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Zechariah 1 - Return to Me and the Horsemen Among the Myrtle Trees

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Zechariah begins with the simplest command and the deepest mercy: return to the Lord, and He will return to you. The visions that follow are not religious spectacle. They show a wounded people that God still sees Jerusalem, still answers with consoling words, and still intends to rebuild His house. Before we are asked to understand the horses or the horns, we are asked to listen.

Where This Chapter Stands

The people have returned from Babylon, but returning to a place is not yet returning to God. The temple can rise while old disobedience survives beneath it. That is why repentance comes before the measuring line, clean garments, lampstand, and crown. On Monday night, the Eve of Tuesday in Holy Pascha, the Church hears this opening call at the First Hour. The journey toward the Cross includes an honest turn of the heart.

Return to Me and I Will Return to You (NKJV 1:1-6; LXX 1:1-6)

1 In the eighth month, in the second year of the reign of Darius, the word of the Lord came to Zacharias, the son of Barachias, the son of Addo, the prophet, saying, 2 The Lord has been very angry with your fathers. 3 And thou shalt say to them, Thus saith the Lord Almighty; Turn to me, saith the Lord of hosts, and I will turn to you, saith the Lord of hosts. 4 And be ye not as your fathers, whom the prophets before charged, saying, Thus saith the Lord Almighty: Turn ye from your evil ways, and from your evil practices: but they hearkened not, and attended not to hearken to me, saith the Lord. 5 Where are your fathers, and the prophets? Will they live for ever? 6 But do ye receive my words and mine ordinances, all that I command by my Spirit to my servants the prophets, who lived in the days of your fathers; and they answered and said, As the Lord Almighty determined to do to us, according to our ways, and according to our practices, so has he done to us.

The opening is deliberately unsentimental. The returned community can point to the sins of its fathers, the pain of exile, and the difficulty of rebuilding, but the Lord brings the matter to the heart: “Turn to me.” The past is not denied, but it cannot become an excuse for present disobedience. We cannot repent on behalf of an earlier generation while carefully protecting the same refusal in ourselves.

Yet the command is also an invitation. God does not say only, “Leave your evil ways.” He says, “Turn to me.” Repentance has a face toward which to turn. Malachi 3:7 repeats the invitation, and James 4:8 calls us to draw near to God. The father running toward his returning son in Luke 15:20 helps us receive the promise without reducing it to a bargain. We are not purchasing God’s nearness by an adequate performance. We are coming home to the One whose mercy makes return possible.

The fathers died, and the prophets died, but the word of God did not die. Zechariah’s question about their mortality strips away the thought that another generation will deal with what we refuse to hear. Isaiah 40:8 and 1 Peter 1:24-25 place the same contrast before us: human life passes; God’s word endures. That is warning and comfort together. The command we have evaded has not expired. Neither has the mercy it offers.

Hearing the Septuagint

In verse 6, Brenton gives a command to receive the Lord’s words and ordinances, including what He commanded the prophets “by my Spirit.” The NKJV instead asks whether those words overtook the ancestors. The displayed Greek tradition therefore places special weight on receiving the word now, not merely recognizing a judgment already fulfilled. Zechariah 7:12 also names the Spirit through whom the Lord sent His words by the earlier prophets. When the Church confesses the Holy Spirit who spoke by the prophets, she is confessing the divine life behind this summons. To listen to Scripture is not to inspect a dead record of other people’s failures.

Brenton alternates “Lord Almighty” and “Lord of hosts” in verse 3. “Almighty” renders the Greek title Pantokrator, meaning the One who rules over all things. The One who calls a small, struggling community to return is not a local power competing with Persia. His authority reaches farther than their fear.

Gems from the Fathers 💎: Returning in Heart

Didymus the Blind explains that our distance from God is not measured in space. A passenger leaving shore may think the land is moving away; it is the passenger who has moved. So too, God’s invitation calls for a change in our disposition and conduct, not a change in His nature. Didymus writes that “the withdrawals and approaches mentioned involve not place but disposition and attitude.”1 The Lord’s constancy is our hope: we have not wandered beyond the reach of His kindness.

St. Augustine, commenting on the same verse, refuses to separate our real answer from God’s grace. The command calls our will to act, but even our turning is God’s gift, not an achievement that earns His mercy.2 We can begin to repent without first proving ourselves strong enough to do so alone.

