The Lord Remembers

That is of course the name of the book we are studying. You will recognize "zachar" and the tell-tale "YH" at the end. What I'll do next is simply give you the translation of Zechariah 1:1-6 as I have it and make some notes:

[1] "In the eighth month, in the second year of Darius, the Word of the LORD was to Zechariah son of Bereciah son of Iddo the prophet, saying,

[2] 'The LORD is angry concerning your fathers an anger [The LORD is exceedingly angry].

[3] And you will say to them, "thus says the LORD of Hosts,
'Turn to me,' utters the LORD of Hosts, 'And then I will turn to you,' says the LORD of Hosts."

[4] "Do not be like your fathers which the first prophets called to them saying,
'Thus says the LORD of Hosts, "Turn from your evil ways and evil practices,"
And they did not listen, and they did not listen attentively to me,' utters the LORD.

[5] "Your fathers where are they? and do the prophets live eternally?

[6] But my words and my statutes which I have commanded to my servants the prophets overtook your fathers,
and then they turned, and they said,
'just as the LORD of Hosts planned to do to us according to our ways and our practices
thus He did to us.'"

Alrighty then...

[1] Note the opening Time Clause or TC. Colin pointed those out and how they are important for narrative. They give the setting and placement for the occasion. Important in this particular TC is that the book is dated according to Darius' reign. Of course, he is a pagan king. Thus we can see that Israel is in captivity and the book is tragically not dated according to a king of Israel.

Bereciah = The Lord blesses
Iddo = His Time

[2] Interesting way of saying that God is exceedingly angry - very Hebrew.

[3] Note the Consecutive Waw in the perfect tense. Maybe someone could help me out a bit more on the importance of that for syntactical purposes. I think it just highlights the cause and effect - God is angry, so the prophet speaks. The "LORD of Hosts" is a very important title for God in this book. Note the imperative form of "turn" (shuvu).

Also note the conditional structure, If you turn, I will turn. I don't know how this relates to a Greek understanding of conditional clauses, but the verbs are interesting to note...

[4] The parsing guide points out that the opening verb "do not be" is jussive in meaning but not in form (except for "al").

I thought the passage came to a focus on the fact that with all of the speaking going on by God and the prophets that the key turning point was that the people refused to listen or listen closely.

[5] Helpful example of questions. Did I get the adjectives properly?

[6] Note the H-stem verb "overtook". Also note the two PTN verbs. Highlights the theme of turning and speaking and the reasons why - namely God's actions.

That's all I got. I hope that helps. Help me - there's some interesting things here.