To COMFORT, console — and, in other stems, to relent or be sorry. It is the root behind the name NOAH ('this one will comfort us,' Genesis 5:29) and the name NAHUM ('Comfort'). In Zechariah 1 God answers the angel's 'how long?' not with a date but with 'good words, comforting (nichumim) words' (1:13), and promises 'Jehovah will again comfort (nicham) Zion' (1:17). The same root drives Isaiah's 'Comfort, comfort my people' (40:1). Judgment and consolation share a Hebrew root because both are God turning toward his people. → first discussed at Zechariah 1:13