CHAPTER 7

(518 B.C.)

THE QUESTION ABOUT EXTRA FASTS

¹And it came to pass in the fourth year of king Darius, that the Word of the LORD came unto Zechariah in the fourth day of the ninth month, even in Chisleu (this Word of the LORD came about two years after the beginning of Zechariahs Ministry. The year was probably 518 B.C. In some two years, the Temple will be finished [Ezra 6:15], and, at this time, the work was no doubt proceeding rapidly. Chisleu refers to part of our November and December);

²When they had sent unto the house of God Sherezer and Regem-melech, and their men, to pray before the LORD.

³And to speak unto the Priests which were in the House of the LORD of Hosts, and to the Prophets, saying, Should I weep in the fifth month, separating myself, as I have done these so many years? (These inquirers asked the Priests if they were bound to keep commemorating the fasts of the fifth and seventh months observed during the captivity. These fasts commemorated, respectively, the destruction of Jerusalem and the murder of Gedaliah [Jer., Chpt. 41].

It is not recorded what reply the Priests made, but this first Message records the reply that God interposed. The only fast day enjoined by the Law of Moses, therefore given by the Lord and held inviolable, was the Great Day of Atonement, which was on the tenth day of the seventh month of the year [Lev. 23:26-32]. However, the Jews added several others, and, by the time of Christ, the total fast days had risen to at least 104 each year, all of them man-designed.)

GODS ANSWER: THE DECEITFULNESS OF THEIR FASTS

⁴Then came the Word of the LORD of Hosts unto me, saying,

⁵Speak unto all the people of the land, and to the Priests, saying, When you fasted and mourned in the fifth and seventh month, even those seventy years, did you at all fast unto Me, even to Me? (Men are quite ready, from time to time, to separate themselves from their occupations and associations, which usually tire them, in order to observe what they call a retreat. But they are little willing to separate from their sins, which they like.

The question, Did you at all fast unto Me, even to Me?, proclaims that these fasts were not Gods Command and, therefore, they did Him no honor.)

⁶And when you did eat, and when you did drink, did not you eat for yourselves, and drink for yourselves? (The idea from the latter part of Verse 5 and all of Verse 6 is that whatever they did, fasting or eating, it was for themselves, not unto God. In effect, it is self that is concerned.)

⁷Should you not hear the Words which the LORD has cried by the former Prophets, when Jerusalem was inhabited and in prosperity, and the cities thereof round about her, when men inhabited the south and the plain? (The Lord directs Israel back to the years immediately before the captivity. At that time, had they obeyed the Word of the Lord given through the Prophets, i.e., Jeremiah, etc., there would have been no captivities, and consequently no reasons for instituting these fasts.

The question, Should you not hear the Words which the LORD has cried by the former Prophets...?, directs the people to the Word of God. It had been a common cry of the Prophets from early times that men must not put their trust in the observance of outward ceremonies, but instead attend to the cultivation of moral obedience and purity.

The balance of the Scripture speaks of Israel before the captivity, when they were then prosperous; they could have remained that way, had they only obeyed the Lord.)

WHY THEIR PRAYERS WERE UNANSWERED AND JUDGMENTS HAD COME

⁸And the Word of the LORD came unto Zechariah, saying (this is the second Message given to the Prophet; it states that God requires moral conduct rather than self-invented religious ceremonies),

⁹Thus speaks the LORD of Hosts, saying, Execute true judgment, and show mercy and compassions every man to his brother (Thus speaks the LORD of Hosts, uses, in the Hebrew, a forceful verb which means past, present, and future. In other words, what He said then was right, what He says now is right, and what He will say in the future is right!

All their religious ceremony should have translated itself into action toward others; however, religious ceremony never does that, but only inflates the self-righteousness of the participant):

¹⁰And oppress not the widow, nor the fatherless, the stranger, nor the poor; and let none of you imagine evil against his brother in your heart. (We are shown here that the only real way that a person can truly say they love God is that they love their fellowman. To claim the former while omitting the latter portrays hypocrisy [I Jn. 3:17].)

¹¹But they refused to hearken, and pulled away the shoulder, and stopped their ears, that they should not hear. (The Lord is speaking of Judah just before the captivity and also of any and all who fit the category, which number untold millions.)

¹²Yes, they made their hearts as an adamant stone, lest they should hear the Law, and the Words which the LORD of Hosts hast sent in His Spirit by the former Prophets: therefore came a great wrath from the LORD of Hosts. (Therefore came a great wrath from the LORD of Hosts, refers, at least in this case, to the seventy-year captivity.)

¹³Therefore it is come to pass, that as He cried, and they would not hear; so they cried, and I would not hear, says the LORD of Hosts (the statement is that He will hear our cry only if we hear His Cry!):

¹⁴But I scattered them with a whirlwind among all the nations whom they knew not. Thus the land was desolate after them, that no man passed through nor returned: for they laid the pleasant land desolate. (Thus, God ordained then, and since the Roman overthrow, that Israel would remain practically uninhabited and uncultivated, which it was, until 1948, when the Jews finally returned after some 1,900 years wandering all over the world.)