Deuteronomy 28:15

Curses as Reversal of Blessings

28:15 “But if you ignore ¹  the Lord your God and are not careful to keep all his commandments and statutes I am giving you today, then all these curses will come upon you in full force: ² 

Deuteronomy 28:45

28:45 All these curses will fall on you, pursuing and overtaking you until you are destroyed, because you would not obey the Lord your God by keeping his commandments and statutes that he has given ³  you.

Zechariah 1:6

1:6 But have my words and statutes, which I commanded my servants the prophets, not outlived your fathers? ⁴  Then they paid attention ⁵  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’ ⁶  second year, ⁷  the word of the Lord came to the prophet Zechariah, ⁸  son of Berechiah son of Iddo, as follows:

Zechariah 4:8

4:8 Moreover, the word of the Lord came to me as follows:

¹ tn Heb “do not hear the voice of.”

² tn Heb “and overtake you” (so NIV, NRSV); NAB, NLT “and overwhelm you.”

³ tn Heb “commanded”; NAB, NIV, TEV “he gave you.”

⁴ 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.

⁵ tn Heb “they turned” (so ASV). Many English versions have “they repented” here; cf. CEV “they turned back to me.”

⁶ sn Darius is Darius Hystaspes, king of Persia from 522-486 b.c.

⁷ 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).

⁸ 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).