Zechariah 1:12

answered The word does not necessarily mean replied to a question, but has here, as elsewhere, the more general signification of speaking in a manner corresponding, or "answering" to the circumstances described and the feelings called forth by them (comp. Job 3:2 (margin); Daniel 2:26; Acts 5:8). Pitying Zechariah and his countrymen in the disappointment, which the answer of the horsemen (Zechariah 1:11) could not fail to cause them, inasmuch as it told of rest and quiet, whereas the "shaking of all nations" was the predicted sign of returning favour to Zion (Haggai 2:7; Haggai 2:21-22), the Angel proceeds to speak "answerably" to this feeling, in the intercession which he now offers on their behalf. His sympathy and intercession make it probable, as Calvin remarks (though he offers the alternative of its being any angel you please), that this Angel of the Lord was "Christ the Mediator."

these threescore and ten years Comp. Jeremiah 25:11; Ezra 1:1. The meaning is: Why art Thou still angry with us, when the appointed time of our punishment, the seventy years of our captivity, has expired?