Zechariah 1:3-6 - Joseph Benson’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

Therefore say Rather, but say thou unto them, Thus saith the Lord, Turn ye unto me The word turn, as it related to the people, signified that they should change their corrupt manners and turn to God in newness of life; and by God's turning to them, was meant, that he would take them again into his favour, and perform for them acts of manifest kindness, instead of displeasure. Be ye not as your fathers Do not persist in impenitence as your fathers did. Instead of being hardened in your evil courses by the example of your fathers' sin, rather be deterred from those courses by the example of your fathers' punishment. Your fathers, where are they Where are your disobedient fathers? Were they not consumed with famine and the sword, as God threatened them? And the prophets, do they live for ever Though the prophets, and those to whom they delivered their message, are dead, yet the commandments delivered by their ministry still continue in full force; which appears by the judgments that came upon your fathers, for not hearkening to them; as they themselves could not but acknowledge. And the same punishments will overtake you, if you continue disobedient. But my words The dreadful menaces which I delivered; and my statutes The decreed judgments which I resolved to execute on them: did they not take hold on your fathers? Overtake them as a pursuing enemy overtakes and seizes on the object of his hostility? In other words, Did not the evils which I had denounced by the prophets come upon your fathers? And they returned, &c. They were forced to acknowledge with sorrow, that all those calamities which I had threatened against them, and forewarned them of, if they did not obey my voice, were actually come upon them.