What comfort follows the earth-at-rest report?

Atlas of Saints · Chapter summary

Angelic inquiry leads to promised mercy and the horns-and-smiths vision.

Chapter breakdown

The heading links return to God with visions of better times. In Darius’s second year, eighth month, God’s word reaches Zacharias son of Barachias, son of Addo. Anger against the fathers accompanies the call to turn to God, who will turn to them. Former prophets urged abandonment of evil ways and thoughts, but the fathers would not hear. Fathers and prophets do not live forever; God’s words and ordinances overtook the fathers, who acknowledged judgment according to their ways and devices.

On the twenty-fourth day of Sabath, the eleventh month of the same year, a night vision shows a red-horse rider among myrtles in the bottom, with red, speckled and white horses behind. The edition identifies an angel in human shape, probably Michael, and interprets those sent through earth as guardian angels of provinces and nations. Zacharias asks the speaking angel; the man explains their mission and they report an inhabited earth at rest. The angel asks how long mercy is withheld from Jerusalem and Juda in this seventieth year. The edition distinguishes desolation from Sedecias’s ninth year to Darius’s second from Jeremias’s captivity period, Joakim’s fourth year to Cyrus’s first. God answers the speaking angel with good and comforting words.

Zacharias must proclaim great zeal for Jerusalem and Sion and anger at wealthy nations that advanced the evil. God promises a merciful return, house rebuilding, a building line over Jerusalem, cities flowing with good things, comfort for Sion and renewed choice of Jerusalem. Four horns appear, explained as those scattering Juda, Israel and Jerusalem; the edition interprets persecuting empires or kingdoms. God shows four smiths who terrify and cast down the scattering horns. The edition preserves smiths or carpenters as instruments against persecutors. These remain visions and promises rather than completed rebuilding or a precisely narrated end date.

The story inside

Michael is a probable edition identification. The note distinguishes two seventy-year periods. Smiths or carpenters are alternative translations.

Lessons worth keeping

1
Michael is a probable edition identification.
2
The note distinguishes two seventy-year periods.
3
Smiths or carpenters are alternative translations.

Test your recall

Which year of Cyrus ends the noted captivity?

Source edition and notes

Douay–Rheims, revised by Richard Challoner (1749–1752). Project Gutenberg no. 1581. Locators refer to lines in the admitted pg1581.txt edition. Source notes may include Challoner commentary.

Lines 103056–103058
1:3. And thou shalt say to them: Thus saith the Lord of hosts: Turn ye to me, saith the Lord of hosts: and I will turn to you, saith the Lord of hosts.
Lines 103078–103080
1:8. I saw by night, and behold a man riding upon a red horse, and he stood among the myrtle trees, that were in the bottom: and behind him were horses, red, speckled, and white.
Lines 103097–103099
1:12. And 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 Juda, with which thou hast been angry? this is now the seventieth year.
Lines 103141–103145
1:21. And I said: What come these to do? and he spoke, saying: These are the horns which have scattered Juda every man apart, and none of them lifted up his head: and these are come to fray them, to cast down the horns of the nations, that have lifted up the horn upon the land of Juda to scatter it.