Then the angel of the LORD answered and said, O LORD of hosts, how long wilt thou not have mercy on Jerusalem and on the cities of Judah, against which thou hast had indignation these threescore and ten years?
Ver. 12. Then the angel of the Lord] That advocate with the Father, Jesus, the just one, 1 John 2:1, who appeareth to his afflicted people, and feelingly pleads for them, as being afflicted in all their afflictions, even the angel of his presence that saveth them, Isaiah 63:9. It much moved him to hear that God's enemies were in better case than his people; and this puts him upon the following passionate expostulation.
O Lord of hosts, how long wilt thou not have mercy on Jerusalem, &c.] Usquequo Domine. Calvin had these words much in his mouth; thereby breathing out his holy desires in the behalf of the afflicted Churches, with whose sufferings he was more affected than with anything that befell himself. It is said of Melancthon that the miseries of the Church made him almost neglect the death of his dearest children; and put him upon many prayers and tears; which, like music upon the water, made a most melodious noise in the ears of God. When Luther in a certain epistle checked him, and chided him for his exceeding great care of the Church's welfare, calling him pertinacissimam curarum hirudinem, &c., he meekly replied, Si nihil curarem, nihil orarem; If I should not care so, I should not pray so. God seemeth sometimes to have lost his mercy (as here, How long wilt thou be unmerciful to Jerusalem?), and then we must find it for him. He seems to have forgotten his people; we must remind him. He seems to sleep, delay; we must waken, quicken him, with "How long, Lord?" "Thou shalt arise, and have mercy upon Zion; for the time to favour her, yea, the set time, is come," saith Daniel, who is probably held to be the penman of that excellent Psalm Psa 102:13 cf. Dan 9:2 and he speaks it with as much confidence as if he had been in God's blessed bosom the while. This also he spake, not now by a spirit of prophecy, or special revelation; but by way of argumentation, or necessary demonstration: "For thy servants take pleasure in her stones, and favour the dust thereof"; they pity her, and melt over her, therefore thou, Lord, much more; since all their tenderness is but a spark of thy flame, a drop of thine ocean.
Against which thou hast had indignation, these threescore and ten years] There is much ado among interpreters about Jeremiah's seventy years and Zechariah's seventy years, whether one and the same, or different one from another. That of Scaliger is most unlikely, who reckoneth these years of the captivity from the first year of Xerxes with his father Darius, unto the fourth year of Darius Nothus. How much better our countryman, Lydiat (whom yet Scaliger so much scorned, saying, Quis est ille ex ultima Britannia Canis, qui Ios. Scaligerum audeat allatrare?), who concludes it to be 70 years from the last destruction of Jerusalem by the Chaldees to this second year of Darius Hystaspes, wherein Zechariah prophesied. That of a Lapide upon this text I cannot pass by, Moraliter idipsum dicamus, idipsum oremus et obsecremus pro Anglia. Let us say the same, pray the same, for England, Scotland, &c., that the angel here doth for Jerusalem; How long, Lord, wilt thou not have mercy upon England, where heresy hath prevailed now these hundred years and upwards? The English fugitives beyond seas write upon their college and church doors, in great golden letters, Iesu, Iesu, converte Angliam: Fiat, Fiat. Iesu, convert England: Amen, Amen. Why, yet this is somewhat better than that of Pererius, the Jesuit, upon Genesis 15:16. If any man marvel, saith he, why England continueth to flourish, notwithstanding the overflow of heresy, and cruel persecution of Catholics (just execution of Catholics, he should have said), we answer, because their iniquity is not yet full (God grant it, Jer 28:6), Sed veniet tandem iniquitatis complementum. But the time is not far off; and forbearance is no quittance.