Then the angel of the LORD answered and said, O LORD of hosts, how long will you not have mercy on Jerusalem and on the cities of Judah, against which you have had indignation these three score and ten years?
Then the angel of the LORD answered and said, O LORD of hosts, how long will you not have mercy on Jerusalem and on the cities of Judah, against which you have had indignation these three score and ten years?
Then the angel of Jehovah answered and said, O Jehovah 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, answering, said, O Lord of armies, how long will it be before you have mercy on Jerusalem and on the towns of Judah against which your wrath has been burning for seventy years?
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 seventy years.
Then the angel of Yahweh replied, "O Yahweh of Armies, how long will you not have mercy on Jerusalem and on the cities of Judah, against which you have had indignation these seventy years?"
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 - He who was among the myrtles - the Lord Jesus.
O Lord of hosts, how long - Jesus Christ was not only the "Lamb slain from the foundation of the world," but was always the sole Mediator and intercessor between God and man.
These threescore and ten years? - This cannot mean the duration of the captivity for that was nearly twenty years past. It must mean simply the time that had elapsed from the destruction of the temple to the time in which the angel spoke. As the temple was destroyed in the nineteenth year of Nebuchadnezzar, and this vision took place in the second year of Darius, the term of seventy years was completed, or nearly so, between these two periods.
And the Angel of the Lord answered - the implied longing, by intercession with God. As the angel-interpreter in Job had "the office of no mere created angel, but one, anticipative of His, who came at once to redeem and justify," so the Angel of the Lord, in whom God was, exercised at once a mediatorial office with God, typical of our Lord's high priest's prayer John 17, and acted as God.
These seventy years - The seventy years of the captivity, prophesied by Jeremiah Jer 25:11-12; Jeremiah 29:10, were on the eve of their conclusion at the time of Daniel's great prayer of intercession Daniel 9:2; they ended with the capture of Babylon, and the edict of Cyrus, permitting the Jews to return 2 Chronicles 36:22-23; Ezra 1:1. Yet there seems to have been a secondary fulfillment, from the destruction of the temple and city, in Zedekiah's eleventh year 2 Kings 25:2, 2 Kings 25:8-9, 588 b.c. to the second year of Darius, 519 b.c. Such double fulfillments of prophecy are not like alternative fulfillments. They are a more intricate and fuller, not an easier fulfillment of it. Yet "these 70 years" do not necessitate such a double fulfillment. It might express only a reverent wonder, that the 70 years being accomplished, the complete restoration was not yet brought to pass. Cyril: "God having fixed the time of the captivity to the 70th year, it was necessary to be silent, so long as the time was not yet come to an end, that he might not seem to oppose the Lord's will. But, when the time was now come to a close and the fear of offending was removed, he, knowing that the Lord cannot lie, entreats and ventures to enquire whether His anger has come to an end, as had those who sinned; or whether, fresh sins having accrued, there shall be a further delay, and their forlorn estate shall be yet further extended. They then who worship God have a good and not uncertain hope, that, if they should offend from infirmity, yet have they those who should entreat for them, not people only, but the holy angels themselves, who render God gracious and propitious, soothing His anger by their purity, and in a manner winning the grieved judge. Then the Angel entreated for the synagogue to the Jews; but we, who believe and have been sanctified in the Spirit 1 John 2:1-2, "have an Advocate with the Father Jesus Christ the righteous, and He is the propitiation for our sins," and as the inspired Paul writes, "God hath set Him forth as a propitiation through faith, freeing from sin those who come to Him" Romans 3:25.
1:12 Angel of the Lord - The angel, the Lord Christ.