The Horsemen and the Consoling Words (NKJV 1:7-17; LXX 1:7-17)

7 On the twenty-fourth day in the eleventh month, this is the month Sabat, in the second year of the reign of Darius, the word of the Lord came to Zacharias, the son of Barachias, the son of Addo, the prophet, saying, 8 I saw by night, and behold a man mounted on a red horse, and he stood between the shady mountains; and behind him were red horses, and grey, and piebald, and white. 9 And I said, What are these, my lord? And the angel that spoke with me said to me, I will shew thee what these things are. 10 And the man that stood between the mountains answered, and said to me, These are they whom the Lord has sent forth to go round the earth. 11 And they answered the angel of the Lord that stood between the mountains, and said, We have gone round all the earth, and, behold, all the earth is inhabited, and is at rest. 12 Then the angel of the Lord answered and said, O Lord Almighty, how long wilt thou have no mercy on Jerusalem, and the cities of Juda, which thou hast disregarded these seventy years? 13 And the Lord Almighty answered the angel that spoke with me good words and consolatory sayings. 14 And the angel that spoke with me said to me, Cry out and say, Thus saith the Lord Almighty; I have been jealous for Jerusalem and Sion with great jealousy. 15 And I am very angry with the heathen that combine to attack her: forasmuch as I indeed was a little angry, but they combined to attack her for evil. 16 Therefore thus saith the Lord: I will return to Jerusalem with compassion; and my house shall be rebuilt in her, saith the Lord Almighty, and a measuring line shall yet be stretched out over Jerusalem. 17 And the angel that spoke with me said to me, Cry yet, and say, Thus saith the Lord Almighty; Yet shall cities be spread abroad through prosperity; and the Lord shall yet have mercy upon Sion, and shall choose Jerusalem.

The vision is dated to the twenty-fourth day of Sabat, the eleventh month of Darius’s second year, about three months after the opening oracle. The call to return has not been replaced by a vision. The vision shows why return can be hopeful: Jerusalem’s condition is known in heaven.

The horsemen report an earth at rest. For those living among ruins, such quiet can be bitter. The powers that did the scattering appear settled; the wounded city remains unsettled. Zechariah does not mistake the absence of imperial conflict for the fullness of God’s peace. The angel asks the aching question: “How long?” Jerusalem may look forgotten, but she is being spoken for before the Lord.

The seventy years recall Jeremiah’s promise that Babylon’s dominion would not last forever (Jeremiah 25:11-12; 29:10), the promise Daniel studies as he begins to pray (Daniel 9:2). The angel’s question is not unbelief in that word. It carries the suffering city into prayer. Revelation 6:10 gives a related cry to the martyrs awaiting God’s judgment. A Church that remembers her martyrs can recognize this patience: waiting on God does not mean pretending that injustice no longer hurts.

The answer comes as “good words and consolatory sayings.” Before the ruins change, the Lord speaks. His jealousy for Zion is the steadfast love of the covenant, not wounded vanity. He has not become indifferent to the people He chose.

Verse 15 makes a distinction we must not lose. God’s chastening did not authorize the nations’ cruelty. Isaiah 10:5-7 shows an instrument of judgment pursuing its own destructive purpose; Isaiah 47:6 condemns the conqueror’s lack of mercy. No oppressor may claim that another person’s suffering gives him divine permission to abuse. Nor should a wounded Christian conclude that every injury is a verdict on a hidden personal sin. Zechariah names the aggressors’ evil rather than excusing it.

God’s silence is not indifference, and chastisement is not abandonment. The Lord promises to return with compassion, rebuild His house, and stretch a measuring line over Jerusalem. The line leads into the next vision, where the abundance He promises will exceed ordinary walls. In Christian hope, rebuilding reaches beyond stone to the people who become God’s temple and dwelling in the Spirit (1 Corinthians 3:16; Ephesians 2:21-22). He restores communion, not merely a skyline.

The Myrtle Trees and the Mountains

The familiar title follows the NKJV’s Hebrew-based wording, “myrtle trees.” The Scripture printed here follows Brenton’s Septuagint and places the rider “between the shady mountains.” Robert C. Hill notes this Greek-versus-Hebrew difference in his translation of Didymus’s commentary. These are different textual forms, not two English names for the same plant.3 Mountains appear again in Zechariah 6:1, where the chariots emerge between two mountains. The connection helps us follow the visions without pretending the wording is identical.

Brenton also lists four colors behind the rider: red, grey, piebald, and white. The NKJV lists red, sorrel, and white. Chapter 6 and Revelation 6 also show colored horses, but their colors and arrangements are not identical. The recurring image invites comparison; it does not supply a code for assigning every horse to a modern nation or event.

Gems from the Fathers 💎: We Are Not Without Intercession

St. Cyril of Alexandria hears in the angel’s prayer a reason for hope when weakness has led us into sin: the holy angels intercede. He then directs Christians to Jesus Christ the righteous, our advocate with the Father, citing 1 John 2:1-2.4 The angel’s plea does not replace Christ’s saving work. It teaches us that heaven’s holiness is not indifference to those who need mercy. Shame tells us to hide; the vision encourages us to return and ask for help.

