to show mercy to our fathers and to remember His holy covenant,
Parallel translations
- WEB to show mercy towards our fathers, to remember his holy covenant,
- KJV To perform the mercy promised to our fathers, and to remember his holy covenant;
- NKJV To perform the mercy promised to our fathers And to remember His holy covenant,
- NASB To show mercy to our fathers, And to remember His holy covenant,
- NLT He has been merciful to our ancestors by remembering his sacred covenant—
Scripture taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
Scripture quotations taken from the (NASB®) New American Standard Bible®, Copyright © 1960, 1971, 1977, 1995, 2020 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission. All rights reserved. lockman.org
Scripture quotations are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.
Quick answer
God's salvation flows from His mercy and faithfulness to the covenant He made with the patriarchs. It matters because our hope rests on God's reliable promises, not our merit.
Overview
Zechariah grounds the coming redemption in God's covenant loyalty toward Israel's forefathers. God remembers His holy covenant not because He had forgotten, but in the biblical sense of acting to fulfill it. The mercy shown in Christ is the climax of God's longstanding faithfulness to His people.
Cross-references & the web
Cross-references · 18
- Heb 6:13–18When God made His promise to Abraham, since He had no one greater to swear by, He swore by Himself,
- Lev 26:42then I will remember My covenant with Jacob and My covenant with Isaac and My covenant with Abraham, and I will remember the land.
- Mic 7:20You will show faithfulness to Jacob and loving devotion to Abraham, as You swore to our fathers from the days of old.
- Ps 106:45And He remembered His covenant with them, and relented by the abundance of His loving devotion.
- Rom 11:28Regarding the gospel, they are enemies on your account; but regarding election, they are loved on account of the patriarchs.
- Gen 28:14Your descendants will be like the dust of the earth, and you will spread out to the west and east and north and south. All the families of the earth will be blessed through you and your offspring.
- Gen 26:4I will make your descendants as numerous as the stars in the sky, and I will give them all these lands, and through your offspring all nations of the earth will be blessed,
- Luke 1:54–55He has helped His servant Israel, remembering to be merciful,
- Ezek 16:60But I will remember the covenant I made with you in the days of your youth, and I will establish an everlasting covenant with you.
- Ps 105:8–10He remembers His covenant forever, the word He ordained for a thousand generations—
- Acts 3:25–26And you are sons of the prophets and of the covenant God made with your fathers when He said to Abraham, ‘Through your offspring all the families of the earth will be blessed.’
- Gen 22:18And through your offspring all nations of the earth will be blessed, because you have obeyed My voice.”
- Gal 3:15–17Brothers, let me put this in human terms. Even a human covenant, once it is ratified, cannot be canceled or amended.
- Ps 98:3He has remembered His love and faithfulness to the house of Israel; all the ends of the earth have seen the salvation of our God.
- Ps 111:5He provides food for those who fear Him; He remembers His covenant forever.
- Gen 17:4–9“As for Me, this is My covenant with you: You will be the father of many nations.
- Gen 12:3I will bless those who bless you and curse those who curse you; and all the families of the earth will be blessed through you.”
- Ezek 16:8Then I passed by and saw you, and you were indeed old enough for love. So I spread My cloak over you and covered your nakedness. I pledged Myself to you, entered into a covenant with you, and you became Mine, declares the Lord GOD.
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Christ at the center
Luke shows Jesus the Savior for all — outsiders, the poor, the nations — the one who, on the Emmaus road, opened all the Scriptures to show they were about himself.
How Luke 1:72 points to him is part of the one story that runs through all Scripture — meet Jesus at the heart of the web, or follow a trail that traces him from Genesis to Revelation.
Original language
Each word below is tagged with its Strong’s number — tap one to see the underlying Greek word, its meaning, and every verse that uses it.