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?
Then the angel of the Lord ... Not only does Messiah stand among His people (the "myrtles," Zechariah 1:8), but intercedes for them with the Father ("Lord," or "Yahweh of hosts") effectively, as their "ever-living Intercessor" (Zechariah 1:13; Hebrews 7:25). Compare Psalms 102:13-20; Isaiah 62:6-7, as to Judah's restoration in answer to prayer. While "all the earth ... is at rest," Israel, literal and spiritual, alone being depressed, 'the Lord's remembrancers (Isaiah 62:7, margin) shall give him no rest until he establish, and until he make Jerusalem a praise in the earth.'
Answered and said - said in continuation of the discourse; proceeded to say.
O Lord of hosts, how long wilt thou not have mercy on Jerusalem ... against which thou hast had indignation these threescore and ten years? Messiah's people pray similarly to their Head (Revelation 6:10), "How long?" etc. Heretofore it was vain to pray, but now that the divinely-appointed "threescore and ten years" (Jeremiah 25:11; Jeremiah 29:10) are elapsed, it is time to pray to thee for the fulfillment of thy promise, seeing that thy grace is not yet fully manifested, nor thy promise fulfilled. God's promises are not to make us slothful, but to quicken our prayers. Henderson, dating the 70 years from the destruction of Jerusalem (588 BC), supposes two years of the 70 had yet to run, (520 BC) But though the Jews, through indolence as to the temple-work, may have meant this in saying, "The time is not come" (Haggai 1:2), yet the time seems really to have elapsed in 536 BC, the year of Cyrus' decree for the building of the temple, 70 years from 606 BC, the fourth year of Jehoiakim, when he first became Nebuchadnezzar's servant (2 Kings 24:1).