A call to return to the Lord
In the eighth month of the second year of Darius, the word of the LORD came to the prophet Zechariah son of Berekiah, the son of Iddo:
2 “The LORD was very angry with your forefathers. 3 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.
The prophet’s name is Zechariah. The name means either “Yahweh remembers” or “the one remembered by Yahweh.” The Jews were people who, like the American Indians, had names that meant something. Our names today mean something too, but because they come at birth, before a personality develops or deeds are done, they don’t have the significance they used to have. Who knows, for instance, that the name Philip means “lover of horses”?
In the name Zechariah we have a testimony that someone had the belief that our God, Yahweh, remembers. What a good name it is! What a great aid to go through life with a name that reminds the bearer that his God remembers him and remembers all of the promises connected to him by grace. Certainly the name would stand the prophet in good stead.
Zechariah was the son of Berekiah, who was the son of Iddo. He was a human being. He had a father, and his father in turn had a father. They were subjected to all of the experiences of human life, both positive and negative. When the Savior of the world would come, he too would have a family tree. The Bible calls special attention to Jesus’ parentage. Twice it is listed (Matthew 1:1; Luke 3:23); the first is his legal lineage through Joseph, and the second, his bloodline through Mary.
As we begin the study of Zechariah, the topic of fathers is important. The words begin, “The LORD was very angry with your forefathers.” Fathers not only help to determine their children’s physical characteristics, but they also influence their spiritual characteristics.
The sins of fathers come down to their children. What our fathers are and were is a concern to us. The Lord points that out in these first verses. His encouragement is, “Do not be like your forefathers.” “The LORD was very angry with your forefathers.” This is a side of God most people would rather not see. Christians even receive stares of indignation if they dare to tell someone that God is a God who gets angry, so angry that he blows the fires of hell hotter. People who do not know God and who do not want to know him are quick to suppose and defend the idea that God can only be a kind, old grandfatherly type who smiles down in benevolence upon children who, though sometimes rowdy and naughty, are for the most part “nice kids.”
Zechariah told his people about the angry God. The Hebrew here would be literally translated, “The LORD burned with an angry anger.” The KJV reads Psalm 7:11 to say, “God is angry with the wicked every day.” The Lord is not vindictive, nor is he, as some say, after his “shylockian pound of flesh.” Rather, he is a just God who cannot tolerate evil. In his righteousness he cannot stand that a single infraction be unpunished. If he could, he would not be truly and completely holy. If he could look the other way in selfdeception or in hopeless inability, then he would not be the righteous and almighty God he claims to be.
God has no pleasure when the wicked perish. “Return to me,” he says. That is another way of saying, “Be converted! Repent! Turn from your evil ways and your evil practices.” The Lord wants people to change their minds about him. In the context of the book of Zechariah, he is also saying: “Change your minds about what is important in life. Look at my house in ruins. Get your priorities straight. Seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you. As your fathers are examples of the wrath that comes on those I hate because of their sin, so also are they examples of the love that I show to those who turn from their sin. How often didn’t they call to me in their trouble, and I delivered them? All I wanted them to do was to turn to me and call on my name. They left me; I did not leave them. When they returned to me, I returned to them.”
When the Lord said, “Return to me, and I will return to you,” he did not mean that people have the ability to make the first move back to God on their own and then, after God sees the effort on their parts, he comes to them. The Word makes it clear that it is God who works in us to will and to do of his good pleasure. The examples are countless of the Lord working it so that his children return, sending pestilence, enemies, and trouble and then reminding them of a God who has mercy and love. The book of Haggai tells us, “I struck all the work of your hands with blight, mildew and hail, yet you did not turn to me” (2:17).
Still, in it all, the Lord does appeal to us to turn. It is not he who turns. He tells us to turn. His people do turn to him. They call on his name. They ask for forgiveness in his name and he grants it. They say with David, “Create in me a pure heart, O God, and renew a steadfast spirit within me” (Psalm 51:10). Like David, we desire to change our ways of thinking and doing things. We want to turn and return.