Zechariah 1: 1-6
In the eighth month of the second year of Darius, the word of the Lord came to Zechariah son of Berechiah, the son of Iddo:
The Lord was very angry with your fathers.
Therefore tell the people: This is what the Lord Almighty says: Return to Me, declares the Lord Almighty, And I will return to you, says the Lord Almighty.
Do not be like be like your fathers, to whom the earlier prophets proclaimed: This is what the Lord Almighty says: Turn from your evil ways and your evil practices. But they would not listen or pay attention to Me, declares the Lord.
Where are your fathers now? And the prophets, do they live forever?
But did not My words and My decrees, which I commanded My servants the prophets, overtake your fathers?
Then they repented and said, The Lord Almighty has done to us what our ways and practices deserve, just as He determined to do.
Zechariah reminded the Jews who returned to Jerusalem how God had been angry with their ancestors for not listening to Him, and He deported them.
But now God's Word has outlasted their ancestors, who have died, and God brought the people back, just as He said He would do. Now it's time to listen and heed what God says.
They admitted that God had done exactly what He said He'd do, and that He had dealt with them according to their own ways and deeds.
This encouraged the people to continue to rebuld the Temple, which at this point in time has sat for 15 years.
Zechariah 2: 12
The Lord will inherit Judah as His portion in the Holy Land and will again choose Jerusalem.
Now God is again choosing Jerusalem to possess as His own along with the territory of the Southern Kingdom, Judah.
And all this prompts Darius the king of Media-Persia (Babylon) to support them. (See Ezra 6:1-12 for his decree).
Daniel tells us that this Darius was the son of Xerxes (Ahasuerus, the husband of Hadassah, aka Esther) (see Daniel 1:1-2ff).
God always keeps His Word. Whenever God says He will do something, you can be sure He will do it, so sure that it's as if it's already done.
God had told Jeremiah at the time Judah was being deported to this far country, that God would bring them back in 70 years. Then, seventy years later, Daniel was reading Jeremiah's writings, and realized that the seventy years had passed! So he began to pray, and received a lot of his visions of the future.
But Zechariah is reminding the people who had returned to Judah, that the reason their people had been in the foreign land to begin with was because they had not listened to what God was telling them back then, disobeying His commandments and precepts. God had told their ancestors what He would do, and He did it.
Now the people have returned, and it's time to start listening to God, listening to what His prophets were saying. All their ancestors from back then as well as the prophets who spoke to them were by now all dead, but the prophesies that they had given were coming true--God's Word had outlasted all those people.
God's Word will always stand. Not one word, not one tiny part of a letter of a word, of God's Word will ever not come true, no matter how much time passes and no matter what people do.
Mere Mankind cannot tamper with what God has established, whether it be His Creation or His Word about it. (See the First Law of Thermodynamics for the science of Creation, and Matthew 5:18 and Luke 16:17 for the permanence of His Word.)
So when God has promised to give me something that I don't have yet, I will thank Him for giving it to me, and look for it to appear. He is never early or late, but always just on time.
O my Father, thank You for Your faithfulness and Your patience with us, with me. Thank You for all the wonderful answers to my prayers that I have seen so far in my life, and I thank You also for all the things that haven't happened yet in my timeline that You have already done for me, to answer the rest of my prayers according to Your goodness and generosity.
Help me, Father, to trust You more each day, as I draw close to You and learn more of Your character and personality. Teach me how to love You back, as You have loved me; and how to love my neighbor, my fellow man, as You have loved me, too.
Continue to teach me, Father, how all the dots connect in the story of Scripture. Thank You for telling us our past, so that we can trust that You know what You're doing; and to believe You when You tell us what hasn't happened yet in our Time.
All Your plans will be successful, and all Your purposes for which You made every detail of every part of all Creation will be fulfilled--have been already done, to unfold day by day as Time passes, until we can see it all finished.
Even so, come, Lord Jesus!
