2 Chronicles 24:2

24:2 Joash did what the Lord approved ¹  throughout the lifetime ²  of Jehoiada the priest.

2 Chronicles 24:17

24:17 After Jehoiada died, the officials of Judah visited the king and declared their loyalty to him. ³  The king listened to their advice. ⁴ 

2 Chronicles 25:14-16

25:14 When Amaziah returned from defeating the Edomites, he brought back the gods of the people ⁵  of Seir and made them his personal gods. ⁶  He bowed down before them and offered them sacrifices. 25:15 The Lord was angry at Amaziah and sent a prophet to him, who said, “Why are you following ⁷  these gods ⁸  that could not deliver their own people from your power?” ⁹  25:16 While he was speaking, Amaziah ¹⁰  said to him, “Did we appoint you to be a royal counselor? Stop prophesying or else you will be killed!” ¹¹  So the prophet stopped, but added, “I know that the Lord has decided ¹²  to destroy you, because you have done this thing and refused to listen to my advice.”

Jeremiah 16:19

16:19 Then I said, ¹³ 

“Lord, you give me strength and protect me.

You are the one I can run to for safety when I am in trouble. ¹⁴ 

Nations from all over the earth

will come to you and say,

‘Our ancestors had nothing but false gods –

worthless idols that could not help them at all. ¹⁵ 

Zechariah 1:4-6

1:4 “Do not be like your ancestors, to whom the former prophets called out, saying, ‘The Lord who rules over all says, “Turn now from your evil wickedness,”’ but they would by no means obey me,” says the Lord. 1:5 “As for your ancestors, where are they? And did the prophets live forever? 1:6 But have my words and statutes, which I commanded my servants the prophets, not outlived your fathers? ¹⁶  Then they paid attention ¹⁷  and confessed, ‘The Lord who rules over all has indeed done what he said he would do to us, because of our sinful ways.’”

Zechariah 1:1

Introduction

1:1 In the eighth month of Darius’ ¹⁸  second year, ¹⁹  the word of the Lord came to the prophet Zechariah, ²⁰  son of Berechiah son of Iddo, as follows:

Zechariah 1:18

Vision Two: The Four Horns

1:18 (2:1) ²¹  Once again I looked and this time I saw four horns.

¹ tn Heb “and Joash did what was proper in the eyes of the Lord.”

² tn Heb “all the days of.”

³ tn Heb “came and bowed down to the king.”

⁴ tn Heb “to them.”

⁵ tn Heb “sons.”

⁶ tn Heb “caused them to stand for him as gods.”

⁷ tn Heb “seeking,” perhaps in the sense of “consulting [an oracle from].”

⁸ tn Heb “the gods of the people.”

⁹ tn Heb “hand.”

¹⁰ tn Heb “he”; the referent (Amaziah) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

¹¹ tn Heb “Stop yourself! Why should they strike you down?”

¹² tn The verb יָעַץ (ya’ats, “has decided”) is from the same root as יוֹעֵץ (yo’ets, “counselor”) in v. 16 and עֵצָה (’etsah, “advice”) later in v. 16. The wordplay highlights the appropriate nature of the divine punishment. Amaziah rejected the counsel of God’s prophet; now he would be the victim of God’s “counsel.”

¹³ tn The words “Then I said” are not in the text. They are supplied in the translation to show the shift from God, who has been speaking to Jeremiah, to Jeremiah, who here addresses God.

¹⁴ tn Heb “O Lord, my strength and my fortress, my refuge in the day of trouble. The literal which piles up attributes is of course more forceful than the predications. However, piling up poetic metaphors like this adds to the length of the English sentence and risks lack of understanding on the part of some readers. Some rhetorical force has been sacrificed for the sake of clarity.

¹⁵ tn Once again the translation has sacrificed some of the rhetorical force for the sake of clarity and English style: Heb “Only falsehood did our ancestors possess, vanity and [things in which?] there was no one profiting in them.”

¹⁶ tc BHS suggests אֶתְכֶם (’etkhem, “you”) for the MT אֲבֹתֵיכֶם (’avotekhem, “your fathers”) to harmonize with v. 4. In v. 4 the ancestors would not turn but in v. 6 they appear to have done so. The subject in v. 6, however, is to be construed as Zechariah’s own listeners.

¹⁷ tn Heb “they turned” (so ASV). Many English versions have “they repented” here; cf. CEV “they turned back to me.”

¹⁸ sn Darius is Darius Hystaspes, king of Persia from 522-486 b.c.

¹⁹ sn The eighth month of Darius’ second year was late October – late November, 520 b.c., by the modern (Julian) calendar. This is two months later than the date of Haggai’s first message to the same community (cf. Hag 1:1).

²⁰ sn Both Ezra (5:1; 6:14) and Nehemiah (12:16) speak of Zechariah as a son of Iddo only. A probable explanation is that Zechariah’s actual father Berechiah had died and the prophet was raised by his grandfather Iddo. The “Zechariah son of Barachiah” of whom Jesus spoke (Matt 23:35; Luke 11:51) was probably the martyred prophet by that name who may have been a grandson of the priest Jehoiada (2 Chr 24:20-22).

²¹ sn This marks the beginning of ch. 2 in the Hebrew text. Beginning with 1:18, the verse numbers through 2:13 in the English Bible differ from the verse numbers in the Hebrew text (BHS), with 1:18 ET = 2:1 HT, 1:19 ET = 2:2 HT, 1:20 ET = 2:3 HT, 1:21 ET = 2:4 HT, 2:1 ET = 2:5 HT, etc., through 2:13 ET = 2:17 HT. From 3:1 the verse numbers in the English Bible and the Hebrew Bible are again the same.