Zechariah 1:15 - Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible

And I; the Lord of hosts, God of Israel, am very sore displeased with the heathen; exceedingly angry, and will show it, that they may see and feel it, my displeasure is grown up to the highest against them. At ease; secure in their strength, sing a requiem to themselves and trouble to Israel. See Malachi 1:11. I was but a little displeased with mine own people, i.e. in comparison with the anger I bear against the heathen it was little, Psa 137 And they, the heathen, Babylonians, helped forward; attempted to destroy whom I would but correct, Isa 10 Isa 14. I whipped to smart, you wounded to blood; I did wound to bind up, you did wound to kill, &c. It is an anthropopatheia. The affliction: it was more than they could do to provoke me here against them than their own sins did; but what I permitted for a while they did, and added to the affliction of Israel. I would prune, but they struck at the root.