1:4 The Lord said to me,
1:1 This 7 is the Lord’s message 8 that was given 9
to Joel 10 the son of Pethuel:
1:1 The Lord said 11 to Jonah son of Amittai, 12
1:1 In the eighth month of Darius’ 13 second year, 14 the word of the Lord came to the prophet Zechariah, 15 son of Berechiah son of Iddo, as follows:
1 sn The translation reflects the ancient Jewish tradition of substituting the word for “Lord” for the proper name for Israel’s God which is now generally agreed to have been Yahweh. Jewish scribes wrote the consonants
2 tn Heb “to whom the word of the
3 sn The prophet’s name, Ezekiel, means in Hebrew “May God strengthen.”
4 tn Or “to Ezekiel son of Buzi the priest.”
5 tn Heb “Chaldeans.” The name of the tribal group ruling Babylon, “Chaldeans” is used as metonymy for the whole empire of Babylon. The Babylonians worked with the Medes to destroy the Assyrian Empire near the end of the 7th century
6 tn Or “power.”
7 sn The dating of the book of Joel is a matter of dispute. Some scholars date the book as early as the ninth century
8 tn Heb “the word of the
9 tn Heb “that was.” The term “given” does not appear in the Hebrew, but is supplied in the translation for the sake of clarity and smoothness.
10 sn The name Joel means in Hebrew “the
11 tn Heb “The word of the
12 tn Heb “The word of the
13 sn Darius is Darius Hystaspes, king of Persia from 522-486
14 sn The eighth month of Darius’ second year was late October – late November, 520
15 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).
16 sn The parenthetical note And the scripture cannot be broken belongs to Jesus’ words rather than the author’s. Not only does Jesus appeal to the OT to defend himself against the charge of blasphemy, but he also adds that the scripture cannot be “broken.” In this context he does not explain precisely what is meant by “broken,” but it is not too hard to determine. Jesus’ argument depended on the exact word used in the context of Ps 82:6. If any other word for “judge” had been used in the psalm, his argument would have been meaningless. Since the scriptures do use this word in Ps 82:6, the argument is binding, because they cannot be “broken” in the sense of being shown to be in error.
17 tn Grk “What then?” (an idiom).
18 sn According to the 1st century rabbinic interpretation of 2 Kgs 2:11, Elijah was still alive. In Mal 4:5 it is said that Elijah would be the precursor of Messiah. How does one reconcile John the Baptist’s denial here (“I am not”) with Jesus’ statements in Matt 11:14 (see also Mark 9:13 and Matt 17:12) that John the Baptist was Elijah? Some have attempted to remove the difficulty by a reconstruction of the text in the Gospel of John which makes the Baptist say that he was Elijah. However, external support for such emendations is lacking. According to Gregory the Great, John was not Elijah, but exercised toward Jesus the function of Elijah by preparing his way. But this avoids the real difficulty, since in John’s Gospel the question of the Jewish authorities to the Baptist concerns precisely his function. It has also been suggested that the author of the Gospel here preserves a historically correct reminiscence – that John the Baptist did not think of himself as Elijah, although Jesus said otherwise. Mark 6:14-16 and Mark 8:28 indicate the people and Herod both distinguished between John and Elijah – probably because he did not see himself as Elijah. But Jesus’ remarks in Matt 11:14, Mark 9:13, and Matt 17:12 indicate that John did perform the function of Elijah – John did for Jesus what Elijah was to have done for the coming of the Lord. C. F. D. Moule pointed out that it is too simple to see a straight contradiction between John’s account and that of the synoptic gospels: “We have to ask by whom the identification is made, and by whom refused. The synoptic gospels represent Jesus as identifying, or comparing, the Baptist with Elijah, while John represents the Baptist as rejecting the identification when it is offered him by his interviewers. Now these two, so far from being incompatible, are psychologically complementary. The Baptist humbly rejects the exalted title, but Jesus, on the contrary, bestows it on him. Why should not the two both be correct?” (The Phenomenon of the New Testament [SBT], 70).
19 sn The Prophet is a reference to the “prophet like Moses” of Deut 18:15, by this time an eschatological figure in popular belief. Acts 3:22 identifies Jesus as this prophet.