Answered. He answered the feeling in the prophet's mind, the unexpressed longing of his heart. O Lord of hosts. The angel is the intercessor for the people. So Christ prays to the Father (John 17:1-26.
). How long wilt thou not have mercy, etc.? He prays that the weary waiting for deliverance may speedily come to an end, and Jerusalem be restored, and Judaea be again inhabited by a happy population.
These three score and ten years. The predicted seventy years of captivity (Jeremiah 25:11; Jeremiah 29:10) were past; it was time that the punishment should cease. There are two computations of this period.
The first dates from the first capture of Jerusalem by Nebuchadnezzar, B.C. 606, when Judaea was made tributary to Babylon (2 Kings 24:1: 2 Chronicles 36:6; Daniel 1:1, etc.), unto the return of the company of exiles under Zerubbabel, B.
C. 536; the second dates from the final destruction of Jerusalem, B.C. 588, unto the second year of Darius, B.C. 519, when Zechariah saw these visions. However reckoned, the dark period was now over; might they not now expect the commotion among the nations which was to precede their own restitution?