Zechariah 1:6

1:6 But have my words and statutes, which I commanded my servants the prophets, not outlived your fathers? ¹  Then they paid attention ²  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 7:3

7:3 by asking both the priests of the temple ³  of the Lord who rules over all and the prophets, “Should we weep in the fifth month, ⁴  fasting as we have done over the years?”

Zechariah 10:6

10:6 “I (says the Lord) will strengthen the kingdom ⁵  of Judah and deliver the people of Joseph ⁶  and will bring them back ⁷  because of my compassion for them. They will be as though I had never rejected them, for I am the Lord their God and therefore I will hear them.

Zechariah 14:5

14:5 Then you will escape ⁸  through my mountain valley, for the mountains will extend to Azal. ⁹  Indeed, you will flee as you fled from the earthquake in the days of King Uzziah ¹⁰  of Judah. Then the Lord my God will come with all his holy ones with him.

¹ 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.

² tn Heb “they turned” (so ASV). Many English versions have “they repented” here; cf. CEV “they turned back to me.”

³ tn Heb “house” (so NAB, NIV, NRSV).

⁴ sn This lamentation marked the occasion of the destruction of Solomon’s temple on August 14, 586 b.c., almost exactly 70 years earlier (cf. 2 Kgs 25:8).

⁵ tn Heb “the house.”

⁶ tn Or “the kingdom of Israel”; Heb “the house of Joseph.”

⁷ tc The anomalous MT reading וְחוֹשְׁבוֹתִים (vÿkhoshÿvotim) should probably be וַהֲשִׁי בוֹתִם (vahashi votim), the Hiphil perfect consecutive of שׁוּב (shuv), “return” (cf. Jer 12:15).

⁷ tc For the MT reading נַסְתֶּם (nastem, “you will escape”) the LXX presupposes נִסְתַּם (nistam, “will be stopped up”; this reading is followed by NAB). This appears to derive from a perceived need to eliminate the unexpected “you” as subject. This not only is unnecessary to Hebrew discourse (see “you” in the next clause), but it contradicts the statement in the previous verse that the mountain will be split open, not stopped up.

⁸ sn Azal is a place otherwise unknown.

⁹ sn The earthquake in the days of King Uzziah, also mentioned in Amos 1:1, is apparently the one attested to at Hazor in 760 b.c.