The Horns and the Craftsmen (NKJV 1:18-21; LXX 2:1-4)

The NKJV ends chapter 1 at verse 21. Brenton’s Septuagint begins chapter 2 with this vision and continues to verse 17. Chapter divisions vary by edition: the Hebrew edition of Mechon-Mamre also places the horns at 2:1-4. This study follows NKJV numbering; the verse numbers below are NKJV 1:18-21, corresponding to Brenton 2:1-4.

18 And I lifted up mine eyes and looked, and behold four horns. 19 And I said to the angel that spoke with me, What are these things, my lord? And he said to me, These are the horns that have scattered Juda, and Israel, and Jerusalem. 20 And the Lord shewed me four artificers. 21 And I said, What are these coming to do? And he said, These are the horns that scattered Juda, and they broke Israel in pieces, and none of them lifted up his head: and these are come forth to sharpen them for their hands, even the four horns, the nations that lifted up the horn against the land of the Lord to scatter it.

The four horns represent powers that scattered Judah, Israel, and Jerusalem. The vision refuses to pretend that the people’s wounds were imaginary. Real powers crushed, scattered, and terrified them. The earth’s rest in the preceding vision was not innocent for everyone.

But the craftsmen are also sent. The powers that looked untouchable are not ultimate. This is a sober comfort for the Church: God does not ask His people to deny what harmed them. He reveals that the frightening horns are still subject to His judgment. The powers that scattered us are not stronger than the hands God sends to rebuild.

Brenton’s final verse says the craftsmen come “to sharpen them for their hands,” whereas the NKJV says they come to terrify and cast out the horns. St. Cyril does not pass over the difficulty. He asks how God could sharpen powers already guilty of cruelty, then reads their force as turned against one another, bringing Babylon’s overthrow and Israel’s release. The hostile powers are sharpened “not against Israel but against themselves.”5 This is Cyril’s explanation of the Greek wording, not the same sentence as the NKJV’s casting down of the horns. Either way, the nations’ violence is not beyond God’s judgment. Their apparent permanence cannot cancel His promise.

Didymus draws a further spiritual consequence from the craftsmen: God supplies helpers who practice mercy toward their neighbors and fidelity toward Him. The answer to scattering is not simply another power that can terrify. It includes people called to help the suffering.6 For the Christian, this is both consolation and vocation. We may be among those who need rebuilding, and also among the hands God sends to care for another wounded life.

The Church’s Voice in Worship ⛪

Zechariah 1:1-6 is read on the Eve of Tuesday in Holy Pascha, Monday night, at the First Hour. On this second night of Pascha, the Church hears the Lord call His people back. The journey toward the Cross is a journey of repentance because the Cross is not merely something done to Christ; it reveals the condition of the human heart and the mercy that heals it.

Spiritual Fruit 🍇

Return is not vague religious feeling. It means letting God’s word judge our inherited habits, private excuses, family patterns, parish complacency, and personal laziness. That judgment is not a command to despise our families or imagine that our wounds were unreal. It asks what we will do now with the word God places before us.

Bring one defended excuse into confession rather than rehearsing it once more in private. If another person has wounded you, name the wrong honestly in prayer without making revenge your hope. Zechariah teaches us to repent without despair. The same Lord who says “Turn to me” also promises, “I will turn to you.”

Footnotes

  1. Didymus the Blind, Commentary on Zechariah, trans. Robert C. Hill, FOC 111 (2006), pp. 29-30; quotation on p. 30. ↩

  2. St. Augustine, On Grace and Free Will, chapter 10, on Zechariah 1:3 and grace-enabled turning. ↩

  3. Robert C. Hill, translator’s note 26, in Didymus the Blind, Commentary on Zechariah, FOC 111 (2006), p. 36. The note identifies the difference; it does not establish how the variation arose. ↩

  4. St. Cyril of Alexandria, Commentary on the Twelve Prophets, vol. 3, trans. Robert C. Hill, FOC 124 (2012), commentary on Zechariah 1:12, pp. 101-102. ↩

  5. St. Cyril of Alexandria, Commentary on the Twelve Prophets, vol. 3, trans. Robert C. Hill, FOC 124 (2012), commentary on Zechariah 1:18-21, pp. 106-107; quotation on p. 107. ↩

  6. Didymus the Blind, Commentary on Zechariah, trans. Robert C. Hill, FOC 111 (2006), pp. 45-47. ↩

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