What Does Zechariah 1:7 Mean?
On the twenty-fourth day of the eleventh month, which is the month Shevat, in the second year of Darius, the word of the LORD came to Zechariah, son of Berechiah, son of Iddo the prophet, saying,
Key words are shown with the Hebrew or Greek and what each word meant.
Selah Decoded Version The Selah Decoded Version renders what the Hebrew and Greek words meant to the people who first heard them.
King James wording
King James Version
Upon the four and twentieth day of the eleventh month, which is the month Sebat, in the second year of Darius, came the word of the LORD unto Zechariah, the son of Berechiah, the son of Iddo the prophet, saying,THE KEY
The arriving דָּבָר (dāḇār, “word; matter”) is both utterance and concrete matter, so revelation enters this passage as an event in a specific day.
THE MEANING
The word arrives on a counted day and comes to a named person whose name carries the sense “YHWH remembers.” As you read now, the verse presents revelation as entering actual time and a human life, rather than as an abstraction.
THE ROOT
דְּבַר־יְהוָה
devar-YHWH
GROWS FROM
דבר
to speak; a spoken word or matter
The noun דָּבָר (dāḇār, “word; matter”) gathers spoken utterance and the matter at hand under one form. The “word of the LORD” is speech that arrives into a dated moment, not a disembodied message.
ALSO GROWS
dibbēr: spoke
דִּבֵּר
This verbal branch makes clear that the word arriving in the verse is speech.
dāḇār: word; matter or thing
דָּבָר
The same form can name both what is said and the matter itself, joining revelation to what is happening.
זְכַרְיָה
Zekharyah
GROWS FROM
זכר
to remember; call to mind
“Zechariah” in this verse is Zekharyah. The name זְכַרְיָה (Zekharyah, “YHWH remembers”) folds remembrance into the identity of the one receiving the word. Its root also forms words for remembering and memorial, so remembrance is part of the encounter’s named frame.
ALSO GROWS
zākhar: remember; call to mind
זָכַר
This is the root verb carried within Zechariah’s name.
zikkārôn: remembrance; memorial
זִכָּרוֹן
This branch gives remembrance a lasting form, echoing the name’s place in the verse.
THE PATTERN
The word arrives within a named moment and enters a particular human life.
After these things the word of the LORD came to Abram in a vision, saying, Do not fear, Abram. I am your shield, and your very great wages.To whom the word of the LORD came in the days of Josiah, son of Amon, king of Judah, in the thirteenth year of his reign.While Annas and Caiaphas were the chief priests, the word of God came upon John, the son of Zacharias, in the wilderness.THE THREAD
After these things the word of the LORD came to Abram in a vision, saying, Do not fear, Abram. I am your shield, and your very great wages.Genesis uses the same Hebrew phrase דְּבַר־יְהוָה (devar-YHWH, “word of the LORD”) and describes it as coming to Abram. In both verses, “word” is an arrival into a life, not merely a detached saying.
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