Zechariah 1:2 Commentary and Bible Study

‘The LORD hath been sore displeased with your fathers’: that is hitting the nail right on the head. The Jews were very proud of their fathers, even now, even at this time when the nation had been judged by God during the exile years. The fathers have been expelled from the promised land and gone into captivity in Babylon – shameful, you might say, the ultimate expression of their failure and their disobedience to God. The centuries of God's patience have passed, and now they have been excluded from all the promises and all the prophecies related to their protection as a nation and their well-being. ‘The LORD hath been sore displeased.’ Literally, the Hebrew is ‘The LORD was wroth against your fathers -- wrath!’ Well, that is hurtful to them, a people so proud of their fathers and their tradition. We are the people, they seem to say.And yet it was a necessary word for them to hear, and even a comforting word for those who were troubled by what had happened to the nation. There needed to be some reason why God had allowed these things to happen. These returning Jews were coming to rebuild Jerusalem; they needed to believe in the promises of God; they needed to be sure he would protect them in the work. But if their nation had been overpowered by their enemies once, why would it not happen again? That question was answered by understanding why Judah had gone into exile. ‘The LORD hath been sore displeased with your father.’ Yes, God had been angry with them, and this generation needed to reflect on all the failings of their fathers to avoid the same thing happening again. This is the nature of the call to repentance.