of hosts.

⁴ Do not be like your fathers, to whom the former prophets cried out, saying: Thus says the Lord of hosts: Turn from your evil ways and from your wicked thoughts. But they did not heed, and neither did they pay attention to me, says the Lord.

⁵ Your fathers, where are they? And will the prophets live unceasingly?

⁶ Yet truly my words and my lawfulness, which I entrusted to my servants the prophets, were indeed comprehended by your fathers, and so they were converted, and they said: Just as the Lord of hosts decided to do to us, according to our ways and according to our inventions, so has he done to us.¹

1. 1:6The word ‘legitima’ refers to ‘lawful authority’ or ‘lawfulness.’ Notice that in Latin, the word ‘numquid’ is used, making this verse a kind of rhetorical question. But the translation uses ‘indeed’ to indicate the same meaning, without forming a question, because a rhetorical question would not be fitting in the English of this verse.(Conte)

⁷ On the twenty-fourth day of the eleventh month, which is called Shevat, in the second year of Darius, the word of the Lord came to Zechariah the son of Berechiah, the son of Iddo, the prophet, saying:

⁸ I saw by night, and behold, a man riding on a red horse, and he stood among the myrtle trees, which were in the chasm. And behind him were horses: red, speckled, and white.¹²³

1. 1:8The phrase ‘in profundo’ has the word ‘profundo’ as a nouns, referring to the abyss, or the depths, or the chasm. In other words, they were not on the earth, but were in an other-worldly place, waiting.(Conte)
2. 1:8Notice that these are the same as the four horses in the Book of Revelation.(Conte)
3. 1:8A man: An angel in the shape of a man. It was probably Michael, the guardian angel of the church of God.(Challoner)

⁹ And I said, “What are these, my lord?” And the angel, who was speaking with me, said to me, “I will reveal to you what these are.”¹

1. 1:9The word ‘lord’ is not capitalized because the prophet was speaking to the Angel, and then he said to the Angel, ‘my lord.’ He was not addressing God directly.(Conte)

¹⁰ And the man that stood among the myrtle trees answered and said, “These are they, whom the Lord has sent in order to walk through the earth.”¹

1. 1:10These are they, etc: The guardian angels of provinces and nations.(Challoner)

¹¹ And those who stood among the myrtle trees answered the angel of the Lord, and they said, “We have walked through the earth, and behold, all the earth is inhabited and is at rest.”

¹² And the angel of the Lord answered and said, “Lord of hosts, how long will you not have mercy on Jerusalem and on the cities of Judah, with which you have been angry? This is now the seventieth year.”¹

1. 1:12The seventieth year: Viz., from the beginning of the seige of Jerusalem, in the ninth year of king Sedecias, to the second year of king Darius. These seventy years of the desolation of Jerusalem and the cities of Juda, are different from the seventy years of captivity foretold by Jeremias; which began in the fourth year of Joakim, and ended in the first year of king Cyrus.(Challoner)

¹³ And the Lord answered the angel, who had been speaking with me, good words, consoling words.

¹⁴ And the angel, who was speaking with me, said to me: Cry out, saying: Thus says the Lord of hosts: I have been zealous for Jerusalem and for Zion with a great zeal.

¹⁵ And, with a great anger, I am angry with the wealthy nations. Though I had been angry a little, truly they advanced further in evil.

¹⁶ Because of this, thus says the Lord: I will be turned back, towards Jerusalem, with mercies; and my house will be built upon this, says the Lord of hosts. And the building line will be extended over Jerusalem.

¹⁷ Until then, cry out saying: Thus says the Lord of hosts: Until then, my cities will flow with good things, and, until then, the Lord will comfort Zion, and, until then, he will single out Jerusalem.

¹⁸ And I lifted up my eyes, and I saw. And behold: four horns.¹

1. 1:18Four horns: The four horns represent the empires, or kingdoms, that persecute and oppress the kingdom of God.(Challoner)

¹⁹ And I said to the angel, who was speaking with me, “What are these?” And he said to me, “These are the horns that have winnowed Judah and Israel and Jerusalem.”

²⁰ And the Lord showed me four workmen.¹

1. 1:20Four smiths: The four smiths, or carpenters ( for faber may signify either) represent those whom God makes his instruments in bringing to nothing the power of persecutors.(Challoner)

²¹ And I said, “What have these come to do?” He spoke, saying, “These are the horns that have winnowed Judah, through every single man, and none of them lifted up his head. And these have come to frighten them away, so as to cast down the horns of the Gentiles, which have lifted up a horn over the land of Judah, so as to scatter it.”¹

1. 1:21The four horns are the four kingdoms into which the great monarch’s kingdom will be divided. These four are less holy than the great monarch’s kingdom, and they begin a continual decrease in holiness and wisdom, and a continual increase in sin and deceit, that finally, hundreds of years later, results in the kingdom of the Antichrist (the horn lifted over Judah).(Conte)